Brandon's Very Merry Haunted Christmas (Mack's Marvelous Manifestations Book 1)

by AJ Sherwood

  “Bisexual,” he answered without hesitation. “And discomfort about it.”

  “That hit the nail on the head,” I grumbled, for lack of a better response. Bisexual, huh? The confirmation was comforting. Maybe. Still weird.

  “I think you’re laboring under a misconception, Brandon.” Jon turned to face me directly, those penetrating blue eyes seeming to see right through me. “Your brother might have given you the wrong impression. Most bisexual people aren’t fifty-fifty. They’re skewed; they normally favor one gender over the other. Donovan’s the odd one.”

  My head came up sharply. Really? I’d honestly not looked into it. Donovan had always been so open about whatever he thought or felt, I assumed I knew what it meant to be bisexual. It didn’t occur to me to do any research on it. This news gave me a sense of ease. “Eight months ago, for the first time ever, I met a man I wanted to date. It was weird. I didn’t know what to do with that feeling. I thought I was straight up until that point. And I haven’t met another man since I thought the same thing of. But that’s normal?”

  Jon shrugged casually, as if this was no big deal. “Yes. It just means you’re very skewed to one gender. Nothing wrong with that.”

  I let out a huge breath I wasn’t aware I’d been holding, feeling like he’d just lifted a grindstone off my neck. “Damn. Just…damn.”

  He gave me an understanding smile. “There, see? Better to have it out in the air, right?”

  “All this time, I felt like something was off with me. Because it didn’t make any sense. And suddenly realizing I didn’t know myself as well as I thought I did, that was an unpleasant shock to the system.” Of course, he knew all that. Still, he listened to me patiently, never taking his eyes off of me. Don really had done well, picking this one to fall for. “Jon, I feel like I ought to hug you.”

  “By all means. I never turn down hugs.”

  I wrapped him up in both arms, hugging him strongly enough to lift him off his feet, and he sighed happily against my chest. “I love Havili hugs. Your whole family gives the best hugs.”

  Amused, I set him back down gently. My brother would have my head if I accidentally broke his boyfriend. I really did feel so much better to have it all out; to know I wasn’t strange. Or weird. That it wasn’t a fluke. Did I need to sleep on it a bit and get more comfortable with the idea? Sure. But I didn’t feel like my own skin was ill-fitting anymore either.

  Jon turned his head like he was attuned and said, “Donovan’s back at the car. You good now?”

  “Yeah, man. Thanks.”

  He patted my chest, and we turned to walk back. As I kept pace with him, I couldn’t help but ask, “You think it’ll happen again? Me meeting a guy I want.”

  “Sure. It might be rare, but it’s not like the possibility is zero.” His eyes were sharp on me again. “Do you want it to happen?”

  On this point, at least, I was confident in my answer. “If I could have what you and Don have? I really don’t care what gender my partner is.”

  “Smart answer. And that’s flattering, thanks.”

  I kept the thought carefully to myself that Don needed to propose. I really liked the idea of Jon being my brother-in-law. With their psychic bond, it wasn’t like they were in danger of splitting up because of a lack of commitment, but still.

  We climbed back into the Humvee, this time with me driving to give Jon a break. It wasn’t a quick trip to Arkansas from Tennessee, after all. Although that did beg a question I hadn’t thought to ask. “Hey, Jon? How are you and planes?”

  “Like hairspray and a flamethrower,” he answered with a pained sigh. “Too many electronics.”

  Yeah, I could see that. “So basically, if you can’t drive to it, you can’t go.”

  “Well, boats are mostly okay, if they’re large or manpowered. But planes are straight out.”

  “How often do psychics have trouble with electronics?”

  “It’s honestly rare,” Jon answered, leaning in between the front seats to converse more easily. “We have to be running pretty high in order to fry anything. I have lousy shields, hence my effect on things. But most psychics handle electronics just fine. It’s only when they’re doing a more intense reading, or are so exhausted or hurt that their shields are kaput, that there are issues.”

