by AJ Sherwood
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Epilogue
Glossary
Author
This book is a work of fiction, so please treat it like a work of fiction. Seriously. References to real people, dead people, good guys, bad guys, stupid politicians, companies, restaurants, events, products, locations, pop culture references, or wacky historical events are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Or because I wanted it in the story. Characters, names, story, location, dialogue, weird humor, and strange incidents all come from the author’s very fertile imagination and are not to be construed as real. No, I don’t believe in killing off main characters. Villains are a totally different story.
MACK’S PERFECTLY GHASTLY HOMECOMING
Mack’s Marvelous Manifestations 2
PRINTING HISTORY
February 2020
Copyright © 2020 by AJ Sherwood
Cover by Katie Griffin
A red abstract state map of Louisiana, a 3D render symbolizing targeting the state to find its outlines and borders by iQoncept/Shutterstock; cartoon smoke set by d1sk/Shutterstock
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Purchase only authorized editions.
www.ajsherwood.com
Trigger Warnings:
None
Tags:
Bad ghosts, homophobia, Brandon’s dying to shoot something, cockblocking ghost, lots of first times in this one, car sex, Mack is secretly a BAMF, which turns Brandon on so HARD, pun totally intended, FBI paranormal division likes to break things, Brandon’s super happy about it, no dedicated top/bottom, M/F/M secondary characters, bisexual PoC BAMFs, relationship growth, self-growth, Mack’s a work in progress and he knows it, flying is fun
Check the back for a glossary of Creole, Tongan, and Southernisms!
1
It was never promising when your boss called you late at night. At least, not in my case. I looked at the phone dubiously and answered it with severe misgivings. “Hello?”
“Mack,” Sylvia started out quite brusquely. “I’ve got two requests for you and a new destination I need you to be at tomorrow night.”
“Two? Oh boy, where and what?” I looked around, intending to signal my partner, but Brandon was somewhere else in the house. Jon caught me looking for him and pointed upstairs. I gave him a nod of thanks and headed for the second story, keeping the phone to my ear as I went.
“Here’s the fun part. One of the requests is in your hometown. Opelousas.”
I stumbled on the step. “Wha—why there?”
In Mach 2 seconds, Brandon appeared at the top of the stairs, looking down at me in concern. He’d changed out of his sweater for some reason and was in a clinging t-shirt that showed the muscular definition of his arms and shoulders in loving detail. He must have just changed, as his short-cropped black hair stuck out at interesting angles. Hadn’t he mentioned going for a shower earlier? He’d heard me even from the bathroom? I swear to you, the man has radar. An alarm. Something that goes off if I take a wrong step. He’s scarily good at appearing just as I lose my balance.
Sylvia still spoke, and I put the phone on speaker so Brandon could hear, waving him down. “—know that any request from family members of the FBI take top priority?”
“Uh, I did not know that, actually.” I shifted on the stairs so Brandon could stand facing me, both of us braced against opposite walls of the stairwell as we listened. In the mellow lighting of the stairwell, his copper skin glowed richly. I had a hard time not ogling him and actually paying attention to the conversation.
“It’s one of those courtesy things we do as an agency. Typically, if you’re related, we don’t send you in personally. Conflict of interest and all of that. However, we have leeway in our department because there’re so few of us. If we don’t have enough people on hand, or it’s time sensitive, we can justify sending you in. This will be one of those cases as everyone else is tied up at the moment. Your cousin Edmée DeVilliers put in an urgent request for a medium. According to the report synopsis I read, she’s got something in the house messing with her daughter at night.”
Grimness twisted my gut. “Cali’s four.”
“So you know this cousin?”
“Yeah, she’s one of the few relatives I like. Shit. I checked her house before I left, wanting her to have peace of mind. Cali’s birth was rough on everyone involved. Did she move?”
“As of two months ago.”
I had no idea why she would, but I could ask when I talked to Edmée. And I’d definitely be talking to her. I looked to Brandon and I knew why she hadn’t called me directly. My cousin no doubt had heard from my mother that my partner was still in training. Well, he had been until Friday. He’d passed all the tests. “Brandon, I need to go.”
“We do,” he agreed with a nod, as if this was a foregone conclusion. “Sylvia, you get me an address and we’ll pack up tonight, hit the road early in the morning.”
“There’s more than this one problem. I’ve got another one as well.”
“Of course you do.” Brandon’s smile was a touch too delighted. But then, he was a bit touched sometimes when it came to anything supernatural. “Same area?”
“Same area. I’ll email you both the file on it. You can read it on the way down. For my knowledge, are you driving or flying?”
“Driving,” I said. “It’ll take us a bit longer to get there, but I don’t want to cram everything I need into two suitcases and a carry-on.”
“I don’t blame you. Alright. Have you picked up the company SUV yet?”
“Uh, not yet?”
“Get that now. I’ll have someone meet you at the car lot. Brandon, if this vehicle doesn’t fit your legs, tell me. I’ll arrange for something else at the dealership.”
