“It means the spirits went crazy one night, so crazy they showed up on the DPA’s radar pretty much instantaneously. It was like I’d called up the Mardi Gras of the dead without even meaning to. The whole French Quarter lit up in the middle of august, music was playing, lights were flashing, and people were seeing sightings of ghosts everywhere. It was insane.”
“And you did that?”
“I mean, I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t in control of my own powers. Spirimancers… when we come into our abilities, the whole world knows.”
“And Damon was there?”
“He was in town, so he was called to investigate. It was easy enough for him to find me, since the parade of the dead seemed to follow me around no matter where I want. It was like a storm, and I was the eye. I couldn’t tell you why it happened, what triggered me, only that when it happened, the world of the dead threw a party for me.”
“That sounds… cool? A little creepy, but cool.”
“That’s pretty much the way I describe what happened to me to other people. Creepy, but cool. It’s difficult to forget what happened that night.”
“What… triggered it?”
His eyes darkened, as if a cloud had passed in front of them. “My mother died,” he said, “That’s why I was in Louisiana. This was around the time my company was doing great. Breast cancer. I was coming back to be with her almost every other week, stand beside her through her treatments. One day the doctors called because she couldn’t, she was too weak to. I knew it was over, so I… sold the company and flew back here for good. She died three nights after got here.”
I reached for his hand and took it. “I’m so sorry, Eli.”
He nodded and smiled. “It was a long time ago. Four years in… two months. You wanna know the reason why I’ll never forget that night? It isn’t because she died…”
“Tell me.”
Eli’s smile brightened. “Because I saw her again after she’d died. She was there, in the carnival of the dead, partying and dancing, as beautiful as she’d ever looked.”
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw her, but it was her alright. Every instinct in my body told me it was. Funny how our instincts change when we change, isn’t it?”
“Funny isn’t the word I’d use, but if it weren’t for that change in my instincts I don’t think I would be alive right now. It’s like animals. When a deer is born, it has to learn to run as quickly as possible just in case there are wolves around. Humans take years after being born to reach the point where they can defend themselves against predators. Mages clearly don’t have the same luxury.”
Eli shook his head. “If we don’t learn quickly we can hurt not only ourselves, but other people, too.”
I paused, and thought about something. “What happened after the parade?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I saw what happened that night in the tunnel, spirits aren’t exactly subtle…”
“Oh, you’re talking about damage control after the party? There was none. Mages can see them the way you could that night, the way the spirits want to be seen, but regular people can’t. They’ll just get sounds, smells, glimpses if they’re lucky.”
“Why can we see them but they can’t?”
“Partly it’s the spirits themselves, they don’t want to be seen, and heard, and felt. Even the ones who want to reach out to their loved ones don’t really want to be noticed. They have the power to show themselves in all their glory if they want to, well some of them do, but they won’t. They hide, wrap themselves with darkness, smoke, and mirrors. But also humans, their senses are dulled to the dead, and it’s also a choice on their part. They could have evolved to see the dead as clearly as you or me, and I’m sure back in the day, they could, but the fear of death itself, of what happens to a person when they die, is what made them block the ability to see.”
I simply stared at him, again marveling at how… perfect he looked in the dim light and the glow of the screen in front of him.
“Andi?” Eli asked.
I shook my head. “Yeah, sorry, I’m just—”
“—no, I get it, I can ramble.”
“I could listen to you ramble for hours, don’t worry. This is all just so… much.”
“I know. I’ll tone it down.”
“No, I mean, it’s so much but in a good way. I want to learn, I want to know more about what I am, what I can do, but I’m almost scared to.”
“Don’t be scared; magic is part of you, it listens to you, and you can make it do what you want it to.”
I nodded. “We’ll need to talk more, then.”
“And practice more. But right now—” he tapped the return key with a flourish, “—we’re in.”
“We are?” I swung around to where he was sitting and saw the laptop’s home screen in front of me; a selfie of Trevor at the Grand Canyon, with nothing but a jagged landscape stretching behind him, all the way to infinity. “Nice job.”
“It was nothing, really. Anyway, the real test is seeing if we can pull anything useful out of this.”
“So, Facebook, right?”
“Facebook?”
“I mean, let’s not beat around the bush…”
Eli nodded, fired up the internet browser, and logged onto Facebook. Trevor’s details were set to auto-login, so without any resistance whatsoever, we were in his Facebook account; ninety eight unread notifications, fifteen unread messages. A little bit of envy crept in. I was lucky to have a single notification on any given day, but then I didn’t have many friends.
“We probably shouldn’t touch any of these,” Eli said.
I shook my head. “No, let’s leave this the way it is. I wanna go to his profile and look at his pictures.”
Eli did as I asked, clicking on Trevor’s profile picture and moving to his page. His cover photo was the same one as his laptop background. Right away I could see comments on his wall, and they explained all the notifications; it was his birthday today. Clearly, he’d died before he’d been able to check any of those notifications. I had a feeling, if I clicked into the messages, I’d find chats from close family and friends sending wishes of love and warm regards.
Damn.
