Spirits, Spells, and Wedding Bells

by Deanna Chase

  “All right,” Jade said. “But we’ll be back over for breakfast.”

  I nodded, knowing there was no talking her out of it. That was fine. I just hoped that by morning I would be ready to face whatever was coming next.

  Bea strode over and gave me a big hug. “I’m going to do some research tonight about that spell Jade broke today. I’ll see if I can find anything useful, and when we meet in the morning, hopefully we’ll get a plan in place.”

  I hugged her back and said, “Thanks.” I was barely holding on, and anything else I tried to say would likely come out on a sob.

  Jade and Kane took their turns hugging me, and then the moment they left the apartment, I turned zombielike and dragged myself into my bedroom. After stripping off my clothes, I put on one of Julius’s T-shirts and crawled into bed on his side. His masculine scent clung to his pillow and washed over me. I hugged it tight and let the tears flow.

  The door creaked open and I heard the footsteps of my brother, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he set a mug of what I assumed was tea on the nightstand, lifted Stella and set her next to me, then kissed me on the head before retreating back through my door.

  My heart squeezed with love for him. How he managed to handle so much when he was still only a teenager, I’d never know. But that bond we shared, I imagined it just got a little stronger.

  Stella inched up the bed and settled in right next to me, her little body offering me the comfort I hadn’t been willing to let my friends give me. I wrapped my arm around her, snuggled into her soft fur, and closed my eyes, trying to block out the image of Julius disappearing right before my eyes… again.

  I woke in the middle of the night with strong arms wrapped around me. Smiling, I pressed my body closer to Julius and threaded my fingers through his.

  “You’re awake,” he whispered.

  “Not really. It’s about time you got home,” I said sleepily. “I was waiting.”

  “I know, love. I’m here now.” He dropped a light kiss on my cheek and tightened his hold on me.

  But for how long? The words were right there on my lips. I almost spoke them but held my tongue. All I wanted to do was lie there and pretend he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Julius kissed his way down my neck and over my shoulder. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.” Squeezing my eyes closed, I traced my fingertips over the back of his hand. “Care to tell me where you were exactly?”

  “Yes, but I…” He lifted up on his elbow and brought his warm lips to mine. The kiss was sweet and tender at first. Almost regretful.

  But then his tongue slipped into my mouth, and suddenly I turned to him, my mouth demanding and urgent. He matched my intensity, and in no time we were both breathing heavily. My mind was blank. All I wanted was to feel him, skin to skin, our bodies becoming one like they always did when we woke in the middle of the night.

  “Pyper,” he gasped as he pulled away, concern in his dark green eyes. “We need to talk.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I need you. We can talk later.”

  The pain radiating from his gaze made my heart ache, and I buried my face against his chest.

  I clutched at his shirt as I whispered, “Please tell me everything that happened was a dream. That you’re here and you’re not in that in-between state again. That when I wake up in the morning, you’ll still be by my side.”

  “I wish I could, sweetheart.” He buried his fingers in my hair and held me close. “But we both know it wouldn’t be true.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “What did you mean when you said you think you’re tethered to Sam?”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “She was there when that spell went off in the café.”

  “You mean her ghost was there?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “I think so, because as soon as I blinked out, she was waiting for me, demanding that I help her figure out what happened. But she’s not coherent. You know how new ghosts usually are. I’m having trouble deciphering truth from fiction when it comes to her.”

  “Okay, but she’s a ghost. She couldn’t have spelled you. Besides, we were going to find out what happened to her before that spell. It doesn’t make any sense as to why you’d be tied to her.”

  “It does if you consider that she absorbed part of that spell. Jade did what she could to clear it when she called me back, but there are still traces and will be until we can figure out how to free Sam too. Until then, I’m stuck to her in this in-between world.”

  I blinked up at him. “Is she here with us right now? Should I try to contact her?”

