Death and the Girl Next Door

by Darynda Jones

“Like ghosts?” Brooklyn asked.

  “Exactly. There are evil ghosts just like there are evil people. And any Joe Schmo can pray to have one evicted. You just have to believe, have faith in the Big Guy’s word, and boom!” He made the umpire strikeout sign. “That pesky little poltergeist is outta here. And guess who sends them off to suffer in the fires of eternal Hell and damnation?”

  He questioned me silently. I didn’t move.

  “That’s right,” he continued. “Your reaper, here. Azrael is somewhat of a specialist. And the ghost world doesn’t think very highly of him. Right, Az?”

  Jared sat stone still, hardly breathing. Personally, I found the whole idea rather fascinating. Who knew? But Jared seemed furious that Cameron was even talking about it. He cast a furtive look my way before refocusing on his hands folded on the table in front of him, his jaw tight.

  “So, this ghost haunting the Southern belles, it knows Jared’s here?”

  “It knew it the moment he started stalking you.”

  “Cameron,” I said, a gentle warning in my tone, “Jared wasn’t stalking me. He was doing his job, remember? We talked about this.”

  Cameron shook his head with a soft chortle. “Please, Lorelei. Use some common sense, will you?”

  “What?” I asked, rather offended.

  “Angels, or messengers, or whatever the Hell politically correct term you want to call them are master manipulators of space and time.”

  “You should probably stop talking about now,” Jared said.

  “They can come and go in a blinding flash.”

  “Lusk—”

  “He could have popped in, taken you, and popped back out before even I could have seen him. Or felt his presence on this plane. But he didn’t. Why do you think that is?”

  Jared shoved his chair back and stood. Without hesitation, Cameron did the same. Our table almost toppled over as they both did their best to intimidate each other. I shot up and did my darnedest to get between them. It was like trying to shove two cinder block walls apart.

  With a hand on either chest, I hissed a harsh warning: “Do you really want to give Principal Davis a reason to come in here?” My gaze bounced back and forth. “Do you really want to give the sheriff a reason to be suspicious? He already believes you two were the cause of that little earthquake scenario. You’ll just be giving him ammunition.”

  After a moment, Jared looked at me, his eyes dark with anger. “Keep a muzzle on your dog,” he said, then turned to leave.

  Not this time.

  I grabbed his shirt and forced him to look at me again. “Is it true?” I asked. Was he really following me just to see me? To watch me?

  He lowered his lashes and waited an interminable amount of time before answering. “Yes,” he said, his voice deathly quiet.

  Now for the sad part.

  My soul took flight! My heart soared! A euphoric, deliriously giddy sensation washed over me with the knowledge that Jared was following me because he wanted to. Not because he had to, because it was his job. The realization sent a tingle rushing over my skin.

  Jared glanced back at me then, and I tried to control my elation, a feat that proved impossible. Until I looked at him. Really looked. And reality sank in. “Why?” I asked, suddenly confused. “Why me?” Did he have any idea how gorgeous he was?

  His lips thinned in frustration like I should already know the answer. He inched closer until his knee touched mine, his eyes, curious and intense, boring into me. “Because you move like fire rushing across a floor,” he said, his voice hushed, velvety smooth, “like flames licking up a wall.” The rest of the world crumbled away as he lifted my chin. “Your energy is liquid and hot. Even from a distance you burn, you scorch anyone who gets too close. You are wine on my tongue and honey in my veins, and I cannot get enough of you.” He leaned forward and whispered into my ear. His warm breath sent shivers cascading over my body. “You intoxicate me, Lorelei McAlister. You will be my downfall.”

  “I’m not kidding, you guys need to sit down. Coach Chavez is headed this way.”

  My eyelids shuttered. We were standing just as we had been, with me in between the two cage fighters. I realized Brooklyn had been talking to us. Coach Chavez was on his way to our table.

  “Sit down, hurry,” I said to the boys, trying to snap back to reality. They obliged reluctantly.

  “Hey, Coach,” Glitch said, standing to head him off.

