chapter THIRTEEN

chapter THIRTEEN“You cannot tell your sister what to do with her womb.”Finn buried his head in his hands. “Must we talk about this now?”“I can if whatever comes out of her womb is going to be a demon,” Max said.Apparently they did have to talk about this now.“A demon?” Shay questioned.“Yes. A powerful entity bent on destroying the world, and only I can stop it.”“Or join forces with it,” Mads said.“There’s always that risk.”“There’s no proof it’ll be a demon,” Tock argued. “It could just be a monster. Something vile and disgusting just oozing out of her like—”“That’s it!” Keane bellowed. “I am not here to talk about your sister’s womb. I’m here to find out if you’re going to help us or not.”“Never!” Max bellowed back. “I’m never going to help you!”Mads, with her elbow resting on the dining room table and her chin resting on her fist, raised her phone with her other hand. She’d already dialed someone, and one word came out of the phone’s speaker . . .“Max!” came her eldest sister’s voice, snapping orders. “You’re doing this!”With the drapes pulled back from the big bay window, they all had a clear view of the MacKilligan rental house across the street. It was now surrounded by bears. All waiting for morning muffins. For most people, this vision would be something out of a nightmare. For those who had actually come face-to-face with a bear in the wilderness and had survived, it was a horror story told to therapists who specialized in PTSD.Yet for the two eldest MacKilligan sisters, a house surrounded by bears wasn’t nearly as worrisome as figuring out how to handle what they considered “family.”“But I don’t want to!” Max snapped back.“I don’t care!”“Fine!”Charlie disconnected the call and Mads dropped the phone on the table. That’s when Finn noticed she had her phone in a tough, black plastic case to protect it from falls and other abuse. No cutesy cover like the ones Nelle and Streep had. Nelle’s cover was so covered in diamond-like sparkles, he wondered if the gems were actual diamonds. And Streep’s was very pink and had the Hello Kitty logo, so he debated whether she’d stolen it from a younger cousin or something.But Mads and Tock had cases that would allow their phones to be dropped from great heights; which made sense since Mads had been dropped from a great height right onto Keane’s SUV and Tock had been dropped from a great height into an incinerator.“Just like that?” Keane asked Max, appearing very suspicious.“Just like what?”“You’re going to help us?”“Unless I never want to hear the end of it until my death? Then yes. I’m helping you.” She dropped into one of the chairs and put her feet on the ottoman. “So what do you want, Garfield? For me to steal something? Kill somebody?”“No! Why would you even ask me that?”“I don’t know. Maybe because you look like a murder-y kind of guy.”“Information,” Finn quickly cut in. “We’ve been told you can get it.”She shrugged. “Maybe.”Keane growled.“Maybe,” she insisted. “I can only ask. And I can only ask the Yangs. My mother’s people. The MacKilligans won’t help. My father has burned a lot of bridges and we’re tainted by association. One of you Malones will have to come with me, though.”Finn and Shay both pointed at Keane before he could argue.“Why me?”“You represent the family,” Finn logically explained.“And we don’t wanna go,” Shay stupidly added.Max scratched her arm and asked, “What do you want to know anyway? Who tried to kill you the other night?”“No,” Finn replied. “We want to know who killed our father. Find that out and you’ll probably find out who tried to kill us, too.”“Do you want me to waste whoever killed your father? Because that’s actually a job I’ll happily do.”“No,” Keane said. “That job is ours. But thanks for the offer.”“When can you get started?” Shay asked.“We have playoffs tonight, and practice in two hours,” Mads reminded Max.“Then we’ll start tomorrow.” Max stood. “Mads will kill me if I’m not at playoffs tonight.”“Actually, I’ll kill you if what happened last night fucks us up for tonight’s game,” Mads threatened, ignoring the ringing doorbell in her new home. “This is for the championship!”“Why would you blame me for what happened last night?” Max askedAs her teammates gawked at her, Shay went to answer the front door since no one else seemed to be making the effort.“Anyone send for a lion?” he called out.“Me!” Streep suddenly screamed, scrambling off the couch. “Me!”She disappeared around the corner, returning a few seconds later with a big cat that Mads recognized as one of the Shaw brothers. The annoying one.Lifting at least six store bags, he announced, “Ladies! I have come to rescue all of you!”“Rescue us?” Tock asked. “From what?”“Damaged hair.”“You can’t expect us to go out on that court tonight with our hair looking like this, can you?” Streep asked, digging through the bags the lion still held.“You could have just gone to a hairstylist,” Nelle suggested.“What would a hairstylist know that one with such a beautiful mane as I does not?” the cat asked.Keane moved in behind the lion, towering a healthy five or six inches over him. He leaned in and sniffed until the lion male slowly turned his head to stare into the eyes of a fellow apex predator. It took all of ten seconds before they shifted and were tearing at each other in the middle of Mads’s new living room.Streep dove in between the males, screaming to her teammates, “Save the product! Dear God, save the product!”Mads touched Finn’s arm. “Want to see my backyard?”“Sure. Is it nice?”She pushed away from the dining table. “No idea. I forgot to check it out when I bought the house.”As they cut through the kitchen, Finn heard Streep yell, “Get the hair serum! We need the hair serum!”