Authors: Rhys Ford
They looked alike—sort of, Wolf thought. In many ways, he’d always considered Cin his brother more than a cousin, and if the slightly older Kincaid could be believed, he felt the same way about Wolf. Now as Cin stirred cream and sugar into two mugs, Wolf grinned at their differences. His rougher, slightly grumpy cousin, with some of his hair pulled back in a topknot ponytail and a shadowy stubble over his square jaw, looked more like he was about to escape from a penal colony in a futuristic New York than make faux-espresso in a San Luis Obispo farmhouse.
Cin cast nearly as much of a shadow as the fridge. A black T-shirt stretched tight over his broad chest and firm arms, and his low-rise jeans bore deep creases, worn from a many-hour drive to reach Sey’s place. He moved quietly, smoother than a man as muscled as Cin was, but there was definitely a low-simmering fatigue there, a hint of Cin’s need to fall into a soft bed for at least a couple of hours. Still, Cin’s beaten-gold eyes were bright and cunning, catching every detail of the room even as he puttered about on bare feet to make his cousin a cup of coffee.
And Wolf
knew
in his gut, he was one of those details Cin studied as he worked the french press.
“Yeah, he’s asleep now.” Wolf took the cup of caramel-hued dredge Cin offered him, waiting until his cousin sat down before attempting a sip. “He might die of embarrassment when he sees you next time, but that’ll be in a few hours. He’s hoping he’ll get hit by a meteor or something in the meantime.”
The cream Cin poured in did very little to change the oiliness of the strong brew. His stomach would regret the drink, but for right now, Wolf’s brain welcomed the sharp hit of caffeine. He took a brief sniff at his armpit, wondering if he shouldn’t have showered before he joined Cin in the kitchen. By the smirk on the other man’s face, Wolf knew he’d been seen.
“I’ve smelled worse,” Cin rumbled, his fingers tracing the lip of a chipped white mug. “Hell, I probably smell worse right now.”
Wolf leaned across the corner of the table to playfully sniff at his cousin’s armpit, only to get Cin’s hand in his face and a not-so-gentle shove away.
“Asshole,” Cin grunted, palming his coffee cup. “Talk to me. Let’s break this down a bit. I’ve got a lot of questions.”
“Shoot.” He looked around the kitchen, or as far as the lantern beam allowed. “You put that shotgun up, right? Gildy’s here.”
“Yeah.” Cin nodded. “It’s only got rock salt rounds, so even if she got a hold of it, she really couldn’t do that much damage.”
“Pretty sure she knows how to make her own rounds.” Wolf saluted his aunt with a soft clink of his cup against his cousin’s. “You going to be here long?”
“Long enough to pull your ass out of the fire. Bridge is washed out from the canyon jump. I parked the piece of shit rental on some high ground and hoofed it the last couple of miles with my stuff.” Cin scrubbed at his still-damp hair. “Think the storm washed my eardrums out. Gotta say, even if I walked in on you guys doing the nasty in my room, I at least got to see firsthand what’s going on a bit.”
“The first bedroom Sey put us in had some hard-core activity. We wanted to leave it to go over later. And hell, I didn’t want Tristan to sleep there. This ghost is supposed to be a kid, but she plays some pretty fucking adult games.” It was hard to cough up a manly thank-you after someone shotgunned salt pellets over his bare ass, but Wolf was going to give it his best try. “So, man, I wanted to say thanks for the save—”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that too.” The darkness around them slithered into Cin’s tone. “Saw some salt down across the floor, so it looks like you at least did the basics. What the hell happened? Did you fuck it up? That’s like Kincaid 101.”
“I laid it down—” Wolf protested softly.
“So, then, how did that thing get in? And better yet, what
was
that thing? Partially formed manifestation? How many have you seen here? Occurrences? Or do you actually have multiples?”
“What part of your interrogation do you want me to answer first?” He eyed Cin from across the corner of the table. “Because I suck at multiple choice.”
Cin eyed him right back, a searing wash of hot gold. “The salt first. Then talk about the ghost. Or do you want to start with the guy you’ve let hook into you? I guess it all starts there, don’t it, cuz? But let’s go with the salt. What the hell were you thinking?”
“As far as we know, it’s a kid. A really pissed-off kid looking for something or someone who may or may not be named Simone. And she’s got it in for Tris. Told you, we’ve already moved rooms once.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I salted the sills and doors. Fuck, I even covered the mirror.”
