Page 13

13

T ess

Saturday: Wedding minus 7 days

S ince I hadn’t the slightest idea of what I could do to help my friend, the vampire, win a sword fight, I spent the day at work. Eleanor was enjoying a much-deserved day off, but my sister was helping today. Shelley, still on a high from her magical win, grumbled a bit when I asked her to sweep the floor—with a broom, not magic; visions of Fantasia in my mind. But then she got to work, humming as she swept.

She was a great kid.

“Tess! I need a Dead End Pawn shirt for my new Fae friend!”

I had my doubts about the advisability of this friendship, considering the magic the girl had whipped around, but it felt hypocritical, given Shelley’s talent. “Sure. What’s her name, by the way?”

“She said Fae don’t give their true names, but we’d find a friend name for her when she came to visit.”

“Does Aunt Ruby know about this?”

Shelley, in the grand tradition of kids everywhere, rolled her eyes. “Yes, Tess. She and Uncle Mike said it would be fine. We’re going to have pizza and ice cream when she comes!”

“Oh. Did you set a date already?”

“No. She said everything was on hold until the charter was resolved. But then we’ll set a date for sure! Also, do you have any Dead End Pawn shirts small enough for Pickles?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Is that something you want?”

“Yes! And I bet a bunch of people would want pet stuff with our logo. At lunchtime, I’ll hop on your computer and design something.”

Since she was far more adept at managing the design software than I was, I gladly agreed. “That’s work, even though you enjoy doing it. Be sure to mark the time you spend, so I can add it to your paycheck.”

“Really?” She bounced up and down. “That’s awesome!”

I smiled at her, remembering something Uncle Mike had told me when I was a kid, about enjoying what you do, so it never feels like work. He’d certainly felt that way about engineering and farming, and I loved everything about my shop. I’d always loved working here, interacting with people and learning about the history of ordinary objects—and some not so ordinary—but there was something special about owning my own business.

All morning long, people had flooded into the shop to congratulate Jack and rehash the fight. He’d been as gracious as he could manage before his deep-seated dislike of being in the spotlight took over and he made his escape.

“Going to do some work at the house,” he’d called out before he left, but after he got into his truck, he’d texted me he’d bring lunch an hour after everybody left. Now, we were waiting for Jack and, more importantly, for sandwiches, and tackling some of the daily cleaning chores.

When the chimes over the door rang, I looked over to see a man and woman I didn’t recognize. They were both of average height and fairly nondescript. Light brown hair and medium brown eyes on her, dark brown hair and medium brown eyes on him. Both of them had the pasty white skin that screams, “I avoid stepping outside at all costs!”

And both of them stared directly at me instead of looking around at the shop, as most customers do.

I got a bad feeling.

Since Shelley was sweeping close to where I stood dusting shelves, I turned to face her.

“Hey, kid, how about you finish up that thing I asked you to do in the back room?”

“What thing—oh, right. The thing,” she said, catching on to my tension. “Going to do that right now.”

“Maybe text to see where our lunch is,” I said quietly.

Shelley glanced at the newcomers, then back at me. “I’ll do even better! I’ll call the lunch delivery guy.”

Yep. She was a very smart kid.

I watched her until the door closed behind her, and then I turned to offer a smile. “Hello. Welcome to Dead End Pawn. How can I help you?”

The woman continued to stare at me, but the man seemed to realize he should at least pretend to be interested in the shop, and he hastily looked around. “Nice place you’ve got here. We’re in the market for, um?—”

“Vampire fangs,” the woman interrupted with a sweetness that made my skin crawl. She was definitely up to something.

I pointed to the sign on my wall, but let my smile fall away. “We don’t buy or sell vampire fangs. You might try a shop in Orlando.”

“Oh, I think we prefer your little shop,” she said. “You being so famous and all.”

Uh oh.

There’d been many people who’d wanted to meet the famous “death-sayer” (not my word) after the news got hold of the story about Annabelle Hannah Yorgenson. Most were weirdos who wanted to gawk at me, lots of others were press, especially of the sleazy tabloid sort, but a few showed up to demand I tell them how they were going to die.

I had always declined.

“I’m not famous,” I said calmly. “I’m a small-town pawnshop owner, and if you’re not interested in buying or pawning anything, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Now, see here,” the man blustered, giving up any pretense of shopping. “Twyla and I can be here if we want. It’s a public place. We have rights.”

“You don’t have any rights in my shop, especially not the right to harass me. This shop is private property.” I moved behind the counter and picked up the phone. “But if you like, I have the sheriff on speed dial. Let’s call her up to settle the issue.”

“We just want you to answer a few questions,” the woman said, raising her own phone and pointing it at me, clearly filming. “We understand you’re in a battle with a Fae queen. Any comment?”

Great. Reporters.

“Yes,” I said cheerfully, in my best used-car-sales-commercial voice. I grabbed one of the T-shirts and held it up, logo side facing the camera. “Welcome to Dead End Pawn. Rush right down, because we’re having a sale on our logo merchandise. Twenty-five percent off today only! We carry them in all sizes. Not a T-shirt fan? Come on down and pick up one of our mugs. They’re going fast!”

