by Tate James
“Don’t have one yet, but I’m getting there,” Dutch says, gesturing for me to hand him the coffee tin with the treats inside of it. He passes a single treat between the bars of each cage as he whistles for Syxx to rejoin us in the living room, tossing the cat a handful of goodies. This new batch is tuna flavored, sprinkled with catnip. The furry little buttheads are obsessed with the new mix of flavors. Dutch opens the door for Tom Thumb and passes him another treat. “Seek rodents,” he says, and both Syxx and Tom Thumb take off to look for signs of mice, rats, possums, raccoons—you name it. If there are animals in this house, they’ll find them.
“Do you mind if I pop out and come back later?” Rhythm asks, already on his way toward the door. “I have a thing I sort of committed to.” He slides a cigarette between his lips, but doesn’t light it until the front door’s open and he’s leaning against the jamb. Irritation creeps through me, but I ignore it by pulling up the live camera feed and taking a quick look at the upstairs bedrooms.
There’s nothing. All is quiet.
“A thing?” Tate asks with a scoff, starting her investigation with one of the living room windows, the one where Mrs. Nowaki said she saw her first ghost. After upgrading this job to demons, we probably could’ve gotten along without a medium, but other than Dutch himself, Tate is the best at ferreting out the real problems plaguing our clients. She flicks her black braid over one shoulder, and glares at Rhythm’s reflection in the glass. “Like a date?”
The lazy jerk just shrugs his tattooed shoulders, content to take a fifth of all our commissions, but nowhere near ready to put in a fifth of the work. Why the hell did he tuck me in last night? I wonder for the millionth time, staring at the screen of my iPad but not really seeing it. That mystery could very well remain an enigma for the rest of my life. Rhythm Newhart is a difficult man to read, even for Dutch, and Dutch is an expert at reading and manipulating others. I think that’s why the two of them fight so damn much.
“I’ll be back before dawn.” He yawns again, takes a drag on his cigarette, and looks at everyone but me. “Unless you think you need my help?”
“When’s the last time you cracked a case?” Luke jokes, but he’s already shrugging into his coat, getting ready to walk the perimeter with a high-powered flashlight. “Enjoy your date, but don’t forget to take notes. I want to hear all about it. Hell, maybe you can even help Alexiah with her sexual health paper afterward, provide a few anecdotes?”
“I’ve already finished it,” I blurt, turning so red my face burns. “It’s about the health benefits of regular orgasms.” Aaaand, why did I just say that?! Something about my hatred toward Rhythm spurs just as many random outbursts as my affection toward Dutch. Maybe it’s just strong emotions that really get me going? I slip off my itchy wool blazer, revealing a pink unicorn shirt that Rhythm stares at for far too long before scowling.
“Too bad—I’m sure Rhythm could’ve given you plenty of anecdotal evidence to support that theory.” Luke thinks he’s so damn funny, he snorts so hard that soda squirts out of his nose, and Tate stares at him with equal parts annoyance and curiosity. She’s so closed-off, I wonder if Luke’s over-the-top personality is what draws her in? He’s her complete opposite.
“Jesus, Luke,” Rhythm growls, chucking his cigarette to the cement porch and crushing it out with his boot. “Read the room, asshole.” He leaves, slamming the door behind him. This time, when he starts up his motorcycle, he doesn’t idle around, just takes off down the road with the engine rumbling its war cry into the quiet night.
“Read the room? What does that even mean?” Luke asks as he snatches up the flashlight and heads for the door.
“It means know the crowd you’re performing for,” Dutch supplies, adjusting his bowler hat as he flops down on the couch and glances over at me, pushing his black glasses up his nose with a single finger. The Nowakis aren’t exactly hard-ass clients, so why the glasses tonight? Nothing Dutch Wylde does is an accident. “Tablet, please,” he says, and I pass the iPad over to him, perching myself on the edge of the sofa.
I’m so relieved the Nowakis are gone; sometimes the homeowners like to stay with us, desperate for their own little glimpse into the supernatural. Makes our job a hundred times harder. Not only do we have to keep them entertained with tricks, but we also have to figure out how to solve their problems—or at least make them think we did.
