by Casey Wyatt
“Radiance? You okay in there?” Luca’s voice boomed into the bathroom.
Cranking off the faucet, I toweled dry and threw on clean clothes. I styled my hair as best I could by gathering it into a loose ponytail, and trying not to think about the head injury thing.
“Wait! Where is my coat?” After Luca extracted it from the heap of dirty clothes on my closet floor, I rummaged the pockets. “I found this under the couch. I’ve never seen a fortune cookie with red paper.” I moved to tear it open.
“Stop.” Luca stayed my hands and peered at it. He plucked the cookie from my fingers and placed it in his jacket pocket. “We can look at it later. When we’re alone again.”
My heart did a pitter-patter at the erotic promise in his voice. Maybe it was the blow to the head. For the first time, I wasn’t nervous about my attraction to him. There was a rightness that I couldn’t put my finger on.
Luca offered me his arm. “Shall we?”
Right. No time for witty banter or gooey self-reflection. The boss had been waiting for close to a half an hour.
Joanna was as sour as ever, fingers drumming the dining table, broadcasting her displeasure loud and clear.
“Pardon the delay. We’ve only just returned from a run,” Luca said, giving my hand a conspiratorial squeeze.
I gritted my teeth and forced a smile, keeping my mouth shut. As soon as we were seated at the table, dinner was served by wait staff that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. That was a disturbing thought. Knowing Sebastian, I wouldn’t be surprised if he hired otherworldly help.
“I know. That’s why I’m here. I’m relieving you from soul capture duty. You’re on a new case effective immediately.”
Luca stared at her, waiting. She returned his glare with one of her own. He narrowed his eyes, anger flitted across his face, then it disappeared, replaced by a calm mask.
Oh my God. I pressed my hand against my chest. I had to be the slowest person in the room. “The murder in the penthouse. It’s related to all the others.”
Joanna’s mouth pinched into a severe frown. “Yes. The press has dubbed them the Misfortune Cookie Murders. Idiots.” She slapped a thick folder on the table. “Here are copies of the human police files.”
She said human like it left a bitter taste in her mouth. It made me wonder what the hell she was. She looked human enough to me.
“And what of our side’s investigation?” Luca asked.
Joanna placed a smooth flat stone on top of the folder. “Get yourselves up to speed by nightfall. If this thing has a pattern, I want you to find it. This situation is too messy and now that it’s public, we need to capture whatever is out there on a rampage.”
“The soul at the last murder? Did Mikey make it to the Hereafter?”
“Yes. He is where he belongs.” Joanna stood to leave.
“Wait.” Something nagged at me. Granted, I was new to the job, but who would send a rookie on such an important assignment. “Why are we on this case?”
Joanna’s face darkened, as if she wasn’t used to being questioned. She’d have to deal with that. Thanks to Sebastian, I was a battle-scarred veteran of the power struggle. Blind obedience was not my thing.
“The Prophet has spoken. And the Prophet is never wrong.” With that she walked away, her heels clacking across the marble tiles.
Luca placed a restraining had on my wrist when I moved to follow. “Do not argue with her. It serves no purpose.”
When I was sure she was gone, I turned to Luca. “Who is the Prophet?”
“It’s actually a collective of psyches with knowledge that transcends time and space.”
“And?” I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping to stem off the headache I could feel was coming.
“You must have appeared to them as a key player in these events. Hence the change in assignment.”
“Yeah, well I think the Prophet is wrong this time.” Completely off their rockers was more like it.
“Do not make that face,” Luca said.
“Which one? The how did my life get so sucky face? Or the is everyone smoking crack face?”
Luca ignored my sarcasm and palmed the rock. “We should see what this has to say.”
Seriously? A rock? I bit back my disbelief and nodded. “Okay. How does one speak to a stone?” As if in response, the brands tingled. “Of course. I have to touch it.” Silly me. Feel the creepy, glowing rock. So I did. And nothing happened.
“We need to do it together.” Luca covered my hand with his much larger palm. “Hold on.”
“To wha—?”
The room disappeared, replaced by a dark cavern or cellar. Moisture coated the sleek walls. Stale decay filled the air. The only light came from a work lamp hanging overhead.
Shivers chased up my spine. “Is this real?”
Luca twined his fingers around mine, his skin warming my chilled fingers. “It is a memory.”
“So no worries about messing up the space/time continuum.”
The corner of Luca’s mouth quirked. “Pay attention, annywl.”
A different tremor passed through me at the smooth sound of his voice. Husky and low, the tone commanding. I shook myself. Mind on the job.
The tableau shifted, and the lamp hovered over a cache of artifacts: jars, clay pots, broken rocks. The items were arranged on wooden shelves with no sense of organization. Before I could focus on any one item, the scene changed again.
“Is there a pause button on this thing?”
“Hush.” Luca wrapped his arms around me. “You ask when you should watch.”
I resisted the urge to lean into his chest. “Is this necessary?”
