Wayward Souls Read online

  “No thanks.” She pressed a button on the computer, bit her bottom lip softly, and narrowed her eyes.

  “This password protected?” she asked.

  “No. I shut down whenever I’m out of the office, and the doors are locked at night. Don’t need more security than that.”

  She scoffed.

  “Small town, Miss…?” he tried.

  She flicked a look his way. “Jo.”

  “Miss Jo,” he repeated.

  “Just Jo’s good enough.”

  “Sorry about—” He waved in the general direction of the lobby and presumably the conversation they’d had there. “You caught me by surprise. Good surprise,” he added real quick. “I didn’t mean to disrespect you. Or your business.” He winced. “Or your state.”

  There was a pause, and she wasn’t looking at the computer any more. She was looking at him. Really looking.

  He smiled, popping dimples, then he dragged his hand through those over-long bangs.

  I could hear her heart pick up the pace. Could sense other things too. How her breathing got a little stuttered, how her pupils widened.

  “You gonna fall for a pretty face, Jo?” I asked her. “He insulted your company and your hometown. Don’t let him get away with that small-town-boy charm.”

  “I’m going to get to work now, Mr. Fisher.” Just like that, whatever moment Sunshine had been trying to construct folded like a bad poker hand.

  “Sure. I’ll just… I’ll be out in the bay if you need me. Or anything. If you need anything. I’ll…uh…leave you to it. And lunch. Think about lunch.”

  He put the skee in the daddle and got out of the office real fast.

  He started to close the office door, stopped, opened it like he was going to say something, then shook his head and left it open a crack. Enough Jo had privacy, not so much he couldn’t hear her if she called out for him.

  “The diner has wireless?” Lu asked, like she’d just happened to overhear that one part of the conversation. Lorde was lying on the floor next to her right where the air conditioner breeze crossed the lobby.

  “MaryJo’s. Free wireless, coffee as plain or fancy as you like, and everything’s cooked from scratch. Need directions?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “All right,” he said, throwing a look over his shoulder at the office, then shaking his head slightly before focusing on Lu again. “Enjoy your lunch. I’ll have an idea of what’s going on with the truck by the time you get back.”

  Lu raised two fingers in a good-bye, snapped for Lorde to follow, then sauntered out of the shop and into the sun.

  Chapter Five

  “That man over there’s staring at you,” I said to Lu.

  She tipped her head, as if she’d heard a faraway voice. I wasn’t far away though. I was sitting across from her at the little picnic table set in the shade outside the diner.

  Lu took another bite of fries, her sharp white teeth neatly severing the crunchy potato.

  “He’s been staring at you since you walked out of the shop. He followed you here.”

  Lu flicked a quick glance over at the man who was sitting in the cab of his truck, windows up, engine running. He appeared to be scrolling through his phone, not watching Lu, but I’d been in that cab just a minute ago to check him out.

  He wasn’t messing with a phone. He was listening to a talk show saying there was a severe lack of Jesus in these parts. From the cross hanging off his review mirror and the silver one he had tucked under his white, button-down shirt, I thought the radio show was preaching to the choir.

  I also thought he was a vampire hunter.

  “He’s hunting,” I said.

  Lu made a little humming sound and went back to her fries. She dropped one hand to pet Lorde who was tight up against her, lying under the table.

  I shifted forward and stretched across the scarred-up wooden table, pressing my fingertips against the pocket watch she was wearing under her shirt. I focused, really focused.

  “Hunter,” I said, pushing that word out through my body, my fingers, my soul. Urging the word to reach into that watch, to those moments we still had left to us. Willing that word to reach through it to her, into her, so she would know, so she would hear me even though we were not in a graveyard and the watch was not ticking.

  “Hunter, Lu.”

  She shivered and closed her eyes, inhaling like she’d just caught the scent of flowers, or like she’d just gentled herself down into a warm, soothing bath.

