Kindred Spirits: The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 6

by A. J. Aalto

  “He’ll be just fine. That’s a promise from me to you, cookie.”

  I was about to ask “are you sure” but the look he slid me suggested that he was calling more shots than just our drinks order. Somewhat reassured, I pressed on. “I need to know about Ghazaros.”

  “A fine man,” Roy said heartily. “Terribly gentle soul, that one. Tried a few times to have a house of his own, but he’s not quite there yet.” He slid me another long look, assessing my reaction. “Is that the kind of thing you were wondering?”

  I played with my paper coaster. “He’s a Sarokhanian?”

  Roy made a cautious affirmative noise and the bartender brought two glasses.

  “Zorovar a smuggler?”

  Roy smoked, tapped his ash, and nodded once.

  “Ghazaros?”

  Another nod and tap, and he tucked the cigarette back between his teeth.

  “And you, Roy?”

  “Mortal laws rarely sway immortals,” Roy said.

  Did he already know I’d had Shakespeare arrested? Did he know I’d seen him at the sinkhole? “Who’s smuggling cheese through Wicked Whiskers?”

  “That’d be me, cookie.” He lit another cigarette off his first and then stubbed out the first butt.

  “Um, thanks for your honesty. Probably, you should be less forthcoming about criminal activity.”

  “You won’t squeal on your old pal Roy.” He patted my hand fondly, then picked up his drink. I was wracked with shivers as a chill draft hit me.

  “You guys got the A/C on?” I said, my teeth chattering.

  Roy’s brow furrowed, he cocked his head, and then a grin slowly spread across his lips. “You mean air conditioning, cookie? Nah, we don’t like that. Heat, now that’s the stuff. You must be catchin’ cold. You wanna watch that. Could be serious.”

  “Roy,” I said cautiously, “is there an extremely old revenant feeding around Municipal Beach in phantasm form?”

  “Oh, for sure!” He grinned anew. “Boy, you’re a corker.”

  I felt a jolt of something akin to shame. I felt like I was betraying an old friend, even though Roy and I had just met and he knew I was working with the feds. Welp, nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Who is it?”

  “I’d tell you if I could, truly.”

  “Mortals are getting sick. I can’t let that continue. Rapture of the Blood,” I said, lowering my voice, even though I was quite sure now that every ear in this place was immortal and I had their strict attention. “It’ll kill them eventually.”

  “No doubt, cookie, but that’s how the oyster’s shucked. Some advice, little love. Drink up. Don’t disturb the dead. Don’t fuck things up.” He shot me another astute, sidelong glance. “That’s advice you’ve heard before, isn’t that right?”

  I swallowed hard. Did he know Batten? Had he heard Batten tell me that? Was Rotten Roy spying on me? Had he been the revenant in Harry’s back yard, watching Mr. Merritt sort recycling into bins? His wily half-smile seemed to confirm it.

  “What about your companion?” Roy asked. “Boy, that one causes a stir. Skirts all a’flutter. Seems the lot of them wouldn’t beat their gums about this Dreppenstedt cat if he weren’t the genuine berries.”

  I wasn’t about to spill any of Harry’s secrets, but it sure was pleasant to fall under the spell of Rotten Roy’s mystifying nonsense. “I know nothing of Harry’s berries. He’s not into the crime fighting. I might have meddled in police business a wee bit. I caught a cheese-monger. Erik Shakespeare. Guess he was yours?”

  Rotten Roy grinned without fang, and lifted his glass to toast me. “Whoopsie.”

  “You’re not even a little angry with me?”

  He shot a hard ha from around his cigarette through those tight, gripping teeth. “Men are easy to replace. Surely you agree?”

  “I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you specifically,” I said quickly, “but I get dragged into bad things.”

  “Aston mentioned that about you, cookie,” he said. “'Excitable,' is what he called you. He likes that. He likes it a whole lot.”

  My mouth went dry, and to combat it, I sipped my drink. Brown plaid turned out to be straight scotch. Bit much for me at lunchtime. I coughed hard. “The Crowned Prince of the Blood of House Sarokhanian mentioned me to you by name?” Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fucking fuckberries.

