The Last Kiss Goodbye: A Charlotte Stone Novel

by Karen Robards

  “Yes.”

  “Light it to open the passage, then call the spirit’s name. The spirit may hear, and find the passage, and return.”

  Charlie heard the second possibility in the other woman’s voice loud and clear: or he may not.

  She tried to control her too-rapid breathing. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “That’s all I know, cherie,” Tam said.

  “Thanks.” As Charlie was disconnecting, she heard Tam call to her, “Take the utmost care.”

  Charlie never traveled without her Miracle-Go kit, to which she had added a small, heavy glass for the closing of spectral passages since she had realized such a thing might become necessary. Now she grabbed a lighter and one of the squat round jasmine candles from the kit. Then she pulled out a second and a third candle. It hit her that turning on the water might help, too, so she took the candles into the bathroom, set them on the counter, and lit them. As the scent of jasmine started to fill the air, she closed the door to keep the aroma in and turned the cold water tap in the sink on full blast.

  Then she turned off the bathroom light and looked into the flickering flames and called, “Michael.”

  Again and again and again.

  He didn’t come.

  The terror she felt for him frightened her.

  Minutes ticked past, blurred into hours.

  Finally Charlie was sitting on the bathroom floor, still in her dress, with her knees drawn up almost to her chin and her back against the cold hard side of the tub. She was growing hoarse. Her eyelids were heavy as lead.

  She gave up on calling his name only because she fell asleep.

  At first she thought the creeping tendrils of fog that snaked toward her were smoke from the candles. Then she noticed that they were purple, and thick. As they reached her they started slowly swirling around her like multiple lariats. Even as she blinked at them, they rose, enveloping her in a way that the puny smoke from her candles never could. Instead of jasmine, they smelled of—rotting things, and damp. Eyes widening, Charlie clambered to her feet. Everywhere she looked—and she got the impression that she was confronting vast distances in all directions—the landscape was overlaid with billowing clouds of purple mist.

  She shivered, suddenly cold. Her arms and shoulders and legs were bare, and her feet were, too. It took her a second to realize that she was still wearing her red dress, minus the shoes. It seemed to be twilight—there was no sun, but it wasn’t quite dark, either. The ground beneath her feet—she couldn’t really see it because of the fog—seemed to be composed mostly of solid sheets of rock, with a few patches of what looked like slimy moss.

  Where am I?

  But even as the question popped into her mind, she knew.

  Spookville.

  Michael.

  Oh, my God, how did I get here?” An instant later the more pertinent question brought a thrill of fear with it: How do I get back?

  In the distance, a bloodcurdling scream tore through the mist. Charlie jumped and looked fearfully all around as a sense of utter dread filled her. Closer at hand, she heard a kind of shuffling, lumbering sound as if something huge was moving toward her at a fast pace. That rhythmic wheezing gasp was its breathing, she realized with horror a split second after she became aware of it.

  She caught a glimpse of a huge dark thing shrouded by the mist as it rushed past her.

  Now the screams were so close that they sent icy ripples of fright coursing through the center of her being. It sounded like a creature was being torn to shreds not more than a stone’s throw away, and Charlie thought that the nightmarish shrieks came from something the thing had caught. She barely managed to swallow her own answering scream.

  Then she saw another horror in the mist: what looked like two unblinking yellow eyes luminescent enough to glow through the swirling fog, turning in her direction.

  She knew, instinctively, that she was in terrible danger.

  Swallowing another scream, she ran.

  Not far to her left, there was a scrabble of feet, a barely seen leap through the mist as if something pounced, another deathly scream.

  Fear washed over her in waves.

  Michael. She dared not cry his name out loud, not with whatever these things were so near. He was there somewhere, she was sure. Instinct—a sixth sense—an insistent psychic pull—told her so. It sent her fleeing in a certain direction, but whether it was right or not she had no way of knowing. If she was wrong—the thought made her shake. Creatures bounded past her. Horrific screams pierced the air. Feet bruising on the rocky ground, she fled past stands of what seemed to be shaggy, misshapen trees, past boulders bigger than she was, past a fissure in the ground spewing a sulfurous gray steam.

  An orange glow, blurred by the mist but still a beacon in the gloom, drew her. As she neared it, gasping for what little air there was, feeling as though her heart would burst from her chest, she saw that she was running headlong toward the dark edge of a cliff and slowed abruptly. The orange glow came from a fire far below, she discovered as she drew cautiously closer, a roaring, raging conflagration from which screaming people fled while flames consumed them.

  Charlie recoiled in fear.

  At the edge of the cliff overlooking the horror, a man crouched, his back against a boulder the size of a bus.

  His face was turned away from her as he looked down into the abyss, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders or that tawny hair. Limned in orange, his big body was no more than a dark shape against the glow, but she would know him anywhere.

  “Michael!” This time, as she flew toward him, she did cry his name aloud.

  He looked sharply around, surged to his feet, leaped toward her.

  “Charlie!”

  She threw herself against him, and he caught her. His face was all sharp planes and angles, and his eyes were as black and fathomless as hell’s deepest pit. For a moment the intensity of emotion she felt at having found him swamped everything else. He hugged her tight, and she wrapped her arms around him and clung to him like he was the only hope of salvation she had left.

