by P. C. Cast
Raef just stared at her. Had a spirit ever called him anything? No, hell, no, none of them had. He usually just Tracked the negative emotions left by the bad guys. He followed violence and hatred and fear until it led him to a living murderer. Ghosts didn’t have shit to do with him.
Until this ghost.
Aubrey’s gaze went from him to sweep around Swan Lake. “It’s beautiful here, don’t you think? The trees are particularly lovely. So wise and strong, like soldiers standing guard.” She turned shimmering blue eyes back to him. “They must take a lot of care.”
As soon as she’d spoken the words Raef felt it. The slicing pain hit him as Aubrey’s semitransparent body doubled over. Lauren moaned, and her arm trembled violently under his grasp.
“Kent!” Aubrey gasped. “Help us!”
She disappeared as Lauren collapsed into his arms.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Oh, God,” Lauren groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“No. Not here.” Raef slid an arm around her waist and half carried, half dragged her from the dock and through the gate. He’d retraced their path and was almost to the car when Lauren spoke again.
“Wh-where are we going?”
“Don’t know. Right now I’m just getting us the hell outta here,” he said, wrenching open the door to the car and guiding her semicarefully into the passenger seat. He hesitated, watching her closely as she sat, face in hands, and trembled. “You still gonna be sick?”
“Maybe,” she muttered into her hands.
Yeah, well, me, too, he thought, but instead said, “Try not to be,” then closed her door and hurried around the car, putting it in gear and getting the hell outta there. Silent and on autopilot he drove, turned left on Lewis and was halfway to Fifteenth Street before he realized he was heading for his house. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m taking a client home? Raef glanced at Lauren. She’d taken her face from her hands. Her arms were wrapped around her, as if she was literally trying to hold herself together. Her face had gone from dead pale to splotchy pink. She was still trembling.
Suddenly she reminded him of Christina Kambic all those years ago, and he had a terrifying urge to protect her. Shit! Shit! Shit! What’s wrong with me?
“I’m not going to be sick. At least, not right now,” Lauren said stiffly, definitely misunderstanding his sideways glances.
“Want me to take you home?” he asked inanely.
“No.” Lauren made two quick shakes of her head.
“Your mother’s place?”
“Hell, no.” She looked straight at him then. “Anywhere but there.”
He only met her blue-gray eyes for a moment before making his decision. Raef grunted and turned right on Fifteenth, catching the green light and taking a quick left on Columbia, entering the quaint little neighborhood that was hidden between busy Fifteenth Street and kinda dicey Eleventh Street. He drove down a couple side streets, took another left and then pulled into the cobblestone driveway of the 1920s-era brick house he called home.
Raef turned off the car and looked at Lauren, who was gazing at him, an obvious question mark on her flushed face. He blew out a long, frustrated breath, got out of the car and opened her door for her. “It’s my place,” he explained. “I don’t take clients here.”
“Yet here I am,” she said as he closed the car door behind her.
“Yeah, well, that’s just part of a list of don’ts that I’ve broken today.” As they walked together up the curving sidewalk that led to his spacious front porch, he held up his hand and ticked off fingers like an umpire keeping count of strikes. “First, I don’t usually feel as fucking bizarre as I did right before I met you.” He paused when they were standing on the porch and added, “And your dead sister.” Another finger went up. “Then I don’t go to a murder scene—a documented scene of a death—and not pick up death emotions.”
“Death emotions?” she interrupted.
He bit back his annoyance and answered her with a sharp nod and a sharper tone of voice while he dug in his pocket for his house key. “Yeah, death emotions. Bad ones. Like fear and panic and agony and hatred. Being able to Track negative emotions is my Gift.”
“That sucks,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s the way it is—the way it’s been since I was nine.”
“Yeah, don’t take this the wrong way, but a Psy Gift is really pretty weird. I mean, it’s not like anyone can predict it.”
“You’re telling me?” He snorted, and then opened the door for Lauren and motioned for her to go inside, following her closely, still explaining but also watching how her eyes opened in surprise as she took in the sheen of the hardwoods and his antiques that were comfortable as well as expensive and tasteful. “Which leads to don’t number three.” He put up the last finger. “I don’t feel what I felt when your twin manifested—joy.” Raef paused again and shook his head, remembering. “I even felt her laughter. Her laughter.”
Lauren’s brow furrowed. “But you’re a psychic. Feeling emotions is what you guys do.”
“It’s not that simple. No one just gets a blanket ESP stamp, like, Hey, here ya go, buddy, now you’re a psychic so you can read everyone’s minds,” he said sarcastically.
“Look, you don’t have to sound like that. I don’t know about this psychic stuff. No one really does—or at least I don’t think anyone really does.” She put her hands on her hips. “It’s not like your people are superopen with how the Gift works.”
“It’s not like your people really give a shit,” he countered.
“Well, I give a shit now!” Lauren shouted, surprising both of them. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “Sorry. I’m not usually such a bitch.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well, I’m usually such a bastard.”
