“We’re back!” Shelby yelled at Laurel over the rumble of her motorcycle.
Laurel peeled herself away from Shelby’s back and looked around. Her car was there in front of them, parked across from the Jade Dragon, where Shelby had picked up Chinese for their lunch. She licked her windblown lips, still tasting the faint sting of the chili peppers that had been in Shelby’s food and hot upon her tongue.
The icy-cold wind of the dead had still not left her bones. Shelby had let down her guard and let Laurel see, let her be witness to what Shelby was, a woman sitting on the border between life and death, drawing energy from the blood of others to keep herself on this side of the doorway, able to draw upon the spiritual energy of the dead lingering on the other side. Shocking did not even approach how Laurel felt at the discovery, though it came pretty close to the feeling of Shelby’s lips on her own after the fact. She felt sixteen at the moment, returning from her first real date. It was completely absurd, and though she was still overwhelmed by the events, a certain giddy elation kept her body tingling.
“Damn. I was just beginning to enjoy the ride.” Laurel swung her leg over and stepped off the back of the BMW.
“You can ride with me any time you like, Laurel.” Shelby grinned and pulled Laurel’s purse out of the storage compartment. “It was nice having your arms around me.” She handed the purse over to her. “Here.”
Laurel felt the warmth rush to her cheeks yet again. Shelby had no qualms about saying exactly what was on her mind, a refreshing and certainly attractive attribute, especially when it was her that appeared to be occupying Shelby’s mind. “Thanks. It’s been an… enlightening trip, to say the least.”
“I was worried you’d freak and want to arrest me on the spot.”
“Oh, no,” Laurel said, shaking her head. “I knew all along you had nothing to do with killing those boys. “Your aura is all wrong for it.”
Shelby reached out and took her hand. “What is my aura telling you now?”
Laurel swallowed hard, embarrassed that she was actually embarrassed. Okay, she had not been on a date in forever, but still. The woman’s touch sent goose bumps down her spine. “It’s telling me that maybe there’s another meeting in store for us. Soon.”
She squeezed Laurel’s hand and laughed. “God, I certainly hope so. I haven’t wanted someone so bad in years.” Shelby leaned over and kissed her quickly and then sat back on her motorcycle, zipping the leather jacket up to her neck. “It’ll happen. I can promise you that, but I need to get back out there. I can sense that fucker Drake in the area. It’s weird that he keeps fading in and out like this, but we’ll track him down. He wants us to find him, after all.”
“Call us if you do,” Laurel insisted. “Don’t take him on by yourself.”
“Worried about me?”
Again her cheeks began to flame. “You need to quit embarrassing me every two minutes.”
“It’s cute as hell though.” Shelby revved the engine and flicked on her blinker. “You telling Jackie what happened?”
“Yeah, I need to.”
“Will she believe you? Will she understand?”
Laurel shrugged. “Believe me, yes, even if she doesn’t understand it. What about Nick? Can you convince him to cooperate and help us?”
“I’ll talk to him again, but I don’t know. Part of me thinks he wants Drake to take him down.”
The thought sobered Laurel up in a hurry. “That’s no good.”
“Nope. He’s tired and full of guilt. Can’t blame him too much, really, but he can’t give up now. I think we might actually have a shot at Drake.”
“I hope so,” Laurel said.
“I know so,” Shelby said with a heartless smile. “He wants us to.” With that she gunned the BMW and roared off into traffic, taking the next corner nearly horizontal to the ground.
“Wow,” Laurel whispered, feeling the trailing cold tails of ghosts whip by her as Shelby vanished around the corner. The feeling lingered, however-cold and malignant.
Laurel turned and felt around, using her sense to home in on the spirit. It was near, a block or two at the most. Why had she not felt it earlier? There was something oddly familiar about it as well. Shouldering her purse, Laurel began walking down the sidewalk.
A cold wind picked up the closer she got to whatever it was. Whispering along with it, dark and unkind, came a voice. “Laurrrelll.”
It hit her then, why this spirit felt familiar. It had been the same one outside her window a couple days earlier, the one that had tried to claw its way through her protective charms. What was it doing over here?
The cell phone buzzed in her purse, reminding her she had yet to check in with Jackie. She could wait a few more minutes. She wanted to find this ghost before it stepped back into the world of the dead. Deadworld. Shelby had spoke as if it were a place you could go visit, like Holland or Bermuda. Shelby. The cool fingers on Laurel’s face had certainly not left her feeling cool. She grinned at herself, feeling light and a bit crazy. She might have a date with a vampire. What a strange world.
“Laurrrelll.”
There. A mini market across the street. She was sure of it now. Laurel waited for traffic to clear and hurried across to the corner store, its windows plastered with ads and posters for lotto tickets, cigarettes, beer, and other assorted healthy ways to spend one’s money.
Bells tinkled overhead when she opened the door and walked inside, looking much like any other inner-city mini mart one might walk into, crammed to the gills with overpriced convenience and an assortment of cheap, imported knickknacks. A young woman stood idly by the till, smoking a cigarette. The ghost was somewhere in the back.
Stepping around an end cap on the far side of the store, Laurel was surprised to see a materialized apparition, vaporous and not wholly formed, but definitely recognizable as a man. She studied him for a moment, but nothing about his features looked familiar.
“Hello?” she said quietly. “I can hear you. What do you want?”
It shimmered, a malevolent grin spreading across its face before it began to glow and stretch into smoky tendrils. Through this dim haze, darkness yawned open in the corner, and to Laurel’s amazement, an impeccably dressed man stepped through, wearing a dark blue suit with a crimson tie. His hair was short, graying, and combed straight back with a bit of a wave. It was thin enough on top that you could see his scalp peeking through in places. Your average fiftysomething executive. He smiled, but it was one of those humorless things that corporate types learned to plaster on their faces when meeting with clients or the competition.
And his gray, irisless eyes glowed like bright, hot coals.
“Good day to you, Ms. Carpenter. So good of you to come.”
Panic tried to claw its way out of her brain, but the signal to run had been short-circuited. Those eyes knew why. They knew everything. Deep, soulless eyes that gazed with the power of the Goddess herself, peeling away every last vestige of defense, exposing and revealing every horrible and hidden secret. There was no judgment in there, just the ambivalent acceptance that came from all things dead.
She absently fumbled in her purse for the cell phone, finding only the thin, painted empress card, and managed to squeak out three words. “And you are?”
“Drake, my dear, lovely woman. Cornelius Drake.” His smile stretched wider, revealing all his yellowing smoker’s teeth, and he stretched out a hand toward her. “Come. My car is out front. Let’s take a drive, shall we?”
Laurel extended her hand, watching it as if it were someone else’s, getting wrapped in the cold fingers of the grim reaper himself. His grip was comforting, reassuring, and-much like Shelby-Laurel knew she would do anything for him.
In their wake, the old empress card tumbled to the ground from Laurel’s other hand, its warning unheeded.