“What did you get us?” he asked, canting his head.
“Chevy Tahoe.”
“Oooh. No, I fit fine in those.”
“Good! I hate wasted effort. Get going, boys. Oh and Mack, I don’t want you to think you have to do this on your own. The second case I’m sending you on is…well, it has the potential to be a hotbed of trouble. If you feel like you need backup, please use the good sense God gave you and call me.”
That command worried me. Just what was the second case? “Yes, ma’am.”
“Keep me posted, gentlemen, and safe travels.” The phone clicked as she ended the call.
I expected Brandon to be excited, and he was, I could see it in those gorgeous golden-brown eyes of his. But overriding that was concern. He said quietly, “You don’t look excited about going home. Problem?”
“I’ll tell you on the way to the dealership,” I promised him.
“Okay. Let me get Don.”
I rolled my eyes. “I can drive.”
He leaned in and kissed me softly. “You can do anything. But please don’t drive. It scares the ever-living shit out of me.”
“When you put
it like that, it’s really hard to argue with you.”
He kissed me again, quick and chaste, then bounded back upstairs and called for his brother as he went. I chose to go down, as my shoes were near the back door, and I nearly collided with Jon as I rounded the bottom stair.
Jon’s reflexes were better than mine, and he caught us both before we could take a tumble. “Sorry.”
He waved this off and asked in concern, “How bad is this, that you’re getting called in?”
“Not good,” I admitted. “FBI mediums are dispatched when it meets one of three criteria: One, it impacts a child. Two, physical harm has been dealt. Three, structural damage has occurred to the property. I’m really hoping it’s just because a toddler is involved that I’m being called in. But I know my cousin, and she doesn’t spook easily.”
“So if she put in a formal request, then this is more than sounds bumping in the night.” Jon nodded, his mouth firming in an unhappy line. “That’s why you’re so worried.”
After several weeks of living with him, I’d gotten used to him reading my emotions and didn’t deny it. “Yeah. I’ll give her a call in a minute and get the facts straight from her.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Can you pack us some sandwiches and snacks for the road?” I asked hopefully. Jon was a good cook and truthfully, fast food was death to me. Most of it had dairy. Or corn. Sometimes dairy and corn. Either way, not good for yours truly.
“Sure. Anything else?”
“Any of my specialty foods, please. As long as its non-perishable. It’s basically a ten-hour drive from here.”
“Ah. Yes, too long for anything perishable.” He patted me on the shoulder, promising, “I’ll be careful in my selections. Do you have laundry?”
“Dammit!” I’d clean forgotten the wash I had in the machine. “I’ll change that out before I go.”
Don and Brandon joined us at that point, both of them with jackets on. Then again, it was the end of March and we still had our bitterly cold days.
I considered anything under fifty degrees to be bitterly cold, thank you very much.
“I’ll drive them to the dealership,” Donovan informed Jon. “Be back in a bit.”
“Actually, can you stop by the post office? We’ve got bills to mail out.”
“Oh, sure.”
Brandon held out my jacket, and I slid my arms in, huddling in close to my personal space heater as we headed for the car. What with the limited parking space back there, I had chosen to park my Accord at his parents’ house, and between Brandon’s truck, Don’s pickup, and Jon’s Humvee, it was a tight squeeze getting into Don’s king-sized truck.
Only once we were on the road did I find the right moment to explain to Brandon from the backseat, “I’ll call Edmée in a second and get the low-down. As for problems…I’m not sure how to explain. Or start.”
“What’s your hometown like?” Brandon inquired, helpfully prompting me.
“Opelousas is not what you would call a prosperous place. It’s the parish seat, and I think there’s about twenty thousand people living in about seven and a half square miles.”
“Wow, that’s a pretty dense population,” Don remarked, his eyes flicking up to meet mine in the rear-view mirror. “What’s the atmosphere like?”
“Very heavily Catholic and poor.” Remembering what life had been like in my childhood, I grimaced. “My mother’s never made more than twenty-five thousand in a year, and she’s considered better off than some of my relatives.”
Both of them whistled low, shaking their heads in disbelief.
Brandon knew more of my history than Don, and he turned in the passenger seat to give me a look of incredulity. “And she raised seven kids on that?”
“It was…tight. We always kept a house garden, which helped. Anyway, superstitions run pretty thick down there. Edmée’s not one to jump at shadows, which concerns me. Her moving concerns me, as there’s not a lot of good places to move into.”
My partner gave me a knowing look. “How haunted is Opelousas?”
“About on par with Eureka Springs,” I confided, referencing the place we’d met and worked our first case together.
Don, never a fan of ghosts, groaned in horror. “That sounds horrible.”
It had been, as a child. A very sensitive child who had no safe place to run. Even now, as a fully trained medium, I shuddered on some level at the thought of going back down there. If it wasn’t family calling for me, I’d have passed this on to someone else.
