Northern Light

by E. J. Russell

  Luke’s jaw dropped and the hurt in his eyes almost changed Stefan’s mind.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “No.” Stefan swallowed and straightened his spine, pulling himself to his full height, two inches taller than Luke. “With what I’m painting now—”

  Luke grabbed the coat and flung it on the floor. “Fuck that. It’s not you. It’s Jeremiah fucking Arcoletti.” His words flew like stones, like knives, and Stefan flinched as each one found its mark. “His style. His vision. His paintings. Not. Yours.”

  “I know. That’s the point. His vision pays. Sixty percent of a million bucks will pay off Thomas and the Vegas debt. I can get off the mountain and on with my life.” Stefan shook his hair out of his eyes, met Luke’s furious stare, and pushed the never-fail Luke-eject button. “I can finally get the Rolex and ring out of hock.”

  Luke’s face twisted into the familiar mask of disgust, the one he’d worn so often when they’d fought over Marius’s money, the one he’d worn when he’d tossed out the forgery accusation last night. Stefan knew he’d won. If you call losing everything winning. Luke bent awkwardly, snatched his coat off the floor, and limped out the door, slamming it behind him.

  Stefan took a breath and blew it out, collapsing onto the sofa. The awful foreboding faded from his chest, leaving it hollow, as if Luke had dragged his heart down the mountain behind his car.

  He hadn’t saved Marius, but he’d learned to live with the specter of that guilt. To be haunted by the death of Luke’s hopes, his dreams, his very self? That would fucking kill him.

  Chapter Nine

  Luke crept down the mountain, sweaty hands alternately clutching and pounding the steering wheel. Jesus, he was so fucking stupid to imagine Stefan was the same idealistic man he’d been, willing to resume their old relationship, untouched by Marius’s insidious wealth and Luke’s own bone-headedness.

  But Stefan’s eyes in the lamplight at dinner, his hands on Luke’s skin, the trust in his face when he’d shown Luke the haunted studio… Stefan had wanted it too, right up until he’d heard about the sale.

  How could he choose money over morals? Over his own talent and artistic integrity? Shit, over his fricking sanity?

  Luke inched around the last turn. Thank God he was almost off this fucking mountain for the last time.

  A deer burst out of the trees and leaped in front of the car. Luke stood on the brakes, his shoulders bunched nearly to his ears, and the car slid to a halt with barely a skid.

  The deer stared at him, dark eyes wide, as if resigned to death by Hyundai. Luke frowned, something tugging at his memory. That look. Stefan had worn exactly the same expression when Luke had stomped out of the cabin.

  Shitfuckdamnitalltohell. Luke slammed his fist on the horn and the deer bounded away into the underbrush. He’d been so up in his own head he hadn’t seen it—Stefan’s fear, his sorrow, his hopeless fatalism. All there on his open face if Luke had bothered to look beyond his own insecurities.

  He punched the gas in a lead-footed rush to Franklin’s broody Victorian. The guy owed Luke some answers, and both of them owed Stefan a hell of a lot more.

  Stefan lay on the sofa and counted the ticking of the clock, the tiger’s-eye pendant clutched in his hand. He should be proud of himself. He’d stayed strong, and although he’d probably killed Luke’s affection for him, at least Luke’s life, his career, were still intact.

  It was enough. It had to be.

  From the middle of the oak coffee table, the bottle of Glenlivet dared him. He picked it up by the neck, holding it in front of the oil lamp. The combination of the flame and the green glass bottle turned the Scotch a poisonous, seductive chartreuse. He swished the liquid back and forth and around until it swirled into a tiny vortex, threatening to pull him under.

  How much was too much? If he tried it one last time, a small drink to prime the artistic pump, could he control it? Finish something he could call his own? Because if the only way his hands could create anything was to allow someone—something—to use him as if he were a goddamned meat puppet, then he was done. Luke was right. Some things weren’t worth the cost.

  He spun up the little whirlpool again, staring until it wound down.

  What would he paint if he knew his next painting would be his last? If he had one last chance to finish? To get it right? The answer rose in Stefan’s mind as if it floated on the surface of the Scotch.

  Luke.

