by A. J. Locke
“Of course,” I said.
He cupped my cheek in his hand then. “Selene, you know how beautiful I think you are, right?”
“Of course…” I said again. There was an intensity in his eyes that I had never seen before.
“You make me feel like a younger man,” he said. “I think that’s why I lost my temper with you yesterday. I just crave you so much.”
That seemed like something every woman wanted to hear, but it wasn’t exactly music to my ears. My hands were still on his pants, and I wondered why he had suddenly interjected this interlude.
“You’re a vivacious woman. I lie awake thinking about you sometimes, did you know that?”
I frowned. I definitely had not known that.
“I’m not worth that much thought,” I said. I tugged at his zipper, but he suddenly took my hands in his and held them tightly.
“I can do so much for you,” he said. I laughed a little, because this was getting awkward. The relationship Andrew and I had didn’t involve this kind of conversation.
“I don’t think there’s much we haven’t done, Andrew.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. His tone and expression remained intense. “I can do more for you than any man, more than Micah. I can take care of you—”
“Is that what this is about?” I asked sharply. “You see me talking to Micah, and you suddenly want to assert yourself on me? I’m not your property, Andrew. I’m allowed to talk to whoever I want and do whatever I want with them. And I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” His eyes tightened. “You have some nerve—”
Just then my cell phone buzzed in my clutch, so I moved away from Andrew to answer it, happy for the interruption. I was not turned on in the least. When I looked at the screen, I saw that it was Ilyse calling.
“Hey, Ilyse, what’s up?”
“Selene?” The ragged tone of her voice immediately made me tense up. “There’s been a murder at the office,” she continued. “Several murders. Among the dead witches. I tried to call Andrew, but he didn’t answer his phone.”
“Oh no,” I said. I turned to Andrew. “There’s been murder at the office.”
His face immediately became all business, and he fixed his clothes and dashed out of the bedroom.
“How many?” I asked Ilyse. I’d let him get a head start before I left the room.
“Three,” Ilyse replied, choking on a sob. “No one saw who did it; no one understands how it happened. This building is usually so secure.”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
I ran out and headed back to the party area, immediately finding Micah as though I had some sort of radar for him. I pulled him away from Amy, who didn’t look happy about it.
“There’s been murder at the office,” I said, voice low. I didn’t want everyone else to know yet because there’d be less confusion. Micah looked shocked, then his face grew serious, and we headed for the door. Andrew had already left, and I wondered how long it’d be before someone noticed the host was gone.
Micah and I headed to our cars and drove to the office. Even though it was Saturday, I knew a few dead witches sacrificed their weekend from time to time to get work done. When we got there, I realized in horror that the death toll started in the lobby; both security guards on duty were dead.
We headed up to the eighth floor, where Andrew already was. The dead witches who were still on their feet were in an upset. Many of them were crying. I saw Ilyse playing the role of comforter, but she looked spooked. I went over and gave her a hug.
She looked at me and shook her head, tears welling in her eyes, and I hugged her again. Then I went over to where Micah and Andrew were standing near the victims. Micah already had a rune stone out and was scanning one of the bodies. They were lying near the room where the dead witches worked with runes, and the entire room had been ransacked.
I looked around the suite and realized something—the workroom was the only place that had been trashed. The rest of the office was in perfect order.
Whoever had done this had specifically targeted the witches’ workroom. That didn’t leave me with a good feeling. The witches stored runes here that were important to cases we worked. More specifically, the runes we drew ghost energy with to track beasties. After they were used, we gave them to the dead witches.
The rune Micah and I had turned in from the scan done on Leslie’s body would be here. We’d been told that whoever had handled Athena’s body had also gathered a small amount of ghost energy from her corpse, so if our rune was gone, then I was sure that one would be gone as well.
“Fuck,” I said, walking into the room and looking around. Rune stones were scattered across the floor. Everything was usually labeled, but a lot of labels now lay strewn about, torn from their stones.
Someone really didn’t want us to track down Ethan’s body. Without those runes, the only chance I had was the tracking rune I had created. I took it out of my purse and held it in my hand for a few moments, but it still wasn’t working. I was feeling quite discouraged.
“The morgue sent people up for the bodies,” Micah said, coming up behind me. “The runes didn’t pick up anything from the bodies; the cause of death was actually bullet wounds.”
“Killed from a distance, leaving nothing behind that can be traced,” I said. “Smart. You’re thinking what I’m thinking about who did this, right?”
Micah nodded. “The body-jacker. He was probably looking for the runes turned in after scanning Leslie and Athena’s bodies, to keep us from tracking him.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, frustrated. This was far from where I thought the night would end up. Only in our line of work could Micah and I go from flirting over cocktails to a crime scene within an hour.
“What’s your conclusion?” Micah and I turned to see Andrew step into the room. I suddenly felt tense, and not only because of the murder.
“We’re thinking the culprit is the person we’re already hunting,” Micah said. “The one who killed Leslie and Athena.”
“Won’t know for sure until we find out if what we think is missing is actually missing,” I added. Andrew nodded, looking grim.
