wouldnât get this close in his people skin, but wearing fur seemed to bring out the softer side of most Weres.
I eased back, deciding everything was okay. He didnât look worried. âTalking to you is like talking to a fish,â I complained, and David huffed, his claws clicking on the hardwood floor as he got off my bed. âYou want some clothes?â I asked, seeing as he probably hadnât woken me up for the hell of it. If it wasnât car problems, maybe he had forgotten to bring something to change into. âYou might fit in Jenksâs old stuff.â
David bobbed his head, and after a brief thought of my almost-nakedness, I got out of bed and snagged my robe from the back of a chair. âI kept a pair of his sweats,â I said as I shrugged into the blue terry cloth and tied it closed with an abrupt, embarrassed haste, but David had turned to the hallway, the perfect gentleman. Feeling awkward, I dragged a box down from my closet shelf and dropped it on my bed. Not that we had a lot of naked men in our church, but I wasnât going to throw out Jenksâs old clothes from when he had been people-size.
The scent of Queen Anneâs lace came to me when I wrestled the box open. Fingers searching through the cool fabric, my slight headache eased and the smell of growing things and sunshine rose high. Jenks smelled good, and it hadnât washed out.
âHere you go,â I said when I found the sweats and extended them to him.
His brown eyes sheepish, David carefully took them in his mouth before padding to the dim hallway, the oak floorboards glowing with morning sun reflecting in from the living room and kitchen. Shuffling to the bathroom, I decided he had probably locked himself out of his car and change of clothesâwhich left me curious as to where the ladies were. David didnât seem to be distressed, and I knew he would be if either one of them had a problem.
Wondering how David knew I didnât have a coffee date when I hadnât even told him I had one to begin with, I shuffled into the bathroom and quietly shut the door to keep everyone who was sleeping, sleeping. It wasnearing the golden hour of noon when the church went silentâIvy and me asleep and the pixies just settling down for their four-hour nap.
Hanging on the back of the door, my costume thumped, and I quieted it, listening for the hum of pixy wings. I fingered the supple leather in the silence, hoping I would get a chance to wear it. I was pretty much church-bound after dark until I nailed whoever was sending Al after me. And Halloween wasnât a holiday to be missed.
Since the Turnâthe nightmarish three years following the supernatural species coming out of the closetâthe holiday had been gaining strength until now it was celebrated for an entire week, becoming the unofficial celebration for the Turn itself.
The Turn actually began in the late summer of sixty-six when humanity began dying of a virus carried by a bioengineered tomato that was supposed to feed the growing populations of the third-world countries, but it was on Halloween that we celebrated it. That was the day Inderland had decided to come out of the closet before humanity found us by way of the âwhy arenât these people dying?â question. It had been thought that Halloween might ease the panic, and it had. Most of the surviving human population thought it was a joke, easing the chaos for a day or two until they realized that we hadnât eaten them yesterday, so why would we today?
They still threw a bloody-hell tantrum, but at least it had been aimed at the bioengineers who designed the accidentally lethal fruit instead of us. No one had been so tactless as to make the holiday official, but everyone took the week off. Human bosses didnât say, er, boo when their Inderland employees called in sick, and no one even mentioned the Turn. We did throw tomatoes instead of eggs, though, put peeled
I eased back, deciding everything was okay. He didnât look worried. âTalking to you is like talking to a fish,â I complained, and David huffed, his claws clicking on the hardwood floor as he got off my bed. âYou want some clothes?â I asked, seeing as he probably hadnât woken me up for the hell of it. If it wasnât car problems, maybe he had forgotten to bring something to change into. âYou might fit in Jenksâs old stuff.â
David bobbed his head, and after a brief thought of my almost-nakedness, I got out of bed and snagged my robe from the back of a chair. âI kept a pair of his sweats,â I said as I shrugged into the blue terry cloth and tied it closed with an abrupt, embarrassed haste, but David had turned to the hallway, the perfect gentleman. Feeling awkward, I dragged a box down from my closet shelf and dropped it on my bed. Not that we had a lot of naked men in our church, but I wasnât going to throw out Jenksâs old clothes from when he had been people-size.
The scent of Queen Anneâs lace came to me when I wrestled the box open. Fingers searching through the cool fabric, my slight headache eased and the smell of growing things and sunshine rose high. Jenks smelled good, and it hadnât washed out.
âHere you go,â I said when I found the sweats and extended them to him.
His brown eyes sheepish, David carefully took them in his mouth before padding to the dim hallway, the oak floorboards glowing with morning sun reflecting in from the living room and kitchen. Shuffling to the bathroom, I decided he had probably locked himself out of his car and change of clothesâwhich left me curious as to where the ladies were. David didnât seem to be distressed, and I knew he would be if either one of them had a problem.
Wondering how David knew I didnât have a coffee date when I hadnât even told him I had one to begin with, I shuffled into the bathroom and quietly shut the door to keep everyone who was sleeping, sleeping. It wasnearing the golden hour of noon when the church went silentâIvy and me asleep and the pixies just settling down for their four-hour nap.
Hanging on the back of the door, my costume thumped, and I quieted it, listening for the hum of pixy wings. I fingered the supple leather in the silence, hoping I would get a chance to wear it. I was pretty much church-bound after dark until I nailed whoever was sending Al after me. And Halloween wasnât a holiday to be missed.
Since the Turnâthe nightmarish three years following the supernatural species coming out of the closetâthe holiday had been gaining strength until now it was celebrated for an entire week, becoming the unofficial celebration for the Turn itself.
The Turn actually began in the late summer of sixty-six when humanity began dying of a virus carried by a bioengineered tomato that was supposed to feed the growing populations of the third-world countries, but it was on Halloween that we celebrated it. That was the day Inderland had decided to come out of the closet before humanity found us by way of the âwhy arenât these people dying?â question. It had been thought that Halloween might ease the panic, and it had. Most of the surviving human population thought it was a joke, easing the chaos for a day or two until they realized that we hadnât eaten them yesterday, so why would we today?
They still threw a bloody-hell tantrum, but at least it had been aimed at the bioengineers who designed the accidentally lethal fruit instead of us. No one had been so tactless as to make the holiday official, but everyone took the week off. Human bosses didnât say, er, boo when their Inderland employees called in sick, and no one even mentioned the Turn. We did throw tomatoes instead of eggs, though, put peeled
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