“Let’s look at his photos,” I said, and Eli clicked into them and started scrolling.
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for until I started noticing some that looked familiar—looked, in fact, like some of the pictures he had on his dresser. Then I really started paying attention, clicking through each individual photo, looking for the one with Trevor and the guy I had seen with Lucia that night, hoping it was here, hoping it would—“there, that one.”
Eli stopped on the picture I had earlier smashed. “What about it?” he asked.
I pointed at the guy next to Trevor. “That’s him,” I said, “That’s one of the guys from the tunnel that night. Robert Goodwin…”
Robert had been tagged in the photo next to Trevor, Robert and Trevor were Facebook friends, and his name was clickable. I asked Eli to open Robert’s profile, and when it popped up, I saw the face of the man who had been yelling for Lucia to go with him; but not only that, there was a picture of Lucia on his profile, one of the first ones to come up in his photo album preview.
My heart started to pound. “Oh my God… it’s Lucia.”
“Shit…” Eli said, echoing the sentiment.
It was a selfie, one he had taken with Lucia at Wake, about a week and a half ago. The bar behind them was full in the picture, and Lucia looked happy. She was holding a drink up in one hand, Robert was holding a drink up in his, and both were smiling at the camera. If I had a photographic memory, I probably would have been able to pick other people I had seen in the tunnel that night out of the crowd, but as it was, I hadn’t been blessed with one, so I could only guess, no matter how solid I thought my guess was.
“Looks like they’re Facebook friends, too,” Eli said.
I wiped the tears forming on the waterlines of my eyes.
“Who?”
He started clicking, going from profile to profile. “So… Lucia and Trevor are friends… and she and Robert are friends, too.”
I was starting to tremble, adrenaline moving its way through my system and setting my nerves alight. “I bet we’ll find more of the people who were there last night linked to Lucia, Robert, and even Trevor. I just know it.”
“I’m pretty sure we will. Says here Robert is a… high school English teacher over at Saint Clare’s, and he has a cell number listed on his profile.”
I took a note of the number. “Can you run a friend comparison between Robert and Lucia? I want to see if they’ve got any other pictures together.”
Eli nodded, and with all the technical dexterity of a serious coder, he quickly brought Robert and Lucia’s profiles up in Facebook’s comparison tool. From that page I could see everything, from posts they’d tagged each other in, to pictures they’d taken together, to places they’d checked into. I wasn’t necessarily interested in what they were saying to each other, even though it seemed like they were close, too close considering she’d never mentioned him to me, and they’d taken plenty of pictures together, but what I wanted to see was how long they’d been friends.
The first post listed was in fact a picture the two had taken together three months ago. They were walking along Jackson Square with frozen daiquiris in their hands. The picture was captioned as “To new friendships,” and it had a little heart emoji on it, as well as a margarita glass, a kiss emoji, and for some reason, a cat emoji.
“Three months,” I said, “They’d been friends for three months, I knew nothing about him, and he… was probably the one who brought her into the Circus. I should have known. I wish I’d have known.”
“Don’t blame yourself, okay? That’s the last thing you want to do right now. Right now you need to concentrate, focus, and figure out why Trevor is dead, not how long Lucia and Robert have known each other.”
“It’s all connected, Eli. I know it is. I also know, if we find more of these people—and we will—we’ll find that somewhere, someone has a link to the other three people that have turned up dead this week, and I know exactly what that connection is. It has to be.”
Eli shook his head. “Andi, I know you think you’ve got this all figured out, but you need more evidence. That’s how this works. First you find evidence, then you make theories, then we can work out a game plan. Otherwise, we make a plan without evidence, we’re going to rush into a situation and wind up with our pants down.”
I sighed. “I’m going to need to use the laptop.”
“Sure, but do it tomorrow, okay? Damon will be back soon, so will Logan. Maybe you should have an early night, get a lot of sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
“There’s way too much going on in my head right now… you really think I’ll be able to sleep?”
“I don’t know, but you should try.”
“I know that you’re right, my heart knows that, but I don’t know. I need—”
Eli stood and cupped my face in his hands. “—Andi… all of this will still be here tomorrow, okay?”
As I watched him, I got the impression what he wanted to say was, your friend will still be dead tomorrow, probably in an attempt to set my head straight. He hadn’t said it, though, and I was glad for it. I didn’t think I would have been able to keep my eyes clean if he’d used those exact words. I knew Lucia was dead. I’d just been confronted with several pictures of her and I’d been able to hold it together. But that line… I felt like that line would have brought me to my knees.
I nodded. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll try and get some sleep.”
Eli took my hand and helped me up. He then shut the laptop screen and pulled me out of the living room, up the stairs, and toward my bedroom door. I opened the door and stepped through ahead of Eli, who waited at the door. I thought he may have wanted to come in, but he hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t tried to step inside without permission, either.
I turned around to look at him, and I wasn’t sure what it was that came over me, but my eyes started welling up so much I had to force them shut. Eli rushed in and wrapped his arms around me.
“Andi, are you okay?” he asked.