  At this, Roy threw me a coy look, and his smile faltered. “Don’t cast a kitten, there. Your heart skipped a beat. Sounded quite delicious. I’m not easily distracted, me, but some others ‘round here might get thirsty, hear?”

  I nodded, keenly aware of the other revenants in the room, just as they were keenly aware of me. “What else did Aston say about me?”

  Roy took me by surprise by moving in a blur in my direction, but only to plant a swift, dry kiss on my cheek. His nose was cold against my temple. When he backed off, his eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “What was that for?” I said warily.

  “Satisfying curiosity.” He drained his cup and rapped on the bar with one knuckle for another. “You didn’t stake me.”

  “Do it again, I might.”

  “Nah,” he said. “You’re on the level. Get you a snoot full, doll, and once we’re squiffy, we’ll have a lovely chat.”

  “You’re not going to get drunk,” I said flatly. “You’ve not fed.”

  Roy’s eyebrows jogged up and down. “Offering, cookie?”

  “No,” I said firmly, but I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. “You’re weird.”

  “And you’re broken,” he said frankly, swirling his booze around in his glass and eyeballing it up in the warm, yellow lights over the bar. “That’s what else Aston told me. Yep. The DaySitter of Lord Harry Dreppenstedt lost the love of her life and spent all of last year quietly and not-so-quietly embalming herself.”

  My breath went out, and I felt cold again, deep in the pit of my stomach.

  Roy went on, “Lost her love to her very own immortal’s fangs, he said. Lost him publicly. Right in front of her eyes. Bandaged that wound from the liver out.”

  “Aston knew I was drinking?”

  “And working out too hard, getting eel-hipped and just as skinny as a stray dog in a ditch. He kept an eye peeled. Not that he disapproved, mind. Aston understands heartbreak. He’s savvy.”

  “Is he still watching me?”

  “That vampire hunter of yours was a real pip, knew his onions,” Roy said quietly. “I think he gave Sarokhanian a bad scare. Got too close.”

  Sarokhanian is precognitive, he knew I was coming here. “That why he bolted?”

  Roy sipped his drink, looking away. “Maybe old Aston’s grown skittish. Maybe he’s not as tough as he’d like you to think.”

  “He’s not afraid of me.” I was sure of that.

  “When you spoon with these big houses, you get a front row seat for the show, kid.” Roy sipped, savored, and sighed. “They’ve all got secrets. Most of their secrets are meaningless to mortals, pointless in the light of day. You get me?”

  I did, and nodded to say so. It seemed he was thinking out loud, and I intended to keep quiet and soak it in. Rotten Roy was a bit of a blabbermouth. I decided I loved blabbermouths, something I never knew about myself before. I watched the side of Roy’s pale, sun-weathered face as it went through a series of thoughtful expressions.

  “It’s hooey,” Roy continued. “A waste of good hooch to illicit such secrets. I’m much more interested in libations and fun than capers and conflict. Level with me.” He nailed me with his gaze, and I’d almost forgotten that I was having a casual chitchat with a revenant. There was a dark flicker in his eyes, but he controlled it, willed it away. “Was he, though?”

  “Was who what?” I asked with a guilty jolt.

  “This Mark Batten fella, the vampire hunter. Was he the love of your life?”

  Hoo-boy. I finished my glass, and asked the bartender for coffee, strong and black. The barkeep screwed up his face, but after Roy snapped twice an inch from
his lowered brow, he waddled off to brew some. It was clear Roy had a lot of sway down here. Was he the owner? A quick scan of the room showed me that everyone else was keeping one eye on us with varying degrees of wariness and subtlety.

  “Love of my life? I can’t say,” I said, aware once more that my alarm bells should have been ringing. They weren’t. If I was feeling anxiety, it was being masterfully whisked away, a possibility I did not entirely discount. “My life isn’t over yet.” I hope.

  Roy liked that and slapped the bar in what seemed like solidarity. “You still carrying a torch?”

  “No point in carrying a torch for the dead,” I said truthfully.

  “Still mourning him, then?”

  That, I couldn’t lie about, either. Not to a revenant who would taste my lie. “No matter how much vodka I drink, no matter how many Danishes I stuff in my mouth, no matter how many times I soak my pillowcases with tears wondering what clues I’d missed, what mistakes I’d made, the answer is always this dull, hollow ache in my chest that never goes away. And it’s pointless. I know it’s pointless. I don’t need this, Roy, I don’t need it.”

