by Jaycee Clark
The Dead Tell (Magical Temptations Collection)
by
Jaycee Clark
The Dead Tell © copyright 2013 by Jaycee Clark
First Electronic Printing October 2013, The Raven Books
Cover art by Natalie Winters, © Copyright 2013
ISBN-10: 1625010737
ISBN-13: 978-1-62501-073-5
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Published by The Raven Books
All books copyrighted to the author and may not be resold or given away without written permission from the author, Jaycee Clark.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places is merely coincidence. Novel intended for adults only. Must be 18 years or older to read.
Published by The Raven Books
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Raven Books and all affiliate sites and projects are © Copyrighted 2004-2013
The Dead Tell
by
Jaycee Clark
Table of Contents
The Dead Tell (Magical Temptations Collection)
Magical Temptations Collection
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About the Author
Also by Jaycee Clark
The Raven Books’ Complimentary Material
Retribution (Ghost Cats) by Jaycee Clark
The Savage King (Lords of the Var 1) by Michelle M. Pillow
Immortal Ops by Mandy M. Roth
The Dead Tell
Book One in The Dead series.
Some people talk with the living, some speak with the dead…
Paige Holcomb enjoys her life in New Orleans. Friends she considers family, a man she can’t figure if he’s a friend or more, and of course the others. The others being those who aren’t breathing and who gravitate to her for help. Why she’s cursed, she’s never figured out, but help the ghostly women she will.
Nothing much shocks homicide detective Mike Killian, but the stubborn woman he’s been after constantly manages it. Paige gives wary a whole new meaning and he’s given her space and time. But he’s done waiting. She’s his and it’s time she came to terms with that.
When the ghosts of murdered women start visiting Paige, Mike will do whatever he must to keep her safe while she learns to use her ability to help stop a murderer before it’s too late.
The Raven Books Presents
Magical Temptations Collection
The Dead Tell by Jaycee Clark
Tactical Magik (An Immortal Ops Book) by Mandy M. Roth
Divining Helena (Divinity Magic) by Michelle M. Pillow
Flourish by Jax Cassidy
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the fabulous M&M. Almost ten years ago, these two began talking me into things I’d never normally do. I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like if I’d never signed that first contract, which means I’d have never met Michelle Pillow or Mandy M. Roth. That’s a sad thought. We released our first books on the same day and lifelong friends were born. So to Mandy and Michelle, thank you for all the laughs, phone calls, neurotic emails, laughs, strange wonderings, plot ideas, pity parties, and laughs. You guys are a joy, not just to me, but to many.
Here’s to meeting of friends who accept you as you are, to friends you can call any time, who make you strive for more, and who help you plan for any eventuality that might arise. Here’s to ten more years of awesomeness—and more laughs. Oh and Michelle, I want a Dragon Lord. I really think if you get a Deadly, I should get a Dragon Lord. And Mandy, I want an Immortal Ops.
Love you guys!
Chapter One
New Orleans
He turned the woman’s head just a smidge to the side. There. That looked right.
It had to be right. Had to look perfect. Art should always be perfect, after all. Otherwise, what was the point? Art might be open to interpretation but bad art was bad art and he wasn’t about to be accused of being a sloppy artist.
The blood from her wound pooled around her on the cool, lichen-stained marble. She might have cared if she was alive.
But she wasn’t.
That was fine with him. Her mewls and cries had gotten on his nerves. He’d had to put the tape over her mouth again just to get her to shut the hell up.
Look how that had turned out.
He should have known better. The adhesive had left an area that he could easily see. The area around her mouth, those perfectly wide, plump lips, was now marred with redness. He hoped it wouldn’t ruin the final image.
It would have to work, though. Unless he got makeup?
No. He shook his head. He wasn’t going to screw up her natural beauty. It had taken him too long to find her to begin with. She’d been perfect in almost every way.
The clothing fit her perfectly, didn’t it?
The cemetery wasn’t cold tonight, but then it hardly ever got truly cold here in the Big Easy.
The scent of her blood mixed with the dirty scents that always permeated the city—mud from the river, too much garbage, and human waste.
He stepped back and took several photos, then looked at the scene.
No, she still wasn’t right. He glanced around, tapping his finger on the edge of his camera. He’d have to hurry. Too many more flashes and someone was bound to come along to see what was going on. He’d rather have set her up in his studio. Granted, he had taken some photos of her there, but they were more work-in-progress types, not the finished, final product.
He’d decided the photos needed more. But he’d already planned what to do with her.
It had taken him almost an hour to get her to look just right.
She lay on her side, her arm outstretched, palm up. Her eyes had been open in previous photos, but he’d shut them when doing her light makeup; she’d needed mascara—lashes should be seen. Dead eyes were just dead. There was no life in them, no soul, no animation.
