Toad made me think of a few specific scenes from the graphic novel edition of Storm Front, lol. Set after Cold Days. Sorry about the delay, IRL things unfortunately take precedence.

The weather was starting to turn; drizzly and cold as the wind whistled across the water. The boat bobbed in its mooring, tied to the dock on Demonreach.

"Question," said Murphy as she sat down at the tiny table. She put a mug of coffee in front of me and doled out plastic forks and paper plates. Thomas grabbed the whipped cream, forgoing the pie to inhale it directly from the can.

"Shoot," I said, not quite looking at her. We hadn't really talked since the night of the big faerie throwdown, when some pants had been lost and some feelings had been confessed.

… It didn't help that Thomas was sitting next to me, smirking. I wasn't sure if it was a White Court thing, or an older brother thing, but he seemed to be really enjoying the tension.

They had showed up with a slightly-belated Thanksgiving dinner; Murph had brought a box of leftovers from her family's own get-together, which had been the day before, Thomas brought the beer, and we sat around the miniature table in the Beetle's cabin, knees bumping as we divided the contents of a Tupperware of desserts.

It was a pathetic little party, in a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree kind of way. It was the nicest thing anyone had done for me in longer than I liked to think about.

I couldn't go back on shore, and they couldn't really stand being on the island for very long, so we compromised by having dinner in the boat, where at least it was warm.

"What is it with you guys that every time one of you gets in a fight," Murphy gestured at each of us with her fork before taking a large bite of cherry pie. "You end up naked."

There was a brief, awkward beat of silence before my indignant objection of "Not every time," and the sound of Thomas snickering as he choked on another whippet.

"But it has happened more than once—"

"Only once that you've witnessed."

"Yeah," she said, one golden brow arched wickedly. "I witnessed, alright."

I had somehow managed to keep from going red in the face — right up until she said that. Turns out the frigid forces of Winter are of no help when your best friend starts to roast you after seeing you in your birthday suit. So now I was embarrassed and I had the ignore the urge to throw her over my shoulder like a caveman and carry her back to my lair.

She smiled like she knew, which of course she knew.

"It's because no one wants to fight a naked guy," Thomas coughed, still giggling.

"Maybe that's why you do it." I smacked him between the shoulder blades. "For me it's just an unfortunate coincidence."

"Something that happens that often isn't really a coincidence."

"Right? Couple of years ago," Murphy continued, undeterred and still smiling. "I heard this story from a beat cop about you, fighting with some mob enforcer, naked in the rain like Roy Batty." She paused thoughtfully. "You, not the mob goon."

"Roy Batty had shorts," Thomas interjected, offering the can of whipped cream to each of us in turn. "And a dove."

"And it was a toad demon, not a mob goon. I told you about this, remember? During the whole Three-Eye thing? It jumped me while I was in the shower, and wrecked up the place, and I killed it with lightning—"

"Wait," my brother said, suspicious but not surprised as he leaned across the table towards her. "When did you see me naked? I feel like I would have remembered that."

"When we came to save your ass from your horrible dad and his porn witches."

"Oh, right." He grinned. "You're welcome."

"So I'm two-for-two with the Le Fay brothers." She took the can of whipped cream and sprayed a mountain of it onto her coffee. "There aren't more of you out there that I need to be, ah... aware of, are there?"

Thomas and I exchanged a look. He shrugged. I sighed. "God, I hope not."

"Don't listen to him," my brother countered. "He's just afraid that if there were more of us, he wouldn't automatically win the inevitable March Madness-style bracket you would draw on the whiteboard in that scary room where you keep all your guns."

"Pfft." Murphy scoffed and averted her eyes out the cabin window, gone pink across her cheeks.

"That you… already have drawn on the whiteboard in that scary room where you keep all your guns?" Thomas ventured as he stood to get another beer from the mini fridge.

She winked at me as soon as his back was turned. "Of course not."

Next up: Familiars