“I STILL DON’T THINK WE need to do this,” Jack insisted as we walked down the sidewalk together, hand in hand.
“I don’t know what it will hurt just to talk,” I said, reiterating the same argument I’ve been making for the past hour before I finally convinced him to leave the apartment. “If she doesn’t know anything, then you’re back where you started.”
We’d rounded the corner, and now Jessamine’s glowing pink sign was in sight. He stopped walking so he could turn his full attention to me, holding both my hands in his.
“No, you don’t understand. I’m hoping she doesn’t know anything,” he explained.
I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
“I want to believe this is nonsense. And if she knows something, then it’s real, and if it’s real, it could be bad. The thought of being dead kinda freaks me out.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t talk to Ezra about it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly, which I wish he would’ve told me sooner because that would’ve spared us the twenty-minute fight after I got done Skyping with Ezra.
“But Jack, it’s real either way,” I argued reasonably. “I know it could be something scary, but I’d rather know about it and be able deal with it than have it sneak up and surprise us.”
“I know. I just…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to deal with anymore shit.”
“Whatever it is, we can handle it together. Look what we’ve gotten through so far.” I gave him a reassuring smile, and that seemed to convince him enough, because he turned and started walking again.
Sage and incense were burning when we pushed open the door to the psychic shop, causing a small bell to chime overhead. But Jessamine was already out front, tidying up gemstones and tarot cards that were spread out on one of the two small tables.
When she saw us, she offered a megawatt smile – making her appear even more like a pinup model from a bygone era. Her long lavender hair was piled high on her head, and her flower-print dress hugged her voluptuous curves.
“You’ve returned,” she announced, setting aside her cards and stones.
“Is that not okay?” Jack asked, sounding hopeful and taking a half-step back toward the door.
“No, of course it is.” She waved us over. “I just wasn’t sure you would. But I had hoped.”
“You’d hoped? I felt like we kinda scared you off last time,” he said as we walked over to the table.
She laughed brightly. “I was afraid I’d scared you off!” Then she offered an apologetic smile. “Again, I’m sorry about how I reacted last time. I’d just never encountered someone like you before, but I’ve been doing some research, and I think I may have some ideas.”
“Like what?” Jack asked.
“Do you mind if I try a palm reading again?” Jessamine pointed to the table.
“As long as you’re up for it, I’m game,” he said, sounding far more calm and easygoing about the whole thing than I expected based on his protests about going here in the first place.
“I am,” she assured him.
She sat down first, pulling her dress underneath her carefully. Jack and I sat across from her, and he rested his hands on the satin tablecloth. Under the table, I put my hand on his leg for reassurance.
“Before I go into anything, I should explain to you what it is exactly that I do,” Jessamine said. “I come from a long line of soothsayers, and I can see the future. Some people say they can ‘predict’ the future, but I don’t like that word. The future isn’t static.
“It’s a malleable thing, and the visions I get aren’t clear, linear stories,” she went on. “Some people think visions are like short movies playing in your head, but mine are snapshots of things – images, sounds, colors, smells. Just random sensory ideas that appear, and it’s up to me and the person I’m reading to make sense out of it.”
“This vision just happens when you touch people?” I asked.
She shook her head, making her hoop earrings sway. “Not every person I touch. I usually have some control over it, so I’m not getting readings when I bump into a stranger at the bank, or anything like that. When I focus, I can usually get an image, but for some people, it never clicks.”
“So what happens when you touch me?” Jack asked.
She smiled, tightly this time. “Why don’t we get started, and I’ll explain?”
His blue eyes were nervous as he lay his hand out, palm up on the table. Jessamine started the way she had before, with her long manicured nails hovering above his hand for a moment before she touched him.
The instant they connected, she jumped. Her whole body jolted, but she didn’t let go this time. She hung onto his hand with both of hers, and closed her eyes. Her eyelids trembled, making her long lashes quiver.
“Does it hurt?” Jack asked quietly.
“No, it’s not painful,” she said, breathlessly. “It’s… surprising. It’s like a rush of cold air when you open the door in the dead of winter, but if you weren’t expecting it.”
“What do you see?” he asked, his voice tight and nervous.
“Nothing.”
His body slacked some. “So it’s not working?”
“No, it’s not like that. It’s nothing. What I imagine nothingness looks like,” she clarified, still hanging onto his hand. “And the air smells… burnt and metallic. Like dying stars.”
“Will I be in outer space in the future?” Jack asked with unabashed excitement.
“No. At least, I don’t know.” She finally let go of him and relaxed back. She blinked a few times, then shook her head, as if clearing it.
“What does that mean then?” I asked, when she seemed to have gathered herself again.
“Inside us all, we have a spark of life,” she explained. “People have many names for it – soul, spirit, essence – whatever you want to call it. All living things have it. It’s the thing that separates inanimate matter from conscious being.”
“So that’s the difference between me and a rock and a corpse. Okay. Got it,” Jack said glibly.
