Abra Cadaver

by Christine DePetrillo

A surprised look brightened Luke’s face.

  He must feel as if he’s striking out with me. It wasn’t his fault. He was perfectly nice. For someone else.

  “C’mon.” Grabbing his sneakers, Luke stood and reached down for her hand. He pulled her to her feet and didn’t let go of her hand as he walked her up the dune. He was probably afraid she’d change her mind and run away.

  Inside his house, Holly was impressed with the simple, beachy décor.

  “Are those individual seashells on the backsplash?” She fingered the scallop-edged shells surrounded by sand-colored grout under the driftwood-stained kitchen cabinets.

  “Yeah, my nieces helped me find enough shells to make that work.” He set up the coffee pot and pulled out two mugs.

  “You did the backsplash yourself?” Creative and handy. Interesting.

  He nodded. “It was like making art. I had fun.”

  “It’s beautiful.” She roamed into the living room where a huge wooden steering wheel, like that off a pirate ship, hung on one wall. Bottles of various sizes filled a lobster crate topped with a piece of glass to serve as a coffee table. As she sat on one of the deep, Adirondack-style chairs in the living room, she noticed the bottles were filled with yellowed parchment. Messages in bottles.

  “That was my sister’s idea,” Luke said as he brought in a tray with the mugs and some cookies.

  “Very cool. Do you live here year round?”

  “Yep. This place isn’t what you expected, is it?” His lips curled up at the corners, and she wasn’t sure what she expected anymore.

  “Not exactly, no.” It had been so long since Holly had been to a guy’s house, and the last one she remembered was littered with empty pizza boxes.

  “What’s your house like?” Luke sat on the couch and patted the spot next to him in invitation.

  Why not? She moved to the couch, accepting a mug of coffee as she maneuvered past Luke.

  “It’s an old farmhouse surrounded by woods. Front and back porches. Country rustic inside. Simple.” Oh, and I live with this guy. He brought me back from the dead. She clenched the mug’s handle on that thought.

  “Sounds nice.” Luke picked up a chocolate chip cookie from the tray and held it a few inches from her lips. One eyebrow arched over the greenest eye she had ever seen.

  Not one to resist the allure of a cookie, she leaned forward slightly and bit off a piece while Luke held the tasty treat. He broke off a chunk from the other end of the cookie and popped it into his own mouth. Dividing the remains into two halves, he gave one to Holly and ate the other one.

  “Sometimes a cookie hits the spot.” She brushed a few crumbs off Luke’s leg.

  He put his hand over hers, keeping her from taking her hand off his thigh. He slid closer and caught Holly’s lips with his. Soft, quick pecks turned into something much deeper in a matter of seconds. She wanted to fight him. To stop this insanity, but she couldn’t. Tasting of chocolate and coffee and coaxing her to open her mouth, Luke brought the need hiding in her to the surface.

  Before she could stop herself, Holly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and drew him closer. He shifted so he could lower her to her back on the couch. Plunging his hands into her hair, he ran his lips along her neck, and she arched up in unexpected pleasure. The sun-baked, sand-and-salt smell that wafted off Luke’s hair hypnotized Holly. She inhaled the fragrance and let out a little moan when he slid his hand under her shirt. His palm was so hot against her flesh, so human.

  Holly pulled Luke’s T-shirt off and stared at the smooth chest and defined abs. Golden perfection. Any woman would be overjoyed to find herself beneath such beauty.

  So why am I thinking of Keane, dammit? She tried pushing the image of Keane in one of his black T-shirts and faded blue jeans out of her mind. Tried erasing that snake tattoo that made both a coil of fear and desire stretch out inside her. Tried denying she wanted the green eyes staring down at her right now to be blue.

  Luke reached down to kiss her again, but she put a hand to his chest to stop him. He froze, but she could feel his arousal hard against her thigh.

  “I’m sorry, Luke,” she whispered.

  “No. I’m sorry.” He slid off her and sat at the end of the couch, his hair slightly mussed and his lips puffy from their kissing. “I thought you wanted to…you know.”

