Magic of the Wood House (The Elemental Phases Book 6) (31 page)

Zeke
blinked like she was a complete enigma.  “Really?”  He finally asked, as if he
was half-convinced she was joking.

“Yes. 
Really
.”  Was that so bizarre a concept?

He
slowly shook his head.  “Jesus, you really are going for the all-time record of
consecutive acts of good girly-ness committed in Las Vegas.”  The mockery faded
from his incredible eyes and he looked somehow unsettled.  “Fine.  Save
yourself for Sir Lancelot.”  He turned back towards his office.  “I’m gonna be
busy playing Xbox for the next six hours.  Don’t bother me.”

“This
is supposed to be
your
shift…”  Scotlyn made a face as he slammed his
door shut.  No wonder he had to pay for sex, given what a grouchy, moody,
annoying…

Oh.

She
absently glanced back at her computer monitor and winced at the “auction ended”
banner glowing at the top of the screen.  Right.  She’d forgotten about
that
. 
Clearly, she needed to concentrate on something besides her evil employer.

eBay. 
Imminent bankruptcy.  Selling all her worldly goods.

Think
.

What
else could she do to get money?

If
she had parents, Scotlyn supposed she could’ve hit them up for a loan, but
she’d been abandoned as an infant.  Her earliest memories were of orphanages
and foster homes.  Most of which --no matter what
20/20
exposes on the
subject seemed to suggest-- had been really supportive.  She’d never been
abused or neglected.  Hell, several of her foster parents still sent her
birthday cards.  But, none of them had the cash to pay her rent.

Scotlyn
ran a hand through her shoulder length curls and frowned.

Hey,
did wigmakers still buy hair like in
Little Women?
  She pulled a strand
in front of her eyes, considering its possible untapped value. 
Were
there even such things as wigmakers, anymore?  There must be.  Where did the
hair in wigs come from if not from other people’s heads?  The strawberry blonde
color of her curls was Scotlyn’s best feature.  People always complimented it. 
Maybe her hair was worth a fortune to some black market wig trader.

She
winced.

Yeah,
that sounded desperate, even to her.

To
Scotlyn’s eternal shame, she still actually tried Googling information on the
human hair business, but the stupid internet seemed to be down.  Shit.  She
frowned at the screen in annoyance.  Why was she –alright, why was
Zeke
--
paying for high speed access if the damn thing wasn’t going to work when she
needed…

A
sound came from outside and Scotlyn’s head whipped around to stare out at the
golf course in alarm.  Her desk sat in front of the sliding glass doors that
led to the greens.  She could see all eighteen holes and she knew that there
shouldn’t have been a single customer playing on any of them…

Except
there was some drunken guy staggering around Mount St. Hot, Hot, Hot.  He
seemed to be walking into the side of it, backing up, and then walking into it,
again.  Over and over, so the whole thing shook.  Then, he took his hands and
gave it a ruthless shake.

“Zeke!” 
She bellowed, even as she sprang towards the door and out onto the course.

Mount
St. Hot, Hot, Hot was the largest and most delicate obstacle at TGW.  Shaped
like a gigantic volcano, it was made of thin fiberglass.  Glowing red lava
trails made from Christmas tree lights, trailed down its sides and tiny naked
women were tossed in the ten foot smoke stack, via clockwork mechanism.  When
you sunk your putt, the “volcano goddess” celebrated with an array of orgasmic
sounds and an eruption of sparklers.

The
whole stupid contraption was held together with duct tape and prayers.  If some
lunatic broke it, her whole weekend would be spent cursing at power tools and
crying over her ruined manicure.  That
wasn’t
going to happen.

Zeke
came stalking out of his office at her shout.  “What did I do to piss you off,
now…?”  He stopped short, sizing things up pretty quickly.  “Son-of-a-
bitch
. 
Scotlyn, no!”

Scotlyn
disregarded that order, intent on saving her volcano.  “Stay away from that,
you moron!  You’re going to break it!”