I hugged him in return, holding him tightly and sobbing soundlessly into his chest. So much for keeping it together. “I don’t know,” I said, once I felt like I could speak without my voice cracking.
“It’s too much, isn’t it?”
“It’s not that, I just… I haven’t had time to adjust, haven’t had time to grieve. Lucia is gone, and seeing those pictures of her… I didn’t want to break, I thought I had kept my cool, but I… I…”
“It’s okay,” Eli whispered, “It’s okay, you can let it out. You’re safe here.”
“I really do think I need some sleep.” The words came out as a half-laugh, but not one out of joy. This was fear, maybe, regret, loss, helplessness. That was it. I was helpless; Lucia was gone, and I couldn’t do anything to bring her back. “I don’t have anyone here, you know…”
Eli rubbed my back. “No parents? Brothers or sisters?”
“Only child, and my parents live in Florida. They wanted to retire to the everglades, trading one swamp for another.”
“What about friends?”
“Please. I don’t have friends. Lucia was my only friend. I have acquaintances, and then… I have you, and Damon, and Logan.” I turned my eyes up at him. “You guys really are all I have.”
Eli nodded. “I hope we’re doing a good job at making you feel welcome.”
“Are you kidding? You’ve been the best… just the best. I don’t like people, but I like you.”
Eli smiled. “I like you too.”
A brief pause hung in the air as a random question popped into my head, one I would never have in a million years asked given the circumstances, but I felt the burning need to ask now. “Eli, could I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
He smiled brightly. “Why’d you ask?”
I shrugged, then looked at his chest and did my best not to rub it. “I mean, look at you… you’re intelligent, charming, caring, and athletic, you’re incredibly good looking, you’re wealthy—I could go on.”
“Would you believe me if I told you I just hadn’t found the right girl?”
“I would, but I mean, why haven’t you found her yet?”
“Because being all of the things you just said doesn’t guarantee you’ll find the right person… ever, I think. There’s only one guarantee in life, and that’s your own death. One day you’ll die; memento mori, as the saying goes. I was with someone for a while, a long while in fact. Three years. But we grew apart, she found someone else… that was a year ago, almost. I’ve dated since, but I haven’t found the right person.”
“And by dated, you mean…”
“I’m a straight shooter, Andi—a gentleman never tells.”
I sighed, feeling the tension leave my system. Having Eli here, this conversation, it had helped bring my nerves down to a more manageable level. I let him go, allowing my hands to slowly slide off his arms. “Thank you,” I said, “I didn’t mean to break down like that.”
“Don’t sweat it, okay? You’ve been through a lot, and you’ve handled it like a champion. I’m proud of you.”
Proud of me. “That, actually, means a lot coming from someone like you.”
He smiled again and walked toward the door. I followed, holding the edge of the door with my hand. He then turned around and gave me a sleepy smile. “If it makes you feel any better… in another life, you’re the kind of person I’m looking for.”
In another life…
Hot, wanting blood rushed to my cheeks and into my chest, sending another, fresh surge of adrenaline pushing through me. “What?” I asked, as if I hadn’t heard him.
He shrugged. “You’re intelligent, you’re capable, you’re funny, and you’re pr
obably a handful, but probably worth every second of it.”
My eyes widened. “A handful? Boy, you really know how to win a girl over, huh?”
Eli laughed, a real laugh this time. “You know what I mean, right?”
“No, I don’t. How about you enlighten me?”
“I just mean, you’re not afraid of people. You’ll challenge someone if you think they’re being an idiot, or if you think they’re wrong. You aren’t afraid of putting people in their place.”
“Uh, yes I am. Have you met me?”
“I have, but I also know that these qualities are inside you. I don’t say what I just said lightly, and I don’t make stuff up. I also don’t say things just to pander to a woman’s ego—I’m not like that.”
“No… I don’t get that from you.”
“Feel better?”
In another life. The words he’d just used came rushing back at me. I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if I did feel exactly better. I nodded anyway. “A little bit,” I said.
Eli licked his lips, then leaned close to me and came in for a kiss on the cheek, but that surge of adrenaline working its way through me urged—no forced—me to turn my head slightly to the side, so much so that my lips made contact with the corner of his mouth. For an instant neither of us moved, but then I parted my lips, Eli turned his head slightly, and kissed me.
It was only a pressing of lips, no movement whatsoever, but his mouth was warm against mine, his lips velvety soft. I couldn’t remember the last time I had kissed a man, had been kissed by a man. He pulled away, and I swallowed… everything. My nerves, my shock, my want, it all belonged in the pit of my stomach, where it was headed.
“I… I…” I started to say, “I should get some sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s… probably a good idea.”
Eli headed for the door, then stepped out of the room. He turned his head, looked like he was about to say something, then shook his head and walked down the hall, but not before I caught the slightest hint of a smile forming on his lips. I shut the door and retreated into my bedroom, stripping off the clothes I was wearing and throwing myself onto the bed. It was barely nine, nowhere near my usual bed time, but I was already exhausted.
Harlequin Dreams: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (The Harlequin's Harem Book 2) Page 6