Badlands

by Morgan Brice

  “Get some sleep,” Vic murmured against his ear. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” Simon relaxed against him, and moments later, Vic could tell from his deep, regular breaths that Simon was asleep. Vic lay awake for a long while, trying to make sense of the tangled emotions warring in his heart, unprepared for how protective and possessive he felt of the other man pressed up against him.

  Tomorrow, this will all probably seem like a really bad idea, Vic thought. Hell, it is a bad idea. He’ll probably throw me out in the morning when he decides I should have known better for both of us. But, dammit, we both wanted this. Now the question is, where the fuck do we go from here?

  Vic woke with a start long after midnight, alarmed and disoriented as he tried to recognize his surroundings. Then he felt a lean, strong body pressed against him and caught the scent of Simon’s shampoo. Simon jerked and moaned, but fear, not passion, laced his cries.

  “No…please, no. Blood and souls. Feed the beast. Please, stop!” Simon came awake with a shout, thrashing to free himself from Vic’s protective embrace, only to cry out in pain as he moved his injured arm too roughly.

  “You’re safe,” Vic reassured him, helping Simon sit up and wrapping around him from behind, one leg thrown on either side of Simon’s hips so that Vic could stretch their bodies together. Simon’s back was against Vic’s chest. Vic’s arms held Simon loosely, so as not to be a restraint, but supporting, secure.

  “Vic?” Simon asked in the darkness, and Vic felt his heart plummet. Had he misjudged Simon’s awareness last night? Simon closed his hands around Vic’s forearms as if confirming that he was real.

  “I’m here,” Vic said, his mouth close to Simon’s ear. “It’s just a bad dream.”

  Simon tensed, then shook his head. “No. Not a nightmare. A vision. I’m sure of it.”

  Vic swallowed. Fuck, this was a bad time for psychic shit to pop up. He still wasn’t entirely sure how much he believed—how much he dared believe—but Simon needed his support, so doubts and arguments would have to wait. “Tell me.”

  Simon hesitated, rightfully so, Vic thought. I’ve done shit to earn his trust, at least when it comes to his abilities. “I’m here for you,” Vic said. “Tell me what you saw.”

  “It was a woman—I didn’t recognize her, but she had been cut like the others. She stared at me, and then her mouth moved. I know she shouldn’t have been able to talk, not with her throat slit, but she said ‘blood and souls’ and ‘feed the beast.’ Her voice was terrible,” he admitted, and the words tumbled out fast as if he were afraid to slow down for fear he might not get them all out. “Wet, like she was drowning,” he added in a whisper and shuddered.

  “Does that mean something to you?” Vic asked because the image was terrifying, but the message eluded him.

  “No,” Simon admitted. “But the visions aren’t always for my benefit. I’m just the messenger.” He paused, and Vic wondered if Simon waited for him to make a cutting remark, or demonstrate his disbelief. “Did you ever follow up on the strange words from that first vision?”

  Vic rested his forehead against Simon’s head. “Hotel,” he replied. “And ‘big nose.’ I asked one of our interpreters. She said it was Russian, but the woman in your vision, Iryena, was from Belarus. Russian is their second language.”

  Simon went still in his arms, and Vic wondered if he was surprised that Vic had asked for a translation. “I’m sorry to ask,” Vic said gently, “but can you give me a description of the woman you saw just now?”

  “Young, early twenties,” Simon said, his voice raspy with sleep. “Blond hair, cut chin-length, not symmetrical. She had piercings, her eyebrow and her nose—at least, those were the ones I could see. Short. Petite. And I think she was wearing a uniform of some kind, but there was so much blood—” He stopped, almost choking on the words.

  Vic tightened his grip and rocked them back and forth. “Shh,” he coaxed, kissing the shell of Simon’s ear from behind. He’d never been this demonstrative with a lover before. Nate was another cop, and they’d kept to the script at home just like down at the precinct. The only emotions that they had ever both been truly comfortable with were anger and desire. Maybe that’s some of what went wrong, Vic thought. Maybe it was never more than fucking and fighting, and it never would have been.

