Autumn Bones

I didn’t say anything. I knew the details of my conception. The whole town knew. Mom had been vacationing in Pemkowet with college roommates when it happened. They’d awakened in the middle of the night and witnessed the, um, results of my mother’s inadvertent summoning. Mom had never hidden anything about my heritage from me. From my earliest memory, everything was on the table for discussion, including the difficulty of raising a half-demon baby as a single mother and her decision to move permanently to Pemkowet, where at least there was a community that understood eldritch issues.

But the one thing she never talked about was the . . . act . . . itself. And God knows, I never asked. I mean, duh. It’s not something parents discuss with their children under the best of circumstances.

Now I felt a sharp stab of anger at my absent father, sharp enough that cans of fruit on a shelf in the tiny kitchen jumped and rattled.

“Daisy!” Mom said in alarm.

“Sorry.” I wrestled my anger under control. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just . . .” I asked the question I never thought I would. “Was it awful?”

My mom drew a quick, short breath as though I’d struck her, then met my gaze with her clear blue eyes. “No,” she said simply. “Not at first, not while I still thought I was dreaming. Not until I awoke to my friends’ screams and understood that what was happening to me was real. Then . . . yes.”

Getting up from the table, I put my arms around her and leaned my brow against hers. She hugged me back hard. We stood that way until the teakettle shrilled, making both of us jump.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Turning away, Mom shut off the burner and poured water for two mugs of tea, letting it steep until it was good and strong before adding sugar and lots of milk. “Sweetheart, you know I love you, and I’m proud of you no matter what.” She handed me one of the mugs. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. That coven’s got years of experience on you, and they didn’t know any better.”

“I did.” I blew on my tea. “I didn’t trust myself.”

“Next time will be different,” she said in a firm tone. “You’ll find a way to fix this, Daisy baby. I have faith in you.”

Apparently, that was exactly what I needed to hear. I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” My mom sipped her tea and cast a speculative glance at the bandanna knotted around my throat. “Do you want to talk about Cody Fairfax now?”

So much for jaunty. Jaunty was no match for mom-radar and the loteria cards. “No.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, my eyes stinging a little. “I’m just not a suitable mate for a werewolf, that’s all.”

“Oh, honey.” There was sympathy and concern in her voice. Mom knew all about my breaking up with Sinclair and my long-standing crush on Cody. But she also knew when to push me for my own good and when to leave me be. I imagine anyone who’s ever parented a hell-spawn child learns that pretty quickly, what with the random damage we wreak on our surroundings when our emotions are out of control. “How about I make popcorn and we watch a few episodes of Gilmore Girls?”

I wiped away a surreptitious tear. “That sounds great.”

Forty

Every police force should have a ghoul on it. That was the conclusion I came to after a second day of having Cooper ride shotgun on this assignment.

I mean one of the Outcast, of course, but the thing is, ghoul is the word people know. And when it comes to sullen teenagers—I’m not saying all teenagers are sullen, but the five we tracked down and questioned that day were—it was particularly effective to have Cooper slouching beside us, angelic blue eyes glittering feverishly in his too-pale face as he let his beast slip the leash enough to filter their emotions for the particular taste of fear that telling a lie engendered.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that none of them knew anything about the theft and none of them were lying. If the Tall Man’s remains had been stolen by one of Pemkowet’s disaffected youth, it wasn’t someone with a prior for cemetery vandalism. We were out of leads.

After we struck out with the last possible suspect, I called Sinclair to report our lack of progress and ask him about the summoning attempt my mom had mentioned.

“The coven’s working on a ritual, Daise,” he assured me. “We’re just being really, really careful, because we got it wrong with our last plan.”

“Well, tell them to step it up,” I said. “Because we’re not making any progress finding the Tall Man’s remains, which means we’re no closer to finding Grandpa Morgan’s duppy. As long as he’s on the loose, the gateway between the living and the dead is ajar, and that’s not a good thing.”

Sinclair’s voice took on a worried tone. “Has something else happened?”

“Not yet,” I said. “But time’s a-wasting.”

No kidding.

No sooner had I ended our conversation than Cody and I got a call from dispatch reporting a disturbance in progress at a wedding reception aboard the SS Osikayas. A distinctly supernatural disturbance.

“Ten-four,” Cody said into his radio handset. “We’re on our way.” He leaned out the window of the cruiser —we were parked in the driveway of the Kendrick house, where the last sullen teenager we’d interviewed lived— and called out to Cooper. “Hey, tell your boss we’ve got our first haunting! There’s a wedding party in full-blown panic down at the Osikayas.”

Astride his bike, Cooper saluted, touching two fingers to his temple. “Meet you there, chief.”

Cody turned to me. “Ready?”

I fumbled for the spirit lantern, which was wedged between my feet along with the hammer and nails I’d bought at Drummond’s. “Do I have a choice?”

He grinned and hit the siren. “Nope.”

Arriving at the scene, we found pandemonium. A handful of guests had fled the ship and were clustered on the dock, staring up at the tall steamship with disbelief and horror in their eyes. Everyone was still in their wedding finery, women shivering against the autumn chill in their gowns, some lucky enough to have a solicitous male companion to lend them a jacket, others with bare arms prickled with gooseflesh. A few guests were still clutching glasses of champagne. I didn’t see anyone I knew, which wasn’t a surprise. I figured the wedding party had to be summer people or out-of-towners, since the only person I knew with enough money to rent the Osikayas for a wedding reception was Lurine, and I didn’t imagine she planned on remarrying anytime soon. Or under the same identity, for that matter.

Anyway.

Seeing a policeman in uniform, the guests surrounded Cody, gabbling things like “Horrible!” “Hideous!” “Macabre!” and “Dead bride!” Ignored, I stood juggling the spirit lantern, hammer, and nails while he did his best to calm them down and figure out what was happening.

Someone sidled up next to me. “So is there a ghost or not?”

I turned to see Stacey Brooks looking scared but determined, a compact, expensive video camera in hand. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Documenting,” she said in a defensive tone. “I mean . . . maybe. As long as it’s not the Tall Man. It isn’t, is it?”

“It’s not the Tall Man.” Cody ordered the wedding guests to proceed down the dock, where Cooper was waiting. I hoped their collective panic wouldn’t send him ravening. “It’s a woman, and yes, it appears she’s a ghost. And you shouldn’t be here, Miss Brooks. How did you find out about this anyway?”

“The PVB has every right to know what’s going on in town,” Stacey retorted. “Which is why my mother monitors the police scanner.”

Of course she did.