Hollywood Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective

by Rachel Graves

  Oh yes, I was going to see the trial records. I went to them next, puzzling out the details and the archaic spellings. The defense claimed he had attacked the man, M. Fothergill, who shot in self-defense. Witnesses recounted William had a calm temper, stayed out of politics, and did good work. The courtroom was cleared of women before they got to the part about the wife. The defense had attacked her, announcing she’d had an affair and saying she “carried herself as a woman of low standing.” I was almost sorry I didn’t have some way to find out exactly what that meant. I probably carried myself like a woman of low standing on occasion.

  The judge declared the man guilty, but he didn’t make it to be hanged. He died “in the public gaol” of “a wasting disease that took him in under a fortnight.” I didn’t need it spelled out for me—a vampire had killed him. The only question was which one—William or the one who made him?

  I switched back to the official papers. They didn’t exactly finish the story for me but provided enough of a distraction. I was ninety-nine percent sure the wife’s lover had been the vampire that turned William, an eternal thank you for saving her. Visions of the deed filled my mind. It was hard to imagine the very stoic William being part of anything so romantic. Of course, imagining it was just what I wanted to do—turn out the light and let my mind wander over the details of his life. I was half asleep when other possibilities occurred to me, maybe he’d been turned by some trusted friend who’d been hiding the secret of being a vampire all along. It’d been even better if it was a woman who’d loved him secretly and had pined for him since his wife died. I didn’t fall asleep right off but I also didn’t think about my own life for the rest of the night.

  A ghost sat on the end of my bed clearly visible in the predawn light. He was an older gent with gray hair who kept checking his pocket watch, the first ghost who seemed to understand his time was limited.

  “Do you need me to do something for you?” I asked, not wanting to waste his last chance.

  “Not that I can recall.” He smiled; his face practically indulgent.

  “Most people, they have something.” I sat up and looked at him. I’d only had one grandfather growing up and he’d died before Gina could walk. This guy looked like a grandfather, though—kindly, old, and happy.

  “Cherish the people you love. Be careful of the world. Protect happiness,” he advised.

  “Good advice but usually folks in your situation stick around because of unfinished business they need me to wrap up.”

  “Oh, I suppose I could try that one. Tell my son where I left the will, how to handle the money, but he’ll figure it out. Muddle through, probably make some mistakes. In the end, he’ll do all right.”

  “Well, uh, okay then. You know you don’t have to hang around, right?” I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d never had a spirit that didn’t have a task for me.

  “I don’t. But I saw you, saw into your dreams and I wanted to tell you, sometimes it’s okay to trust people. They don’t always make the best choices but they’re all right.”

  “You saw my dreams?” Without realizing it, I pulled the blanket up around me, a defensive measure against someone who couldn’t even touch me.

  “I was a spirit witch, too,” he confessed. “It’s hard, seeing double all the time, knowing what someone really feels when they’re smiling on the outside. But you should know, you can trust people every once in a while. Things will be okay.”

  “Thanks but that’s not always easy to believe.” I did my best to sound like I knew what I was doing, but even after the army’s witch boot camp some days I barely stumbled through. Which was a lot like being a detective, people paid me to get the job done, not because I had some sort of credential or praise worthy skills. Then again, maybe that was the imposter syndrome my Walter Reed therapist had told me to watch out for. The whole thing blurred into a mess inside my head, leaving me sure of only two things – if I wanted everything to be okay I needed to do something to make it happen and I really needed some coffee.

  “Well, just remember it later on, all right? After your coffee.” Before I could say anything, he was gone, the image fading away even as I watched it go. I shook my head, wondering what it would be like have someone like me around all the time while I got up to brush my teeth.

  “Are you awake?” a voice called from my living room. Luckily, it was a voice I knew.

  I grunted instead of replying. There was no good way to explain the whiskey last night or the dreams that had come after it. I hurt in a dozen places, the worst being my leg from yesterday’s muscle cramp and my shoulder from the road rash a few days back.

  Ted came into my bedroom, dressed for work, and set a cup of coffee down on the bedside table.

  “Brought you something.”

  “You are a truly wonderful man.” I took the cup from him and enjoyed the first sip.

  “Tough night?”

  “Not the worst, but a back rub might help.” I did my best to look pathetic, with it being morning that wasn’t hard. He took the hint. Many men will promise a girl a back rub, and a meager dozen of them will deliver a few half-hearted strokes. My lover knew what he was doing. I wasn’t about to let that skill go to waste. I enjoyed the coffee and the massage, until I handed him the empty cup, trying to see through my sleep-filled mind for what came next. Most ghosts gave me something to do, but the one this morning had just left me questioning my choices. Ted’s touch was the only thing I wasn’t second guessing.

  “You’re good at that,” I mumbled, waiting for my brain to wake up.

  “So I’m told,” he replied, ever chipper in the morning.

  “No, I mean like really good. You might consider a career in massage therapy.”

  “Hmm, you think I could go professional?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I let my hand drift back between his legs.

