Fall (Hero Society Book 6)

by Jessica Florence

  The thought made me feel even more pissed at the situation because I should only be thinking about her, and how a poor woman was dead, not that I missed an opportunity to show off to Selene and maybe end with smiles instead of death and blood.

  Why the fuck did I want her smiles anyway? I was down to my last month of life. I didn’t need her as a distraction.

  “I know you’re not OK, but you seem extra off. Is something else bothering you?” Her soft fingers touched my arm, and a tingling, shooting sensation spread warmth throughout my skin. I hissed from the shock of pure bliss. I retreated my arm from her touch and looked into her blue eyes.

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know shit about me.”

  She didn’t flinch or arch her delicate eyebrows at me, which only made me feel shittier.

  “You’re right. I’ll be in touch if the paper has anymore need of you.” Her expression was completely unreadable. I couldn’t tell if she was angry, sad, or cared at all that I was being a dick. I hated this feeling and needed out of here.

  I watched Selene walk over to talk with a woman with medium-length black hair and wore a leather jacket. Selene smiled at her, and I felt my chest constrict. Of course, Selene didn’t give two shits about me.

  “Um, excuse me.” A soft female voice spoke from the seats behind me. I turned in the direction with a hardened jaw. But as soon as I saw the shimmering form, I relaxed my face to show empathy.

  “You see me, right? Hear me?” The ghost of the murdered woman was there, looking at me like she was unsure I was indeed looking at her or not.

  “I do. I’m very sorry about what happened.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I just knew that I could talk to you for some reason. So here we are, but I think I’m remembering something from before. I’d been asked if I wanted to go backstage and meet you. Of course I said yes, and when I went to grab the pass, I felt a pain in my neck.” She reached up to touch her neck where she had felt the pain, but her hand went straight through her shoulder like it was air.

  “Do you remember if it was a man or woman who spoke to you?” I wasn’t a detective, but I assumed it was the right question to ask. Her ghostly head shook. Damn.

  “No, it’s very fuzzy.” The hand at her neck moved up to her head. She must be feeling phantom pains of a headache. An idea struck me about our problem but I was going to need help.

  “Are you . . .” I tried to think of the best way to say what I needed to say without being an asshole. “Going to move on or stick around for a while?” There really hadn’t been another way to say it, so I just blurted it out. Hopefully my words weren’t going to send her off into a fit. Her features pinched in and her arms crossed over her shimmering chest.

  “I’m not going anywhere, yet. I want justice first. Isn’t that a reason you can stay . . . unfinished business or something?”

  This woman was stubborn and fiery. Hopefully my idea would work and we’d be closer to catching the killer that has become my new enemy.

  “OK. Stay here. Don’t wander, and I’ll be back tonight to try something that I think could help us both.” I looked around to see if people were finished cleaning up and doing their jobs when I saw Selene watching me as I talked with the victim. The burning curiosity inside her blue eyes seduced me. I wanted to feed that monster inside her that yearned for more.

  But I’d just been a super ass, and I doubted she would even talk to me now. I deserved her indifference, but this wasn’t about me. It’s about the killer and bringing peace to the victims and families.

  “And I’m gonna bring a friend. The other girl who talks to ghosts.” Trixie shrugged.

  “As long as she doesn’t touch me, I’m good.”

  That was fair enough, now I just had to convince Selene she could be around me for more than two minutes.

  “I’ll be back later. I promise.” I walked toward a smack in the face waiting to happen.

  Chapter Nine

  Selene

  “I could have picked you up. We were practically driving behind each other.” Jude rubbed his hands together, the chill biting into our skin as we walked from the parking lot to the theater doors.

  He opened them with a key he magically possessed and held the door open for me to go in front of him. I still hadn’t muttered one syllable to the insufferable man, and I was content to keep it up. Whatever mystery I’d been hooked on before with him was gone, ruined by his asshole mouth. Death was something I was around all the time, and it reminded me the future doesn’t exist, and we could all die at any moment. I didn’t need to give my time and energy to people who didn’t deserve it. My time here on Earth was better spent doing things that made me happy, not angry.

  “I said I was sorry for the way I acted earlier. I’ve got stuff happening and these women dying at my show isn’t really helping.”

  I scoffed at his words. Of course these innocent deaths were inconveniencing him.

  “Fuck. That came out wrong. Look, I’ll explain after we give this a try, OK? Hopefully we can figure out who is killing these women.” He spoke with complete sincerity and stepped in front of me. He was sorry. I felt that, and I could see how he could be pissed, then act like a jerk given the circumstances. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, but that’s as far as I would go. Once this whole murder case was solved, I’d leave Jude Mallory to his business and forget all about him.

  “OK. Let’s do this.” I spoke aloud for the first time since seeing him climb out of his black SUV. He closed his eyes in relief before going into the theater seating area.

  “I thought you guys weren’t going to show. I was coming up with a haunting plan. Talk to you all night while you sleep kind of deal.” Trixie sat on the edge of the stage, and I felt a pang of sadness. As much as we needed her to find out what happened in her murder, I know that souls belong onward. Being stuck here when you couldn’t feel, touch, or even talk to someone was miserable. Hell, that sort of thing led living people to the doors of death when they were lonely. Ghosts couldn’t die again so they just had to learn to deal with it.

