Kindred Spirits: The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 6

by A. J. Aalto

  Danni nodded. “The Soul Leech works differently.”

  “Is it similar to Kinship of the Departed?” I asked, and my belly gave a funny flutter. “Manipulating the attraction of the dead to the undead?”

  Her eyebrows raised a touch. “Yes. I guess you could say it operates in the same, uh, vein. The Soul Caller does not require an intermediary receptacle, as the bokor would, and once he calls forth a spirit by the power of attraction, he can perform his task body-to-body directly. I’m curious. The reports were unclear… what did the bokor use to hold the souls he’d collected?”

  I felt bad about sharing the disconcerting facts, but, since they'd already gone into the PCU's reports, it's not like they were a state secret. “Baby food jars.”

  Danni’s head darted back with disgust. “Oh, ick. No. That’s awful. How tacky and disrespectful.”

  “Yeah, I fuckin’ thought so, too.” I took a sip of my coffee and was glad when the hot, bitter taste flooded my mouth. I thought I might need a lot of caffeine tonight. “Would the person hosting Colonel Batten’s soul in their body aware of what's going on? Like, feel his personality? Taste his mojo?”

  “I should think so,” Danni said, “though if the colonel were old and tired, he may have given up fighting his captivity, and being felt by his host, a long time ago.”

  “Kind of like a Roomba with a dead battery, not banging into the walls anymore.”

  Danni grimaced, but nodded.

  “Could he be in control of the person’s body?”

  “Never,” she said firmly, shaking her head. “No matter how strong his spirit might be, he couldn't be the dominant soul inside this body. He would be an unwilling passenger. A witness to a daily life in which he cannot participate. At worst, he would be an unwelcome but powerless guest.”

  I thought about all the victims of the phantasm near Municipal Beach. Could they be hosting souls that had been torn from Aston Sarokhanian’s enemies? “Do you think a person with two souls might go insane?”

  “I’ve often wondered.” Danni’s eyes darkened. “I honestly don’t know enough to say one way or another. I’ve studied the Talents for several decades, but House Sarokhanian is fairly guarded about its bloodline.”

  At this point, her hands hesitated at the edge of the table, doing a little uncertain dance to her lap and back to the edge, then disappearing again as she made a decision. She fumbled in an unseen carrying case and withdrew a small folder. “I made you some copies of observations I’ve made for the last few years. You understand, I have permission from my companion to share this information with you. Otherwise…”

  I nodded solemnly, and didn’t question anything, not wanting to spook her into bolting. “That’s very helpful, thank you.” I left the folder on the table, afraid that if I touched it, she might change her mind. “What would happens if the body containing Colonel Batten’s soul was killed?”

  “Whatever the Soul Leech wants to happen, if he’s nearby.”

  I nodded at that, but said nothing.

  Danni continued, “The soul could pass on to the next realm, freed along with the host’s. It could be kept in some kind of receptacle. Or it could be shifted straight into another host. There may be other fates that I'm not privy to.”

  Colonel Jack could have been passed from body to body or body to receptacle who knows how many times. I didn’t want to be the one to tell Kill-Notch that his grandfather really could be stuck in some cheese as part of an elaborate shell game of soul-shuffling. “And the Soul Leech has to be close to where the soul is for him to exert control, do the old swaperino?”

  She nodded. “And aware that the death was occurring, so the timing has to be fairly precise. This sort of thing takes effort; drawing upon the infernal well of his deeper powers in order to manipulate the path of a soul. He does not do it casually, or on a whim.”

  Interesting. “It's hard work, and he'd be drained by the effort. He'd probably need to feed before and after, huh?”

  The Blue Sense roared to life as Danni’s anxiety shot through the roof, but she managed to keep it off her face, while my skin prickled uncomfortably. She seemed to consider not answering, but in the end, she put her Diet Coke down and nodded. “Terribly. For some time, yes. It is,” she searched the table for a hint, “arduous.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not looking for vulnerabilities. I don't have any kind of vendetta against Aston Sarokhanian. That grudge wasn't mine, it was Batten's.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” she said, “I just don’t like when weakened revenants are abused and taken advantage of. I’ve seen enough elder abuse in my lifetime, I don’t need to witness more. Now, if you’ll pardon me. I need to return to where I belong.”