Shrieks split the air. I started, slamming into Luca’s chest hard enough to knock the breath out of him. “Damn it!” My pulse thudded in my ears. “You could have warned me.”
“How could I when this is the first time I’m witnessing this event? Now, hush.”
Heart-rending screams raised the hair on the base of my neck. Whosever memory we were in started running toward the exit. Angry growls snapped on his heels. I knew it was a he because of the large, clomping hikers.
Heavy pants. Another howl. So close. Darkness.
“Did he make it?” I gripped Luca’s shirtfront. “Did he?”
Luca chuckled and patted my hands. “We’re watching this, aren’t we?”
I thumped his chest. “Don’t be an asshole.” Belatedly, I realized we were back in the dining room. “That’s it?”
“For now.”
“What was the point of that? And what does it have to do with the murders?”
“That is what we have to determine.” Luca sat at the table, fingers tracing the stone.
“There has to be more to it than that? A year? Place? Does it say who the man was?”
He sifted through the files. “No on all counts.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “Pointless.”
Luca rubbed his temples. I didn’t like the gray pallor of his skin. Or his lack of a reprimand for my sour attitude. Definitely not his normal self.
“You okay?” I touched his shoulder. Cool under my fingers, as if the warmth had been leeched out his skin.
He took a long drink of wine, placing his palm over mine. “Yes.”
I wasn’t buying it. Obstinate to the core, he refused to discuss it further.
“Fine. Be stubborn. What’s the Welsh word for ass?”
He never did tell me and I was too lazy to look it up on Google. Instead, we finished lunch then called for a car.
“Is this really necessary?” I groused.
Luca tapped the tinted glass. “You really have to ask?”
Outside the main gate was my worst nightmare. An army of paparazzi
. We’d already discussed why we couldn’t use a portal. Too much risk of being seen during the day and I got the impression it drained Luca. Not that he would admit weakness of any kind to me.
“Vultures. It didn’t take them long to start camping out.” No doubt to catch me in some compromising position. This was my fault. My excursion to the café had only whetted their appetite. “They’re barking up the wrong tree. The person they’re looking for is gone. No more parties. No more indiscreet fashion choices. No sex in public places.”
“You’re blushing.”
“Shut it, please.” Bright flashes popped outside the windows. Even though the glass was blackened, I shimmied closer to the center of the seat, skin crawling.
“You have nothing to regret.”
“Easy for you to say. You obviously missed my wild youth.” While I’d barely escaped the advent of social media, the video, unfortunately, continued to crop up from time to time.
“Worry not.” His face grew somber. “I ensured all copies of your escapades were destroyed.”
I paled. “Y-you . . . did what? Why?” Lord I wanted to disintegrate. The thought of him watching that tape was mortifying.
He smiled wickedly and said, “Because I know it continues to vex you. No more fretting about the past. From now on, I am the only male who will watch your lovely face while you come. And I’ll do a right better job of it.”
“Oh. My. God.” What else could I say to that?
He smiled. “Believe me, you were tame compared to some of my Alkhari counterparts.”
“Alkhari. What’s that?”
“My race. We’re a species of the Hereafter.”
“You look human.” I remembered that day in my kitchen. I’d thought the wings were my imagination. Maybe not.
“We are all children of the Higher Power.”
“So you’re an angel?”
“Not exactly. Angels are a mortal construct.” He shifted to face me. Not a dark hair out of place, suit perfect and unwrinkled. Tie perfectly aligned under his throat.
An urge to touch that smooth skin rippled over me, drawing me toward him. Again, that knowing smile appeared on his face.
I flexed my fingers instead, pretending to examine my nails.
“You should not deny how you feel about me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. You want to touch me.” He slid across the seat stopping when our thighs touched.
The heat from his limbs seeped into my skin. He moved my hair, tucked the strands behind my ear, exposing the lobe to his touch. I stilled my body so he wouldn’t see me shudder.
“No, I don’t,” I insisted, my voice wispy.
His lips brushed my ear lobe. “Go ahead. I want to feel your hands on my skin.”
Yes. I wanted to straddle his hips and rub against his —
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I ground my teeth, and with effort, put some distance between us as best I could in the confines of the backseat. “You never said where we were going.”
He sighed heavily. “I’m taking you to the one person I know who can provide some guidance.”
“That’s what I like about you, Luca. You are so helpful and informative.” And he told me virtually nothing as usual.
“I aim to please,” he said with a mock grin.
“I bet you do,” I muttered under my breath. For the remainder of the trip, I flicked through the police reports. So far, there had been four murders. Initially, investigators didn’t think the crimes were related, until Mikey’s murder. Where I received a dent in my skull. Aside from the victims’ collective wealth, they had all ordered Chinese take-out. As imagined, the police were hesitant to use food as the common factor. Not that it stopped all the media outlets from making the connection. Real or imagined.
“Why didn’t you want Joanna to know about the fortune cookie?” I set the folder aside and rubbed my bleary eyes.
