Page 99 of Throwing Shade
23
The demon illusionon Hotel Terminus was gone and the side door looked normal, but Huff ’n’ Puff was crankier than usual when he got into my car.
“The golem used my best towels to wipe off his makeup,” he said. “Then he tried to wash the dirt and clay off them and broke my washing machine. Get him out of my place or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
“Okay, Martha Stewart. I wouldn’t want your domestic routine upended in any way. Besides, this should all be over tonight.”
He grunted, found a classical music station, and closed his eyes.
The address Ava had gotten from the arts supply store didn’t seem promising. It took us over the Oak Street Bridge and out to Richmond, a city to the south of Vancouver, which used to be mostly farmland and now included tons of condos and really great Asian restaurants.
This particular property had a sign out front advertising fresh strawberries, though as it was the dead of night, it was closed. Too bad. Sadie and I would have to come to a farm soon and get a bunch to freeze for winter.
I parked on the street and Laurent opted not to shift this time as Mei Lin was dead and he still wasn’t recharged from all the magic he’d expended lately. I didn’t use my powers either, since the darkness provided plenty of cover to stealthily check out the grounds.
In front of the trim clapboard house was a small parking lot for customers. To the left stood a shuttered farm stand with a sign proclaiming fresh strawberry ice cream and a painted metal strawberry sculpture that was about five feet high next to a picnic table.
We skirted the house into the fields out back, headed for the small red barn, where I tugged on the locked door. Laurent offered to hoist me up to look through the window, but I refused. I was a healthy size twelve and while I really did like my body for the most part, I had a flash of me crushing him. I hadn’t even liked Eli to dip me when we were dancing, because I was convinced he’d drop me.
Everyone had their irrational issues.
I fished inside the small purse slung across my chest for the penlight I’d tossed in, and turned it on. “Hold this on me.” There wasn’t enough light to get a hard shadow otherwise.
Delilah slithered up the wall and in through a gap in the shutters.
“Whoa,” Laurent said.
It was really dark in the barn and all I could make out in her green vision were a lot of large bulky shapes that seemed to be farming equipment.
“Jude’s not here.” I snapped Delilah back to me and Laurent flicked off the penlight. “Makes sense if she’s in the house. It would have been the easiest place to bring the clay in.”
Laurent picked the lock on the back door, which was a handy little skill, and I stepped inside and grimaced.
The kitchen was an ode to the humble strawberry. A tea towel printed with strawberries was folded on the counter, matching the round table cloth. Framed strawberry paintings hung on the wall, and salt and pepper strawberry-shaped shakers sat along the back of the stove. However, the pièce de résistance were the row of small gnome figurines on the picture rail running along one wall, all of whom had knitted strawberry hats.
A tiny yippy dog ran into the room, and Laurent growled softly at it, causing the animal to stop so abruptly that it skidded across the linoleum and bumped its nose on a chair. The dog lay down, lowering its gaze, its ears flattened back.
Laurent petted the animal on the head. “There’s no one up here.”
We made a quick tour of the ground floor, because if Jude had made a golem, I didn’t want it coming out of some hiding spot to surprise us. What wasn’t a surprise were the strawberry-printed bed linens and strawberry-shaped soaps in the bathroom that were so strong my eyes watered. Laurent refused to get anywhere close to them, claiming he could smell them from the kitchen and that was bad enough. Other than an overabundance of folksy fruit décor, however, nothing jumped out at us.
Laurent scoffed in disgust at the living room shelf that held zero books but a whole slew of sports awards. All of them were wrestling trophies for one Kirk Holdencott. This was making less and less sense. Had we broken in to some innocent person’s house?
“Book snob,” I whispered.
“Damn right.”
I entered the TV room and was greeted by a wall of photos, mostly snapshots of a sandy-haired young man whose ears became more mashed-up over the years, but there were also more formal ones, such as at his high school graduation with a petite woman who had to be his mom. On the sofa was a knitting basket with a half-finished man’s sweater. A piece of paper had Kirk’s name scrawled on the top along with some chest, arm, and neck measurements. I ran my hand over the wool, wistfully. My mom had been a knitter but I’d never picked it up.
On a side table were a couple of issues of The Progressive Farmer, addressed to Mrs. Diane Holdencott.
Laurent came into the room. “There’s a car coming.”
I moved the curtain aside a fraction of an inch. I didn’t hear anything, but sure enough, a few moments later, headlights swept into the parking lot. Diane and Kirk, the mother and son from the photos, got out of the car.
I grabbed Laurent, placing my cloaking over both of us.
The front door opened, the man cutting himself off in mid-sentence, and Laurent and I tiptoed into the front hall. Well, I tiptoed. Laurent did his stealthy wolf walk.
