by Jackie May
I want to do something—I need to do something—that’s just for him, nothing about me. Something that’s, like, all thoughtful and shit, I don’t know. I have no idea what that could be. Well, actually, a thought occurs to me that I do know something he really likes, but the idea makes me gag. Bleh! There’s no way in hell I’d ever love somebody enough to go there.
Ew. Forget it; being thoughtful is the worst.
At the end of the dance, Russo ramps into a rock song with a flourish of hands that whips the drums into a frenzy and the horns screaming. The crowd responds with a burst of applause for an old classic they know well. As they clap to the beat, Russo conjures a fedora and a harmonica, which he seems to make love to with his mouth.
“What, now he’s the Blues Brothers?”
“Believe me,” Jay says, “this brings the house down at cop parties.”
Finishing a wild intro with the harmonica, Russo takes a breath and talks to the beat of the audience’s clapping. “I’m so happy to be here tonight. Glad to be here in your wonderful city.”
Several shouts of Amen! ring out. The rhythmic clapping has grown to a deafening thunder.
“I have a little message for you all. Something to tell every woman and every man and every whatever the hell else is out there.”
Huge uproar of approval. Some laughter.
“What I have to say can save the whole world, and what I have to say is this…” Russo strikes a dramatic pose as he begins singing with a strong, sassy voice. “‘Everybody. Needs somebody.’” He throws his hands out to the crowd, inviting them to join in. “‘Everybody. Needs somebody…to love.’”
Someone to love, the crowd shouts in unison.
“‘And I need you, you, you.’” Russo points his finger, redirecting his spotlight onto a beautiful young sorceress. She responds with her best shimmy and shake, but it’s not enough to tempt Russo. He points his finger at another woman—a busty werewolf—and she goes to work, grinding her body against him. While appreciative, Russo is still not satisfied, and he moves on to other women, roaming through the crowd with his spotlight as he belts out the rest of the song. “‘Everybody needs somebody, and I need you, you, you.’” Each time he rejects a woman, the crowd goes crazy with growing anticipation.
Hillerman elbows her way to my side. “I think we had a bite. Two guys at the bar—both demons. Haven’t taken their eyes off Russo since he came in.”
“Has anybody? Besides you, I mean.”
“One of them used a phone to send a text. When a response came back, he showed it to the other guy, and now they’re both headed for the exit.”
“They’re leaving? Did we strike out?”
“What do you think? They want a sorcerer with a dark side, not Frank Sinatra.”
“He’s fine. Power is power.”
Russo’s done teasing women. As the ghost band kicks into high gear, he turns his finger, sending the spotlight across the room to glare off the black shades of Special Agent Hillerman. “‘Everybody needs somebody, and I need you.’”
At first, Hillerman is cluelessly trying to shield her eyes from the piercing light. Then all at once she understands, and her face turns deep red, and the only thing she can think to do is turn her back to him. The whole club bursts into a loud, collective gasp. It’s inconceivable that he could be rejected.
Russo plays up his reaction, reeling back on his heels, clutching his heart as though he’s been stabbed. The instruments mimic him, slipping out of key and out of tune, like they’re being strangled. The audience laughs and starts to cheer for Russo to rebound.
Hillerman’s mouth moves with strings of silent curses. “Turn it off,” she growls at Elle. “Shut him down, now.”
“Sure thing. You got it.” Elle snaps her fingers.
Russo receives the idea, snaps his own fingers, and two werewolf men leap to his side and rip off their shirts. The crowd loses its shit, shaking the walls. The drums come to life with a conga line beat to which the werewolf strippers thrust their pelvises. Strutting, Russo leads them toward Hillerman.
Russo cracks an imaginary whip, and she is jolted by a very real force around her waist. When he pulls on the invisible rope, her feet drag across the floor. It’s helpless to resist, and she knows it, but even still she looks to me and begs, “Shayne.”
I smile. “Do it for your country.”