  He shook his head. “No. Thanks to Jade, I have some free will to always come back to you. I just can’t stay all the time. Not while the spell is connecting me to her.”

  I sat up in the bed and stared down at him. “So you’re saying that if we can solve her murder and free her of the curse, then you can come home for good?”

  He followed my lead and sat up too. “I think so, yeah.”

  Hope exploded in my chest, and for the first time since I’d heard Julius had been spelled, I smiled. “Solving paranormal crimes happens to be something Jade and I have gotten pretty good at. Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll have this figured out in no time. Then Charlie will have her name cleared and you’ll be back here where you belong.”

  “I sure hope so,” he said, sounding tired. “I’ll keep trying to get information out of Sam. But for now just let me hold you.” He slid back down onto the bed and held his arms out, waiting for me to snuggle up next to him.

  Determined to get to work first thing in the morning, I laid my head down on his chest and wrapped an arm around him. His strong arms came around me, and after Stella snuggled up on his other side, I fell into a deep sleep.

  When I woke in the morning, I was cuddling Stella and Julius was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  “We need to solve Sam’s murder. Once we do that, Julius will be free to come home,” I explained to my friends about a minute after they walked into my apartment.

  “Whoa,” Jade said, plopping down on the love seat. She had Juliet swaddled in a pink blanket and was holding her close to her chest. “Back up a minute. I have questions. Sam’s ghost is tainted with the black magic? Why don’t we just summon her and do a cleansing?”

  Bea, who was pacing my living room, shook her head. “Won’t work. If we try to sage the spell out of her, there’s a strong possibility we’ll end up banishing her instead, and that won’t do. Besides, I suspect it isn’t just the curse. Sam likely sees Julius as her way back to the living. She won’t let go of him easily. It’s best to find out who cast the spell in the first place and then make them neutralize it. That’s the safest bet.”

  Ugh. I’d been ready to go with Jade’s suggestion of summoning Sam and breaking the curse. But Bea was right. If it didn’t go as planned, we could be dooming Julius to his in-between state for good and possibly banishing him as well. I shook my head almost violently, unable to imagine my world without Julius in it. No, we’d do it Bea’s way.

  “Okay then,” I said. “The first thing we need to do is find Charlie. She has my notebook with the names of the other people who were at Sam’s house the night she died.” I grabbed my keys and started to move toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Jade asked.

  “To your old apartment. Charlie and Candy are borrowing it until the press calms down.”

  “It’s seven in the morning,” Jade said with a gasp. “The only reason Bea and I are here this early is because we know you get up before the crack of dawn even on your days off. We didn’t want you doing anything you’d regret later.”

  “You mean like accidentally banishing my fiancé to the otherworld?” I asked bitterly.

  “Something like that.” Jade grinned. “Now, are you sure you want to invade Charlie’s borrowed apartment this early?”

  “I’m sure,” I said, itching to walk out the door. I held back thoug
h because Jade and Bea were looking at me like I was kinda crazy. Hell, maybe I was. But I had a wedding in a few weeks, and the last thing I thought I’d be doing was searching for the groom at the last minute. “I need that book if we’re going to start investigating Sam’s unfortunate demise. And I think we can all agree that we do not believe that Charlie committed this crime. Is that true?”

  “Of course,” Jade said.

  “Charlie absolutely did not do this,” Bea added as if she had some sort of insider knowledge. I knew she didn’t have any of the actual details regarding what went on the night of Sam’s death, but Bea knew other things. She had a gift of reading people. Hopefully that particular gift would come in handy while we were tracking down Sam’s acquaintances. But if it didn’t, Jade had her secret weapon of reading emotions. She could smell guilt from miles away. Okay, maybe not miles, but she knew it when she felt it.

  “Perfect. Then we need to work our way through the people who were there until we find a thread to pull. Sound good?” I asked.