  “I know, baby,” I said. “I miss you too.” I didn’t draw my fingers away. She couldn’t hear me, but I kept talking. “We’ll find a way through this. You and I. But right now, baby, open your eyes. That man doesn’t like the look of you. Or maybe likes it too much. You need to get moving.”

  I pulled back, rocking to sit on the bench, which was almost too small for me. She opened her eyes, blinked and blinked, and for that one, swift moment, she looked vulnerable, sad.

  She looked lonely.

  Then the hard edges were back. An armor no one could crack. Well, no one but me. And I tried not to. I knew she needed that hard exterior to keep herself together. To keep herself safe.

  She had more than just her armor to keep her safe. She had me. I wasn’t going to let anything hurt her again.

  “That truck right there.” I pointed, then cleared the roughness out of my voice. “Might just be a local who’s never seen a woman as beautiful as you. Might be a hunter who’s trying to decide how much vampire you have in you. Either way, he is not friendly.”

  Lu popped a couple more fries in her mouth while swinging up off the bench. She offered a small handful to Lorde, who took them gently, then swallowed them down in two quick chomps, wagging her tail.

  Lu and Lorde strolled out into the sunshine, taking their time.

  The man watched. Waiting to see if her skin steamed.

  Vampires weren’t killed by sunlight. But it was not comfortable. They usually wore long sleeves, kept their hands in their pockets, and found some way to keep a hat and sunglasses handy.

  Lu stopped right there in the parking lot, pulling her phone out like she was looking for directions.

  I glanced down at the screen.

  “Bed and breakfasts? Around here? You’re dreaming, girl.”

  She swiped her thumb over the screen, and little markers showed up on a map. She tapped on one and read through the listing—it was an Airbnb—then scrolled to the next.

  “Still don’t know why you want a bed. Gonna be a good night for the stars.” I walked away from her, covering the distance to the watcher in the truck. I leaned on the door and stuck my head in through the closed window so I could get a look at him again.

  He was still tracking her movements, but something about him had changed. He didn’t look like he planned to jump out of the truck and attack her. As a matter of fact, he had another kind of look. One I wouldn’t stand for.

  “She’s taken, buddy,” I said. “You get anywhere near her, and I’ll knock your head off.”

  He exhaled and looked back down at his phone.

  I drifted back over to Lu.

  “I think he’s just horny,” I said. “But let’s not give him a chance to prove me wrong. Lorde?”

  Lorde lifted her bear-like face.

  “Back to the truck, girl. Head on back. Truck.” I pointed in the general direction of Sunshine’s shop.

  Lorde took a step, then another, and looked back at Lu.

  “Oh, is that how it is?” Lu asked Lorde, even though I knew she was asking me. “Just walk away?”

  “That’s how it is. I don’t like that guy, and Sunshine said he’d have news on the truck.”

  “I think Calvin likes Jo.” Lu held her hand out from her side just a bit as she walked. I came up beside her and wove my fingers through hers. I could feel her warmth, but I didn’t know if she could feel the cold of me.

  Still, we’d had enough years to know where the other person was. Always.r />
  “He’s a small town hick who insulted her and told her he hates Texas. I don’t like him.”

  “I like him,” she said.

  “Lu.”

  “He reminds me of that man, was it Robert? He worked the docks. Always putting his foot in his mouth when he saw a woman he liked. Awkward as hell. But good I think. I think he’s good, Brogan.”

  I inhaled through my nose and glared in the general direction of the shop. “I think he’s too big for his britches.”

  “And Jo. She’s something,” Lu said. “I mean, I don’t think she’s his type.”

  “What? What’s wrong with her? She’s aces. Doesn’t back down. She’d keep a man on his toes. Who wouldn’t like that type of woman?”

  “She’s too big city for him. Too ready for a fight. Gonna go through the world lonely if all she does is punch first.”

  “Punching first is good. Punching first keeps you safe,” I said. “You punch first.”

  “Maybe I’ll stick around and see if I can make this work out for him. For them. If she feels the same kind of way for him I think he might feel for her.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “She might,” she answered, as if she’d heard me. “She might. As a matter of fact, I’ll make you a bet.”