A forceful tug from Russo spins Hillerman around and into his arms. The crowd cheers his victory. With reluctant grace, Hillerman allows him to lead her into a brisk Mambo. The shirtless werewolves grab partners of their own, and soon the whole place is dancing to the same spontaneous choreography, like a movie musical. Elle is falling over with delighted laughter.
“Elle! How’s this working? I thought they had to be willing.”
“Willing and/or drunk,” she responds. “We’ve got plenty of both.”
“But Hillerman is neither. I thought you couldn’t force somebody.”
“That’s true, and I do feel her resisting, but…”
“But what?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but there’s another part of her that’s not resisting. It’s like there are two separate wills inside her. One wants to crawl into a hole and die right now, but the other part of her is encouraging my power.”
“She’s going to kill us both when this is over.”
“I’m telling you, Shayne. I’m not forcing her. I’m just feeding her the dance moves, and she’s going along with it.”
It’s hard to hear over the roar of the crowd. Throwing the mic over his shoulder, Russo places both hands on Hillerman’s hips, tosses her up onto the bar, then jumps off a stool to join her.
My eyes bug out. “Elle, no! That’s Terrance’s new bar! It’s his pride and joy. It’s his baby.”
“It’s his fault for letting us in!” Elle squeals, rummaging through her purse. She throws me her credit card.
“No, Elle!”
“Too late! We’re doing this.”
The music builds to a crescendo. The crowd is out of their minds—barking, howling, cheering, kissing, raving mad. As Russo and Hillerman dance along the length of the bar, the sea of liquor bottles on the wall ripple like baseball fans doing the wave.
My mouth drops open. “Elle!”
Now at the inescapable climax of it all, Russo spins Hillerman into his arm and dips her way back, her hair falling onto the bar just as every bottle—hundreds, maybe thousands!—pop their corks and explode neon booze across the fanatical crowd. I cover my ears against a thunderous cheer that rumbles the floor.
“Elvira Jane Harrington!”
“Too late, Shayne! It’s done!”
“No, I mean look at her!”
Lying back in Russo’s arm, breathless and bathed in glowing liquor, Agent Hillerman is smiling. On a night that will move Underworld into the realm of legend, this is the detail I will remember as the most incredible.
Russo leans down to kiss her, but at the last instant, Hillerman raises a finger to his lips. Her smile dims as they stare into each other’s eyes. Russo, the consummate gentleman, doesn’t press his luck. He lifts her to her feet, and she immediately steps down from the bar, making a beeline for the exit.
“I’d say our welcome is worn,” she says as she passes me.
“Always leave them wanting more, right?” Turning to follow her, I smash right into a wall of Terrance, frowning down at me.
“Oh, I definitely want more,” he growls.
“Here!” I toss Elle’s credit card at him and grab Jay’s hand. He’s still staring down at the floor, the beautiful dope.
“Did I miss something?”
“Just run!”
We claw our way through the horde to meet Hillerman and Elle out at the curb, where the Rolls Royce SUV awaits. Russo is the last to escape, fending off his fans like a rock star after a concert. We pile into the SUV. Elle takes the wheel and speeds us away.
“We lost those two demons,” Hillerman fume
s. “We blew it. Dammit! We came here to get our hands on an invitation, not do the twist!”
“Oh, you mean this invitation?” Russo displays a business card between two fingers. The card is black, with a logo of a white neoclassical building.
Hillerman is speechless, so I do the talking. “Where’d you get that?”
“From the vampire host outside. When the line out front crushed through the doors, he slipped this into my jacket pocket.”
“Wait, before we even went inside? You knew you had that card this whole time? Before any of the dancing?”
Russo beams proudly. Elle swerves all over the road with laughter. I snatch the card and turn it over. On the back is one word: ELMWOOD.
My heart skips a beat. “Elmwood! We’re idiots. This isn’t a government building at all. It’s one of those things. A fancy burial place in a cemetery.”
“A mausoleum,” Hillerman says.
“Right. Elmwood is a cemetery on Lafayette Street.”
