by Terri Garey
The bastard.
“Guess Nicki’s reading tarot cards in the back room these days, hm?” Sammy winked at the camera as though it were an old friend, making a joke at my expense.
“Hey,” I made a weak-sounding protest over Joe’s shoulder, but we were already too far away to do any good. Besides, people were looking at us strangely enough without my getting into a shouting match with a guy who was filming a commercial.
Exhausted and embarrassed, I tucked my head under Joe’s neck and let him carry me back to my store.
The rest of the day was sure to be a complete loss. Joe insisted on driving me home, and I didn’t argue. A worried Evan promised to bring my car home and check on me later. I laid my head back in the seat, drained and stunned, as Joe drove.
“Punk.” His anger was icy, contained, and thankfully, didn’t seem to be directed at me. “You’d think a guy who claims to be the Devil could fight his own battles instead of getting a girl to do it for him.”
I didn’t answer, knowing he had good cause to be angry.
“Every day in the E.R., I see things most people would never believe—shootings, stabbings, battered wives and girlfriends, children who’ve been abused or neglected. I see his hand in all of it.”
I risked a glance at his face. His jaw was set in a hard line.
“If he thinks I’m going to turn tail and run because he showed up in the flesh, he’s sadly mistaken,” Joe said grimly. “I’ve beaten him before, on the operating table, and I’ll do it again, in the real world.” He shook his dark head, gaze turned inward despite his attention to the road. “I’m just sorry the bastard is using me to get to you.”
He reached over and took my hand, and I never wanted to let it go. “You know that’s what he’s doing, right?”
I hadn’t thought that deep yet, but I knew Joe was right. Sammy was letting me know just how vulnerable I, and those I loved, were.
I wondered sickly about the many different ways there were to torment a person.
“Don’t let him rattle you, Nicki. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself. You just concentrate on staying strong.”
Considering how, at the moment, I bore more resemblance to a limp noodle than I cared to admit, I almost laughed.
“You okay, babe? Dizzy? Nauseous? Headache?”
“I’m okay,” I murmured in return. “I just need to scrub myself clean and sleep for a week.” I felt dazed, violated. Familiar scenery went unnoticed as we sped past. My heart was pounding like a drum, and that wasn’t good. My mind and body had been invaded by a dead girl; Sammy was back, and I was afraid. What was happening to me?
What was going to happen to me?
Joe seemed determined to look after me, and I didn’t mind. It had been a while since I’d been looked after, and at the moment, I didn’t seem to be doing a very good job looking after myself. When we got to my house, he helped me with my clothes and ran the shower, making sure the water was hot before helping me step over the edge of the tub.
“I’ll be waiting right here,” he said, lowering the lid of my hot pink fuzzy toilet seat and settling himself on it.
“You don’t need to—”
“Let me know if you feel dizzy or faint,” he said firmly, reaching to twitch the shower curtain closed. “I’ll be right here to catch you.” And he sat there patiently while I went through the motions of washing.
Contaminated. Drained. Crystal’s invasion had shaken me to the core. How was it possible for two people to share a body? My body. Bad enough the unpleasant tingling as she’d spread throughout my veins, but I’d felt the malevolent maelstrom of her emotions, as well. Anger, bitterness, rage. What had Crystal Cowart been so angry about?
She’d left me feeling poisoned.
Joe helped me into a soft pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, as though I were a child who needed help getting dressed. I could tell he was still angry by the white lines around his mouth, but his hands couldn’t have been more gentle. He pulled back the covers on my bed and ushered me in, tucking them around me.
I felt like I could sleep for a week.
“He really gets to you, doesn’t he?”
My eyelids wanted to open, but they were too heavy. The pillow was so soft against my cheek. “What do you mean?” I mumbled, afraid to hear his answer. I was doing my best not to think about Sammy. Joe was the man I wanted—I didn’t understand how I could possibly be drawn to someone else, even for an instant.
