The Haunting (Immortals) (12 page)

“Maaaiiii.”

“No!” she shouted, her voice sounding especially loud in the otherwise quiet of the room.

A flicker of light flashed across the mirror, catching her eye. She moved closer to get a better look and saw that the glass was turning cloudy, like a curtain of mist was falling behind it.

Every fiber in her tensed, but she couldn’t look away. The swirling mist grew thicker, drawing her close enough to see that something lay just beyond the mist.

Pale and ghostly with dark vacuous eyes, a face appeared.

“Maaaiiii.”

Mai’s heart slammed against her chest as adrenaline shot through her. She stumbled back from the mirror, unable to take her eyes from it. The face was still there. She needed someone else to see it. The idea motivated her and she hurried to the door. Before it disappeared, she needed a witness to prove she wasn’t losing her mind.

Pulling open the apartment door, she cast another nervous glance at the mirror, but she could only see the side of the frame from this angle. Darting down the hallway, she knocked on Jenna’s door. There was still no answer.

She hurried to the elevator and punched the down button. She’d drag someone up from the lobby if she had to. She looked back at her apartment, not even wanting to think about what could be happening inside. When the elevator arrived, she didn’t even wait for the doors to fully open before she rushed through them, slamming into a hard body. Hands grabbed her and she screamed.

“Hey, it’s just me. Are you all right?”

The familiar voice slowly registered and she stopped struggling. “Will?”

The super smiled down at her. “You okay? You seem upset.”

Will! He could be her witness. Clutching his arm, she pulled him out of the elevator, her personal dislike for him forgotten for the moment. “Hurry. There’s something in my apartment—I need you to see it.”

“It’d better not be a mouse or a roach. I just had the place exterminated.”

“No, it was a face. Or a ghost. Or something.”

She dragged him into her apartment and over to stand in front of the mirror and pointed.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

“No. There was a face.” She turned to stare at the mirror, which had returned to normal.

“Where?”

“In the mirror.” She dropped her head and stared at the floor, feeling utterly dejected. Why was she even surprised?

“Oh, sure. I see it now.”

“You do?” She hardly dared to hope.

“Sure. It’s right there.” He pointed to his own reflection and smiled, leaving Mai to feel even worse than she had a moment before

“It was there,” she said, mostly to herself. “A face. And the mist. And the voice. It was…” She stopped talking because Will was staring at her like she was crazy. Maybe he was right.

She rubbed her temples hoping to ease the ache building in her head. “I know I saw something,” she muttered under her breath.

“I believe you.” He put an arm around her shoulder. “And I can see that it frightened you, but you’re safe now.” She wasn’t exactly feeling reassured and he must have sensed it. “Maybe I should stay with you for a while.”

Great, she thought. Let Will comfort her? Had hell frozen over? “Thanks, Will.” She eased out from under his arm. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure? Because I don’t mind staying—all night if necessary.”

“It won’t be,” a deep voice said from the doorway.

Mai turned at the sound and saw Nick standing there, so big and tall he practically filled the doorway. Her sense of relief at seeing him surprised her.

“What’s going on?” he demanded, coming forward to stand beside her. She moved closer to him without even thinking about it. He was a tower of strength and she was selfish enough to want to lean on him because she had no one else. “Tell me what happened,” he said softly. “Is it Sarah?”

“No, not that.” She noticed the woodsy scent of his aftershave and breathed it in, immediately feeling better. “I thought I saw something in the mirror.” It sounded absurd now.

“I’ll take the mirror off the wall for you—store it downstairs,” Will offered.

Mai gave the idea serious, if brief, consideration. She had to learn to control her hallucinations, and removing the mirror wasn’t going to help her accomplish that. “No. That’s okay.” She took another breath and tried to commit Nick’s scent to memory. “I’m all right. Thanks.”

“Are you sure?” Nick asked, finding her expression so forlorn he had to fight the urge to pull her into his arms. But he wasn’t really her boyfriend—he was just pretending to be. He wondered who believed the lie more at the moment—Will or himself. He was afraid he knew the answer.

