“Won’t she smell me on you now?”
“I don’t think so. This is Gracie’s home. Her scent is all over it. Besides, I changed my clothes and showered with enough lavender to throw a hellhound off your scent.” I stop fussing with Gracie’s hair and look at Gaire. “Just don’t touch me.”
“You test my control, Luna,” Gaire says and tries not to smile. The corner of his mouth fights his stern eyes. “I wanted you earlier, and although Gracie’s body agreed, you did not.”
“Wipe that grin from your face, big guy,” I gibe. “You only stopped because Gracie can find out if Vuur is dead. She’d be toast if we went any further. I just need Nan to help me summon his spirit.”
Like he wasn’t all up on it if I didn’t back him down—I scratch up another payback mark.
“Are you sure Gracie-carbon-copy can do this, even with Nan?”
Now he’s getting all smartass male-ego on me, and damn it, he’s right. I don’t know for sure.
“No,” I admit. “But Vuur told me his full name. That’s all a necromancer needs: a summoning circle and a full name. I’m going to give it a try when I get back from the sewer.”
“Even if we find the dragon is dead, neither a ghost nor a carbon-copy Gracie can kill the psycho doppelganger,” Gaire grinds out.
“Guess what Nan can do?” I’ll be damned if I’m going to admit he’s right again. When he just glares at me, I poke him again. “Come on, guess.”
He raises both hands and says, “I give up.”
“Detect anything dead, or demon-ish, around or inside someone’s body.” I pause for that to sink in. When he says nothing, I fan my hand up and down Gracie’s body. “Hello! Demon-boo-boo over here. Nan spotted me right off. Even I can’t do that. I’m taking her with me into the sewer.”
Gaire’s throat is making sexy alpha noises.
“That does not … console me,” he says as I breeze by on my way downstairs to pick up Nan and hit the storm drain.
A few minutes later, I step into the cement tunnel behind Gracie’s house and wave at Gaire standing on the porch, arms crossed over his chest. Nan is quietly hovering beside me. She hasn’t said a word since we left.
As we duck into the storm pipe and make our way to the end of the first tunnel, I inhale deeply. The doppelganger feels at home, but Gracie is scrunching her nose with the smells that I find comforting.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask the ghost. “You know Gracie will be back in a week. I have no intention of stopping that.”
As we take a left, Nan says, I’m tryin’ to decide whether my granddaughter and I should help you afterward.
I stop and gawk at the apparition. “You mean, you think she’d let me keep wearing her when she gets back?”
Its pitch black in the second tunnel, but my Down Under vision kicks in and I can see Nan’s lips move. It’s only a few hundred feet until we can climb out and hit a sewer entrance. I hear her voice clearly, but it doesn’t echo off the cement walls like mine does.
Honey, we’re witches that communicate with the dead. It’s what we do. You and your gentleman friend seem to be tryin’ to right somethin’ needs rightin’. Nan floats ahead of me, and I scurry to catch up. Gracie loves gettin’ in over her head. One gander at you, and … Well, never mind, girl. You’ll see.”
My mother’s words come back and bite me on Gracie’s ass. Do as you wish, dear. I can’t stop you. Just remember … They can.
“Nan, can others Down Under see and talk to you?” I ask jogging to keep up as the ghost glides along.
Some have, but most can’t, and usually the ones that do, they have the gift. Her transparent face leaves a smoke trail as she turns hooded eyes on me. Or wears someone who has the gift.
“Can your granddaughter summon up ghosts that speak to the creatures Down Under?”
What are you getting at, child?
“Okay, it’s just that if you tell Gracie about me, and she doesn’t like it, I could be in serious trouble if she can somehow take this to my elders.”
Nan stops, hovers, and stares at me. She may be a translucent dull image, but I can see the hurt in her eyes.
Well, she says, it looks like you’re gonna have to put your trust in me like I’ve chosen to do with you, now aren’t you, missy?
I don’t trust anyone, anymore. Must be the Jane in me.
We silently navigate the storm pipes at a steady pace, one turn after the last, until we come to the exit I’d been searching for; the one that we take to get to a sewer entrance above Down Under.