  As they spoke, I sat in stunned silence, wondering what had just happened. Jared suddenly seemed way more interested in the pattern on the table than in me. Did I just have a vision? Or would that be considered wishful thinking?

  “If you guys are finished, I suggest you clean up and go cool off outside,” the coach said. He was a brawny man with thick black hair and a graying beard, and everyone liked him, including me. I didn’t want to get on his bad side.

  “Okay,” Brooklyn answered, the forced nonchalance in her voice plain.

  As we rose to clean our table, Cameron leaned in to me. “And, yeah, he can do things like that, too.”

  TEAM SPIRIT

  “Where is he?” Brooklyn raised her brows in question as she scurried up the bleachers. The homecoming pep rally would start soon.

  I was still in a state of dazed confusion. Cameron had seen it, the exchange between Jared and me, so it had to be real. But how had he done it?

  “Uh-oh,” Brooklyn said. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  Oh, that was the other thing. Nobody but Cameron heard what Jared said to me. Not Brooklyn, not Glitch, not the weird chick at the next table drooling into her lunch tray. Nobody!

  Could Jared have done something where only I could hear him? But Cameron heard him. Blondie got an earful, then snorted and strode out the door. Not that I cared. My feet weren’t anywhere near the ground. Brooklyn said she’d been talking to Glitch, but honestly, how could anyone have missed such a speech?

  “So?”

  I blinked at Brooklyn. “So, what?”

  “Where’s lover boy?”

  “Oh. Tabitha and Amber stole him,” I said absently, referring to Jared’s recent abduction by the sugar lumps.

  “I wonder what they’re up to.”

  “I wonder what it’s like to have the intelligence of squirrel feces.”

  Brooklyn whistled. “Wow, I’m impressed. You go with that.”

  “I know it’s wrong, but I just dislike them so much. Ever since they put toothpaste in my hair on the way back from camp, I’ve hated them.”

  “Right there with ya, babe. You know what I’ve noticed?”

  “That deep down inside I’m really jealous of them, which makes me a lonely and pathetic loser?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Then what?”

  “I’ve noticed that ever since Jared saved your life, you haven’t had to use your inhaler. Not once.”

  “Wow,” I said. She was right. I hadn’t even thought about it.

  Brooklyn scanned the crowd. Glitch turned and waved from the front, where the football team sat. She waved back, then spotted Cameron sitting alone at the very top of the bleachers, apparently in the farthest corner he could find.

  “You were right,” she said. “That boy is just plain antisocial.”

  I turned and motioned for him to join us. He shook his head. I glared at him and waved again. Exhaling visibly in annoyance, he pushed himself off the bleachers and maneuvered through the crowd to where we sat.

  “Happy?” he asked when he arrived.

  I smiled. “Very.”

  The pep rally progressed with the usual antics and silly games. The pep band played and the crowd cheered. Each class tried to out-yell the other three for the honor of leaving school ten minutes early. The seniors usually won, their experience and impending release date—otherwise known as graduation—lending them a ruthlessness the other classes lacked from the get-go.

  In one of the more amusing moments, volunteer tag teams from each class had to wrap a
different teacher in toilet paper then race back to the finish line for the win. I laughed at the sight of Ms. Mullins being toilet-papered into a mummy.

  But soon afterwards, I began to worry. The pep rally was coming to a close, and still no Jared.

  “Where could he be?” I asked Brooklyn. “Do you think Principal Davis has him cornered somewhere? Or maybe the sheriff arrested him after all.”

  “I doubt it. Tabitha’s up to something.”

  I watched absently as the cheerleaders acted out a final skit. Apparently, two members of team spirit weren’t spirited enough. They stood back with their arms crossed, looking sad and despondent. So—in the crucial interest of school pride—the others escorted one of the two to a huge decorated box marked SPIRIT INFUSER.

  They placed her inside and closed the lid. After a few seconds, the cheerleader jumped out of the box, full of life and an annoying, nails-on-a-chalkboard kind of joy.

  “She’s like a gerbil on Ritalin,” Brooklyn said.

  I beamed and continued to survey the crowd for Jared.

