Omens Bite, page 9
“I can do that!” Mr. Mitchell said, his jovial self again. “Want a Coke while you wait?” He opened the door to the pizzeria and the delicious scents of bubbling cheese and roasting dough teased Mercy’s nose.
“Sure, but I need to run to the IGA real quick.” Mercy jerked her chin to her right at the almost deserted parking lot of the one grocery store in Goodeville.
“Better hurry. It’s almost nine, and the Igga closes then,” said Mr. Mitchell.
“’Kay, I’ll be right back.” Mercy gave him a little wave as she slung her purse over her shoulder and jogged up the concrete stairs that led from the diagonal parking spaces that lined Main Street to the wide sidewalk, then she turned right and walked briskly along the quiet street.
The shop next door to Foxfire Woodstove Pizzeria was Olde Towne Florist. Mercy had zero clue why they’d added the two e’s, but she’d always kinda liked the way it looked, especially because she and Hunter pronounced them and laughed and laughed …
“Nope. Not going there,” Mercy said. She averted her eyes from the e-filled storefront sign. Beside the florist was J’aime le Vin, a high-end wineshop, which made Mercy feel suddenly nostalgic. She smiled sadly as she remembered Abigail’s gasp of happiness when she found out Goodeville was getting the store. For the first time she was glad she wasn’t twenty-one. With a quick glance inside as she hurried past she recognized Samantha Monroe, the woman behind the counter who was arranging expensive bottles of wine before closing. “Like I want to be called Hunter again and told how sorry she is about Abigail?” Mercy muttered.
The post office was next to the wineshop. It had been closed for hours, but instead of being silent and dark Mercy heard male voices coming from the alley that separated it from the IGA. Mercy slowed as the red-and-blue lights of a police cruiser reflected off the brick side of the IGA across the alley.
Mercy stepped over the curb and gawked down the alley. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see—maybe a kid who got caught painting graffiti, or that the cops had pulled over someone who had run one of the two stoplights on Main Street. What she hadn’t expected—hadn’t even considered—was that there would be an ambulance beside the sheriff’s car, yellow CRIME SCENE tape going up, and a bloody-faced body being zipped into a black bag by two EMTs.
Mercy’s feet stopped moving as the red lights of the ambulance grotesquely illuminated the face of the corpse. Just before the EMT closed the body bag she clearly saw that he was missing his eyes.
Mercy must have made some sound, because Deputy Carter was suddenly jogging toward her, obviously trying to block her view. “Please move along,” he said. “There’s nothing here you want to see.”
“He’s dead!” The words hurled from Mercy’s mouth. “And his eyes are gone!”
“Oh, it’s you, Miss Goode. Hey, I wanted to say how sorry I am that I had to give you the third degree the other day. Still no sign of Sheriff Dearborn. Really wish we’d find him, though.” Gently, Deputy Carter took her elbow and guided her from the alley and back to the sidewalk. “This is a crime scene. I need to be sure it remains intact. You understand that, don’t you, Hunt—”
“I’m Mercy, not Hunter,” she interrupted. “Who is it? Who was killed?”
Deputy Carter tilted his hat back and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. His kind gray eyes were shadowed and he looked decades older than his twenty-five years. “I can’t say. His family hasn’t been notified.”
Mercy caught his gaze with hers. “But the dead man’s eyes are gone, right? Just like Mr. Parrott.” And Mr. Thompson, and almost Hunter …
The young deputy’s gaze slid from hers. “Can’t really talk about the details of the case,” he said. He took her elbow again and walked her a few feet back toward the pizza place. “I’m going to ask you to move on, now, Mercy.”
Mercy felt like her head was going to explode. She nodded dazedly. When the deputy let loose her elbow she stumbled. He reached out to steady her, but she shook him off. “I’m fine. Really. I’m okay. Gotta, uh, get my pizza.” Mercy turned her back to him and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.
But Hunter killed Polyphemus … Hunter killed Polyphemus … Hunter killed Polyphemus!
