by Mina Carter
And strangely, I wasn’t creeped out by any of it.
I knew, though I shied away from analyzing what I was doing, that it was warped. That I was once again avoiding moving on with my life. I knew it was wrong but I never in my entire life knew a wrong that felt so right.
Sensing her near, smelling her sweet scent, I didn’t call her from the hallway this time. I wanted her in the bedroom right in the bed lying beside me…cozy….so we could…talk. I drew off my t-shirt and tossed it aside before unbuckling and dropping my jeans on the hardwood floor. “Sorry, Boo. When you get a chance could you throw those over the back of the chair for me? I love it when you pick up after me. It’s so damn sexy.”
The iron rails squeaked when I climbed into the bed. I watched the clothes move through the air without any obvious means. Suddenly the words Tony had spoken earlier in the week rammed their way past the force field of my denial.
Dead is dead, right?
He was right for sure. More than he knew. I was living like a ghost of my former self, a shadow of the man I’d once been, touching no one and not letting anyone close enough to really touch me. But it was so damn hard to push forward when most of me just wanted to crawl back into the past and stay there.
But this thing with Thyme was different. I’d let her in. Way in. This was real. The time I spent with anyone else was what felt wrong to me now.
I threw my arm over my eyes. “Can you get the light, too?” I requested. Suddenly, the room was plunged into inky blackness. Before I could thank her my cell rang. “Dang it!” I just wanted to be alone with my girl. Was that too much to ask?
I threw the covers back and fumbled for my jeans. I forgot they weren’t on the floor anymore. “Aw, babe. You spoil me.” I shuffled over to the chair and easily located my lit up cell. I held it up as if she could see. She probably could though she hadn’t made herself visible yet. I didn’t know every in and out of how this ghost gig worked. It was on the job training, a learn-as-you-go-what-she-could-and-couldn’t-do deal.
“Hey, podna.”
Tony chuckled. “Pretty good for a Texian.” He was quiet for a minute. “I thought I’d bring Rachel over with the crew tomorrow during rehearsal. It’ll be really low key. I really think you’ll like her.”
“No, man.” Rachel was the friend of his wife he’d been pestering me to go out with. “I’m not ready for something like that yet.”
“It’s been two years,” he said softly.
Even though he was carefully broaching an issue that even Arla shied away from most of the time, just thinking of entering the dating world again made me start grinding my teeth together. “Ain’t. Long Enough.” I enunciated each word slowly and succinctly.
“Ok, but listen as a friend I gotta tell you, it’s not healthy. It was horrible what happened but you gotta move on sooner or later.”
“That all you called to say?” I queried my tone confrontational. I raked an irritated hand through my hair, belatedly realizing that Thyme had flicked on the lights.
“Yeah. Don’t be defensive, now. You know I just want what’s best for my podna.”
There was a bloop in my ear from another incoming call.
“I know. I gotta let you go. Someone’s on the other line.” After he clicked off I picked up the other call. “Billy speaking.”
“Uncle Billy. I’m coming to visit you on Thursday.” It was my niece. Phoebe. Five years old, strawberry blond ringlet curls. Cute as hell.
“Hey, Princess. What’s going on?”
“I am having a magic tea party. I want you to come but Mommy says you are too far away.”
“She’s right, honey. But I would if I could.” I should. I had another week. Southwest flew the route. One stop in Houston and then another hour and a half flight, and I’d be in the Rio Grande Valley. “But you said you’re coming to see me. Right?”
“Yes. Grandma and Grandpa, too.”
“Princess, I can’t wait to see you. Could you put your mom on the line now?”
“Sure, Uncle Billy.” Wet smacky kissing sounds hit my ear. So. Damn. Adorable. I kissed back of course.
“Billy.” Still in the shit can. I could hear it in the icy freeze of her tone. The twelve steps. Making amends. I’d kind of skipped that part with her.
“Cassidy,” I returned. “So Phoebe says you’re coming out to New Orleans?”
