Ghost of Himself

by Pandora Pine

  “That’s easy. Live.” Jude shrugged as if it were the only possible answer to the question.

  Nodding, Cope turned and headed out of the room. It might be easier said than done.

  28

  Jude

  It was a feast fit for a king. Or two queens. Jude burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. The day had been long and stressful and that was funny.

  He’d left Copeland upstairs sorting through the shopping bags from Madam Aurora’s store and he’d been downstairs ever since. Not only had he made the wings and nachos, he’d even thrown together a kick ass steak and cheese flatbread with some raw ingredients he had kicking around the fridge.

  The table was set and the food was just out of the oven. Jude was about to text Copeland to let him know dinner was served when the psychic appeared in the dining room with a smug look on his face.

  “It’s almost as if you knew dinner was ready.” Jude laughed.

  “I could smell the wings from my room. I was praying they were ready.” Cope’s eyes bugged out when he saw the spread of food on the table. “Damn, I can’t believe you made all this.”

  “When you’re single at my age, you either learn to cook or you end up with an ass that looks like it’s made out of Play-Dough from all the take-out you eat. I decided I wanted an ass of steel.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Cope took a seat at the table and reached for the platter of wings. He’d noticed Jude’s ass of steel but was not going to comment on it.

  “You don’t have to take my word for it. Read the reviews.”

  “You have reviews? What, like a cheesy romance novel on Amazon?” Cope burst out laughing.

  “Laugh all you want. I’ve got skills.” Jude heaped nachos on his plate before grabbing a napkin.

  “Here’s some unsolicited advice you didn’t ask for but you’re getting anyway. Fucking men, sucking dick, knowing where a prostate is, those aren’t skills you want to be bandying about, Jude. There’s so much more to you than how many inches you can deep-throat. Why the hell you think that’s the only value you have to bring to the table is one of life’s unsolved mysteries.”

  Jude mulled those words over in his mind. Cope was right, they were most definitely unsolicited. On the other hand, he’d heard a variation on that theme from Walker a while back. “I’m good at those things,” he offered feebly.

  “You’re also good at your job or you wouldn’t have had it for ten years, right? I’ve read those reviews, Jude. They talk about how kind and compassionate you are when it comes to dealing with sensitive issues like infidelity. You wouldn’t be a consultant with the Boston Police Department and you sure as hell wouldn’t be hooked up with the guys at West Side Magick if you weren’t the best in the business.”

  Jude poked at his food with his fork. It struck him as odd that he’d put forks on the table for a meal that consisted of finger foods. Maybe he was trying to impress Cope? “You read my professional reviews?”

  “Of course, I did. You asked me to move in with you. I mean, I had it on good authority from Ten and Ronan that you were good people, but they could have been assholes too, so I Googled all of you. A lot of people think Ronan’s an asshole, but I get that. Some people just hate cops.” Cope shrugged and reached for more wings.

  It was a good thing Jude made all five pounds. It looked like they were going to demolish all of them. Cope might have been several inches shorter than him and about fifty pounds lighter, but he could pack the food away. After all the weight he’d lost thanks to the psychic attacks, Jude was more than happy to see Cope come closer to a healthy weight.

  “Enough about me. What did you learn?” Jude had been pacing for the last few hours anxious to find out what sort of research Cope had been doing upstairs.

  “I hate to say this, Jude, but I was researching all kinds of black magick.”

  Jude frowned. “Why do you hate to say that? I thought we needed to fight fire with fire.”

  “You were paying attention.” Copeland looked impressed.

  “I always pay attention. You never know when a piece of intel is going to come in handy later on.” Jude crunched into a nacho loaded with cheese. “Tell me what kind of magick you were looking at.”

  “Spells that this piece of shit won’t recover from.” Cope’s look was dark.

  Jude mulled that sentence over in his mind. “I get where you’re coming from with that line of thought, but answer me this. What does that kind of a spell cost you?”

  That question seemed to bring Cope up short. His head tilted to the side as if he didn’t expect Jude to know to ask that question.