The words circled around and around inside Mercy’s mind as she numbly paid for the pizzas and salad. Later she couldn’t recall anything Mr. Mitchell had said to her. She also barely remembered the short drive north to the end of Main Street. Xena was on the porch when she parked the car in their driveway without bothering with the garage. The cat person was on her feet, clapping happily as Mercy trudged up the front stairs with the boxes from the pizzeria. From the porch swing behind her Emily stood and said, “Surprise! Xena called and invited me over for dinner.” Em smiled at Xena and then sneezed. “Sorry, ’scuse me. Anyway, she thought I needed something to get my mind off Dad’s funeral tomorrow, and I was like, that’s really sweet Xena, and so I—” One good look at Mercy’s face and Emily’s words broke off.
“Are you okay?” Em asked.
“What is it, kitten?” Xena hurried to take the to-go boxes from her.
“Th-there’s been…” Mercy had to stop and clear the shock from her throat. She looked from Xena to her best friend, who had just lost her father to a horribly similar murder just days before. “Can we go inside? I need to brew some chamomile and lavender tea.”
Xena’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, of course.” She handed the pizza boxes to Emily. “Darling Emily kitten, would you take these for me and put them in the oven on warm while I help our Mercy inside?”
Emily’s brow furrowed in confusion, but she shrugged and took the boxes. “Yeah, sure.” Ahead of them, she went inside while Xena hung back with Mercy.
“Tell me,” Xena said.
“There’s been another murder. Downtown in the alley beside the post office. I don’t know who’s dead, but I do know that his body is missing its eyes.”
Xena gasped. “This is bad. This is so, so very bad…”
“What the bloody hell do I tell Em?” Mercy asked as she picked at her lip.
“The truth, kitten. It will come out eventually anyway. So, let us tell your friend the truth. It will be better coming from those who love her.” Xena took her hand. “I shall help you and we shall both be there for our Emily kitten.”
Nine
“I don’t understand. Didn’t Hunter kill the Cyclops and send him back to the Greek Underworld?” Emily’s umber skin looked ashen. She sat on the couch between Mercy and Xena. Three untouched plates of pizza and salad rested before them on the coffee table. Each of them held a mug of steaming chamomile and lavender tea that Xena kept reminding them to sip.
“She did,” Xena said firmly.
“But did she, or was she so freaked out from losing Tyr that she only thought she did?” Mercy asked.
Xena’s eyes flashed with anger. “Hunter returned Polyphemus to Tartarus. She is not here to say it, but you know better than that. Our Hunter would not lie about something of such great import.”
Mercy’s shoulders bowed and she picked at the gold rim of the porcelain cup. “Yeah, I get that. I didn’t mean that she lied. I just meant that maybe she thought she’d gotten rid of the Cyclops when she really hadn’t.”
“But her new goddess was involved.” Emily picked up her piece of pizza, nibbled at the end of it, and then listlessly put it back on the plate. “Doesn’t that mean something?”
“It does indeed,” Xena said. “Amphitrite is a powerful deity. With her aid Hunter defeated the monster.”
“Then why did I just see an eyeless dead guy get loaded into an ambulance?”
“I shall call my Hunter kitten,” Xena said resolutely. She stood and then looked around the living room helplessly before asking, “Has anyone seen Abigail’s phone?”
Emily cleared her throat and almost smiled. “Yeah, I saw you put it in the pocket of your bathrobe.”
Xena’s hand disappeared into one of the voluminous pockets of Abigail’s robe and emerged with the phone that still wore the cover decorated with a pentagram wrapped in vines that Mercy and Hunter had made for their mom’s birthday the year before. “I shall call my Hunter kitten,” she repeated. “Now.”
Mercy and Emily watched as the cat person pawed at the screen of the phone. Brow furrowed it took her several tries, but finally she flashed a victorious smile and pressed the call button. Then she lifted the phone to her ear. “I found her!”
“Xena, Abigail has both of us in her favorites, so you could just—”
“Shh!” Xena help up a hand tipped with sharp, perfectly manicured nails and whispered, “It is ringing!”
Mercy waited. And then waited some more. Finally Xena said, “Kitten! I wish to…” but her words trailed away as she realized it was only a recording of Hunter’s voice. Still, the cat person straightened her back, paused, and then in one rush said, “Kitten, it is your Xena and I must speak with you urgently about the horrid Cyclops killer because there had been a death! Downtown! Tonight! Oh, kitten, Mercy says the body has no eyes and we are quite wor—” Xena’s wave of words ended as she lowered the phone and blinked rapidly. “It did not allow me to finish.”
