Read Be My Banshee (Purple Door Detective Agency Book 1) Online
Authors: Joyce Lavene,Jim Lavene
Tags: #Fantasy & Magic, #Beane Sidhe, #Urban Fantasy, #Cozy Mystery
Be My Banshee (Purple Door Detective Agency Book 1) (24 page)
Aine turned away from him. There was as much for her here in the rotting pile of stone as there was in Norfolk. This wasn’t her home either, but she had no wish to be disgraced in her final task for the family she served.
O’Neill took her hand, and she immediately became the young queen—innocent and vulnerable—before she had been a wife and a mother, before she was a warrior that had led her people.
“I want to get to know you.” She started to speak, but he kept going. “I know this isn’t the real you anymore,
yada, yada, yada
. I don’t care. Yes, I like seeing you like this, but I want to know those other parts of you too.”
“To what end?” Tears misted her eyes. “I have been dead longer than this castle. I am the harbinger of death. Why would you want to spend time with me?”
He moved closer to her, careful not to release her hand, and touched her beautiful face, catching a lock of her fiery red hair with his fingers. “Because I’ve never met anyone like you, and I want to know everything you can teach me. I want to be with you, Aine. Is that so difficult to believe?”
“No. You should be with your own. You should fall in love and marry, produce many offspring. My heart cannot bear another loss.”
“I thought you wanted me to die and get it over with so you’d be free of your curse.”
“Aye. That is what I want.” She put her hand on his face and smiled back at him. “But I fear that would be more painful to me right now than lying in my tomb without knowing you.”
“Great. So we have an understanding. No dire warnings of death while I’m working, and you don’t step between me and the bullet unless you have some prior knowledge that it’s going to kill me.”
“I shall do my best.” She laughed at him dictating terms to her, but she was glad to go back with him to that other foolish world. “And you, O’Neill, will do your best to live a long, prosperous life.”
“You bet.” He lightly kissed her lips. “Probably not as long as yours, but maybe Sunshine can give me a magic youth booster every now and again. And when we go, we both go.”
“That may be so.” Her smile showed a small dimple in her chin.
“Let’s go.” He scratched his head. “It’s gonna take me a while to get out of Ireland.”
She put her arms around him and carefully drew him close. “No, O’Neill. It will take little time at all. Hold on to me.”
“With pleasure.”
* * *
Six weeks later, Sunshine Merryweather was reading the newspaper and swearing at it—her usual habit in the morning when there were no clients in the outer office.
“Bad news?” Jane set a cup of tea on the desk in front of her.
“They’re going to be working on the road out here in front of the office for the next six months. I’m going to have to buy a cover for my car so it doesn’t stay dusty all the time. Not to mention that the one-way parking is bad enough on Brooke Street without them tearing it up.”
“Could you not simply keep the dust from the vehicle with magic?” Aine joined them in her black cloak.
“I could, but it’s a waste of my energy to keep up with something like that.” Sunshine put down the newspaper and took a sip of tea. “Here’s a news flash I wanted both of you to see.”
She pointed at the glass board that appeared. “It seems Elena Spiros has taken a turn for the worse in her career.”
The beautiful artist was shown on the screen as she was arrested for art fraud at the D. C. celebration of her work.
A sallow-faced newsman narrated. “Miss Spiros was arrested when judges found that her original paintings had been done over stolen art that has been missing from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.” The news announcer filled in the details. “She could serve up to one hundred years for the theft. Spiros had risen quickly to fame by receiving one of the largest grants ever given by the National Endowment for the Arts.”
“An interesting and cunning retribution,” Aine acknowledged.
“We couldn’t get her any other way,” Sunshine said. “But at least she won’t walk free after having those people killed.”
Aine’s cell phone rang. She briefly studied it and then threw it on the floor. “I shall not learn to carry this infernal device as O’Neill requests. No one needs to communicate with another so dearly.”
Jane hurried to pick up the phone and tapped the screen to answer the call. “Purple Door Detective Agency.”
“Why are you answering this, Jane?” O’Neill asked. “Put Aine on.”
“She threw it on the floor again,” Jane said. “Is there something you want me to tell her?”
“Yeah. Tell them both. Someone ran into a creature downtown. I don’t want to speculate on what it is, but it looks part dragon and part man. He’s not dead. Not even injured as far as I can tell. I think this should be right down your alley. I’m here now. Come on down and join the media circus.”
“Tell him we are arriving shortly,” Aine said.
“She said—”
“I heard. Tell her—”
Sunshine waved her hand at the phone, and it went dead. “You two need a secretary. You can’t have Jane. Come on. Let’s go. I hope that isn’t Caeford. I’d hate to lose his monthly account.”
“Don’t forget that we need cereal,” Jane called out from the kitchen.
“I won’t forget,” Sunshine said as she started to follow Aine out of the building.
A warm breeze floated past her. It smelled of summer and sea. She glanced sharply toward the office that had been empty since the day the harpy had almost killed her. The door had remained open, but now it was tightly closed.
She smiled as she walked by it, laying her hand against it.
“Are you changing clothes again?” Aine asked from the front door. “I do not understand why you feel the urge to use different clothing every day.”
“Not changing clothes. And I’m right behind you. I just had to say hello to an old friend.”
About the Authors
Joyce and Jim Lavene write award-winning, bestselling mystery and urban fantasy fiction as themselves, J.J. Cook, and Ellie Grant. Their first mystery novel, Last Dance, won the Master’s Choice Award for best first mystery novel in 1999. Their romance, Flowers in the Night, was nominated for the Frankfurt Book Award in 2000.
They have written and published more than 70 novels for Harlequin, Penguin, Amazon, and Simon and Schuster that are sold worldwide. They have also published hundreds of non-fiction articles for national and regional publications. They live in Midland, North Carolina with their family and their rescue pets—Rudi, Stan Lee, and Quincy.
Visit them at:
www.facebook.com/joyceandjimlavene
http://amazon.com/author/jlavene
https://twitter.com/AuthorJLavene
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