by Kat Turner
Parallel rows of black poles fashioned to look like Victorian gaslights lined the walkway, their gentle light blending with the cool glow from a fang of a moon peeking out from fast-moving, gauzy clouds. Jonnie inhaled the river’s rich aroma, a sense memory of smelling the Thames as a boy bubbling up in his mind. Felt almost like a part of him had been transported back to the nineteenth century, into some mythological corner of the past where an immortalized Jack the Ripper could slink out from behind a tree.
Yeah. The vampire in him was taking over. What did that mean? Could he expect more changes to his mind and thought process? As if in response to his ruminations, his heart jumped. Was he feeling anticipation? Did he have a desire to stick around and find out all that vampire life entailed? Bollocks. He shut off the chatter in his head. “I was hoping you could help me with my condition.”
“I’m a mortician, not a medical doctor. Is there a spiritual component to it?” Her lightning-quick reply coming out both wary and curt, Eve proffered him a narrow-eyed look. She had her guard erected. Fair enough.
“Yes. I need you to save my soul. You can save souls, right?”
Eve waited a beat. Faint traces of downtown revelry provided background noise to the quiet park. “In a sense.”
“So you can help me.”
“How?” Her voice approached a whisper and came with plenty of confusion.
The request he prepared in his mind no longer issued from a completely authentic place, and she would be able to tell. With any luck, she’d dig deeper and uncover the truths that eluded his conscious awareness.
A light breeze blew, though the air grew heavy, weighty. Sounds filled his ears. A dog’s yappy bark. A rhythmic thunk of the boat hull against the dock, an errant whoop.
Had his hearing always been ultrasensitive, or did the heightening come from the vampirism progressing? Or did paranoia about the vampirism progressing prompt him to notice what had always been there and ascribe a state of change to what was, in fact, a constant state?
Why in bloody hell did it make his insides teem with excitement?
These days, he often felt like he’d fallen through a portal in his own head and landed in a twisted funhouse. Worry knotted his heart. Was he going mad? Wasn’t that a thing, vampires turning into madmen?
Seeking some semblance of grounding, he looked at his hands while wringing them. She wasn’t going to like his answer to her question on how she could help, but no better time than the present to spit the fuck out how he was worth more dead than alive. “By killing me.”
Each syllable stretched, the pauses between them infinite, before finally scattering through the night air as ashes. Her soft feet padded on concrete as they walked. He shouldn’t be able to hear such soft footfalls, right?
Why wasn’t she saying anything? His ash-particle words hardened into lead and dropped into the swirling river like coins into a wishing well. A frightening, tantalizing influx of curiosity about how Eve would react kept him on the hook.
“I don’t do assisted suicide.” Her voice was too crisp, though, too automatic. The sound of denial. Some wall of hers vaulted up higher, a wall he longed to smash without knowing why.
Toeing wet leaves out of his path, he forged ahead. “I’m already dead. You’d be exterminating my body and seeing that my soul, if I have one, passes on to what’s next. There is more than this, right?” He waved a hand in the air.
Perhaps, in a sense, he sought Eve out for reassurance that more existed beyond the physical world in all its ugliness. Greed. Abuse. Heinous diseases killing innocent girls. Could she show him a corner of beauty deep within the recesses of his dark heart?
“There is an afterlife.” Eve’s confident posture underscored the conviction in her speech. “And I have a feeling you’re going to circle back to your vampire theory, aren’t you?”
Jonnie smiled at the sight of Eve’s profile, her button nose and the smattering of black freckles dusting her cheeks. But more so, he smiled at her dry, irreverent tone. In his bones, he knew that he wouldn’t scare her off. Besides, he wished to commission her services, not woo her into a romantic relationship. Full and unfettered honesty could flow in a current between them. “Yes. I’m a vampire, like I stopped short of saying at your house. I wasn’t kidding.”
“For real?” She didn’t miss a beat in delivering her earnest question.
