Autumn Bones

He smiled. “For a memory like that, I can handle a lot of weird.” He slid one arm around my waist, pulling me closer. “So I guess what I’m saying is, what the hell. If this is what you want, let’s do it.”

It wasn’t the time or the circumstances I would have chosen, and it shouldn’t have been good, but in fact it was good. Even knowing what had almost happened with Cody that same night, even knowing that the Mamma Jammers were right outside the bedroom and that sooner or later I’d have to face the walk of shame past them. It was still good.

“Let me see it,” Sinclair said after he’d undressed me, his voice low and husky with a mix of desire and trepidation. He sat on the edge of the bed, his knees spread. “Go on, Daisy. Show me.”

Obediently, I stood between his knees and turned around. I felt him draw one finger down my spine, lingering at the base of my tailbone, at the root of my tail. I shivered.

“Is it sensitive?” he asked uncertainly.

“Yeah.” I fought the urge to coil it around his fingers, pretty sure that would send him straight into freak-out territory. In all honesty, I don’t think anyone had touched it since my mom when I was in diapers, and the fact that Sinclair was doing it now brought tears to my eyes. “Very.”

“Huh.”

I turned around to straddle his waist, lowering my head to kiss him until both of us were breathless. “Let’s not talk any more about my tail tonight.” I reached for the zipper of his khaki shorts. “Okay?”

Sinclair gave me a lazy grin, lying back to grab my hips and pull me atop him, my hair spilling around his face. “Definitely.”

Somewhere outside the bedroom door, the bass player for the Mamma Jammers struck up a bom-chicka-wow-wow groove. Apparently, that wasn’t his amplifier I’d accidentally blown. I don’t know if it was meant to be funny or thoughtful, but either way, it was effective.

So, yeah.

Bom-chicka-wow-wow.

Afterward, exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds apiece, and the thought of trying to make polite conversation with Sinclair’s friends made me want to hibernate.

“Is it okay if I just crash here?” I mumbled into the pillow. “For a little while anyway?”

“Yeah, of course.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, Sinclair fished for his shorts. “I promised you pancakes, didn’t I?” He stood. “I’m just going to go out and explain things to the guys.”

I cracked open one eye to peer at him. “What are you going to tell them?”

He shrugged. “Guess I’ll go with the truth.”

“Oh.”

I wanted to stay awake long enough to find out how that went, but all I remember is hearing a brief, low murmur of male voices before I was spiraling down into sleep, the memory of bom-chicka-wow-wow sex with Sinclair blurring with the memory of kissing (and yes, okay, grinding on) Cody, the satyr’s grin, and the shocking jolt of hunger in Stefan’s gaze. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I heard a deep, resonant chuckle of pure demonic amusement and entertained the fleeting thought that if my father, Belphegor, was pleased, I definitely shouldn’t have done what I did tonight.

Screw it. I’d feel guilty in the morning.

And if real life was like the movies, I would wake up in the morning to realize I’d blown things with a nice guy I actually liked by rushing into something neither of us was ready for, just like Kristy McNichol in Little Darlings. Which, in case you’re not familiar with it, is an old movie where Kristy and Tatum O’Neal make a bet at summer camp about who’s going to be the first to cash in her v-card, only they don’t call it that because . . . well, it’s an old movie. Like, an eighties movie before John Hughes made eighties movies a thing. When I was growing up, Mom used movies to teach me important life lessons, and she used the movies she knew best. Also, the movies that we could rent for free from the Pemkowet District Library, because we didn’t have a lot of money.

Anyway, I should have felt awful and this should have been a disaster. In fact, I woke to early-morning sunlight and Sinclair sprawled in the bed next to me, one arm flung carelessly over me. And I felt pretty damn good.

I held still for a moment, listening for the echo of demonic laughter. Nope. Either I’d imagined it, or dear old Dad was amused by something more complicated than the fact that his half-human daughter had thrown caution to the winds and given in to licentious behavior. Which . . . wasn’t entirely reassuring, but I’d take it.

“Hey.” Sinclair roused himself sleepily. His head was on the pillow beside mine, and his dark eyes gazed into mine at close proximity. Like, so close I almost felt cross-eyed looking back at him. “You okay, Daisy?”

I wasn’t used to this kind of intimacy. All of the sexual encounters I’d had had ultimately ended . . . well, awkwardly. This morning-after business was new to me.

“Yeah.” I tried the sentiment on for size. It fit. “You?”

“Uh-huh.”

My stomach rumbled.

Sinclair laughed. “Come on. Let’s make some breakfast.”

Okay, time to suck it up and take the walk of shame. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’d endured in my life. I’d grown up in a small town where everyone knew my story, and I was used to curious stares. At least Sinclair’s friends were polite and didn’t make any jokes about what was obviously a total booty call or ask if I filed my horns down like Hellboy. I got that a lot back in high school when the first movie came out. I kept my tail tucked and did my best to make a good impression, memorizing their names and asking them questions about themselves.

They seemed to be good guys, laid-back and easygoing. Over a mountainous stack of pancakes—Sinclair hadn’t lied, he made them from scratch with buttermilk, and they were probably the best pancakes I’d ever had—I learned that Roddy, the drummer, was also of Jamaican origin. His mother had a Caribbean restaurant and his uncle owned the custom auto shop where Sinclair’s dad worked.

Under the guise of making small talk, I asked him why his family had left Jamaica, secretly hoping to gain some insight into Sinclair’s situation.

“Poverty,” he said simply. “Unless you have the right connections, there are no real job opportunities, no way to change your lot in life.”

“Is that why your dad left?” I asked Sinclair.

“Dad knew Roddy’s uncle Joseph.” He set a platter of bacon on the table. “He knew there would be a good job here for him.”

Huh. As an answer to a direct yes-or-no question went, that was sort of a nonanswer. “Why Kalamazoo?” I asked curiously, reaching for a piece of bacon. “I mean . . . why Michigan at all?”

As it transpired, apparently Kalamazoo, Michigan, has been host for many years to a world-class reggae festival, one of the largest in the United States. Hence, the long-standing connection to Jamaica from whence many of the festival’s headliner acts have come. I felt a little silly for not knowing this about a city only an hour away.

“Damn, girl! You need to get out of Pemkowet more often,” Ben, the bass player, teased.

“I guess,” I said. “But there’s no underworld there.”

Oops. A little silence settled over the crowded table in the breakfast nook. “You mean . . . hell?” Roddy inquired cautiously.

I shook my head. “No, I mean an actual physical underworld that exists on the mundane plane, ruled by a deity of a non-apex faith.”

“That’s what allows an eldritch community to exist and thrive.” Sinclair rescued me, sliding into the seat beside me. “Here in Pemkowet, they call it Little Niflheim. Right, Daisy?”

I nodded. Little Niflheim was where Hel held court, beneath the shifting sand dunes that had buried the lumber town of Singapore—the very dunes said to be haunted by the ghost of Talman “Tall Man” Brannigan, the lumber baron responsible for the deforestation that caused the dunes to swallow Singapore. Tall Man Brannigan, who slaughtered almost his entire family in a fit of madness and despair.

It was a typical urban legend. No one I knew had ever seen the Tall Man’s ghost, but everyone knew someone who knew someone whose cousin or brother claimed to have done so—and then died after the sighting. But Little Niflheim was real. I’d been there on a number of occasions.