  “I didn’t mean that kind of professional…”

  “Sure you didn’t.” I flipped over and unzipped his jeans. I had them off his ass before he could blink, my hands playing with the soft fabric of his underwear.

  “This isn’t why I came over.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to be quick.” I kissed low on his stomach, nipping a little, then let my head move farther down. He was resting on his side, not stopping me and I pushed him over, enjoying the way he only resisted with his words. I let my hands glide over his ass, freeing it from the soft cloth. When it was completely bare, I cupped both hands around it, letting the tight, curly hair between his legs brush my face.

  I kissed him gently, barely touching that sensitive flesh with my lips and then devoured him, hungry for the feeling of him growing hard in my mouth. He didn’t disappoint, moaning underneath me, fighting not to move his hips.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling me up to his face. He kissed me, fingers tracing down my skin. “You should be naked.”

  His words followed his actions as he slowly pulled my shirt off. “But you’re not,” I teased, refusing to sit still. I finished the job taking his clothes off, his shirt coming over his head, messing up his hair.

  Then, like I knew he would, he distracted himself. His mouth was kissing, his body wanted me but his mind couldn’t let all those clothes stay rumpled in the bed sheets. He deftly folded, setting the neat stack just outside the bed before he climbed in next to me, the two of us bare, our skin touching each other in a thousand places.

  He kept his mouth on mine while his hand drifted to my breast. His touch was so gentle, light, until he found my nipple and brushed it into hardness. I moaned and pushed forward, wanting more of his touch. He broke the kiss to move his mouth there, tongue circling that peak, while I begged for more.

  Magic let me share his emotions, the way he wanted me, how this had turned from playful fun to something more. His body was ready and wanting, and though I knew he would wait, go slow, give me time to catch up, I didn’t want to. I flipped him onto his back, breaking the connection between his sweet suckling mouth and my brea
st. I left one hand on his shaft, stroking him up and down, while I reached into the bedside drawer for a condom

  I tore the package open and unrolled the thin latex against his skin, following its movement with my tongue. I heard him say my name as the twin sensations of hand and mouth tormented him. Before he had a second to think, I straddled him, letting him fill me, that smooth shaft coming inside me, touching me where I needed him to be.

  “You sure about this?” he asked, letting me know that the desire hadn’t taken him completely yet, that he was still worried about me and my pleasure.

  My body dropped down over his, rubbing my breasts against his chest, kissing him and tantalizing him at once. Moving slowly, riding him oh so gently, I put my mouth next to his ear and whispered, “What do you think?”

  I’d meant it to be sultry, and it worked, my words giving him permission to get lost in the moment. He put his hands on my hips, guiding me up and down, his face tight with pleasure and concentration. I watched him, only half-aware, the pressure between my legs was building. Suddenly, his rhythm was too slow for me and I moved faster, pounding on to him. I heard him call my name as if he was someplace else, in some other world, while I was surrounded by pleasure, wrapped in sensations as he stroked into me, his hips rising off the bed.

  His pleasure peaked before my own, his muscles tensed, and every nerve in his body sang with the feeling of it. His hands clenched my thighs, grabbing me hard, while he drove himself on to me in one final thrust. He finished but I wanted more, and while he lay there panting, I brought his hands to the center of my body.

  My motion earned me a smile and now he flipped me onto the bed. I gasped a little in shock when his body left me and then sucked wind a second later when his mouth covered the same place. His fingers stole inside my body, curling and stroking, while his mouth locked on my clit, tongue flicking, then pounding. I screamed, calling his name, clutching the sheets.

  “Edward, yes, please.” The words ripped from my mouth as I moaned and somehow he increased the pressure of his tongue, broad strokes lashing me and then there was nothing else—nothing but the white-hot searing pleasure between my legs. It stole my breath; it stole the world. I lifted off the bed in pleasure, my body wrapped around his mouth and hand. And then I fell backward, falling into the pillows, panting, desperate for air.

  He released his hold on my body, kissed his way up my stomach, and rested his head on my chest for a moment before kissing the breast he’d neglected earlier.

  “Really not why I came by,” he whispered.

  “Are you objecting?”

  “No way. Never. I swear.”

  I laughed at the earnest smile he wore. “I’m glad. Why did you come by?”

  “OPS records, dead bodies, William and you not getting along. It all seemed really important.”

  “Seemed important?”

  “Well, before the sex,” he admitted.

  I laughed and he was gone for a minute, cleaning up. When he came back, he climbed into bed, holding me but then gestured to the clock. “I’m supposed to be somewhere in about half an hour.”

  “I guess we better start talking about all that other stuff then.”

  “William said you were in a bad mood.”

  “He puts me in a bad mood.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way I could make you two get along?”

  I made a big display of thinking about it. “Hmm, nope.”

  “Lovely. Is there anything I can do? We can’t even talk about why he bothers you?”

  “Not really. He just caught me on the wrong day.” I wasted a few minutes of the time we had left recounting my frustration on the rooftop and the drama of nearly getting caught in the hotel room.

