Gunsmoke & Glamour by Hillary Monahan

Author:Hillary Monahan [Monahan, Hillary]
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Now

The only things Addy could—or would—tell Marie about her hall haunter was that it was a draugr in the service of Nichnevan, and while Nichnevan may be the queen of the sluagh, she had other terrible things at her disposal. Some of those things were actually worse than being eaten alive by dead birds. As Clay had no idea how to evict it without complicating all of their lives, he told Marie he’d research it and get back to her, which really meant he’d write Sterling and ask him. Sterling’s library of weird material was second only to the capital’s. Too bad both were too far away to access with regularity.

Marie was surprisingly fine with having to wait. “It’s been here three weeks, cher. It doesn’t much bother me. Take your time.” He didn’t particularly want to take his time; this curse had to go before he was reduced to the bedsores and bedpans type, and really, he’d shoot himself before he let it get that far. Wasn’t anything glorious about suicide, but it was a fair bit more dignified than making Doc clean his piss for the rest of his limited days.

They spent the afternoon sharing tea and biscuits in the sunshine of Marie’s courtyard. After a couple of hours, Clay dragged a sweaty Irene out of Jacque’s embrace and forced her to be social. Once Doc recovered from her post-Jacque stupor, she gushed to Marie about her grandson, talking like they’d known each other for eons instead of their actual five-hour association. Marie smiled at every stammered compliment, even going so far as to spare a wink at Clay when Irene flopped into her seat to fan her face from exhaustion.

“I’m glad you two are getting on, cherie,” was all Marie said.

Clay grunted. He was already sick of Jacque’s name, and it’d only been a half a day.

Addy kept to herself throughout most of it, which Clay attributed to the draugr’s threat. He didn’t know much about the sisters’ past as it pertained to the Seelie Court, only that something had happened years ago that landed them in the embrace of the Unseelies. He pressed Cora for details once, but she refused to discuss it. The one thing Clay was able to glean was that Addy and Cora hadn’t been kicked out as Sterling once suggested but had willingly transferred their allegiance.

Witnessing the exchange between draugr and Addy, it seemed they’d done it because there were issues with their pa. He was intrigued. He didn’t ask about it because he didn’t want to piss off Addy, but he was intrigued.

When suppertime came, Clay made a motion to head back to the hotel, but Marie insisted they stay. The torches and candles were lit to welcome the twilight, a small army of glow bugs moving in to twinkle over the flowering bushes. Marie’s eldest daughter and namesake arrived to cook for them, throwing together a meal so tasty Clay was able to finish it even with his foundering appetite.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.