  “I know more about magick than you think I do.” Jude paused to watch the play of emotions over Jude’s face. He wasn’t disappointed. He ran the gamut from fascinated to curious. “Just because I wasn’t a fan of witches, doesn’t mean I don’t know all about the dark arts.”

  “Because of what happened to your father?” Cope’s tone was cautious.

  Jude nodded. Copeland was probably the only man who could ask that question and not end up with a broken nose for his trouble. “When your father is murdered right in front of you with a spell as the weapon, let’s just say it makes you curious.” That was all he was willing to say about that. He’d already said too much. Tipped his hand to the point of almost revealing every card he was holding.

  Cope was silent. He barely looked like he was breathing. “To answer your question, I didn’t give any thought to the cost of using those spells. All I want is my freedom, Jude. At any cost.”

  “Freedom isn’t always free.” He knew it was a tired cliché, but in this case, it was the truth. “Let me help you walk away with your soul intact.”

  “How? We’ve already seen what this guy is willing to do to get back at me.” Cope shook his head. “And for what? Don’t you think I’d remember if I’d grievously wronged this man? Like you said earlier, I’m no choir boy, but my lovers knew the rules too. I wasn’t as active in the bedroom as you were, but when I took lovers, I never led them on or made them think they had a shot at more than what I was willing to offer.”

  “Tell me about Deacon. Soup to nuts.” Jude snorted. “Not his literal nuts. That’s just an expression.”

  “Why don’t you get punched in the face more?” Cope shook his head. “Twice a year I used to teach a Spell Casting 101 class. I liked doing it to share my knowledge with the community, but also to see what kind of talent was out there. I guess looking back on it now, it was kind of selfish of me.”

  “Kind of a magic-mirror-on-the-wall moment, huh? Trying to see who was coming up behind you.”

  “Are you comparing me to the Wicked Queen?” Cope was nibbling on his lower lip.

  “If the crown fits. Remind me never to take an apple from you.” Jude grinned. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “Anyway,” Cope rolled his eyes, “Deacon was the most talented student I’d ever seen. He was the complete package. Talented, charming, and into an old guy like me.”

  “Old guy like you? What the hell are you, thirty?” Jude couldn’t believe his ears. Cope with his longish blond hair and blue eyes was a knockout. He would have taken him home in a heartbeat, back in his one-night stand days.

  “I was thirty-five at the time. I’m thirty-eight now. Back then, Deacon was twenty-five. You know what it’s like when a guy that young comes on to you. It’s like you’re the king of the world.” Cope shook his head, as if he were reliving how stupid he’d been.

  Jude knew what Cope was talking about. It was always a thrill when a man that much younger came up to him. He was always the one who had to play it like he was in charge. Like a nineteen-year-old begging to suck him off was something that happened every day. Of course, it happened every day, when he was nineteen.

  “He was light years ahead of the rest of the class with his talent. I made the mistake of showing him favor and singling him out. It was just a class for fun, but I still should have maintained my professional distance
. I was smitten. Deacon knew it. He wormed his way in to my good graces by staying after class. Offering to buy me a drink. It went on from there. After we slept together for the first time, we both agreed it shouldn’t happen again.”

  “But it did.”

  Cope nodded. “Then it was happening five nights a week by the time I knew I had to end it.”

  “Why did you end it? I know it’s none of my business, but…” Jude trailed off. It was selfish of him to ask.

  “He was too clingy. Talking about wanting to move in and getting engaged and becoming a Boudreaux-Forbes. I was just in it for the sex. I’d told him over and over I didn’t want anything more, but it was like he wasn’t listening to me. I finally had to end it.” Cope’s eyes lost focus as he stared past Jude. “It was pouring that night. He tried to kiss me and I pushed him away. I just told him flat out that we were done. He lost his mind. Started telling me I’d regret this day. He was right. I did.” Cope shook his head which he turned to look at Jude.

  “You had every right to break up with him, Cope. You weren’t happy. What he did next, stalking you, not taking no for an answer, that was on him. You did nothing wrong.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Cope stood up. He pulled his shirt up and over the scar marking the left side of his torso. “It sure the hell looks like I did.”

