First it was two living men who didn’t have auras and now a corpse that did?
A muffled sound carried to her ears, yet she couldn’t make out the words. The touch of something warm and heavy on her shoulder jolted her back to reality.
“Raelyn?”
She turned to the source of the sound. It was Julian.
Well wasn’t that just great, now he’d caught her standing there, staring mindlessly at a dead body. Nothing strange about that behavior at all.
Raelyn winced. Yeah, right.
“Are you ok?” he asked.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, buying herself a moment to gather her thoughts.
Snap out of it, Raelyn!
“Yeah, sorry,” she racked her brain for an explanation that wouldn’t make her seem odd. “I must’ve lost track of the time.”
Maybe if she ignored what just happened he wouldn’t think anything of it?
“Did you just get here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Your mother let me in on her way out.”
“That’s nice,” she said, distracted while she stared down at the deceased.
Nothing.
The aura and uneasy feelings were gone.
“Are you done for the night?” he asked, a frown crossing his face. “I can come back if you’re not.”
“No,” she waved absently. “I’m done.”
Re-centering herself, she turned away from the casket and looked directly at Julian with a forced a smile on her face. “Just give me a few minutes to clean up.”
She began packing up her supplies as quickly as she could. Whatever was going on, she wasn’t going to figure it out right now. And if she wasn’t careful she would completely blow her evening with Julian.
“Do you need any help?” he asked.
“No, I’ve got it,” Raelyn shook her head, turning down the offer. She scooped up her things. “Just give me a minute to bring this stuff downstairs and then I’ll be right up and we can go eat.”
“Ok,” he replied.
◆◆◆
Raelyn dumped everything onto the countertop in the embalming room. She sorted through her things quickly, putting items back into their proper places.
“Is that who I think it is waiting in Viewing Room Two?”
Raelyn looked up at the ghost, relieved that her friend had finally shown up.
“You’re not going to believe the day that I’ve had,” Raelyn began. “First, I went on a coffee date with Julian and he kissed me. Then we exchanged numbers and he asked me out on a second date, to dinner. Now he’s upstairs waiting to come to my apartment to eat, and I don’t know why I asked him to do that. He still doesn’t have an aura, but the deceased in Viewing Room Two does. Or I mean, they did?” Raelyn’s voice rose in pitch, her confusion evident. “The aura was all dark, and scary, and evil, and I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Everything is changing and I don’t know what to do. And now...” Raelyn stopped speaking mid-rant, the cool air across her skin pulling the frantic woman out of her own head.
“Rae, relax. Take a deep breath,” Trinity ordered. “In and out. In and out.”
Raelyn closed her eyes, following the ghost’s commands. Her breathing returned to normal and she felt her shoulders relax.
“Good.” The ghost pulled away and warm air hurried to fill the empty space.
“Now, start from the beginning,” Trinity said.
Raelyn recounted the events of her day, while putting away the rest of her supplies. The ghost remained quiet, the occasional tilt of her head the only sign that she was listening. After she finished, Trinity moved closer, ready to act if her friend started to panic again.
“Ok,” Trinity said. “First things first. You’ve got a gorgeous man upstairs who’s clearly interested in you and as you’ve already said yourself, he won't be sticking around town for very long. This is the perfect opportunity for you to get back in the game.” The ghost held up her hand, stopping Raelyn from protesting before she could finish. “Now, as for the aura thing,” Trinity continued, “you still see me, so clearly you're not broken. Did you ever think that maybe he's just like you?”
“What do you mean?” Raelyn asked.
“Can you see your own aura?”
“No,” she admitted. “I suppose it’s possible if someone else could see auras then they might not see mine either.”
A wave of hope passed over her. Could it be possible that someone else was really just like her? That she wasn’t actually unusual, after all?
“Do you really think he’s the same way?” Her voice held a vague hint of hope.
“I don’t know,” the ghost shrugged. “But it’s as good a guess as any other.”
Raelyn pondered the idea for a moment. It was a fair suggestion, but not one that she was sure that she agreed with.
“He didn’t see you the other day, though,” Raelyn observed, poking a hole in the ghost’s argument, “When you went up close to those two before the service.”
“That’s true,” Trinity agreed.
“Maybe you’re just tired.” The ghost continued to grasp at straws, struggling for an explanation. “Or maybe you’re changing. It’s not exactly like you’ve got an instruction manual explaining your abilities.”
“They have changed over time,” Raelyn admitted. “I never saw a ghost before, well…” Raelyn gestured to her friend, the remainder of the sentence left unspoken.
Even after all of these years, it still wasn’t easy for Raelyn to admit out loud that her best friend really was dead.
Raelyn bit her lip. She didn’t know if she could really see ghosts at all, or if she just had a connection with her best friend. To date, Trinity had been the only transparent image of a person that Raelyn had ever seen.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Rae, you don’t have to know everything,” Trinity said. “Not right away.” The ghost hovered closer. “Instead of focusing on the things that you can’t change, why don’t you focus on what you can instead?”