“Yes. Ma and Pa want to see you, too. Six months is too long. They’re worried about you.” Her voice got muffled but I heard her tell Phoebe to go into the other room. “They saw the article in People. About you and those two girls you left naked in the parking lot. And they’ve talked to Arla.”
Shit. Shit. And more shit. “Alright.” I sank down on the chair. “There’s one extra bedroom and a fold out sofa in the couch. You’re welcome to stay with me but it’ll be cramped.”
“I appreciate that. We’ve already made a reservation at the W in the business district. I’ve heard the Quarter gets a little wild at night.”
What she didn’t say was that she didn’t trust me to be on my best behavior. But I always minded my manners around Phoebe. I loved that little girl. I couldn’t have loved her more even if we had been blood related. “Fair enough. What time do you get in? I’ll meet you at the airport with a driver. Take you out to dinner.”
“We land in the afternoon. I can’t remember the time exactly. But I’ll tell Ma and Pa to expect you.”
“And tell Phoebe I love her and can’t wait to see her.”
After she hung up I dropped my head staring at the cell, turning it over and over in my hands. I sensed the temperature drop behind me. I reached my arm back, patted my own shoulder, imagining I could feel Ty’s hand there. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Boo. I brought this shit on myself I can guarantee you.”
My cell rang again, Arla’s pic lighting up the display.
What the hell?
Did no one have anything better to do tonight?
“Arla.”
“Billy, I got your message from earlier.”
“Yeah, I know you’re coming in right before the parade but I wanted to run something by you before then. I’ve been working through some of my old stuff. Rearranging songs with some really talented local guys. Doing an unplugged thing.”
“Sounds interesting. I thought you were going to take a break, no?”
“I am. I mean I’ve never felt better.”
“If I didn’t know better I’d say there was a jolie girl involved.”
Once again Arla was eerily perceptive. There was a pretty woman for sure, only she wasn’t a live one. “I’m just really excited about this project,” I explained. “It’s really got my creative energy flowing. Do you think Black Cat will back it?”
“Won’t know unless we ask. I’ll run it by the Queen herself and then I’ll let you know.” He was quiet for a minute. I thought he had hung up. “Someday you have to let it go, Billy. I know you loved her. Nan was a sweet girl. And losing little William, too? That would bring any man low. But you’re too young to give up, to not even make an effort to find love again.”
After that there really wasn’t much to say. He ended the call, and the room went immediately pitch black again, but her curvy silhouette glowed purple and so did her eyes when she spoke.
“Mon ami.” My friend. Everything within me went still at the sound of her voice. “This time with you has been more special to me than I can ever explain. You’ve made me feel something beyond my sadness.” Her voice was soft and musical and so so perfect. Everything I’d remembered it being all those months ago when I touched the doubloon. Everything I had been hoping it would be once again. Hearing it out loud was like oxygen to a drowning man. “You’ll never know how grateful I am, but we both know it’s wrong what we’ve been doing. Your friends are right. You should listen to them. Bon courage. Don’t be afraid to live your life anymore.”
My easy breath got stuck in my throat. That wasn’t what I had wanted her to say. As she began to fa
de, I began to panic. My mind clamored for words that would convince her to stay. I was afraid but not for the reason she thought. I was afraid because I knew in my heart that once she left this time she wasn’t coming back.
“Adieu,” she whispered her goodbye softly.
Chapter 21
Thyme
“Be happy,” I whispered as a blessing over him as I faded out. Hopefully, it would take hold for at least one of us. I’d been so desperate and stupid. So lonely. I should never have allowed things to go on for as long as they had.
I floated through the walls of the apartment, something I didn’t usually do because it made me feel a little nauseated, and rematerialized outside. My phantom feet never connected with the banquette in reality but I maintained the habits of my former life with a religious fervor. Tonight especially, I really needed the illusion of putting distance between us. The temptation to go back to resume the intimate game of pretend we had been playing so beautifully together was hard to resist.
