Autumn Bones (Agent of Hel #2)

Autumn Bones (Agent of Hel #2) Page 20

She gave me an open, friendly smile. “Well, you’re obviously very good at your job.”

“Thanks.” I smiled back at her and found myself relaxing. “I appreciate it. Half the time, I’m making it up as I go along.”

Emmeline laughed. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

The band wrapped up a Louis Armstrong number and paused to confer among themselves and talk to the staff. From what I could gather, they were trying to convince the woman tending bar to sing a number. Sinclair rapped his knuckles on the table. “Excuse me, ladies, but I’ve got to use the restroom. Back in a minute.”

As he left the table, the bartender acceded to demand and left her station to take the microphone. Her face was lined and weathered before its time, she was a hard-worn fiftysomething in faded jeans, a shapeless T-shirt, and a service apron, but I’d heard her sing before. Reaching for his mute, the trumpet player launched into the unmistakable opening bars of “Stormy Weather.”

“She’s good,” I said to Emmeline. “I know, you wouldn’t think it to look at her. But if you like the blues at all—”

All the warmth had fled from her expression. “I want you to stop seeing my brother.”

I blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Her eyes were as cold and hard as obsidian. “Look at this place. He doesn’t belong here.”

My tail twitched. Onstage, the bartender held the microphone in both hands and sang in a low, raspy, crooning voice that she didn’t know why there was no sun up in the sky. A lot of amateurs emulate whatever singer made the song famous, but not her. She didn’t try to sound like Lena or Etta or Billie; she made it her own. I let the music wash over me, trying to regain my composure and racking my brain to figure out what I’d said or done to offend Sinclair’s sister. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Is this a . . . a cultural issue?”

“Are you asking me if this is about race?” Emmeline’s upper lip curled. “You’re damned right it is. The human race.”

She didn’t add, “of which you’re not a member.” She didn’t need to. It was implicit. All that pleasant conversation throughout dinner had been an act. Okay, now my temper was beginning to simmer. I took a slow, deep breath, visualized a pot, and clamped a lid on it. “You knew about that before you came here, didn’t you?”

“Of course I knew!” Emmeline said sharply. “Did you think it wouldn’t get back to our mother as soon as someone in the community found out?” I looked blankly at her. “The Jamaican community.”

Belatedly, I remembered that one of the Mamma Jammers was also an immigrant—Roddy, the drummer, whose uncle owned the garage where Sinclair’s dad worked. He must have told someone who told someone who got on the horn to the Right Honorable Mama Palmer to tell her that her estranged son was dating a hell-spawn, whereupon Judge Palmer dispatched dear Emmy to straighten things out.

“Oh, right,” I said. “Frankly, no, it didn’t occur to me. Sinclair hardly ever talks about his mother. And until this morning, I didn’t know you existed.”

As verbal slaps go, that was a pretty good one. Emmeline’s head jerked backward, her eyes widening.

“Look, I’m sorry.” Backing off, I went for a conciliatory tone. “Obviously, there are some serious family dynamics going on here that I know nothing about. But Sinclair’s a grown man. He makes his own choices. Also obviously, I can’t do anything about my father, but I’m a good person, or at least I try to be. That’s how my mother raised me.” I lowered my voice. “Does my aura say otherwise?”

Her face was impassive. “Not yet.”

“I have no intention of claiming my birthright!” That would probably have sounded more convincing if the words hadn’t come out in sort of a hiss.

Emmeline raised her eyebrows. “Not yet.”

I glanced around to check on Sinclair’s whereabouts. He’d gotten sidetracked on his way back to the table, shaking hands with an older couple I didn’t recognize. Summer people, I’d bet. They’d probably taken the grandkids on the tour at some point, probably packed up the rest of the family and sent them home to their wealthy Chicago suburb earlier today. “Is that really what this is all about?”

“No.” She leaned across the table, a cowry shell strung on a gold chain dangling from her throat. “This is about a great many things, none of which I expect you to understand. The path of obeah is a path of balance, a path between light and dark. You are one step too far into the darkness.”

I opened my mouth to deny it.

“Wait!” Emmeline held up one hand. “This is about Sinny. This is about my brother. And I am telling you, he doesn’t belong here.” Her voice was low and fierce. “Look at him. Look!” She jerked her chin in his direction. Sinclair was posing with the couple, his arms slung amiably around their necks while an obliging member of the waitstaff took a photo. “I rode on that bus today,” she said in a contemptuous tone. “I watched him play the part of a fool for the benefit of dull-witted American tourists, japing like a mountebank.”