“And what’s that?” Raelyn asked.
“You’ve got a gorgeous hunk of a man waiting upstairs to feed you dinner. And he won’t be here forever, so you can spend time with him with no strings attached.”
“Just enjoy the moment, huh?” Raelyn smiled.
“Just enjoy the moment,” Trinity agreed.
“Take it from me, you never know how many more moments you really have left.”
Chapter 11 - Julian
The demon mark on Julian’s back burned, yet the demon master ignored it. He watched the retreating form of Raelyn as she walked out of the viewing room. Once she was gone, he turned to study the body in the casket. The demon master furrowed his brow, pondering the current situation.
Hunting a demon while he was out of town was annoying, but not entirely unexpected, after all, it was Julian’s life.
However, running into two demons wasn’t normal.
Summoning a demon was an uncommon event. It required following a multi-step ritual that could take several days. The summoner had to not only know the sigil of the demon that they desired, but the proper incantation as well. Information that could only be found within the pages of The Corpus Daemoniorum, a book that wasn’t exactly the kind of reading material to be found on the New York Times Bestseller List. This brought up an interesting question. Who was responsible for the demonic summonings? A demon-worshiping cult, perhaps?
Julian sighed. He knew demon-worshiping cults existed, but he’d never personally encountered one. He wasn’t looking forward to having to get involved with one either.
The demon master searched the room, looking for information regarding the victim, and came up empty. The casket was ready for the viewing, but the rest of the room was not. No flowers or guest book, and most important of all, no funeral prayer cards for Julian to take. Getting a lead on the location of the demon was going to be rather difficult, if he didn’t even have the name of the dec
eased to start with.
He had just finished circling the room again, when Hineker walked in carrying bags of food.
“We have another demon on the loose,” Julian said.
“How delightful,” Hineker purred, pleased at the prospect of hunting again so soon. Their trip to Tennessee was turning into quite a bit of fun, at least for him. Hineker watched the demon master run his fingers through his hair, a sign that he was frustrated.
Julian vented a breath. “We can’t do anything about this tonight. I don’t even know the victim’s name yet.” Part of him was thankful that he wouldn’t have to cancel his date with Raelyn, but part of him was also frustrated that he had yet another demon on the loose. For a small country town, Raspville certainly had a lot of residents summoning demons. But he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if he didn’t find a lead first.
Hineker tilted his head, hearing sounds Julian couldn’t hear.
“Master, someone is approaching,” he said. The two men turned towards the door as Raelyn walked back into the room.
“Perhaps she might know,” Hineker observed. “You should ask her.”
Julian scowled at the suggestion. Asking about a dead body was definitely not the normal way to start a romantic evening.
But then again, when had his life ever been normal?
◆◆◆
Raelyn shot the duo a curious look at the presence of not one, but two men waiting for her.
“Raelyn, this is my personal assistant, Hineker,” Julian introduced the enforcer demon standing by his side. “He’ll set up the food for us.”
“Okay,” her tone portrayed the word as a question, not a statement. Her eyes shifted to Hineker’s hands, noting the takeout bags from Anna Lee’s Country Kitchen. Julian could practically see her mind working as she digested this information. Raelyn’s reaction suggested she’d never dealt with a personal assistant before.
“Miss Raelyn,” Hineker greeted with a dashing smile. He lowered his voice, the sexual innuendo too forceful to be ignored. “Show me where you’d like it.”
“Um,” she blinked.
The demon’s eyes sparkled with amusement at the woman’s hesitation. It was so easy to tease humans sometimes.
“Hineker,” Julian warned, softly.
“Show me where you’d like me to place the food,” the demon amended, begrudgingly.
“The food?” she repeated, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. “Oh, right this way.”
Raelyn led the two men out of the funeral home. She locked the main entrance, then continued to walk around the side of the building where a door was half-hidden by a large bush.
“I have my own entrance,” she said, unlocking the door and leading the two men up a set of stairs. “My parents let me move into the apartment when I turned eighteen as my birthday gift.”
“How long have you lived here?” Julian asked.
“Seventeen years,” she replied.
Julian’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Raelyn was only three years younger than himself, yet she didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
“It must be nice to work so close to home,” he said, as she unlocked her door.
Standing at the threshold of her apartment, Raelyn stopped and abruptly turned to face Julian.
“What did you just say?” Her tone of voice gave nothing away. Her China blue eyes rooted him in place and he couldn’t decipher her expression.
Julian was confused.
Did he just say something to offend her somehow?
Seeing no way out, Julian repeated his statement.
“It must be nice to work so close to home,” he said again, hoping he wasn’t digging himself into a deeper hole. “You know, since you live right upstairs from the funeral home. Where you work.” He inwardly cringed, waiting for Raelyn’s reaction.
The clearing of a throat saved him from further embarrassment.
“If you’ll excuse me, Master,” Hineker said, walking forward. “I’ll set up the food.”
“The kitchen’s to the right,” Raelyn said, moving so that Hineker could pass. Her eyes never left Julian’s own. Silence fell upon the new couple. The pretty dark blonde tilted her head, as if coming to some internal conclusion.
