Aunt Celeste walked into the shop in the same mood she’d left in.
Wretched.
"Eliza Rain! What in the world do you think you’re doing, girl?”
I had a rag in one hand and a rusty can of half-filled Pledge in the other. I figured I might as well look like I’d actually been working while she’d been gone.
“Dusting…” I said slowly, treating her like I would a pipe bomb. She really was a little high strung today. I figured she was too old to be going through ‘the change,’ but maybe it was something some women never quite got over or something.
“I thought…”
She didn’t even let me finish getting the second half of that sentence out before she started jumping down my throat. “I don’t pay you to think, girl! I pay you to do as I say.”
“You don’t pay me at all,” I muttered under my breath.
She glared at me. “Listen here, little Miss Thing. Don’t be thinking you can sass me in my own shop. You don’t want to be poking the bear right now, ya hear?”
I heard the warning loud and clear – she was like one gray hair away from a total atomic meltdown. And here I thought she couldn’t possibly get any worse. Good grief, I really didn’t want to find out what would happen if I unwittingly poked the bear.
"Sorry,” I mumbled, not really wishing to see her get any worse at this point. Especially when you considered I still needed to find out exactly what she’d done to Chase.
Dante had been absolutely no help there either. He flat out refused to discuss Chase, what Aunt Celeste had given him the day before, or even who this Asher guy was. When I mentioned Asher’s name, he’d gotten all bent out of shape and refused to tell me anything. He’d pretty much walked away from me at that point, so I knew I’d have to retreat and launch another attack when he was more susceptible to my special brand of persuasion. Who said being an annoying, tiresome, whiny teenager wasn’t persuasive?
I’d left for a little while to grab some food from the rundown drugstore since he’d eaten his lunch in front of me, but had refused to even give me so much as a meatball. When I came back he wasn’t anywhere downstairs. I’d even stuck my head inside the back stockroom just in case, but he wasn’t there either. His truck was still parked in the front so I figured he’d just headed upstairs to his room. I guess even Dante didn’t want to run the risk of poking the bear in case Aunt Celeste came back while he was out running around against her orders.
Aunt Celeste put her old lady purse on the counter as she walked by me. “And where exactly is that other good for nothing hiding now?”
I figured she’d meant the only other person stuck here with me in the drudgery of her employ.
“Dante’s upstairs…er…I think he went to get something.” Why was I even bothering to cover for him? He was an obstinate jerk. Granted, he was the only obstinate jerk I had, so maybe that was a good enough reason to try and keep some of his butt intact. Aunt Celeste looked like she was in another one of her butt chewing moods.
I shuddered a little. That was a visual I really could have lived without.
"Hmph!” Aunt Celeste didn’t really look all that convinced by my lame excuse. I was really going to have to start becoming a better liar.
Suddenly, she cocked her head to one side like I’d seen some dogs do at the park. She looked like she was listening for something. Maybe someone was blowing one of those high pitched whistles only crotchety old biddies could hear.
She didn’t bother looking at me as she spoke again, but the icy tone in her voice was sharp enough to draw blood, “Have you been meddling on my floor, girl?”
"No,” I replied truthfully. She turned and glared at me so hard I swallowed back the sarcastic remark that was on the tip of my tongue. She was looking at me like she was waiting for something more. I sighed heavily, not willing to risk any more of her ire today.
“No, ma’am.” I stressed the last word to make sure she heard it. God she was such a pain.
Her beady eyes never left mine as she stared at me for a few beats. I think she was trying to sniff out a lie – but the joke was on her. I hadn’t been upstairs all day. All I’d done while she was gone was try to get her trippy mirror ghost to give up some top secret intel and get her errand boy to defect from her side and come play for the away team.
Good thing she wasn’t asking about either one of those things.
“Put that can away,” she ordered. “Use the duster in the back room – the pink one. Clean every shelf with it, but watch out for my breakables you clumsy cow.” Then she dismissed me entirely as she made her way upstairs.
I breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was gone for the time being. I knew I had to pump her for some information, but she was really in a crabby mood. I didn’t figure getting her all worked up and suspicious would help my situation at all. I felt bad that I wasn’t any closer to helping Chase, but I had some time since he didn’t actually seem like he was dying or anything. I went to the back room going over my options. Too bad that only took me like a second.
Man, I was really going to have to start getting more options around this place.
I went in search of the pink duster, listening for any butt chewings Aunt Celeste planned to dole out upstairs.
Neither one of them made so much as make a peep this time around.
