Helena
Man, I hope faeries liked creepy wizard cemeteries.
I wasn’t touching that thing. I had always loved creepy old cemeteries. The older and weirder the better. Sagging stones with old faces on them, unsettling religious inscriptions etched out in a 1700s font, and vaults surrounded by fences. All awesome…until I found out that we needed to find Byron’s body.
Suddenly it all lost its luster.
“I don’t see any stones that could possibly be from the seventies. You’re not buried here, are you, Byron? Tell me you’re not,” I said.
I was surveying the backyard now, while the Sullivan brothers and Billie walked the house. I hoped they didn’t formulate any plans without me. I still hadn’t actually seen the upstairs yet.
“No one is really buried here,” Graham said. “It would be easy enough to open a crypt, at least.”
I ignored him and the disconcerting casual attitude toward grave-opening and studied Byron’s face. This was never a chore. I had never noticed just how many shades of gold shone in his eyes like some precious gem, and his eyes seemed more amused by my fear than concerned over the graves.
He put a hand to my waist, becoming briefly solid. “You can see the dates on the crypts, can’t you?”
“So you’re not buried there?”
His dark brows lifted.
“Phew.” I waved at Graham. “He’s not here. They’re just old graves. So stop touching them, ya creepy demon.”
“That’s not good news,” Graham said. “We need to find him!” He planted a dress shoe on the decorative fence surrounding a low crypt and studied the swan perched there. “And what are these swans?”
Byron’s hand had crept up my dress to cop a shameless feel of my breast and when I tried to give him a swat, he became transparent again.
Incubi. I swear. I widened my eyes at him and shook a finger.
Not that I really minded the warm, tingling sensations that shot through me and made me want a lot more attention than the barest graze of my nipple.
He chuckled and whispered in my ear, “Tonight…you dream.”
“The swans are probably low Ethereal spirits,” I said, thoroughly flushed but trying to act like I was actually paying attention. I walked over to him and sort of brushed him to make him back away from the creepy swan before it bit his nose off or something. “If they were Sinistrals, we might have crows or vultures or eels or jackals or…you know. Something people don’t generally welcome.”
“Are they intelligent?” Graham asked.
“I doubt they understand our language,” I said. “But I wouldn’t mess with them. They might be scouts for…something or someone else. An Ethereal spirit.”
“And what are they, like angels?”
“You’re getting the hang of it,” Byron said. He approached one of the swans and smoothed a hand down its feathers. The swan tried to snap at him but went right through his arm.
“So that’s how you treat me,” he said, the corners of his lips twisting up with humor. “Tell your masters I am not amused.”
“Do you know their master?” I asked Byron.
“Do you think I could tell you if I did?”
I sighed. “I know it’s not your fault, but no one likes an enigma.”
“Not true. I’m an enigma and you like me very much. Even Graham likes me and he’s trying hard not to.”
“All right,” Graham said, trying to move on. “So you don’t need me to dig any graves or heave the covers off of vaults with my strong arms.”
“Thankfully no. It seems like we’re good.”
“So…when we can we go back to the Airbnb?” he asked, in a just-for-me voice, glancing at Byron, who kept a not-that-polite distance.
But they were getting along. Huh. It was one thing for Byron not to care because he was clearly down for whatever, but Graham had the morals of a human—or a normal, non-demon wizard. It seemed like he was trying to adapt to Byron’s presence.
This was giving me some very enticing fantasies.
Two men. Can I handle two men?
And what about the Sullivan brothers, then?
The whole situation was so beyond what I was used to that it was giving me a panic attack. I hadn’t even had a proper date in years. Maybe I should go back to just being alone all the time and not even seeing men who weren’t like, sweaty middle-aged plumbers and roofers and exterminators.
“I thought I’d just sleep here so I can get back to work,” I said, but I could already tell this was a disappointing answer.
“I have to head home,” he said. “At least let me treat you to a nice evening.”
“Just…us? In your Airbnb?”
“It’s a beautiful house,” he said. “I thought you would enjoy a real bed in a house that doesn’t need work, just once in a while.”
This was the part where he really should be assuring me he wasn’t going to try anything, and the fact that he didn’t set a fire in my loins. If I went off alone with him tonight, there was no way I wasn’t going to succumb to temptation. There was something surprisingly sexy about watching Graham slowly come into his full demon nature. Alas that he couldn’t take on a demon form in the normal human world.
“I said I wasn’t going to make things too easy for you,” I said.