He walked over to the mirror and examined it. “What exactly did you see?”

She hesitated, and he wasn’t sure why. “It sort of got cloudy and then—I thought I saw a face.”

She looked like she expected him to laugh, or tell her she was imagining things, but he’d seen stranger things than
disembodied heads—though not recently. And he wasn’t seeing any now, either. “Just to be clear, it’s not there now, right?”

She glared at him. “No. It’s not there now.” Her frosty tone held a definite bite.

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I just wanted to be sure we’re all on the same page.” He went over to the mirror and searched it thoroughly, viewing it from all angles, tapping the surfaces front and back. “I’m sorry, Mai. It looks like a plain old mirror.” He turned to Will. “Did you see the face, too?”

Will gave Mai an apologetic look. “No.”

“I know what I saw, Nick, whether you believe me or not,” Mai said.

“I believe you,” he said sincerely. He held her gaze as she searched his, perhaps trying to decide if he was being straight with her. He was.

Aware of Will watching them, Nick started feeling that three was definitely a crowd. He turned to the man and held out his hand. “Thanks for being here. We won’t keep you. I’m sure you have other things to do.”

Will, apparently, wasn’t leaving without making one last effort. “I can stick around if you want me to,” he told Mai.

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine now that Nick’s here.”

The primal beast inside Nick purred at her choice of words and he had to work hard not to gloat openly as he crossed to the open doorway and waited for Will to leave.

“Call if you need me,” Will offered. “I can be here at a moment’s notice—anytime, day or night.” This last was said with a defiant glare at Nick, who might have shut the door a bit too quickly after Will stepped through.

When he turned back around, he found Mai watching him. He moved to her and lightly rubbed her upper arms
with his hands, acutely aware that she didn’t pull away. “There are any number of explanations for what you saw. It could have been a trick of the light, reflecting your face back to you. Or the TV.”

“It wasn’t on,” she replied dryly.

“I don’t suppose you have any sprites or pixies living in the building? It’d be just their kind of prank to make you think your mirror is haunted.”

“I haven’t met any of my neighbors other than Jenna and Sarah, but I suppose there could be sprites in the building. Pixies wouldn’t come to the city.”

“True.” He waited a heartbeat before continuing. “There’s another possibility,” he ventured. “It could be legitimately haunted.”

“The building’s not that old.”

“Doesn’t matter. There are so many displaced spirits in the city looking to anchor themselves someplace. One of them might have anchored themselves to your mirror.”

She studied the mirror, a frown on her face. “I suppose…”

“Tell you what. If you want, I’ll have a friend of mine come over and do a sweep of the place. When he’s done, he’ll put wards on your apartment to keep the spirits out.”

She sighed. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

“What ever you want to do.” He glanced at his watch. “What do you say we get out of here? I’ll take you to dinner.”

She frowned. “I thought I was supposed to treat you.”

He looked at the bare table and then glanced into the kitchen, where there was obviously nothing cooking. When he turned back to her, she looked embarrassed—and tired. “If you’d rather, I could take a rain check?”

He saw the way her gaze flickered to the mirror and knew that despite the way she was acting, she was still on
edge. Before she could respond, he countered with another suggestion. “Or we can order delivery and you can treat me to dinner some other time. Tonight will be my treat.”

“Really?” The hopeful note in her voice made him glad he’d suggested it.

“Absolutely. I noticed an Anthony’s on my way over here. I think they deliver.”

Her eyes lit up. “That sounds good.”

Smiling, he pulled out his cell phone and tapped in a number. Minutes later, he’d placed their order, charging it to his credit card. After he put his phone away, he noticed that Mai was frowning at the mirror.

“There’s an explanation,” he assured her. “We’ll find it.”

Her eyes were shadowed when she finally tore her gaze away long enough to look at him. “What if the explanation is that I’m losing my mind?”

“It’s not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know people.”

She gave a ladylike snort of disgust. “Please, you know people. At your office, you thought I was a stripper.”

He smiled, remembering the encounter. “In my defense, you
were
dressed the part, what with the short skirt and tight blouse.”

“You shouldn’t judge a woman by the clothes she wears.”