“He likes his job!” I protested. “Hell, he invented that job! And look, he’s making people happy. What’s wrong with that?”

She shot me a withering glance. “My brother is meant to be a young lion of Judah, not a neutered American house cat. He belongs at home with his own people.”

“Again,” I said, “may I point out that your brother is a grown-ass man who makes his own choices?”

Emmeline ignored me. “I want you to stop seeing him,” she repeated in a clipped Anglo-Caribbean accent. “You wield influence here, no matter how ignorantly or clumsily. I want you to use it. Bid the fairies and whatnot to cease their appearances. Give my brother a reason to come home where he belongs. It’s long past time.”

“Are you serious?” I stared at her in disbelief. “Why in the freaking hell would I do that?”

She didn’t answer, but I felt a palpable sense of menace rolling off her. As the legendary blues musician Muddy Waters would say, Emmeline Palmer definitely had her mojo working. A trickle of ice water ran the length of my spine.

“Are you threatening me?” In the moment, I was too incredulous to be angry. “Seriously?”

She glanced across the restaurant at Sinclair, who was making his way toward us. “Let’s just say I’ll give you a month to think about it, shall we?” Her gaze returned to me, hard and implacable. “You’ve got a charming little town here. It doesn’t need my brother and neither do you.”

Her ultimatum was delivered as Sinclair reached the table, which gave me only a split second to decide whether to respond in public and make a scene or suck it up and deal with it later. I chose option number two, getting to my feet so fast it startled Sinclair.

“Daisy? You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine. I, um, spilled beer on my skirt.” I pushed past him. “Just going to rinse it out.”

I got halfway to the bathroom before a tidal wave of fury hit me, leaving me shaking with the effort to control it. I turned the cold water tap on full blast, leaning over the sink and splashing my face.

You’ve got a nice little town here. Be a shame if something happened to it.

Jesus! Seriously? I mean seriously? I was Hel’s own agent in Pemkowet. Emmeline had insulted me to my face, then demanded that I help her drive Sinclair out of town. That took a hell of a lot of nerve. Or stupidity.

But what exactly could I do about it? She hadn’t made an explicit threat. She hadn’t broken any mundane laws and she wasn’t in violation of Hel’s rule of order. At least not yet, anyway.

What I could do was talk to Sinclair, which I fully intended to do. But not here, not now. What I wanted to do was vent my fury. Give it full rein, let it bring the roof crashing down on our heads if that’s what it took. The old pipes in the bathroom began to creak alarmingly and the sink began to rattle.

Uh-oh.

I took a deep, trembling breath and stared at the water pouring out of the tap, swirling down the drain, willing it to carry my anger away with it. When I thought I had myself under control, I glanced up into the mirror—

—into a sea of flames.

Double uh-oh.

That meant my temper had weakened the Inviolate Wall enough for my father to reach out to me from the infernal plane. Belphegor’s face swam in the fiery sea, black eyes boring into mine, sharp, curving horns jutting from his temples.

Daughter. His voice echoed inside my skull, deep and amused and, weirdly, almost affectionate. You have but to ask.

“No.” I gripped the edges of the sink, shaking my head. “No! Go away!”

The bathroom door opened. “Are you okay, honey?” a woman’s concerned voice asked. Her hand patted me soothingly on the back. “Had a little too much to drink?”

With an effort, I let go of the sink and straightened. It was one of the frumpy ladies in the appliquéd sweatshirts. Hers was green with sunflowers on it, and she had kind eyes.

“I’m fine,” I said gratefully, stealing a peek at the mirror. It was just a mirror again, showing me nothing but my reflection. “Thank you. I just—”

My sentence trailed off into nothing, because I wasn’t sure what to say. I just . . . what? Needed a minute to collect myself because my boyfriend’s secret twin sister had threatened me with obeah? Because I had accidentally invoked the specter of my father, the minor demon and occasional incubus Belphegor?

Fortunately, it didn’t seem to matter to the nice lady in the sunflower sweatshirt. “As long as you’re okay.”

I turned off the tap. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it.” She gave me another pat and a warm, weary smile. “We’ve all got to take care of one another, honey.”

Her kindness gave me the strength I needed to wrestle the last fraying tendrils of my temper under control and venture back out into the bar to face the prospect of making polite conversation with my boyfriend and his twin sister, who I wished had stayed a secret but who was apparently my new nemesis.