His smile grew alongside his respect. She was brave and calm, open-minded yet logical. It seemed stupid to attribute these qualities to her like he knew her, but he did it anyway. Eve yanked him out of his own head the same as music did. Made him aware of the present moment and able to lose himself in pleasure. That such a feeling had an expiration date gave it a bittersweet quality. A quality akin to the power of love, which was powerful due to the threat of grief snatching one’s beloved away. Considering Cara’s ordeal, he classified grief as a shadowy cousin to love.
“For real.” He didn’t allow himself to touch her lower back again, because romance or seduction didn’t factor into the plan.
They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, the river gurgling to their left. Birds, bats, and bugs—he could now discern each species’ unique vocalization—supplied a harmonious chorus. His hearing sharpened by the second.
“I don’t know how to deal with undead. It’s outside of my area of expertise. Until today I didn’t believe they existed.” She delivered her statement in a bone-dry deadpan. Damn, this woman interested him. Did she appreciate the macabre? Seemed to suit her, with her mordant manner, her magnetic blend of tempered affect and empathetic responsiveness. What a fine combo of personality traits.
He could kiss her now. Stop this walk along the river her and claim her lips. Because she was so goddamn cute and professional and smart and…something that he burned for her. Eve had the X factor, magic difficult to quantify. “Surely you could learn.”
“Well maybe, in theory, but I have no idea how long it would take. I’d have to do a ton of research. Don’t you leave soon? For your next tour stop?”
He stopped walking and touched her elbow, stilling her. She didn’t pull away, so he spoke from his heart before he could overthink. Before he could change his mind. “Yes. We leave in the morning. Come on tour with me until you figure it out. You could catch up with me on the next stop if you need some time, but I need your help, Eve. My niece is sick. This vampire condition is getting worse and sucking up all my money. I need to stop paying medical people. The money could go to my niece. If I pass on, I free up my inheritance. Name your price, of course.”
She looked up at him with her deep pools of eyes. Gentle wind caused goosebumps to bloom on his neck and made her hair dance. The charms of evening swept Jonnie into their spell, singing invisible, imperceptible songs of allure and danger. The river blew a breath of wet earth touched by decay into his nose.
Stepping closer to Eve, Jonnie parted his lips. He could hear her heartbeat. See it, even, as if her skin were translucent. Her fragrance overwhelmed him. He could take her up against a tree. Her blood would taste as sweet as sugar, and he’d drink himself stupid on it while his cock plunged into her.
The hypnosis bolted up his spine in an electric jolt, and he looked away before he stole her mind. This was madness. Madness he needed to end before he became a live wire of lust and depravity. He couldn’t look into her eyes, couldn’t risk doing something that would make her pliable, malleable, his. Like he owned her. His balls tingled, and he hated it. This was all twisted and sick, perverse. Not right, not him, and he needed it to end.
No more getting off on thoughts of vampire debauchery or fantasizing about Eve saving him from himself. He needed peace, solace, escape. Eternal rest. Death. “Please, Evelyn.”
“Alright,” she said. He couldn’t see her face with his gaze fixed on some crack in the sidewalk, but her voice, the voice of an angel about to spare what remained of his undead soul, smoothed ointment on his wound.
“Bless you.” He’d never uttered that phrase
before in his life. And he needed to keep his filthy vampire hands off this goddess before the monster overtook more of him than it already had. Because who knew what it was capable of if given free reign and full expression. But Jonnie wasn’t about to find out.
Three
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Meg pushed out a loud, dramatic whisper, her hazel eyes going bulbous. In one swift pull, she dragged Eve by the forearm, leading the women through a room of folks saying final goodbyes to Travis.
Eve trailed behind, bracing for proverbial impact. Perhaps she should have eased her best friend into the news that she would be joining the last leg of Jonnie’s tour as his spiritual counselor, but she didn’t care to fancy-pants around things.
Meg stopped the pair in a corner by the bathroom and ushered them behind the funeral home’s potted tree, its plastic leaves offering cover from the crowd.
“I’ve retained clients for ongoing projects before,” Eve lied, fanning her overheated face with a program of Travis’s funeral services. Air conditioning blasted through the parlor room, and a powder-scented candle added to its soothing atmosphere. Still, Eve’s favorite dress for services, a tea-length pewter number with a flared skirt, itched against her skin. At least she’d secured her hair into a French braid and didn’t have to worry about sweaty strands irritating her neck. “And I can’t believe you crashed a guy’s funeral to hassle me about how I render my professional services.”