  Jude gasped. He was up and out of his chair before he even realized what he was doing. Hitting his knees in front of Copeland, he bit his lower lip to keep from crying out. In anguish or rage he couldn’t quite decide. His hand came up to within half an inch of Copeland’s golden skin. Some last vestige of self-control stopped him from reaching out to touch the ruined, twisted flesh. “Cope…”

  “It’s okay. You can touch it.”

  Jude’s middle finger brushed against the raised skin. He could see the pricks from the suture marks as his finger traced the scar like a highway on a map. He’d guess it was nearly six inches long. “This isn’t your fault, Cope. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

  “What if it’s him, Jude? What if it’s Deacon coming after me? Or one of his minions? He already got his pound of flesh. What the fuck more could he want?”

  Jude stood back up. He loosened Cope’s hold on the side of his shirt, smoothing it back down over his side. His hands came up to hold the sides of Cope’s face. “It’s not him or connected to him.”

  “How can you say that?” Copeland whispered.

  “Madam Aurora didn’t say it was him.” Jude felt certain that if this were connected to Boudreaux, she would have mentioned that important detail.

  Cope opened his mouth to interrupt.

  Jude stopped him by grazing his thumb against Cope’s soft lips. “I know Madam Aurora isn’t an all-knowing oracle, but she seemed to have this guy’s number. It seems to me like she would have known if it had been Deacon or someone associated with him.”

  Nodding, Cope’s hands came up to sit on Jude’s hips.

  Without hesitating, Jude pulled the smaller man into his arms. “You learn all the spells. Arm yourself with as much black magick as you can. When the time comes, you’ll know which spell to pull out of your arsenal.”

  “I just want to breathe free, Jude.” Cope rested his face against Jude’s pounding heart.

  “So, you make that your end game. Ronan always talks about how the objective of every cop on the force is to go home at the end of his shift, no matter what. That’s your objective now too. You survive to breathe free. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

  “Like a partner?” Cope asked.

  “Like a partner,” Jude agreed. Oddly enough, he’d been thinking of them as partners all along.

  29

  Copeland

  For some reason, Copeland had a restless night’s sleep. More than once, he’d found himself wondering if he would have slept better had he been sharing a bed with Jude. When he’d gotten downstairs ready to face the day, he’d seen that Jude hadn’t gotten much sleep either, making him wonder if that exact thought had crossed Jude’s mind too.

  “I’m glad you’re up, Sleeping Beauty. We need to get to the Magick Shop.” Jude was shoving his wallet into his back pocket and grabbing for his keys.

  “Bertha Craig is waiting for us.” Cope raised an eyebrow at Jude who looked like he was ready to fly.

  “How did you know that?” Jude stopped in his tracks.

  “Uh, psychic, remember?” Cope tapped his temple.

  Jude’s grumpy look soured even further. “Don’t give me that shit. You can’t read me.”

  “No, but I can read the text from Tennyson on my phone. You’re bitchy when you haven’t slept.”

  “How do you know I didn’t sleep?” Jude fisted his hands on his hips.

  “Aside from the fact that you just confirmed it? Uh, maybe because the bags under your eye are big enough to pack for two weeks away in the Caribbean.” That was a low blow. He knew damn well how vain Jude was about his looks.

  “I’m not the only one who goes all Killer Queen when I haven’t slept. Maybe you should have crawled in bed with me if you needed some cuddles.”

  “Sure, because you looked like you hated every second of that yesterday morning. I thought you said you didn’t want any return engagements?” Cope shook his head. This was getting them nowhere. “We should go. I’d hate for Bertha to leave before we have a chance to interrogate her.”

  “Shit, she’s gonna love you.” Jude started to laugh. There was no joy in the sound.

  “She already knows me, Jude. Of course, she loves me. She was the one who saved my life, remember?”

  “If she loves you so much why has she been AWOL this whole time?” Jude’s snark was out in full force now.