  The feelings Simon woke in him were new, and frightening. Vic had never worried overmuch about Nate’s safety. He was ex-military, and a street cop. He could take care of himself. But Simon didn’t hide behind a macho facade, and he didn’t even own a gun. As for his psychic gifts—if Vic believed in that sort of thing—they seemed to make him more vulnerable, instead of protecting him.

  “You’re quiet,” Simon said, and Vic feared he had misinterpreted his silence.

  “There’s a lot to think about.” Vic tightened his grip on Simon. Simon let his head fall back onto Vic’s shoulder, and Vic pressed a kiss to his cheek.

  “Do you believe me?” Simon asked, and the question hung heavy between them.

  “I’m trying to,” Vic replied honestly. “This is different for me. But, the reading you did before was dead on,” he added, then cringed. “Pardon the pun. Even with the interpretation, I still don’t know what her words have to do with all this, but they must have been important, right? So…I’m working on it.”

  The clock on the stereo said it was 3:50 a.m. “Let’s try to get some sleep,” Vic suggested, moving so that he and Simon could lie down again. “Everything is better in the light of day.”

  Vic’s phone alarm woke him, and he sat up, groggy and alone. He pawed at his phone to shut off the alarm, and it took him a minute to realize where he was. Just after six in the morning, so if he got moving, he had time to go home, shower and change clothing, so he didn’t go into work smelling of sweat and sex.

  “Simon?” he called, his voice rough with sleep. The smell of coffee wafted out, enticing and welcome.

  “I made coffee,” Simon said, coming to the door of the small kitchen. He was barefoot and bare-chested, still wearing last night’s jeans, and Vic’s cock thickened at the sight, heedless of the fact that he needed to go to work.

  “That sounds wonderful.” Shit, this was the morning after the night before, and awkward as hell. He pocketed his phone and slipped into his holster. “I gotta piss,” he said, and Simon pointed toward a door down the hall.

  Vic closed the door, admitting to himself that he was hiding as well as heeding nature’s call. Everything about Simon’s bungalow was homey, ironically retro, and as genuine as the man himself. Compared to this, Vic’s apartment had all the personality of a hotel room, revealing next to nothing of the man who lived in it.

  He splashed water on his face and cupped a handful to rinse his mouth. It had been so long, years, since he’d stayed over after having sex, or allowed anyone to spend the night. Was there a graceful way to leave that didn’t seem like a kiss-off? Vic didn’t know exactly how he felt about Simon’s so-called gifts, but he was more attracted to the psychic than he had been to anyone in a long time, enough to want more than a single night. He didn’t trust himself not to fuck this up.

  “You’d better get going, if you need to change before work,” Simon said when Vic came back to the kitchen. He had his back turned, and Vic couldn’t see his face. Was Simon having second thoughts about what happened between them last night? Did he regret asking Vic to stay, or was he still afraid of Vic’s reaction to his vision?

  “I’m sorry to rush off,” Vic said and meant it. “Thanks. And, be careful. Someone took that shot at you. I don’t want to handle your case.”

  Simon turned to look at him, his expression difficult to read, and nodded. “You, too. I don’t want you to show up in one of my readings.”

  “I’ll see you around,” Vic said and decided he was terrible at flirting. He wanted to see Simon again but didn’t want to pressure him. Did that sound like a promise? Or a brush-off? He couldn’t tell what Simon was thinking.

  �
�See you when I see you,” Simon replied. Was that a promise or a challenge? Vic drained his coffee cup, murmured another thanks, and dodged out the door before the conversation could get any more awkward.

  Vic tried to put Simon out of his mind as he rushed back to his apartment, showered, and changed. He carried his dirty clothes to the basket and caught a whiff of Simon’s woodsy aftershave. Getting involved this much, this quickly, was dangerous, especially when Simon was connected—however tangentially—to the Slitter case. His cop instincts told him to put distance between them. But his heart—and he felt sure it wasn’t just his dick talking—told him to hang in there. Now if he could only ditch the nagging fear that the woo-woo elements that were so much a part of Simon’s life weren’t going to cause the same havoc that they did in Pittsburgh.

