Shaw reared back like someone had slapped him. "False," he said shaking his head. "The woman put lies into your head."
Jeremy's lips thinned. "It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid. The woman touched me, spouted off quite a bit of disturbing information, and promptly fainted." He looked down and toyed with his napkin. "I'm afraid the woman's husband was quite aggrieved with me."
"Pissed," Shaw automatically said. "Pissed." Jeremy didn't like to curse so he came up with these strange, super prim sounding words to avoid saying something inappropriate. Words like "aggrieved" for angry or "manure" for shit. It was exhausting. Sometimes in life all you needed was to throw down a few F bombs and all was right with the world. The fact that Jeremy still continued trying not to curse was to his credit, but it drove Shaw absolutely bananas. Not that Shaw ever threw down a few of anything. His entire vocabulary could sometimes exist in curse words. There was nothing he liked more than cursing like a sailor, even when he wasn't angry.
"I'm not going to say that," Jeremy said, just like he always said. "Aggrieved," he reiterated. "The husband was aggrieved."
"So what happened?" I asked so Shaw wouldn't go off on one of his tangents about the beauty of a cleverly laid epithet.
"I stayed while he tended to his wife. She apologized but told me all of her visions came to pass, and then she cried because she realized I was a dryad." He paused and frowned. "Then her husband punched me in the face for getting her all worked up and screamed how I had made a pregnant lady faint."
I blinked. "She was pregnant?"
"Oh yes. Quite so. Large and round as a beach ball, but I failed to notice right away because I was trying to get my camera back. Before I could skedaddle, she touched me and it was all over."
"So now you're going to die," Shaw said in a flat, emotionless tone.
"I'm afraid so."
Shaw slammed his hand down on the table. "You're fuckingafraid so?" he asked. "That's all?"
Jeremy's steady gaze met Shaw's. "We are bound to our trees. It's the way of it. Now please, let's all calm down and discuss why we're here today." Shaw opened his mouth to rail again, but I placed a hand on his arm and gave my head a shake.
We could talk about this later. We needed to give Jeremy time to process what was going to happen to him. Or what hethoughtwas going to happen. None of us would stand so idly by and allow him to die.
"So what did they say?" I asked, finally taking a sip of my coffee. I turned and gave a mocking salute with the cup to the goth barista and she returned it with double middle fingers this time. A snort of laughter escaped me before I could help it. She certainly was a lot more entertaining than the eager to please one.
"Apparently, several months ago, the woman woke up in the middle of the night to an apocalyptic vision. Whatever it was she saw, it was a lot worse than what's swirling over our heads right now. The camera caught her telephone conversation with her friend."
I set my mug down at that. "What kind of camera do you have?" Being able to record a telephone conversation meant he had listening devices set up. Somewhere.
Jeremy looked chagrined. "Relax. I told the husband where all the bugs were and he removed them."
"Was this before or after he punched you?" Shaw asked.
Jeremy glared. "Anyhow, the woman had a vision of a rift opening up above our heads. But what she saw versus what's actually happening is different. We know there are rumors of people seeing things come out, but we don't know if that's substantiated or just wild gossip."
I thought about the storm. It didn't look like it was trying to harm anyone. Right now.
"Was there anything else?" I asked.
Jeremy nodded. "What she saw seemed bad. Like end of world bad. When I questioned her about it, she said that things could always change depending upon one's decisions. I don't know whose decision it was to open up a rift right above our heads, but she said we could avoid the worst of it if we acted proactively."
"I don't even know what that means," Shaw said and stared at Jeremy like he was nuts.
"Me neither," he admitted. "But the woman also said that not everything was going to come out of the sky. She made it sound almost like an invasion of some sort. Whatever is about to happen, it isn't going to be pretty."
I sat back in my chair and pondered his words. "Did she say anything else?"
"Something about the necromancer trying to stop it." Jeremy shrugged. "I assume she meant Helen, but I'm not sure about it. This town keeps growing at a rapid pace. Who knows how many necros we have here now?"
"Just Helen," Shaw said. "Death is business and her business is booming. Hank says she's booked solid for the next two years."
Hank owned one of the nurseries in Midnight Cove. I never knew a ghoul with a green thumb like his, but he made gardening look like child's play. He was responsible for the landscaping around this building and most of the lots in and around the city. It was an odd pairing that. A man who made things live and a girl who played with dead things.
Though Hank would surely punch me if I thought of his wife that way out loud. I decided to change the subject.
"I saw Portia Kadish this morning."