Yes, Eve was acting impulsive. Brash, even. Who runs from her adult responsibilities to go on tour with a rock band? But she couldn’t reject Jonnie a second time.
She didn’t totally buy the vampire thing. But as she’d stood with him on the bank of the ripe Ohio River under a moonlit sky, she’d ridden the wavelength of his sincerity. She could help him, knowing deep in her bones that she could bring his anxious mind peace. Plus, Eve refused to allow another soul to experience torture on her watch.
Didn’t mean she had a damn clue on what to do, but it wouldn’t stop her from trying.
After all, she’d been flying by the seat of her pants since that first mortuary school cadaver had shared a sad life story. Liz from Montana, single mom, Iraq war veteran. An IED had detonated their Hummer. Shrapnel blasts turned Liz’s insides to hamburger and her once-pretty face into a horror movie mask. She’d suffered an excruciating death amidst the hell of war. The poor woman had begged for a closed casket service, as if there was any doubt.
Easing an angsty rock star’s spiritual malaise? Child’s play compared to calming the tormented souls Eve had guided to peace.
“Don’t lie and don’t change the subject. You’re going on tour with him? To do what exactly? And who will take over here?” Meg grabbed a complementary funeral cookie from a nearby snack table and nibbled, forehead scrunching into a frown.
A gaggle of tittering, gray-haired ladies, five stooped ravens in feathered fasteners with birdcage veils shielding faces, shuffled past. In the south, funerals were as much of an excuse to showcase one’s fanciest hat as they were a time to pay final respects.
One crone eyed a young mother across the room. “Brenda’s been working on her body. She looks fabulous.” After delivering her hushed morsel of gossip, the granny in a wide-brimmed, ebony masterpiece exploding with lace and fake flowers caught sight of Eve and pulled a somber countenance. “What a tragedy. Travis, gone too soon. But you’ve put together an absolutely grand affair, Ms. Adyemi.”
Schooling her mouth into a thin-lipped smile, Eve soaked up the brief moment of reprieve the biddies offered from Meg’s onslaught. She fingered a seam on the petal-pink chaise to the right of the plant. “Thank you. He led a life worth celebrating. How did you know him?”
“Will you ladies excuse us, please? I’m in mourning.” Meg oozed her sweetest southern charm, resting a hand over the strand of pearls overlaying a silk blouse the color of coal. Once the old women joined the other guests, Meg turned her attention back to Eve. “Are you in love with this guy, or what?”
Of course not, yet Meg’s words sent a rush of effervescent energy through Eve. Biting off a girlish giggle, she managed to roll her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. But if I can help him in any way, I damn sure will.”
Next step: figure out what to put in that “any way” blank.
Meg quirked a brow as she chewed and swallowed. Ugh, Meg had unleashed her psychologist’s eyebrow. “You want to absolve yourself of the guilt from hell-dimension girl.”
Eve’s stomach sank. She hated that subject. Fucking hated it. “Her name was Lacey. And no.”
Maybe, but no. Jonnie was a special case. She wouldn’t tread into the dark waters of euthanasia if he pressed the matter, but she bet he would not. The man needed counseling. Comfort. She could comfort his lost, maybe vampiric but probably not, soul. Like a life coach, almost. Yeah.
Meg tilted her head, messy brunette bun wobbling. “I can see it in your face. You’re reenacting the Lacey situation with a different player and a different setting.”
“Don’t analyze me.” Eve crossed her arms over her chest like the defensive gesture would stop Meg’s insight from invading her thoughts. Damn shrinks, always messing around in the mind, turning over rocks. Never leaving things alone.
With a sigh, Meg put up her hands. “Okay, sorry, the whole thing is just so weirdly impulsive for you.”
Tingles lit up Eve’s nerves, her senses heightening. A whiff of spicy-sweet lilacs and roses from Travis’s floral spray delighted her nose. Someone laughed at a Travis story. People hugged. At their best, funerals did celebrate life. And Eve loved that life-affirming element of her profession. In the same way, she treasured her work with the souls, cherished sending them to a better place.