Joe lay down on top of the covers and spooned against me, tucking his knees beneath mine. “I know what he wants, Nicki,” he murmured, kissing the place where my shoulder met my neck, “and I know why he wants it.” He nuzzled me there, his warm weight giving me reassurance, his voice soothing despite the words he was saying. “I’m not blind. You’re special, in so many ways.”
“I don’t want to be special,” I managed to grump, still not opening my eyes.
He chuckled against my hair, giving the damp strands a quick kiss. “I don’t think you have a choice in the matter,” he whispered, eerily echoing my thoughts. He kissed my hair again. “You are what you are. Now go to sleep. I’ll be here for a few hours, then I have another shift. Evan will be here to check on you later.”
I felt a wave of contentment, of safety, and then I drifted into the welcome oblivion of sleep.
Hours later, I felt him leave, and groggily responded to his murmured kiss of farewell. The bed seemed empty without him, but I couldn’t seem to stay awake.
Dreams, disjointed but intense, broken by snatches of consciousness that registered Evan’s voice, the sound of the evening news coming from the TV in the living room, and even the quick beep, blip, beep of the alarm as Evan set it for the evening. Then I heard his car start and the slow rumble of the engine as he drove away, back to his own apartment. I glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly midnight.
I’d slept the day away and wanted only to sleep more. I got up long enough to use the bathroom and get myself something to drink, then I was back in bed. Vaguely, I wondered if I was getting sick, but I knew what the real problem was. Life had just taken a sudden turn, and it was a scary one. The longer I could keep the covers over my head, the better.
But in the end, there was no escape. Somewhere in the night Sammy came to me again, using a much more subtle approach than the one he’d used on the sidewalk. I barely felt it as his fingers skimmed my skin, moving up and down my arm, soothingly, then along a bare hip. A tingle of pleasure as his knuckle brushed my nipple ring. I think I murmured something as his kisses burned my neck, probably moaned as his strong legs spread my own. Then he was inside, and I woke with a start, drenched with sweat, heart pounding.
I lay there in the dark, in the home I’d lived in as a child, and knew real fear. My dad wasn’t here anymore to chase the boogeyman from under the bed, and my mom had brought me my last glass of water. They were both gone, lost on a rainy stretch of road eight years earlier.
Trembling and throbbing, I heard again Sammy’s voice in my head—the words he’d spoken in my dream. The words he’d said as he slid himself home.
“Come over to the dark side, Nicki.” He’d smiled, as only Sammy could, as he’d taken possession of me in his own way. “We have cookies.”
CHAPTER 3
“Possession is hardly something to fool around with, Nicki.” My sister Kelly’s tone did nothing to reassure me.
“Gee, ya think?” I rolled my eyes, though she couldn’t see it over the phone. “It’s hardly like I wanted the skinny skank to do it, you know. It was creepy. It was gross.” I shuddered at the memory of Crystal’s bony essence, prickling and bubbling in my veins like Drano. “I have to figure out how to keep it from happening again.”
“I’ll do some research. There must be ways to guard against possession.”
I slid into a chair at the kitchen table, breathing a little easier. If anybody could find out anything, it was Kelly. We were twins, though we’d only known each other less than si
x months, and couldn’t be more different. My home was in Atlanta, while she’d had spent the winter in a haunted house in Savannah, learning how to cope with the family “knack”—our weird ability to see and hear the dead.
“Why didn’t you call me yesterday, right after this happened? Are you okay?” The way she fired questions at me told me how worried she was. “Any aftereffects? Weird feelings? Hallucinations? Anything like that?”
“No, but I was really out of it afterward—completely wiped. Joe brought me home and put me in bed, and that’s the last I remember until I woke up this morning.”
Well, not the last thing I remembered.
But Kelly didn’t need to know about the dream—it was too personal.
“What do you think Sammy wants this time?” Her voice was somber.
“The same thing he wanted last time, I guess—he’s pretty determined to get me on his side. Grandma Bijou told me he culls his victims from the herd the way a wolf does with the sheep—which is why he played us against each other when we were in Savannah. I can only assume he’s trying to create problems between me and Joe, so I’ll fall into his arms or something.”