  “Jesus Christ.” The stark fear in his voice penetrated a split second before she heard the growl. It was a low, guttural, threatening sound that had to have come from something huge, and it was close behind her. She looked up at Michael: what she saw in his face made her blood run cold. Whatever could make him look like that, she didn’t want to see.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Michael whirled with her so that his back was turned to whatever it was. Curling himself protectively around her, he pressed her head to his chest. Tensing, clinging close, silently reciting every prayer she had ever learned in her life, Charlie cowered in his arms.

  “Think of somewhere safe, quick,” he told her urgently.

  Even as Charlie did, the growl turned into a roar. She felt a rush of air as the creature leaped at them and they passed it while it was in mid-jump.

  The mist swirled. She had the sensation of being hurtled forward, and closed her eyes against a rushing wind. She could feel Michael warm and solid against her, and she held on to him for dear life. The very air seemed to writhe, and suck at her skin. Then the cold was gone, along with the smell, and with those things went the clingy dampness of the fog. Entwined together, the two of them tumbled in what felt like a free fall through the infinite blackness of time and space. Clinging to Michael like he was the only solid thing left in the universe, Charlie felt as if she were being crushed; as if she couldn’t breathe. Then, suddenly, everything around them was still. There seemed to be solid ground beneath her bare feet. Carpet, from the texture of it.

  Charlie opened her eyes. They were in her hotel room, in the narrow hall between the bathroom and closet, near the spot where he had disappeared. The room was awash in moonlight that spilled inside because the curtains over the big window across the room were open to the night.

  Safe. Thank God.

  “You okay?” Michael’s voice grated. She looked up
at him. Her arms were locked around his waist. His were wrapped tight around her shoulders. His face was harsh. His eyes were still black, blacker even than the night outside the window, but some of the horrible soulless glitter left them as he looked down at her.

  Charlie took a deep breath, glad to be able to fill her lungs. “Yes.” Then as he closed his eyes she took another breath and added, “What about you?”

  He didn’t answer, and she frowned. He was his usual handsome self, but—not. He seemed bigger than usual, and badder. Savagery radiated from him like rays from the sun. Ruthlessness was there in the set of his jaw, brutality in the curve of his mouth. There was a hardness around his cheekbones and closed eyes. This is what a man capable of killing looks like, was the thought that came to her unbidden, and her mind flicked uneasily back to what Tam had said about the Dark Place, to the question of how innocent or guilty of the heinous crimes that had been attributed to him she really believed him to be. She became fully aware of how solid and real he felt in her arms, and faced all the ramifications of what that meant. There was no cosmic shield between them to protect her, no lack of substance on his part to keep her safe.

  They were on the same side of the barrier now, and for better or worse she was locked in his arms.

  Charlie faced the terrible truth: there was no place else on earth she would rather be.

  “Michael.” Her hands unclasped from around his waist to gently stroke his back. Whatever the Dark Place had brought out in him, she chose to attribute to the place, not him. She hoped her touch would remind him that they were away from that horrible place, and safe. Beneath the softness of his shirt, his back felt warm and firm. Her hands slid beneath it: his skin was hot, and faintly damp. She could feel his back heaving beneath her hands. She asked him again: “Are you okay?”

  His eyes opened. She was relieved to see that more of the black had retreated now. But there was a hard, predatory glitter in them still that alarmed her as they raked her face.

  “You afraid of me, babe?” he asked. “’Cause you’re looking at me like you are.”

  “Of course I’m not afraid of you,” she answered firmly, unsure if right at that moment it was strictly the truth. Dark energy rolled off him in waves. The look on his face, coupled with the rasping voice and the steely prison that his arms around her had become, made her heart beat faster. She could feel his strength, feel the power in the big body that held her, and knew that if he didn’t want to let her go, she wasn’t getting away.

  “Maybe you should be.” He drew in air through his teeth, and Charlie got the impression that he was fighting for control. “That place—it does things to people. Bad things.”

  His hold on her tightened until, if she had been afraid of him, she would have struggled. His body was taut with tension, and she could feel the aggression flowing through him. Her hands flattened and stilled on his broad back, but she didn’t let go of him. Didn’t want to let go of him, even though every instinct she possessed screamed danger. But no matter how menacing he might seem, this was Michael, and she was in his arms, and that by itself was enough to make her go weak at the knees. Instead of trying to pull away from him, she pressed closer still, letting him feel her softness, her femininity. Her breasts swelled against the unyielding wall of his chest; she could feel the delicious prickle as her nipples tightened. She settled her hips more intimately against his. As her breath caught and her body quickened at the rock hardness she found there she felt the long muscles of his back tense beneath her hands. She looked up then, and met the fierceness of his eyes, which were still only sky blue rims around a center of glittering black.

  “I’m going to fuck you all night long,” he said, still in that harsh voice.

  A shiver went through her as all around them the air turned to steam.