He smiled. “If you’ll recall, I was perfectly willing to judge you without clothes.”

A small smile touched her lips. “Thank you.”

Now he was confused. “For what? Wanting to see you out of your clothes?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, for making me laugh and staying for dinner. And just for being here.”

“You’re welcome.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go slip into something
less comfortable than these ugly sweats,” she said. “And don’t go reading anything into it, okay?”

“I promise. I won’t even be thinking about you—stripping off your clothes, standing naked just a few feet away. No ma’am. No sexual thoughts here.” He let his gaze travel over her body, marveling that even in her sweats, he found her appealing.

She gave him a mock scowl and hurried down the hall. When he heard the door close, Nick projected himself into the spiritual realm. Slowly, he moved about the room, picking up residual traces and identifying as many as he could. Mai’s green energy field was the strongest, obviously, and Will’s orange energy pattern was still present.

He continued around the room, stopping in front of the mirror for a long time. There was an energy pattern here that he didn’t recognize and yet felt vaguely familiar. Like something he’d encountered before—if he could only remember when or where.

At that moment, the door buzzer sounded. Thinking it was the deliveryman with their food, Nick returned to his body and went to answer it.

“Yes?” he asked, speaking into the intercom.

“Delivery,” came the curt response.

“Come on up. Number 14-B.” He pressed the button that would unlock the building’s main door.

“Food’s here,” Nick told Mai a few minutes later when she came out of her bedroom.

“Did you buzz him in?” She’d changed from the baggy, oversized sweats to leggings and an oversized tailored shirt. If he’d thought she looked good before, now she looked even more attractive. The outfit accentuated both her petite stature and her generous curves. Plus, she’d brushed her hair until it hung in twin silken curtains about her face.

“Buzzed in and on his way up,” Nick replied, trying not to stare.

“Wait a minute.” She stopped and put her hand on her hips. “How did you get in here today? I don’t remember buzzing you in. And for that matter, how’d you get in that first morning?”

He’d wondered when she’d ask. “I have my ways.” A knock sounded on the door and leaving her to wonder how he’d done it, he went to answer it.

Taking the bag of food from the deliveryman, he tipped him and then carried the bag to the kitchen counter. As Mai went to carry plates to the table, he reached into the bag to lift out the containers.

As he went to set the first one down, the lid came undone and the bottom fell open. He automatically leaned forward to block the container from falling to the floor and in the process, got hot tomato sauce splatter across his shirt and jeans. “Damn.” It burned. When he jumped back in surprise, he saw that sauce had splattered over the counter and floor.

“You okay?” Mai asked, hurrying over to him.

“Small accident,” he admitted, trying to keep the steaming hot fabric away from his body. “Mind if I use your bathroom?”

“Of course not.” She pointed to a door down the hall. “You go wash up while I take care of this.”

“Thanks.”

As soon as he stepped into the bathroom, he stripped off his shirt and held the soiled section under the water, cleaning it as best he could. Then he wiped off his jeans and washed his stomach, chest and arms. When he finished, he looked around for something to dry himself with. Opening the bathroom door, he stuck out his head. “Do you have a towel I can use?”

“Oh, sorry. I just washed them. They’re in the bedroom.”
Mai washed her hands to get rid of the sticky sauce and dried them with a paper towel. Then she hurried down the hall, images filling her head of Nick standing with soap in his eyes patiently waiting for her. When she reached the bathroom, however, the door stood open and Nick was gone. The hallway was too short for her to have missed him, which left only one other place he could be.

Moving toward her bedroom, she tried to remember if she’d picked her dirty clothes up off the carpet. “Did you find what you needed—oh.”

Mai’s breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t take her gaze off him. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and from where she stood, with his tanned bare chest and bulging biceps, he was male perfection. A little thrill of awareness shot through her.

“I found one,” he said, looking up from the towel after wiping his face. He seemed amused at her discomfort and she thought he made an extra show of draping the towel around the back of his neck as he faced her. Her gaze wandered across the flat planes of his chest before following the washboard abs down to the waistband of his still-wet jeans.