Or something.
“How’s Joe taking all this?”
“He’s not happy, but he seems to be handling it okay. We really haven’t had a lot of time to talk about it—I was practically comatose yesterday, and he’s at work now. Life in the E.R. doesn’t stop just because you have a weird girlfriend,” I joked, knowing Joe and I still needed to talk more. Just because he seemed okay didn’t mean he was.
There was silence. Then she said, “Savannah is only four hours away, you know. You should come here, to the Blue Dahlia, and be with family.”
A pang of guilt hit me. The only family we had was the elderly Bijou Boudreaux, transvestite florist and Southern belle extraordinaire. The sweet old lady who owned the Blue Dahlia was really a man, and either the citizens of Savannah didn’t know or didn’t care. Our mother—the woman who’d given us up at birth—had been Bijou’s daughter, Peaches Boudreaux, who’d died before we had a chance to get to know her.
“Bijou will be worried,” she said, still working the guilt angle.
“Don’t tell Bijou anything, and she’ll have no reason to be worried. Better yet, distract her—send her shopping for new cushions for the porch swing or something.”
The Blue Dahlia was an elegant old house, our family heritage, and Kelly loved it there. If things had turned out differently, we would’ve grown up together in the rambling old place. But Peaches had given us up for adoption, and we’d been separated, neither of us ever knowing the other twin existed. She’d made her living as a psychic before she died, and I still wasn’t quite certain how to feel about her.
Kelly sighed, exasperated. “Grandma Bijou is very sensitive, Nicki. I can’t pretend with her; she’ll see right through me. She’ll know something’s wrong.”
“I’ll tell her myself when I’m ready,” I said firmly. “I’ll call the flower shop and talk to her when she’s Leonard. She’s much more reasonable when she’s Leonard.”
“You’re not safe in Atlanta.” Kelly changed tack, returning to the original argument.
“I’m not safe in Savannah,” I said. I didn’t blame her for nagging, but Little Five Points was my home. “Sammy could show up wherever I go. I’m staying here.”
Knowing my stubborn streak as well as her own, Kelly finally dropped the argument. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me yesterday when this happened.” Her sigh of frustration came through loud and clear.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m still new at this ‘depending on other people’ thing. I’ve been taking care of myself for almost eight years.”
“You depend on Evan all the time.”
“I’ve known Evan since we were kids. He grew up next door.”
“You have to let me in, Nicki.”
Silence on my part. She was right, and I knew it. I was a bad sister.
So I said the words aloud. “I’m a bad sister.”
“You’re the bad sister,” Kelly corrected me, “not a bad sister.” She giggled a little, and I knew by her teasing that she’d already forgiven me. “I’m the good one, remember?”
I gave a snort. “That’s just what you want people to think. There’s a bad girl under that good girl exterior. I’ve seen her peek out once or twice.”
She laughed. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones—I’ve seen your good girl side pop up more than once.”
“That is a bold-faced lie.” My outrage was fake, and she knew it. “I’m bad to the bone, and don’t you forget it.”
“Right. Now go pet a kitten or something while I do my research. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up feeling better, knowing that Kelly and I were cool and that whether I was used to it or not, she had my back.
Nicki Styx and Kelly Charon. How ironic that we’d both been adopted by parents with names taken straight from Greek tragedy. Styx was the dark river that separated the living from the dead; Charon, the grim guardian who ferried souls across it. Separating my sister and me at birth hadn’t protected us from our strange heritage; death had found us anyway.
The phone rang again as I was putting it back in the cradle. I jumped, nearly dropping the damn thing. Checking the caller ID, I saw it read joe office, and let my shoulders ease.
“Hey, baby.” He’d only been gone a few hours, and I missed him already.
“You need to come down to the E.R., Nicki.” Joe didn’t sound nearly as cheerful as I’d hoped he would. “Something weird’s going on down here.”
I went cold all over.
“What is it?” Visions of floating surgical instruments and electronic equipment gone haywire filled my head.