  “We need to talk to Sasha, but yeah, sounds good.” Jade glanced down at her gorgeous little girl. “But first, this one needs to find her daddy. He’s downstairs in the club office.” She picked up a sizable diaper bag, slung it over her shoulder, and strode to the door. On her way out, she called over her shoulder, “I’ll meet you in the café.”

  I glanced at Bea. “Care to join me? I’m going to go see if I can rouse Charlie.”

  “No. I think I’ll go back downstairs and study the traces of magic left behind from last night. I might recognize a signature or some other thing that connects the spell to one of the more powerful witches in town.”

  “Sure. Sounds like a plan.”

  “It always helps to have members of the investigation team working on different angles,” Bea said. “You never know what the heck will pop up if you start looking carefully enough.”

  “You got that right.” I gave her a quick hug and then ran out the door.

  A few moments later, I was winded and knocking on Charlie’s door. “Holy hell, that was a lot of stairs,” I muttered and knocked again.

  There was a groan and a rustle of movement on the other side of the door.

  “Well, someone is up.”

  “It’s a little after seven a.m.” The cry came from inside the apartment, making me pray that I had the right place.

  “Charlie?” I called through the door. “You up?”

  “I am now,” she said at the same time she opened the door. She was wearing nothing but boxer shorts and an oversized T-shirt that looked like it might’ve been Kane’s. “What’s the emergency?” There was no heat behind the words, just exhaustion.

  I craned my neck, taking a peek inside the studio apartment. “Is everyone decent?”

  “No,” a sleepy voice called from the bed in the middle of the room.

  “Yes,” Charlie said, shaking her head as she opened the door wider to invite me in. “Wake up, babe. It’s just Pyper.”

  I glanced over at Candy. The gorgeous woman was curled up on a pillow, her shiny hair fanned out behind her. Sunlight streamed over her flawless, naked shoulder, making it look like she was posing for a magazine shoot.

  I glanced at Charlie. “Good gracious. I had no idea people were actually that beautiful in real life. Is this really what she usually looks like right after she wakes up?”

  The weariness eased from Charlie’s heart-shaped face, and she gave me a sweet smile. “Always. She glows from the inside out.”

  Candy opened one eye to peer at us. “Please. This early in the morning? I must look like the Crypt-Keeper. A girl needs her rest to keep up the illusion, you know.”

  There was no illusion. The woman was gorgeous with a capital G. Her natural beauty was almost unreal.

  “Right.” I turned to Charlie. “I feel for you. I really do. I mean, imagine basking in that face every day. It’s enough to give a girl a complex.”

  Charlie snorted. “It is trying some days, but her soul is pure enough that I can live with it.”

  “Oh, stop it, you two.” Candy sat up in bed, bringing the covers with her to keep her breasts covered. “Is there a development with the case? Is that why you’re here so early?”

  I paced over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared at the gray morning. The apartment faced the inner courtyard of the two buildings that comprised both Wicked and the Grind. It really was the perfect spot for them to hide away from the press and still enjoy the beauty of New Orleans.

  “Yes and no,” I said. “I saw Julius last night and got some answers.”

  Charlie walked over to me and grabbed my hand in a reassuring gesture of support. “What do you mean, you saw him? Did you summon his ghost? Kane called and filled me in last night.”

  I shook my head. “No. He’s in that in-between state of ghost and human again. He appeared as his human self.”

  Candy’s eyes were wide as she listened to us. The actress wasn’t completely unfamiliar with paranormal activity. She had been at a holiday party once when a ghost had gotten out of hand and spelled Jade. But besides that, I didn’t know what else Charlie might’ve told her about our lives here in New Orleans. If she was up to date, this couldn’t be all that shocking, no matter how upsetting it was.

  “How long was he there?” Charlie asked. She knew all the details about how Julius and I had met. He’d been half-ghost, half-human then, but he hadn’t been able to hold his human form for long. Last night had been different.