“Well, I look forward to finding out how difficult you’ll be tonight,” Graham said. “Facing challenges is one of my best skills.” He swept his fingers through his hair, a gesture that oozed confidence, and said, “Wrap up whatever you need to do around here.”
I veered toward the house, feeling very thrown off by these new developments. I didn’t expect Graham to tolerate Byron. I didn’t expect Billie to be here. And I didn’t expect all five of them to agree that they were willing to destroy Etherium.
Billie was coming down the staircase as I walked toward it. “So what’s your deal, honey?” she asked me, and I was disarmed. Was she being nicer to me by calling me honey, or was this aggressive? I couldn’t tell with this girl. She seemed equal parts tough and soft. “You know what you’re doing with all these men?” she elaborated.
“Uhh…heh,” I replied, in a great show of confidence.
Billie crossed her arms, leaning against the naked lady at the post, and gave me a look that made me feel naive. “You better find out quick or I wouldn’t mind peeling off their attentions.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, it’s fair, if you’re just going to string them along. If you’re a one-man woman, shouldn’t you decide now? Otherwise this project is going to turn into drama, and I don’t have time for that.”
“I definitely don’t want drama! I’ve never had any boy drama in my life. I don’t have time for it either.”
“Never?” Billie made a face. “Well, you gotta make time for boy drama at some point in your life before you’re old. I’ve had my share. No wonder you don’t know what to do.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t know what to do! I’m just…deciding.”
“That is what not knowing what to do means, isn’t it?” Billie plucked at a few strands of her hair. “Why not try for all of them? We’re already about to break all the rules. It’s clear they all like you and they even sort of get along with each other.”
“Why would you want to help me if you’re interested in them too?”
“Okay, part of me just likes the idea of you entering into a scandalous relationship and knowing you’d get kicked out of society. I admit it! But I also hate seeing people fight against what they want just because they think it’s improper or something. If you’ve already been making your own way in the world you might as well get all the love you want.”
“I didn’t think I wanted any love, particularly,” I said, plucking my lower lip. “I’ve been alone a while.”
“It always sneaks up on you,” Billie said. “When you least expect it. In that case, I’ll leave you to it. I think you should try for it and see how it goes.”
“Try for all four of them?”
“What do you think I’m talking about? But you have to take the bull by the horns. If you’re going to go for it, go for it, or you’ll make it weird.”
“Oh, I’ll make it weird?”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be weird.” Billie shrugged. “You’re just too up the butt of your boarding school education. Now, you want to come check out the upstairs?”
“I’m not up any butts,” I said.
She let out a very loud laugh and I felt like she was going to squeeze her revenge out of me in a thousand tiny moments from this day forward.
Upstairs we had a lot of serious canopy beds. I’m talking beds with enough fabric to open up a fabric store. Not only that, one of the rooms had walls covered in the same fabric as the bed, a green and pink floral print. It was dizzying.
“If you say we need to preserve these walls, I’m going to bite you in your sleep,” Jake said, grinning at me.
“Nooo. You have my permission to tear those down immediately. In fact, I might just do it myself!”
“There’s our Hel,” he said.
Of course, there was a library, but a lot of it was cleared out. A desk with many drawers had been ransacked.
“That was me,” Jasper said. “I was looking for the diary Byron mentioned. No luck.” He started pushing the drawers back in now. A lot of them were being stubborn and he was cursing as he punched one into place. I think Jasper was just finding excuses not to walk too much. I was so pissed whenever I saw him limping, knowing my cousin did that to him and it was going to slow down our progress a lot. I wondered if he would be able to climb a ladder at all.
Fuck. We really did have a lot for three healthy people to do, since Billie admitted that she had no skills.
“This is the master,” Jake said. “Prepare yourself.” The halls upstairs had led us to three medium-sized bedrooms plus the library so far, but now we reached the largest bedroom.
This room was like a 70s boudoir designed by Louis the XIV, with gilt picture frames, gilt mirrors, gilt lamps with the most enormous 1970s lampshades I’d ever seen, and a gilt bed and dresser set. The whole thing was planted in a layer of thick gold carpeting and smelled like healing tonic for old people.
“Ewww,” I managed.
“But wait,” Jake said. “There’s more.” He jumped onto the bed belly first and the whole thing wobbled.
It was a water bed. Oh god.
“But then, the bathroom has never been updated since it was first installed,” Billie said. “Look at this! This is the craziest room I have ever seen.”
Considering that the rest of the house was already pretty crazy, I was wary of how much crazier it could get.
Obviously the home had been owned by wealthy people who were early on in the bathroom trend. I had never, ever seen a bathroom like this.