  “Thank you for sticking around. I really believe this will help.” Jude hopped up to sit beside Trixie, and I stood in front of them. He hadn’t exactly told me what we were going to try, but he said it was important to the case. He needed my gift to speak to the dead, which he obviously had, too, so I was lost on why I was truly here.

  “So what do we do?” Trixie asked, and I looked at Jude expectantly. It was time to reveal this great plan of his.

  “I can control the dead. It’s my gift. I can make them do as I want, and for a short time I can make them as close to alive as I can. Meaning I can help you get over your dead brain fuzziness and you can tell us what you remember. I need Selene over here to jot everything down and ask the right questions since that is her thing.”

  Both Trixie and I gaped at the man, who claimed to have vast and extremely powerful gifts over the dead.

  “Is that even possible?” I asked. A power like that had to be too much for one person.

  “Yeah. My performers are all people who died a century ago. I give them temporary life to do their acts and not be one hundred percent ghost-like. So I know I can help you, but I’m going to apologize now that it is only temporary. I can’t bring people back from the dead.”

  His glanced at me quickly, then back to Trixie. He was lying. Holy hell, he could bring people back from the dead.

  “I get it. I’ll just be happy to catch this person, then move on. It’s no fun staying here alone. I can’t even taste a pumpkin spice latte if I wanted to. Now that is hell.” Trixie held her hand out toward Jude, and he gave her a sad smile before placing his hand in hers. I knew what to expect, given his words, but seeing his hand clasping onto hers and her ghostly fingers not just sliding through his like she was made of air made me gasp.

  “Selene,” Jude called out to me, and I nodded. Right. Questions.

  “Trixie, is your memory clear?” I whipped out my notebook and penc
il, ready to start writing everything down.

  “Oh yeah. And I remember the person who asked me if I wanted to go backstage was a female. She had a southern accent, too, like she was from Louisiana or some place like that.”

  All very good information and was specific enough that it should narrow down suspects.

  “Did you notice any of the woman’s clothing? Her shoes? Or jewelry?” I looked at Trixie hopeful that she’d seen something noteworthy, but she shook her head.

  “She was wearing a cloak. I remember thinking it was all part of the performance. The mystery and all. Her fingernails were painted red. I liked the color.” Trixie smiled even though she was remembering her death and the pain. But I bet she was also trying to soak up as many good times in there while she had the chance. Most people after they died didn’t get a moment to feel and relive their fondest memories.

  “Was there a shimmer to her like the performers on the stage?” Jude looked at me with an arched eyebrow for putting it out there that one of his people could have done it, but I had to think of all options. Now that I knew his power, he could have given all his performers a taste of living again and one of them could have technically done it.

  “Let me think. I don’t think . . .” She closed her eyes, focusing hard, her eyebrows pinched together from serious effort to remember.

  “None of my people would do this,” Jude whispered, and I ignored him.

  “I think there was a very faint shimmer to her, but it could have been reflecting from the stage. I’m honestly not sure to say a definite yes or no.”

  “That’s OK. You’re doing great and you’ve already given us more than we had before.” I tried to make her feel better. I didn’t know how long she was going to plan on sticking around, but it wasn’t going to be fun being alone thinking that she could have contributed more to this investigation.

  “Is there anything else you feel might be important?” We were coming to an end with her memory and Jude stared off into the room like he wasn’t even here with us.

  “Not right now. I don’t remember her, just her voice and the red nail polish. She’d asked if I wanted a pass to go backstage and meet the performers once the show was over. I said yes, and when I reached up to grab the pass, I felt the pain in my neck from the stab.” She paused briefly, maybe remembering something else as she recounted the moment of death.

  “The knife wasn’t silver, though. I would have seen the lights in the show reflecting off of it. Did anyone else say they saw someone talking to me?” She suddenly looked very interested, her eyes wide as they stared at me with hope.

  “I’m sorry. No one saw this woman. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. We are going to figure this out.”

  “We will bring your killer to justice, Trixie.” Jude released his grip on hers and she turned back into a shimmering ghost.

  My gaze met Jude’s and saw a look in his bright blue eyes of determination. We would figure this out. At least for now Jude and I were on the same team.

  Chapter Ten

  Selene

  Trixie promised to be around in case we needed her for anything but she was also determined to hit the streets, see her family, and try to listen for anymore clues as to who killed her and Lindsey Walters.

  Jude was oddly quiet as we walked to our cars.

  “Do you know anyone with that description? Accent, female, red nail polish?” I decided to be the one to break the tension that had settled over us. Whether he was a jerk before or not, we needed to work together.

  “My performers are from Louisiana, but I do not believe it was one of them. None of them would jeopardize what they have.”

  He seemed torn, but we couldn’t rule them out as a suspect. I needed to talk to Echo, tell her what I learned, and see if she could scent out anything extraordinary in the theater. Maybe Draco would have heard something, too. He knew all the people with gifts in the past, up until fifty years ago when he gave up on his purpose to be the leader of the heroes.