  Huh. Now that was interesting. I’d heard Jon was basically on high all the time and wasn’t able to turn his ability down. I hadn’t realized other psychics could sometimes be just as destructive under the right (or wrong) circumstances. “What about mediums? Like the guy we’re going to see, does he operate like a psychic?”

  Jon hummed in thought. “Yes and no. Technically, a medium is a psychic, but only in the broadest sense of the term. Truthfully, they were put in with the rest of us because no one was sure how else to define their ability. Their talents work a little differently than ours do. To them, spirits and demons are just like people. They interact with them just as I would you or Donovan. They don’t have shields for psychic energy, and they don’t really register as psychic when tested.”

  Something else I hadn’t known. “So mediums don’t need anchors?”

  “Ah, that’s the sole thing we have in common, actually. Mediums do. Because they can’t always differentiate between human and spirit, they need someone else to help anchor them. They also need an anchor to back them up when they’ve used too much energy and need to be hauled off. It takes a different skillset, you could say.”

  Donovan snorted in disagreement and shot his lover a look. “Really? Because I have to keep track of you when you get sucked into reading someone’s lines and haul you into dark rooms to recuperate when you’ve overdone it.”

  “Yes, but as we can all agree, I’m not normal,” Jon retorted sweetly.

  Yeah, not touching that with a ten-foot pole. “But I’d more or less learn how to back up a medium by learning from Don?”

  My brother gave me one of those looks that meant he was contemplating straight jackets. “You’re not seriously interested in going into the spooky branch of the FBI, are you?”

  “It may have come up when I was talking to the recruiter,” I admitted. “I’m not easily scared, I think ghosts are cool, and apparently those two traits are not so commonly found in one person. He told me I had to shadow a psychic first, get the gist of what to do, and then we’d talk placement.”

  Donovan looked at me like I’d finally lost my grip on sanity.

  I shot him a challenging grin. “What? You’re saying you don’t want a ghostbuster in the family?”

  He sighed a gusty, mountainous sigh. “At least you’d learn not to drag ghosts home with you.”

  “Hey, that was a one-in-a-million thing,” I protested.

  “Suuure. You stay at a haunted hotel in an infamously haunted town, but you bringing a ghost home with you was a one-in-a-million shot. Uh-huh. Next you’ll tell me you found the end of a rainbow.”

  “Well, actually—” I broke off in a manly yip when he poked me in the side.

  “Boys, boys, not while he’s driving,” Jon reproved. “Stop worrying, Donovan. The FBI consultant we’re going to meet is retired, but he’s got a new guy he’s training. With two people, we’ll be able to sort this out sooner rather than later. And then we can enjoy the hot springs and go home, yeah?”

  Donovan grumbled something unintelligible.

  Personally, I didn’t think sorting out the problem of our ghost was going to be nearly that easy or quick. This had the feeling of taking more than a day to solve. But if I’d learned anything as an adult, it was when to keep my opinions to myself.

  3

  Crescent Hotel and Spa wore its age well. It was an 1880s build, or thereabouts, and it had the stone façade and tall, gabled roofs of its time period. I seriously loved the architecture on this place, and it had been one of the reasons why I’d stayed there.

  As we pulled into the parking lot, I could see my brother start to question every life decision that led him to this point. I
f not for the love of the little blond at his side, nothing would get Donovan past the city limits, much less through the doors of a haunted hotel.

  Before he slid out of the Humvee, I leaned in and offered, “You need me to do a Sipi Tau with you?”

  Donovan sighed gustily, still staring at the hotel mournfully.

  “Sipi Tau?” Jon questioned from the backseat.

  “Tongan battle cry, only it’s got a war dance that goes with it,” I explained. “Traditionally, you do it to get your courage up. Not just battles, but anything you need empowering for. Our parents made sure we learned some of our heritage growing up, so we all know how to do it.”

  Jon perked up with interest. “Yeah? I’d love to see that.”

  I poked my brother in the ribs again. “You need me to? I’m down.”