“So, then, what was that? Post-climactic spirit projection?” Cin snorted into his coffee, then took a sip. “Let me guess; he’s possessed, and you were fucking the ghost out of him?”
“First off, let’s talk about the salt thing. One of the window seals was blown out, probably because this place is really fucking old. Found that when I went looking for my clothes. The storm hit hard, and I guess the wind coming through cleared off some of the salt. So that’s how it got through—how
she
got through.” Wolf reached over and snagged his cousin’s wrist, capturing his arm before Cin could bring his mug back up to his lips. “Secondly, I’m serious about Tristan. So don’t—”
“You’ve known this guy for what? A couple of months?” Wolf had opened his mouth to protest Cin’s oversimplification of the situation between him and Tristan when his cousin reached across and slapped his chin up, slamming Wolf’s teeth together in a rattling chunk. “Shut up. You were going to say something stupid like it’s true love or he’s my soul mate. He might look like Wesley, Buttercup, but you and I both know crap like that isn’t real.”
“A couple of months ago, I’d have said the same thing. About ghosts. About love,” Wolf conceded. Squaring his gaze to his cousin’s, he peered through the kitchen’s murky gloom to stare Cin down. “You’ve spent most of your life telling me ghosts were real, and I told
you
I needed proof—quantifiable evidence I could hold up against the harshest of critics.”
“So,
now
you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid?” Cin extracted his hand from Wolf’s fingers. “You meet
one
medium—”
“But he was the
right
medium. Well, not for the ghosts—some—shit, he can see them, and they interact with him, but none of that matters. Because when it’s all said and done, I’m still a scientist. There has to be
proof
, Cin. That hasn’t changed.” Wolf leaned back into the chair’s chrome and vinyl, grinning at the telltale squeak of its rubber-tipped legs on waxed flooring. “But I’m telling you, I believe—not just in ghosts because in my guts I know there’s more out there than we know—but more that I believe in love. Something I can’t see but it’s there. Filling me. Touching pieces of me I could never see until Tristan got there. So now it’s my turn to tell you, you’re going to have to believe, Cin. No other way around it. You’re just going to have to believe until you actually fall.”
“Huh. Well, look who’s fallen into the rabbit hole after the rabbit.” Cin leaned back as well and slung an arm over the chair next to him. Picking up his coffee cup again, Cin saluted Wolf without a hint of mockery, and Wolf knew in that moment, he’d won his cousin over. “So, now tell me about what your guy upstairs can do, and why the fuck was that wraith after him?”
S
O
FAR
,
he’d been able to avoid anyone with even a drop of Kincaid blood in their veins. Although—Tristan risked a peek at the camel’s foreboding face—there was a good chance the grumpy animal was actually some long-lost cousin who’d pissed off a witch and was now living out his life as a were-ungulate.
The fucker also spat with unerring accuracy, and it took three saliva missiles before Tristan found a safe spot to sit in Sey’s old-fashioned barn. The cattle took up a large portion of the back end, occupying a penned-off clear space with a hay bin and trough. Nearby, in a double-wide horse stall, the camel chewed on something green and nasty, no doubt building up his arsenal for when Tristan drew into range.
Since Tristan only came to the barn armed with a sketch pad, graphites, and a thermos of hot coffee he’d made up on Sey’s wood-burning stove, he wasn’t all that interested in getting a face full of whatever it was the camel was brewing up for him.
He’d gotten enough of the initial design work for his next book sketched out before he’d come down to SLO, so it was easy enough to fall into working out the details of his newest monstrous main character. The villain of the piece still needed work, and as Tristan doodled, the lurker took on the distinctive sour look of a certain ungulate currently chewing a nasty cud a few yards away.
“That’s nice,” a soft voice said over his shoulder. “It looks out of this world, man.”
He’d have thought, after so many years of hearing things go bump, rattle, and dirge in the night, he’d be used to spirits sneaking up on him, but no, Tristan’s heart still jumped up and did the hokey pokey when yet another ghost slipped into his surroundings and spoke to him unexpectedly.
Slender to the point of being waifish, she was nearly solid, faint hints of color in her long wavy hair. Her bare feet were slightly grimy, and her long gauze dress looked patchy in areas where sun or bleach washed out its original color. Unlike most ghosts, she carried a scent with her, a clean powdery perfume barely strong enough to be noticed. Of course, Tristan sneered back at the camel, his foul-tempered barn companion’s odor drowned out most things, including the scent of Tristan’s coffee.