“The hospital is holding an inquiry into Crystal Cowart’s death,” Joe answered tersely. “Administration has already scheduled me for a meeting with the staff attorney. They want my statement.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Sammy got his footage on the eleven o’clock news,” Joe said grimly. “The entire city of Atlanta has now seen you publicly accuse me of murder.”
“Oh my God!” Shit. “I’m so sorry, Joe. You know I wasn’t myself!”
You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I couldn’t help but think it—Crystal Cowart had stirred up a lot of trouble. I shuddered involuntarily, remembering her icy rage. “I know you’d never just let someone die!”
Joe’s voice softened. “I know, Nicki. I know. I’m not mad at you. I just need you to come down and give the lawyer your statement, too.”
The back of my neck prickled.
“You mean, like tell some guy in a suit that I was possessed? That the ghost of Crystal Cowart appeared while we were having Mocha Lattes?” Selfish of me to think of myself at a time like this, but I couldn’t help it.
I didn’t want to be some freak on the eleven o’clock news.
But I didn’t want Joe in trouble, either.
“I’m sorry, baby,” I took a deep breath, and let it out. “Of course I’ll come down.” I ran my fingers through my hair, wishing I had time for another shower. “I’ll tell the lawyer I was whacked out on ‘E’ or something.”
“You’re not going to lie about taking ecstasy,” Joe said firmly. “You don’t take drugs, and you know it.”
“The suit doesn’t know it,” I grumped back. “And I don’t care what some fat-cat lawyer thinks, anyway. Give me a few minutes to pull myself together, and I’ll drive over.”
“No need to rush. The appointment isn’t until two o’clock.”
I glanced at the clock on the microwave, relieved to see that it was still early, not even eight thirty. Morning sun streamed through the window over the sink, striking the bottles I kept on the sill and turning them into colorful sun catchers.
“I’m really sorry, Joe.” Poor guy deserves better. I was trouble with a capital “T.”
“I’ll let you make i
t up to me later.”
Despite my gloomy thoughts, I couldn’t help but smile. The coffee was ready, and I helped myself to it gratefully, cradling the phone between an ear and a shoulder.
“Oh, you will, will you? How generous of you. Maybe you’d like me to rub your feet, get you a newspaper, make you dinner?”
Joe burst out laughing, and it did my heart good to hear it. “That’s when I’d really worry about you being possessed by somebody else. The Nicki Styx I know isn’t nearly so submissive.”
“Hey, it could happen,” I joked, getting into it. “I could be possessed by the spirit of June Cleaver.”
Joe’s chuckles died, and after a moment, so did mine, leaving silence on the line.
“I guess that’s not really funny, is it?”
“How are you feeling this morning?” Joe answered my question with a few of his own. “Any aftereffects? Headache? You promised to tell me if you had symptoms of any kind.”
“I’m okay.” Doctor or no doctor, the concern in his voice gave me the warm fuzzies. “I called Kelly, and she’s already surfing the Internet for ways to guard against what happened yesterday.”
“You should talk to Bijou. Tell her exactly what happened.”
I was surprised. He seemed to have more faith in the eccentric old woman than I did.
“I’m going to.” I foresaw at least a two-hour phone conversation, including a lecture about family and another guilt trip about not staying in Savannah. “I’ll call her, but first I’m going to get cleaned up and head to the store. Evan was there alone all day yesterday.”
“Be careful, Nicki.” No more teasing—Joe was now dead serious. “Sammy opened that store in Little Five Points to be near you. He’s obviously out to stir up trouble. I wish you’d stay home.”
I sighed. “I can’t give up my life, Joe. It doesn’t matter whether Sammy is across the street, in Savannah, or in the depths of Hell. He could show up anytime, anywhere.”
Joe didn’t answer, so I went on. “He can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do, remember?” Or so I’m told. “I have to face him down. It’s the only way to make him go away. He’ll get bored soon—he just wants to scare me.” And doing a good job, too. But I didn’t say that out loud.