There was more to life than ashes to ashes, dust to dust. A precious, mysterious reality existed in a playful dance of energy, a flow. Every now and again, time froze into something sublime, but the second one tries to name or catch the moment, it flits away like a fickle butterfly.
She lived for those fleeting glimpses, eternities she sometimes caught out of the corner of her eye. And with Jonnie, she had a feeling that those moments would unfold more often, like shy night blossoms. Maybe she could even plant a few flowers in Jonnie’s jaded heart. Show him their reality and beauty.
Her goal emerged into clear focus. The Jonnie project would rekindle the sense of wonderment that working with cadavers and death diminished. “Maybe I want more impulsivity in my life.”
“Who will take over here?” Meg pressed, leaning forward. Her jaw locked as her nostrils flared, giving her the look and vibe of a piqued pit bull.
“Fred.” Eve’s embalming apprentice had mastered his assignments. The serious, studious young man lived for his work. He would welcome added responsibility.
“Can Fred help the ghosts?” Meg concluded the pointed, non-earnest question with a smirk. All she needed to do was shout “gotcha.”
True, she couldn’t teach the ghostly aspect of her duties to Fred. Nobody besides her, that she knew of, possessed her gift. “The tour’s only one more week. I’ll fly back here if I need to process anyone before their funeral or if anyone at home needs to cross over.” Some reached out to her, some didn’t, and some started the process but never asked to pass fully to the afterlife. The entire thing amounted to a crapshoot that was likely determined by the deceased’s faith and relationship with spirituality.
Odds were a few would crop up, but one never knew, with the notoriously unpredictable death industry. She’d just have to wait and see. She needed a break, dang it, something in her life besides the funeral home and a cavernous mansion inhabited by ghosts. Hell, she felt like a ghost there, too. Floating around, lonely and alone, another forgotten anachronism amidst her inherited antiques and vintage furniture.
“That’ll get expensive.” Always the pragmatist, Meg plucked a single white cat hair off of her pants.
“I have a ridiculous amount of frequent flier miles.” No lies there. The last vacation she’
d taken had been years ago with her parents. Technically, she’d been tagging along for their anniversary trip. God, how lame. Time to shake up her routine.
Meg ate the rest of her cookie, staring with a combination of disbelief and amusement. “You’ve got it bad for this Jonnie guy. I mean, he’s hot, sure. And a mega-famous rock star, which I’ll grant you has serious appeal. But still.”
Her friend’s scalpel stare attempted to cut to the heart of the matter. But Meg was wrong. Eve had a mission. She wasn’t mooning, weak and boneless over a famous person.
“If by ‘got it bad’ you mean I’ve got a sense of duty. An ethical obligation.” Not that she’d admit it to Meg, but maybe she had a teensy little crush on handsome, thoughtful, and talented Jonnie.
Eve was no fool. Jonnie had looked at her with the glassy male gleam in his eye that meant one damn thing. His breathing changed in her presence. This all, admittedly, thrilled her.
So sue her, she craved a thrill in her life. Not like she’d act on it. She’d fulfil her obligations from an emotional and physical distance. Perhaps indulge a fantasy or two while self-servicing her sexual urges. Nothing more.
Meg snorted. “Yeah, right. Speaking of men, I think I’ll go commiserate with him.” She tipped her chin at an attractive guy in a sleek pinstripe suit. “Call me before you leave town, okay?”
Eve battled a grin as Meg sauntered off, short heels of her sensible pumps tapping against hardwood flooring. Sparkling with anticipation, Eve worked the crowd. She consoled Travis’s crying widow and listened to stories. Mind wandering to half-formed thoughts of the tour, she circled and chatted, complimented outfits, and stooped to entertain ignored children.
As the services ended, guests trickled out. Mourners exchanged hugs. Eve fielded praise and offered condolences.
When all was said and done, she turned off lights and locked up, the familiar routine bringing drudgery more than comfort. A procession of cars led by a hearse, engines humming, snaked through the building’s roundabout.