  “Then why are you wasting so much energy keeping him alive up here?” He indicated my temple.

  “Right? If you know the answer, you tell me.”

  Roy shrank in his bar stool, and all the strength seemed to drain from him. I searched the side of his face for clues and found shades of the living man he’d once been, a man who had craved and lost a dozen times over, before and after UnDeath. Bared before me, he seemed like he was considering dropping the roguish charm and being vulnerable and real with me.

  “You’ve felt the same thing,” I said softly, with care. “You still do.”

  One of his shoulders bounced up dismissively as if his pain wasn’t a big deal. “Don’t razz me, now.”

  “I’m not. You’re doing what I’m doing. You’re entertaining painful memories, going over the past, harboring the ache. Nurturing it. Letting it grow over time.”

  “Voluntarily,” he admitted. “So many years later that I’ve stopped counting.”

  “Who?” I asked, careful to say it gently.

  “Does her name matter? Should I say it aloud?”

  I reached over and put my hand near his forearm, changing my mind about touching him at the last moment. “You don’t have to.”

  “Even if I could somehow get out, I’m not convinced I want to. Not yet. Because it keeps her alive, see?” He wilted further. “She’s forever dead, but my pain keeps her here with me. When I lose the pain, I lose her for good.”

  I understood that so completely that my eyes strung with sudden tears, hot and unbidden. He no longer had the ability to feel love — immortality had its price. But he could feel all the pain around his loss. That seemed cruel. “I’m surprised you’re telling me this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled. If a bad-ass like you is fumbling through the same emotional swamp and keeping your chin clean, maybe I can, too.”

  “You’re doing swell, cookie,” Roy allowed, and the soft sympathy is his voice melted my defenses further. “You and I, we need to do the same thing. We know what it is, we’re just not there yet.”

  I made an uncertain, noncommittal noise and frowned sadly.

  “Holding onto the dead never works,” he said, either to himself or to me.

  I turned to look at the bartender, hoping he couldn’t tell that I was teary-eyed in the low lighting, and took my coffee, grateful for the heat in my palms. I remembered Batten walking away from me, time and time again. I could never hold onto him, even when he was alive. Now that he was immortal, he was truly out of reach. “I guess not.”

  “It won’t break you, cookie. It’ll only feel like you’re shattering into a million pieces. You’re not, though. We’re not. And wherever we crack, well, that spot will need a little mending.”

  “What if it can’t be mended?”

  “Then keep that part a secret, so no one can use it to hurt you fresh,” he advised. “Hey, let’s have a round for the lot!”

  The bar patrons murmured appreciatively and the barkeep summoned a helper. Roy knocked the bar again, and when he had the barkeep’s attention, he tugged his earlobe in some signal before bouncing off the barstool and motioning with his head. I didn’t miss it when the barkeep went to the bar fridge and got out a bag of blood. “Let’s head back. Zorovar should be at rest by now, and Steve, that sad bunny, likes to take the iron for a spin.”

  “Iron?” I shot him a confused look and followed him back out into the hall.

  Roy mimed holding motorcycle handlebars and waggled his eyebrows.

  I snort-laughed and accepted his hand to lead me back down through the dark tunnels. I fetched the gun from the stairs, and tucked it in my pocket. This time, Roy sang “Roll the Old Chariot” in the dark, and I didn’t know any of the words, but the tune was vaguely familiar, so I hummed along. He put some gusto in it when the flooring got weak and soft underfoot, holding my hand a bit more surely, and when we reached the sagging wood of the ladder up into Zorovar’s home, he tapped my shoulder and motioned for me to stop. He slipped up into the dim hallway ahead of me first, checked both ways, and then invited me up with both hands.

  When I felt his arm settle around my shoulders, I didn’t flinch. It felt fine. It felt friendly and safe and right.

  Roy sniffed my hair subtly. “Menthols, eh? Got a fag for me?”

  “No, only my companion smokes.”

  He cracked another smile. “Copacetic, doll. Give us a kiss, then.”