  “Maybe I do, but that wouldn’t be fair to you.” She rose to sit and rested her elbows on her knees.

  “Are you already involved with someone?”

  “No,” she said. “And yes. It’s complicated.” Please don’t make me explain it.

  “Well,” Luke began as he shrugged back into his shirt, “if it gets uncomplicated, you know where to find me.” He offered her a heart-stopping grin and handed her another cookie.

  “Really?” She munched on the cookie and puzzled over what had happened. She’d turned a guy down after getting him all primed, and he wasn’t mad. How was that possible?

  “Yeah. I’m open to whatever you want. I like you, Holly, but I’m not going to get in the way if you’ve got something else going on. I have to admit that kiss didn’t feel as if you were involved with someone.” He brushed his hand down her arm. “It felt as if you were—”

  “Starving.” Holly sighed. She was starving for some attention, some action, some hot, steamy sex.

  “I think we could have some fun together, but I’m okay with drinking coffee and eating cookies with you, too, despite Mona’s hopes that I’d carry you off into the sunset or something.”

  She mentally reviewed why she had stopped making out with him. Because she was stupid, that’s why. “Jeez, you’re like, perfect, Luke.”

  “Remember you said that.” He leaned over and dropped a light kiss on her cheek before taking the tray back into the kitchen.

  He offered to walk her back to her parents’ house, but she declined. She needed a couple moments to be alone. To knock some sense into herself. She’d refused what promised to be a night of amazing sex with a genuinely nice guy, because she was pining for…for what? For Keane? How totally impractical.

  And yet, totally what she wanted.

  Chapter Seven

  People crowded around the pool tables in Raven’s Pub, and the sounds of laughter mixed with the smell of beer and peanuts. At least, that’s what Keane imagined the bar to smell like. In every corner, patrons enjoyed themselves. A group cheered one of their members on as he sank ball after ball into the pockets of a pool table and blew on the tip of his cue stick as if it were a pistol. A man and a woman slow danced near the old-fashioned jukebox, completely oblivious that the song was fast and upbeat. A gang of older gentlemen clad in leather jackets roared over the dirty jokes they swapped.

  Everywhere people were living life.

  Keane swiveled back to the beer he’d ordered and clamped a hand around the dewy, glass bottle. A vision of holding a goblet of mead back in the days when he was a normal human popped into his head. Back when he and Eliah would celebrate victory with their men. Nowadays, he had nothing to celebrate, no ability to relish the flavor of alcohol, and no one to share his Saturday night.

  Drumming his fingers on the beer bottle, he wondered what Holly was doing right now. Was she enjoying the company of her parents? Had she sunned herself on the sandy shore all day? Had the ocean caressed that stunning body he imagined she kept hidden under her clothes?

  Did she wear a bikini?

  Keane grumbled and wiggled the bottle on the bar. He should have gone to work tonight at the post office. He’d asked for the weekend off thinking with the house—Holly’s house—to himself, he could relax a bit after demon hunting, but the quiet had chased him out. Would he ever enjoy a moment of peace in the eternity he faced?

  Turning back to the crowd again, he caught sight of a woman in a tight red dress walking his way. Her chin-length, blond curls captured the dim light in the pub making her hair look like ringlets of gold. Brown eyes heavily shadowed and rimmed with black eyeliner targeted him. She
blinked slowly as she neared him. Her walk was feline, all sex and confidence. She reminded Keane of the exotic dancers he’d seen when he’d worked as a bouncer at a nightclub three saves ago. The hours were great with that job, but those dancers sure asked a lot of questions.

  “Hiya.” The woman leaned her elbows back on the bar next to him.

  He nodded, but remained focused on his beer.

  “You going to study that beer all night, love?” Her voice had a faint southern twang to it.

  Keane shrugged.

  “Oh, the silent type.” She leaned closer to his ear and whispered, “I love the silent type.” She motioned to the bartender who brought her a glass of red wine. She took the first sip, and Keane had to admit her lips looked dangerous. Running her tongue along her bottom lip, she angled her head toward a corner booth. “Wanna join me, Mr. Silent Type?”

