Stumptown Spirits

by E. J. Russell

  She stuck out her lower lip in a pout so incongruous on her strong-jawed face that Riley nearly laughed. “I’m hurt.”

  “You’re not. Come on. Let me have it.”

  She grinned, bouncing on her butt in the bed. “Simple. You could do it.”

  Riley’s belly curled in on itself. “I’m not a witness.”

  “No, but you’ve got the research, the history. Think about it. Even if the ghosts don’t materialize—and given our track record, I think that’s a certainty—the backstory is still awesome. Flesh it out. Pull in some local history experts. Then you could narrate it.”

  “Are you crazy? With my Elmer Fudd speech impediment?”

  Julie tossed off the blankets and knee-walked to the edge of the bed. “Riley Morrel, do not let assholes like Max Stone or your stupid family convince you that you’re unintelligible. It’s very slight. And kind of cute, actually.”

  Riley stripped off his Henley, wadded it up, and tossed it in the laundry pile. “Cute isn’t a selling point when you’re trying for credibility.”

  “Maybe not. But it endears you to viewers, and that can’t be bad.”

  “Seriously, Jules, can you see Max Stone allowing me even a minute of his screen time?”

  He met her gaze in the mirror, and she narrowed her eyes. “Unless he wants to ad lib the whole freaking episode, he’d better learn how to share.”

  Riley would be at Stumptown Spirits tonight.

  The thought had plagued Logan all day, through the trip to the bank to close his accounts, the wait at the DMV to prep for the transfer of the Harley title, the visit to the landlord to settle his lease.

  Who knew dying required so much fricking paperwork?

  Now, halfway through his stint cleaning the bar—another one of those least favorite tasks he’d lined up for himself—that insidious thought remained.

  Riley. Stumptown Spirits. Tonight.

  Christ, he only had three days left. What would be the harm in seeing Riley again? Spending those last days near him?

  The harm, idiot, is that it would be both too much and not enough. It would be too much for Riley, whose grief would be greater if he had to mourn someone he loved, who he knew loved him. But it would never be enough for Logan, because the one thing, the one person he’d regret leaving would be within his reach. If he gave in, Trent would be doomed, maybe forever. And Riley? What would he have if Logan took the selfish coward’s way out again?

  A lover who was only half there. Who couldn’t leave the past behind because once a year he doomed himself to repeat it.

  After he’d discovered that nothing materialized except on the anniversary, he’d tried to get as far away from Portland as he could, searching for an answer. But as the hellish anniversary approached, no matter where he’d run—Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Florida—whenever he’d gotten on his bike, to head to his latest bartending gig, to a club, to the freaking grocery store, for Chrissake, he would end up on the nearest highway heading north, unable to pass up one more opportunity to try to rescue his friend. Or if rescue was impossible, to at least honor him with his presence, his vigil.

  He’d given up on the mediums and spiritualists after Marguerite Windflower told him the ghosts might not be ghosts. Instead, he’d gone looking for someone who knew about this kind of shit—stories, legends, whatever. As soon as he’d dropped her at the airport, he’d headed south, stopping in Eugene. UO had a couple of faculty members who were big noise in the folklore community—and hadn’t it been an eye-opener to find out there actually was a folklore community? He’d sat in (illegally) on one of the lectures.

  And seen the teaching assistant, Riley Morrel.

  Boom.

  Since denial was an old and valued drinking buddy, he’d convinced himself that he’d targeted Riley because he was an easier mark than the professor, and approached with a plan to pump him about information on legends and ghost stories, clues about how to save Trent.

  He’d ended up pumping Riley in an entirely different way.

  For a year and a half, he’d continued to lie to himself. Pretended he was only staying with Riley until he could find the answer to Trent’s rescue. But every day with Riley, every time they made love, the urgency of the search had diminished, his guilt masked under his joy and damn domestic contentment.

  After all, he’d tried for almost seven years without turning up a single usable piece of information. It was time to admit he never would, to give up his annual pilgrimage to Forest Park and live his life.

  With Riley.