Dull did not go well with his artwork.
His artwork was great. He’d be great!
This would be great.
The angel who swooped over her, stood atop an above ground grave; the stone warrior was missing a wing.
He rather liked that as well—added a touch to the whole effect. He scanned back through his Nikon 5100’s photos, the high-dollar digital camera one of his prides and joys.
But he’d needed it, needed to capture his ideas. Now he used it as he pleased.
Her white dress was stained, but not too much. He’d made sure to dress her after. After he’d ended it all. The scarf around her neck hid the wound he’d given her. A quick, fast slice. Not completely across her throat. How clichéd would that be? He’d only needed a small slice, just at the jugular. As fast as her scared heart had been beating, it hadn’t taken her long to bleed out, especially inverted as she had been. He’d learned inversion helped to keep things clean.
Even from here, he could hear revelers, probably on their way home from Bourbon Street.
He glanced that way, knowing he shouldn’t be here. The cemeteries were curfewed, but he didn’t care. He was too important for anyone to bother, though they might call the cops. He rather hoped not.
He should have bought his lights. The lighting was all wrong for this scene. It needed sharper shadows in a few
of the photos. He wanted the light and dark. The good and evil. The innocence and the guilty.
It had taken him forever to figure out how to pose her.
And now that he could, the flashlight just wasn’t doing it. He couldn’t get the photos he wanted in his studio. He needed a cemetery. An area of death, to add the finality to it. Give it an edge.
He wondered how many people would understand, would see that she wasn’t really dead.
That was, if he showed his art—he wanted to show his art. He wanted to share it with the world.
However, he wasn’t quite ready, but he’d get there. At least he no longer left the bodies he’d practiced on in the dumpsters. But really, they were just practice. Practice made perfect.
It wasn’t like they’d be missed. Not really.
This one might. Might. He picked her up yesterday on her way home from work. He’d followed her. Approached her.
God, his hands had been sweating, he’d been shaking but she apparently hadn’t noticed. She’d been distracted by a dog.
He’d planned this scene in his head for weeks, and then he’d seen her. The Muse had chosen her for him.
Perfection.
Almost.
The lighting was just off.
He frowned and wondered if he waited until almost dawn if that might help.
Might. It would lighten. He could still sneak out. With the ball cap and shades, it wasn’t like anyone would recognize him. He could climb up and hide behind the angel. Keep watch over his newest work.
Next time, though, he’d have to better plan. How to get the next one inside a cemetery while there was enough light would be tricky. He’d have to look into that and see what he could find out. Maybe a smaller portable light? Better than a flashlight.
Or a smaller, out of the way cemetery.
He sighed and bent down, clicking off the flashlight. Then he slung his pack over his shoulder and climbed up onto the grave, settling against the angel. On the night, he could hear the street cleaners already out washing away the night’s sins, a scuffle and an argument.
He’d leave them to it. He was waiting on the light.
Next time though, he’d plan better, figure out a way to get her in with the light perfect, maybe late in the day, with enough light left. Use the old bellows camera with the plates. That would be wicked.
He grinned.
Next time, he’d make it perfect.
Chapter Two
Paige Holcomb saw dead people.
Not all the time and, no, she wasn’t insane. Her foster parents had had her tested for that. Several times by several doctors.
They’d put her on medication until she couldn’t see the ghosts anymore and when they’d slowly weaned her off the meds, she’d been older, a bit wiser. And she’d learned to lie. No, she never saw ghosts, what were they talking about?
Shaking off the thoughts, she carefully glanced around.
Normally, the others, as she called them, were—well, wispy.
Once she’d learned what the ghosts generally looked like—clichéd or not—she knew what to ignore. Because once you paid a ghost any attention, it was all downhill from there. Or uphill rather. Pay attention and life could become complicated.
Paige walked down the sidewalk on Chartres. She didn’t live far, so she walked to work every morning in the dark. She glanced at her watch. She would beat Sammy there this morning.
They both worked at Riggio’s Family Bakery in the French Quarter, which Sammy had taken over. Her brothers hadn’t wanted anything to do with it and her mother had wanted to retire.
So Sammy had gotten a loan.
Paige, on the other hand, worked with her friend because Sammy called her up and asked her if she wanted to.
Fresh off her divorce from the shortest marriage in history, she’d grabbed at the chance to move back to New Orleans and work with her best friend from college.
That had been over two—three?—years ago.
Now, well, now she was still renting half a place from her landlord, an older divorced woman, and still at the bakery. The job and the living arrangement was supposed to have been temporary. Temporary had become settled. But it was good here.
