Ghost of Himself

by Pandora Pine

  “Whoever is doing this isn’t the most stable person to begin with,” Carson said.

  “Add to that the fact they’ve been unable to hurt Copeland now for two days,” Cole added.

  “Not to mention that they might not know where you are physically anymore,” Tennyson finished. “These factors combined could lead this person to ramp up their campaign of terror against Copeland and possibly anyone he’s associated with. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, Jude.”

  Cope sat with those words for a minute. None of what the West Side Magick psychics said had occurred to him before. “That actually makes sense.”

  “What actually makes sense? None of this makes sense!” Jude’s voice rose several octaves as he looked around the table.

  “Why the attacks started when they did.” Cope looked up at Jude. The man looked half-crazed, which made no sense to him. Jude was shouting about what made no sense, well, there was something else to add to the growing list. They barely knew each other. No one else around the table looked half as concerned as Jude did.

  “Explain that to me.” Jude looked like he was racing to keep up with the conversation.

  Cope wished there was something he could do to ease the P.I., but whatever protection charm the man had in place to protect him from harm was also keeping out good magic as well. Cope couldn’t do anything to take away his tossing emotions. Jude was going to have to ride out the storm.

  “These psychic attacks only started, as best as I can tell, about six months ago. I’d been living in Galveston for two years. The only person I had contact with down there is the guy who delivers my groceries and that’s a matter of him carrying the boxes to my front porch and me signing the receipt and handing him a tip. I tip well, so I’m sure he’s not the one doing this to me.”

  “This makes no sense. How can you live somewhere for years and only have contact with one person? What about the people you run into at the gas station? Or at the mall? Or at the drive-thru getting coffee or burgers?”

  Cope shook his head. “I was an eccentric recluse who never left the house.”

  Jude’s eyes clouded over with what looked like sadness. He opened his mouth to say something but then shut it again.

  “You’re thinking that the attacks started up when whoever is doing this found you in Texas?” Truman asked.

  “That’s what I think. It’s the best theory I have to go on.” Cope turned to the wizard. “Dempsey, what do you think?”

  “I think that sounds passable to me. It took this person that long to find you and when they did, it was all-out war.”

  “Why was psychic attack their weapon of choice?” Cope looked around the table at his new circle of friends. Surely one of them had to have some plausible explanation to put forth.

  “It’s personal but distant,” Jude said softly. “Like a sniper’s round, only it kills slowly. Whoever is doing this to you wants you to suffer. According to what Dempsey said this kind of warfare takes skill. So did tracking you down. I don’t know who you pissed off, Cope, but you’ve got one hell of an enemy coming after you and now they’ve got us both square in their crosshairs.”

  Cope shivered. Wrapping his arms around himself he replayed Jude’s words in his head. Hearing Jude include himself in Cope’s problem should have come as a comfort, but it only served to terrify him.

  12

  Jude

  Instead of being at the grocery store like he promised, Jude was sitting in Doctor Walker Harmon’s office at North Shore Medical Center.

  “Psychic attack? I can’t say I’ve ever heard of such a thing before.” Walker rubbed a hand against the back of his bald head before turning back to his computer.

  Jude watched while his long, slim fingers danced over the keyboard. Walker reminded him of Shemar Moore physically, but had so much more going for him that his handsome face and killer body. The man was brilliant, well, except for the fact that he’d made a fast friend out of Jude.

  “There’s no hard medical evidence to back up the cause of the symptoms.” Walker sighed, turning in his chair to face Jude again. “Not that I expected there to be. There are fringe studies of course, but nothing that’s going to help you keep Copeland safe from whoever is trying to hurt him.” Walker’s warm honey-colored eyes narrowed in on Jude. “It’s interesting you came to me with your concerns about Copeland…”

  “You’re a doctor.” Jude bit his tongue on the word, “Duh.” It wouldn’t have been very grown up, especially sitting in the office of a man as highly educated as Walker.