  “A while. We talked and then I fell asleep with him holding me. When I woke up, he was gone.” I brushed a lock of blue-streaked hair out of my face.

  “That’s something, right? At least you got to hold each other,” Charlie said, glancing over at Candy, who blushed at the look her girlfriend gave her.

  “Yeah, it’s something,” I agreed. But my heart was heavy, and all the optimism in the world couldn’t erase the ache I felt in my chest when I let myself wonder what would happen if we couldn’t break the curse holding Julius between worlds. “Anyway…” I shook off the doom trying to weigh me down. “I learned that Bea’s spell broke the curse enough to bring Julius back to us but that Sam has ahold of him, preventing him from leaving his ghost state behind. If we solve Sam’s murder, it will not only clear you but should free Julius to come back to me.”

  Charlie’s mouth dropped open into a shocked O. “You can’t be serious,” she said, blinking at me. “How? Why? That doesn’t sound like something Sam would do.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know her that well,” Candy said from her spot on the bed. There was an undeniable hint of jealousy in her tone along with suspicion.

  Charlie turned to stare at her girlfriend. Then, without a word, she walked over to the edge of the bed, sat down, and leaned in to kiss her softly. When she pulled back, Charlie said, “I don’t know Sam well enough to know about her past relationships. She hadn’t been working at the club for that long. But what I do—did—know about her tells me she wasn’t vindictive… at all. One of the girls stole her set number, and Sam shrugged and did something else. I couldn’t believe how gracious she was about it, but when I asked her if everything was okay, she gave me a bright smile and told me the other girl must’ve been having a rough time to do that. It didn’t seem to bother her at all.”

  “That’s just a routine though, babe,” Candy said, one of her eyebrows raised.

  “I know, but there are countless examples of the way she seemed to care about other people. It was part of the reason I was there that night. She asked for help and I couldn’t say no. She was always helping everyone else, always there for the girls at the club. I figured it was time to give something back to the sweetest stripper at Wicked.” Charlie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “How could a night of making cookies turn into this kind of mess?”

  “It always starts with something harmless,” I said absently. Then I glanced around. “That notebook?”

  Charlie nodded toward
the nightstand on the other side of the bed. “Sasha is on her way. I was going to give the names to her when she got here.”

  I walked over to the book, tore out a blank piece of paper, and rewrote all the names down. After leaving the paper on the nightstand, I glanced at the names in the notebook. “Do you know who any of these people are?”

  “Just one. Adrian. He’s her best friend and works at Pinky’s, farther down on Bourbon. He bartends there.”

  “Okay. I’ll start there. I’d stay and talk to Sasha, but I don’t want to hear her tell me I need to stay out of this. Because we both know I won’t. Neither will Jade or Bea.”

  Charlie nodded slowly. “To be honest, I’d be hurt if you did.”

  “You’re family, Charlie,” I said, my voice cracking. “None of us is going to sit around and wait for someone we don’t know to track down ghosts and black-magic users. You know that. And in this case, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” I moved over to where she sat beside Candy and gave her a big hug. “Let Kane know if you need anything. I have to go. I need to see if I can find someone to run the café while I track down these people.”

  “I can do it,” she said, straightening her shoulders.

  I frowned. “What about the club? You can’t possibly work both. When would you sleep?”

  She ran a hand over her short brown hair. “Sasha doesn’t want me there until after she’s finished questioning everyone. Kane already knows, but you know, I have bills to pay. Just let me know when you need me and I’m there.”

  “I can help you out, babe,” Candy said quietly.

  Charlie turned to her girlfriend, love shining in her eyes. “I know you would. But I need something to keep me busy or I’m going to lose my mind. You can’t stay here with me forever. You have to start filming tomorrow, and then what will I do?”

  Candy bit her lip but nodded. “I understand.”

  “You’re filming here?” Filming was no surprise in Louisiana and New Orleans, but I’d been under the impression that Candy had hopped a plane specifically for Charlie.