Oh, crap, I forgot Maude’s order. My mind blanked as I realized the silence in the room. What happened to Miss Not-So-Prim? A flash of red peeked through the storefront’s large pane glass windows. Outside, Red Coat sprawled face first into a patio table.
What the hell?
“Miss?”
My hands clenched at my sides, nails biting sharply into my palms. Not my problem. “I need a medium soy chi—”
At the sound of a loud crash, my nails dug deeper into my skin. Several people had already crowded the windows by the time I turned to survey the commotion. Not good. So, so not good. The barista’s hand was poised over the paper cup she was marking, awaiting the rest of my order. I stepped back from the counter. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go.”
The gathered crowd outside watching Red Coat was as thick as the night’s air. I pushed through using my elbows, ignoring the painful yelps that followed my hard jabs and darted past overturned chairs and patio tables. Paper cups and napkins were strewn across my path. Patches of light from street lamps dotted the sidewalk, and I spotted Red Coat about two blocks down the road with Miss Prim hot on her heels. Dodging a wrought iron chair, I picked up my pace. I had no idea who this Red Coat was, or how the hell she could communicate with the dead, but Miss Prim’s rage was palpable. I couldn’t help but remember that eleven years before when facing a ghostly rage, I would’ve been dead if not for Hadley.
“Look at me, demon.” Miss Prim disappeared, then rematerialized in front of Red Coat, forcing the woman to a stop. “Answer me. What did you do to Johnny? Where is he?”
I caught up to see tears streaming down Miss Prim’s pale cheeks, and blood trickling down Red Coat’s clenched jaw. Red Coat’s eyes froze on me for a long second.
“You bitch.” Miss Prim lunged. Red Coat fell back, knocking me down. I landed hard on the concrete, and a sting shot straight through my butt. A sharp kick from a pointed shoe landed hard on my thigh as Red Coat tried catching her balance. She tripped over my outstretched leg, and she stumbled into the street. Bright headlights shown and the piercing shriek of car breaks sounded. By the time my baffled mind comprehended anything, Red Coat had slumped in the middle of the road.
“Holy shit!” I felt the words burst out of me in shock, but the voice my ears heard didn’t sound like my own. The concrete sidewalk scraped roughly against my palms as I pushed to my feet. Red Coat was only steps away, bathed in a pool of headlights. Chaos erupted as I knelt at her side, but the frantic voices were drowned by the sound of my heartbeat thudding in my ears. Red Coat’s eyes were closed. Her blond hair fanned out around her head, and a line of blood trickled out of her nose. I pressed two fingers against her neck searching for a pulse, and her blue eyes opened.
“Cambion.” Her voice was raspy but her gaze focused. “Spiritus venator.”
“What?”
Red Coat’s hand moved up to touch a pendant on her chest. The jewelry was an intricate design of gold with red jewels interweaved. With a strength I was surprised she had, she broke it free from the chain where it hung, and then searched out my hand. The pendant felt warm in my palm.
“An ambulance is on its way.”
The masculine voice startled me, and my head tilted back to check out the gathered crowd. A man hovered over my shoulder with a cell phone pressed to his ear. Red Coat reached into her coat pocket. Her movements were stiff as she withdrew a charred envelope. Its corners were burnt, and I caught a whiff of sulfur. My nose scrunched at the foul odor.
“Take this, Praedator,” she whispered. Her eyes glazed over as my fingers gripped her offering.
Strong hands grabbed my shoulders from behind and pulled me back. I stood on the sidewalk with no clear memory of having gotten there. I tore my stunned gaze away from Red Coat’s limp form and stared at the envelope. A photograph was tucked inside, and the man in the photo appeared familiar. I sucked in a sharp breath and held up the image for closer inspection. A small symbol had been carved into the man’s right cheek. I had seen that same design on a ghostly cheek once before. Eleven years ago… on a face contorted into rage as I stared up at it, pleading for my life. That same symbol had been carved into him.