~~ ~
Dante waited inside Celeste’s showroom. He heard her the second she stepped inside the shop. He’d sent out a silent call while she was gripping at Eliza about his whereabouts.
Celeste stepped inside her private floor. “What are you doing in here, Dante? You know I don’t like anyone up in my private space, including you.”
I wanted to speak with you in private.
She regarded him. “You’re speaking now ain’t ya? What’s so dang important you felt you could just come up in here and overstep?”
“Stop it, Celeste. Your hostility doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest, and well you know it,” he snapped at her, losing all patience with the woman in front of him.
Celeste pulled up short. She couldn’t remember the last time Dante had actually deigned to speak to her. Not in her mind, but actually open his mouth and communicate like they used to. It had been so long since he’d done so that she almost forgot what his voice sounded like. It still held that rich, smooth feel that sent the hair on the back of her neck straight up.
Not even Asher could do that.
For a second she tried to recall the last time she’d heard it – it must have been sometime before the new millennium. “So the great and powerful Dante has decided to bless me with actual words, huh? What, is the Rapture upon us?”
“If it were, you'd know. You're as damned as rest of us, reaping all that you’ve sown,” he answered dryly.
“I know you ain’t figuring to lecture me on the course of my life, Dante Kane,” she sneered.
His face betrayed little emotion, which was normal whenever he bothered to look at her full on. “I wouldn’t waste my breath or my time. I have no desire to beat my head against that brick wall.”
“Then why are you here?” Celeste snapped, his voice losing all its novelty now. She remembered why she hadn’t mourned its absence now. It dripped nothing but cool disdain, as if he hadn't known her practically her whole life.
“The Crawford boy.”
“What about him?”
“He was here, earlier today.”
“Well, seeing as how I just left Eliza downstairs, and she’s still in one piece, I’d guess he wasn’t here very long," she huffed, "Has the taint hit him yet?”
“Yes,” Dante replied simply.
Celeste's face pinched in tight, a sure sign she was getting upset, “Then why is that stupid niece of mine still here? Dang it, don’t tell me he’s got someone else lined up. Now I gotta get Dawn and send her…”
“No,” Dante interrupted before she got herself full of steam. “He is after Eliza, but she cares for him.”
“So? Most of Lust’s victims usually do. Hell, you know that...”
“I want you to pick someone else, Celeste,” he cut her off again. It was not a request.
Celeste's eyes widened to twice their normal size. "Are you talking crazy, Dante? You know I can’t very well take the taint off someone who’s already been marked.”
“Not the boy. Eliza. Get Crawford another target.”
She narrowed her eyes now, looking at Dante like she'd never seen him before. Celeste couldn't quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. Surely she'd misheard him. “Come again?” she asked her voice low and menacing.
“You heard me. Get the Crawford boy another girl to abuse and kill. This town has plenty.”
“That may be, but why on earth would I do such a thing?”
“She’s your blood.”
“And? You make it seem like that’s ever made a difference before. You know it never has.” She scoffed.
“This time it’s different,” Dante replied.
“Why is that?” she stared at him, her hawk eyes missing nothing. “Don’t tell me you actually fancy this one?”
“Of course not," he snapped back irritated.
But Celeste didn’t believe him. She knew he was lying to her. She continued to stare the love of her life down. “You better not. Or what I’ve done to you so far will seem like a day at the spa.”
Dante’s face turned to granite as she watched. “Don't waste your limited time threatening me, Celeste. I'm not talking about this again with you. Leave Eliza out of this one. I’ve never interfered with you before. This was always your life to waste, even if you managed to drag me along for the ride. But you will do this one thing I’m asking of you. Crawford is not to hurt Eliza. If he does then you and I are going to renegotiate the terms of our professional relationship. Is that understood?”
“You ain’t dumb enough to be threatening me now, are you?” she asked carefully.
“No. Consider this more of an ultimatum. Keep that boy away from her, Celeste, or find yourself another cleaner. I’ll wash my hands of you, this shop, this whole bloody town.”
“Please, Dante. You ain’t got no place to go.” But she knew that wasn’t exactly the case. There was one place he could still go, and it was the one place she’d been trying to avoid for the last hundred plus years of her life. “Even you’re not that stupid.”
“Don’t test me. You should know better by now.” He turned on his heels and walked away without giving her so much as a second glance.
The objects on her showroom shelves trembled, the sound a symphony of noise that grated like nails against a chalkboard. Celeste wasn’t sure if the trapped souls of her victims shook in the wake of her wrath – or if it was something else. She had a sneaking suspicion it might be because they were actually laughing at her.