I’d never thought being a ghost had any advantages until the night the handsome and charming Billy Blade walked into my apartment. I loved his playfulness and I could watch him swaggering around the apartment for hours.
I usually couldn’t wait for a new renter to leave, to vacate the apartment that was my nighttime domain. I told myself that I liked being alone with my books. That all I needed were those and my memories of Shane for company.
But since Billy came along all that changed.
I found myself rushing out the main exit of the underground each evening, bursting forth from the tomb with all the others as soon as night dropped its velvety curtain. I couldn’t wait to see him, to find out how his day had gone. He brought light and levity back into my lackluster no end in sight waiting year after year for a man who was probably forever lost to me existence.
Did he know how fascinating I found him?
Did he know my eyes were on him nonstop from sunset to sunrise?
Did he know how addicted I was to the slightly raspy timbre of his voice?
When he spoke, it was an invitation. When he called, I had to come. To listen. To draw close. To succumb. Then when he sang, all that intensified. I got imaginary chills whether he was just sitting on the bed humming lyrics with his guitar or harmonizing as the band practiced. By the sparkle in his eyes and the contented look on his face, I could tell that music filled the empty spaces inside of him the way poetry inhabited my soul.
And did he also know the starring role he played in my more illicit fantasies?
Even before I’d accidently materialized the night he tripped on the tub, had he known I’d been on the ghostly plane watching him shower for far longer? The water sluicing over all that tight toned tanned skin was mesmerizing. I imagined my hands sudsy and gliding over all that male hardness the way his hands had been doing. Impossible forbidden desire. My ghostly body had steamed hotter than the cloud of condensation his shower had generated just thinking about it.
As I headed toward the river, craving its solace, I felt the displacement of the air above me. I didn’t panic.
He was back.
Finally.
I recognized the soft musical hum the wind made as it whispered over his majestic wings. The gargoyles Leon employed were more raucous, their bat like wings flapping constantly to keep their stone bodies aloft.
“Leave me alone, Morpheus.” I started walking faster.
“What is going on, Thyme? What has you so distracted?” he asked in his deep baritone, his precise manner of speaking a product of years of living alone in the underground and his extensive knowledge of languages and dialects. “What is your rush? Why are you scurrying away from your haunt in such a dither?” He folded in his beautiful ebony wings and dropped gracefully onto the banquette in front of me before straightening to his full height of well over six feet.
Morpheus towered over me clad in a supple leather jacket and thick jeans that were practical for his high altitude flying. He was sharply chiseled rippling with muscle. His wide shoulders supported his wings and his strong tree trunk legs effortlessly propelled him into the air whenever needed. The slate pavers seemed to groan beneath his weight as he stalked toward me in his heavy laced boots.
I backed into the shadows beneath the Cat’s Meow marquee.
“You’re really upset,” he stated after studying my face a beat, his expression revealing his concern.
I should’ve known I couldn’t hide my emotion from him. As my best and only friend in the underground, he knew me too well. Plus as a Dark Offspring, he could see just as clearly in the night as anyone else could see during the day.
“No, I’m not,” I stubbornly denied lifting my chin and backing away further.
“Yes, you are. You little liar. And I want to know why.”
“If you care so much about me then why did you leave me?” I grumbled. “You left. Took off without even telling me anything. I didn’t know when,” my voice dropped, “or even if you’d even come back.”
“Ah now we get to the heart of things. You were worried.” His multicolored eyes glittered. “Did you miss me, Thyme?”
“Maybe.” I pushed him in the center of his massive chest, making a conscious effort to put real power behind the movement, something no shade should really be able to do. Move objects, yes. Though it took a lot of energy. To touch another being…that was something outside the rules.
“You know I did.” He knew I still had trust and abandonment issues leftover from my living life. “I always worry about you when you’re off on one of your mercenary missions,” I admitted. “But you usually warn me in advance.” I dropped my gaze. “I was afraid you were mad at me.”
