Authors: Karin Shah
Chapter 10
Ethan looked down the row of chain-link kennels at the shelter, cringing from the deafening racket emerging from almost every cage, a noise that got louder as he approached each door. The scent of urine, dog, and cleaning products mingled in the humid air.
He glanced at Devon, who walked along the row, front teeth pinching her lower lip, her concentration total as she considered each dog.
Her eyes held a slight sheen of tears and he imagined she wished she could take them all.
In the middle of the row on the left, a gangly, sandy-red dog with four white paws and ears like satellite dishes, sat quietly, pasted against the heavy-gauge wire of the door so her short fur poked through the diamond-shaped weave. He didn’t know why he thought it was a her, but he did.
The dark rim around her eyes made them seem enormous and reminded him of the big black eyes of aliens in science fiction.
He moved closer and she tilted her head, her gaze on him even though Devon stood in front of her, and he could hear her whine a little.
What do you know? The idea that dogs can see or least sense ghosts wasn’t just some woo-woo bullshit.
Devon stooped, holding out her fingers near the chain link and the dog looked at her. She sniffed Devon’s fingers and a flash of pink tongue came out and swiped her hand. Devon chuckled and stood.
Her head swiveled left then right. Seeing the kennel attendant at the end of the row, she waved her hand in a large arc.
He turned and slid the industrial ear protectors he wore down around his neck. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to see this one, please.”
Devon left the small pet supply shop with her adopted dog, now the proud owner of new everything, from bones and kongs to food bowls and nail clippers. She rubbed the dog’s soft head as she finished stuffing her purchases into the car. “There you go, Honey. All set.”
“S.D.?” a high feminine voice exclaimed from behind Devon.
Devon froze, suddenly cold and then hot, setting her back teeth.
It couldn’t be.
She turned slowly, knowing it was. There was only one person in the world who still called her S.D. The girl who’d coined the nasty nickname. Former-head cheerleader and all around golden girl, Colleen Frobisher.
Talk about shitty luck.
Devon mustered a tepid smile. She was a grown-up. Mean nicknames no longer had the power to hurt. Still . . . “It’s Devon, actually.”
Throwing back her platinum curls, the blonde released a high-pitched laugh that would have done a pony proud. “I know, silly!” She flopped a dismissive, red talon-tipped hand in the air. “I heard you were back in town. Trying to get into Lily Dale?”
Devon opened the driver’s side door and the dog jumped into the backseat. Devon slammed the door behind her, if only she could slam the door in Colleen’s face.
Oh, mom. I wish you’d raised me to be ruder.
“You know the rules as well as I do.”
Bitch
.
Colleen gave a shark’s smile, as if scenting blood in the water and going in for the kill. “Well, I’m sure there’s always the suckers too cheap to pay the entry fee. Maybe you can scare
them
out of their wits.”
Now, that was going over the line. She couldn’t be rude, but she wouldn’t be walked over. “You
begged
for that séance, Colleen. Remember? I said ‘no.’”
Half an hour later, a still obviously seething Devon led the dog into the house.
Ethan wondered what the anorexic blonde in the Jamestown parking lot had been talking about. He couldn’t imagine Devon scaring anyone.
Tucking his questions away, He watched the animal sniff around as Devon looked some information up on her tablet. When he peered over her shoulder, he could see she was looking at pictures of purebred dogs.
“Well, Honey,” she said to the dog. “I would say you were half-golden retriever, half-basenji.”
The dog bounded over to Devon and leaned into her legs, gazing into her face, tongue lolling out like a thick, pink ribbon.
Devon rose and went into the bedroom. Honey followed her, her nails tapping on the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. Devon scooped up some laundry from the small closet and noticed the dog. “Well, go ahead. Look around. You can sleep beside my bed. No way are you sleeping with me, though. You’re way too big and I bet you spread out to three-times your size.”
Ethan eyed the fifty-pound animal.
Probably four.
Honey flopped down onto the carpet in front of his picture.
The motion made Devon look up from her sorting. “You like him?”
Honey made a small noise Devon must have taken as an affirmative.
“Me, too. I wonder what happened to him.” She fell silent, her brown eyes grave as her gaze lingered on the photograph. “I had dreams about him yesterday.”
Her, too?
“Between you and me,” she crouched to ruffle the dog’s short fur. “Kissing is highly overrated. No one is that good a kisser in real life.”