  “Who can do nothing for a patient who’s being attacked by magick. This is more in Tennyson or Dempsey’s wheelhouse, but you came to see me. Interesting…” Walker grinned at his friend.

  “Oh, stop doing that.” Jude rolled his eyes. “You know damn well why I came to see you. I needed to talk to a friend.” He’d been over this situation with Ronan and now he needed to speak with someone who knew nothing about Copeland and what he was dealing with.

  “I know. I just wanted to hear you say it.” Walker smirked. “This is quite a change for you though, to go from being a complete man-whore to now being celibate and living with a total stranger you seem bent on protecting at all costs.”

  Jude didn’t know if he’d quite put it that way, but Walker wasn’t far off. He hadn’t even thought about sex in days which was probably the oddest thing about the whole situation. His mind had been occupied with ways to help Copeland instead of being occupied with ways to get off.

  “I can hear the hamster spinning on the wheel, Jude. Spit it out.” Walker looked tickled over seeing Jude in this kind of a predicament.

  “You’re right. None of this is like me at all. This guy shows up, half dead, at Ten and Ronan’s front door looking for me. He said I was the only one who could help him.” Days later the whole scenario still blew him away.

  “Was that true? Were you the only one who could help him?” Walker looked stunned.

  “I never told you this before but I was a healer back home.” It was hard for Jude to push those words past his lips.

  “On the Navajo reservation.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I never told you that. Who told you?” There wasn’t any heat behind Jude’s words. He’d known his friends long enough by now to expect that once one of them heard a juicy piece of gossip, it wasn’t going to take long before they all knew it.

  “No one told me.” Walker sighed. “You know I’m originally from Albuquerque. It’s only two hundred miles to the Navajo tribal border. We see a lot of people from the reservation in town. I know I don’t have to tell you that.”

  It was true. Jude had lived in Albuquerque with his father. Even in a place as diverse as the Duke City, it had been easy to pick out his own people. It shouldn’t have surprised Jude that Walker had been able to see his Native American roots. “I’m sorry, Walker. This whole thing with Cope has me off my game. My father was Navajo and my mother was Irish and Scots. I favor her in the looks department, according to my grandfather. After my father was murdered, he took me back to the reservation to raise me. He noticed that I had talents when it came to healing.”

  “I saw them myself that night at Ronan’s house when Hunter showed us his Gargoyle and it burned Callum Churchill.” Walker’s eyes glowed with excitement. He looked like he’d been anxious to talk about that night for a long time.

  Callum Churchill was a member of the Salem witch community. A few months back when Walker’s now husband, Hunter Conroy, was explaining the curse which sent him back into the stone gargoyle that imprisoned him, he’d brought out the statue as a visual aid. Callum had been examining it for a way to break the curse when he’d touched it. The magick in the stone burned him as if he’d touched a hot stove. Jude had used his healing powers to soothe the witch while Walker had treated the burn conventionally.

  Jude shook his head. In for a penny, in for a pound. It wasn’t like he could come to Walker for his advice and then only give him part of the story. “Wh
en my grandfather saw that I had healing powers, he made sure I was trained in the ways of our people. I’ve been using my own gift on our friends for a while now.”

  Walker nodded along with the story. “That explains why the little ones run to you when they’re hurt or sick.”

  “What, did you expect them to run to you, doc?” Jude chuckled. He’d become something of a baby whisperer when the kids needed comfort. Jude had come to enjoy having them crawling all over him, but that wasn’t important right now. “Back to Copeland, somehow he knew to come to Salem to find me.”

  “He knew that you could heal him?” Walker looked stunned.

  “Yeah. It sounds that way. He said a spirit told him to come here. I can only assume it was Bertha Craig but she hasn’t been around to ask.” Jude found that odd too. Carson and Cole’s mother was always around, it seemed.

  “Tell me what happened the night Copeland showed up in Salem.”