  He’d paint Luke. Not Luke as the angry conservatory student or the cocky, self-assured lover. But Luke, the honest, driven man, who could walk away from what he loved most, whether it was his career as a painter or his relationship with Stefan, if he thought it was tainted.

  “Full circle,” he murmured, opening the bottle. “The beginning is the end.” He raised the bottle halfway to his lips and froze. Full circle.

  Crap.

  Goddamned freaking karma. Its timing truly sucked. Stefan pushed himself off the sofa and walked out the cabin door, the bottle still in his hand. Halfway to the studio, he broke into a run.

  Franklin opened the door at Luke’s furious pounding, his face nearly folded in half with a scowl. He cinched the belt on his red velour bathrobe with a jerk. “You know what time it is?”

  “Late.” Luke sidestepped into the entryway and shut the door. “What happened to your brother?”

  Franklin thrust out his chin. “He died.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Franklin. I need the whole story.”

  Franklin squinted at him, no doubt registering Luke’s ill-fitting clothes and less-than-pristine grooming. “Hmmph. Maybe you do.” He hobbled into the living room and lowered himself onto his peach throne.

  Luke followed, back throbbing under his bandage, a reminder of how fast the ghost could turn, and willed the older man to buy into the urgency, to Luke’s sense that this whole mountain of crap had reached the avalanche point.

  Franklin rested his cane across his knees, clutching it as if it were the panic bar on a roller coaster. “A party. House lit up like Christmas. Supposed to be Edward’s engagement ball.”

  Luke stopped his restless pacing. “Engagement? To a woman?”

  “Why so shocked? Not like he had much choice. Not in 1945.”

  “How’d Arcoletti take it?”

  “Not well.” Franklin stared past Luke, as if he watched the scene play out on the damask drapes. “Drove up to the back door in that Chrysler wagon of his. Had all the paintings for the show in the back. Raged at Edward, rampaged around the servants’ hall. Edward refused to get riled. Knew Arcoletti would be sorry afterward. He always was. And Edward would forgive him. He always forgave.”

  Luke backed up until his shoulder blades hit the mantel, pushed by the desolation in Franklin’s voice. Forgiveness. Stefan had always forgiven Luke’s temper, his suspicions, his possessiveness. What had Luke given him in return? Ultimatums and abandonment.

  “Edward took Arcoletti out in the back yard so Father wouldn’t hear the row. Out under the tree. The one in Edward, Reading.”

  “No.” Luke’s voice was hoarse around the lump in his throat.

  Franklin’s jaw worked and a tear tracked a zigzag path through the creases on his face. “Father’d punished me for something that night. Don’t remember what. I was hiding under the servants’ stairs. Saw the knife in Arcoletti’s hand. Saw him slash Edward’s…” Franklin’s voice faded to a cracked whisper. “Saw the whole thing.”

  As if Franklin’s story had resurrected the corpse of his nightmare, Luke saw it, too, a jerky silent-film tragedy, out of place in this pastel shell of a room where nothing more frightening than poorly brewed tea should happen.

  “Father covered it up. Blamed it on tramps. Convinced the police.”

  “Why? Surely he’d want to catch Edward’s murderer.”

  Franklin snorted his ancient dragon huff. “You’d think. But he couldn’t abide scandal. So when I found it, I didn’t tell him.”

  “Found what?”r />
  “Edward’s suitcase. And his letter.” Franklin swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple sliding under papery skin. “Said he was tired of living a lie. Planned to leave with Arcoletti, under cover of the party fuss. Wasn’t enough for that bastard, though. He killed my brother and drove away. Left Edward lying there. As if he was trash.”

  Images merged and splintered like a kaleidoscope in Luke’s brain until only one remained as if lit by a carbon-arc spotlight. A tableau in black and white and blood, the dark twin of the painting in the gallery.

  Edward, Dying.

  This time, the image had a soundtrack and Luke heard the words. Words too late for Edward, his life draining away under the tree. Too late for Arcoletti, committed to that bonfire on the riverside with Edward’s last breath.

  “I chose you,” Luke whispered.

  “What?”

  Luke’s eyes refocused on the heavy oak mantelpiece under his hands. “‘I chose you.’ That’s what Edward said to Arcoletti. His last words.”