  “It wasn’t William’s fault. You were already in a bad mood.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” I frowned because he was right. William brought up bloody painful memories, but it wasn’t him. It was the memories that bothered me. “Let’s say I was coming down from a bad mood when him popping up in my living room brought it right back.”

  “Elisabeth.” He sighed my name but I cut him off with a shake of my head.

  “We’re not fifth graders. You don’t have to make us play nice.” Something nagged at me, something I was forgetting. I thought about it for a few seconds, but gave up. “The files he wanted are downstairs. I’d like a chance to look at them but you can take them if you’re desperate.”

  He looked at the clock and then at his clothes. “I don’t really have time. Maybe just a glance at the notes.”

  “Uh-huh.” He’d started the sentence naked but ended it half-dressed. Apparently, the quick glance was pretty important to him. “I’ll meet you at the printer.”

  I was walking into my office when I realized what I’d forgotten—snooping and printing out Ted’s file. The thought hit me when I saw him reading it.

  “So.” I scanned the printouts, trying to see if he’d gotten to his own stack of pages yet.

  “I could have saved you some paper. I’ve already got this printed out at home.” He put the pages back in a neat stack, some horizontal, some vertical. I suspected he’d broken them up by subject.

  “About that…” I struggled to come up with something to justify my invasion of his privacy.

  “You’re a detective. If I was worried about it I should have said something.”

  “Really? You’re not upset?”

  “This?” He held up a picture of a very young version of himself. “Is just about the worst photo of me ever. Other than that, there’s nothing upsetting here.”

  I took a look at the printout. His hair buzzed off to a short uniform brown, his face looking hard. It didn’t do much for him. “But something tells me you’re not going to let them take another one.”

  “Don’t have to.” He held up a second sheet. That picture was fairly recent and the background looked familiar—outside his house.

  “What the hell? They’re stalking you?”

  “Surveillance, for my own protection, of course.” He shook his head, putting the sheet back into the stack. “Read all you want, just be careful okay? These people, they’re…zealots. They’re convinced they know what’s right. That makes them dangerous.”

  “They’re the government,” I tried to reassure him. Like any organization, they’d grown too bloated to be much of a threat.

  “I was one of them, Hicks, they’re dangerous. Be careful.” The look in his eyes could only be answered with a long kiss and a promise that I would be. I saw him out the door, more scared for him than myself, and angry at the way all of this threatened the life he’d built for himself.

  I started with the top of the stack. Rudy’s file. He’d been recruited out of high school along with his twin. They’d showed psychic promise, or so the records told me, scoring high on all the usual tests and displaying the ability to feel each other that most twins had. The second R. Dollern file was probably his twin. I shook my head at the stupidity of parents that gave twins the same initials before going back to Rudy. He’d worked with Edward and William, but not on their team, during what the documents referenced as the incident with spellwork at—. The next word, the at part, was blacked out. OPS kept some secrets even from themselves.

  Like everyone else involved in the incident, Rudy had suffered immediate ill effects: hallucinations, emotional disturbance, and nightmares. It hadn’t stopped him from working for OPS though, and he’d been transferred to another team. After a few months, things got worse and he’d been discharged to psychiatric care. Psychiatric care that did not involve his family. The notes detailed dozens of conversations, letters, and pleas from the other R. Dollern to get access to him. OPS hadn’t seemed to care about what his twin wanted. Rudy had been kept in treatment, alone, for the last two years.

  Treatment ended abruptly when he died in his sleep, a month and a half ago. It was an odd ending to a life of sharp edges. I got to the psychological profile and wondered if I should read any mor
e. Dying in his sleep instead of being tortured to death meant Rudy had nothing to do with the current set of crimes. It made me wonder why his file and his twin’s file were considered active by Agent Dorset.

  A few words on the page popped out at me and I couldn’t stop myself. Rudy’s parents were volatile, often degenerating into physical violence. While there had never been any sign of physical abuse, the psychologist believed that Rudy often had to watch the goings on and wait at the ER while one or both parents were stitched up. His early exposure had left him without any aversion to violence or medical equipment. After his parents succeeded in beating each other to death, he and his twin had been sent to live with grandparents. The grandparents had been old school parents—in a lot of ways they hadn’t been equipped to take on a pair of eleven-year-olds. Their questionable parenting and strong beliefs that children should be seen and not heard had made OPS think Rudy would easily maintain his silence about clandestine operations.

  My phone rang, startling me out of my snooping. I let it go on for another ring trying to clear my head. The idea that someone could pick apart a childhood, go through it to find the pieces that made you a monster shook me. I might not want to read Ted’s report, or know the secrets buried there.

  “Hicks.”

  “Garcia,” a mellow voice replied.

  “You sound good,” I told her.

  “It’s Friday, Hicks. How bad can things really be on a Friday?” She made me more than a little jealous of people who worked nine-to-five with every weekend off. “I’ve got the report back on your plates. Want to come get them?”

  “I’d love to but I’m stuck going into LA. Any chance you could email them?”

  “Sure thing, and leave a trail of the illicitly obtained documents? That’d be peachy.”

  “Funny, very funny. Okay, tell me what they say now. I’ll come for them this afternoon.”