by Jenn Burke
I think if I’d been more with it, it wouldn’t have taken so long—especially since I could walk faster in the otherplane than I ever could in the material world. But my mind kept wandering and I’d come back to myself to find I’d stopped in the middle of the street and cars were driving through me, or that my body had decided we needed to sit on a park bench for a rest.
The sunset had painted the horizon a lovely shade of rose when I stepped through the front door of the house. Returning to the living plane didn’t take as long as getting into the otherplane had, and it felt more normal, so I hoped that meant my brain was continuing to heal. I resisted poking the back of my head for all of ten seconds, and when I did, I wished I’d waited longer. Yeah, it hurt way more in the living plane than it had in the otherplane, as I suspected it would. I leaned against the door for a second—long enough to catch a scent that was familiar, but not in the context of our new place.
Whisky. And if I could smell it from here...a lot of whisky.
I stepped deeper into the house and caught sight of the kitchen. Bottles of various fullness dotted the countertop, but most were empty. One had tipped over, which accounted for the aroma of eau de liqueur, but still. It was like someone had opened an amateur distillery in my kitchen. Or a liquor store.
I made my way into the living room where Hudson was crumpled on the couch. More bottles surrounded him.
“Jesus Christ, how many LCBOs did you go to?” Because I doubted one liquor store would sell him that many bottles at once.
Hudson said nothing, except to release a snore.
That wad of emotions threatened to unravel, but nope. Not yet. Not when I needed to reassure the man I loved. I crept up to him and crouched next to the couch. It was awkward, considering I was naked, but I couldn’t leave him here while I went to find clothes.
“Hud?” I kept my voice soft and my touch on his cheek even softer. “Honey, I’m here.”
I stroked his cheekbone and his brow until he opened his eyes and squinted at me. “Hi,” he said sloppily, his eyes closing again. “Good dream.”
“Not a dream. I’m here.”
Hudson pushed his cheek into my hand, clearly enjoying my touch, then froze. His eyes snapped open at the same time that his hand grabbed my wrist in an almost-painful hold. “Wes?” he whispered.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
Slowly he pushed himself up into a sitting position, never letting go of my wrist, as though he thought I’d fade as soon as he did. “Really? You’re here?”
“I’m here.”
“Oh—” His voice caught. “Oh, sweetheart, I—”
His expression broke into a thousand pieces and Hudson Rojas, gruff, grim, detached ex-cop, dissolved into tears.
I rose up and gathered him close. “Oh, baby.” It wasn’t a term I normally used with him, but it just came out. “Hud. I’m here. It’s okay.”
“I watched you die.”
“No, baby, I’m—”
“I did!” He wrapped his arms around me and clung to me, squeezing tightly enough that it was difficult to breathe. But that was okay—air was overrated. “You got shot. Right in front of me. You dropped and I realized—there was blood all over me. And underneath you. And—and I wanted to hunt down whoever did it, but you were lying there—”
“Lexi told you I wasn’t dead.”
He pulled back, his eyes red. “How do you know that?”
“I had dreams.” I frowned. “I’m not sure why there was a pirate and annoying parrot that attacked me, though.”
“Well...head injury.” He let out a watery chuckle, then hugged me close again. “She insisted you weren’t dead, but she didn’t see—she didn’t understand—”
I pulled back this time, and cupped his cheeks. “Hud, you know I died in 1933.”
“I know, but—”
“I don’t think you do. I was dead. For real, dead. The magic April did—it shouldn’t have been possible. She didn’t do magical CPR on me right after I died. It wasn’t like with you, where the vampire magic takes over the moment before you die. Or when I shouted at Isk to get back in his body. She reached into the beyond and brought me back.” I looked into his eyes. “I am dead, Hudson.”
I saw the moment that knowledge sank in. Funny, I’d always thought he understood. He’d accepted the idea that I was different so long ago, the same as he’d accepted the fact that I was somewhere on the spectrum of asexuality. I’d always equated the acceptance with understanding, but maybe I’d been wrong all this time.
He brushed a hand over my cheek. “You’ve always been so vibrant, so alive, that it never—I never realized. You know?”
I leaned into his touch. “It’s not like there are documented rules about me anywhere. Not like vampires.”
“Most of those are bullshit, though.”
“But the important ones aren’t.” I sighed. “I don’t even know my limitations. If you’d asked me yesterday if a shot to the head would be it, I would have said probably.”
“Sweetheart, you were shot five days ago.”
I froze. “Oh, Hud. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. You did nothing wrong.”
“What even happened?”
“We were at the street party. You remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“We were having fun, you were handing out punch, and then Priya appeared—”
Priya. There was something about Priya... But before I could nail down the thought, Hudson pulled me into his lap.
“I heard one shot and you went down. Everyone scattered, but there weren’t any other shots. And you were lying there, your eyes open... I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything.”
I leaned into him, shuddering. “God, Hud.”