Twyla made a growly frustrated noise, and I laughed out loud. If she thought her puny growl could scare me, she clearly didn’t know I lived with a man who could turn into a tiger anytime he felt like it.

As if on cue, the front door slammed open, and my favorite Bengal tiger prowled into the shop. He stalked up to the man and snarled at him, and the guy stumbled back so fast he tripped over his own feet and fell butt-first into a display of taxidermied raccoons.

I winced.

Hopefully, he hadn’t crushed any. Those raccoons were great sellers.

Twyla was made of sterner stuff, though. After one startled “meep,” she turned her camera toward Jack. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Jack Shepherd, the perpetrator of many horrible atrocities during the vampire wars. Do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Shepherd?”

Jack walked up to her, looked her in the eye—which was easy, because his head was level with hers—and yawned in her face. Then he sat down and scratched his ear with the claws on his hind foot.

“Out, please.” I held up my phone. “I already called the sheriff. It doesn’t take her long to arrive.”

“Freedom of the Press!” the man shouted, but somewhat sheepishly since he was brushing raccoon fur off his pants.

“Sure,” I agreed. “Just not in my shop.”

Jack perked up one ear. Seconds afterward, I heard the unique siren on Susan’s patrol car. It had a kind of asthmatic duck sound to it. Every time she threatened to get it fixed, everybody urged her not to.

We always knew when she was coming.

“We’re going. But we’ll be back.” With that last threat, Twyla grabbed her colleague by the arm and stormed out of the shop.

I went to the door and watched them skid out of the parking lot. “I hope it’s a rental, the way she’s throwing up gravel.”

“What was that about?” Jack, human again, asked from behind me.

When I turned around, he was leaning against the counter, ridiculously handsome in jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. After he’d caught me one day admiring his tanned, muscled forearms, I’d been seeing that white shirt a lot.

“I have no idea. They knew at least something about the Fae issue we’ve got going on, but I don’t know how much. That woman was really unpleasant.”

Shelley raced out of the back room at the same time Susan walked in the front door.

“I was ready, Tess!” Shelley said, clutching a softball bat.

“It’s not like you need that, magic girl,” Susan said dryly.

Shelley blinked. “Oh! Right!” She tossed the bat up in the air, and it flew through the room and landed on a display of sports equipment.

I was glad her first instinct wasn’t to use magic, but I also wondered how long that would last.

“So, what’s up?” Susan asked.

I filled them in on my encounter, but it didn’t amount to much in the end. They hadn’t overtly threatened me, and Susan couldn’t arrest somebody just because I didn’t like the way she’d sneered at me.

“I have sandwiches,” Jack offered.

“I got the license plate,” Susan said. “And I’ll take you up on that food. And maybe a soda with lots of caffeine, if you have any? I was up all night worrying about Carlos.”

“You’re not the only one,” Jack said. “Tess tossed and turned all night.”

I scoffed. “Like you’re not concerned. I know you two are friends, no matter how much you trash talk each other.”

“We call it Bro talk,” Shelley said, giggling. “The high school guys do it a lot.”

“Speaking of high school, did you hear the swamp troll got the science teacher job?” Susan shook her head. “They’ll hire anybody for that gig.”

“He might be great at science,” I pointed out.

“Sure. Well, Rick Peabody has his work cut out for him keeping that classroom from smelling as bad as the troll does,” the sheriff said. “Where’s that lunch?”

“He took a bath!” I called after her when she headed into the back room to wash up.

“I’ll get the food out of the truck,” Jack said. He pulled me close and kissed me. “Thanks for asking Shelley to call me. I know you can handle yourself and protect her, too, but I’m a little overprotective with everything going on.”

I leaned against him and laughed. “Jack. Calling yourself a little overprotective is like calling a hurricane a bit of a drizzle.”

“Guilty.”

“Get the lunch, already,” Susan said, walking back into the shop with cans of sodas and bottles of water in her arms. “We have strategizing to do.”

“Right,” I said. “No matter what it takes, we’re not going to let Carlos be hurt … or worse.”

“No matter what? What does that mean?” Shelley asked, looking puzzled but enthusiastic to help.

“It means I’m going to touch him. If seeing his death can help, I will not be too much of a chicken to do it.” I said it with far more conviction than I felt, because the idea scared me.

A lot.

I’d seen Jack’s first death, and it had been extremely traumatic. I knew I was likely to see Carlos’s first death, too. The one where he’d been turned into a vampire.

When I “saw” someone’s death, it wasn’t like watching a movie. I experienced the entire event as if I were there at that moment. Colors, sounds, smells, and all.

Blood smells like copper when there’s a lot, in case you ever wondered.

I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like seeing Carlos die one bit.

But if it helped …

When Jack walked in with five bags of food, I looked at Susan. “Is lunchtime too early to crack open a bottle of wine?”

“I’m right there with you,” she said glumly. “But I was thinking whiskey.”