“It’s rude to discuss someone as if they’re not in the room,” Emmet snapped. “Who taught you manners?”
“You,” Cormack replied. “Eat your breakfast and shut up.”
“Please shut up,” Redmond intoned.
Emmet ignored the admonishments. “Why won’t any of you tell me where Mary is? Is she out looking for me? That would be just like her. She’s probably out searching for me and you all are here eating breakfast. You always were a lazy lot.”
“Has nobody told him?” Cillian queried.
Cormack shook his head. “I wasn’t sure what to say.”
“Told me what?” Emmet demanded. “What is it you don’t want to tell me?”
“I’ll get him into the doctor after breakfast,” Cormack said. “Maybe there’s some neurological reason for this.”
“Or it’s karma,” Aisling said. “I’ll handle this.” She moved to the spot in front of her grandfather.
“Aisling, wait,” Cormack ordered.
She ignored him. “Grandma is dead. She was killed weeks ago thanks to your association with our friendly neighborhood revenants. The good news is that she was dying anyway. The bad news is that it happened after you disappeared through the gate, which was after you tried to kill us. So, congratulations, your insistence on being a douche got you absolutely nothing but a ticket to the other side.”
Emmet worked his jaw. “You’re ... lying,” he said finally. “She’s not dead.”
“She is dead,” Cormack quietly confirmed. “I handled her arrangements myself. She’s in the family mausoleum if you want to visit ... after you’ve seen the doctor. Her soul was collected by another reaper family, as per usual in situations like this, and she was transferred to the other side.”
“No!” Emmet’s face turned a mottled red. “You’re lying. You’re just saying that to torture me.”
“If I were going to torture you it would be with a parade in downtown Ferndale,” Aisling shot back. “Why would we lie about this?”
“Because you’re incorrigible. You always have been. Your father let you run wild as children — not the example set for him — and you’ve turned into monsters as adults.”
“Okay.” Aisling rolled her eyes. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
“I’m sorry that the information came out this way,” Cormack offered. “I know you loved her.”
“Just not the rest of us,” Aidan muttered.
Cormack nodded in agreement. “Mother is gone. She was already sick when she was killed. She didn’t have long to live.”
Emmet refused to hear it. “You’re lying and I don’t believe you.”
“Well, I’m sorry for that.” Cormack settled Lily in her highchair and smiled at the woman who handed him the baby’s gourmet breakfast. “You seem to be living a few years behind where we are right now. Hopefully the doctor will be able to determine what’s wrong.”
“If the doctor can’t fix him, can we put him to sleep?” Aisling asked. “I mean ... that would be the humane thing to do.”
Emmet glowered at her. “You’ve always been a horrible girl.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Aisling waved her hand. “Either way, he shouldn’t stay here. I don’t trust him. He could be lying about what he remembers.”
Cormack hesitated and then held out his hands. “We’ll play it by ear. If we have to switch up living arrangements, there’s always the basement room to consider.”
Aisling brightened considerably. The basement “room” was actually a cell. “Great idea. Let the snakes eat him.”
Cormack sighed wearily. “There are no snakes down there, and I want you to stop saying that. I don’t want Lily to fear this house.”
“She won’t like the snakes either.” Aisling shot her grandfather a pretty smile. “Eat up, Gramps. The food in the cell won’t be nearly as good.”
“You’re all devils,” Emmet said darkly. “I always knew it, but now you’ve proved it.”
Yup. It was going to be a really long day.
Seven
When Lily was under his roof, Cormack toted the baby around with him. He didn’t bother when leaving Grimlock Manor with his father this time — obviously he was suspicious about the man’s motivations — which left Lily was up for grabs ... and all the Grimlocks were fighting for her.
“You need to collect souls today,” Braden insisted when Aisling pointed out that she was Lily’s mother, which meant she was in charge.
“Technically I don’t have to do anything,” Aisling shot back. “I bet if I call Dad and ask if I have to collect souls, he will say no.”
“That’s because you’re spoiled rotten.” Braden’s gaze was dark. “Listen, you have a right to take time off for your maternity leave, but you’re supposed to be back full time now.”
“I can’t take Lily with me to collect souls,” Aisling snapped.
“Then you collect all the souls today and I’ll take Lily.”
“No!”
I rubbed the spot between my eyebrows to ward off the oncoming headache and briefly wondered if I could slip out of the house without anybody noticing. Shooting me a sympathetic look, Cillian patted my shoulder and cleared his throat.
“I’m not in the field today,” he said. “I’m conducting research at the reaper library at headquarters. I can take her.”
Aisling studied him a moment, seemed to consider it, but then shook her head. “I don’t want her at reaper headquarters.”
Something occurred to me. “What if Cillian does his research in the library off the gate room today?” I suggested. “There’s a lot of research material in there, and I’ll be close.”
“I’m not okay with that,” Griffin said as he rocked Lily in an attempt to cajole a smile out of her. She was in a foul mood. Whenever her family became riled, Lily turned into an absolute tyrant. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything, Izzy, but a man died out there yesterday. And Emmet strolled through the gate in the middle of the night. I really don’t want my daughter there in case somebody else decides to stroll through.”
He had a point.
“You just don’t want her around the furries,” Aisling countered. “You think it will warp her.”
“I have no problem with the furries. Mascots are awesome. I’m a big fan when they trot out Paws at the Tigers games. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable for not wanting her out there.”
“I guess.” Aisling sighed. “That means I have to take the day off, and you need to cover for me, Braden.”
“No.” Braden vehemently shook his head. “I only got four hours of sleep last night because of the mission to retrieve Emmet.”
“You should’ve just left him there.”
“I don’t disagree, but I don’t trust him in the gate room without a chaperone.”
Aisling ran her hand over Lily’s dark hair. “I don’t see another option.”