  Ross was waiting for him when he got to the precinct. He looked up from his desk as Vic brought in the two coffees he had bought at the donut shop next door. “Want to explain why you were involved in a shooting down on the boardwalk last night—and tried to chase the perp on foot?”

  Vic set the coffee down, went to his side of the desk, and booted his computer. “I happened to be there when it went down. Made sure the victim had help and went after the shooter. Lost him in the crowd. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.” He figured a good offense was the way to go.

  Ross didn’t look convinced. “I’d believe that, except that Kenny Connolly, one of the officers who responded to the call, asked me if the guy who got shot was your boyfriend. Your ghost tour-psychic boyfriend.” He didn’t even try to hide the disdain in his voice.

  Shit. Vic had been so worried about Simon being shot, the other cops at the scene had just been background noise. He remembered how he’d flashed his badge, bulled his way through, and taken possession of the victim. In every sense of the term, an unhelpful voice supplied. Above and beyond the call of duty. Or is that booty?

  Ross lowered his voice. “Are you out of your mind, Vic? A guy who thinks he can talk to ghosts? After what happened the last time? Do you want to lose your badge?”

  Vic’s temper flared. “This is nothing like Pittsburgh.”

  “Isn’t it?” Ross countered. “I heard one of the cops saying that it was too bad they couldn’t just arrest him for fraud, for being one of those fake table rappers.”

  “He’s not a fake, and he hasn’t defrauded anyone,” Vic retorted. “Geez, while they were at it, did they throw in any gay jokes?”

  “This isn’t about you being gay,” Ross argued, struggling to keep his voice down. “No one cares who you sleep with—as long as they’re not a laughingstock.”

  Vic’s voice was a low growl. “I can’t explain what I saw in Pittsburgh. And I can’t prove Simon’s abilities. I’m figuring that out as I go. But he’s not breaking the law, and he’s not a fraud, and the rest is none of anyone else’s goddamn business.”

  Ross started at him. “Jesus. You slept with him.”

  “I’m not having this conversation.” Vic pointedly looked away from Ross, intent on his computer screen.

  “Watch your step, Vic. That’s all I’m saying. As your partner—and your friend. This guy sounds like trouble. You don’t want to have this conversation with the Captain.”

  9

  Simon

  Simon heard the click of the door as Vic let himself out, and sighed, allowing his head to drop as he leaned against the kitchen counter. He didn’t know what he had expected from this morning, but he felt oddly unsettled.

  I didn’t think he’d declare his undying love. Maybe a kiss before he left? Or something a little more definite than “see you around.”

  Simon took his cup of coffee out onto the small patio. If he angled his deck chair just right, he could see a sliver of the ocean between buildings. Usually, that sight helped to calm him, but now he felt more jangled than ever.

  Someone had tried to kill him last night or at least had sent a dire warning. Vic had claimed him in front of the other cops and the EMTs, taking charge, getting him home, and making him feel safe. He had been more attentive and tender than Simon had dared to imagine. Just the thought of how Jacen would have reacted in similar circumstances coaxed out a bitter laugh.

  Jacen would have run for the hills, every man for himself, Simon thought, and knew it to be true. He wouldn’t have noticed I was down until he was a mile away, and he would never have risked the “negative publicity” of being seen with me at the site of the incident.

  Which led him back to the million dollar question—what did Vic feel for him?

  Simon sipped his coffee, black with sweetener, and let it burn down his throat as the breeze ruffled his hair. His arm ached, and it had been the pain that roused him from sleep, surprised to find himself tangled in Vic’s arms. Simon hadn’t wanted the moment to end, but he knew they both had to go to work, and he worried about how Vic would react in the light of day. He could barely believe that he’d worked up the nerve to ask Vic to stay and that the cop had agreed, let alone sleeping spooned together like lovers.

  They weren’t really lovers, were they?

