Page 109 of Which Witch is Willing?
Maybe never?
She certainly couldn’t find a banner for it.
It wasn’t the first celebration they’d had since the apocalypse, but it was fast becoming her favorite.
Mostly because she was gathered around the firepit in the de Moray gardens, seven shots into some kick ass apple pie moonshine. And, judging by how green Little Earl was getting around the gills, he was going to lose the no-puke competition, as they were the last two standing.
Well sort of standing.
“Suck it John Deer,” she slurred. “Not even Pestilence could make me puke, what makes you think these weak ass sips of swill are going to do the trick?”
However, if Dr. Lecter was going to insist on being two or three bats at a time as he circled the warmth of the fire, she was going to be mighty ill.
Red, who now sported an eye patch due to the devil’s douchebaggary, leveled half of a skeptical glare in her direction. “Who you callin’ John Deer, fancy pants? Thosebourgeoisthangs would drown you in the Bayou.”
Aerin shrugged. She had really no idea what John Deer (deers?) were, just that guys that looked like these cretins wore the caps and drove big machines with big motors and chopped stuff. “Y’know?” she said, downing her eighth shot and waiting for the liquid fire to strip her esophagus. “Y’aren’t so bad when you’re not eating vermin and copulating with livestock.”
“Don’t make me weep, woman!” Mookey’s voice broke over his yodel. “I done explaint to you already, t’weren’t never meant to be, me and y’all. I belong to the crawdads and you to the city. My soul—belch—is like a bayou.” He held his hand out as if it contained Yorick’s skull from Hamlet.
“Full of muck and decay?” Aerin asked, swatting her hand past her nose as the gastronomical stink cloud of garlic and intestine-based sausages reached her across the fire pit.
“Spread over several states, not belonging to a one. Full of dangerous, mysterious things.”
“And dangerous critters,” Moira snarked fondly, as she came up behind them holding little Seraphine against her chest.
Mookey horked into the fire and Aerin grimaced at the sizzle.
“Can’t hog tie this catfish, is what I’m getting at.” He waggled wildly bushy eyebrows at her.
Red nodded sagely, scratching at his kidneys beneath his overalls. “Thus, are we all like. We’ll only slip away, don’t matter none how many fists you try to shove in our mouths to git us catched.”
Alarmed, Aerin looked to Moira for help.
“Still a catfish metaphor,” she said helpfully, patting little Seraphine on the back to produce her own little belch.
“Thank God,” Aerin breathed, looking on as Moira took the baby from her shoulder and rearranged her on her lap.
The child was happy and squirmy, and damned adorable in the purple onesie Julian had bought her that read,Pardon me, but I do believe I hath shat my pantsbeneath a picture of a waxed mustache.
Reaching out, Aerin booped little Seraphine on the nose. “You're not so bad either,” she cooed in that insufferable voice people reserve for babies and dogs. “For a toothless, drooling shit machine. No, you’re not. No, you’re not.”
Seraphine gave her a smile that sent a slimy puddle of drool dripping out of the side of her mouth.
And promptly farted.
Not to be one upped in the noxious gasses department, Cheeto belched a little flame that set Little Earl’s one good sock on fire, and he danced away to put it out in the garden fountain.
Sal leaned forward, his wizened face glowing with pride and a little ‘shine, though he’d opted out of the current contest. “Hand me the mite, Moira Jo,” he crooned. “Then you can eat with both hands.”
“Oh, I don’t have food, yet,” she said, but she passed Seraphine over to her uncle, anyhow, just before a plate appeared in her lap.
Nick, it seemed, never tired of waiting on and worshiping her. The mother of his child. The Goddess who’d gifted him with a life.
Claire drifted to the fire carrying two plates, while Dru hauled two chairs for them, and situated them closest to the flames. They settled in, and Claire passed Dru his food before accepting some moonshine from Mookey.
“See what kinda fire you start after one sippa that!” he crowed, elbowing her one too many times.
“So, you guys are leaving tomorrow, huh?” Dru said around a bite of potato salad, not exactly able to disguise his anticipation of the event.