  Pretty fucking ironic that the very day he’d been ready to pop the fatal question and put the ghost war in the past for good, Riley had given him the answer.

  They’d been making dinner. Logan was a decent cook when he put his mind to it, and kept Riley away from the knives and open flames. He wanted this one to be special, something they’d remember every year on their anniversary, so he’d pulled out all the stops. Riley’s favorite mustard-marinated grilled fish. Wine. Crème brûlée for dessert. Logan’s nerves were on overload. What if Riley said no? Sure, he’d hinted about taking Logan with him to Europe on the big-deal study grant he’d just been awarded, but maybe he wasn’t as certain as Logan that he’d met the love of his life.

  Logan would have to persuade him to say yes, that’s all. Because he wasn’t sure how he’d live without him.

  Tonight, Riley was so jazzed about some story he’d been discussing with the kids in his TA session that the salad he was tossing threatened to escape the bowl.

  “I love this part of teaching: The first time the students really get the power of these mythic cycles. What they mean in history. How powerful, how weal they are.”

  Logan grinned at Riley’s speech slip. “Real, huh? How can you prove it if this shit happened umpteen thousand years ago?”

  “It’s a cycle, Logan. A pattern.” Riley popped a carrot coin into his mouth. “They repeat in different cultures, at different times.” He stopped terrorizing the salad and levered himself up to sit on the counter, swinging his legs so the heels of his sneakers bumped the cabinet in a syncopated rhythm. “Take frequency, for instance. Any time you’ve got a repeating cycle, whether it’s ritual sacrifice or replacement or birth order, it’s always a repeating periodicity. Seven and three are the big winners.”

  “Replacement? You mean your favorite myths have parts that wear out and need maintenance, like the spark plugs on my bike?”

  Riley grinned, and Logan abandoned the sautéing onions. He crossed the kitchen to nudge Riley’s knees apart and draw him into a tight embrace, because that mouth demanded a kiss. Or three. Or seven. Periodicity. Yeah, he could get into that.

  Riley pulled out of the kissing marathon, breathing hard—although no harder than Logan’s dick—and leaned his forehead against Logan’s. “If we keep this up, your onions will burn.”

  “Screw ’em.” He dove in for another kiss, his hands tightening around Riley’s ass.

  “And let your work go to waste? Besides, it smells too glorious to ruin.” He laced his hands behind Logan’s neck. “Let’s talk about something else. Death.”

  Logan leaned back, his own acquaintance with death wilting his erection. “Yeah, that’s a mood killer.”

  “No, it’s an answer to your question. Replacement. In a lot of the old tales, a person of power, usually a king, could escape death or another fate that might be worse, if he could get someone to take his place.”

  Logan scoffed and turned back to the stove. “Yeah. How tough could it be? The king orders some peasant to take the hit, and he’s golden.”

  Riley chuckled. “Not that easy. The replacement has to be a willing volunteer. But there could be any number of reasons why someone would sign up for the gig. Money, for instance—in The Golden Bough, Frazer mentions a Chinese custom that paid the family of the volunteer. But there are other reasons. Hubris. Desperation. Love.”

  “Love?”

  “Sure. If the replacement was trying to
save or protect a loved one, sometimes the king himself, the sacrifice would hold incredible power.” Riley jumped down from the counter and wrapped his arms around Logan’s waist, warm against his back, and dug his lethal chin into Logan’s shoulder. “Then the king is free, at least until the end of the next seven-year cycle when he has to get another sucker to step up to the plate.”

  Logan’s hand shook, and he nearly dropped the sauté pan. He turned off the gas, black spots dancing in his vision. Seven years. Get someone to take your place and you’re free.

  This was the answer. It was a fucking window of opportunity. Logan calculated dates in his head. His grandfather had seen the fully manifested war sixty-three years ago—a multiple of seven. Seven years ago this October, he’d seen the ghosts himself, although they hadn’t been visible since. Seven years ago, Trent willingly took Balch’s place and freed him from his fate.

  In order to save Trent from the cycle of murder and execution, Logan had to willingly take his place, and if he didn’t do it this October, he’d have to wait seven years for another chance.