Chapter Two
It was the morning after I killed a woman, and my raging headache told me the day would suck. Three cups of coffee did nothing to crumble my fossilization. I sat stiffly at my small dining table and stared at the photograph, the same as I’d done for hours. Since ten thirty, the night before, to be exact. The clock on the microwave had sweetly blinked the time at me when I’d dragged my weary body inside my shoebox apartment and plopped down onto the hard chair. Now my eyes stung, and my butt hurt. Matted blond hair and blood dotted my vision.
Crap.
Weariness would not win this round, even if I had to pry my eyelids open with toothpicks. Instead, I shoved back my dark hair and felt it damp with sweat. The stretchy black tank I’d put on twelve hours earlier had melted into a second skin on my back. My meager checking account demanded the thermostat be set no lower than eighty-three degrees. Checking Account was boss—after Maude, of course.
My phone dinged with another text message.
Take that back, Maude was no longer the boss, and Checking Account now demanded Thermostat to OFF. The text, number forty-three by my guess, would have one written word.
FIRED
Fired people had no money for thermostat settings.
Another ding.
Maude’s texts hadn’t stopped in hours, but I’d stopped checking them sometime between Miss Prim going batshit crazy in the coffee shop and Red Coat lying dead in the street. Muttering words only the evilness of technology could understand, I pushed the phone’s power button. The blasted thing went all vigilante and refused to turn off.
After the phone slammed hard against wood and skidded across the scarred tabletop from the force of my throw, I returned to studying the photograph of the man with the mark. He looked familiar. From the angle the picture was taken, I couldn’t tell his height. I guessed it average based on an art print hanging behind him—a Jackson Pollock, perhaps.
The man’s dark blond hair was in desperate need of a trim, and despite appearing on the south side of thirty, deep crow’s feet etched around his oval eyes. Wrinkles, possibly created by years of laughter, contradicted his hard look. My gaze halted on his scarred cheek. It was the first time I’d seen that symbol in eleven years, and I had no idea what it meant. But I knew for certain if I could find the man in the photograph, then perhaps I could finally find him.
Shrieks exploded from the scheduled alarm on the cell phone, its screams sounding like an Irish banshee high on helium. My head throbbed, and the nearest bottle of Advil was five steps too far away. A brief showdown happened between Eyes and Ears regarding Hand’s response. Eyes won, and my hand snatched the jeweled pendant lying on the table, ignoring the continued shrieks from the torturous device I sometimes called Cell Phone. What can I say? I loved Misery. Or perhaps that was the Stephen King novel, Misery?
Orangey-red jewels glittered on the pendant as I traced the intricate design lightly with the tip of a finger. Its pattern was similar to the one I searched for, except my mother’s pendant had been designed in sterling silver and decorated with rubies. Hers had felt cool to the touch the one and only time it hung from my neck. This pendant had an unusual weight for its size, and an unnatural heat radiated from its gold.
“Praedator.” I turned the pendant over, seeking answers. But no answers were forthcoming to my questions. Even Red Coat’s name remained a mystery. I had sat at the accident scene for an hour. My non-responsive grunts were quite the annoyance to the cops who hounded me with their own questions. But seriously, what can you say when the culprit was a ghost? Most humans didn’t believe in Casper, and Miss Prim was certainly not friendly. Other witnesses simply assumed Red Coat was drunk, their minds already dismissing her unexplained falls as mere alcohol-induced stumbles. I’d gamble my mother’s house that the autopsy report wou
ld show no traces of alcohol in her blood.
Forty minutes after having received no comments from me, and embellished stories of drunken escapades from everyone else, the cops had listed Red Coat as a Jane Doe. A sword and a twenty-dollar bill were her only identification. At least the sword explained the red coat in the August heat, but it didn’t clarify who the hell she was.
Eventually, the pendant landed hard next to the phone, accepting the brunt of my frustration. My questions would be answered, just as soon as my non-existent clues were hashed out. For that help, I needed a person who was logical, emotionally depraved, and trustworthy. In other words, I needed Hadley. Okay, so she wasn’t emotionally depraved—except for when it came to haggling over merchandise. Then she was downright terrifying. But she was two of the three. Good enough. Half of her phone number was punched in when I shoved the phone into my pocket. Change of plans. A ghostly murderer was best discussed in person. Some things shouldn’t be explained over a telephone.