“Katherine, Lisa, and Ora,” he said. Those were the names of the dead witches who’d been killed. “The other dead witches who were here didn’t get a look at the killer’s face. They said he was masked and moved too quickly for them to try and stop him. You two better solve this before he kills again. I have to go talk to the police.” He stalked out of the room without looking at me again.
By now, the bodies had been taken away and all that remained were the bloodstains on the carpet. Micah and I walked out of the room.
“Ilyse, how quickly do you think someone can conclude what’s missing from the workroom?” I asked.
“Within a day, hopefully,” she said. She was trembling slightly, and her eyes were too wide.
I felt terrible and incredibly pissed that this had happened. Not only was the killer murdering purposely, he was also killing senselessly in order to try and keep us off his trail.
“Okay.” I put my arm around her shoulders. “Go home and get some rest, Ilyse. This mess will still be here in the morning.”
She nodded, but I knew it was unlikely that she would leave for a while. Micah hugged her as well, and we spent some time talking to and lending comfort to the other dead witches who were around before we left.
“I’m going home,” I said, leaning against my car, which Micah had walked me to. “It’s lame to leave a cocktail party so early, but I just can’t go back.” Not only because of the murders, but because when Andrew returned, I didn’t want to be the focus of his attention again. The murders would make him want a distraction, and I wasn’t in the mood to be that distraction.
“I’m heading home too,” Micah said. “You okay?”
“Meh,” I said with a shrug. Micah pulled me into a hug then, which startled me, but I relaxed into it, realizing how good it felt to be held by him.
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“We’ll find him,” Micah whispered against my hair. I nodded. He held me for a little while longer, and when he let go, he touched my cheek gently, then headed to his car.
Chapter Thirteen
Ethan was eagerly awaiting me at home, but for a change, it wasn’t so he could badger me about finding his body. He seemed really excited to show me something, which made me wonder what mischief a ghost could have gotten into in my house. I dropped my clutch; checked on Luna, who was dozing on her doggie bed; then followed Ethan into the living room.
“Look at this!” he said. He bent over the coffee table and slowly reached his hand out and picked up the remote. “I can touch things!”
“I’m aware,” I said. “If you recall, I gave you energy runes to make you tangible.”
“But those runes stopped working!” Ethan said. “And I can still hold things!” He pointed to the coffee table, and I was shocked to see the runes I’d placed on him lying there. “They fell through me after a few hours, which means the energy was depleted, right?”
I nodded, staring from the runes on the table to the remote in his hand.
“Well, after that happened, I started to just walk around, then all of a sudden, I hit the sofa instead of passing through it. I thought maybe I imagined it or something, but when I moved my leg, it touched the sofa instead of going through! Then I tried to pick up one of your cups, and it took a little while, but I was able to do it!” Ethan practically glowed with joy. Actually, he glowed a lot less, and he hadn’t even been a brightly glowing ghost to begin with. “That’s great, isn’t it? Have you ever heard of a ghost who could touch things without rune stones?”
“I can guarantee you that I haven’t,” I said, still not over my shock that Ethan was standing there, holding my remote with no help from me or runes. I shook my head. “Uh, it’s…it’s something, I guess.”
Ethan’s smile faltered when he saw my frown.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, just as I released a huge yawn. Man I was tired. Today had been a longer day than I anticipated.
“It’s unheard of for a ghost to be able to do that without help. I don’t know what to make of it. I can’t really say if it’s good or bad that you can touch things by yourself.”
“And eat things,” Ethan said. My eyes widened.
“You ate?”
“I suddenly started to feel so hungry,” he said, shrugging. “So I made a sandwich. You have frighteningly little to eat in your kitchen, by the way.”
“But I do have a drawer full of menus,” I said. Then I shook my head. “But back to the shocking topic of the evening. How the hell can you touch things and eat without having energy transferred into you?”
“Maybe it’s because of how I became a ghost?” he suggested. “I mean, you already knew some things were different about me; it didn’t work when you tried to absorb me.”
“Maybe,” I said slowly. The rules did seem to be different when it came to how Ethan had ended up outside his physical body. Which reminded me, I hadn’t yet told him what his body had been up to. As horrible as it would be to tell him, it would distract me from my shock over what he could now do.
“Ethan, I’m afraid I have some bad news,” I said. “I’ve been working a case since last week involving the murder of two women. Ghost energy was found on the corpses, which is why we were given the case, but there was also physical evidence, which beasties don’t tend to leave behind. The blood and hair recovered from the crime scenes…identified you as the killer. Well, whoever is in your body is the one who murdered the women.”
Ethan’s eyes widened, his mouth fell open, and I guess he lost whatever concentration he’d been using to hold onto the remote because it fell through his hand to the floor. Luna sat up and barked at the noise, then lay down again.
“I just came from the office,” I continued. “Three dead witches were murdered tonight, and their workroom was ransacked. My preliminary thoughts are that whoever is in your body did it so he could take the rune stones that contained the ghost energy left behind on the corpses of the two women he killed. The witches were shot though, so there was no ghost energy left behind this time.”