“Except you don’t have that,” Jessamine corrected him.
“But you just said all living things have a soul. I’m alive. Ergo, I have a soul,” he reasoned.
“You’re not like everything else. You’re special,” she said with a rueful smile.
“I’ve long suspected that were true,” he attempted a joke, before giving into the anxiety that plagued him, and asking, “But I just don’t understand what you’re saying. I was born without a soul?”
“I don’t think so. There have been a few cases on record of beings without souls, but they were all born with souls initially,” she said.
I sat up straighter. “Record? What record?”
“My family and my colleagues keep records,” she elaborated. “We have our own history books, separate from the norms.”
“The norms?” I asked.
She blushed. “Normal humans.”
“How do you know that they’re accurate?” I asked.
“How do you know your boss’s vampire records are accurate?” Jack countered. “You can’t say for sure, but you have to trust the people that came before you to do their best to keep them truthful.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Fair enough. Continue.”
“The beings without souls all lost them later in life, through various traumas. But they were born intact,” Jessamine said.
“Oh crap,” he groaned.
“What?” I asked.
He looked over at me. “I was dead.”
“Oh shit,” I said, remembering the story of how he turned.
“What do you mean?” Jessamine asked, bewildered.
“Before I turned into a vampire, I died,” Jack said. “Mae drank from me until I no longer had a heartbeat. When Peter found me, I was dead. He gave me his blood as a last-ditch effort, but he didn’t think it would work. But it did. I turned.”
Her confusion deepened her brow,
and she said, “I’m no expert on vampires, but I thought you had to be alive to turn.”
“Exactly,” Jack said. “It’s not supposed to work. Ezra told me stories about trying to revive a soldier that died in combat with him. He’d only been dead a minute, probably less, and Ezra gave him as much blood as he could. But it didn’t take.”
Jessamine thought, drumming her long nails on the table before finally saying, “That could explain it. They must’ve caught you in the precise moment your soul left but before your body truly died. There’s maybe a split-second window, if even that, where your mortal coil hasn’t perished yet. And they got it.”
“So, what does that mean for me? What’s going to happen?” he asked.
“It’s up to you,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “You can live your life as you always have. What happens after you die, I have no idea. But I don’t know what happens to any of us.”
“Okay. Are there any other options?” Jack asked.
“You’re an empty vessel, and you’re a vampire,” Jessamine said. “That makes you incredibly powerful and susceptible to dangerous forces.”
He shook his head, not understanding. “Why?”
“Have you ever heard of possession?” she asked.
“You mean like with demons and exorcisms and all that?”
She smiled. “That’s a very Catholic way of putting it, but yes.” As she went on, her smile quickly faded. “Other souls – usually lost ones, whose bodies have decayed into the earth – look to survive inside another host, so they can get another chance at being alive. And as an immortal without a soul, you make the perfect host to any number of evil forces that others might want to raise from the grave.”
“Great,” Jack muttered. “So I’m not powerful on my own. I’m only really useful as a tool, if someone loads me like a gun. Then I would become their powerful weapon.”
“That is a way of putting it, yes,” Jessamine said.
“That’s kind of horrifying,” he admitted, and I squeezed his leg gently under the table.
“It doesn’t need to be,” she said quellingly. “How long have you been a vampire?”
“Twenty years this part March.”
“And you’ve been happy? You’ve enjoyed your life? You have friends and family, and you’ve found love?” she asked, glancing over at me on the last question.
“Yeah.” He looked at me and smiled, but I could see the fear in his eyes. “I’ve been mostly happy. I’ve had a good run so far.”
“Then I suggest you keep doing that. Just pretend like nothing is changed, because for you, nothing has really,” she reasoned.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” I asked.
Jessamine shook her head. “No. It’s only dangerous if people know about him. Because Jack is right. He’s not powerful on his own – only if the wrong people take advantage of him.”
“I have a really cool secret that I’m awesome and special, and I can’t tell anybody,” he said with a dry laugh, which did little to mask his anxiety.
“You can tell me,” I suggested. “And the dog.”
“And so you know, I have told no one about you, and I won’t,” Jessamine promised us. “When I was researching, if I asked questions, I made sure to never use specifics about you or where I was. I have a code, the same code my mama and my grandma followed. My clients trust me with their innermost feelings and their very futures. I have a duty to protect them.”
“We appreciate that,” Jack said.
“And if you have any more questions or need any other help, please come back. I would be more than happy to help you, and honestly, I’m curious to learn about your condition myself.”
There wasn’t much more to be said, so Jack thanked her for her help and paid her the €65,00, plus a tip. When we walked back to our building, he seemed completive – staring down at the ground with his brow furrowed and his hands in his pockets. So, I didn’t say anything, letting him process it on his own, until we reached our building.
“Do you feel better?” I asked Jack as we rode up the elevator to our apartment.