  “I don’t know, but if you’d stop dragging your feet, we could ask her.” Cope headed out the front door. It seemed a damn shame to get Jude into a lather like this and let it all go to waste.

  Jude was mumbling to himself as he climbed into the Thunderbird. He looked like he was waiting for Cope to make one wrong move against his precious Ford.

  “Good morning, princess.” Cope pressed his lips to the dashboard.

  “Can you kindly keep your DNA to yourself, please.” Jude grimaced and gunned the engine to life.

  “Oh, please! Like there isn’t a who’s who of past lovers’ DNA all through this bucket of rust.”

  Jude turned to Cope, his golden eyes were blazing. “I don’t know what’s more offensive. You thinking I fucked men in this car or you calling Betsy a bucket of rust. I’ll decide over a muffin.”

  That went better than Cope imagined. He thought maybe Jude would pull over again and make him get out and walk for real this morning.

  “He’ll be here tomorrow,” Jude said quietly. “That’s why I didn’t sleep.”

  Cope turned to glance at the P.I., the look on his face was genuine. “Yeah, me too. I’m sorry I was bitchy. It feels like he has the upper hand in all of this and we’re sitting back trying to defend his moves. It would be nice to be on offense for a change.”

  Jude nodded silently, pulling the car into an open space in front of the Magick shop. “Did you study more last night?” Jude wasn’t making eye contact, he was tracing his finger over the Thunderbird logo in the center of the steering wheel.

  “I did.” They’d watched a couple of episodes of Jeopardy on Netflix after they’d eaten. Neither of them was competing very hard, so Cope had called it an early night so he could get back to his spell books.

  “I trust you, Copeland. Those words are never easy for me to say, but I’m saying them to you now because they matter. You matter.” Jude climbed out of the car before Cope could even begin to think of a worthy response.

  Scrambling out of the car, Cope remembered not to slam the door. He caught up with Jude just as he was about to walk into the store.

  “Good morning,” Tennyson greeted from behind the cash register. “Everyone’s waiting in the reading room. No offense, b
ut you both look like shit.”

  “Thanks, Ten.” Jude sneered. “That’s what happens when you’ve got a psychopath on his way to kill you and your partner.”

  “Partner?” Ten mouthed to Copeland.

  Cope just smiled. There was no way he could explain the situation without Jude overhearing him. Besides, the word “partner’ spoke for itself, didn’t it?

  “Well there’s my sweet little beignet!” Bertha Craig laughed. “It’s good to see you again, honey.” She ran up to Cope hugging him tight. Cope held on, noticing that both Craig brothers were in the room, along with Ronan, Onyx, and Dempsey.

  “Sorry, Ronan. Looks like Bertha’s chosen a new favorite boy-toy.” Ten laughed.

  “Hush, Tenny. Cope’s no boy-toy. He’s like a third son to me after what we went through in Galveston. Aren’t you?”

  Cope turned to Jude. “Bertha’s saying I’m more like another son to her after the time we spent together in Texas.”

  Jude nodded. “Thank you for saving him, Bertha. I can’t thank you enough.”

  Bertha’s mouth hung open. “Quitting sex sure turned our Jude around. I’m not sure if I like him without the dick. Do you have to go cold turkey, honey? Couldn’t you just taper down to three dicks a week?”

  “Oh, my God, Mom,” Cole Craig covered his face with both hands.

  “Do I even want to know what she said?” Jude snickered.

  “No.” Carson laughed. “You don’t want to know what she said, even though she might have a point.”

  Cope leaned over to whisper Bertha’s words into Jude’s ear. He couldn’t help noticing the way Jude shivered when his breath ghosted over his skin.

  “I’m not sure if I like me without the dick either, Bertha, but there’s something bigger and more important in my life now.” He hooked a thumb at Copeland.

  Bertha’s mouth fell open. “Knock me down with a feather. You tamed the wild cock hound, Cope.”

  “I’m not repeating that.” Cope shook his head. “Bertha, is there anything you can tell me about this guy? Who he is? Why he’s coming after me? How to defeat him?”