That must have been
some
dream. If it had been anything like his . . . The memory made his chest contract, and his stomach dip, because as they’d kissed he’d known why she’d seemed so familiar. She was the woman he’d always dreamed about.
“And then he kissed my hand like something in a movie.” She sighed and stood, slapping dog hair off her jeans. “I’ve got to stop watching
Pirates of the Caribbean
.”
He’d kissed her hand in her dream?
How odd was it that he would dream he’d kissed her hand and she would dream it, as well.
Were they sharing dreams? Had the kitchen dream been shared, as well as the dream in bed?
Funny how being a ghost made all sorts of weird shit sound acceptable all of a sudden.
An idea suddenly struck him. Had the erotic dream been a dream at all?
A bubble of emotion welled up in the pit of his stomach, floating into his chest. Was it possible he’d somehow manifested himself in his sleep?
Devon puttered around the house all day, unpacking, setting out her things. Anything to avoid thinking of the future.
Honey was a big comfort, following her from room to room and perking up her big ears when Devon couldn’t stand the silence anymore and directed a comment to her.
The day passed in a rush and before she was ready, night had settled over the tiny house.
The repetitive chirp of crickets alerted Devon to the fact that the long, Western New York twilight had snuck up on her and now the entire house stood cloaked in heavy shadow.
She placed the last glass in the upper cupboard nearest the foyer and closed it with a decisive
click
.
She swept her gaze across the dark kitchen, satisfied that everything was closed and put away.
“Looks good, huh?” she said to the Honey, who lay half in the kitchen and half in the bedroom.
The dog lifted her head an inch. Her back end was in shadow, but Devon could hear the thump of her fluffy, scimitar tail whacking the carpet.
Devon smiled. “Well, maybe not good, but neat anyway.” She groped her way to the kitchen wall, fumbling for the light switch.
The bulb in the fly-specked dome overhead flared on and then winked out, killing her night vision and leaving her standing in darkness so total her eyes conjured nonexistent patterns in the inky blackness. “Damn.”
She felt behind her on the wall for the switch by the front door, and flipped it up.
The light came on, filling the small foyer and spilling into the kitchen.
She gasped, her heart rate skyrocketing. Every carefully closed cupboard door hung completely open. She swallowed. “I hope that was you, Ethan.” But somehow she knew it wasn’t.
A black figure coalesced in the doorway to the living room then crawled toward her, exuding oily menace.
Frozen in place, Devon cleared the huge lump in her throat and fought to suck air into her foundering lungs.
Honey barked machine-gun fast, her woofs as deep and threatening as a dog twice her size, and, hackles bristling, charged the now man-sized shape. Passing through the smoky apparition, she yelped as if stung, collapsing in a heap of sandy-red fur and whimpered.
“Don’t you hurt my dog, you bastard!”
“Devon.” Her name rasped low and long through the dim room.
The sound raised the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. The black shape dissipated, but the foul pressure it’d brought only intensified. The phantom had vanished, but not left.
Ethan came awake with chilling suddenness. He remembered lying back on the sofa, going ten rounds with himself about the dreams, and listening to the soothing sounds of Devon working in the kitchen. He must have dozed off.
Now, darkness shrouded the house and a familiar ear-popping dip of air pressure and dirty smell propelled him to his feet.
The demonic.
His heart thudded against his chest. Where was Devon?
The kitchen.
He cleared the doorway just in time to see a cartoon-printed juice glass smash to pieces at Devon’s bare feet.
“Ah!”
Drops of blood bloomed on the slim ankles exposed by her capris.
The God damn thing had hurt her. A growl slipped from Ethan’s lips. He turned his head, cleaving the shadows for a hint of the spirit’s location.
A blur of movement whizzed past him. Devon lunged to the side, catching herself on the countertop just as a Daffy Duck juice glass shattered into a thousand glittering shards on the battered wooden cupboard behind where she’d been standing.
She shook her fist at a spot near the shelf that held the glasses. Her hair glinted red-gold in the light from the foyer. Peach stained her cheeks. Her sherry brown eyes shot sparks. She looked like an avenging angel. “Those are collectibles, you creep!”
A smile quirked his lips. Such a vigorous defense for probably twenty-year-old juice glasses.
All humor disappeared as a Bugs Bunny glass slid to the edge of the shelf and launched into the air, firing toward her with the force and precision of a line-drive.