“It depends on how you define ‘better.’” He stared ahead, watching the numbers tick as we slowly rose up toward the fourth floor. “I’m less scared that I’m going to die or turn into a zombie any time soon. But now I’m worried that I might be like Dana Barrett with a Zuul inside me like me in Ghostbusters.”
“The Ghostbusters rescued her at the end, and it all turned out okay,” I said, making Jack smile.
“You better not tell Bobby about this, because he’s just dying for an excuse to get a proton pack when he goes on missions with you,” he joked, and I was laughing as we stepped off the elevator.
As we walked down the hall, a banging noise came from inside the apartment, and both Jack and I slowed when we saw the door was ajar. Jack let go of my hand and stepped in front of me, preparing to protect me from whatever awaited us in our place.
WE CREPT SLOWLY INTO THE house, which opened into the small kitchen, and I let Jack lead the way, even though I knew that I would be doing most of the fighting if it came to that. A wall separated us from the great room, with an opening to the far left, and I could hear heartbeats and the sound of metal clattering.
“Oops,” Bobby said from the other room, and Jack relaxed in front of me.
“I just don’t understand how we brought back so much stuff. We were only gone for four nights,” Milo grumbled.
We’d walked closer to the opening, close enough that we could peak around the corner and see several suitcases spread out on the floor. Milo was crouched over one, with his back to us, and Bobby stood in the center holding a big tin of cookies.
“I stocked up on snacks, since we never have any,” Bobby said defensively. “Sometimes it’s rough being the only mortal here.”
Milo shot him a look. “That’s fine. Eat your giant tin of macarons and biscuits. But I don’t want to hear you complain about needing to hit the gym more.”
“I do need to hit gym,” Bobby said through a mouthful of pastel colored cookies. Crumbs spilled out on the floor around him, so Matilda stood at his feet, licking them up and wagging her tail. “I haven’t gone since before the wedding.”
Jack sauntered into the room and said, “I’m assuming your luggage is so full because you got me so many presents while you were in Paris.”
“Oh, I did get you something!” Bobby said excitedly.
Bobby set the tin down and rummaged through a bag before pulling out a tiny Eiffel tower statue. Before handing it to Jack, he flicked off the tip to reveal that it was a lighter.
“Hey!” Milo exclaimed and clamored over the luggage to me.
“I’m so glad your back,” I said as we hugged.
It sounded silly, since he’d only been gone for a handful of days, and we were both adults. And even though I enjoyed having some time to just me and Jack, the truth was that, for me, home never felt quite like home without my brother.
Once we separated, I asked, “How was the trip?”
“It was really amazing, and we’ll have to go in the future when we have more time. Bobby did tons of amazing drawings while we were there.” He turned to call back to him. “Babe, why don’t you show them your sketchbook?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Bobby pulled his large moleskin sketchbook out of his bag and laid it down on the dining table. He flipped through the pages until he found the ones that started in Paris, then he stepped back so Jack and I could look at them.
Back when Bobby first started dating Milo, he’d been an art student, and he was a very good artist. His preferred medium were oil pastels, and he created vibrant, impressionistic drawings that were captivating. Several of his pieces we’d already framed and put up around the apartment.
There was a picture of Milo standing in front of the Seine River, with the sky and water all lush blues and purples, and the stars and streetlights shining in bright oranges and yellows. And in the picture, Milo had never
looked happier. Bobby absolutely captured his bashful smile and the sparkle in his dark eyes.
“This one is really amazing,” I said as I tapped the page.
He shrugged while eating another macaron. “It’s more fun than taking pictures.”
Milo peered over my shoulder. “That one is my favorite too.”
“So how has everything been here?” Bobby asked, I suspected to change the subject off of complimenting him. “Anything exciting to report?”
Jack and I exchanged a look before I replied as nonchalantly as possible, “Nope. Not really.”
“What about work? Did you get any calls?” Bobby leaned on a dining room chair beside me so he could watch my response.
I didn’t want to lie to him, because we worked together and he’d have to know about the events last night with Iris Emmanuel. But I didn’t really want to get into it right now, not when they’d just gotten home. I knew I’d also end up telling him my theory on Elise haunting me, but that all felt like too much to deal with, especially after the reading that Jessamine had just given Jack.
“Why don’t you unpack and settle in, and we can talk about it more later?” I suggested.
He winced. “That bad, huh?”
“Not that bad,” I said, and since I needed to give him something so he didn’t keep pestering me, I added, “It just turns we had a member of the House of Basarab hanging out locally.”
“Had?” Bobby asked with a raised eyebrow.
“As in they are now expired, yes,” I said.
He opened his mouth to press for more info, I’m sure, but a knocking interrupted him. He glanced toward the wall, and the entrance hidden on the other side in the kitchen, and asked, “Is that the door?”
“Are you expecting anyone?” Jack asked, to no one in particular.
Bobby shook his head. “It’s 8 pm on a Sunday. Most people I know aren’t out and about yet.”
“I’ll get it,” Milo offered.
Swear (My Blood Approves #5) Page 15