  Donovan sighed again. “Don’t tempt me. Let’s just get this over with.”

  Hey, I offered. Not on me if he chose not to. We pulled bags out of the back, and I carefully handled the well-wrapped snow globe. Better me than Donovan or Jon. Jon wouldn’t actually care, but my brother would not look at Jon juggling a ghost favorably. He was protective of his boyfriend. It was frankly amazing he trusted me to watch Jon’s back while we played detective with the ghost hunters. I mean, my brother trusted me. I’ve never questioned that. But relinquishing Jon into my care? That was huge.

  The front desk clerk was a nice man who checked us in with professionalism and a smile. I had just been handed my room key when I heard a somewhat-familiar voice pipe up behind me.

  “Havili? Brandon Havili?”

  I turned to see the speaker. Right behind me was a man of about average height—meaning he’d be lucky to hit my shoulders—with a curious expression on his face as he looked up at me. Thick, brown hair waved and curled in a flattering way around his face, his light brown eyes glowed amber under the lights, and he looked touchable and squishy.

  Damn. That’s the cutest twink to ever twink.

  Wait.

  What?

  My libido chose one hell of a moment to find another guy to be attracted to. I’d barely wrapped my brain around the first one. I mentally slapped the attraction down and rebooted my mouth to say something instead of standing around like a gaping moron. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Oh, good. I thought I recognized the voice. I’m Mackenzie Lafayette.”

  This was the guy I was supposed to be working with for the foreseeable future? He did not look like a ghost wrangler. First of all, he was too cute for that. Second of all, how was I supposed to handle this? I didn’t know how to flirt with my own gender, dammit.

  Social training kicked in and saved me again from standing around like a mute idiot. I held out a hand. “Nice to meet you in person, Mackenzie.”

  “Mack’s fine,” he said, taking it in a firm grip.

  I introduced the two standing by, watching this play out. “My brother, Donovan, and Jonathan Bane.”

  Mack shook their hands too, all genuinely happy smiles. I tried to tell my libido those smiles weren’t meant for it specifically. It didn’t care and was trying to override my common sense.

  I was well aware I had a type. All my life, I’d been attracted to women who were a little on the plush side. I liked them soft and cuddly. I wasn’t into the physically fit build. Don’t ask me why; it was just what I gravitated to. That apparently applied to men, too. Mack didn’t have an ultra slim, packing muscles kind of build. He had some softness around his middle and looked really cuddly and huggable.

  Jon, of course, caught all of this. His eyes darted from me to Mack and then back again before his eyebrows rose sharply. I shrugged at him. What could I say? Apparently, the possibility of me finding another man attractive had happened sooner rather than later.

  “I actually came over to the hotel to clear it with the manager for us to do the haunting investigation here,” Mack said to all of us. “It’s good timing that I bumped into you. I wanted to touch base and figure out a plan before we really tackled things tomorrow. Would you like me to take your ghost for tonight?”

  Donovan gave him a look that suggested puppy love. “Please?”

  “Her name is Emma,” Jon said. “My mother was able to talk to her to some degree, and wrote down everything Emma told her. It’s in with the box with the snow globe.”

  “That’s helpful, thank you.”

  I carefully transferred the box over, our fingers brushing during the transfer. He ran a little cold, or at least his hands were. For my brother’s sake, I asked, “Would you take a look at our hotel rooms and see if anything’s hanging around?”

  “Sure, I’d be glad to do that for you.” Mack gave Donovan such a sincere look of sympathy I almost melted from it, and it wasn’t even aimed at me. “I understand you’re not comfortable with spirits. I’ll lay down some salt, too, to keep your room free and clear. That way you can rest easy.”

  Donovan visibly relaxed a few notches. “Thanks. I really appreciate that.”

  “No problem. What room number are you in?”

  “Three-twelve.” Jon led the way to the stairs. “Sorry, elevators aren’t a good match for me.”

  Mack waved it off. “Quite alright. I was warned about you. My phone’s in my back pocket. Do I need to worry about it?”

