Love, Like Ghosts: A Bay City Paranormal Investigations Story

by Ally Blue

  It’s not as if he’s usually at a loss for words. He can dish an insult and follow it with a snap as quick as you can say “Miss Thang”. But one look at Jonathan’s black-as-sin gypsy eyes, and Mark’s objections drain away.

  So he endures their strange, endless routine: Jonathan hiding in his studio, painting solid black canvases. Mark hurling insults as he buffs the office to a shine with antiviral wipes and maps out the mysterious “routes” he’s required to drive.

  Then a blurb in Art in America unleashes a chain of events neither of them saw coming. As secrets of Jonathan’s past come to light, it becomes clear all his precautions weren’t nearly enough.

  Disclaimer: Be sure to schedule adequate breaks for food and sleep while reading this novel. The author will not be held liable for any missed workdays, low blood sugar headrushes, or unfortunate bathroom accidents that may result from reading “just one more chapter”.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Hemovore:

  “Phil told me about a bar that opened on the river. They serve flavored water in martini glasses. With fake olives and everything.”

  Of course I wondered when he’d been fraternizing with the night doorman, but I didn’t ask. I was too baffled by the notion that he wanted to go out for a drink. With me.

  “If that’s what you want to do.”

  “You don’t look very happy. Smile—this is a good sale. I will go change my shirt.”

  I pressed the back of my hand against my forehead, looking around to make sure the walls weren’t breathing and my Aunt Trixie hadn’t appeared in the hall closet wearing a sombrero and talking backwards. Because either I was having one of those flashbacks they’d told me about in health class, or I was dreaming.

  But no, Jonathan emerged in a different black shirt, this one a matte silk that had a hand like fine cotton but a drape to die for.

  I did need a drink. Badly.

  “Shall we walk?” He gestured toward my coat.

  “We’ll take the car,” I said, unable to wrap my brain around the thought of the two of us strolling along the river like a pair of starry-eyed lovers.

  He pulled on his black wool coat and tucked his virus-barrier gloves into the pocket. “If you like. I can always drive us home if you have too much to drink.”

  Us. Home. As if it were our home. Together. “I didn’t know you had a license.”

  “There are many things you don’t know about me.”

  Was that flirtatious? And if not, what the hell was it?

  No, I decided, of course it wasn’t. I just had that phone conversation with Larry on the brain, was all. And maybe it was just a simple statement of fact. Of course there was plenty I didn’t know about him. Because he never told me squat about himself.

  No doubt Jonathan was just happy he could now buy as much damn cat blood as he wanted. Lion blood, even. Or maybe he found it gratifying that someone else in this cold, wide world saw something other than black squares when they looked at his paintings.

  It took us longer to wave goodbye to Phil and get out of the parking garage than it did to drive to the club. The high-rise that housed it was tall and slender, a graceful counterpoint to the Mercantile Exchange across the river. The El snaked by. Its bulbous 1950’s train looked shiny and retro in the glow of the streetlights, bumping and rattling along as it ferried people to their jobs—or whatever other haunts they were seeking.

  I handed the keys to the valet while Jonathan craned his neck and watched as the train disappeared around a curve, its wheels throwing off a few halfhearted sparks.

  “We should ride in that some time,” he said.

  What? “You shot heroin in the bathroom while I was disinfecting the kitchen. Didn’t you?”

  “Of course not.” He pulled on his gloves and led the way into the building. “I hatched from a pod and hid the real Jonathan under the floorboards.”

  “You’re much less creepy when you’re pensive and focused. Just so you know.” Huge posters for “Crinoline” studded the lobby, featuring Elvira-looking women and drinks in fancy glasses. “Is this it?”

  Jonathan walked up to one of the posters and stared Elvira in the cleavage. “Phil said to look for the one with ‘big melons’.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Right. This is it. Let’s go, thirtieth floor.”