The air around them shimmered, and then, in the middle of Raef’s living room, Aubrey manifested, saying, “No wonder you don’t bring women home.”
This time her emotions were muted. Her sparkle wasn’t totally gone, but it had definitely dimmed. Still, she smiled at him, and as she did Raef felt a flutter of pleasure wash against his skin as, once again, he picked up her emotions. She’s pleased to see me, Raef realized. That’s what I’m feeling.
“He didn’t say he didn’t bring women home.” Lauren broke into his internal dialogue. She shook her head at her twin, speaking to her in a totally normal, if tired, voice. “He said he didn’t bring clients home. I’ve been telling you for years, if you’re gonna eavesdrop, get it right.”
“Touché,” Aubrey said, grinning at her sister.
Raef frowned at both women. “It’s not just about me not bringing clients here. I also don’t bring work home. Period.”
“You mean this cool old house is a no-ghost zone?” Aubrey said impishly.
Raef didn’t say anything because he was feeling her playful sense of humor, and that feeling had his voice lodged somewhere in his gut.
“I have to sit down,” Lauren said, glancing at him and then the wide leather couch. “Do you mind?”
“Yeah, I mean, no. Hell, I mean, yes, you may sit,” Raef stuttered like an idiot.
Aubrey giggled, obviously getting some of her sparkle back.
“You’re freaking him out,” Lauren said as she sat heavily. “And you’re exhausting me.”
Aubrey’s sparkled dimmed. “Sorry, sis,” she said. She didn’t move to sit beside her sister, whose face was back in her hands, but Raef watched
her lift a semitransparent hand toward her, like she wanted to touch her. He felt her sadness then, and realized he hated it and had a ridiculous urge to do something, anything, to erase her sadness and bring back her joy—her joy he could feel.
And that was just fucking not normal.
“Okay, that’s enough,” he said gruffly. Both women, alive and dead, turned their pretty faces to him. “I need to know what the hell is going on here.” He pointed at the ghost. “Were you murdered or not?” Raef watched the twins exchange a look.
Lauren spoke first. “Tell him. He’ll see, and it’ll make the explanation easier.”
“It’ll hurt,” Aubrey said.
“I know. Just do it fast and get it over with. I’ll see you again soon,” Lauren said.
Aubrey nodded and then faced him. She met his gaze for a long time—long enough for Raef to be struck by her beauty. Yeah, she looked a whole lot like her twin, that figured. But she was softer, curvier, shorter—and her hair was longer. Just then it was lifting around her in response to a nonexistent wind.
“I know you can help us. I believe in you, Kent.”
He knew she was telling the truth. He could feel her belief. It was warm and strong and very, very disconcerting—which left him utterly unprepared for her next words, and the flood of agony that followed them.
“My body was murdered by a man who has trapped my soul and the souls of a lot of other people. He’s feeding off our pain. His name is—” Aubrey’s words were sliced off as her ghost was ripped in half and Lauren shrieked with her twin in agony—an agony Raef felt all too well, an agony so great that it had his vision narrowing and his heart racing. The torn pieces of Aubrey’s ghost were burned away like morning mist before sunlight and she was gone. Again.
Raef realized he had staggered to the couch and was clutching the back of it to keep himself upright. He raised a shaking hand and wiped sweat from his brow. The sound of a body dropping to the floor had him struggling to refocus in time to see that Lauren had slumped, unconscious, from the couch.
“Shit!” Raef hurried to her, carefully lifting her back on the couch, laying her down and checking for a pulse. “Strong and steady,” he muttered. “Good—good. Hey, come on. Wake up. You’re fine. Everything’s fine,” he said, more for himself than for her.
Lauren’s eyelids fluttered and then opened. He started to breathe a long, relieved sigh, but then he realized how vacant those blue-gray eyes looked. Not only was the light not on, but nofuckingbody was home.
And that scared the shit out of him, so much so that he automatically fell back into what he knew best about dealing with while scared. His voice deepened, hardened, and MSgt Raef barked at her like the Special Forces NCOIC he’d once been. “Lauren! Get your ass back here on the fucking double! You haven’t been given permission to go any damn where!”
Lauren blinked, shook her head as if she’d just come in from the rain, and then her eyes animated and she focused on his face. “Raef.”
Even though the name wasn’t a question, he nodded. “You’re back. Good.”
“Feel bad, though,” she said weakly.
He grunted and nodded. “Bet you do. Your soul’s attached to Aubrey’s, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Always.” The two words were whispers.
“All right. Well, that explains a lot about this cluster fuck.” He stood.
“Are you leaving?”
“Sadly, no. You’re in my house, remember?”
Lauren looked around, as if she hadn’t remembered until then. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. You don’t bring clients here.”
“I don’t brew strong tea with honey for them, either. Which is what I’m going to do for you. Sit. Don’t move. Don’t faint. And don’t fucking disappear on me again.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with what he already understood was uncharacteristic meekness.