He hooked a long finger under my chin, his razor sharp obsidian dipped talons retracting so he wouldn’t slice me. “Why would I ever be cross with you?” He lowered his voice to that soft persuasive rumble that I knew drove most of the female immortals crazy. “No other creature in the entire underworld is sweeter than you. Despite all you endured.” He trailed off when he saw my lips flatten. He knew I didn’t like to talk about what Leon had done. It had been ten years, but still the horror of it hadn’t waned.
Morpheus was the Dream Falcon. The only one of his kind. A mercenary. An outlaw. Born of a forbidden union between two immortals. That he had revealed the dangerous truth of his heritage to me spoke of his fondness for and ultimately his complete trust in me.
Since he was able to observe and influence the dreams and nightmares of mortals and immortals while they slept, I’d approached him during my first year as a shade hoping to bargain with him to help me find Shane. For reasons only he knew, he hadn’t shunned me the way everyone else did because of what I was, and he had refused to take payment for his services.
Though Morpheus had searched relentlessly, sifting through the subconscious of those we knew had passed by the River around the time Shane and I had died, there hadn’t been even one clue. My winged friend had been gently trying to convince me to abandon my quest. He thought it was likely that Shane had crossed the River to the other side, a side that was closed to me thanks to my desecration, and a side that rendered Morpheus’ power useless since souls there no longer dreamed.
An outcast shade and an immortal Dream Falcon. We were an unlikely pair. Yet we had become fast friends and remained staunch allies ever since that first meeting. In the complicated and dangerous world I inhabited where every creature vied for power and position, having him by my side ensured my survival.
“You seemed really agitated after I mentioned the scar on your wrist being similar to Shane’s.” I peered up at him trying to gauge his response. His blue black hair ruffled in the breeze just like his silky feathers, but his expression remained enigmatic.
“I wasn’t angry,” he explained after a pause. “The lack of a paternal identifier is not something that really bothers me. I just had something pressing that I needed to check out right away,” he said vaguely.
“What?” I pr
ied.
“Uh-uh, sneaky girl. You’re still avoiding my initial question.” He flicked out a thick black talon and tapped it to the hollow in his tanned masculine cheek. “Do I need to go shake up your latest tenant? Give him a nightmare or two? Scare him off so you can return to your comfortable ghostly routine?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want him to go anywhere near Billy Blade. Didn’t want him to find out how many rules of the Code I’d already violated. Didn’t want him to see how the man affected me. Didn’t want to examine for myself why a man who wasn’t Shane could make me feel so much again after all this time.
I knew it wasn’t normal for a spirit to experience strong emotion beyond the boundaries of whatever unfulfilled task kept them on this side of the River. But then again, according to Morpheus, there were a lot of the things I could do that were atypical for a desecrated shade. Like being able to project an image of who I was and how I looked before I died. Most shades typically forgot themselves entirely, wandering mindlessly until the end of time.
I trusted Morpheus completely but I couldn’t share about Billy. It was too painful and private. And besides, I truly didn’t want to give my curious man-raptor best friend another mystery about me that he would feel compelled to solve.
He suddenly snatched me off of my feet, cradling me in his arms, and launched us into the air with his powerful legs like a rocket.
“Morpheus!” I screamed in protest, ghostly fingernails that didn’t really function anymore outside my imagination digging into his bulging biceps. It made me feel better to believe I had a corporal body that I could still control. “What are you doing?” I squeaked.
“Taking you somewhere I can keep you off balance enough to extract some real answers from you.”
I buried my face in his chest sipping quick shallow frightened breaths from the gap in his indigo checkered patch pocketed shirt, my forehead against bronzed skin I couldn’t really feel but imagined was warm. Arms that I knew were strong and trusted were safe.
“Your ghost breath tickles. Stop hiding your eyes and behold. I’m not going to let you fall.”