  I couldn’t stay bitchy with Jonathan all night long, since he was practically luminescent in his joy. He didn’t tell me anything more about himself than I already knew, but seemed to be living in that moment with his full mind, body and spirit. He ordered water after water, trying each one on the list and describing to me what they tasted like, from sandalwood to soap. He gazed out over the Chicago River and told me about the colors he saw iridescing there beneath the sodium vapor streetlamps. And when he was between novel experiences, he simply sat with me and was happy.

  Me? I got pretty plowed. That bartender shook a mean martini.

  All the other barflies seemed to float from the shadows in red, silver and black. Vampires drank water and everyone else drank liquor doctored to look like blood. There was a roller coaster ride masquerading as an elevator on the way down, and the night air was a frosty smack in the teeth.

  “Would you mind if we left our car overnight?” I heard Jonathan asking the valet. A bill was pointed at him, likely of insanely large denomination.

  The valet stepped back from the money, looking ill that he’d even seen it. “I wish I could, but there’s no parking on this street between six in the morning and five at night, ’cos this is where the office shuttles pull up.”

  I stared up between the buildings at the stars. Gorgeous stars. Spinning a little. Or maybe the earth was spinning and the stars were actually quite still. That seemed more likely.

  “Here, take it.” Jonathan tucked the money into the valet’s coat with his gloved hand. “I will be back before six, then. I need to help my friend walk it off and put him to bed.”

  Jonathan looped his arm through mine and walked me to the river. His coat was touching my coat. I wasn’t sure I still knew how to breathe. I leaned into him, since the footing on the bridge was icy, and the wind was howling by, and there was a good chance I’d end up sprawled on my ass, and he was as surefooted as ever. At least that was what I was telling myself.

  “I’ve never seen you laugh so much,” I said, annoyed that my words wanted to slur even though I was fully cognizant of what I wanted to say.

  “And I have never seen you drink. So we are even.”

  “That’s not true. At the Galliano opening—”

  “They were serving wine from a box. I saw it when I went to the bathroom. I don’t think you can compare a few of those to eight Tanqueray martinis. They were practically all gin, with just a drop of vermouth.”

  “And a twist,” I reminded him.

  “You will be sick tomorrow. We say masnapos in Magyar. The bad head.”

  Magyar—what Hungarians call Hungarian. I’d learned at least that much from the tape, if not the vernacular for hangover. The streetlights stretched out before us like the vertebrae of a great, glowing snake. I focused on the one above us and thought at first that moths were swarming it, but then I realized it was much too cold for moths. And that it was snowing.

  “You called me…your friend.”

  “What?”

  “To the valet.”

  “Just a few more blocks. Are you cold?”

  “Nope. Feels good.” And if I leaned into him a little more as I said that, I’m sure it was by accident.

  “You will stay here today,” he said as his building came into sight.

  “You made that pretty clear when you were giving him that big old tip.”

  “Oh, you noticed?”

  “That tonight you’re spending money like it’s going out of style? I may be drunk. But I’m not…uh…what’s the word?”

  Jonathan shored me up. “Do you want to walk around the block?”

  What I wanted was to go up to the studio and get to the
part where he peeled off my clothes. Because if it didn’t happen while I was totally blotto, it never would.

  I leaned on him harder and paused just before my face pressed into his hair. My God, it smelled amazing. Jonathan tried to keep walking, but I’d stopped, and I had a few pounds on him. More than a few—and I was holding his arm really tightly.

  His hair was so close. So painfully close. What would it feel like against my face, my lips?

  “You won’t catch it that way,” he said, so quietly that I wondered if he’d even meant to say it aloud.

  The hemovore virus.

  The ghosts of the past will shape your future. Unless you fight them.

  Lessons in Power

  © 2009 Charlie Cochrane

  A Cambridge Fellows Mystery

  Cambridge, 1907.

  After settling in their new home, Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart are looking forward to nothing more exciting than teaching their students and playing rugby. Their plans change when a friend asks their help to clear an old flame who stands accused of murder.