  He wiped his damp palms on his jeans, then peeled Riley’s hands from his waist and turned around.

  “Have you booked your flight to Sarajevo yet?” His voice was rough, blocked by a lump in his throat the size of his fist.

  Riley’s forehead got that little pinch between his brows, the corners of his lips tipping down in a way that telegraphed his disappointment. Shit. Logan hated hurting Riley. But Riley deserved more. He deserved a life. He deserved a better man than Logan could ever be. He deserved a man who kept his promises.

  “But I thought—” Riley peered at him from under his bangs. “The grant’s enough to cover two if we don’t splurge. You could . . . you could come with me.”

  “No.” Logan forced himself to move away, busying himself with the torch on the burnt-sugar crust for the crème brûlée. “Not my scene.”

  “Logan?” The uncertainty in Riley’s voice hit him like a rabbit punch to the kidneys.

  “Gotta put the fish on the grill. Dinner in twenty.”

  He’d claimed an emergency bartending shift that night and hadn’t returned until Riley was asleep. The next day he’d staged that stupid sex scene in their bedroom and bailed.

  He didn’t have the right to put Riley through that again. He’d stay the fuck away from Stumptown Spirits and hope the seeds of doubt he planted would do their work and keep the crew out of Forest Park until it was too late.

  His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Deke. We’ve spotted your guy again.”

  Logan tried to make himself care. “On the outbound freight from Tacoma?”

  “No, man. He’s in downtown Portland. One of the guys was making a delivery at a bar down on Southwest Second and saw him outside the homeless shelter off Burnside.”

  Anger bubbled under Logan’s skin like molten lead. Someone to blame. “Thanks, Deke. I’m on it.”

  He stashed the mop and pail in the storeroom and peered into Bert’s office. Empty. Bert didn’t usually arrive until closer to happy hour at four so he could put a damper on anyone’s desire to order cheaper fare. Logan scowled at the black eye of the powered-down monitor. The damn computer took forever to boot up, and the map program on his phone sucked. If he didn’t want to miss a chance at Danford Balch, he couldn’t afford to wait.

  He grabbed the phone book off of Bert’s desk, thankful for once that his boss was probably the only man in Portland who still used the Yellow Pages. Several sheets of paper fluttered onto the floor—a page of notes in Bert’s crabbed block printing, another with a hand-drawn map of the industrial district, because the guy didn’t believe in Google Maps either. Logan tossed them onto the desk and rifled through the dog-eared book until he found the list of shelters, flipped one of the papers, and jotted down the addresses on it.

  Finally. Something to take his mind off Riley. Something that would give him a little goddamn satisfaction. He grabbed his jacket off the hook and headed out the back door, adrenaline powering his steps. Despite all the years of looking for the guy, he’d had little hope of locating Balch. Now he had the gift of a chance to confront him, to stare down the man who’d condemned Trent and now Logan. Get some fucking closure before the end.

  Julie made good on her threat to pull Riley on camera in place of his vanished witness, and although his spots would take up little screen time, they were located at six different sites around town. He’d spent all day schlepping around Portland with the second unit crew, hands sweaty and teeth clenched against stage fright.

  God, he’d probably looked as terrified as the hunted wabbit Max always taunted him with.

  To top off his crappy day, he’d made the mistake of mentioning Bert’s sinister personality makeover to Julie, thinking the news would guarantee she’d stay away from Stumptown Spirits despite her still-active desire for a face-to-face confrontation with Logan, weapons TBD. That had worked until he’d illustrated his point with the unexpected dinner invitation. Then, she’d spread the word to the crew and packed them all into the van again and down to the bar.

  Guess a chance to stretch her budget with free food trumped her habit of protecting Riley or her Fury-like desire for revenge.

  Good to know.

  He hung back, letting the rest of the crew pile out of the van first and crowd into the bar. After they’d commandeered a couple of booths and a nest of tables in the center of the room, he slunk over and took a chair in the darkest corner.

  Julie found him, of course. She tossed her clipboard on his table with a clatter and dropped onto the stool across from him. “Don’t hide, Rile. You’re everyone’s hero.”

