by Lena Loneson
She pulled her hands back. Time for him to get the lights again.
“Is that why you’re pulling this job, Greg? To use the money to get Rachel something so she’ll scream when she rides you? You’ve forgotten, she’s the producer, nearly as rich as I am. Your cut of my money, after splitting it with this idiot and Victor himself, won’t even make a dent in Rachel’s fortune.”
“It’s not about the money. It’s about respect. You never respected her, or any of us. You think you’re the star, you’ve got us fooled with this bullshit psychic stuff, but really—”
Bram flicked the lights again. They went out for three then back on.
“What the hell is that, Greg?” Jose was worried. Minerva saw him fumbling at his waist for the gun.
“Again!” she screamed.
The lights went out.
“How is she doing that?”
“I don’t know.”
“And back on!” she commanded.
The lights flicked on for a second, long enough for Minerva to see their terrified faces and for her to point at a mirror on the bedside table behind them. As she pointed, the mirror fell off the table, shattering, the shards spinning out toward their feet.
“Bram, get the gun!”
As the lights went out again, she moved. Minerva went straight for Greg, tackling him. She heard a lamp fall, other items being thrown against walls, either in Bram’s struggle with Jose or as a distraction—she trusted Bram to plot the best course of action. She fell hard onto Greg’s body and heard his breath rush out of his chest in response. He was shaking, terrified.
For a moment she remembered the kid who had first walked into her studio as an intern, one of Rachel’s pet projects. He’d been all red hair everywhere, ridiculous stubble, wide eyes and promise.
Jose cried out, “Something’s got me! There’s someone else in here!”
Minerva brought a knee down between Greg’s legs. He gasped and choked. In the dark she felt his knife slice her arm and she cried out.
Nerv! You okay?
“I’m okay, love. Kill the bastards.” Whatever she said out loud would only confuse the men more. It was a shallow cut but it felt as if fire were dancing across her right bicep. She couldn’t fight him if he still had the knife. She didn’t even know how to fight.
Minerva rolled off Greg and kept rolling to the wall, bracing herself on it and rising to her feet.
She had two advantages.
One, a ghost husband.
Two, she knew the house.
She ran.
Minerva felt the rug beneath her feet, soft and warm. When she hit hardwood floor she knew she was at the doorway. Her fingers brushed it as she moved past. One of the men in the bedroom screamed incoherently. She managed to choke out, “Bram, get ready for the lights.” She sucked in a deep breath of air as she rushed down the hall, turning left then stopping at the railing and taking three long sidesteps to the right. She clasped the railing and waited.
Jose’s shorter strides—he wasn’t as tall as the gangly Greg—approached the stairs, stumbling. She couldn’t tell quite where he was but he was getting closer. Did he have the gun? It wouldn’t matter.
“Lights!”
They flickered on once, briefly, then off, like an interrupted strobe light. Just enough for Minerva to see Jose’s position. She was expecting it and registered him in an instant. He, not having known the light would turn on, was confused and paralyzed.
She reached out with her leg and tripped him. She grabbed at his arm and pulled, using his momentum to send him tumbling down the steep staircase to the hardwood floor below.
He seemed to take forever to fall. She heard him scream, the crack of bones, then a grunt, a wet sound as he landed that suggested internal damage.
Then there was nothing except the faint sound of Greg crying from her bedroom.
She kept moving.
Minerva stumbled down the stairs, clinging to the railing. When her foot touched Jose’s body she nearly screamed. But instead she calmed herself and bent down, trying to find his neck, feeling for a pulse. She touched hair, wet and slick with blood, and something mushy and broken. Bile rose in her throat.
Then warm air rushed over her. Bram.
He’s dead. It’s okay, Nerv, I’ve got you, but you have to run. First—
Bram pressed something into her left hand. Jose’s gun.
“I don’t want it.” But she took it. Then she ran, slipping on the floor, stumbling out toward the backyard, through the kitchen, her eyes adjusting to the faint light from outside. It was a new moon but in a city there was always light.
She heard Greg moving on the second floor above her.
Where was her cell phone? She could call for help. Her laptop?
Gone. They’ve taken them. Smashed them or hidden them, I’m not sure. I looked.
Outside then.
She clutched at the handle of the sliding door. Her right arm was too damaged from the knife wound to grasp it properly. Her left held the gun and she moved to shift it but the door slid of its own accord—Bram helping her. She stumbled out into the night.
Her pool sparkled beneath the glow from the distant city, an oasis of safety. The air smelled fresh and clean.
Get the gun ready.
Right.
She could do it. She’d seen this in the movies. Hell, she’d done this in the movies. It was a revolver, she’d been right. No silencer on the end, but then they’d planned to cut her heart out rather than shoot her—the gun was just in case, she supposed. Six-shooter, she reminded herself. Six rounds. If they’d loaded it. The safety was off. She’d have to trust that there was a bullet in the chamber, because she had no idea how to check without blowing her own head off. They’d never had her check in the film. That wasn’t the glamorous part.