He stopped halfway to the kitchen. “And for Christ’s sake, don’t call me sir. I was an NCO. I used to work for a living, unlike a fucking officer.”
He didn’t need to be psychic to feel Lauren’s confusion all the way from the living room. “Civilians…” he grumbled as he clattered through his orderly cupboards and flipped on the electric kettle, tossing a bag of English breakfast tea, a dollop of local honey, a squeeze of fresh lemon and a healthy slosh of single-malt Scotch into each of the large mugs.
When he brought the brewed and spiked tea to the living room he was relieved to see that Lauren was sitting up and studying the art on his fireplace mantel. She turned and raised a brow at him. “Erté?”
“Yep,” he said, handing her the mug of tea. She took the couch and he sat in a leather chair across from it.
“Your wife likes Erté?”
“Not married. Anymore. And no, she did not. I like Erté.”
“Erté was gay.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.”
She raised a brow at him. “You were military, weren’t you?”
“Air force—OSI, that’s Office of Special Investigations to civilians. Ten years—been out for almost five now,” he said, sipped his tea and then added, “FYI—most military men don’t give a shit whether the guy beside him is gay. They care more that the guy will stay beside him and cover his back. You shouldn’t stereotype, Miss Wilcox, since you don’t appreciate it when people assume you’re just some stuck-up rich bitch who doesn’t work for a living.”
Her other brow raised at the word bitch, but she just sipped her tea, nodded and said, “Scotch and lemon and honey is my sister’s favorite kind of tea.”
“Was,” Raef corrected her. “She’s dead. Let’s start right now with dealing with that, even though you can still see her and talk to her. That might help you start separating yourself from what’s happening to her—at least long enough for me to try to figure out how to catch the guy who’s doing it to her.”
“She’s not going to be able to help you do that.”
“Because he’s keeping her from helping me,” Raef said.
“He’s keeping her from helping anyone—even me. Any time Aubrey tries to talk about her murder, even tries to hint about it, it’s like he has some kind of electric line into her soul.” Lauren shook her head and Raef could see she was fighting back tears. “How the hell can he keep causing her such pain even after her body is dead?”
Raef didn’t have one damn clue about how to answer that question, so he countered with one of his own. “It’s not just Aubrey who feels pain caused by him. It’s you, too.”
“Yes, it’s me, too. And that’s not all. She’s getting weaker. He’s draining her, and the weaker she gets—the more she’s drained—the weaker I get. Somehow he can use her, and apparently several other people, even though they are all dead.” Lauren stared into his eyes. “How? How is he doing it?”
“I’m going to be straight with you, Lauren. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Even when I was in the air force and Tracked terrorists. I experienced some really bad stuff, and some really bizarre stuff, but nothing that was leeching a ghost’s soul and the ghost’s living twin. Sorry, but I just don’t have the answers for you.”
“So, basically, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Basically, you’re correct. With your case I do not.”
“Well, then, what am I going to do? Just fade away with Aubrey where we’ll exist forever somewhere between agony and darkness?” This time a tear escaped Lauren’s eye and rolled down her smooth cheek.
“Not if I can
help it,” Raef heard himself say.
Lauren threw up her hands and repeated, “How?”
“By doing something I hate like hell. I’m going to call in the cavalry and ask for help, even though it’s a damn annoying cavalry and she’s going to be obnoxiously pleased that she’s going to have to bail me out.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“She’s way too small to be the cavalry,” Lauren whispered from beside Raef.
They were sitting at his huge old desk peering into the big-screen Mac as the redhead answered the video call. She raised a scarlet brow and turned clear green eyes on Lauren, saying, “I don’t know what you mean by cavalry, but she’s not deaf.”
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Lauren began. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Yeah, yeah, stand down, tough girl,” Raef interrupted. “Milana Buineviciute, this is Lauren Wilcox. She’s a client of mine and I called you the cavalry, she didn’t.” Raef moved his gaze from the quick-tempered little redhead to Lauren. “Lana is the head medium for our Oklahoma City branch of After Moonrise. She’s a pain in the ass, and even though she claims to be Lithuanian I suspect her of being a Russian spy, but she knows more shit about ghosts than anyone I’ve ever met. Not that that’s a compliment.”
“Atsiknisk,” Lana told Raef blandly. “Which means ‘fuck off’—in Lithuanian, not Russian. Try moving into the twenty-first century, Raef. The Cold War has been over for longer than I’ve been alive.” She looked at Lauren. “Good to meet you, Lauren.” Lana glanced back at Raef. “Hey, sudzius, she’s not a ghost.”
“I’ve worked with you long enough to know you’re calling me a shithead, and I know Lauren isn’t a ghost, Nazi. It’s her twin sister who is dead.”
“Nazis were German, not Russian or Lithuanian,” Lana told Raef smoothly before turning her attention back to Lauren. “A twin’s death is always difficult. Her ghost, she is with you?”