  “How do you know?” Franklin’s voice at his shoulder startled him.

  “I…” Bile burned the back of Luke’s throat at the memory of Arcoletti squatting in his mind. Jesus, if only he could disinfect his brain. Scour the inside of his skull with steel wool and erase the residue. “He sort of…ah…possessed me, too. But he sure as hell didn’t want me to paint.”

  Franklin’s eyes glittered in the glow of the Tiffany lamp. “You must have something he needs.”

  “What could I have?” Luke rubbed his chest, the spot that had burned in his nightmare when Arcoletti realized what he’d done. “I don’t even have Stefan anymore.”

  Franklin grabbed his wrist, the grip of his frail-looking hand strong enough to bruise. “What did you say?”

  “I said I don’t have Stefan. I expected him to choose me, but he didn’t.” Not then and not tonight. Not that Luke had given him much of a chance. “So I left.”

  “Jealousy.” Franklin’s tone held no surprise. Why should it? He’d had a ringside seat to jealous-asshole behavior when he was an eight-year-old kid. He nodded, his expression thoughtful. “That’s what Arcoletti wants from you.”

  “What?”

  “Redemption.”

  Luke laughed at the satisfaction in Franklin’s voice. “Then he’s shit out of luck. Stefan kicked me out. After I told him about Boardman selling the paintings.”

  “And you went?” Franklin harrumphed. “Never figured you for a quitter.”

  “This is not about me.” Luke pressed his fist against his forehead and took a deep breath. “I’m begging you,” he said, voice ragged. “Don’t go through with the sale. Don’t make Stefan collateral damage in your vendetta against Arcoletti.”

  “Are you fool enough to think that’ll save him?”

  Desperation clogged Luke’s throat. “You want me to confront Boardman, I’ll do it. Hell, I’ll enjoy it. He’ll be lucky to sell a fucking postcard after I’m done with him.”

  Franklin leaned forward, both hands braced on the head of his cane. “How’d it feel, having Arcoletti invade you? You enjoy it?”

  Luke shuddered. “God, no.”

  The old man nodded. “No room in one body for two souls.” He pointed a bony finger at Luke. “Ask yourself, Morganstern. What does Arcoletti want from your friend? And what’ll he do once he’s got it?”

  Luke remembered how Stefan had seemed more gaunt between one day and the next, as if he was being consumed from the inside. How many more times could he play host to that homicidal parasite before there was nothing left? He needed to get out of that freak-show studio now. Tonight.

  Luke froze, hand clutching the mantelpiece, his stomach in free-fall.

  Tonight. The dark. The mountain. The ghost.

  Screw it. Because, Jesus. Stefan. “I’ve got to go.”

  Chapter Ten

  Nothing like the fear of vengeance from beyond the grave to cure his switchback-phobia. Luke made it up the twisting mountain road in fifteen minutes flat, topped out on the plateau, and gunned the car across the gravel, braking in the patch of sodden weeds between the cabin and the studio. He leaped out of the car before the engine died, breathing hard as if he’d run up the hill instead of driving like a maniac.

  Around him, tree branches lashed in the wind, roaring like surf in a sea cave. The drizzle, constant since his arrival in Oregon, had vanished. Static crackled in the air. On his skin. In his hair.

  No smoke curled from the stovepipe on the cabin roof. No light flickered in its windows. No guttural hum from the generator, but the studio windows glowed with an eldritch light originating three feet from the north wall, as if beamed from some cosmic projector.

  Dread washed like ice water through his gut. “Stefan Cobbe, you son of a bitch,” Luke shouted into the wind, “don’t you dare leave me for a goddamned motherfucking ghost.”

  He sprinted for the north side of the studio, promising the pain in his hip and back that he’d coddle them later. Stepping into that unnatural light to look through the window was like breasting a wave of filthy, electrified water. Every hair on Luke’s body stood up and his skin tracked with pinpoints of heat as if fire ants feasted on his flesh.

  Stefan stood at the easel, palette and brush in hand, his back to the window, his body blocking Luke’s view of the canvas. The Glenlivet sat on the workbench behind a box of jumbled brushes.

  “Stefan!”

