Bone Crossed

I nodded and had started to walk to where Mom was parking her car when I saw the door clearly. Covered by red and green paint, it hadn’t been as noticeable. Someone with some artistic skill had painted an X on the door. In case I didn’t get the right idea, instead of two mere lines, the shape was formed by two bones. They were ivory with grayish shadows and just a faint blush of pink—not painted by a couple of self-righteous and irate kids with spray paint. All it was missing to keep it from Jolly Rogerhood was a skull.

“You’d better hide that,” Zee said. “Magic won’t.”

I put my back against the door and folded my arms.

“So why don’t you think it’s running right?” I asked him as my mother walked over from her car, with Hotep on a leash.

“Because it is old,” Zee told me, taking the cue I had given him. “Because it was not well designed in the first place. Because air-cooled engines need constant tinkering.”

“I was—Hey, Mom.”

“Margaret,” Zee said coolly.

“Mr. Adelbertsmiter.” My mom didn’t like Zee. She blamed him for my decision to stay in the Tri-Cities and fix cars instead of finding a teaching job, something much more in line with the kind of work she thought I should be doing. Politeness done, she turned back to me. “I thought I’d stop by before heading home.” She couldn’t get too close though, because as soon as he caught my scent, Hotep growled and lowered his head aggressively: protecting my mom from the bad coyote.

“I’ll be fine,” I told her, curling my lip at the Doberman. I actually like dogs, but not this one. “Give my love to Curt and the girls.”

“Don’t forget to work things out so you can come to Nan’s wedding.” Nan was my younger half sister, and she was getting married in six weeks. Luckily, I wasn’t part of the wedding party, so all I had to do was sit and watch.

“I have it on the calendar,” I promised. “Zee’s going to take care of the shop for me.”

She glanced at him, then back at me. “Fine, then.” She started to give me a hug, then gave Hotep a rueful look. “You need to teach him to behave like you did Ringo.”

“Ringo was a poodle, Mom. A fight between Hotep and me wouldn’t end well for either of us. It’s all right. Not his fault.”

She sighed. “All right. You take care of yourself.”

“Love you. Drive carefully,” I told her.

“I always do. Love you.”

Zee was sweating by the time the car was out of sight. He took his hand off the building and the paint returned. “I didn’t do it for you,” he grouched. “I just didn’t want her hanging around longer than necessary.”

We both stepped away from the door to look at the painting that was now mostly covered by a big, fat-lettered red “LIAR.” The paint of the crossed bones was thicker than the spray paint, so even though I couldn’t see most of the color, I could see the outline of it.

“The vampires dropped Stefan in my living room last night,” I told him. “He was in pretty rough shape. Peter ... one of Adam’s wolves, thinks whoever did it was hoping Stefan would attack me and we’d both be out of the way. Stefan wasn’t in any shape to talk much, but what he did manage to convey was that Marsilia found out I killed Andre.”

Zee traced his fingers over the bones and shook his head. “This might be vampire work. But, Mercy, you’ve been putting your little nose so many places it doesn’t belong; it could almost be anyone. I’ll talk to Uncle Mike—but I expect your best bet for information about it is Stefan, because it doesn’t feel like fae magic. How badly is Stefan hurt?”

“If he were a werewolf, I think he’d be dead. You think this is magic?” It felt like that to me, but I was hoping I was wrong.

Zee frowned. “For an evil bloodsucker, he’s not a bad sort.” High praise from Zee. “And yes, there is magic here, but nothing I’m familiar with.”

“Samuel thinks Stefan will be all right.”

Tony turned the corner in his unmarked car, which was discreetly police modified with extra mirrors, a few extra antennae, and a bar of lights along the back window, hidden from the casual eye by extra-dark glass. He slowed when he caught sight of the damage. He pulled up next to us and opened the door.

“You decorating for Christmas early, Mercy?” Tony could blend in even better than I did. Today he looked like a Hispanic cop ... like the poster child for Hispanic cops, handsome and clean-cut. When he was playing drug dealer, he did it better than the real thing. I’d first met him playing a homeless man. There was nothing magic or supernatural about him, but the man was a chameleon.

I glanced at the building again. He was right. If you didn’t pay any attention to the words, it had a sort of Christmasy look to it. The green paint tended to be short top to bottom but long front side to side. The red paint was fat and closed up. It looked sort of like garlands with red balls hanging down.

There was even “Ho, ho, ho,” if you skipped around a little and deleted an “e” on the last “ho.” Our green painter had a limited vocabulary and occasionally mixed up a professional working woman with a garden implement.