Everything slowed.
Devon’s eyes widened. She lurched to the side, but not far enough. An image exploded in his mind. It would strike her on the temple with deadly accuracy, dropping her to the ground, unconscious, or worse.
Adrenaline spearing through his veins like shrapnel, he vaulted forward, every atom of his body caught up in one thought.
Catch that glass
.
It all happened in slow motion. His leap. His arm shooting out. And then, for the first time in months, his hand closed around a solid form. The cool, slick surface of the glass met his palm. He’d done it.
While his tripping heart absorbed the near miss, his mind scrambled to come to grips with the fact that his palm actually cradled something concrete. He actually
held
something.
He glanced at Devon, his chest filling with hope. Surely, she must see him?
But one look at the way Devon stared at the glass without looking at him, punctured that thought. He wasn’t visible. At least, not entirely. Her gaze traced the area around the glass as if following an arm to a shoulder, but bounced around the place where he stood without coming to rest.
Still, she took a step in his direction, squinting as if trying to force a far-distant object into focus, her hand extended. “Ethan?”
Chapter 11
Her pulse thrumming in her ears, Devon scanned the space around the glass-filled hand, struggling to bring more of Ethan into view. Damn it. Why did her talent refuse to work with him?
Then, a distortion in the air, like a current over hot blacktop, swirled around the hand and arm. A bare shoulder started to form. She held her breath.
Come on, Ethan!
A knock at the door followed by a super-sized bark made her jump and sent the Bugs Bunny glass plummeting. It exploded on the linoleum tile, a shower of diamond-like splinters in the hallway light, whatever had held it no longer visible.
The dark apparition’s oppressive influence suddenly lifted. The kitchen smelled fresher. The light from the foyer seemed to shine brighter.
Devon sighed, disappointment warring with relief. Honey barreled to the door, nails clicking, tags jingling. Devon blinked, combed a hand though her hair, and then trudged behind the wagging tail, forcing a smile. The visitor might have stopped her from seeing Ethan, but at least whoever it was had banished Casper-the Unfriendly Ghost—Demon—or whatever that other thing was.
She glanced at the cell phone she’d left on the rickety table in the entryway she planned to use as a place to put mail and keys. Ten o’clock.
Rather late for a neighborly visit. Not to mention the nearest neighbor was half a mile down a rural state route.
She put a hand on Honey’s purple collar, taking reassurance from fifty pounds of muscle with sharp white teeth at the end, and shoved aside the yellowed curtain.
Beth beamed at her through the glass, holding up a frosty plastic pitcher. “Hey.” She tilted her face, brows folding with concern. “What’s wrong?”
Devon smiled and shook her head. She couldn’t find the words to explain what had just happened. Not right then, anyway. “Nothing. Just broke a couple glasses. Be careful.” She opened the door, holding it wide with her foot, so Beth could enter.
Honey strained at the collar to sniff the newcomer.
“So this is the dog, huh?” Beth blew a strand of blond-streaked hair out of her eyes. She bent her knees so Honey could smell her fingers, then walked into the dark kitchen, picking her way past the glass, and deposited the margaritas and her other packages on the table.
She looked over at Devon. “You forgot I was coming, didn’t you?”
Devon started to shake her head, stopped halfway, then nodded. “Yep.”
“Well. You’re not weaseling out on me. It’s Saturday night and I already sent Matthew off with my blessing to a guy’s night out with his police buddies.” She started setting out margarita glasses.
Devon’s gaze skimmed the now laden table. “Are we expecting guests?”
“No.” Beth pulled out another pitcher from a cooler bag Devon hadn’t noticed. “I brought a bunch of different kinds. I thought we’d have a tasting party.” She wiggled her light brown eyebrows.
The last of Devon’s reluctance washed away before the force of her friend’s exuberance. She scooped up a martini glass and Beth poured slushy pink liquid inside with the casual flair of a weekend bartender.
When it was full, Devon raised her icy glass. “To old friends.”
Beth tsked. “To
good
friends.”
Devon savored the sweet, cold bite of the drink on her parched throat and sighed as the alcohol warmed her veins and loosened her muscles. “Speaking of old friends. Well, enemies. I ran into Colleen today.”
Beth grimaced. “Ugh. Good thing I wasn’t there.”
“I wish I hadn’t been. She’s still calling me S.D.”