Mercy put her cup and saucer on the coffee table and dug her phone out of her giant purse, which was by her feet. “I’ll try.” She tapped Hunter’s number and looked away from the contact picture that showed a selfie Hunter had taken with the open first page of her writing journal that blazed WHEN DARKNESS RISES, the title of her perpetual book in progress, across it. Unlike Xena, she wasn’t surprised when Hunter’s canned voice told her to leave a message, which she did not do. “She’s not answering me, either.”
“Try texting her. It is late for a school night. She might have her phone on silent and she’ll see your text first thing in the morning,” said Emily.
“Will do.” Mercy tried not to sound super negative, but she knew her sister—or rather, she used to know her sister—and the Hunter she knew would never have ignored back-to-back calls from her family. Still, she texted quickly, DEAD BODY DOWNTOWN—NO EYES—COULD CYCLOPS BE BACK???? WE NEED 2 TALK!!! “Done. But if she doesn’t answer we’re gonna have to make her talk to us.”
“Do you, uh, think she’ll be at Dad’s funeral tomorrow?” Emily’s voice sounded heartbreakingly young.
Mercy put her arm around her best friend and squeezed her shoulders. “Em, we’ll all be there.”
“That is right, Emily kitten.” Xena leaned into her and Emily sneezed. “Oh, sorry. I do wish you weren’t allergic to me.”
Emily wiped her nose on the back of her hand and quickly opened the little strawberry-colored crossbody she’d slung over her shoulder. She pulled out a small plastic bottle and then popped a pill into her mouth, using the tea to wash it down. “It’s okay. I gotta set a reminder to be sure I take this allergy medicine Mom got me.” She smiled at Xena and zipped up her purse. “I told her that it makes me feel better when you curl up on my lap—except that you also make me sneeze my brains out—so she got me some Zyrtec or Claritin, or whatever. It’s supposed to help.”
“What a lovely idea!” said Xena.
“Sounds like you and your mom are getting closer,” Mercy said.
Emily’s smile turned sad. “Yeah, it’s like she’s trying to make up for Dad being gone. When I think about getting closer to her I’m glad, but when I think about why I feel guilty for being glad.”
“Don’t do that to yourself, Em. I didn’t know your dad real well, but I think he’d be happy you and your mom are close.”
“Yes, kitten.” Xena licked her fingers and smoothed a dark curl back from Emily’s face. “And your mother is trying.”
Emily stared at Xena as the cat person licked her hand again and reached out to continue smoothing her curls—and Mercy hastily rescued her by standing and pulling her bestie up from the couch with her. “Xena! People don’t think it’s okay to touch each other’s hair like that.”
Emily snorted a laugh as she patted her dark curl back into place. “And there’s a much bigger conversation we need to have about hair-touching.”
Xena turned her frown from Emily to Mercy. “Then it is a rather good thing that I am not a people.”
Mercy opened her mouth to start explaining that bigger conversation to Xena when Emily sneezed so hard that the cup and saucer she was holding rattled and almost toppled to the wood floor. Em wiped her nose and shrugged.
“Xena does have a point. She’s definitely not a people.”
“Exactly,” said Xena before she blew across her teacup and then lapped at the golden liquid.
Mercy shook her head in defeat before she said, “Hey, I need to cast a spell. How about you come with me and be my witness?”
Emily’s fawn eyes lit with excitement. “Ooooh, magic? Do you need my help?”
“Well, not with the spell itself. That’s pretty simple. But it would help if you’d watch the results with me. I need to understand if the trees are sick because my magic isn’t working—or whether it’s something else.”
“Like that the only place your magic doesn’t work is the gates?” Emily said.
“Yeah, like that. Xena, you wanna come with us?”
Xena froze mid-lick of her tea. “Sorry, kitten, what did you say? I so enjoy the taste of honey that sometimes I forget myself.”
“Em and I are going out to my greenhouse so I can cast a quick spell. It was Khenti’s idea, and I think it’s a good one. Do you want to come with us?”