“She takes her hair care seriously, huh?” he asked Mads.“You can’t win major acting awards without amazing hair. Unless, of course, you’re a man.”“Is that written down somewhere?” he teased.They went through the laundry room and she opened the back door to a good-sized yard. “Awww, sweetie. That’s written everywhere.”* * *“So what do you think?” Mads asked, looking around the backyard that was now hers.“It’s nice. Good size.”“Is it?” She took another look around. “Our territory in Wisconsin was acres of land, but the Clan also hunted at night. I don’t really need to do that.” She glanced over the fence at her next-door neighbor’s property. “Although that lovely hive situation they’ve got going over there . . .” She narrowed her eyes a bit. “I think those are African killer bees. Yum. They make the best honey. It’s like angry honey.”“You can’t steal your neighbor’s honey.”“That would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”“That, and I’m pretty sure Max already does it. I heard the bears complaining outside. I think she went raiding last night after the rest of us passed out. When does she sleep?”“We stopped asking that question a long time ago. Because I’m honestly not sure she does.” Mads gestured to her yard with both arms. “Do I need to do anything to all this?”“What do you mean?”“Is it fine as it is? Or is there more I need to do?”“You should maintain it. Maybe get a gardener.”“A gardener. Okay. Anything else?”“For your yard?”“Sure. Or the house.”She waited for him to make fun of her or to tell her how pathetic she was, but after a quick glance away, he suggested, “Why don’t I get you a list of things you have to deal with involving your house?”“A list? There’s a list of things I have to worry about?”“Yes. For instance, taxes.”“I pay my taxes.”“Right. But now you’ll have to pay taxes on the property.”“Oh.”“And maintenance.”“Why? It looks fine.”Finn faced the house and lifted his head. He growled, very low. So low, Mads could feel it from the top of her head, down her spine, and straight into her toes. She didn’t know if she wanted to angry-hiss at him in warning, or hang off his neck like a spider monkey.After about twenty seconds of his growling, a tile slid off the roof and hit the ground at their feet. They both gazed at it for a moment before Finn pointed out, “That shouldn’t happen. So you’re probably going to need some roof repair. Oh, here.” He pulled out his cell phone and, in a few seconds, had emailed her a file. Mads opened it and discovered a chart listing all the potential costs for a house of the size Finn owned.“Just update the stats with the size of the house and property and the costs should automatically update. Then you have spaces next to it with actual costs that you fill in as you pay it. Handy, right?”“Uh . . . yeah.” Mads pointed at her phone. “Why are there flowers on this chart?”“My niece designed it and she likes to make things festive.”“Niece? Keane has a kid?”“No. Shay has a kid. She’s ten and she likes numbers . . . and charts. And organizing.”“And you let her—”“I passed it by our accountant. He said it was bizarrely accurate. For an eight-year-old, which was how old she was when she initially designed it. She uses fewer flowers now. She likes things more streamlined.”Scrolling through the disturbing number of things Mads realized she would have to now worry about, she asked, “So . . . do you have any kids?”“No. Why?”“Just wondering. I mean, no one mentioned that Shay has kids and yet . . . he has a kid.”“He finds children entertaining. I, however, only like my niece. So, I’m in no rush to continue my bloodline. And I’m assuming you don’t have any children of your own since you didn’t have a permanent place to live until now.”“It did seem like a bad plan to raise a child in someone else’s cabinet.”The back door to the house flew open and Shay came down the steps with the coyote tucked under his arm.“What are doing with that filthy animal?” Finn demanded.“He seemed to be about to jump into the fight between Keane and that lion. I decided to keep him out of it. For his own safety.” He placed the coyote on the ground and it immediately ran under the house. They all crouched down to get a good look.“That’s clearly where he’s been living for a while,” Finn noted. “I’m calling animal control.”Mads slapped the phone out of his hand. “No, you’re not.”“You can’t keep this thing like it’s a stray dog.”“It’s a dog. And it’s a stray. I don’t see what the problem is.”They all stood up and Finn said, “The problem is that he’s a wild animal living under your house and sometimes in your bed.”“Look around.” Mads spread her arms wide and gestured to her yard. “Do you see all the skeletons?”“Human skeletons?” Shay asked.“Do you see human skeletons?” Finn asked his brother.“No.”“Then shut up.”“I mean animal skeletons,” Mads clarified. “Possums. Racoons. Skunks. Squirrels. They’re all over the place. He’s protecting my property from pests. What he eats doesn’t get into my house. That makes him a perfect non-pest animal.”“He’ll bring fleas.”“You can give him a pill for that,” Shay suggested.Finn slammed the back of his hand against his brother’s shoulder, but Mads ignored the violence and instead said, “See? I can give him a pill for that.”“You’re making him a pet.”“No more than people who neuter stray cats who hang out on their property. I’m simply helping him stay healthy in an unhealthy world. And he’s keeping the racoons out of my yard.” She snarled a little. “I hate racoons.”“Why?”