  “You are not Cupid, Lu.”

  “I bet you Calvin will be dating Jo before I leave town.”

  “You don’t want to do that. Embarrass yourself like that.”

  She paused, as if waiting for me to say more.

  “Don’t be chicken, Brog. Tell me it’s a bet. I get Calvin to date Jo, and we name the truck Silver.”

  “What if you don’t get Calvin to date Jo?”

  “If you win,” she said, “which isn’t going to happen, you can name the truck anything you want.”

  “Like I Told You So? Because it’s either that or You Shouldn’t Make Bets You Can’t Win. Top contenders, hands down.”

  “Yes. Your pick.”

  “All right,” I said, warming up to the game. “If Sunshine’s—Calvin’s—dating Jo, which I don’t see happening in a million, Silver is the go. But if Jo avoids making poor decisions—such as dating Calvin—then it’s the I Told You So all the way.”

  She nodded. “I thought you’d like that.”

  “Cupid’s a real god, Lu. A dangerous one at that. He’s not some little angel with a cute bow and heart-tipped arrows. His arrows are made of gold and lead—what one connects, the other can destroy—and it’s not just people he uses them on. He can force heaven and earth, light and darkness, worlds and universes together, or tear them apart. And he’s out in the world. You shouldn’t meddle in the business of gods.”

  “I’m gonna find a place to stay—a real bed,” she said, ignoring me. “A shower. Maybe take off my boots for a day or two. I know hotels aren’t good for you, but there’s a nice house renting out a couple rooms just down the street the other way. Let’s see how that one feels, okay?”

  I sighed. “You don’t have to decide where you’re staying on my account,” I said. “Anywhere there’s you, is good with me.”

  “Anywhere there’s you is where I’m gonna be,” she said.

  I squeezed her hand a little harder, even though she couldn’t feel it.

  Chapter Six

  “It’s not much,” Mrs. Just-call-me-Dot-Doris-was-my-mother’s-name said as she strode through the old, three-story house that had been renovated into rentable rooms. Dot was short, round, and powerful, like she’d been bulling her way through brick walls and glass ceilings all her life. She had on a gauzy kind of bright orange shirt and white pants. Her shoes sparkled with little rhinestones on the sides of them.

  I liked her immediately.

  “But the mattress is top-of-the-line, and I only use the softest sheets. You’ll have a view of the neighborhood, breakfast is available in the kitchen—I bring it in from BunBun Bakery, because a chef I am not—and the bathroom’s right down the hall.”

  She stopped at the door painted a soft green, inserted an old brass key, and gave it a turn before pushing the door open.

  “This is it,” she said proudly.

  I walked into the room before Lu could, shouldering by both woman and trying my best not to touch them. Lorde followed on my heels. The walls were painted white with touches of that soft green on the molding and the edges of the window sills. Everything else in the room was white and green too, with a few pops of blue flowers on the pillows, a lamp, and a lap quilt.

  I drifted over to stand by the window and gave the room one last look.

  It was clean, bright. A soothing sort of place.

  Which was probably why the woman was sitting in the padded chair in the corner, her eyes closed, her knitting pooled in her lap.

  Great. A ghost.

  I hated ghosts.

  “Lorde. Tell Lu we have company.” I pointed at the chair.

  Lorde’s kitten-soft ears perked up, and her tail lifted and stiffened. Her nose twitched double time. She marched over to the ghost and stared. Hard.

  Not quite a point, but we’d had Lorde since she was a puppy. Lu knew what Lorde was doing.

  “This is nice,” Lu said. Regret she couldn’t hide weighed down her words. “But I’d like to see the other room.”

  “Oh,” Dot nodded. “I suppose, if you’d like. It’s a little smaller, doesn’t have quite as much view.”

  “This is a little more than I need,” she said wistfully.

  She liked this room. Dammit.

  “It’s okay, Lorde. Tell her it’s a Friendly.”

  I hadn’t even tried contact with the ghost yet, so I was lying out my face.

