I dropped to the edge of the tub. I loved my hair. It wasn"t fancy, it wasn"t anything super special, but it was mine. Now I looked like I was doing a bad Lil" Kim impersonation.
"Well, hop in the shower, maybe you can scrub some of the skunk scent off. Meanwhile, I"ll see what I can find out. I"ve never had to deal with this before-no one I"ve ever known has been skunked. Not that I remember." She headed out of the bathroom, muttering to herself.
I grimaced, then looked at myself in the mirror again. I"d always loved the combination of my emerald eyes and golden hair, but now I looked like I"d gone punk. Bad. Very bad. Splotches of pink-to-orange dappled the gold, and even where it hadn"t, my natural color had become bra.s.sy.
"c.r.a.p. One more thing to deal with." But right now, I needed to focus on getting the stench off me.
"Here we go," Iris said, coming back with a basin filled with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a box of baking soda, and some dish soap. "Fill the bathtub."
Mutely, I did as she ordered, backing off as she poured a cup of the baking soda into the churning water. Then she added the quart of peroxide and about a quarter cup of dish soap. I stared at the briny bath and gingerly stepped in when she gave me a little shove.
Far from a nice, fresh, minty bubble bath, which I"d willingly take, this felt more like she was scrubbing off the last seven years of skin. By the time we finished washing me and my hair, I was bright pink from the vigorous use of the loofah. As I rinsed off under the shower spray, I could still smell the skunk, but at least it was muted. A little. A little.
"Oh, dear," she said, looking up at me.
Wordlessly, I peeked in the mirror. Now, in addition to pink, orange, and bra.s.sy blonde, I had platinum patches from the peroxide. "c.r.a.p," I said again, shaking my head. "What can we do about my hair?"
Iris bit her lip. I"d never seen her look quite so remorseful. "I"m not sure. I have no idea how hair dye would react on you, given your half-Fae heritage. Let me do some research on spells. Maybe there"s something we can do magically."
"Forget about asking Camille to touch my head," I muttered. "I remember perfectly well what happened when she tried to make herself invisible. She was nekkid for a week and couldn"t do a thing about it. And didn"t even know know it until somebody told her that her clothes were invisible." it until somebody told her that her clothes were invisible."
A knock on the door interrupted us. I wrapped the towel around me and Iris answered. It was Vanzir.
"Delilah-it"s Luke, from the bar. He wants to talk to you."
Luke? Luke was a werewolf who worked at the Wayfarer Bar & Grill, owned by my sister Menolly. He occasionally came over to dinner, but if he was here instead of on duty, there must be something wrong.
I stared down at my towel-wrapped torso. At six-foot-one, I was lean, though not gaunt by any any stretch of the imagination. You couldn"t see my bones-they were all covered by a nice layer of muscle. stretch of the imagination. You couldn"t see my bones-they were all covered by a nice layer of muscle.
"He"ll have to deal with me being half dressed. I"m not climbing into any of my clothes till I find something that will prevent the skunk smell from spreading to them."
Wandering out into the foyer, I nodded at the tall, lanky werewolf who slouched against one wall. Luke could be mistaken for a cowboy except for the scar that laced its way down his cheek. A faint smile flickered across his lips. The ponytail that hung down his back was tidy, but gave me the impression that his hair was flyaway and tousled by nature.
He touched the hat he wore. "Miss Delilah, how you doing? Ran into a skunk, did you?"
"That obvious?"
"Between your . . . perfume, and the new dye job up top, yeah. I bet Iris used tomato juice to no effect?" A lazy smile took the place of the worried look as he flashed a wink at Iris. She blushed.
I nodded. "Yeah, something like that. And then some quasi-crazy peroxide mix. You don"t happen to have a cure, do you?"
"Maybe," he said. "At least for the scent. I"ll have to go back to my apartment to get it. Learned to make it years ago when I was still running with the Pack. We found out firsthand that tomato juice did a number on light colored fur. But first, I have need of your services, if you"re willing."
"My services?" I started to bristle, suddenly all too aware of my semi-naked state.
"You"re a PI, aren"t you?" He was doing his best to keep his eyes on my face, though I saw them drop a couple times, then swiftly scan back up to look me in the eye. Kind of cute, actually. He was blushing. And, mingling with the skunk, the tomato juice, and the chemical scent of the peroxide, I could smell his musk, though not so thick as to indicate arousal. But he liked women, that was for sure.
"Oh. Um . . . yeah." I edged into the living room and nodded for him to follow me. "What do you need?"
I motioned for him to sit and he edged onto the sofa while I curled up in the rocking chair, making sure nothing was showing that shouldn"t be. But before I could sit down, Iris slipped in and spread a grungy sheet beneath me. Great. I was beginning to feel like Typhoid Mary.
"My sister was coming out to live here. She said that she"d had a vision, she needed to come up here-to live in Seattle for some reason. She left the Pack, which is a big no-no unless you"re excommunicated like I was."
"Did she say why?" I was beginning to wonder about lycanthropes-the Were system wasn"t the same in all species, and I"d heard rumors that amongst the wolves, rules were very patriarchal. Not conducive to free-thinking females.
"Yeah . . . I"ll tell you why in a moment. Anyway, she called when she hit town this afternoon. She was going to check in, then rest a bit and show up at the bar around eight. But she never showed. I called the cops but they don"t put out missing person reports on Supes for forty-eight hours, which is bulls.h.i.t. My sister came all the way from Arizona and I"m worried. I checked with the hotel. They said she checked in today at two, but they haven"t heard from her since."
"Any chance she got caught up visiting someone else?" Interested now, I pulled a notebook off the end table next to me and began to jot down notes.
Luke shook his head. "Nope. She didn"t know anybody else here, but she was adamant about being summoned to this area. That"s the word she used-summoned. I"m especially worried because she"s pregnant. A werewolf who is seven months pregnant just doesn"t disappear. She should be nesting, creating the lair for the pups . . . or children, so to speak." His voice belied his calm exterior, and I could hear the panic welling just below the surface.
"What"s her name, and do you have a picture of her?"
He handed over a faded picture from his wallet. As I took it from his hands, I noticed the calluses that had long embedded themselves into his fingers and palms. This man had seen hard work, harder than he was doing at the bar, and his skin was covered with faded scars.
I took the picture and gazed at the young woman staring back at me. She looked about twenty-five-misleading, of course, given the long-lived nature of the Supe community. She had Luke"s eyes. Feral and yet . . . a yearning hidden behind the wariness. Long wheat-colored hair drifted down her shoulders, honey-kissed and vibrant. She was beautiful, luminous, and dangerous.
"Her name is Amber. Amber Johansen. We haven"t seen each other in years."
He left something unspoken. Something that told me Luke had a suspicion about what had happened.
"What do you think is going on?" I caught his attention, turning on my glamour, willing him to open up.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, locking his gaze on mine without flinching. "I think that rat"s a.s.s she calls a husband came after her. She told me over the phone that she was being followed down there, and my guess is he"s trying to convince convince her to come back to the pack. His ego-the ego of the Pack-neither takes it well when their women leave. Rice is an abusive motherf.u.c.ker, and I"m afraid he"ll track her down and kill her." her to come back to the pack. His ego-the ego of the Pack-neither takes it well when their women leave. Rice is an abusive motherf.u.c.ker, and I"m afraid he"ll track her down and kill her."
And then, slowly, he crumbled. "Amber"s the only family I"ve got."
"We"ll find her," I said, sliding my hand over his. "We"ll do everything we can to find her." But inside, I was praying we weren"t too late.