“Pah!” Beth tossed back another swig of her frozen treat and shrugged a slim shoulder. “I’m not surprised. Ignore her. She hit her peak in High School and can’t move past the—” She made air quotes with her free hand. “—glory days.”
Devon allowed herself a bitter sniff. “More like ‘gory’ days.” She licked a drop of margarita off her lip. “She brought up that night. Accused me of scaring her.”
“That bitch! The whole thing was her fault. Living in a funeral home. Her mother’s a spiritualist. What did she expect?”
Devon lifted her glass to take a sip and found it empty. “Let’s talk about something else. Pour me another drink and we’ll move this party into the living room.”
Shit. Ethan trembled from sheer frustration. He’d been so close. He knew she’d seen him that time. The shock on her face couldn’t have been more obvious. If only the knock at the door hadn’t destroyed his concentration.
Then he had to shake his head as Beth steamrollered in the door. It didn’t look like she was going anywhere, anytime soon. Not that it mattered. Stopping the glass and trying to manifest had left him as flat as a twenty-year-old mattress.
He dragged into the bedroom, his body and limbs leaden. The bed looked inviting. He sank down onto the soft surface. The effort to manifest had cost him, but he couldn’t regret it.
He swallowed in the wake of the remembered fear. Thank God he’d been there.
A knot twisted in his abdomen. He had no idea if he’d be able to intercede again. Or even if something he had no control over might draw him away from this place, leaving Devon at the demon’s mercy.
The other inside his chest lifted its head. Danger threatened his mate.
He blew out a long sigh. His mate? Where had that thought come from? And why that word,
mate
, like an animal?
He chuffed. Anyway, whatever word he used, Devon had been a lawyer. Would be again. Even if he’d been alive, she wouldn’t have given a scruffy treasure hunter like him a second glance. No matter how much she talked to his picture.
Anyone could see the resilience in her. She’d regroup and then she’d be gone. Provided the inhuman spirit, or whatever it was, didn’t hurt her first. Worse, she might be afraid of him, like his foster family.
He had to rest. But one thing was clear. The other spirit had to be stopped. He might have no idea how to go about it and less what he’d do if he were successful, but once he’d regained his strength, he planned to bag himself a ghost.
“Careful, there! That’s live cargo.”
Jake winced as Ky stepped off the curb to better supervise the loading of the wooden crate onto the flatbed of the sixteen-wheeler bathing in the streetlight’s yellow glare.
He hoped like hell he was the only one who could hear the lion-like dissonance in Ky’s deep voice.
The burly men hefting the grand piano-sized crate exchanged a world-weary look that seemed to say,
He’s paying the bills
, and readjusted their grips.
Jake stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets and jumped down, his booted feet grating on the crumbling, fog-dampened asphalt next to Ky. He put a hand on his brother’s broad shoulder. “She’s tranquilized. She’ll be fine.”
The tension seemed to seep out of Kyle’s back. “I know. I just wish I could reach her.”
“Maybe one of the others will,” Jake said, though he didn’t hold out much hope. The female chimera was buried so deep in her lion side, he didn’t see how she could ever get out. If she’d been male . . . He shied away from the rest of that thought.
Kyle nodded, his gaze more hawk-like than dragon as he watched the loading. The movers had set the crate down on a network of straps and were securing the straps under and around the crate in preparation to pulley the container onto the long bed of the truck.
Kyle inhaled as the winch swung the crate into the air.
Jake patted his shoulder again.
A loud twang, a sudden lurch, and panicked yells, announced the snapping of a binding. The container rocked and a low roar shocked the bellowing movers into wide-eyed silence for a split second before someone shouted, “It’s awake!”
But Jake knew the roar hadn’t come from the crate. “Pull it together, Ky.” He didn’t have to look to know his brother’s eyes glowed gold. The shoulder beneath his hand vibrated with exertion.
Jake closed his eyes, remembering what it was like fighting to stay in control, to stay human. He’d been just as close to the edge before he’d mated with Anjali. “Hold on, bro.”
Ky didn’t respond and Jake wished he had some magic potion to call his brother’s mate to him. She had to be out there somewhere. But could they find her in time?
He hadn’t known his brother that long. Hell, a few months earlier he’d thought he was alone in the world, but now Anjali and Kyle were his world, and seeing his brother deteriorate before his eyes cut him to the bone.