  In the meantime, the cheerleaders—having had such great success with the first dispirited teammate—did the same with the second. Again, after the girl was placed in the box, she jumped out almost immediately, springing with happiness and energy.

  “Hmmm,” Tabitha said into the microphone. “Whatever’s in that box sure causes a lot of excitement. What could it be?”

  The cheerleaders lifted the lid, leaned in, and brought out a very embarrassed Jared Kovach.

  I gasped aloud as the crowd cheered. Girls all around me screamed as Tabitha introduced the newest recruit to Riley High, like he was some kind of rock star. If they only knew.

  In sympathy, Brooklyn wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Just think,” she said into my ear, “none of them have ever been called a flame licker by the guy.”

  “He didn’t call me a flame licker.”

  “Right, sorry,” she said absently, punching keys on her phone to check messages. So much for sympathy.

  * * *

  “Well, that was interesting,” Brooklyn said as we strolled through the parking lot. Glitch had a team meeting before the big homecoming game, so the rest of us decided to hang at the Java Loft until then.

  Despite the fact that we were all technically grounded, Brooklyn and I managed to get permission to go to the game. It was homecoming after all. The big game. The one event that we languished over all year.

  Okay, we exaggerated a tad. But at least we got permission to go—with conditions, of course. We had to be home right after the game, missy. No ifs, ands, or buts. Later, when we inevitably got home late, we would simply explain that, first we had to wait for Glitch to help with team stuff, then Ms. Mullins wanted to talk to us about how well we did on the nine-weeks exam—emphasis on well and nine-weeks exam—then the parking lot was so full, we just sat there for-like-ever. We had no idea it would take us so long just to get out of a parking lot, Grandma.

  I would look distressed and worried and on the verge of tears for missing the curfew that I would never dream of missing, ever in a million years. Grandpa would slide Grandma that let’s forgive her look, just this once. Grandma would give in with a smile that held the tiniest of warnings. And life would return to normal.

  Well, maybe not normal. Probably never normal again.

  Anyway, all that should buy us just enough time to do some paranormal investigating.

  I shook out of my thoughts, trying to remember what Brooklyn had commented about. Oh, right. The pep rally.

  “Yeah, it was very interesting. Did you see how the cheerleaders were staring at Jared? It was bizarre.”

  Brooklyn’s brows knitted together. “Lor, the entire student body was staring at Jared. He was kind of the main attraction.”

  “I know. But did you see Ashlee and Sydnee? They were totally freaked out.”

  After a quick shot at Jared from over her shoulder, Brooklyn said teasingly, “You were pretty freaked out when you first met him too.”

  I leaned in to her. “Yeah, but I was hot and bothered by him. They’re just, like, bothered.”

  Brooke laughed.

  Of course, Jared seemed bothered too. When we met up with him after the pep rally, Cameron smirked and said, “You’re just going to fit right in, aren’t you? Be a part of the in-crowd.”

  Jared ignored him, but he kept his head down as we walked to the parking lot. He seemed embarrassed, uncomfortable. The tension between him and Cameron hung thick and palpable in the air, and I wondered if they could ever be in the same room together without exhibiting homicidal tendencies.

  I guess after his lunchroom confession, I wanted soft, knowing glances from Jared and winks full of affection. I also wanted promises of undying love and an endless supply of backrubs, but that could wait. Instead, all his energy was focused on postal boy. Cameron was totally stealing my bliss.

  When we got to Cameron’s pickup, he shoved the key into the lock cylinder. “So who prayed?” he asked without looking at anyone in particular.

  I looked at him, confused, but Jared answered before I had a chance to ask who Cameron was talking to.

  “Everyone prays eventually,” he said as though they’d been talking the whole way.

  Did I miss something?

  “I just bet they do.” Cameron scowled at him from over his shoulder. “You must enjoy that. Prayers of desperation. The suffering of others.”

  “Not especially.”

  Without warning, Cameron took hold of the jacket Glitch had loaned Jared and shoved him against the pickup.

  Jared spread his palms apart and let him. Completely unafraid.

  “You’re a thief,” Cameron said in a whispery hiss, “the worst of your kind. You come down to Earth and take what you want without considering the consequences, the chaos you leave in your wake. You hide behind shadows and legend and pretend to be noble.”