“I should have... I don’t know. Reacted better. I was a homicide cop, for Christ’s sake. But—”
“I wasn’t supposed to ever die.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “The cops showed up, and Kat, and they determined the shot came from across the street. The Tremblay house. It’s been empty since the beginning of October... I think they’re overseas.”
“Did they find anything?”
“Not a damned thing. The house was completely clean. Iskander and Evan tried to track the sniper, but there was nothing. It was like they scrubbed everything away—physically and magically.” His arms tightened around me, as though he still couldn’t quite believe I was here. “Kat said they’re wondering if it was a professional hit. Something to do with one of our cases.”
“What, some pissed-off spouse hired a hitman?”
He grunted, his “I thought it was stupid too” grunt. “Or one of my old ones, and you getting shot was a mistake. But I couldn’t think of any suspects.”
I leaned my head on his chest and wrinkled my nose. “Jesus, you stink.”
He lifted one arm and checked out his armpit. “Yep.”
“C’mon. I’m cold, you stink...let’s have a bath.”
“Best idea.” His voice was breathy with wonder.
I helped him to his feet and we staggered upstairs together. The house was utterly silent except for our steps, and I knew the other part of the dream, where he’d sent everyone away, was true too.
“You’re kind of an idiot, you know,” I said as we reached the master suite bathroom. “Sending everyone away.”
He sat on the covered toilet while I ran the water in the giant sunken tub. “You saw that too?”
“You’ve got to flip your default hurting mode from isolation to leaning on your family.” I started helping him get undressed, since his fingers were less than graceful.
He grunted and let me pull off his clothes, lifting limbs as needed so I could remove his shirt, pants and underwear.
“Everyone would have been here to support you.”
“And seeing them would have reminded me that you weren’t there.”
I stopped, one knee pressed to the chilly tile, and looked up at him. “Like you would have forgotten without them here?”
“Shut up,” he said without heat.
We got into the bath when it was only half full and I soaped him up to get rid of the whisky-and-BO stench. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. He was a little ripe, but as a vampire, he didn’t sweat nearly as much as a human. My fingers trailed through his chest hair, tracing lines of muscle I would always remember, and I was startled to realize I was shaking.
“I got shot,” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I was in the morgue.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight and everyone saw you go down—there was nothing I could do but let them take you.”
“Did I—did they—” Bile rose in my throat. “Did they autopsy me?”
“Kat was all up for trying to postpone it, but she didn’t have to. Backlog,” Hud whispered. “Thank god.”
He opened up his arms and pulled me close as reality hit me like a fully loaded tractor-trailer. I curled up into his chest, my emotions exploding through me and leaving a hot mess behind. I didn’t cry so much as shake so hard I thought I was going to slip down into the water, but Hudson held on, and I knew he’d never let me go.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you.” He kissed my sweat-damp hair.
“I-I’m here. I don’t know wh-why it’s hitting me like this.”
“Because of what might have been.”
Yeah...yeah, that was exactly it. What if a shot to the head had been enough to send me to the beyond again? What if Hudson had been shot instead? What if—
“Enough,” he rumbled. Reaching forward, he shut off the tap, then leaned back and pulled me down with him. The tub had sloping sides, so he was able to sit in a reclined position while I rested on his chest. “There is no point in thinking about what might have been. Okay?”
“But—”
“No buts. No what-ifs. It’s just you and me, now and forever. I love you, Wes.” He squinted at me. “Or do I have to get used to calling you something else now?”
“Huh?” Then it dawned on me. “Oh, fuck. I need a new identity.”
It had been getting close to that time—I could only keep the same one for so long before people started looking at my driver’s license and thinking I was aging very well. But this was the first time the choice of when and how to adopt a new persona had been taken from me.
“And we’ll need to come up with a cover story for the neighbors. Everyone saw you go down.”
“New hair.” Ugh, that was going to be annoying. I hated being a brunet. “It’s really not that hard. People aren’t going to look at me and think I’m Wes Cooper. They might think I look just like him, but with how I, uh, died...” I paused, imagining the scene again, and my heart thumped. “No one’s first thought will be that Wes Cooper is still alive.”
“How did you make it back here? Did anyone see you?”
I shook my head. “I stayed in the otherplane. They’re going to have a hell of a time explaining where my body went, though.” I wrinkled my nose. “I feel sort of bad for Dr. Sorrento.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
We sat quietly after that, Hudson’s hand absently brushing up and down my back. It lulled me into a half doze, at least until the water started to cool.
“Let’s go to bed,” he suggested softly, and I was only too happy with that idea.
Most of the fog in my brain had lifted, leaving behind a need to sleep. Roles were swapped when we got out of the water, with Hudson taking the lead in drying us off. He guided me into the dark bedroom—thanks to blackout blinds—and got us into bed. He spooned up behind me, and that was all I needed before the switch flipped from awake to asleep.
I jolted back to consciousness some time later. Hudson snored softly behind me, still holding me close, and I was tempted to roll over, snuggle and forget whatever had woken me up. But then I heard it again—the gentle clanking of someone gathering bottles.
“It’s Priya,” Hudson mumbled. “She’s been coming in to check on me.”