  “I think there is more to this story.” I meant both with these murders and with him.

  “Wanna grab a cup of coffee? I don’t feel like going back to the mansion yet.” He stopped walking. He looked troubled and tired.

  “Tea. I’ll join you for tea. I don’t drink coffee.” There was an open 24/7 breakfast place around the corner and the only place besides a bar open at 11:15 p.m. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with lots of people right now.

  “OK. Waffle Diner?” He guessed my thoughts and I nodded. Maybe he wasn’t in the mood for lots of people either.

  “So, you control the dead.” I tucked my hands into my sweater pockets. It was getting cooler now that we were in October. Fall was here, and the leaves were beginning to turn to bright oranges, reds, and yellows.

  “I do.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, too, and we walked toward the diner together.

  “Very powerful gift.”

  “Yeah. Powerful, and comes with a price.” He offered the bait, and with the little smirk I saw growing on his lips, he knew he set the perfect trap for me.

  “All right, I forgive you for being an ass. Now tell me all about the mysterious Jude Mallory, ringleader of a ghost circus and occupant of a haunted mansion with a giant cemetery in the back.” I couldn’t help but giggle at the long title I’d just given him, and when he let out a little laugh, I knew the tension he’d brought between us earlier was gone. He was a jerk, but he was hurting and lashed out. Been there, done that, and it was worth giving him a second chance.

  “It’s a long story.”

  I think he was giving me an out just in case I really didn’t want to hear this long tale of his, but I wasn’t budging. I didn’t get much sleep these days, anyway. I kept having that feeling like something was gonna happen or like I forgot something I was supposed to do. The nagging sense was hard to push away to rest peacefully.

  “Good thing you’re getting some coffee and I’m getting some tea.”

  We made it to the diner and were seated in a booth toward the back. There weren’t many people here, yet. But I knew around 2:00 a.m. this place would get busier once the bars closed. We placed our order and waited for our drinks. Once the waitress set them in front of us, I settled into my booth cushion while sipping my tea.

  “Storytime,” I sang softly, hoping it would ease whatever nervous tension troubled him.

  “This isn’t going to be published in the paper, right?” His blue eyes narrowed and I shook my head.

  “No, this is just between me and you. If it makes you feel any better, I can go into my morbid details, too. Exchange of information.” I wasn’t ashamed of my past, and what I’d done. I was going insane from not using my powers. I was just grateful to still be here, even on those bad days when I thought I couldn’t breathe.

  “What’s your favorite flower?” he asked randomly.

  “Daffodils.”

  “Interesting choice. I would have taken you for a roses girl.” He sipped his coffee, then grimaced. His hand shot out for the packets of sugar and poured them in, along with some creamer. He must like his coffee sweet.

  “Daffodils are a symbol of new beginnings, and I am a fan of that.” My hands curled around the teacup, warming my skin as I waited for Jude to speak about his life story.

  “You know that most superpowers are passed down through family lineage, right?”

  “Yes. I know the backstory after the Hero Society spread the knowledge around.”

  No one in my family had what I had, which wasn’t uncommon amongst people with gifts. Sometimes the godly gene traveled through families and sometimes it waited for the right person.

  “My particular gifts are strictly passed on from father to son. My family has been in charge of keeping the dead where they belong, in their afterlife. They aren’t allowed to speak with mortals or touch them if they stayed instead of passing on. My family keeps that balance. It used to be just a job the family did. When one man died of old age, his son would take
his place. But then my great-great-grandfather fucked up.” He sipped some more coffee and looked out the window to the dimmed city. He peered past the glass into some painful memory.

  “He refused to do his job of protecting mankind. The dead rose from their graves. Ghosts ran amuck, hurting people. The power inside him revolted and cursed my family.”

  I didn’t know how to react. “How do you know you’re cursed, and what exactly is the curse?” I wanted to ferret out more answers before calling him crazy and leaving.

  “A witch told us. His wife, actually. The power that we have is not a simple power. It’s sadly one that comes with a price. We are the protectors who keep you safe from the dead. My great-great-grandfather was killed on Halloween when he turned thirty, torn apart by the souls that had escaped from a dark place. My grandfather was told by his mother that it was our purpose to keep the gates between realms sealed, and his father had paid the price in blood. He brought about the curse on my family. The gene now demands that every man who hosts it, must pay the same price on their thirtieth birthday or the gates will open.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It all sounded nuts, but I did speak with the dead. I knew of the other side and that people couldn’t return once they crossed over. Maybe that’s because of Jude’s family?

  Jude. If this was real, then Jude was destined for the same fate as his forefathers.

  “Is there a way to break the curse?”

  “Yeah. The witch spoke of a way to end the curse.”

  “And that is?” I swear I was going to have to drag the information out of this man. He was so different than any man I’d met before. He was a walking contradiction. He seemed shy and boyish one minute like he didn’t know how to talk to people, then he is this confident Mr. Sexy Pants.