  “Yeah, right.” He scrunched down in his chair. Just because Bert had put on his alarming happy face yesterday, didn’t mean it would remain in place today.

  “I’m serious.” She pulled a laminated menu from between the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers. “A whole day without Max, plus free food? They may nominate you for sainthood. In fact . . .” She stood up and hauled him out of his chair. “Come on. You’re not allowed to lurk.”

  She dragged him over to the crew’s tables and shoved him into a seat next to Zack, who slapped him on the back, a grin splitting his scruff.

  “Good work today, man.” He beckoned to the rest of the crew. “Am I right?”

  Everyone hooted, and Grace put two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle.

  Heat spread from Riley’s chest to the tips of his ears. “Um . . . thanks.”

  “Far as I’m concerned,” Zack said around a mouthful of pretzels, “Max can be terminally hungover every day.”

  “Guys,” Julie said in her taking-no-shit UPM voice. “No trash-talking behind Max’s back.” She leaned close to whisper in Riley’s ear. “That’s my privilege.”

  The friendly waitress from Riley’s first visit arrived. “Hey, ghost hunters. So you decided to brave Stumptown Spirits again. Welcome back.”

  Zack started chanting “Hea-ther, Hea-ther,” and the other guys picked it up.

  She grinned and took out her order pad. “Thanks, but I’m still not interested in your special equipment.”

  “Awww. Not even a little?”

  “Get over it.”

  While Heather jotted down orders and sidestepped Zack’s determined flirting, Riley cast furtive glances at the hallway. Would Logan be here tonight? He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to see the man or not, although judging by the way his stomach dipped whenever someone who wasn’t Logan emerged, his stupid heart still cherished hopes that his brain considered futile.

  By the time Heather got to him, his belly was so knotted he didn’t think he’d ever eat again. “Um . . . I guess I’ll have a—”

  “You’re Riley, right?” She tilted her head like an inquisitive sparrow.

  He dropped his menu. “Why? Do I have to leave?”

  “What? No.” She laughed and tucked her pencil behind her ear
. “But the boss says your tab is on him tonight, beer and burgers.”

  “Oh.” He gulped and forced a smile. “Thanks. Um . . . a burger, I guess. And, you know, beer.”

  Heather grinned at Julie. “Is he cute, or what?”

  “Hello?” Riley peered at them over the top of his glasses. “Sitting right here.”

  “That man is toast,” Heather murmured and crossed the bar in a bounce and swing of her ponytail.

  “How about that, Rile?” Julie smirked at him. “You’re famous.”

  “I could do without the fame, thanks.”

  “Why? You’re getting free beer out of it. Half the guys at the table would turn gay for free beer.”

  “Jules, half the guys at the table are gay.”

  “Whatever.” She settled back in her chair and frowned at her clipboard, shooting occasional questions at the crew, leaving Riley to obsess in peace until Heather and a couple of other servers returned with their food.

  Zack whistled when Heather set a flight of microbrews in front of Riley. “Niiiiice. Where’s mine?”

  “You’re getting free burgers, hotshot, so no complaining,” Heather said with a flick of her fingers. “Show me your money, and I’ll show you the brew.”

  “How come he doesn’t need money?”

  “He’s cuter than you.” Another server set a plate with a burger and fries in front of Zack. “And so’s his boyfriend.”

  Boyfriend. Riley’s cheeks flamed so hot they should have lit up the whole bar. “I don’t have a boyfw—” He took a calming breath. “Boyfriend.”

  “Oh, sugar. You do. I saw that scene with those two bozos on the sidewalk the other day. You totally do.” She leaned down and whispered, “Whether he admits it or not.”

  Riley grabbed her hand. “Where is he?” God, was he actually whining? He cleared his throat and made a giant effort not to sound like Elmer Fudd. “Logan. Where is he?”

  “He’s off tonight, but . . .” She glanced at the rest of the table, but all except Julie were focused on their plates. She pulled a cocktail napkin out of her apron pocket, jotted something on it, and held it out to him. “Here. I got this off the staff contact list. Do him a favor. Go.”