Priya.
There was that thought I’d had earlier. There was something...
Eyes flashing all black. A step to the side. Impact.
“Shit!”
I jumped out of bed and scrambled into jogging pants and a T-shirt. Hudson was sitting up, blinking at me blearily, as I rocketed out of the bedroom door and down the stairs.
Priya was in the living room with two empty bottles in each hand. Her eyes widened as I slid into the room, and I didn’t waste any time—I called on my power, thankful I was healed enough for it to flood me, and let it show in my skin and my eyes.
“Reveal yourself,” I demanded.
Immediately her eyes transformed to all black, and when she spoke, the voice was not Priya’s London-accented lilt. “The burst of power was unnecessary,” she—it—said.
“The hell?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Hudson. “Look. Remind you of anyone?”
He took a hesitant step forward. “Priya?”
“Not at the moment, Uncle Hudson. She calls me Jet.”
I’d hoped I was wrong, that I’d misinterpreted the eye thing—for both Hudson’s sake and Priya’s. But here she—it—was, unmistakable. “You’re a demon.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jet tilted her—its—head sideways in acknowledgment. “If you will let me retreat, Uncle Wes, Priya will explain.”
Uncle Wes? I narrowed my eyes but eased up on the magic output. Priya shook her head and when she looked up again, her eyes were the familiar Rojas chestnut brown.
“Neat trick,” she said, her voice back to normal. “I knew Uncle Hudson was a vampire, and I reckoned you weren’t a normal human, but I wasn’t sure what you were. How the bloody hell are you alive?”
“He’s a god,” Hudson volunteered. “Start talking.”
Priya sighed and put the bottles on the floor before sitting on the couch. “This is not how I wanted you to find out. He’s right—I’m, well, possessed is the technical term, I suppose.”
“Jesus,” Hudson growled. “So you’re a demon.”
“No,” she said emphatically. “A demon shares my body. There’s a difference.”
“How do you figure?” he demanded. “You have an evil creature from the beyond living inside of you. How do you know you’re still you?”
“Because I do. You’ll have to trust me.”
A humorless chuckle escaped me. “I think the trust boat has sailed.”
Priya tilted her head in much the same way as the demon had, and I wondered if that was a Priya gesture the demon had adopted, or vice versa. “Fair enough.”
“This is why that...that Order of the Whatsit was after you. Shit. Where’s their card?”
“Why?” Hudson asked as I started checking the drawers in the tables.
“Because I’m going to call them.”
“Wes—”
I paused in my search. “What?”
“Maybe we should...talk this out.”
Straightening, I leveled a glare at him. “She’s a demon, Hud. Do you remember the last demon we tangled with? The one that almost killed you?”
“My memory works fine.”
“So you know that that—” I gestured at Priya “—is evil. End of story.”
“Oi. I’m not a that,” she protested. “And the situation’s a little more nuanced than you’re supposing.”
“Demon equals evil. It’s pretty simple math.”
She groaned and leaned back into the sofa. “Mate, you’re not even listening.”
But I didn’t have to. I’d only experienced one demon up close and personal, but I’d
read about them extensively—that had been the one section of Lexi’s manual of the paranormal that I hadn’t skimmed through. Demons were, for all intents and purposes, the opposite of gods. Same concept, different application...in a way. Both demons and gods were denizens of the beyond. They had to be summoned. The biggest difference is that demons needed to inhabit a host, whereas gods came fully equipped with their own body. As far as I could tell, anyway. There weren’t a lot of details out there about gods, but there were plenty about demons. And everything I’d read told me demons were evil.
“I need that damned card,” I muttered.
“I invited Jet.” Priya sat up. “I summoned her and I invited her in.”
Hudson made his can’t react don’t react noise, a cross between a huff and a grunt and a bit of a guttural choke, like he was trying to hold back a visceral reaction. Finally he managed, “Why?”
“Because I needed the power. I needed the support.” She let out a slow breath. “My best friend was Hannah Montgomery. We’d grown up together, yeah? Went to uni together too. Then, the summer before our last year, she met Gareth Bookerson III.” She said his name with a snobbish lilt, and I could guess that the relationship had not been ideal. “She dropped out of school and we drifted apart. We reconnected by chance about eighteen months ago through an event my marketing firm was being honored at.”
Hudson had moved to one of the chairs near the couch, but I remained standing. The story seemed genuine...but she had a demon on board. Who knew if what she was recounting actually happened or if the demon only wanted her to think it did?
“She was not the same person,” Priya continued. “So much quieter, liable to jump at sudden noises. She’d gotten married to Gareth and I hadn’t been invited—but she explained that Gareth had wanted it to be an exclusive affair.”
“He was abusing her,” Hudson guessed.
She nodded. “It took another meeting for me to suspect it, and then another when she showed up with a makeup-covered bruise on her cheek. I tried to get her to talk about it, but she wouldn’t. Until one night she called up, terrified, to tell me the arsehole had broken her arm. I took her to the hospital, and she finally filed a report.”