  She had no chance to reply before his head dropped and he took her mouth, kissing her like he was a marauder and she was his captive, like he owned her, like she had no say. His hands, big and possessive, closed over her bottom, pulling her up on her toes, cradling her so closely against him that she could feel in graphic detail how aroused he was.

  As he rocked her against him her body caught fire, just went up in flames.

  “Michael.” She moaned his name into his mouth, kissing him back as fiercely as he kissed her, molding her lips to his, meeting the hot deep invasion of her mouth with a passion that matched his. She was shivery with lust, lightheaded, eager. As urgently as he needed to take, she needed to give. He kissed her ear, ran his mouth down the side of her neck, and she felt her bones dissolve.

  “You’re mine, Doc,” he growled just as he had earlier, and even though part of her knew she should protest that women in general and she in particular were not something that could be owned, she was too turned on to do anything except cling to his broad shoulders for support as he bent her back across his hard-muscled arm. Then his mouth was on her breast, opening over her nipple so that she could feel the heat and wetness of it even through the cloth of her dress. Toes curling into the carpet, she arched her back and threaded her fingers into his hair. His hand went beneath her dress to stroke its way up over the smoothness of her bare thigh, then moved between her legs and caressed her through her silky panties, making her gasp, making her burn. Then he was kissing her again, his lips hard and hot and hungry, and his fingers slipped inside her panties to push into the hot, wet center of her so that she turned to liquid fire in his hands and moved with helpless pleasure for him.

  “God, I’ve wanted you,” he said thickly, letting her go before she was ready, leaving her wanting more as he caught her dress and pulled it up and over her head. She was naked now except for her panties, and the air in the room felt cool on her overheated skin. Following his gaze, looking down at the pale globes of her own breasts with their dark, eager nipples, at the slender indention of her waist, at her flat stomach and long slim legs, Charlie felt a wave of desire so intense that she trembled. Her head spun; her pulse drummed in her ears. His eyes were all over her, burning in their intensity, and she felt her muscles liquefy beneath their heat.

  “I’ve wanted you, too,” she confessed, and knew even as she said it that it was an understatement. She had ached for him. Burned for him. Still did.

  She slid her panties down her legs, stepped out of them. Her heart was hitting about a thousand beats a minute. Her legs were unsteady. Deep inside, her body throbbed.

  Watching, dark color suffused his face. He made an inarticulate sound. Then he yanked his shirt over his head, and she reached with shaking fingers for his belt buckle. She barely got it unfastened before he pulled her against him, kissing her with a fierceness that made her dizzy.

  His hard-muscled arm curled beneath her bottom, and he lifted her off her feet like she weighed nothing at all, pushing her back against the door to the hall, spreading her thighs and positioning himself between them. Bending his head, he claimed each nipple with quick, succulent tugs of his mouth. Shivery with desire, she clung to him. His skin was hot and damp with sweat, and his broad shoulders were corded with tension. As his mouth found hers again, and she returned the kiss with wild abandon, Charlie felt the cool smooth wood of the door to the hall against her back. A wave of scalding heat washed over her even as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She felt his hand between them, heard the rasp of his zipper, and her pulse went haywire. Then he pushed himself inside her, huge and hot and urgent, making her cling to him, making her cry out.

  “You like that,” he growled in her ear as he held himself buried deep. It wasn’t a question. He knew.

  She told him anyway. “Yes. Yes.”

  Kissing her, he thrust into her again and again with a ferocity that set her on fire. She could feel the door at her back, and the hard strength of his arms around her and his body pounding into her, and the combination made her spiral out of control. What they were doing felt so unbelievably good that she cried out over and over again. Her body burned and clenched and trembled. It was sex at
its rawest, most carnal, most intense. The end, when it came, was explosive.

  “Michael!” Charlie gasped.. Then as he thrust inside her one last time and groaned she came so violently that her body convulsed in a quaking wave of heat.

  A moment later, he kissed her again, deeply. As she kissed him back, she felt a shiver run through him, and opened her eyes. A subtle transformation in his face told her that whatever had been going on with him before, he was now at least near to something approaching his usual self. As if he could feel her eyes on him, he broke the kiss and lifted his head. His eyes opened, and she was relieved to see that, except for slightly enlarged pupils, they were once again their normal sky blue as he frowned—not glared—down at her.

  “Did I scare you?” He sounded faintly penitent.

  Charlie shook her head, still not sure whether or not she was telling the truth. Her heart was beating way too fast. “No.”

  “It’s that damned place. It does things to me.” He stepped back to let her slide to her feet. “No matter what happens, I don’t ever want you following me into Spookville again, understand?”

  “If that’s your version of pillow talk, you should probably know that it could use some work,” she responded tartly, telling herself that she had not been hoping for a hearts and flowers kind of speech from him but realizing even as she did so that, obviously, she had. She leaned back against the door, boneless and still a little shaky, watching him with secret, silent pleasure as he pulled up and refastened his jeans.

  His mouth curved in the merest suggestion of a smile. His eyes slid over her, and the sudden hot gleam in them reminded her that she was naked. Her dress was somewhere on the floor. There it was, by his feet.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said. “Sexy as hell. Just what I always wanted.”