Julian held his breath, awaiting her verdict.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she rushed to explain. “No one’s ever said that they think it’s nice that I live above a funeral home. They usually just think that it’s weird.”
At the vulnerable look on her face, Julian’s sense of relief was quickly replaced with the desire to protect her.
“Well I think that it’s great,” he tried to reassure her as he followed Raelyn into her apartment.
She stopped in the middle of the room and spun in a slow circle. “So, this is my place,” she gestured with her hands, awkwardly. “I need to take a quick shower. Make yourself at home.”
Raelyn walked into the bathroom. A moment later, the sound of running water filled the apartment.
Julian used the free time to take a look around. His first impression was of vibrant colors and warmth. The apartment above the funeral home was small, barely even a quarter of the size of his suite back at the hotel, and filled with homey details.
The studio apartment had a combined living and dining room area with a working kitchen and a breakfast bar. A full-size bed was pushed up against the far wall, neatly made with four pillows, and a large framed print was positioned over the headboard. A throw blanket was folded at the foot of the bed. A rug softened the wooden floorboards, in a pattern of reds, oranges, and yellows that echoed the colors of the cozy space. A worn leather couch sat across from a small TV, serving as the living area. A stack of books was piled on a small table next to the couch.
The kitchen was tiny, yet functional, with two counter-height bar stools covered in the same pattern as the rug and a sand-colored granite countertop. Curtains on the windows were pushed back, brightening the space. A large mirror on the far wall reflected the light into the dining room area. The dining table was pushed up against the wall. Plants were scattered throughout the space, small ones perched on low tables and larger ones in decorative pots that sat directly on the floor.
He returned to the couch and flipped through the stack of books. All of them were mysteries.
Raelyn stepped out of the bathroom, dressed in a plain top and a pair of jeans. Her face was make-up free and her wet hair hung in loose waves down her back.
His breath caught in his throat.
She looked beautiful.
Raelyn bit her lip, misinterpreting his silence as disappointment with her apartment. “I know this place isn’t much, but it’s what I call home.”
Julian snapped out of his daze and smiled. She was adorable when she was self-conscious. He stepped closer and heat sizzled between them as he trailed his finger along her jaw and down her neck while he spoke. “It’s warm, cozy.” Her eyes darkened with desire at his touch. “Intimate.”
Hineker approached the couple on silent steps. “Dinner is ready, Master Julian,” he said, breaking the mood.
Raelyn jumped, startled. Clearly she had forgotten that they weren’t alone.
“I’ll take it from here Hineker,” Julian said. “Take the rest of the night off.”
“As you wish, Master,” the demon nodded graciously, and swiftly exited the apartment.
Julian followed Raelyn to the dining room table, where Hineker had set the table and plated their meals. The food smelled delicious and his mouth watered in response.
“This smells fantastic,” he breathed in the delicious aroma wafting from the table.
Grinning, Raelyn sat down at the table. “Wait until you taste it.”
Julian took the seat at the table across from Raelyn. She took a bite of her food and released a soft, pleased groan. The sound went straight to Julian’s groin.
“Anna Lee’s has the best home-cooked food in town,” Raelyn said. “When you want the taste of a hom
e-cooked meal, it’s the only place to go.”
She took another bite of food and hummed in satisfaction. Raelyn continued to chatter on about the food. The quality of the ingredients, the overall appearance, the blending of the flavors. Her words faded away, serving as background noise that filled the gaps between her hums and groans of pleasure.
Julian had never seen anyone get so excited about a meal before. Normally when Julian ate with a woman, she would order a small salad and pick at the lettuce, then leave most of her entrée untouched. The only thing his date ever finished was a glass of wine.
But not Raelyn.
The woman had ordered a hearty meal, without a single lettuce leaf in sight. And she dug into her meal with gusto, unafraid to eat in front of him. With each bite, pleasure was written all over her face. Then there were the moments when she’d close her eyes and moaned, pausing to savor the taste.
He knew he was staring. But he couldn’t stop himself from watching her eat. It was one of the sexiest things that he’d ever seen.
“Aren’t you going to try it?” Raelyn gestured towards his hand, which held a fork in mid-air, hovering near his mouth.
Swallowing heavily, Julian shoved the fork into his mouth. His eyes widened in surprise. “This is really good!”
“I know,” she smiled smugly. “And just wait until you try the dessert.” Her smile turned mischievous and he felt his member twitch.
He shoveled another forkful of food into his mouth, retracting his earlier thoughts. Her playful smile was the sexiest thing that he’d ever seen.
◆◆◆
Eating with Raelyn had become a whole new form of torture. By the time they were ready for dessert, Julian’s mind had become stuck on only one thing. Sex. His slice of pecan pie sat on his plate untouched. Distracted by Raelyn, he watched her eat a spoonful of banana pudding. Her pink tongue darted out, capturing an errant bit of whipped cream from her lips.
He wished he had done that for her instead.
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