Minerva turned her back to the pool and pointed the gun straight at the glass door to her kitchen. She aimed with her left hand, the good hand, and braced herself with the right. Her cut arm trembled with the exertion.
Then Greg came staggering through the doors. His skin was pale in the faint light. She wasn’t sure where the blood on his face ended and the hair began.
She pulled the trigger. It was louder than she could have imagined. The recoil nearly took her off her feet. Greg screamed and the glass shattered, sprinkling around him, twinkling like stars.
“Wait! Stop!”
Minerva fired again. No hit. She wasn’t very good at this. They hadn’t taught her how to aim as an actress, only to look hot while doing it. Holy hell, it was loud. Surely the neighbors would call the cops, at least?
She had a vision. She was coming to know them now. The kindly face of Detective Andrews, gray bushy eyebrows above his green eyes, behind the wheel of his unmarked car. His face was concerned, desperate. Was he coming here?
“He’s coming, Minerva. Let me go and I can help you.”
Detective Andrews?
Victor.
No. Greg was stalling.
“He’s going to be here. Soon.”
Her hands trembled. She raised the gun to fire again. Then she felt Bram’s hard body pressed against her back, leaning in to her.
I don’t know how to shoot either. But I can steady you.
This time the bullet took him down.
Minerva didn’t look. She dropped the gun and fell to her knees. Her whole body shook, shoulders heaving, arms trembling. Bram held her but his strength was faltering. She’d had him do so much tonight. She’d be dead if it hadn’t been for him.
“Thank you.”
Any time, love.
Minerva felt her husband’s lips press to her forehead. She leaned her face upward, straining to meet him with her own. He parted her lips with his tongue. He pulled her into his lap, running his hands through her hair. They were growing less and less substantial. His fingers were as soft as feathers, his kisses like a cool summer mist.
“Well, seems as if I have awful luck finding good help these days. Gu
ess I got here in the nick of time, didn’t I? Now let’s see what a real psychic can do.” The voice was male, and deep. It came from somewhere near the garden at the far side of the house.
What the hell?
Minerva fumbled for the gun, getting ready to face this new opponent.
That was when hands wrapped around her neck and pulled Minerva into the pool.
Chapter Twelve
Bram
No!
Bram hadn’t seen him coming.
Victor Grayson, the man who killed him, stood shrouded behind a near-forest of bushes. His dark hair blended in with the night. His hands, outstretched, formed claws with his fingers. His nails were filed to sharp points. He flexed his hands as if holding on to something.
In the pool, Minerva was drowning.
Bram couldn’t help her. He dove down to reach her, hovering at the surface of the water, trying to part it with his insubstantial hands. He’d done so much—spying on Greg’s texting, stealing the handcuff key, playing with the lights, grappling with Jose, helping Minerva with the door and the gun—that he’d wasted his power on the insignificant muscle for hire. The ones Minerva could have terrorized all on her own.
He hadn’t saved anything for Victor.
Minerva’s brown curls streamed out around her head in the water, floating at the surface. Her red highlights twinkled in the light. Her face was a mask of fear, her mouth open to scream but sucking in water in and choking. Her arms flailed and her legs kicked at the invisible assailant holding her under. The pink silk gown was nearly in shreds now, torn in all the fighting, but it too seemed to imprison her.
On her neck were ten perfect crescent moons of blood, from Grayson’s fingernails digging in, although the man was standing at least fifteen feet away.
Power.
Bram reached out to her. Her eyes were glassy, reflecting the sky above her but not seeing him. He screamed her name, over and over, Minerva!
But she didn’t seem to hear.
Bram turned away and flew at Grayson, fists thrashing, trying to pummel the man. He sailed right through him. His body was as insubstantial as air. The evil man didn’t even notice him.
Bram heard a gasp from the pool. He turned and saw Minerva rise to the surface, her sodden hair clinging to her face. For a moment she seemed to break free of Grayson’s hold. She threw her arms out in a mad doggie paddle, holding herself afloat, gasping at the air, choking and spitting out water.
Had Bram distracted him somehow?
Bram heard her call his name before she was yanked back under. He looked at Grayson again and saw the man’s hawk-like features still tight with concentration, seemingly nothing diverting him. His teeth were bared in a horrible mockery of a smile. He squeezed his fingers tighter. Bram couldn’t watch.
Why had Grayson released her only to drown her again? Why not just kill her?
He realized that with her fear, Grayson grew more and more powerful. How long would he do this, drown Bram’s wife over and over with her screaming and struggling until she was too tired to do even that? With Bram himself completely helpless to stop him?
But he had a different kind of power.
And Bram did one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do—he closed his eyes.
He blocked out the gasps of his wife as she resurfaced. He ignored the way her scream seemed exhausted, too quiet. He shut out the sounds of splashing, the feeling of terror rising through his non-corporeal body.
He thought of their wedding night.
* * * * *
Minerva was beautiful in her gown. She’d kept it on through dinner and dancing, refusing to change into something more comfortable. She’d told him it was the first time she’d had a dress that nice that wasn’t a costume. She wasn’t playing a character on stage or in a film, she was just herself, marrying the man she loved, in an insanely gorgeous, lacy, sparkly hunk of fabric.