Dutch goes over all the information we have while Tate checks the windows, Luke surveys the yard, and the cats search for rodents. Me, I just sit there and wait for further instructions. That’s what I do, facilitate the talents of the rest of the group. I’m the newest, least important member, but that’s okay. Frankly, I’m just glad I stumbled onto Ten Cats in the first place.
If not, I have no idea the direction my life might’ve taken. I’ve lost everything and everyone important to me. I might’ve lost all hope, too, if it weren’t for Dutch.
I watch him as he flips through my spreadsheets and notes, his gray eyes sparkling with the thrill of the hunt. I wonder what he’d do, if we ever really found a ghost. He acts like such a skeptic, but I think it’d be the highlight of his entire life. Mine, too, if I’m being honest. Maybe that’s just what people with no families dream about, finding proof of an afterlife, some sign that their loved ones are still out there?
“Dutch,” I start, my voice soft. Something about the sound of it draws his attention over to me, dropping some of that sparkle in his gaze for just a moment. “I—” We both pause and look up as something creaks across the roof. What the … ?
“Bingo,” Dutch growls, tossing the iPad aside and standing up. He heads for the front door, bumping straight into Luke, and snatches the flashlight back from him. “Did you perchance look up while you were out there?” he asks, but Luke just blinks stupidly back at him. “Well, come on then!”
Dutch takes off with Luke trailing behind him. I snatch my coat off the rack and join them, running through the wet grass around the side of the house. There’s no fence installed yet, just posts in the ground. I almost run headfirst into one, but Dutch grabs me at the last minute, hooking an arm around my waist. He brings not only my body, but my heart to a complete stop.
Warmth filters through him and into me, taking away the icy chill in the air for just a moment. Our eyes lock, and for the briefest of seconds, I let myself fantasize that Dutch is going to say something … well, not romantic but at least nice.
“Did you know the chemical norepinephrine is similar to adrenaline; it sends the heart racing and stirs up excitement?” Dutch blinks down at me, and then glances up again at the roof, a smile curving across his lips. Hopefully he thinks I’m meaning the excitement from chasing down a mysterious sound, and not the frantic jitters in my belly and chest when he touches me.
“Must be working because my heart’s pounding,” he says, focusing on my face again. That sparkle is back in his gaze and for the briefest of seconds it truly looks like it’s meant for me.
“Are you excited, too?” I ask, and then seriously consider biting off my own tongue when I realize how provocative that sounds. “Because I’m excited.” Shit, shit, shit. What did I just say? I’m quiet ninety-five percent of the time, most of the time to my own detriment, and then I go and say the dumbest crap during the few times I should be staying silent.
“Oh, I’m bursting at the seams,” Dutch whispers, pulling me in close and breathing warm against my ear. Goose bumps prickle up across my skin as his lips tease the sensitive flesh, his breath stirring my pink hair against the side of my neck. “Stay close to me and don’t let go of my hand, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, and Dutch moves away, making my breath catch. I like having him close to me; I could swim in his attention. Of course, I’d probably drown since I can’t swim worth a damn, but it’d be a blissful death. Butterflies ping off the sides of my stomach as Dutch squeezes my sweaty hand tight, his own palm warm and dry as we come around the side of the house and pause next to Luke.
<
br /> When Dutch shines the flashlight, we can all see there’s most definitely someone on the roof.
The man stumbles when he realizes he’s being stared at from down below, and then he falls.
“What the fuck?” another voice shouts as the guy rolls down the shingles and then plummets off the roof and into the grass. I stand there completely dumbfounded as two other men hop off of a ladder and make their way over to the groaning figure in the mud.
“Dutch?” I ask, because all of a sudden, I’m getting a bad feeling.
And my sixth sense, it doesn’t really work when it comes to ghosts—if there is such a thing. But what I am sensitive to is people, particularly bad people. There’s something really off about this moment that I don’t like. My fingers itch to grab my phone, but calling the police is bad for business. And what’s bad for business is bad for Dutch, for Tate, for Luke, for me. For Rhythm, I guess.