  What else are you doing? “Okay.” He picked up his beer more to have something to do with his hands than anything else and followed her.

  They settled into the booth, and the woman took another sip of the wine. “I’m Jessica. Who are you?”

  “Keane.”

  “Can’t say we get many Keanes in this area.” She smiled, her eyes so dark he could see himself in them. “Lots of Larrys and Hanks and Freds, but no Keanes. Where are you from?”

  “All over.”

  “Mr. Silent Type switches to Mr. Vague, I see.” Jessica pursed her lips and tapped a red fingernail on the base of her wine glass.

  “You don’t want to know that much about me,” Keane said.

  “The police aren’t looking for you, are they?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Not that I’m aware of, no.”

  “That’s all I need to know.”

  Something rubbed against his leg under the table, warm and slithering upward. When the movement made its way between his legs and pressed against his crotch, he reached down and caught Jessica’s bare foot.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Playing.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Don’t you want to play with me, Keane?”

  He wanted to play all right, but he’d spent two months picturing Holly as his teammate. Sure, this woman sitting across from him was gorgeous, but too bold for his tastes. He preferred a more demure partner. Someone whose cheeks would pink when he told her she was beautiful. Someone whose ginger-red hair would spill out all around her as he kneeled over her naked body. Someone whose green-gold eyes ever reminded him of the woods surrounding his first home—the one he shared with Eliah.

  “I’m not in a playing sort of mood,” he said.

  “Well, what kind of a mood are you in?” Jessica wriggled her foot free of Keane’s grip.

  “A self-loathing, pathetic mood.” He went ahead and took a swig from his beer. It burned all the way down like liquid fire, and he knew he’d have a wretched stomachache tonight. The last time he’d consumed food or drink he couldn’t stand up straight for hours. His body no longer knew how to digest. It simply didn’t need to.

  “That mood is easy enough to cure,” Jessica said.

  “You a doctor?” He took a second gulp of the beer. Man, he was going to be sorry.

  “Sure, okay. We can role-play if you’re into that.” Her lips turned up into a mischievous grin. “You have a car outside?”

  She’d leave here with me just like that? Keane shook his head. Jessica needed to be more careful. Didn’t she realize he could sink a dagger into her heart and end her life in a nanosecond whether she was a demon or not? In fact, it’d be even easier to kill a human.

  “Motorcycle,” he said.

  At this, Jessica’s eyes lit up. “It’s a lovely night for a ride, Keane, and I adore that much power between my legs.” She traced a slender finger along his hand on the table. “There are lots of things I adore between my legs.”

  He took a perilous third swig of his beer, and a terrible cramp built below his ribs. He flipped his hand over and inched Jessica’s hand back toward her side of the table.

  “Thanks for the interest, Jessica,” he said, “but I need to go now.”

  Her ruby lips puckered out seductively. “What’s the rush? You got a wife you hiding from or something?”

  “No wife.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Nope.”

  “Boyfriend?” Jessica cringed a little as she waited for his reply.

  “No.”

  “Then why do you need to go, handsome?” She pulled on one of her curls until it uncoiled. When she let go, it sprang back up to the others.

  “Because you deserve better than me, Jessica.”

  He crossed the line into senseless torture and tossed back a fourth gulp of beer. When he stood to leave, his belly seized as if someone had punched him in the gut. He made it to the door, stumbled down the steps and draped himself over his motorcycle seat. A couple of patrons smoking cigars outside wisecracked about him not being able to hold his liquor. Actually, the opposite was true. His body could hold the liquor. What it couldn’t do was get rid of it.

  He managed to right himself on the bike, start her up, and ease onto the road back home.

  To Holly’s house, he corrected. It wasn’t his home. Home was a place you could stay and share with those you loved. A place that belonged to you. He didn’t belong anywhere.

  He somehow made it to the farmhouse and parked his motorcycle in the driveway. Teleportation would have been so handy if he had control over when he could use it. He slid off the bike, and using the porch railing for support, wobbled to the front door. Once inside he aimed for his bedroom, but was hit with a pain in his stomach so intense he collapsed to the ground in the living room. He crawled ahead a few more feet, but his insides spasmed, and the burning grew to such a level that he curled up into a ball on the hard, hickory floor. He pressed his cheek into the cool wood, but nothing eased the fire in his stomach.