  “He was really in bad shape.” Jude shook his head. He could see Cope so clearly in his mind’s eye. “Down on his hands and knees on brick stairs in the pouring rain. Even skin and bones like he is, it took Ronan and I both to drag him inside the house. He was soaked to the skin and frozen.” Jude looked up at Walker. “I haven’t been that scared since…” He fingered the bullet scar on his left shoulder.

  “I would have been scared too. Could you tell what was wrong with him just by touching him?”

  Jude nodded. “I could feel his pain and his anxiety. When I touched Copeland, it was like whatever was wrong with him was oozing out of him. Like this black mass of ick that no one else could sense but me.”

  “Are you seeing anything like that now?” Walker almost sounded scared to hear the answer.

  “No. God, no. If there was anything wrong with you, I would have told you. Before today, I would have just found a different way to explain how I knew something was up.” It was a relief for Jude to finally be able to share his secret with Walker.

  “You mean something along the lines of, you’re looking a little jaundiced, you might want to have a liver scan?” Walker started to laugh.

  “Something a bit more subtle than that.” Jude managed to plaster on a smile for Walker. “I was able to get rid of the cumulative effects of the psychic attacks on Copeland. He’s had two days now to rest and regain some of his strength, but I can see the bone-weary exhaustion in his eyes when he lets his guard down and doesn’t think anyone is watching him.”

  Walker nodded silently. “I get the feeling this is where the story starts to ramp up.”

  “Yeah. He’s been living in seclusion for the last few years because a former student started stalking him when Copeland broke things off between them.” Just thinking about that made Jude’s blood boil. No meant no. These assholes who thought they had a right to go after a man just because that man didn’t want to see them anymore had a lot of fucking nerve.

  “Former student? Shit, Copeland was a teacher? Like a college professor or something?” Worry furrowed Walker’s brow.

  “No, he taught spell casting classes and other magickal stuff like that at his psychic shop in New Orleans. What he did wasn’t unethical, but it probably wasn’t the best decision either and that’s coming from a man who’s managed to fuck his way through most of the single men in southern New England.”

  Walker started to laugh. “I’m sorry, Jude, but it’s not like you to joke about your own loose ways.”

  No, it wasn’t like him at all. “This guy, Deacon Boudreaux is his name, stalked him and then finally attacked Copeland, nearly killing him. He’s never been caught.”

  “That sounds like your number one suspect right there.”

  Jude shook his head. “If Boudreaux wanted Cope dead, he’d do it in person, at least that’s what Copeland said. He thinks this is someone else.”

  Walker appeared to be studying Jude. “And no matter who it is from Copeland’s past, you’re all in?”

  “What do you mean whoever it is?” Jude had a feeling he wasn’t going to like where this was heading.

  “This seems like an awful lot of effort to go to, right? To track Copeland down when he was living in seclusion and then try to hurt him with magick. If death is the end game here, it would be quicker and less painful to do the deed and have it be done. It seems to me like whoever is behind this wants Cope to suffer. If that’s the case then there’s a good chance the relationship between them wasn’t casual. Are you going to be able to handle that when all the ugly details come spilling out?”

  Jude processed Walker’s words silently. It wasn’t like this was the first time he was hearing those words. It was, however, the first time he was really thinking about what they meant. “Cope’s just a friend, Walker. Just like you. I would go to the ends of the earth if some dirtbag was trying to hurt you.”

  Walker raised a silent eyebrow, but remained silent.

  “I know what that look means. It’s your way of throwing the bullshit flag.”

  “I think it’s great that you’re so invested in this man and what’s he’s going through. That’s really all I’m trying to say.”

  Jude knew where Walker was coming from. He’d been the one all those weeks ago who suggested to Jude that now might be a good time to slow down with the one-night stands and find one man to trust. It was just sort of irritating that Walker was indicating that maybe Copeland was that man when his own traitorous mind had been suggesting the same damn thing. “Dempsey had all kinds of charms on him to protect him from whoever was doing this to him.”