As
she got closer, the guy’s unfocused eyes and halting steps told her that she
was dealing with something
way
stronger than alcohol here.  He looked
like he was drooling, a long stream of saliva trailing from the corner of his
mouth and glistening in the course’s floodlights.  As she watched, the guy tore
loose a piece of the volcano’s plastic side and ate it.

“
Fuck
.” 
Zeke could move fast when he wanted to.  He was across the office, before she’d
even gotten passed hole three.  “Scottie, I swear to Christ!”  He seized hold
of her arm and yanked her to a halt.  “Go back inside or I really will fire
your ass.”

“Promise?” 
She tried to wrench herself free of his grasp, but Zeke didn’t let release
her.  “Are you kidding me?”  Scotlyn glowered up at him, ignoring the radiating
warmth of his body and the feel of his palm on her skin.  “Stop being an idiot
and let me go.”

Whenever
she got within a foot of Zeke her heart started pounding and touching him just
made it worse.  Whatever weird pheromone his body gave off, she was
positive
he did it deliberately to mess with her head.

He
ignored her complaints and adjusted his grip, so her wrist wound up pinned
behind her back.  Scotlyn’s eyes widened in surprise as Zeke tugged her
forward.  Her free palm automatically came up to rest on the wide expanse of
his shoulder.

How
had he done that?  The guy spent four hours a day flicking pencils into the
acoustic tiles of his ceiling.  But, in less than two seconds, he’d expertly
captured her body against his, keeping her hand trapped against her spine and
her breasts flattened against his chest.  That wasn’t an accident.  Every move
he made was deliberate, as if he’d practiced complicated martial arts maneuvers
from the cradle and her brief struggle was just like someone swatting at a fly.

That
just pissed her off more.  “He’s destroying hole eight, while you play caveman,
Ezekiel!”

“Does
it seem like I give a shit about this golf course? 
Get inside.
When you
die, I want the joy of killing you myself.”

Scotlyn’s
insides took a dip.  Okaaaaaay.  That determination was new.  Suddenly, a
different, harder person was possessing her slacker boss.  She wasn’t
intimidated by his badass tactics.  In fact, she felt very safe.  She always
felt safe with Zeke.  Her eyes stayed locked on his, even as her body grew
warmer.  Every time she breathed, her chest rubbed against his, her breasts
getting tight.  She’d never been this close to him before.  It was annoyingly,
embarrassingly, pitifully exciting.

Zeke
felt it, too.  His lavender gaze glowed hot as the hard points of her nipples
grazed him.  Her bra was a beautiful concoction of silk and lace that did
absolutely nothing to hide her desire.  He tugged her a tiny bit closer and she
felt the hard evidence of his arousal.

Scotlyn
felt her jaw drop.  Jesus, he wasn’t joking, for once.  He was turned on and
that just had her whole body tingling.  It was
such
a bad idea, but
Scotlyn still moved against him.  It was just a tiny instinctive rocking of her
hip, but it was still… acceptance.

His
expression got ever harsher.  “Don’t.”  He warned.  “You won’t like what you
unleash, baby.”

Actually,
she was willing to bet that she’d like it a
lot
.

Still,
he was right.  This whole thing had gotten out of control and that worried
her.  In some bizarre way, Zeke was her best friend.  When she wasn’t despising
him or mentally undressing him, anyway.  He was the one she talked to and spent
time with.  She didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize their weird
relationship.

Scotlyn
dropped her gaze and tried to refocus.  “
I
care about the golf course.”

Zeke
cleared his throat.  “I know you do. 
I’ll
stop the intruder, alright? 
Not you.”  He released Scotlyn, but not before giving her a not-so-subtle nudge
back towards the office.  Once he stood between Scotlyn and the drugged-out
lunatic, his normal sardonic tone returned.  “And remind me again why I’m
paying you to watch the front desk?  How did you let this guy in?”

“I
didn’t
.  He must’ve scaled the back fence or something.”

“We
need barbwire.  Put
that
on one of your lists and order some tomorrow.” 
He studied the grunting invader for a moment, his jaw tightening.  “Crazy damn
meth head.”  He started towards the volcano…

…And
that’s when Scotlyn saw that he was carrying a revolver.