Ethan continued to stare at me, mouth agape.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” I said. “But I’m working on figuring out why your body-jacker is offing people.”
“I can’t believe this,” Ethan said. His eyes were still showing too much white. “If you had found my body, this could have been avoided! Now everyone will think I am a murderer! I can’t believe this!”
“Ethan, they won’t think you’re a murderer, because the truth about this whole thing will come out,” I said. “Please, just trust me.”
“Trust you?” He was getting angry now. “Why should I trust you when you’ve done absolutely nothing to help me?”
“That’s not true,” I said, getting a little angry myself. “I spent the entire damn week trying to help you.”
“No, you’re just tracking a killer who wears my face.” This was the first time I’d seen him this angry. He kicked out at the sofa and it connected. “If you were really helping me, then you would have found my body and figured out how to get me back into it, and I wouldn’t be out there murdering people!”
“These things take time,” I said, lowering my voice as I tried to reason with him, because both of us yelling wouldn’t help anything. Luna was fully awake now and threw in the occasional bark, but I couldn’t tell whose side she was on. “I have enough reasons to be invested in finding your body. I’m still going to help you, but you can’t expect me to snap my fingers and have this all work itself out. I’m just one person, and I don’t even know what the hell we’re dealing with.”
“Whatever,” Ethan muttered. “When I find whoever orchestrated this whole thing, I’m going to rip their head off.” He marched toward the wall but released a yelp of pain when he slammed into it instead of passing through it.
“Where are you going? I told you it’s better to stay indoors.”
He glared at me over his shoulder. “Just leave me alone, Selene.”
I tried to ensnare him with my power so he would be held immobile, but to my surprise, it didn’t work. Ethan walked out and slammed my door. When I ran out behind him, he was gone. I couldn’t begin to guess what an angry, somewhat tangible ghost would do wandering out there alone. And I had no way of finding him, so I’d have to wait for him to come back.
I sighed as I closed the door and headed to my bedroom. Ethan was turning into an even bigger enigma. He had picked up my remote, kicked my sofa, and walked into my wall, all while the depleted rune stones sat on the coffee table, and I hadn’t been touching him. What the hell was that about? I felt it was safe to conclude that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. The changes in Ethan and his angry exit on top of everything else I’d dealt with tonight was making me feel weary and old as I went to take a shower. I noticed my bath products had been arranged neatly in the caddy and the towels in the linen closet had been folded. Ethan had put his tangibility to use. Maybe I could keep him around as my ghostly housekeeper. Luna would never miss a meal again.
When I had changed and was emptying out the clutch I’d used tonight, I was surprised when I picked up the tracking rune and it resonated with me. I felt myself being pulled in the direction of the door so the stone could lead me outside. I quickly changed out of my sleeping clothes and slipped the stone around my neck, then grabbed my keys and headed out the door. It was close to midnight, and I was exhausted, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
When I was seated in my car, I sat still for a moment so I could feel the direction the rune wanted me to go, then I drove off. Ethan would have probably wanted to come along for this ride, but alas, he was busy being angry at me, so I was on my own. I had a moment to wonder about what I would do if I encountered the body-jacker, and I really had no idea. Whoever was inside Ethan’s body was a murderer, and though I had my rune gun, it wasn’t like I c
ould pump his body full of bullets. If I killed his body, there was no getting him back into it.
But planning ahead was never my strong suit; rushing into things headfirst was. My tactics had worked out in the past, so maybe they’d work out now that I was driving off to find a murderous ghost in another man’s body. Yeah, I had high hopes for myself.
The rune led me out of Brooklyn into Manhattan, and eventually, I realized I was heading to the part of the Underground located downtown. It made sense for Ethan’s body-jacker to be there, especially if the reanimator he was working with operated out of the Underground. Maybe I’d hit two birds with one stone and find them both tonight. Best-case scenario, here I come.
Since I was pretty certain the tracking rune was taking me to the Underground, I parked in a safer, much less seedy area and continued on foot, growing excited and anxious about what I would come across. After twenty minutes of jogging from where I’d left my car, I reached the Underground. I could feel that there were ghosts here, but I wasn’t out for them right now, and the rune was still leading me on a direct track toward my target.
The stone took me down many a street and alley until eventually, I caught sight of a man with blond hair that looked almost white up ahead. My anxiety and excitement spiked when I recognized Ethan’s body flitting through the crowd. I rummaged around in my bag until I found my pouch of rune stones. I pulled out a light pink stone like the one Micah had used to absorb ghost energy from Leslie’s body, held my gun in my other hand, and started running faster because I’d almost lost sight of him.
I wasn’t exactly running stealthily, so it wasn’t long before the body-jacker turned around and saw me barreling down on him. He looked shocked for a moment, then started running, and I picked up the pace even more.
He was fast, but I had my necromancer power on my side, and I wasn’t planning on losing him. He glanced over his shoulder every now and then and made even more of a commotion than I did with pushing people out of the way and upturning things that were in his path.