“No, you kittens go ahead. I shall finish my tea and, perhaps, lick the tuna and shrimp off my lovely pizza. Do you think it would be too unhealthy of me to ignore the broccoli?”
“You do you, Xena,” said Mercy as she and Em shared a grimace at the grossness of Xena’s tuna, shrimp, and broccoli pizza. “We won’t be long.”
“And I’ll say bye now.” Emily bent and hugged Xena while carefully turning her face away from the cat person’s mane of wild hair. “I need to get home and try to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be really hard.”
Xena hugged her back. “Then good night, kitten. We will be there for you tomorrow.” Then the cat person cupped Emily’s face between her hands and licked her gently on her forehead before releasing her.
Emily waited until they were in the kitchen to wipe at her forehead. “That’s really nasty.”
“Right? But it does mean she loves you.” Mercy disappeared into the voluminous pantry and gathered a white pillar candle and wooden spellwork matches, a bag of salt, and a Mason jar of water that had been charged by the full moon. Then, arms linked, the girls went out the back door and slowly walked the stepping-stone path toward Mercy’s beloved greenhouse—the last birthday gift Abigail would ever give her daughter. The moon was waning, but the night was clear and the stars looked like a goddess had broken a necklace of crystal beads that then scattered across the black velvet sky. Abigail’s koi pond and the fountain of Athena that poured into it were lit up so that lazy, watery shadows washed across the yard. The best friends tilted their heads together.
“You haven’t said hardly anything about your Egyptian guy,” Em said.
“He’s not my anything.”
Em snorted. “So, he’s super fine, right?”
“His head looks like a cross between a dragon and an alligator—or maybe a crocodile. Gotta look up the difference between the two again.”
Emily bumped her shoulder. “You said he also has a human head. And I remember that Hunter said he didn’t wear very many clothes.”
“It’s hot in Egypt.” Mercy felt her cheeks also get hot as her imagination sent her an image of Khenti in his almost-nothing warrior’s outfit.
Emily pulled her to a stop. “You are blushing.”
“Well, I just…” She sighed. “Yes, he’s super fine.”
“I knew it!”
“Em, he’s from another world, plus I’m on the rebound and the last thing I need is a boyfriend right now.”
“He doesn’t have to be your boyfriend for you to spill all the deets. So, spill.”
They started walking again as Mercy shrugged and tried to find the right words to describe Khenti. “He’s nice. I mean really nice and not Kirk pretend nice.”
Emily gave her the side-eye.
“Seriously! Khenti actually listens to me. And, um, I didn’t want to admit this when I was with him, but Kirk really isn’t very smart.”
“Ya think?”
Mercy rolled her eyes, but continued, “Khenti seems authentically smart. And he doesn’t have mommy issues, even though his mom is dead.”
“Oh shit! I’m sorry.”
Mercy nodded. “Yeah, he told me that today. It sounds like they were really close. And his dad’s some big, important demi-god guy who stresses Khenti out. He’s lonely, and I understand that.”
“Hey, you okay?” Emily touched her shoulder.
“Yeah. The Hunter stuff is hard, though.” Mercy cleared her throat. “Anyway, he’s nice and cute, but all we are is friends.”
“For now.”
Mercy’s snort mimicked Em’s. “Forever. Did you miss the part about him literally being in another world?”
“Girl, you know I’m a hopeless romantic, so I’m gonna ignore that part.”
Just outside the greenhouse was a tidy compost bin. Mercy paused there to use her gardening scoop to get a little of the fertile mixture. Then she opened the door and flipped on the row of overhead grow lights. She breathed in her favorite scents—dirt and growing things.
“Holy crap, Mag! I haven’t been in here since you got it all set up.” Emily walked up and down the rows of raised beds, gently touching delicate leaves and baby plants. “You seriously have a green thumb.”
Mercy laughed. “Em, I’m a Green Witch—it’s all part of that.”
“Well, I’m jelly. I can’t even grow cactuses.”
“I’ve told you like a zillion times—stop watering them so much and give them more sun.”
Emily shrugged. “I hear the words you speak, but somehow I can’t make your directions work.”