She loved the history, the culture, the quirkiness. When she’d been away as a child, she’d missed this place because it had been home. After college, she’d missed the slower, laid-back pace. She’d missed the Quarter, missed seeing the long hanging baskets from wrought-iron balconies guarded by bright shutters.
Yeah, life here was good.
She dug her key out of her pocket and looked up, stumbling to a stop.
On the sidewalk stood a woman dressed in white with a red scarf.
“Can you help me?” the woman asked.
“I’m sorry?” she automatically answered before she realized what she’d done.
The air chilled, seemed to fog with the drop in temperature.
No. No. No. She really didn’t have time for this. Darn it! No, this required a real curse word. Damn it! She’d spoken to an other. She knew better. Once you acknowledged them, they never left you alone.
Maybe she was wrong. It had been awhile since she’d been this stupid.
“This isn’t real. There’s no one there. Ghosts are not real.” She heard her old shrink’s voice in her head, which made her angry. Hadn’t she banished that bastard years ago?
“Can you help me? I’ve asked so many, but no one else pays attention.”
Paige swallowed and wished she hadn’t had her cup of coffee this morning. She should have waited, then she might have missed this other. Or maybe not. Honestly, they found her either way. They always had.
Maybe she was just stressed? She hadn’t been sleeping well and there she went again, trying to rationalize what she was seeing.
Stress.
Was she stressed? They’d realized that stress was a trigger.
Not real. “I’m home. I’m going to work. I can’t see you because you are just a figment of my imagination,” she tried.
“If I’m a figment of your imagination, can you tell me why I can talk to you?”
Well, she had to try. Ghosts were often a pain in the ass. They wanted things. She shook her head. “What do you want?” Please let it be simple. Please.
“Your help.” The woman looked over her shoulder back towards the west. “He hurt me.” Her dark hair seemed to float as she turned back to Paige. Her wide lips titled up into a smile. She walked closer. “I’m cold. I’m never cold.”
Paige looked down and saw the woman’s feet were bare but they were on the sidewalk. Granted there was no shadow from the streetlights, but then she hadn’t expected the other to cast one, had she?
Rubbing her head, she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“How did I get here? I don’t remember, exactly. I mean, I was just walking the street. I think...” She frowned. “I think he left me there.”
“Where?” Paige asked the woman. “He, who?”
A wave of energy slammed into her, pain thrumming in her skull as she concentrated on the ghost, even as she didn’t want to.
The woman’s eyes seemed to almost glow with a dark fire. “The cemetery. He keeps mumbling about lighting and things not being perfect. But then I don’t know what he means. Why am I here? “
Paige just shook her head.
Definitely a real curse word day. Damn it. “I can’t help you.”
“But you can hear me,” the woman said, looking at her again, her dark eyes flashing. “You at least stopped to talk to me; everyone else just looked past.”
She reached up and fingered the red scarf at her neck and waved her hand. Her fingers were smeared red.
Paige swallowed and rubbed her arms as goosebumps peppered her skin.
Blood. There was blood on the woman’s fingers.
The whiny voice of one of her shrinks scraped through her mind, Paige, the things you see are not real. You know this. It is simply a matter of you dealing with it.
Paige shook her head, hating that man. She had often wondered if she was crazy. She knew she had issues, but for the most part anymore, she knew who she was, knew she saw things others didn’t. But bleeding ghosts? Doubts crept in and led to her hearing voices in her head and not good voices, or ghost voices, but ghosts of shrinks pasts.
Bleeding ghosts, though?
No. No, it wasn’t real. She’d been through this before. It wasn’t real. None of this was real. Her breath was coming faster.
An annoying ghost that liked to go thump in the night, or whisper to you on the way home was one thing, but this… this… was more than she wanted, or could, deal with.
“Am I dead?” the woman asked.
Paige startled, then slowly nodded. “I think so.”
A darkness wavered around the woman.
“I’m sorry,” she added to the ghost. What else was there to say?
“In the cemetery,” the woman whispered, yet her voice echoed. “I think he left me in the cemetery.”
A car turned onto the street at the next block and flooded the sidewalk with lights. Paige squinted and held up her hand to block the headlights. When she lowered her arm, the woman was gone.
She looked around.
The cemetery? The woman was in the cemetery?
Because that’s where most of the dead were.
Shut up.
Now she was arguing with herself.
Paige glanced up the street, then back down, turning around. The woman was nowhere, and even if she was, what was Paige supposed to do?
The car slowed and parked on the narrow road across the street.
Shaking off the chill, her palms sweaty, she finally got the key into the lock and unlocked the door.
“Hey, Paige!”
She jumped and whirled.
“Whoa. You okay?” the deep voice she knew asked.
Great. Just what she freaking needed. Not now.
“I’m fine.” She shoved the door open and flipped on the light.