  Despite his injury, Simon remembered the kisses and the hot-as-hell hand job clearly. Vic had been caring and careful, so unlike the few one-night-stands Simon winced to remember. They hadn’t fucked—at thirty-five he refused to think of it as “going all the way”—but the intimacy had been undeniable. Simon wanted more. Vic had seemed onboard, but then this morning it was hard to see his quick departure as anything other than extricating himself from an awkward situation.

  It shouldn’t hurt, but it did. Simon realized he knew nothing about Vic’s past, except that something bad had happened in Pittsburgh that likely led to him coming south. Did he leave a lover behind? An ex-husband? Or just a string of nameless partners who had been fleeting encounters? Maybe Vic wasn’t a relationship kind of guy.

  And that right there was a problem because Simon knew himself, and he most certainly was a one-man man. The attraction he felt to Vic was dangerous, and last night in the wake of the attack, Simon had given in and let on how much he wanted the cop.

  Probably scared the shit out of him, Simon conceded. But he couldn’t deny the feelings that were growing beyond something sheerly physical. He’d been jacking off to fantasies about Vic since he’d met the cop, but the reality had been far better, even if it hadn’t gone quite as far as Simon’s imagination—

  And it probably never will, he thought, draining the coffee that had gone cool. If only he hadn’t had a vision right then, maybe this morning would have gone differently. Maybe Vic wouldn’t have been put off by his panicked awakening in the middle of the night. But for anything beyond a fast fuck to happen between them, Vic would need to truly believe in and support Simon’s gift, and that didn’t seem likely.

  I hid part of who I was before, and look where it got me. Never again. The best part of what I’ve built here is that for the first time, I’m completely honest about who I am—a gay clairvoyant medium history nerd with a passion for ghost stories. And I’m not giving up that truth for anyone—even Vic.

  Simon forced himself to leave the patio. He filled a travel mug with the rest of the hot coffee, then went to get a shower and dress for work. A glance in the mirror told him that the wound on his arm had already bruised colorfully, but he knew it could have been far worse. Simon debated canceling the ghost tours scheduled for that night but decided against it. This is my life, the way I make my living, and I’ll be damned if some coward in the shadows is going to make me stop doing what I love.

  Maybe he could make a few adjustments, for safety’s sake, he thought. He wouldn’t take the group as far down the boardwalk, sticking closer to where there were more people. That would make him harder to hear above the noise, and detract from the spooky feel, but he and his customers might be safer remaining in a better lit, busier area. Perhaps the cops would catch the shooter, and find it was all a dreadful mistake, or some kind of random incident that had nothing to
do with him, his visions, or the Slitter. Much as Simon wanted to believe that, he didn’t really think so.

  Vic didn’t take his visions seriously, and the police weren’t likely to find the person who shot at him, so it was time for Simon to make the next move. Simon had always regarded the ability to hear spirits as a solemn responsibility. Iryena, Katya, and the unnamed woman last night appeared to him because there was no one else who could hear their plea. If the cops couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do something with that information, then Simon intended to provide the police with evidence they’d accept, a solid lead that would keep other J-ones from dying.

  And tonight, after the last ghost tour, Simon would check in with the rest of his Skeleton Crew and get some answers.

  His phone rang around ten o’clock, and he knew from the ringtone it was Tracey. The early morning rush would be over at the coffee shop, and more of her staff would be on hand to serve customers, giving her the chance to sneak off to drink a cup of her own java.

  “Did you hear about the shooting on the boardwalk last night?” Tracey greeted him. “Shit, if it happened while you had a tour, did you see something?”

  Simon groaned. “I did better than see it. I’m the one who got shot.”

  Silence answered him. “That’s not funny, Simon.”

  “No kidding. It hurt like fuck.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “If you got shot, why are you at work?” Tracey’s voice sounded like she was straining not to yell into the phone. “Shouldn’t you be in the hospital?”

  “The bullet grazed my arm. It didn’t even need stitches,” Simon replied, sorry he had been so honest. “I’m bruised, but fine.”

  “Oh, my god,” Tracey breathed. “You’re serious. Does your cop know? What did he say?”

  “Vic was on the tour when it happened. He made sure I got home okay.”