Warm fingers grasped mine and squeezed them gently, reassuring. I looked up to Brandon and saw his eyes on me with concern and affection. Brandon was about as sensitive to the supernatural as a drowned log, but I still found comfort in him. His unwavering support had been eye-opening over the past thirteen weeks. If he told me we were going to move a mountain, I’d believe we could do it, just because he said so.
I still didn’t want to go. Looking at him, though, I believed I’d be fine. And that made all the difference in the world.
So I took a breath and squeezed his hand back, giving him a smile. “Really glad you’re armed now, mon cher.”
“Yeah, me too,” he responded cheerfully.
Although I was worried about him being armed for a different reason. Most of my relatives preferred to give me grief when I saw them. I expected some brand of trouble while we were down there.
Of course, he read that worry off my face.
“Does that mean I can shoot your relatives?”
“Now, cher, play nice.” I grinned wider as I knew he was kidding. (Mostly.)
“I will if they will.” Brandon’s smile was not at all kind.
It was probably wrong of me, but I looked forward to the moment I could introduce my big-as-a-mountain boyfriend to my family. Some of them wouldn’t take it well. It would be like two banty roosters meeting in a hen yard—the fight was inevitable. I didn’t imagine they’d come out on top.
Donovan stopped for a red light and gave his brother a suspicious look. “Armed? What kind of weaponry would they issue you, Brandon?”
“I’ve got a modified shotgun and Glock that can fire rock-salt rounds,” he reported, still happy as a clam with the new toys he’d been issued after passing the tests. “Plus a very heavy-duty water pistol that shoots holy water. Oh, and a regular Glock for the non-ghosts who need shooting.”
Donovan looked impressed but also dubious. “How are you supposed to shoot something you can’t see?”
“They gave me thermal goggles too. I can at least see the shapes of them.”
Only on my deathbed would I admit that when he put on the goggles, had the shotgun in hand, and wore the tactical vest with all of those weapons and gear strapped to him, he looked like a hero stepping out of a steampunk novel.
As they got to talking guns and such, I called up my cousin. Edmée and I only talked about twice a year, on her birthday and mine, but still I considered her to be one of my closest cousins. She’d always been sweet to me, and I’d move heaven and earth for her if she asked me to.
The phone rang twice before her husky alto came over the phone. “Mack, funny timing. I was just talking to your maman.”
“Were you?” I responded, glad to hear it. My mother knew the basics of how to keep ghosts at bay. “How’s your grandmaman and them?”
“We’re doing alright. I don’t know if you heard, but I got me a new place.” The fear started to edge into her voice.
“I know, I heard. Edmée, I’m the FBI medium coming to your rescue.”
She sucked in a sharp, rattling breath. “You are?”
“My partner got cleared for full duty Friday. They put high priority on your case because you’ve got a child and you’re my relative. My boss gave me first chance, and I took it. We’ll be in Opelousas tomorrow night.”
Edmée let out a sharp sob, quickly muffled. “Oh God, oh God, Mack, you’ve no idea how relieved I am to hear it.”
“Shame on
you for not calling me earlier,” I scolded. “You know I’d have come.”
“I didn’t want to bother you in the training. Your maman, she said to do it, but you’ve got such a good start on life. I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”
“Pfft, who’s ruining anything? Now, you tell me what’s going on.”
“Mack, I don’t know what to do, I really don’t. Cali’s got scratches on her almost nightly. She wakes up screaming, telling me there’s a bad man trying to drag her out of the bed. I put salt around her bedroom and the sills and such, and it’s not helping. I did it around my room too, and she’s been sleeping with me, and that’s helped. Whatever it is, it can’t seem to get into my room.”
Now that was interesting. “Think carefully. Are there any antiques or anything in her room?”
Edmée fell silent for a long moment. “No. No, not that I can think of. Most of it’s new, or new enough. We had to buy her a few things from the thrift store when I moved, but none of it’s over twenty years old, I don’t think.”
“Okay. Sometimes ghosts attach themselves to objects. If barricading her room isn’t helping, then whatever the problem is likely originates in that room.”
“Oh hell. Hell, Mack, I didn’t think of that. I just thought I hadn’t done it proper.”
“Could be that’s the case, but if you did it correctly in your room, and it’s working? And you did it the same way on both rooms?”
She made an assenting noise.
“Yeah, odds are something in that room is bad juju. We’ll figure it out when we get down there. Can you text me your address? We’ll come straight to you.”
“I’ll text you now.”
There was another muffled sob, and I knew she was scared then as she never had been, because the Edmée I knew didn’t cry easily. I wanted to say something to help her. I just didn’t know what else I could add that I hadn’t already said. “You breathe easy, cuz. Between me and Brandon, we’ll sort it out.”
“I’ll cook jambalaya for you, have it ready for when you get here.”
I was glad to hear her rallying. “Aww, how’d you know I was craving that? Just make a lot. Brandon eats like a bear coming out of hibernation.”