He thought about taking it off her.
She put the veil back on as they reached their honeymoon suite, coquettishly flirting with him from beneath the white lace. Her skin was tan from a summer of the California sun and her shoulders stood out golden and healthy against the white strapless top of the dress.
He pulled the veil off first, his fingers fumbling with bobby pins. He tugged at her curls, freeing them from her updo, watching the mahogany locks shine in the candlelight of their suite. He had to stop to kiss her, intending to go for a chaste, schoolboy kiss to tease her at first, but she sucked his lower lip into her mouth, biting him, and he lost all pretense at patience. Their tongues twirled together, hungry and happy. She tasted of champagne and smelled like the roses from her bouquet mixed with her own personal sandalwood scent.
He was still kissing her as he reached behind her, trying to undo the lacing of her bodice.
Bram remembered them speaking during their first night, teasing each other, bringing up highlights from the wedding, the reception, telling jokes about family members and friends who had made it. But for now he focused on how she’d made him feel.
He remembered sliding her dress off her body, watching it fall to the floor, his cock hardening more than he’d thought possible at the first glimpse of her body as man and wife. Pulling off her strapless bra and watching her breasts spring free, the pink nubbins already pebbled for him. He splayed his fingers over her breasts, squeezing them, feeling the weight of them in his hands, kissing her mouth again. He remembered the way she ground herself against his hard-on through his pants, Bram still in his tuxedo, Minerva now in panties and garters only.
He remembered after the tuxedo was off, the two of them on a bed strewn with rose petals, something he’d thought clichéd when she’d first mentioned it but that seemed incredibly sexual as he watched her body slide over the petals, as he watched them cling to her hair. Skin against skin and sweat against sweat, her body was so hot on his and when she spread her legs and took his cock between her folds she was slick and ready for him as she’d never been before. The heat of her undid him. He’d have come right away if she hadn’t whispered in his ear, “Oh, fuck me, Bram. Fuck me. I’m so happy to be your wife.”
And he remembered coming inside her, moaning out loud as he thrust harder and faster, pounding her into the bed, the two of them giggling and wondering if the hotel charged a higher or lower rate for booking someone into the honeymoon suite. As he released his seed inside her, he realized there was nowhere else he could ever possibly want to be but there, buried deep inside his vital, living, loving wife.
* * * * *
Bram opened his eyes. He felt his feet land solidly on the stone deck surrounding the pool. The stone was cold and slippery with water beneath his toes. He took three steps forward, toward the man who had murdered him. And too late Victor Grayson took his eyes from his new victim in the pool and saw death coming for him.
Bram snapped his neck with one easy movement. He took no pleasure from it, nor did he stop to smile over the still-warm body as it fell to the ground.
He rushed to the pool, pulling Minerva from the water and cradling her in his lap at the side of the pool. Her skin was cold and pale. Her lips were blue—he hoped it was the light. With his momentarily solid lungs, he sucked the breath of life into his body, then pressed his lips to hers and exhaled, pushing the air into her body with all the strength he had.
Chapter Thirteen
Survival
Minerva awoke to Detective Andrews’ kindly, concerned face peering at hers.
He rode with her in the ambulance, a friendly hand to hold on to. She couldn’t tell him much about what had happened or how she’d wound up with three dead men in and around her house, including one television assistant, one petty thug and one of California’s most wanted.
Andrews wasn’t too concerned about how it had happened. He was pretty pleased himself and she heard him muse out loud that who knew, maybe the nice lady whose cold case he’d been trying to close all these years really did have some psychic powers. It would be a
great story to tell his wife, who loved her show—in fact they’d learned a few things in the bedroom from some of Minerva Silence’s ghostly clients.
He blushed at that last part when he realized she’d heard him.
He thought she might have temporary amnesia but they could tell her more at the hospital. Minerva thought about telling him of a crazy memory she had, an image she could almost reach just through the fog of her mind. She could swear she’d seen her husband again. Done more than seen him—touched him, tasted him, fucked him.
The ambulance should have smelled like antiseptic and blood. Instead Minerva caught the faint scent of Earl Grey tea.
She smiled and wondered how she would sleep in the hospital bed. She suspected she wouldn’t be alone.
About Lena Loneson
Lena Loneson is pretty much a Canadian cliché: she complains when the temperature rises above zero, says “Eh?” far too often, and loves her beer and poutine. However, she somehow missed the memo on learning to play hockey, so she constantly lives in fear of deportation. Please don’t report her to the Mounties so she can continue to write stories about love and sex in snowbanks, forests, canoes, and maybe one day (if she gets a chance) atop the CN Tower.
Lena’s favorite erotic romance stories are those with a bit of the unusual: you’ll see her reading and writing a lot of paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Other hobbies include playing piano, walking large dogs, searching the forests for unicorns (they *must* exist!) and anything outdoorsy.
Lena loves to hear from readers, so please check out her website or drop her an email!
Lena welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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