“You could’ve fucking killed him!” one of the ladder guys screams, storming over to stand next to us. There’s a drainage ditch behind the house that Dutch, Rhythm, and Luke checked out earlier, but that they found empty. It doesn’t seem so empty anymore; I can hear shouts and laughter from down below.
“Druggies in a drainage ditch,” Dutch whispers, like he’s just solved the case. “Of fucking course.” He squeezes my hand tight, and then lets go. “X, do you want to go inside and lock the door?” He slips his right hand into his jacket and leaves it there. I know Dutch has a gun because, as he puts it, people crazy enough to believe in ghosts might be crazy enough to do other things. I really don’t want him to use it though. A job this simple shouldn’t have to escalate this fast.
I step back, but I don’t go anywhere.
“Who the hell are you?” Ladder Guy barks, getting way too close to Dutch and Luke for comfort. He smells, too, like booze and body odor and urine. He looks a hot mess, too, and I don’t think Dutch’s prediction of ‘druggie’ is too far off. I try not to judge people with substance abuse problems, but holy hell, this guy is scary.
“Dutch, I think we should just … go,” Luke chokes out, and I swear, I can practically taste his fear on the back of my tongue, acrid and metallic.
Dutch though, one of his faults and his strengths is that he’s not afraid of anything or anyone.
“I assume you saw the SUV leave, thought the homeowners were gone, and assumed you could break into this cash cow over here?” Dutch hooks a thumb in the direction of the Nowakis’ house, putting his thoughts and observations into words like he always does. He reminds me of a modern day Sherlock Holmes sometimes, deducing complex crimes through observation and experience. “I’m sorry to tell you that your time peeping into windows and scrounging around on the roof are done. Kindly remove yourselves from the premises, and we can all move on from this scene. You might want to take your friend to a hospital.”
The groaning man, the one who fell off the roof, is already stumbling to his feet—and he looks pissed. He’s lucky he only fell off the first story portion of the roof, and not the peaked second floor, or he might not be walking around right now.
Ladder Guy and his buddies are looming over Dutch and Luke, and I don’t like the way they’re staring at them, like they want to stir up trouble. Dutch thinks you can talk your way out of ninety nine of a hundred bad situations. This might be the one time he can’t.
“X, house, please,” Dutch says, looking over at me, his silver eyes flashing.
Without waiting for another warning, I turn and run.
Screw this.
I’m going inside, calling the police, and then … I don’t know what I’ll do, but if I have to take the ceremonial athame Dutch carts around in his supply bag, I’ll defend myself and the rest of the TCPS with a damn knife. Fear rides up hot and uneasy inside of me. I’ve never been a brave person. In fact, I’ve always considered myself a coward for leaving Mom in a burning house while I got out alive.
But … if Luke and Dutch are in trouble, I can’t just leave them.
I’ll never make that mistake again.
I don’t make it back to the house though, because as soon as I come around the corner to the front door, I run into several more men, and my heart stops.
“Hello there, honey,” one of them says, grabbing onto my arm. Instinctively, I jerk back, but his grip is so tight that all the movement does is scrape his nails across the pale surface of my skin. From the porch, I hear Syxx’s distinctive husky meow. Don’t come out here, you idiot! I think at him, because from the looks of these people, they’re willing to hurt me and Dutch and Luke, so what will they do to a ten pound cat?
“Please let go of my arm,” I choke out, but the norepinephrine in my blood has most definitely been replaced with adrenaline, and I’m shaking all over. I can taste bile on my tongue, and feel beads of sweat working their way down my spine. “Now.”
The men are laughing, the sound like nails on a cement floor, a clattering of junk.
I don’t like this; I don’t like this at all.
The one holding my arm shoves me back, and I stumble, falling to my bottom in the grass. There I said it, bottom. It’s not so funny now though, not in this situation, in the dark, where I can’t see Dutch or Luke, have no idea where Tate is.
Syxx yowls and bounds down off the porch, launching himself at the man’s leg. A swift kick sends the cat flying, and I scream, lunging to my feet and throwing my body into the asshole’s stomach. He barely stumbles, like a big, solid block of smelly muscle and concrete. The man grabs me by the wrist as I flail and kick, yanking me up and throwing me over his shoulder.