  Elder abuse? Something about that phrase struck me in the belly like a fish hook and snagged hard. “Danni…?”

  “No, I really must go.”

  “Please, just one more thing,” I said, and took advantage of her attempts to shift out of the booth. “Do you know someone named Pascal? He may be a DaySitter. He may be a lycanthrope. He’s definitely nosy.” His pen was sexy…

  She looked genuinely confused and her eyes sought answers in the distance as her mind flipped through pages of past acquaintances. “You know, that name does sound familiar, and I can’t say for sure, but I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t like the name?”

  Danni shook her head slowly. “No, I wouldn’t want to remember who that was. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  She abandoned the table and most of her fries. I picked one up and dipped its crispy golden corner in ketchup before munching thoughtfully on it. I smelled Nyquist’s pot-stink before I heard his footsteps as he and Malashock rejoined me.

  “Well?” Liv asked, reaching for the folder Danni left. I swiped it away from her and she scowled. “What did you find out?”

  I pushed the plate at Nyquist. Surprisingly, he declined. Elder abuse. Why did that feel so important? Was she talking about the colonel? A Nazaire? Her own family? Someone else entirely? “A bit. Not too much I didn’t already know, or at least suspect.” I relayed all the information. Nyquist seemed glassy-eyed with excitement behind the stoned facade he was maintaining.

  “We should move onto the gaming floor,” Malashock suggested, “for phase two.”

  “They’ll be monitoring us,” I agreed, purposefully not looking to see if anyone was watching us. “Danni wouldn’t have come alone.”

  Nyquist looked a little dopey and lost, but Malashock explained that his part was done, and he should go wait in the van. After a moment’s hesitation, he obeyed. I watched him slouch off before hailing the waitress for the check and fishing out my wallet. I left enough to cover our drinks, the fries, and a healthy tip, then followed Malashock’s confident stride into the dark, loud depths of the casino.

  The plan was to ask about Ludovic until his curiosity nibbled our hook, so I sidled up to the cashier and asked, “Hey. I’ll take a hundred, and have you, uh, ever seen a really, really old guy here? Like, shockingly old. Probably doesn’t dress like a modern person? Maybe a Preferred Player’s card member. Name’s Ludovic Nazaire.”

  “I’m sorry,” the man at the desk said with an apologetic smile. “I can’t talk about members.”

  “Got it, no problem.” I took my chips and moved back through the crowd to find Malashock, keeping an eye out for Batten, who was undoubtedly lurking somewhere, and anyone who might pass for Ludovic Nazaire, age unknown.

  “Okay, here’s your tokens,” I said to Liv, trying to hand her a bucket. “Have at it. I’ll keep asking around. If you need me, text.”

  She shook her head. “You play. I’ll watch.”

  “But you don’t know what you’re looking for,” I said slyly. “You’re inexperienced with these types, right? It’s not like you’re, I dunno, secretly a — ” I mouthed the words vampire hunter at her accusingly.

  She ground her teeth, creating an unpleasant squeak that I could hear over the dinging an
d banging and commotion around us. She stepped towards me, close enough to bully me into planting my butt on a stool. As she did, I glimpsed one of her hands reaching for the opposite arm, where her hash marks reportedly were. “Who have you told?”

  I shrugged, and she crowded me with her face. I cranked mine back and ran out of space when my spine wouldn’t bend any further.

  “Better question — who told you?”

  I wasn’t about to tell her it had been Schenk that blew her cover. “If you haven’t been honest with me, why would you expect me to be honest with you?”

  “Because we’re in this together.”