“Hi,” he squeaked, swallowing his surprise. Coughing, Tristan tried again. “Good to see you.”
“Oh, man, you are so square.” Her slender hands were heavy with silver rings, and she made a pass at his hair with her long fingers. He felt the barest of ripples along his scalp, but she wasn’t strong enough to do more than ruffle a strand or two.
She didn’t seem to notice she had no effect on him. Instead, she squatted next to him, her legs folded in half, and she hunched over his arm, staring down at his sketches. The young woman studied the page for a moment, then looked around, her eyebrows pulling into a curious frown. She played with strings of beads dangling from her neck, wrapping them around her fingers and then releasing them as she spoke. She had a plain face—until she gave Tristan a shy, sweet smile, and then a beauty bloomed up from inside of her and spread over her freckled face.
“I’m supposed to meet someone here.” Her voice wavered, and she flickered uncertainly. “I can’t remember… when. Soon, I think. We were going to head up to San Francisco. Our parents—my dad’s so old-fashioned. We’ve got to get out of here, you know? Time to start living our own kind of American Dream.”
“I’m Tristan.” Holding out his hand would have been useless, and she didn’t look like the sort who’d welcome the courtesy. A hug or something more tribal would have suited her. His suspicions were confirmed when she flashed him a peace symbol and a smile.
“I’m Petal.” Bending in closer, she whispered in a hush barely loud enough for Tristan to hear over the camel’s passing gas, “That’s going to be my name. We’re going to cast off our old names too. Become what we’re meant to be together. I wanted to be Juliet because we’re like star-crossed lovers, but Ray—he’s going to be Faraji—he said it was too tragic a name. We needed to celebrate our love, not mourn it. We’re leaving as soon as he gets back from Ohio.”
Tristan wondered if Ray ever came back from Ohio and married his pretty flower child. They’d worked out Ray’d been a part of a tragedy in SLO during the sixties, but without Ray’s last name and without electricity, they had no way of finding out if he’d been one of those killed.
Staring through the young woman, Tristan began to hope she hadn’t been lingering out in the barn for long, especially since he also didn’t know if Ray was tied to the house or could actually come outside past the porch.
“It’s exactly like Romeo and Juliet—okay, not exactly, but still,” Tristan said softly, shaking his head. “They shouldn’t be apart. Not when they’re so close. Is that what’s tying you two here? You can’t reach each other?”
“Who are you talking to?” A deep masculine rumble jerked Tristan from his conversation with Petal.
This time it was a live someone who’d scared the crap out of him, and while the rough whiskey voice sounded sensually familiar, there was a dangerous edge to it—an edge Tristan’d never heard in Wolf’s voice.
No, this voice belonged to a man he’d not seen before. He’d certainly heard him. As best as one could hear when one’s head was buried under a mound of pillows and blankets with one’s own voice chanting and praying for a swift, painless death.
That death was not forthcoming then or in that moment when he looked through Petal’s wavering form and at a potently bodied pour of a man standing behind her.
He’d have known Cin Kincaid was Wolf’s cousin even without an introduction—although Tristan didn’t count Wolf’s muttered exchange of names over Tristan’s blanket-shrouded body at four in the morning as a proper introduction. Hell, he might have even thought Cin was Wolf’s brother, because they shared the same strongly stamped masculine features, a glorious mix of cheekbones, wickedly sensual mouths, and a dip of a dimple in their right cheeks. The differences lay in the details, but those were strong enough to turn Wolf’s aggressively male handsomeness to Cin’s wild, feral beauty.
Cin’s ebony hair was longer than his cousin’s, a tousled, thick mane skimming his shoulders. It framed his face, falling in waves to curve around smoky gold eyes. Wolf might have laid claim to the name, but Cin certainly took it and wore it on his own skin. Dressed all in black, he appeared as a Reaper behind the ghostly sylph, lacking only a scythe to pare her from her afterlife.
The stern look on his face as he studied Tristan’s sprawl on a pile of feed he’d covered with a blanket told Tristan the Kincaid probably didn’t need something as plebian as a scythe to separate a head from its shoulders—even if those shoulders and head belonged to his favorite cousin’s lover.