  Ghosts couldn’t always see me. It had struck me as odd at first, but hey, I was not fully in any state of existence. I’d come to accept, and sometimes use to my advantage, the fact I could sneak up on people. Living and dead.

  Lorde’s tail wagged and she panted. Her face broke into a happy smile, black tongue only sticking out a little bit.

  Lu paused, halfway out the door. Her eyebrows went up. “Um… On second thought, I changed my mind.”

  “Oh?” Dot paused, a new brass key already pulled out of her pocket and at the ready.

  “Yes. I think maybe this will be good,” Lu said. “It’s very calming.”

  Dot beamed. “Thank you. I restored it myself. With help from my son and daughter, but all the furnishings and colors were my idea. I just wanted it to feel…peaceful. Like a garden in the shade.”

  Lu was quiet, watching Lorde lean in and sniff the chair. Well, sniff the ghost who still hadn’t opened her eyes.

  “It was my sister’s room when we were growing up.” Dot seemed perfectly comfortable filling the silence. She bustled over to the window, raised the wooden blinds, then opened the narrow closet door.

  “She passed years ago. But I think she’d approve of the new look. Extra linens in here. This is your key.” She handed over the brass key. “If you need anything, just ring the bell out in the main room. I’ll hear it and be with you in a jiffy. If that doesn’t work, text the main number. I’ll get that too.”

  Lu nodded. “Thank you.”

  Dot made a quick exit while Lu looked across the room, out the window at the view of trees and grass and a little brick house across the street. She shut the door and put the key in her pocket. She waited, tracking the sound of Dot’s footsteps, heart, breathing. When she was satisfied Dot was out of earshot, she turned to face the chair. “Who is it?”

  The question was for me, but Lorde wagged her tail and moved back to sit next to Lu, tipping her furry face up and gazing adoringly at her.

  “Let’s find out,” I said.

  I strolled through the queen-size bed—new mattress, Egyptian cotton and all—stopping in front of the chair. I inhaled, exhaled in a thin stream, and drew my shoulders down like I was ready to lift the back of a truck.

  I pulled energy and focus and will, dragging them to me like a heavy rope through the mud and rain
, a sort of mental hand over hand that made sweat pop out on my upper lip. Then I shoved that focus, that intent into my words, throwing it like a javelin, screaming through a bullhorn to breach my world and impact the ghost’s world.

  It wasn’t as hard as trying to influence the living world, but it still took a hell of a lot of effort.

  “Afternoon,” I said, that word hitting like a hammer on a single pane of glass.

  The woman, who had the same round face and short nose as Dot, opened her eyes.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  She screamed. At volume. When she ran out of breath, she clutched the knitting to her chest and gulped air, her eyes all buggy.

  “Easy,” I said in the crack of silence, “hang on. I’m not going to—”

  But she’d already refueled. The shriek that came out of her could peel skin off an elephant.

  “Jesus, lady.” I stumbled back, one hand patting air, as if there were an “off” switch I could punch, the other cupped over my ear, trying to keep what was left of my brains in my noggin. “Calm down!”

  Screamer rushed to her feet with unsettling speed. She fisted the knitting needles into stabbing position and pulled her arm back. The sock attached to the needles unrolled like a long, thin, unevenly striped tongue.

  She paused for breath again.

  “I don’t want to hurt you!” I yelled. “I’m friendly. A friend. For the love of all the gods, stop screaming!”

  For six whole, blissful, silent seconds, I thought I’d gotten through to her. I knew it was a hell of a shock to have someone that was not a ghost appear in the ghostly plane, but she was acting like I was there to kill her.

  Which, technically, okay, I could be. But the energy it took to send a ghost packing meant glyphing magic and using enough of it to knock a spirit loose. I didn’t have the time, energy, or inclination for any of that.

  “All right,” I said. “Good. So, I was just passing through and wondered if you…”

  Her eyes narrowed, one hand fluttered up to her throat, the other cocked at her shoulder, ready to lay the hammer down. Well, stab the knitting needles down.