  “Only if I’m in direct contact with it. Long-term exposure will eventually kill things, but it normally takes a direct touch to have an immediate effect.”

  “Ah, good. I was worried about the crew’s equipment, too. But if you can navigate around them, it should be fine.”

  “It will be. I just have to use Brandon as a shield.” Jon gave me a wink over his shoulder as we crossed a landing.

  I shrugged; that was basically what I was here for.

  Mack gave me an intense stare, and I swear he was trying to read my mind. “I’m not clear on this. I know you’re probational and in training, but in training for what exactly?”

  “Psychic department, specifically ghost wrangling,” I answered. “My recruiter is very firmly of the opinion that I’ll make a good anchor, and he wants to shove me in there first, see if I connect with anyone. That and I actually like ghosts, which is apparently rare.”

  “It is, more than you’d think.” Mack seemed very excited about this information, his free hand coming up to illustrate as he spoke. “And that’s great. That means we’ll likely be paired up in the future at some point. I’m about to get passed—this is my last job as a proby—but I’m not partnered. They’ll put me on a rotation with anyone who’s expressed interest to be an anchor until I find someone I click with. When will you be done shadowing these two?”

  “Ah, about two and a half weeks, thereabouts.”

  “So really soon? Cool. It’ll be nice to partner up with someone I already know. I don’t know that many agents. I’ve basically been training with Hannah and Beau this whole time.”

  Jon paused at the top of the stairs to frown at Mack. “I thought you had to already be partnered before they let you be an agent.”

  “Yeah, they’re relaxing the rules on that a bit,” Mack informed him, shrugging. “Or so I’m told. There’re too many people with talent they want to keep. They’ll now work with you on finding an anchor if you don’t already have one. I’m really glad. No one around me at home was willing to. I’ve got better odds working with the FBI.”

  I couldn’t understand how anyone would look at this man, who was not only cute but also good natured, and think he wasn’t worth the effort of protecting. Of supporting. Were the people around him just selfish or blind? And could I smack them? I wanted to smack them.

  We reached our rooms before I could ask things that were likely none of my business. Mack went straight in, looking around curiously—rather like a real estate agent evaluating a new piece of property. I was too curious to stand there and just watch. I put my suitcase down and shadowed him. “Can I ask what you’re looking for?”

  He didn’t look at me, but his tone was friendly
as he responded, “Sure. So basically, spirits have different stages that they’re in. The older ones are sometimes so exhausted and low on energy there’s barely any sort of presence. Fresher spirits have more vitality more often than not. But if the conditions are right, an old spirit can still have a lot of presence, even a hundred or three hundred years later. Usually if there’s limestone or quartz in the area, that helps them. Also, if those stones are around, there is the possibility of a residual haunting.”

  Donovan hadn’t stepped foot in the room yet, but he hovered just inside the doorway. “What’s the difference?”

  “A residual haunting isn’t an active spirit. It’s just a memory. Think of it like a snapshot of a moment that plays over and over like a broken record. Nothing’s actually there to interact with. Mediums find residual hauntings irritating because we have to watch them for a few seconds before we can determine if the spirits are the type to be responsive or not.”

  I’d read up on a lot of this, but I liked how Mack explained it. He was good at putting all of this into layman’s terms.

  Mack stopped dead in the center of the room and nodded. “I don’t sense anything in here. What I’ll do is line the window and door with salt. Just renew the salt line every morning and make sure to step over it, okay? A broken line will give a spirit the ability to pass through.”

  Donovan nodded instantly. “Any kind of salt?”

  “Or sugar. Rock salt works best, though. Should I check the other room as well?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to seal off my room. I’m kinda hoping something happens. Nothing did last time.”

  Mack smiled up at me, and I could tell he was delighted with my attitude. “Yeah? You stayed here before, you said that, but you were hoping for a sighting?”

  “Sure. I’ve only seen a ghost once before. I’ve never been able to repeat the experience, and I’m really aggravated about that.”

  Donovan sighed heavily and told me point blank, “Tokotaha faikehe.”