  “Then give me all the information you've got, so I can be an effective partner. Does that not make sense to you?” I placed my forefinger in the hollow of her throat and began to press, backing her up with a pointed look so I could straighten without knocking foreheads with her. I whispered into her face, knowing my voice would be mostly lost under the sound of so many other people chattering. “Listen, I get it. You’re a big bad lone wolf, hunting monsters your way, thinking you can do this without me. I’ve lived this routine already, with a much bigger asshole than you. And you know how it ended?” I stopped with a blink. “Well, I mean, we had a lot of sex but then it got even worse. So unless you’re gonna start orally pleasuring Marnie-B on the reg, let’s not repeat his pattern, okay?”

  She stared at me with her jaws gripped tight, and finally said, “Ass.”

  “Self-awareness is healthy, good job.” I offered her a high five.

  She left me hanging but her lips pinched hard. To my surprise, she couldn’t keep the laughter out of her eyes. I think it surprised her too. “I can promise you, we’re not ending up in bed.”

  “My first time with him, we did it standing up. Well, we started that way.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head to clear the mental image.

  “So, other than the no-nookie decree, what's the other bad stuff?”

  “There’s gonna be a lot of bad stuff,” she promised. But then her chin fell in a series of reluctant nods. “There’s always bad stuff when vampires are involved.”

  I reminded, “They don’t like the V-word.”

  “Nobody gives a shit.”

  “You might,” I said, “if you need to negotiate with one.”

  “I don’t negotiate with the dead.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Wow, you’ve got the best lines, man,” I marveled. “That really needs to go on a t-shirt.”

  She glared at me. “You’re right, the bad stuff will be worse if we’re not on the same page. Maybe this isn’t the best time or place for apologies. Back to work. You play, I watch.”

  I shot her a two-fingered salute, and when she moved to go, I stopped her with a tap on her forearm. “But that’s a for-sure pass on the oral, though? I’d like a heads up so I can do some ladyscaping if it’s an option.”

  “Fuck off,” she said through a half smile, and disappeared in the crowd.

  I spun to the slot machine and told the screen, “Never hurts to ask, jeez.”

  The machine had two options for play: the old-timey pull handle, and the push button. I stuffed tokens in the slot, glad I chose them instead of the boring card, and pulled the handle immediately, not bothering to read the rules or the scoring. The game featured some kind of Wild West motif, and the wheels were heavy on the heifers and horseshoes. After a few close calls at a big pay out, I’d nearly emptied my token bucket and was relegated to muttering, “Fuck you, cows,” in less than fifteen minutes. I crammed the rest of them in with my thumb, peeved.

  I was gradually aware of someone else’s excitement nearby, a jittery feeling in my belly, a prickle in my palms, but it wasn’t coming from a gambler. The anticipation increased as the person approached, but they cautiously took their time. Similar feelings zinged my psychic wiring from ahead of me, but I studiously ignored them — there was a slathering of irritation in the mix, and that had to be Batten. I would absolutely not be making eye contact with him any time soon.

  “You have great affection for him,” the soft, unfamiliar male voice over my shoulder said, and though I sensed no anger, I stiffened, staring intently at my slot machine. The words were tainted with challenge. “For all of them, in fact. That’s lovely.”

  I made noncommittal noise, pretending a lack of anticipation. Here we go.

  “Many do not understand the relationship as well as you do,” he continued. “But then, you were very young when you gave yourself to the grave.”

  I pulled the handle again and watched the wheels spin. I did not get lucky. Story of my life right there. “Would you look at this shit? Horseshoe, a space between a couple bar thingies, double-bar, and then this thing? What is that, a cowbell? This game is really annoying.” I held out my hand without looking at him. “Got any more tokens?”

  “He’s been watching you tonight.”

  “Hey pal, who hasn’t?” I drawled, and pulled again. My luck was running low and I needed a win. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m heckin’ cute.”

  It was then that I caught a pair of dark eyes three rows over, sliding past the machines, weaving upstream against a steady trickle of people. His assessment of me was quick, a flash of amusement and intrigue, and then he became a pale blur, the type most mortals would mistake for a trick of the eye and a cold draft, the type I was very familiar with.