  While Jared’s expression remained impassive, mine was not. I decided to put an end to this once and for all. So, like the idiot I tended to be in crisis situations, I tried to jump between them for, like, the millionth time, but Cameron turned on me, furious. His vehemence startled me and I stood there, unmoving, like a deer caught in the glow of headlights.

  Jared’s hand shot out and wrapped around my upper arm. He pulled me beside him protectively, his long fingers locking around my biceps, his expression no longer impassive. A hard warning glinted in his eyes. But Cameron grabbed me as well and tried to shove me out of the way.

  It was the wrong thing to do.

  The emotions coursing through Cameron’s veins seeped into me, mixed with mine, churned and swirled. They encircled me like a vise, tightening around my chest. I gasped for air as breathing became almost impossible. For Jared as well. As though I were a conduit, I siphoned the turmoil out of Cameron and into Jared.

  “Stop,” Jared said as he pushed at Cameron, trying to catch his breath. I clutched on to Jared’s jacket. “Lorelei, stop.” This had never happened before. For some reason, I could feel Cameron’s pain and I was passing it on to Jared. All the emotion. All the anguish. All the rage.

  “So who prayed, hot shot?” Cameron continued, oblivious of what was happening, his anger leaching into me, his pain shooting through me and into Jared. “Some little brat from Timbuktu who wanted you to make sure her uncle arrived in time for her birthday party? God forbid that Barbie Vette show up late.”

  Jared grabbed Cameron’s wrist with his free hand as Cameron pushed into him. The anguish was overwhelming. Cameron’s agony had latched on to me with razor-sharp claws, slicing, suffocating.

  “Cameron, stop,” Jared said between gasps.

  “Who?”

  “Cameron, we can’t breathe.” His concern settled heavily on me. His fingers were still padlocked around my arm, and I could feel things I never thought possible. The world began to spin around me. I could feel consciousness slipping out from under my feet.

  “Lorelei!” I hear
d Brooklyn shout as though from a great distance.

  “Who prayed and changed history? Who made it possible for you to kill her?”

  The darkness Cameron had kept buried for years consumed him. I could see it in his eyes, could feel its strangling hold envelop me, entwine its tentacles up my arm and around my throat.

  And apparently it was doing the same to Jared. He had no other choice. I could feel it the second he made the decision, the moment he resolved to do what he was about to do. He had to show Cameron what happened.

  With tremendous effort, he forced himself to concentrate despite the smothering fog. He placed a hand on Cameron’s chest, nailed him with an intent look, focused all his energy. And just before he let the past devour us all, he whispered the truth.

  “She did.”

  The past rushed up like a roiling sea beneath us, swallowing us whole. The world tumbled, spun out of control, then stopped. We were suddenly in a different place, a different time. Birds chirped and the sun peered through pine needles on the trees surrounding us, casting soft rays through the atmosphere to rest on the forest floor.

  “Look, Cameron,” a woman said.

  Cameron looked to the side of the bicycle as his mother pointed to a bird running into the forest. We were in the past—I was in the past—and I was seeing the world through Cameron’s eyes.

  “That’s a roadrunner.”

  He twisted back in his plastic yellow seat and watched as she pedaled up the mountainside, and she winked at him before turning back to the trail. I knew instantly who she was. I saw her as Cameron did. Beautiful. Young. Expression soft with unconditional love. Her blond hair gave in to the breeze, fluttering like butterflies around her backpack. He loved her hair. It smelled like apples.

  She pulled over to look down the side of the canyon, being very careful not to get too close. The rich greens of the mountainside filled his vision on the right. The deep reds of the iron-rich canyon met him on his left.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” She turned and glanced over her shoulder at him. Her smile glistened in the sunlight, as bright as her aura and just as warming.

  Then, for no explicable reason, she gasped and jumped back, falling with the bike to the ledge that overlooked the canyon wall. Harnessed in the safety seat, Cameron fell along with the bike into a bush. Its needlelike thorns punished him for invading its territory, but he didn’t care. What had happened? Why did his mother jump like that?