“There’s a museum inside a cemetery?”
“Not a museum, Jay, a mausoleum. It’s just a fancy tomb that rich people build. We need to find one that looks like this.”
“And do what?”
“What do you think? Go inside. Some of these things are huge. I would guess it needs to be between three and four a.m. That’s the witching hour.”
Jay sighs. “Right. Just go inside a tomb at an old cemetery during witching hour. That’s all.”
Russo rubs his hands together. “Excellent.”
“We’ll go tonight,” Hillerman declares.
“You guys, you guys!” Elle clutches at her stomach, aching from so much laughter. “Guys, c’mon, are we not even going to discuss how balls out that was? What are you all doing tomorrow night?”
We all answer at once, Russo with “Hell, yeah,” but the rest of us with a definitive “No!”
Jay’s house is like an antique patchwork quilt—it’s huge and old and worn paper thin. It’s also literally a patchwork, since we have stretched blankets and sheets across many of the gaping holes in the walls. The floors are bare concrete. Some of the ceilings sag so low, I can reach up and touch my palm to them. Still, for me it’s the most like a traditional house I’ve ever lived in, after growing up in a trailer and then moving into my Pontiac Crap-pile.
His Pontiac Crap-pile, I remind myself, and then I quickly move my thoughts elsewhere.
The boys are asleep in their typical fashions: Jay sprawled sideways across our bed, where he fell face-first, like a tree cut down; Russo on a downstairs couch, with his feet crossed and fingers interlaced over his chest, like cowboys who lie on the ground and pull their hats down over their eyes. I’ve heard that about cops—that they can sleep anywhere, at any time, just by closing their eyes. And now I’m in a house with three of them.
It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning, and I’m wide awake. If I shifted, I could sleep, but there’s no sense in that now. Alarms will be going off soon for witching hour. I should put coffee on.
My flannel pajamas and fuzzy socks are no match for January cold. Jay’s laid out on top of our comforter, so I have to pull the blanket down from a hole in the wall. When I do, I see through that hole to the hallway, where there’s a hole in the floor, and through that hole I can see into the dining room downstairs, where Hillerman stands at the sliding glass door, staring out at darkness in the backyard.
“Do you ever sleep?” I ask, padding down the stairs.
“No,” she says quietly. “I don’t need it. But Charlotte does, so I try to be as still as I can. Doesn’t always work.”
I stop. “Oh. It’s you.”
In the dim orange light from above the stove, I see a pot filled with water and ramen noodles. I pull the blanket tightly around my shoulders, now wishing I hadn’t left my handgun upstairs. Psh, what good’s a gun against a demon spirit, anyway? What I need is an exorcist, but what do you do when the exorcist is the one who’s possessed?
“She still gets rest. Her mind, I mean. That’s the most important thing.”
“You keep her up like this a lot?”
“No. Never. I try to respect her…” She can’t latch onto the right word.
“Her property?”
“Her ownership. This body was hers long before it was also mine. I never take command, unless it’s important.”
“I see. Ramen noodles are very important.”
“I don’t know why I make them. Just a habit, I guess. Going through the motions of a past life. I grew up in Southern California. Then we lived in Phoenix and Las Vegas. I’ll never get used to these winters.”
“We’re really talking about the weather over a pot of noodles? I have to say, you don’t sound like a demon. Wanting her to rest. Respecting her body. I’d almost say you like her.”
Hillerman—or whoever she is right now—turns to face me with closed eyes. “I love her. More than anything, and now more than I ever did in life.”
My shoulders go slack, the blanket sliding down them as my brain fires rapidly, connecting dots from Hillerman’s explanation of possessing spirits—how the host can strengthen their bond by adopting physical traits that belong to the spirit; how Charlotte covered her arms with the tattoos of her dead husband, and colors her hair blonde like his was, and wears his wedding band; how she killed him herself, an act which would create a special bond between them—a haunting, which, in this case, would have been welcomed. All this time, she kept this from me, but never once did she lie to me. It’s true her husband is dead. But he’s never been gone.