  I went up on my toes and gave him a kiss where he was pointing, in the middle of his cheek. Then I drew back and frowned. “I like you, Roy. I don’t trust you, but I like you.”

  “I’m glad of that, cookie. You’re the snake’s tongue, you are.”

  “Is that good?”

  His head rocked back and he laughed with delight. “Hit me up when you’re wanting another snoot full. Off with you, now. I think your beau approaches.”

  Uh oh. It wasn’t possible. It was only a bit after noon. Isn't it? Harry should be home at rest. My gaze flickered past the nectar splatter on the walls to the shuttered windows. The glow of the sun that should have been light the slats had gone. How could have so much time have slid past me?

  He'd been mesmerizing me. Had I fallen asleep? I couldn’t find any black-out moments, anything that seemed like a jagged seam. Our conversation hadn’t had any breaks. No one had reacted as though I’d been out cold for a while. I slapped and groped my throat to make sure there were no new fang marks. There weren’t. Had I been in a trance, spilling my guts? What answers had he gotten out of me?

  I turned to confront him with it, but he was gone. “Roy?” I yelled into the dark, not expecting an answer and certainly not getting one.

  My warning bells weren't ringing, which was setting off my less-useful secondary warning bells. I felt groggy in a nice, warm way, and that should have worried me more. At least Zorovar’s aggression had been clear, fair, and obvious. Rotten Roy’s was a seduction, and I was having trouble being upset about it. The pleasure of his company lingered.

  Great, I've been psychologically roofied by a silver-tongued devil, a middling nip of scotch, and a decent cup of coffee. It was going to be awfully difficult to explain that to Harry.

  I hurried out of the house, closing the door firmly behind me, halfway hoping Malashock might decide it was time to ride in like a one-woman cavalry and take care of the problems within on my behalf. I heard a motorcycle approach and reached for the gun in case Steve was still looking to kick my ass.

  A rider stopped their motorcycle beside the hearse, bracing their legs on either side, and took their helmet off, revealing mussed sandy hair and a softly receding hairline, one that was forever frozen in time just so. In the soft darkness that fishermen knew as nautical twilight, when the sun was safely tucked at the horizon, Harry’s eyes flashed chrome.

  “Ducky,” Harry said curtly, voice tight with anger. “You
didn’t answer any of your text messages, nor could I rouse you through the Bond. You can imagine what I thought.”

  Hoo-boy. “I’m sorry, Harry. What time is it?”

  “You don’t know?” he asked, his pupils nearly platinum now in warning. “I see. That can only mean one thing. You’ve met Captain Harvey, I expect.”

  I felt my shoulders sag. “I liked him.”

  “Everyone likes Roy Harvey, he’s everyone’s friend,” Harry said disapprovingly with a cluck of his tongue, echoing Roy’s own opinion of himself with a sarcastic twist. “Perhaps if you’d mentioned your plans for the day, I could have advised you.” He kicked the stand down and came over to look at me more closely, his gaze catching mine easily. I submitted to his preternatural probing completely, letting his mind roll through mine unhindered. “His drink loosened your tongue.”

  “I only had one.”

  “You spoke of love and loss.”

  It sounded bad. “I’m so sorry, Harry.”

  “What’s done is done,” he said, giving me a look that said to agree with him no matter what came next. “You blame me for Mark Batten’s death, I know this. But your disappointment does not need to be worked over in public light, my advocate. My own pet’s heartache is certainly no business of Captain Harvey. Is that understood?”

  “Hundred percent,” I said quickly.

  “Are you capable of driving, DaySitter?”

  “Yes, Harry,” I said obediently, wary of the way his eyes were gleaming.

  “Into the hearse with you, then. I will follow behind.”

  “Yes, Harry,” I repeated, fishing out my keys. When I grabbed them, I got a sudden, Combat Butler flavored jolt of sensation. I looked down at my bare hands, and so did Harry.

  My gloves were missing. Roy must have removed them, but I didn’t recall him doing it. I remembered my bare hand on the bar near his forearm, not touching him. Had I removed the gloves? When? I hadn’t clued-in to them being gone while he walked me out. What had he done with my bare hands? He knew I was Empathic, but did he know I was also a Groper, a psychometrist? He must have. The gloves would have been a big clue, even if he’d never heard of me, and he had.