  The man at my shoulder said, “He would enjoy your company of an evening.”

  “My mommy taught me not to talk to strangers.”

  “A rule you break often, to your detriment.”

  Point: this fuckin’ guy. He’d watched my conversation with Danni Nazaire. I’m sure that had been the plan between them: watch the Great White Shark, tag-team the meeting, and assess the danger. This revenant and his crew were careful. Surely, they could sense I had no animosity for — or no recent reason to butt heads with — their house. This fuckin’ guy was another Nazaire buddy.

  “You’re sassy,” I said with more cheer. “I’m glad to learn that about you, whoever you are.”

  “I’m Dane. He’s Mr. Nazaire.”

  Dane and Danni. Cute. “I know who he is, Dane, I’ve been asking about him. And the minute I started, you asked about me, so you know who I am. I suppose I don’t have to mention that I’m not single or looking?”

  “He smells the mark upon you. The Raven of Night. Our houses are not unfamiliar with one another.”

  “I guess that’s an agreeable way of summing it up,” I said. “It hasn’t always been nicey-nice.”

  “Still, dinner and a movie?” he offered on behalf of his master.

  “I'm not down for Netflix and chill; we just met.”

  “Cinema and hors d'oeuvres, then?”

  “That depends on the movie, and whether or not I’m the appetizer, doesn’t it?”

  His chuckle was breathy. “He wants for nothing, I make sure of that. But he does so enjoy fresh attentions. And you are fresh.”

  Jackpot. My chips ran out on the slot machine, so I swung around on my stool to look at the slight male DaySitter before me. His build and youth said twenty, but the experience in his eyes said sixty at least — his immortal advocate’s ability to pass along the age-fighting V-telomerase was impressive. I wondered where Malashock had disappeared to, though I didn’t doubt her tracking skills. Between her, Batten, Dane, Ludovic, the casino's security system, and whatever guards were doing their regular floor patrols, I had more eyes on me than a twice-baked potato.

  Nazaire was a house of telekinetics, and his DaySitter would have the Talent, which meant if he really wanted to, he could probably just force my limbs to move and walk my sassy ass to dinner. Telekinetic humans usually went mad if they became too powerful, it was said, but Dane seemed in complete control of his faculties, which made me believe his Talent was sensibly constrained.

  “So,” I said, “he’s not hungry?”

  He dropped his voice. “Miss, would we be in a
crowded casino if Mr. Nazaire was hungry?”

  “I’m not hungry either. We can skip dinner, save him twenty big ones and a trip to Mickey D’s.”

  He flashed a smile, revealing half a mouth of shiny teeth on one side, and on the other, a false set that didn’t fit quite right. The effect was mildly startling, so I set my gaze strictly on his eyes, which were calf-gentle and deep brown. That’s when I noted the jagged scar cutting through his left eyebrow, ending in the crease of his eye, directly above the false teeth. An accident or a beating, I guessed, and likely pre-Bonding, as it hadn’t healed well. “If you’d care to follow me?”

  I slid off my stool, trusting Malashock to stick with us from a distance. We hit a side room that looked more suited for floor shows than gambling. Nothing was going on in the space tonight, which was either a lull in the action or Ludovic having reserved the space by means of cash or compulsion. In front of the door, a poster board announced a pre-Halloween showing of the original Nosferatu.

  Of course. I wonder if he likes it for the nostalgia, or if he thinks it's a comedy? I'd watched What We Do in the Shadows with Harry and Wes back at the cabin in Ten Springs, and had to basically carry Harry to his casket afterward because he was laughing too hard to walk.

  “Please forgive me,” Dane said, stopping me, “but I must search you for weapons.”

  “Hey, at least I’m gettin’ some kind of action tonight.” I put my hands against the wall and waited while he patted me down with swift, professional swipes. Finding nothing but my cell phone, wallet, and the valet receipt, he made a satisfied noise.

  “Master Ludovic awaits within.”

  “How will I find him in a dark theater filled with people?”