I grab onto his hair and yank as hard as I can, wondering if I’m going to have to bite this foul-smelling piece of human garbage when he stumbles and drops me to the ground. There’s a tangle of bodies as I crawl away, toward where I last saw Syxx. The cat is gone, but when I flip around, I find Rhythm on top of him, throwing punch after punch, like he’s lost his damn mind.
I shove up to my feet, but instead of making my way toward Rhythm, I end up trapped between the wall and another one of the men. He swings at me, and hits me so hard in the eye that my glasses crack, and I swear that my skull is breaking into shards, like bits of bone are stabbing my brain.
“X!” Dutch comes around the corner, slipping in the mud and dripping red down his face. He comes at the man attacking me and slams into him from the side. The two men go down to the ground in a sea of whirling fists. Luke isn’t far behind him, limping and holding onto his shoulder. There’s another dude chasing after him, but he only gets so far before the man who fell off the roof attacks him.
Luke and I both gape as the two bearded men claw at each other, their fight just as vicious, if not more so, than the ones led by Dutch and Rhythm.
Rhythm stands up, leaving the man he was attacking moaning and thrashing on the ground beneath him, and moves to help Dutch. Between the two of them, they get the last asshole to take off running, but they both look like they’ve been rode hard and put up wet.
The pair of idiots beating up on each other separate abruptly, and I swear, the pain in my head amplifies by a hundred times. I see myriad orbs swirling around in my vision as I stumble into Dutch. He catches me, and I see droplets of blood spatter all over his shirt. His or mine, I’m not sure. The man who attacked his friend, the one who looked like he was winning, collapses into the grass while the other one takes off.
“X, are you okay?” Dutch asks, taking my face between his hands, rubbing his thumbs down the sides of my face. He’s looking right at me, but I can barely see him. My right eye hurts; my whole head hurts. All I want to do is lie down, and I have a feeling that’s the only thing I’m not going to be able to do. I probably have a concussion or something.
“Jesus Christ, Dutch!” Rhythm screams as Tate appears on the steps with her Taser in hand, puffing and panting and shaking with adrenaline. Luke taps Dutch on the shoulder a moment later and passes over his muddy glasses. Mine … they’re ruined.
&nb
sp; “Two of them came in the back door, but I handled it,” Tate states matter-of-factly, looking over at me with a grimace. “Oh my god, Alexiah, you need a doctor.”
“Yeah, she does. And of course she’s not okay!” Rhythm moves forward like he’s going to shove Dutch, but his friend is holding me, so I guess he thinks better of it, turning back around and kicking the man on the ground in his rage. Where Dutch’s gun went, I’m not sure, but wow … this situation escalated far too quickly for comfort. “What were you thinking?!”
“I …” For once in his life, Dutch Wylde is at a loss for words.
Rhythm growls under his breath and throws his hand out toward the Ten Cats van.
It’s only then that I notice Syxx, padding through the grass toward us. Thank ghost he’s okay.
“Take Alexiah to the hospital.”
“The scene,” Dutch starts, his voice quavering slightly, much less sparkly than usual. This isn’t acting right here, this is the real Dutch. “We need to clean this up before the Nowakis get back, and we need a report …” My heart turns to ice in my chest, and plummets to my belly where it shatters into pieces that cut. Any flicker of warmth I felt from Dutch’s perceived worry for me is gone. All he cares about is the job.
“I’m okay,” I start, but as soon as I get the words out, my jaw begins to ache, and I know that I’m in for a world of trouble if I don’t get my face checked out tonight.
“You’re going to the hospital,” Rhythm snaps, pointing at the van again for emphasis. The way he’s looking at me, I’m damn near positive he’s about to pick me up and carry me again, so I start moving that direction. Dutch looks at me for a moment, and then tears himself away, stalking off toward Lorraine and starting the engine before I can even get halfway across the grass. He slams the door so hard I’m sure the glass will break, and there’s no way to miss his look of anger, his clenched jaw, the way his fingers curl around the steering wheel. “He should’ve just shot the fuckers,” Rhythm snarls, taking Dutch’s discarded gun from Luke’s outstretched hand. I have no idea where he picked it up from; I was too busy staring at my boss’ pissed off facial expression.
