Discount Armageddon
Page 50

I was sitting down at my computer, composing an email with everything I’d managed to learn so far (not nearly enough) when there was a knock at the apartment door. My head snapped up like a jackalope scenting a pack of coyotes. My presence in the apartment was, after all, technically illegal, since the original lease forbade subletting and the apartment’s actual tenant was on extended vacation somewhere in Canada. I didn’t exactly encourage things like “visitors,” especially since a lot of the people who’d be coming to visit couldn’t pass for human in a dark alley on a moonless night.
The knock came again. The mice gave a subdued cheer. “Hush!” I hissed, standing. “You get out of sight while I answer the door.”
“But, Priestess, the Holy Feast—”
“Will be honored, if it’s a man, and if I let him through the door,” I said. “Now hide.” The mice scattered, vanishing under furniture and into hidey-holes. Only a few pennants and some pigeon-bone accessories were left to show that they’d ever existed, and those could be excused as my having morbid taste in dolls. (Antimony did that once, taking a bunch of mouse-designed ceremonial gear to school as part of an art project she billed as “Barbie Meets Modern Primitive.” She got an “A,” and an appointment with the school counselor.)
The knocking came a third time. It was starting to sound impatient. “Shit,” I hissed, giving the room a quick once-over for obvious weapons before shouting, “I’ll be right there!” I triggered my screensaver—no point in giving some nosy neighbor an eyeful—and half-ran across the room, yanking open the door.
Dominic De Luca gave me a look that was half-exasperated, half-amused, and held up a large paper sack which smelled enticingly of fried chicken and the usual assortment of sides. “Before you begin shouting at me for having your address, I wish to note that I come bearing peace offerings, and am prepared to apologize for further intruding on your privacy. I simply thought we should speak, and I no longer trust you in coffee shops.”
“Fair,” I said, and grabbed his arm, hauling him into the apartment before shutting the door firmly behind him. “Sorry, I’m trying to avoid attracting the attention of the neighbors. Technically, I can’t legally be here, so—”
The room erupted into cheers. Quite literally: with mice crammed into every cushion and hidden under every piece of furniture, it sounded like the apartment had suddenly been possessed by the spirit of Super Bowl Sunday. Dominic’s head whipped around, eyes going wide. “What in God’s name—?!”
“Oh, crap,” I groaned, putting a hand over my face. “I should have expected this. I should have known, and spent the night at Sarah’s or something. This is all my fault.”
“Why is the apartment shouting at us?” Dominic groped for his belt, presumably to produce something he could use to attack the cheering, hostile … apartment. If he had a knife intended entirely for stabbing haunted sublets, I didn’t want to know about it. I uncovered my face and clamped my hand down over his, holding him in place. He gave me a startled look.
“I’m really, really sorry about this, but it’s the Holy Feast, and it’s just not going to stop until I do this, so please don’t take things the wrong way, okay?” He was still looking completely baffled. “Oh, to hell with explaining.” Stepping into his personal space, I leaned up, and kissed him for the second time.
The cheers got even louder. But after a few seconds, I don’t think either of us was listening to the mice.
Dominic tensed for an instant before he was kissing me back, all the urgency I’d sensed in him earlier returning, and joined by a strange sort of relaxation, like he’d come to terms with the reality that I was kissing him. Things got good faster this time; he wasn’t holding back. With one hand pinned under mine, and the other filled with fried chicken, it wasn’t like he could exactly put his arms around me, so he turned us around instead, pinning me up against the wall beside the door. It didn’t feel like being trapped. It felt like an embrace, one that couldn’t use the standard materials, and so had to find a way to improvise. I like a man who knows how to think on his feet.
Our first kiss ended when he pushed me away. This time, there was no pushing. He leaned into me, and I strained to press myself more solidly against him. Dominic made a small growling noise in the back of his throat, clearly frustrated by the unavailability of his hands. The cheers were tapering off, and my hormones were starting to go insane. Right. If I was going to get the situation—and myself—back under control, this was the time to do it. Right now. Not in five minutes, despite the fascinating thing Dominic was doing with his tongue. Right now.
Pulling back with a gasp, I looked into Dominic’s eyes, seeing my own thin control reflected there, and gasped, “You just walked in on the Holy Feast of I Swear, Daddy, I’ll Kiss the Next Man That Walks Through That Door. It was the only way to make them stop.”
He blinked.
“Seriously.”
Dominic blinked again. Seeming to realize that the cheering had faded, he stepped back, letting me move away from the wall. “They … who?” he asked blankly.
“My resident colony of Aeslin mice.” Sensing that the mood was irreparably broken, I took the bag of chicken from Dominic’s hand and called, “You can come out now!”
“HAIL!” replied the mice, popping into view from places all over the room. It looked like a bad special effect on a Jim Henson TV show, and I’m used to them. It’s really no surprise that Dominic jumped, eyes going enormously wide in his suddenly-pale face.
“Your apartment is full of talking rodents,” he said, like this was somehow going to be a surprise to me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Your apartment is full of talking rodents, and you just kissed me again.”
It seemed safest to keep agreeing with him. “Yes.”
Dominic nodded slowly. “All right. You mentioned a … Holy Feast of some sort? Was that the motivation behind…?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I mean … chicken?” I held up the bag, forcing a smile that probably looked more like the painted grin of a crazy clown. “Come on. Kitchen’s this way.”
Of course, my kitchen was so small that there was no chance we could sit down. Even eating standing up at the counters wouldn’t work, unless we wanted to eat with our backs to one another. Somehow, I didn’t think that was going to reduce the tension between us.