  Stefan glanced over his shoulder and a trick of the light—God, please let it be a trick of the light—turned his eyes into empty, black pits. He shook his head and faced the easel again, shoulders hitching toward his ears. The paintbrush jerked into higher gear.

  Luke stumbled away from the window, out of that hellish light, Franklin’s question replaying in his mind. What would Arcoletti do when he got what he wanted? Best case, he’d decamp. Worst case, he’d decide he liked having hands again, a body again, his greedy spirit roosting inside Stefan until nothing remained but an empty husk. Luke refused to let that happen.

  “Ghost, you’re going down,” he growled.

  A swirl of rusty brown pine needles rose around him, redolent of dust, mildew, and decay, pricking his skin like a shower of tacks. He threw an arm up to protect his eyes and limped to the south side of the studio.

  When he grabbed for the door, static sparked between his hand and the doorknob. A crackle. A boom. And he was flat on his ass, halfway to the tree line, gasping for air and blinking at the sky where clouds twisted like tattered rags across the field of stars.

  A handful of pine needles hovered over him, defying the wind. They burst into flame and arrowed at his chest.

  “Shit!” Luke beat at his coat and the tiny sparks died against the damp wool.

  He scrambled to his feet, heart beating double time. He shoved his hand in his coat pocket to insulate it against another blast, then turned the knob and lurched into the studio, slamming the door against another barrage of pine needles. The door vibrated as if it had been hit by a dozen knives. God, don’t let them be flaming this time.

  With his breath sawing in his lungs, he scanned the room. The easel and canvas blocked Stefan’s head and upper body. Luke took two steps forward until the top of Stefan’s head was visible, hair standing in a ragged crest. Another two steps and he could see Stefan’s forehead, lined, and his eyebrows, lowered. Luke clenched and unclenched his fists. “Stef. We need to get out.”

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Stefan’s voice was rough, a growl.

  “If you’re here, I’m here. I’m not leaving you. Not again.”

  “I’m not finished.”

  “Did you drink the Scotch?” A gust of wind broke over the studio like a tidal wave, rattling the windows, its howl drowning any answer Stefan might have made. Luke forced himself to take the last step and peer over the canvas at Stefan’s face. He cleared his throat. “Ah…am I speaking to Stefan Cobbe or Jeremiah Arcoletti?”

  Stefan’s mouth twisted in a not-quite-smile, but his
brush never faltered. “Christ, Luke, this isn’t the freaking Ghostbusters. Shut up and let me finish.” His gaze flicked up to Luke’s for an instant before riveting on the painting again, and his eyes were his own—clear, Gulf-blue, shadow-free.

  Luke released his pent-up breath. “Finish later. We have to get off this fucking mountain before Arcoletti’s shit hits the studio fan.”

  “I mean it, Luke. I can fix this, but you have to let me paint.”

  “Paint faster. I’m afraid—” A pile of rags on the worktable erupted in flames. Luke ducked and Stefan whirled around, dropping his palette face down on the floor. “Aaannnnd time’s up.”

  All along the work table, tubes of paint exploded in a machine gun rat-a-tat.

  “Jesus.” Luke grabbed Stefan’s arm. “I didn’t know paints could do that.”

  “They can’t.” Stefan threw his brush down. The seat of the wooden rocking chair at the end of the table bloomed upward, sending wooden slats flying toward them like spears. Luke knocked Stefan to the floor and flung himself on top of him. The slats clattered against the wall.

  “Neither can chairs,” Stefan said, voice muffled under Luke’s chest.

  Luke rocked back on his knees and Stefan sat up, dust smudging his cheek. Luke grabbed his arm and hauled ass toward the sofa. Another series of pops erupted from the worktable and globules of something hit Luke’s back like body-temperature hail. He vaulted off the cushion and landed in back of the sofa, Stefan right behind him.

  Luke peered over the sofa back at the flames dancing on the worktable. “Was the easel Arcoletti’s?”

  “No. I built it after I moved in.”

  “He’s only hitting things familiar to him. The paints, but not your easel. The rocker, but not your butt-ugly Seventies sofa.” The slats tore loose from the rocker back and winged across the room, thudding against the sofa cushions. Luke and Stefan hunkered down, covering their heads.

  “Don’t dis the Seventies sofa,” Stefan said. “It’s saving your ass.”