“Hey!” The winch operator waved to a stocky mover. “Grab that strap!”
The man on the flatbed lunged for the flapping binding but with the air of a man expecting a velociraptor to burst out of the crate. His gloved, oversized hand wrestled the strap back into place and the container settled on the bed of the big rig with a puff of displaced air.
Ky released a rush of breath and cleared his throat. “Speaking of the others. You ready to go upstate tomorrow?”
Jake shrugged, willing to let Ky pretend the last few minutes hadn’t happened, but unsure how to answer his question. How could he answer when he was so afraid of what they might find there?
Kyle, eyes green once more, turned to look at him, demanding an answer.
Jake firmed his jaw. If Ethan had gone feral they were out of choices. He would have to be destroyed, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Devon clicked the remote, scrolling through the digital movies. “How ‘bout this one?”
“Naw.” Beth reached over and moved Devon’s hand with the remote. “Ooh. This one’s an oldie but a goodie.”
She’d selected
Ghost
.
Devon grimaced. “That’s a little too close to home.”
Now she had Beth’s attention. “What are you talking about? Come on, spill!” Her eyes grew wide. “Have you seen Ethan?”
“Not like I see other ghosts, but I’ve been dreaming about him.” Devon toyed with one of the tiny parasols Beth had brought to decorate their drinks.
“Dreaming or having visions?”
“I’m not sure.” She felt her face heat.
Beth slapped Devon’s shoulder with just the tips of her fingers. “Shut my mouth! You’re falling for a dead guy! Not that I blame you. He was something else.”
“That’s just it.” Devon ran through her experiences of the last few days. “I go to sleep, and it’s amazing. We talk and laugh, but I have no idea if any of it’s real!”
She dropped her head into her hands, then gazed up at Beth. “You really knew him. What was he like?”
Beth propped up her chin with her fist and sighed. “It’s hard to say. He wasn’t what you’d call friendly. The only reason he talked to me was cause I’m the human equivalent of water dripping on a stone.”
“Tell me about it.”
Beth stuck her tongue out. “Very funny. Anyway, he was always good to me. A little gruff. He had his own demons, you know.”
Devon shivered. She didn’t want to think about demons right now.
“Still, you could tell underneath he was a good guy.”
“Pah.” Devon threw her arms out in exasperation. “I’ve got to be imagining these dreams. No guy could be this great. He says he’s in pain, but he takes the time to comfort me. He looks so tough, but he makes lame jokes to make me laugh.”
“Yep.” Beth nodded with grave wisdom. “The dreams are definitely your imagination. He sounds way too good to be true.”
Devon yawned into her hand and weaved to the door. The hinges screeched as she opened it and a cool humid breeze flooded the small entryway. She inhaled, sucking the fresh scent of the country night into her lungs.
Beth tromped to the door, her arms laden with the remnants of their party for two.
Devon wrapped her friend in a sloppy one-armed hug. “Are you sure you’re safe to drive home? Maybe you should stay here?”
Plastic bags rustled as Beth shifted her burden onto her left side and waved an airy hand in the air. “Unlike some people, I stopped drinking after the first movie.”
Devon propped a hand on her hip with an injured huff. “You encouraged me to drink.”
Beth winked. “That’s because you needed it more than I do.”
“Get out of here.” Laughing, Devon shoved her friend out the door.
Beth made it to her Camry, stopped for a moment in front of the driver’s door, then turned on her heel and marched back to the house.
“What’s wrong?” Devon called through the screen.
“I have no idea where my keys are, and I’m too tired to care. I’ll stay the night. We can look in the morning.”
Devon hid a tiny sigh of relief. It would be nice to have something other than ghostly company in the wee hours. “Bed or couch?”
Beth entered and let her things fall on the kitchen table. “Couch. You kick.”
“I’m sure I haven’t kicked in years.” A quick rummage through the linen closet produced sheets, a spare blanket, and a flattened pillow.
“That’s what they all say.” Beth gave the pillow a couple quick chops to loosen the stuffing.
Devon stopped making up the couch and raised her eyebrows. “How many people have you slept with?”
The pillow bounced off Devon’s side, with a juicy
thwack
. “None of your business. Go to sleep.”
The pillow had rebounded on the battered wooden coffee table. Devon scooped it up and lobbed it at the couch. “Goodnight.”