I accepted there were no clues to find about the time I got a handful of Linus’s cotton briefs. I shoved his underwear back in the drawer I had no business searching and left the house before he caught me being a creeper.
I wasn’t a fan of cabs, but I called one all the same. I couldn’t bear leaving Jolene in a parking lot all day. The driver who pulled up to the curb wasn’t the chatty sort, and I appreciated that. It wasn’t until I was straddling Jolene that Cletus appeared.
His somber outline sharpened, dark against the lightening sky, and he hovered above me, looking forlorn.
I watched his sullen flutters for a full minute, but he didn’t perform any tricks. “Where have you been?”
The fabric of his hood rustled as he lifted his head and turned his facelessness toward the fading imprint of the moon.
“I appreciate your discretion. Amelie is…” I hesitated, unable to put my finger on the reason why I had kept Cletus a secret from her. “I’m not sure what she would make of you.”
Cletus appeared to have no opinion on the matter, which suited me fine.
When I cranked up Jolene, instead of heading home as I’d promised Woolly, I found myself idling in the empty street in front of the Cora Ann. Morning was on the rise, and the lights onboard were all extinguished. Only the dock remained lit. There was no movement, no sound. It was gloomy, its splendor unraveling, the way a boat with a ghost ought to look.
The wraith gazed after it with what I could only describe as longing, but he stuck to me.
An early morning runner breezed past, a reminder I ought to be heading home. “What is it with you and that boat?”
His skeletal arm raised, and his bony finger pointed to the second deck, at the window I was certain belonged to the dining room.
“I don’t get it.” I sighed. “I’m sorry. I would take you there, but you can’t cross water.”
Cletus neither agreed nor disagreed, as was his way. Again, I was struck with a resounding certainty that Linus had misled me about his wraith. Cletus wasn’t all black smoke and claws, and I didn’t buy that he was operating within set parameters, either. Moments like this betrayed him.
Quick as a rattler strike, a black-clad arm snaked around me and twisted the key, killing Jolene before coiling around my waist. A small palm clamped over my mouth as I sucked in air to scream, and a smooth cheek brushed mine. “Boo.”
Adrenaline roaring in my ears, I bared my teeth then bit down hard enough to taste blood.
“Goddess, Grier.” Becky leapt back, flinging her hand. “Is that any way to say hello?”
“Hello, Becky.” I spat pink on the sidewalk. “How do you want to die?”
Who did that? Tackled people on the street? She could have gotten herself killed.
“I have a very specific fantasy, if you must know,” Boaz drawled as he crossed the street to join us. “It involves me at age ninety-nine, a bottle of oil, and—”
“Cletus could have hurt her.” I dismounted Jolene and advanced on him. “I could have hurt her.” I glared at him. “I might still hurt you.”
“No offense, Squirt, but your wraith might be defective. And you wouldn’t hurt me.” He winked, and the morning warmed. “You like my face too much to wipe the floor with it.”
Aware I was only reinforcing bad behavior, I couldn’t help smiling as he stroked my ego. Brownie points were awarded for pretending I was a threat to him. Smart man. Maybe he realized one day I would be. Plus, he was right. I did like his face. Especially now that I knew what he could do with his lips.
Boaz was staring at my mouth like he’d done the same math and wanted to check our answers against each other.
“Becky, never sneak up on Grier. It’s not fun or funny.” His flat delivery left no room for argument. “Not when you’ve been where she’s gone and survived.”
“Sorry, Grier.” Becky was sucking on her wound. “I spook the guys all the time. I didn’t think.”
“No problem.” My heart would stop attempting to blast open my chest cavity and escape at any moment, I was sure. “It happens.”
Boaz shot her a pointed look, and she backed off to give us privacy.
“Where is your shadow?” Boaz tipped his head back. “I haven’t seen him.”
Cletus, a wraith of few moans, joined us then. Late to the party, he nonetheless billowed menacingly, swiping out with his claws and catching Boaz on the forearm. The kittens had done worse, but Boaz got with the program and took a healthy step away from me. His job done, Cletus returned to watching the Cora Ann.
“Maybe you’re right,” I conceded. “I’ll talk to Linus about him.”
Hooking his thumbs in the back pockets of his tactical pants, Boaz rocked on his heels. “You haven’t asked the obvious question.”
I rolled a shoulder. “I doubted you’d answer me.”
“I could tell you,” he said, playing along, “but—”
“—you’d have to kill me?” I finished for him.
“I was thinking more along the lines of chaining you in the basement at Mom’s.” His fingers closed over my wrist. “I have manacles in just your size.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I’m not going to ask.”
“It’s probably best you don’t.” He pulled me closer and dropped a kiss on the tip of my nose. “I don’t want to scare you off.”
“I’m a necromancer.” I huffed. “I don’t scare easy.”
“Then what were those cute panicked mouse noises you made a minute ago?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What panicked mouse noises?”
“The ones you breathed the second before you bit through Becky’s middle finger. How is she supposed to flip people off now?”
“A, those weren’t mouse noises. I was sucking in oxygen to scream bloody murder, and her hand caused air to whistle—not squeak—through my nose.” I caught his wrist and examined the faint scores in his skin. “And B, it’s rude to flip people off.”
“Well, doc?” The fingers of his other hand tangled in my hair. “Am I going to live?”
“Don’t be a baby. He barely broke the skin.” I reached for the pen in my back pocket and drew a healing sigil beneath the wounds. The skin knit together before my eyes, and I capped my weapon of choice. “There you go. Good as new.”
“What was that?” He gawked at the pen, then the sigil, and then me. “I’ve never seen one of those.”
“Um, can you continue to never have seen one?” I winced at my careless mistake. “It’s an invention of Linus’s. I shouldn’t have used it on you without his permission.”
“So that’s how he makes his money, huh?” He tapped the end of the pen, but his voice lacked the edge I had come to expect when he spoke of Linus. “I can respect him wanting to earn his own keep.”
“I’m sorry. I seem to have gone momentarily deaf.” I wiggled my right pinky in the corresponding ear. “Were you just civil to Linus?”
“It is easier to be civil to Linus when Linus isn’t here, but yes.”
Hmm. Maybe he could be trained after all.
Boaz winced and tapped a device hugging his ear I hadn’t even noticed he was wearing. “Yes, sir.”
“Look at you all mannered up,” I teased, but a burst of insight had my jaw dropping. “You’re hunting the dybbuk, aren’t you?” There was absolutely no other reason for him to be playing Man in Black with an Elite unit in Savannah otherwise. “Admit it. I’m right.”
“How did—?” He touched his earpiece again. “Yes, sir.” He bent down, lips brushing my throat. “Meet me in Forsyth Park in two hours. I can sneak away then.”
“Care to be more specific?” Forsyth Park spanned thirty acres. And then it hit me. “The playground.”
“The playground,” he agreed, and then he was gone.
A cool hand brushed my arm, and I found Cletus half-formed beside me. “Ready to go home?”
The wraith didn’t answer either way, but he did drift toward Jolene.
Woolly’s disco light reception as she flickered in panicked bursts made me feel like dirt for breaking my word to her, so I played a card guaranteed to earn her instant forgiveness. “I’m sorry.” I gripped the doorknob she wasn’t allowing me to twist. “It turns out Boaz is still in town on some kind of covert mission. He spotted me and came to say hello.”