The microwave blinked seven thirty, and I was pretty sure that blinking thing was new. That peculiarity hadn’t been there when I zapped my frozen breakfast burrito into a hot artery clogger the day before, but as long as the clock did its job of telling time, it could tap dance around the kitchen for all I cared. Thank God for Hadley’s obsessive-compulsive live-by-the-schedule predictable personality. Her classes were always morning, and her Earl Grey always served at a popular off-campus coffee shop. Me? I meandered through life. Her day planner and I had a hate/hate relationship. Hadley was prone to mild panic attacks at being five minutes late. On a good day, I was running only five minutes late.
But this was an emergency. The urgency to speak with her left my meandrous ways in the dust, and it prompted my stiff limbs to move. I ignored the serious protests from my butt and brushed my teeth, yanked my hair into a ponytail, and decided to scare off children with the rest God had given me. With a quick sniff at my tank top, I was thankful it was Tide’s Ocean Mist instead of dried sweat that whiffed back. All was good.
Then I reached the front doormat.
A strong smell of sulfur blasted my nose the moment I stepped into the hallway, and my foot slid on something slick. An envelope, similar to the one from Red Coat the previous night, lay at my feet. This one had my name spelled out in scarlet letters, and the corners still smoldered with fire.
I jumped up and down, my feet pounding against the envelope until there was no more smoldering left to smolder, while thankful it wasn’t a flip-flop kind of day. Since Checking Account had said no to the purchase of renter’s insurance, I was screwed if the place went up in flames. I didn’t even have an extra ten bucks for a new doormat.
The envelope was unsurprisingly hot to the touch when I picked it up. Probably due to that fire thing it had going on seconds before. My neck hairs stood. A B-grade horror film type of vibe was felt: empty hallway, weird envelope, and one single female. The victim was always a single female, and my current lack of relationship status filled that clichéd role well. However, the eyes I expected to see staring at me were MIA. A body attached to those eyes was missing as well. Although, it could be counted on Mrs. Tidwell to be inside her apartment next door plastered against the wood, watching vigilantly through the small peephole for me to pass. The opening and shutting of my apartment door were an indication to my mobile ongoing, which she tracked daily. But the busybody couldn’t see me from this angle.
Another text message dinged.
“Shut up.” Surliness from sleep deprivation left visions of a crushed cell phone in my eyes. As expected… A loud thump hit against Mrs. Tidwell’s door.
“Sorry, Mrs. Tidwell,” I called out. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
The text message flashed up to me from a pristine screen that didn’t comprehend how precariously close it was to becoming smashed. The message contained a single word. And it wasn’t the expected word of fired.
“Late?” That had to be a joke. I was fired. Fired as in, I no longer had a job. She never got her coffee. I ignored her ten million texts. No way I was still employed with Maude Taggart. Not possible. I scanned through the previously ignored messages. Not a single one of them contained the word fired. I rubbed at my temples, willing the pounding to subside, and realization struck. Oh, hell… it just froze over. What other explanation could there be for Maude’s seven thirty office presence? She was a confirmed nine o’clocker.
My neighbor’s door opened to a slit. The small gap that appeared between the door and its frame loudly proclaimed I’d been standing in the hallway far too long. I hadn’t walked past Mrs. Tidwell’s door for confirmation that it was me loitering outside and not some bandana-wearing savage breaking into apartments to rob them of TVs before carrying off little old ladies. Mrs. Tidwell always worried that some crazy bandana-wearing man would carry her off to God knows where. I had no idea why she had issues with bandanas, but I’d already chalked it up to the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. No way in hell I was ever going to ask.
I forced perk into my voice. “Good morning, Mrs. Tidwell.”
Her door slammed shut.
And today was obviously not one of her talkative days. One never knew what they’d get with her: sweet old widow who wouldn’t shut up about her bunions or evil old widow who’d shove you down the staircase when your back was turned. I’d often look over my shoulder while pausing at the top of the stairwell to find her standing behind me one too many times for comfort.
Mrs. Tidwell’s door may have been squeezed shut, but I knew she was still intimate with the peephole. I gave them both a cheery wave as I passed for the stairs, and I then glanced down at the charred envelope still held in my hand. The responsibility of Red Coat’s death weighed on me. Another text chimed from my phone, and my foggy brain finally decided on a course of action.