“I got in a fistfight with one once. And then it turned into a battle with magical spears that took place in front of Odin himself . . .”Finn shook his head. “Wait . . . what?”“The thing is . . . I’d also been bitten by my first poisonous snake that same day, so I could have been hallucinating. I’ve really never been sure . . .” She shrugged. “Still hate racoons, though.”The back door swung open again and Keane walked out in his shifted form with a massive lion gripped in his maw. He dragged the beast into the middle of Mads’s yard and spit him out on the grass, then he tried to get the long hairs of the lion’s mane off his tongue and out of his mouth.“Is he just going to leave him there?” she asked Finn.“Probably. But he’s not dead. Eventually, he’ll get up and wander away.”Mads smiled up at the cat. “We’re in the playoffs tonight. You guys coming?”“We have team practice.”“Well, if you get out early enough, you should come. It’ll be a great game. We’re playing against the Detroit Devourers. They’re an excellent team.”“Yeah.” Finn shrugged. “Sure.”“Wait.” Mads frowned. “Do I hear tone?”“I thought I heard tone,” Shay said, which got him a brutal glare from his brother.Mads narrowed her eyes on Finn. “You don’t think women can play sports, do you?”“That was definitely not what I was saying.”“Then what were you saying with that tone?”He shrugged again. “It’s basketball. It’s not actually a sport. Not like a real sport. Like football or hockey or even baseball. And I hate baseball. But I don’t doubt for a second that women can play sports. I have women on my team. They’re great players. And very mean. My coach is a woman. Big Julie.”Finn patted her shoulder. “So I don’t doubt you. Just the sport you chose.”“I see,” Mads said. “Good to know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get ready for practice.” Mads marched past Finn, pointing at the lion carcass on her lawn. “And do not leave that cat in my yard, or I’m going to let the coyote eat it!”* * *Finn frowned. “Is that supposed to make us get rid of the cat or dismember it for easy digestion? Ow!” he barked when Shay punched his chest. “What the fuck was that for?”“What is wrong with you, you idiot?”“Nothing. Why?”“She asks you to come to her game and you tell her you don’t think basketball is a sport?”“None of us think basketball is a sport. We all hate it. Right, Keane?”Licking grass to get lion hair off his tiger tongue, their eldest brother still managed to shake his head.“See? Keane doesn’t think it’s a sport either.”“That’s not the point!”“Then what is the point?”“She likes you. That’s why she invited you.”“What?” Finn looked at the back door Mads had stormed through to enter the house. “She does? How do you know that?”“That is not a woman comfortable with other people. From what I can tell she has a total of four friends, all of which are currently putting lion-provided conditioner on their singed hair. Everyone else she’s just polite to. But she’s been hanging out with you. That means she likes you . . . even though you’re an idiot.”Keane now stood next to them as human. He was naked, with a small amount of blood splattered across his face, bite marks on his neck, and claw marks across his chest and legs.“I hate to say it, but Shay’s right.”“You think she likes me, too?”“No, that you’re an idiot.”“I hate both of you.”“But she does seem to like you. I don’t know if that means she wants to—” Keane stopped to spit hairs out of his mouth and drag a few out with his fingers. “So much fucking hair with these assholes!” he complained.“You don’t know if that means she wants to what?” Finn pushed.“I don’t know if that means she wants to fuck you. But she does seem to like you. Then again, you did just insult what she considers her life’s work.”“It wasn’t that bad—”“I went out with a girl once who, in the middle of dinner, told me three things: that she loved sucking cock, couldn’t wait to suck mine, and that football was stupid. I paid the bill and left her cute, cock-sucking ass sitting there in the restaurant all alone. Why?” He jabbed his big forefinger in Finn’s face. “Because you don’t insult football.”“You’re lucky Mads didn’t have a drink in her hand. She would have totally thrown it in your face,” Shay insisted.“And you would have deserved it.”Realizing his brothers—for once—might be right, Finn thought about going into the house to apologize to Mads but he was distracted when the coyote skulked out from under the house and ran up to the lion, grabbing its back leg and tugging at it, attempting to drag it away.“Okay,” Keane admitted. “Even I think that’s adorable.”Snarling and tugging, the coyote kept trying, even as the lion finally opened its eyes and looked around, eventually spotting the coyote attached to its leg. It shifted back to human and the Shaw brother glared at the Malones as the coyote continued trying to drag him off.“Seriously?” Shaw demanded. “Are you not done humiliating me? Even after I brought hair products for all your badger girlfriends?”“They’re not our girlfriends,” Keane muttered.“You’re just lucky my girlfriend’s not here,” the lion threatened, standing up while trying to shake the coyote off his leg at the same time.Finn snorted. “Isn’t she just a She-wolf?”Keane glanced down at the coyote still holding tight to Shaw’s leg. “So a slightly bigger version of that?”Shaw growled and started to limp toward the back door, but stopped to snarl at Keane, “And if there’s even one bald spot on my scalp—”“Blame your genes?”The coyote wisely jumped up into Shay’s arms as Finn and Shay stepped out of the way of the once-again battling cats.