“Matthew? Matthew Hillerman?”
Her eyelashes fill with tears. One slides down her cheek. “You’re the first person to ever look at this face, but call me that name.”
The whole story clicks in my head. And breaks my heart. “Tabitha Durran was going to use Matt’s body as a vessel for her father’s spirit, so Hillerman—Charlotte—killed your body, but only after taking you out of it.”
“That’s Charlotte for you. If she couldn’t have me, nobody could.” A laugh catches in her throat.
I wave my hand. “And you can see me right now? With your—her—eyes closed?”
“I see both your world and the Deep. When her mind is awake, she can also use my sight.”
“So that’s how she can see ghosts. And she can hear you in her mind? You…talk to each other?”
“That’s right. Do you need to sit? You don’t look so good.”
“Yeah, no. I just…”
She pulls out a chair for me at the table and we sit down. I can’t stop staring at her. At him? Look, I’m just going to call him a him, even though he’s in the body of a her. It’s not as confusing as you might think. Although he has Charlotte’s face, it’s easy for me to see that she’s not “home” at the moment. Matt carries her body very differently. Much more relaxed and casual. He slouches over the table, resting his face on a fist.
“I’m sure you have lots of questions,” he says. “I can answer the big one right now.” He takes a deep, dramatic breath and releases it. “The answer is yes, I enjoy having my own boobs to play with whenever I want.”
For what surely must be the first time in my life, I’m the one caught off guard by an ill-timed joke. I can’t imagine what my face looks like right now, but Matt finds it funny. When he chuckles softly, I can’t help but notice that Charlotte looks beautiful when she smiles.
“Hold on, are you funny? Because I can’t see Hillerman—er, Charlotte—being with somebody who’s funny. That’s just not right.”
“Isn’t it, though? Look at you and Brenner. You’re funny and he’s not. You’re the Matt and he’s the Charlotte. It works. I’ve been telling her that since you two met.”
“You guys talk about us?”
“Oh, constantly. She likes Brenner, but wishes you’d never met him.”
“No, what? Why?”
“She says he holds you back, he’s just in the way, but I’m like, ‘Charlotte, he’s not in
her way. He is her way.”
I slap the table. “Yes, thank you! You really said that to her?”
“She rolled her eyes, of course, but look, you can’t take her attitude personally. She’s just…actually, if anything, she’s being protective of you, because she sees you guys being a lot like us, and look how that turned out.”
“Oh, so it’s actually just a tough-love act? No, thank you. Got enough of that growing up.”
“From your mom, I know.”
I throw my hands out. “You guys talk about my mom issues?!”
“I sit all day and watch people through Charlotte’s eyes. What else would we talk about? Shayne, you have no idea how surreal it is to be actually talking out loud to you.”
“So we’ve never spoken before? I mean, before last night?”
“No. I told you, I respect her ownership. I don’t take joy rides.” He shifts uncomfortably. “In fact, I’ve never spoken to anybody. I shouldn’t be talking to you now. If Charlotte knew…” He chokes down thick emotion. “But it’s time. And it has to be you.”
“What? No, no, no. That sounds ominous, and whatever it’s time for, I promise you, if it involves Special Agent Hillerman, then I’m not the one it has to be, no matter what ‘it’ is. Have you really been in there all this time, watching? Because I feel like you should know this already. Oh, here’s an idea. How about you stay in command forever? Because me and Charlotte could never talk like this.”
“You’re wrong. She could.”
“She could if you worked her mouth like a puppet.”
“Now you’re just rambling to avoid the subject.”
“Is Charlotte back in control? Because that sounds like her.”
“Fine, let’s change the subject. Tell me this—what was your ‘one more thing?’”
“Huh?”
“Your ‘one more thing.’ Last night, we were talking, and you said I could ask my ‘one more thing’ if I let you ask yours. But you never did.”
“Oh, that. Forget it.”
He goes quiet, just looking at me expectantly.