  “What do you mean Dempsey had charms on him. What happened to them?” Concern filled Walker’s eyes.

  “The name of the game is to catch the fucker who’s trying to hurt Copeland. Dempsey thought the best way to do that is by letting the attacker find Cope so they can resume the attacks.” It chilled Jude to the bone to think of Copeland being vulnerable to attack again.

  “Call me crazy, but I don’t see how putting Cope in the line of fire is going to help you find the person trying to hurt him.”

  “Dempsey and the rest of the psychics were trying to explain something about a psychic signature. How when people with gifts like theirs use them, they leave some kind of, I don’t know, residue or something behind, that can be used later to identify them.” Jude was still at a loss here.

  “Like a psychic trail of breadcrumbs?” Walker offered.

  “Maybe.” It was all Greek to Jude, to tell the truth.

  “It makes sense in a weird way.” Walker folded his hands on the desk blotter. “When I was doing my rotation through general medicine here at the hospital, I got so I could tell who’d operated on patients based on the incision sutures. Each doctor had his or her own style. I didn’t even need to look at the patient’s chart to know who their surgeon had been.”

  There was a mystery of the OR solved. Jude used every last drop of his patience not to roll his eyes at the doctor. He did make a good point though, maybe spellcasters did have signatures like surgeons. “Dempsey is coming over in an hour to remove the charms and wards from Copeland and the house. Tennyson and the guys took him to lunch so I figured I’d use this time to come see you.”

  Walker sat back in his chair. He appeared to be studying his friend. “I know you don’t like to hear people talk about you personally, but you’ve come a long way, Jude. If I were in Copeland’s situation, there’s no one else I’d want on my side in that fight than you.”

  Jude shut his eyes. Walker was right. He didn’t like to hear people talking about him. Usually the talk was bad, saying what a selfish asshole he was or how he only thought with his dick. This was different though. This was kind of nice. “Thank you, Walker. I don’t want anything else to happen to Copeland. The man’s been through so much already. I’m just not sure I’m enough to keep him safe. That’s not a put down on myself, it’s that I don’t have any superpowers like Ten or Dempsey to use to defend him.”

  “You’ve got something, Jude, or why else would Bertha
Craig have sent Copeland to you?” A smile blossomed across Walker’s face.

  That thought hadn’t crossed Jude’s mind before. Why had Bertha sent Cope to him? As soon as he could track her down, that was going to be the first question he asked.

  13

  Copeland

  Lunch out with Tennyson and his friends had been a lot of fun. There had been something missing though. A great big, Jude-shaped something. How odd that after only a few short days, Copeland could miss having the surly man around him.

  It wasn’t that he missed Jude in the same way that Tennyson was missing, Ronan, who’d decided to go home with Truman to help make lunch for his eighteen-month-old triplets. It was different. Cope knew that with Jude around, he was safe. Okay, well maybe he missed the P.I.’s dry sense of humor and the way he lit up the whole room when he smiled, but that was it.

  He was sitting in the living room reading this week’s issue of People when the doorbell rang. He was about to get up when Jude flew in from the kitchen.

  “I’ll get it. No need for you to get up,” Jude assured him. “Hey, Dempsey. Come on in.” Both men walked into the living room a moment later.

  “Hi, Copeland. I’m surprised you’re still awake after all the food you put away. If that were me, I’d be in an instant food coma.”

  Cope couldn’t believe how much he’d eaten either. When given a choice of where to go for lunch, he’d jumped at the chance to go to Lobster Charlie’s. Their take-out the other night had been so good that Cope couldn’t resist trying it out in person. “The food there was fabulous.”

  “It’s my favorite place too,” Jude agreed. “Ronan introduced me to it while we were working the Hutchins case. What did you get?”

  “Seafood chowder and shrimp scampi and this lava cake for dessert. It was so good, I ordered a second one.” Cope felt himself blush.

  “Good! You need to gain some weight back. You look like a bag of bones.” Jude folded his arms over his chest.”