Whoa…
hang on.  Zeke had a gun?!

Shit
.

“Zeke,
wait.  Don’t do anything crazy here.”  Jesus, it was like the man was allergic
to having good ideas.  “Experts always say that you shouldn’t have a weapon in
your hand during a confrontation.”

“Bullshit. 
You wouldn’t
need
weapon unless you were in confrontation.”

Touché.

“Well,
before you open fire, bear in mind that Nevada has the death penalty.”

“Don’t
worry about it.  The cops aren’t going to find the body.”

God,
but she hoped he was kidding.

Scotlyn
chased after him, because there was always a chance he might be serious.  Zeke
had a lousy sense of humor about trespassers and an inability to think more
than five seconds into the future.  That didn’t bode well for any kind of
peaceful compromise.

“Let’s
just call the police.”  They’d take their own sweet time responding to anything
in this part of town, but she’d rather the golf course get chewed apart piece
by piece than see Zeke go to prison for murder one.  “Zeke…”

“Yo,
ass-wipe, you have two fucking seconds to get off of my property, before I
personally test the local gun laws.”  He shouted, nearing Mount St. Hot, Hot,
Hot.  Above his head, white puffs of fog-machine fog poured from the volcano’s
mouth and into the dark sky.

Scotlyn
automatically looked up at them and saw something
wrong
.  A pink haze
covered the clouds and a fine mist of glitter seemed to be falling in the
distance.  For some reason, it had the hairs on the back of her neck standing
up.

The
junkie guy didn’t answer, but he definitely heard him.  His face snapped around
like a wild animal’s, his tilted at an impossible angle.  He started towards
them.

Zeke’s
eyes narrowed.  “What the hell is this now?”  He asked, almost to himself.  “Why
does he smell dead?”

“Wait.” 
Scotlyn grabbed hold of Zeke’s sleeve as he stepped forward to meet the guy,
anyway.  She didn’t smell anything, but the trespasser fixed his blank gaze on
them and she just… knew.  It didn’t make any sense, but in that heartbeat she
knew
and she didn’t question it.

The
man wasn’t human.

Scotlyn’s
palm slid down to Zeke’s forearm, her fingers digging into his skin.  “Don’t go
near him.”  It was the first time she’d ever initiated any contact between
them.  The first time
she’d
ever touched
him
.  “Something’s
wrong.”

Zeke
looked her hand in surprise and then back to the trespasser.  She could tell
from the tension in his body that he believed her.

Which
was good, because Scotlyn was beginning to realize the problem was even bigger
than just the whatever-the-hell that guy-was.  There were more of them milling
around.  A lot more.  As her eyes adjusted and she looked around, she spotted
at least twenty in the open expanse of desert behind the golf course.  A few of
them wandered over to cling onto the chain link fence that surrounded Zeke’s
property, shaking it as they tried to find a way through.

“Alright,
tell me I’m drunk and I’m not really seeing that.”  Zeke whispered fiercely.

“I’m
sure you
are
drunk, but we
both
totally see it.”

Someone
burst of out the all-night laundromat next door, screaming like he’d seen
straight into hell.  He leapt through a window, fleeing from whatever was
inside and shattering the glass.  Somehow staying on his feet, apparently
through pure panic and the pin-wheeling of his arms, he took off into the
not-so-empty desert.  Instantly, the stumbling figures were upon him.  They
dragged shrieking man to the sand and seemed to start…

Eating
him.

“
Oh
my God!
”  Scotlyn shouted.

“Let’s
go
.”  Zeke moved his hand to grip her wrist and tugged her backwards.

Scotlyn
let him pull her away.  There was nothing they could do for dead man.  Zeke was
right.  They had to get out of there.  “What are we…? 
Shit!
”

The
trespasser lunged forward, his arms outstretched, clawing at them.  He moved so
fast.
  This close, Scotlyn could see he was wearing a cheap suit and a
tie with the
Peanuts
characters on it.  She could also see that it
wasn’t drool dripping from his mouth.