The shower was the sort of Victorian spa shower made from a metal frame that looked sort of like a torture device, encapsulating the victim in a cage with spray nozzles going all the way down from head to feet—a rib cage shower, as they are known for reasons that seem immediately obvious.
The bathtub wasn’t even clawfoot. It was tin, set in a wooden box of sorts that honestly reminded me of a coffin. And the wood was rotting badly around it, making it extra creepy. The tub matched wooden wainscoting that surrounded the entire large room, and it had also seen better days, as had the wooden floors.
The sink, chipped and cracked, had a painted bowl and candleholders to light the mirror, while the toilet was this scalloped porcelain art piece where the S-bend in the toilet actually had the shape of a fish, and it had the overhead tank like early toilets do, so gravity would give the flush a little more force.
Jake turned on one of the bathtub taps. It creaked, and then it clonked, and then a thin stream of water reluctantly emerged.
“I don’t know if it ever gets hot,” he said. “Now if you tell me we have to save this room because it’s so beautifully authentic…”
“Nooo. It is sad to tear out these old fixtures, but this is a gut job, no doubt,” I said. “It’s fascinating, but I would never ever bathe here.”
“So we have a house with no kitchen and a bathroom that has to be gutted,” Jasper said. “We’d better focus on those two rooms and just do what we can with the rest because those two things will cost a lot. We also need to demo the servant’s house. It’s unsalvageable.”
“Yeah, I agree with you,” I said. “If we make the kitchen and bathroom beautiful then we’ll just fix the damaged bits and call it a day.”
“Didn’t you say the faeries have to find a human bride, though?” Billie said. “You said you were going to work these bedrooms, right? At the very least. They’re just so ugly. And some of the paint downstairs is just too much. That pink in the foyer?”
“We have a lot of painting to do,” Jake said. “No way faeries have this bad of taste.”
I pouted a little. A part of me actually liked the cheerfully audacious colors downstairs. They seemed so French and so…optimistic, or something. Like I could feel the energy of how the original builders must have been excited to settle in the New World, to tame the Mississippi River, and put coffin bathtubs inside their house. But the pink would look way better if we took it down a notch.
“You’re right,” I admitted.
“Well, no time to waste,” Jake said. “Are you girls teaming up? I know you said you don’t do reno, Billie, but no better time to learn. Hel can teach you.”
Neither of us loved this idea. I worked alone. Billie was usually just the boss of her crew, and that didn’t bode well.
“I can paint,” Billie said.
“Okay, great,” I said, relieved. “We can just make you the painting queen.”
“What colors do we want?”
“Jake’s going to fight me on this, but I’m inclined to riff off the original wall colors, just make them much lighter and more subtle.”
“I am going to fight you,” Jake said.
“It’s not your house,” Billie said. “And I like that idea. All right. I’m going to peel some samples off the walls and then I’ll go to the store.”
I groaned. “You can’t just start painting, you know,” I said. “Old walls were originally painted with calcimine paint and you have to strip off the old paint and then treat it or else the old paint will mess with the new paint.”
“We already have some stripper and sealer,” Jasper said. “In the van. The last house we did needed the same treatment.”
“Oh…okay,” Billie said, clearly daunted now.
“Those room are huge,” Jasper said. “That project alone is going to take forever.”
“Well, I guess it’s all right if we get eight hundred grand for this house,” Billie said.
Oh god, I hoped I was right about that. Why did I make all these bold pronouncements?
“While you do that, I’ll be back soon. Graham rented a restored old house for the weekend before he goes home and I want to get a look at it for inspiration.” Back soon? I don’t know why I said that. I couldn’t seem to admit I was going to sleep there.
“Y’all have fun,” Billie said.
Jake and Jasper were giving me twin looks, their golden eyes possessive, pinning me in place like prey caught between them.
“Alone with an incubus?” Jake sauntered up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “I’m not here to toy with your heart, Hel. I’m here to win it. And I think you know that. Graham’s going back where he came from? Good. But what does that say about your future together? He’s already tied down. We’re here to stay from the first square of carpet tossed on the trash heap to the installation of a working refrigerator.”
“Sexier words never spoken,” Jasper laughed.
But…they kinda were the sexiest words. To me, at least.
“I’m just looking at the house,” I said, as Billie looked at me and I remembered that she told me it was my job not to make it weird. “Maybe overnight,” I added, in the doorway.
“Oh, sure,” Jake yelled back at me. “We all knew you were going to fuck the incubus. Get it out of your system and then let him go back to the senate or whatever he does.”