He pushed my thighs apart, hands fumbling at my underpants, human hands turned rough and clumsy with need and the full moon’s lingering imperative.
I helped. I held him off long enough to shrug out of my leather jacket and unbuckle my belt, to peel off my panties, strip off my dress, and unfasten my bra, until I was as naked as he was in his nest of blankets.
I felt molten inside, my heat rising in answer to his. I raised my hips as Cody settled between my thighs.
With a wordless, guttural sound, he pushed himself inside me.
It felt good.
Again and again and again, mindless and primordial. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my father, Belphegor, was laughing.
Somewhere, maybe, God in his heaven frowned in disapproval, and ranks upon ranks of angels, thrones and powers and dominions, nodded their heads in sorrowful agreement.
I don’t know. The only entity beyond the Inviolate Wall ever to speak to me was my father.
Somewhere beneath us on her throne of antique saw blades, Hel gazed into the mists of time. A goddess diminished, but a goddess nonetheless.
Cody arched his back and howled.
Shuddering, I came.
Thirty-seven
It should have been awkward, right? The aftermath, I mean.
It wasn’t.
I lay on my belly in a tangle of woolen blankets, my head pillowed on my arms as I told Cody what had happened and why I was there. Outside, the rain had turned into a downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. Inside felt safe and warm. He listened silently, stroking the length of my spine from the nape of my neck to the tip of my tail.
Yeah.
Okay, I know you’ve been wondering. For the record, my tail is approximately nine inches in length, tapering to a point from a diameter of about two inches wide, although it’s broader and flatter at the very base, where the big muscles attach to the coccyx. There’s a fine ridge of pale blond hair that flares out from the base and runs atop it, and it stands on edge and prickles when I’m alarmed, just like the hair on the back of your neck does.
I know, I’ve omitted that point until now. Sue me. Anyway, otherwise it’s hairless. I’m not sure if it qualifies as prehensile. I mean, I don’t
And the best part was, he thought nothing of it. He just tweaked it in response, then scratched the base idly. Now I knew why dogs wiggle their butts when you scratch them in just the right spot. It feels ridiculously good. I guess a werewolf ought to know.
“All right,” Cody said when I’d finished my explanation. “Let’s go take a look at the scene.”
Sitting upright, I gestured at the two of us. “Are we going to talk about this?”
“Eventually,” he said. “At the moment, I don’t have the first idea what to say about it, and we’ve got a grave robbery to investigate. So I figured maybe we’d just get to work. You okay with that?”
I thought about it. “I wouldn’t mind something to eat first. And maybe a shower.”
“Well, I suppose another hour’s not going to matter to the Tall Man.” Cody got to his feet, shedding a few pine needles. “I’ll get you a towel and go look in the fridge.”
The only other time I’d eaten at Cody’s, it had involved very, very rare steaks and nothing else. “How about I look in the fridge, and you shower first?”
His mouth quirked. “Fine.”
Less than an hour later, we were on our way, clean and scrubbed, with full bellies. Venison sausage and scrambled eggs, for the record. Cody’s refrigerator didn’t contain anything remotely resembling a vegetable.
Now it started to feel awkward. Pemkowet didn’t have the budget for take-home cars for its officers and since Cody wasn’t scheduled to work that day, there wasn’t a spare cruiser available. It was strange seeing him in uniform behind the wheel of his pickup truck, and it felt strange as hell sitting beside him, my nether regions still pleasantly swollen and tingling. I didn’t know where to look or what to do with my hands. Plus, I’d discovered in the bathroom mirror that I had a couple of serious love bites on my neck. There wasn’t anything I could do about it except turn up the collar on my jacket.
The storm had passed and the rain was easing by the time we reached the mausoleum. Ken Levitt had cordoned off the scene with police tape. Normally, there would have been gawkers alerted by the grapevine, but between the heavy downpour and the early hour, the looky-loos weren’t out yet.
Cody’s nostrils flared as he surveyed the scene, sniffing the air. “Not much left of a scent trail after the rain. Even if there was, there were too many other people’s scents muddling the scene here.”
“What about inside?” I suggested.
“Good idea.”
Unfortunately, the door of the mausoleum had been left open, and wind-driven rain had sluiced into it, dispersing the trail there, too. The scent of decay emanating from the coffin made Cody gag. “Sorry.” He pressed the back of his hand against his lips and gave me an apologetic look. “My sense of smell isn’t as keen as a scent hound’s, and the scent of the Tall Man’s remains is masking anything else. I’m pretty sure the perp wore gloves.”
I shuddered. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Good point.” He shone his flashlight at the floor. “I’m thinking maybe those grease stains are from a jack. It would have taken a lot of leverage to lift that marble slab.”
“So we’re looking for a physics student?” I said.
Cody shrugged. “Could be. Could be someone who works on cars.”
After Cody had determined there was nothing more to be learned inside the mausoleum, we went back outside and did an informal grid search of the surrounding crime scene. If there had been an identifiable set of tire tracks, which wasn’t likely given the amount of traffic there in the past twelve hours, the rain had obliterated them. The groundskeepers were pretty diligent, so despite the popularity of the Tall Man’s resting place among high school students on the make, there wasn’t a lot of trash. A few cigarette butts and a gum wrapper, all of which looked at least several weeks old, and a more recent coffee cozy from Mrs. Browne’s Olde World Bakery.
I winced when Cody held it up on the end of a stick, remembering that I’d seen a member of the coven with a to-go cup of coffee last night. “Yeah . . . I think that might belong to Sheila Reston.”
“From the tattoo parlor?” he asked.
Busted. I’d been careful not to name anyone until now. “Uh-huh.”
Cody smiled wryly. “It’s okay, Daise. You know I’m the last person in Pemkowet about to call anyone out against their will.”
“I know.”
We had a little moment then, gazing at each other through the lingering rainfall, which was more like a heavy mist at this point. It occurred to me for the first time that I didn’t know how I felt about being with someone who felt the need to conceal his membership in the eldritch community. Not that we
After all, I was Hel’s liaison. I was proud of it, and I damn well meant to do everything in my power to keep that title.
I cleared my throat. “Canvass the area for witnesses?”