The envelope now shoved into my purse, I made a mental note to Google search removing sulfur smells. Maude would be taken care of first, and then I’d face whatever the envelope contained. I wasn’t stalling. Really, I wasn’t. And if I kept repeating it, I’d eventually believe it.
I saw red. And it wasn’t in shades. Blazing hot rage. I’d taken no more than one step into Fated Match when Miss Prim flounced by… all smiles and giggles. Her cheeks were flushed. Well, they were tinged somewhat pink in comparison to her normal deathly white. Any color at all was an improvement. From the doorway, I could tell that her eyes sparkled, and she didn’t look anything like the killer I knew her to be.
“Him.” She turned to me with a wide grin. “I want him.”
A man stood with his back to me, and for the first time since entering the office, I realized I wasn’t alone. I sucked back the tirade that burned on my lips. Self-preservation kicked in to prevent a trip to the crazy farm, and it kept me from blasting the murderous ghost. But at first chance, Miss Prim was going to learn a new meaning to the word dead. Right then, I settled for clenched fists at my sides while anger thrummed at my temples, irritating the stupid headache I already had.
Miss Prim circled the man, looking him over like a thoroughbred at auction. He was tall and dressed in a dark business suit. Despite the money, most of the men who entered Maude’s office to find true love didn’t wear suits. I’d gotten used to a lot of khaki’s and polo shirts during my eight months of employment. Sometimes jeans. A suit was a nice change of scenery, and this had a well-fitted jacket across a broad set of shoulders and topped off with a head of thick brown hair. Interesting. I thought Miss Prim preferred blonds? Crossing my arms, I stared the murderous ghost down. If she wanted him, she was going to have to get him. I wasn’t about to explain to an innocent stranger that a crazed homicidal ghost wanted to pin his picture up on her wall and play Suzy Homemaker until she drove him to death by alcohol poisoning.
With a sly wink, a strong blast of cold pulsed from Miss Prim as she reached out one pale hand and goosed one toned, round butt cheek. Dang, that man’s ass obviously spent time in a gym. He also had dark, soulful eyes that
stared at me hard, knocking the breath out of my lungs. Despite me standing by the door two feet away from him, nowhere near his perfectly sculpted butt, the look in his eyes lay blame at me for him getting felt up. My cheeks burned despite my innocence.
“Kiara, sweetie,” Maude greeted. She stood near my desk looking as if she’d stepped off the cover of Vogue. “Thank you for coming in early. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Her demanding diva routine was reserved exclusively for me. Lucky me. Everyone else got the Southern hospitality of Blanche Devereaux from The Golden Girls meets Audrey Hepburn. And Maude wasn’t Southern, nor did she naturally have the grace to pull off elegance. But she somehow made it all work. I forced a smile at her and skirted around Mr. Quick-To-Blame. His posture stiffened, and he took a step back as I passed—putting his butt well out of my reach and near Miss Prim’s primed butt pinching hands. Sure, and I was the wily female to avoid. Taking in his scowling features, I wondered what happened to the fired part of this visit to Maude’s. Instead, I was getting a pre-coffee meet-and-greet with her newest client. Odd.
“This is Detective Wilcox,” Maude said, “and Detective Ross.”
Wait—what? Detective? I could add powers of observation on hiatus to the long list of Everything Wrong with that morning. A lock of dark hair had fallen across Detective Wilcox’s eyes, and I itched to brush it back… Oh, holy crap. Sleep deprivation was downright dangerous. Were there medical warnings about this? Soon I’d be hallucinating that Wilcox was a Greek god, down on bended knee, playing the lyre while reciting love poetry. He’d have to be Hades since he was as dark as sin.
And a Detective Ross, according to Maude? Would my tired mind envision him as Thor or Hercules? Chris Hemsworth would be nice. A quick search of the room revealed a lean blond with ruffled hair and an untucked dress shirt. He reclined against the far wall and wore a charming grin that even his haphazard suit jacket couldn’t stifle. No stick-in-the-mud was that one. He made me want to smile back. Something his partner could stand a lesson to learn.
Reaping Havoc: Kiara Blake Book 1 Page 2