  He wished for death, but knew it wouldn’t come. He wouldn’t be granted that sweet reprieve.

  He wished for Holly, but knew she’d never want him. He was no better than the demons he hunted. Holly was an angel. Demons and angels didn’t live happily ever after.

  Chapter Eight

  Holly pushed her key into the lock on her front door and let out a hiss when she realized it wasn’t locked.

  “Nice, Keane,” she said. “Maybe you don’t care about my home, but I do.”

  Shaking her head, she opened the door and stepped into the house. Leaning against the door once she’d closed it, she shut her eyes and inhaled. The smell of lavender potpourri welcomed her home and a smile slid across her lips.

  “Love you, Mother and Dad, but it’s good to be home.”

  She let her overnight bag fall to her feet. It was late Sunday afternoon, and though her parents had begged her to stay another day, she had desperately wanted to come back home. She needed to be in her own space. She needed to be away from Luke whom she had seriously reconsidered sleeping with. Twice.

  Maybe she would swing back to the beach house and have her way with him next weekend. At least he didn’t leave her front door unlocked.

  She picked up her bag and headed for the laundry room, but something wasn’t right in the house. Too quiet. Too empty for the middle of the morning on a bright sunny day.

  “Keane?” She waited by the couch, listening. Birds chirped outside. Sugar, a stray, white cat she often fed, scratched at the back porch door. Her grandmother’s antique clock on the mantel above the fireplace tick-tick-ticked. Every normal house sound was there except the ones she’d actually missed while at the beach house. Change jingling in a pocket. The whisper of a newspaper page being turned. The creak of a loose floorboard in the guest bedroom. All sounds only Keane made.

  Holly set her bag down on the couch and peeked into the kitchen. No Keane. She poked her head out to the porch swing where he liked to sit sometimes. He wasn’t there either. Coming back inside, she jogged to the hallway and stumbled over—

&n
bsp; “Keane!” She kneeled down next to his body sprawled on the hallway floor. She brushed his hair back with shaky fingers and gently shook his shoulder. “Keane.”

  His legs were pulled up to his chest and one arm was slung across his stomach. His dark brows were creased as if he were in pain. Had a target hurt him? Did he get cut with one of his own daggers? Holly quickly looked around but didn’t see any blood. She pressed a hand to his head, but felt no fever. She wasn’t sure he could get a fever.

  “Keane, what’s wrong?” She hated not knowing how to help him. She hated wanting to help him.

  He rolled over so he was on his back and sucked in a sharp breath. Again, Holly checked him for wounds and found none.

  “Stomach.” His voice was gravelly.

  Holly moved his arm. “You’re stomach hurts? Why?”

  His eyes fluttered open for a moment. The blue that she had been picturing all weekend was washed out, like faded denim. He didn’t actually look at her, and she wondered if he knew where he was.

  “Drank. Beer.” Those two words sapped what little strength he had mustered.

  “I thought you didn’t drink or eat.”

  “Don’t.” He coiled his legs up again and clutched his stomach. “Shouldn’t.”

  He wasn’t drunk. That much she could tell. Instead, it was as if he’d been poisoned by drinking beer. She wasn’t exactly sure how his body worked, but she knew he was in serious pain.

  “Can you stand?” She slid her arm under his and prepared to help him up. She got him to sitting before his body stiffened and he groaned.

  “Leave me here, Holly. It’ll pass.”

  She looked all the way down the long hallway toward Keane’s bedroom then glanced to her own bedroom, a mere door over from their current position. “I’m not leaving you on the floor, Keane. C’mon.”

  She muscled him to his feet and slipped under his arm. This was officially the closest she had ever been to him. His skin was cool, and he smelled like a crisp winter day, clean and frosty. She slid her arm around his waist, and something stirred in her chest, as if a butterfly were trapped behind her ribs. She’d always considered him to be more like the demons he hunted. A supernatural. Touching him like this, however, told her he was more human than she’d thought.