  Doing the right thing means Jonty and Orlando must leave the sheltering walls of St. Bride’s to enter a labyrinth of suspects and suspicions, lies and anguish.

  Their investigation raises ghosts from Jonty’s past when the murder victim turns out to be one of the men who sexually abused him at school. The trauma forces Jonty to withdraw behind a wall of painful memories. And Orlando fears he may forever lose the intimacy of his best friend and lover.

  When another one of Jonty’s abusers is found dead, police suspicion falls on the Cambridge fellows themselves. Finding this murderer becomes a race to solve the crime…before it destroys Jonty’s fragile state of mind.

  Warning: Contains sensual m/m lovemaking and hot men playing rugby.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Lessons in Power:

  “Jonty?” Orlando didn’t usually knock, making do with barging into his friend’s room unannounced, hoping to catch him unawares. On this occasion he not only tapped at the door, but tentatively poked his head around it.

  “Hello, sweetheart. Come in and stop making a draught.”

  Orlando shut the door carefully behind him then wandered across to the huge brass bed, where Jonty lay looking like a schoolboy in his striped pyjamas and with his hair all fluffed up from being washed. It was a sight which filled him with thoughts even more tender than those he’d entered the room with. Orlando ruffled his locks. “Feeling better?”

  “Much, thank you. Have you been chin-wagging with Mama?”

  Orlando nodded. “A pleasant way to pass the time.” He sought refuge in bland words, hoping his friend wouldn’t come up with any probing questions just yet.

  “And would it be pleasant to pass some time in my bed?” Jonty reached out his hand to finger Orlando’s tie. “I have a hankering to lie with my lover which won’t be easily gainsaid.”

  “I think I would like that above all things.” Orlando started undressing, as brazen as he’d been the afternoon when he’d got drunk and insisted on using Jonty’s bath. That now seemed long ago, an age of great innocence when they knew very little about each other. They knew much more now—hardly anything was kept secret and that only because it didn’t really matter in the greater scheme of their lives.

  The innocence had now long gone—Orlando couldn’t believe what he’d been just a year or so ago. Twenty-seven and a virgin. Twenty-seven and never been kissed. Twenty-seven and likely to remain untouched until he died a dried-up death in a chair in St. Bride’s Senior Common Room. Then Jonty Stewart came on the scene and all that had changed. Thank heaven he had.

  Orlando wandered through the bathroom which connected their two bedrooms, found his pyjamas, slipped them on, then returned to find Jonty snuggled down, book and reading glasses discarded. Orlando slid between the soft linen sheets, drawing Jonty to him. “I’d hoped it was all over, you know.”

  “Hmm?”

  “This business with the thunder. I always hoped that somehow I could overcome it with my affection for you. ‘Perfect love casteth out fear’ and all that.”

  “Well it should do, Orlando, but somehow it’s not as easy as it seems. We do have perfect love for each other and I’d regard myself as blessed above all men ‘were it not that I have bad dreams’.” Jonty shuddered, as if he were shaking off memories as easily as he could shake off his jacket.

  “Do you? Nightmares?”

  “No, clown.” Jonty pinched his lover’s backside. “I was quoting your pal Hamlet. It isn’t the land of nod, wherever I go when the storms come. I don’t feel distressed or see visions, I just visit somewhere else. Very odd.”

  “I think you go there to protect yourself, in case you remember anything.” Orlando smoothed his lover’s hair, admiring the golden tones, the hints of auburn the firelight threw up.

  “You could well be right. I don’t want to remember the gruesome details, thank you.” Jonty snuggled onto his lover’s chest. “Want to make new memories with you. I think we should somehow wangle it one night, you know, make love while a storm is at its height. That might just get rid of all the trouble. If I could keep here for long enough to take an active part.”

  Orlando held him tighter, kissed his brow. “I suppose I could pinch you or something. Shame there’s not been a storm since we got the house—being there would make it easier.”

  “There’ll be plenty in the spring. We just need to plan things. You’ll like that, working out your military strategy.” Jonty giggled and launched an assault on his lover’s collarbone.