“She doesn’t need to know everything.” Luca paused as if considering what I needed to know. “The Hereafter runs under different rules. Not everyone is on the same side.”
Great. I crossed my arms over my chest. “So you’re saying that even the good guys can’t be trusted?”
“First off, you need to think about this differently. There is no right or wrong side. There is only balance.”
Gack. “You sound like Yoda! I thought you said I was judging souls. Judging implies a choice between good and evil.”
Luca shook his head like I was the slow kid in the class. And maybe I was, because I wasn’t willing to believe that the bad went unpunished. “All I’m saying is that the universe is not black and white. Those are human . . . mortal constructs. And sadly, politics exist even among those who run the Hereafter.”
I stared out the window, noticing that we were in the seedy underbelly of downtown Jericho. This part of town hadn’t seen clean streets or unbroken windows since the eighties. Block after block of aimless people, grim with a gray air of desperation that seemed to coat everything. Liquor marts and convenience stores were the only businesses that appeared to thrive. Clusters of hoodie-clad youth loitered around them.
“Would you judge these people to be good or bad?” Luca asked in a low voice. Silver light twinkled in his eyes.
“Why? Because they’re impoverished? Or because they didn’t have the same opportunities that I did?” The question rankled me. It reminded me of the super rich’s attitude—fuck the poor. No, scratch that. To some of my grandfather’s contemporaries—the poor didn’t even exist. They were invisible.
“Spoken like a true liberal. What if I told you that some of these people were rapists? Or they neglected their children. Beat them.”
“What is your fucking point? I could say the same thing about my parents! They took what they wanted and didn’t care who they hurt. Economic circumstances don’t automatically make someone more or less virtuous.”
He smiled broadly. “I’m glad we are in agreement then.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “You aren’t making any sense.”
“Remember, think gray, not black and white. Ah. Look. We’ve arrived.”
The limo stopped outside of a run-down multistory brick building, the windows covered in faded posters and advertisements. A lone sign hung above the doorway—SOUL KITCHEN.
“This is the place?” I asked, stepping onto the sidewalk. The air held that thickness that I’d come to associate with the spirit world.
“The proprietor and I go way back,” Luca said, dismissing the driver with a wave.
“So you’re friends?”
Luca held open the door. “Not exactly.”
Delicious aromas greeted us: fresh-baked bread, coffee, and that yummy fried food smell. The restaurant was much more spacious on the inside than the outside indicated. And the windows had a clear view of the street outside—the posters gone.
“Table for two?” asked a perky young hostess dressed in Victorian garb.
“We’re here to see Gabriel. If he’s available,” Luca said.
The hostess’s cheeks colored pink. Because of Luca or the mention of her boss was anyone’s guess.
“Excuse me. I’ll let him know.” She walked away, spine straight, all poise, despite the earlier blush.
None of the diners seemed to note our presence. Many were alone. A few sipped their coffees, reading the newspaper. Another stared plaintively out the window as if waiting for someone. And then it struck me. The clothes were all different, as if they had all been ejected from a time machine. I swiveled around the room. One patron dropped his eyes as soon as I looked at him, fear quivering his jaw.
“Luca,” I said quietly, out of the corner of my mouth, “these are all ghosts.”
The kitchen door swung open on squ
eaky hinges. The man who strode out had “bad ass” imprinted in his swagger. Thick muscular arms, a hint of tattoo peeking out of the white T-shirt sleeve, focused attention, coupled with a ramrod straight back. I’d say military, all the way.
“Luca, this is neutral ground. Why is she in here?”
I glared at the man. Sure, he had a handsome face, nice neat hair and gorgeous blue eyes, but he’d looked less than thrilled to see me.
Luca’s lips curled into a snarl and a low growl vibrated in his throat.
“I’m sorry, sir. Gabriel, is it? I’m Radiance Ashworth.” I offered my hand, moving between him and Luca. “And I’m not here to cause any trouble. Promise.” I flashed him my most innocent smile and tried not think of him as a superhero comic book character. You know the patriotic one who carried a shield for America during World War II?
Gabriel shot Luca a dark look, then firmly shook my hand. “Gabriel Cross. I run Soul Kitchen. My customers are under my protection while they are on the premises.”
“Good to know. I’m really new to this job, so you’ll have to excuse me for not knowing all the rules yet.” Play the newbie card. Why not? Clearly Luca had left out a few major details. Like his friend didn’t like or didn’t want—take your pick—my kind in his restaurant.
“Glad we have that straight then. Where are my manners? Would you like a cup of coffee? Piece of pie? We have the best apple pie in the city.” He flashed his baby blues my way, making him look every inch the American hero. I half-expected to see a gleam sparkle off his perfectly white teeth.
“We were hoping you could help us out today.” Luca reversed our order, moving me to his side. He had to spoil the moment with his dour lawyer focus.
“I’d love to have some pie and coffee,” I said, sidestepping Luca and taking Gabriel’s brawny arm. “You were a soldier, weren’t you?”