  “Seems you’ve got a strategy worked out.” Orlando responded by caressing Stewart’s back, little, tender movements which always brought contentment to them both.

  “Sort of. It’s been a long time since we shared the last favours, my love. I’ve been skittish for too long.”

  The business with Jardine had become an ever-present menace, as if those who’d committed such outrages on Jonty had somehow found access to his bedroom and were standing gloating, spoiling even the most innocent of pleasures.

  Orlando had been frustrated yet endeavoured to understand—he had to be patient, the worst thing to do would be rushing or forcing things. None of this logical reasoning had helped. Now the lowering clouds of unease seemed to have lifted and the sunshine of affection warmed him beyond measure. “If you’re sure, I’m ready.”

  “You always are, Dr. Coppersmith. Since you discovered the delights of the flesh you’ve become quite a hedonist. Just imagine if I’d taken up that post in Ireland, you’d never have known any of this.”

  Orlando swallowed hard, hating to be reminded of how close he’d been to not having Jonty by him. “Don’t remind me of that. Small turning points, that’s what life consists of. One little decision and the whole world changes.”

  “It does. As it did for us.” Jonty reached up to kiss him. “Come on, I want you to lie with me. Been far too long.”

  Orlando didn’t reply. Lips and hands could talk for him, kisses saying yes as loudly as tender touches did. Jonty’s skin was warmer than expected beneath his boyish pyjamas, and wafts of something lovely, which might have been lavender soap, assailed Orlando’s senses as he undid any buttons which had survived his first assault. To feel Jonty’s chest against his own, downy skin on smooth, was a necessary part of their lovemaking for him, a sign that they were indeed one, and not meant to be split asunder.

  He still wasn’t sure how far Jonty wanted to pursue this. There was hesitancy in his touch, some slight tentativeness which didn’t usually grace their bed. He gently caressed the small of his lover’s back and was pleased to find that, at least for the moment, his hands were allowed to carry on.

  Jonty twisted in his lover’s arms, using his powerful muscles to turn Orlando, give himself the dominance. He stretched over his lover, a protective canopy against the cold, the world, anything which might disturb them this night. Orlando burrowed into the security, enjoying the unusual sensat
ion of being looked after. He preferred to be the protective one, guarding his most treasured possession, but Ariadne Peters’s words had stuck with him. He knew he shouldn’t always be the protector.

  Tender kisses on the side of his neck made him tingle, firm strokes on his lower back made the sensation spread. However far Jonty wanted to go, he was ready, more than ready. He inched his fingers from the smooth skin of Jonty’s lower back down towards their target, a movement which normally brought delighted acquiescence, manoeuvring of body and legs to allow access. Not this time.

  “What’s wrong?” Orlando spoke into his lover’s hair. Jonty had tensed—he was trying to hide it, but Orlando knew.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.” Jonty pulled away, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling.

  “Is it this wretched thunder?” Orlando laid a tentative hand on his lover’s arm. A protective, comforting gesture, with no hint of desire.

  “No. Yes. It’s everything.” Jonty crossed his arms over his face, shaking off Orlando’s hand in the process. “I’m back there, in my mind. A boy of thirteen in a cold room praying for a fire alarm to sound, or anything that would make it stop.”

  “Dear God.” Orlando knew this had happened before, but never with him—all he could do was wait for Jonty to come out of the slough of despond.

  “Put off the light and go to sleep, sweetheart. I don’t think I’ll be able to get off for a while.”

  “Should I stay here? I’ll do whatever you think best.”

  “Please, if you could bear it. I’ll be fine, soon. Just tonight…I couldn’t do it tonight.” Jonty turned, pulling the covers over his head.

  “Of course.” Orlando didn’t attempt to touch his friend. For the moment they were beyond words or contact. There was a chance, more than a chance, that it would be a long time before doing it became a viable option again.

  In a future ruled by superstition and fear, wanting the wrong man can be deadly.