The Mark (Interracial Paranormal Romance) (Toil and Trouble) (2 page)

But right now, I had more pressing issues. Not only was the ghost slamming me with images of all the horrible things he had planned for Kenny, his anger was affecting everything in the room. The two desks that sat at the corner shimmied and shook, the computers flickering on and off ominously. The old grandfather clock whirled like a washing machine, the pendulum swinging so rapidly I needed a Dramamine.

“Calm down, honey bunny,” I urged, flashing him an uneasy smile. “I can’t add all this shit to my tab. I can barely afford rent. Without the money. Without you taking care of me.” I laid it on nice and thick. I could tell from the ghost’s eyes that he was no stranger to Candi employing the almighty guilt trip.

“Sorry,” he said, his eyes on his feet. What was this power that this petite woman held over him? He kicked ass all the way to the top of his company, but in front of me now, he was two feet tall.

“If I could go back-” He stopped. He didn’t need to finish. I’d heard this sad song a million times. The shoulda-coulda-wouldas. As romantic as he was attempting to be, I knew the truth. Just like every other ghost I’d come across in my line of work, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

“I know baby,” I said, crossing my arms. “You worked so hard all your life and you made so many sacrifices. You deserve to rest…and if I hadn’t lost my job, I wouldn’t have even bothered you.” I leaned in close, lowering my voice. “I just need a little something, just a bit to get me through.”

He tapped his foot, mulling it over. “And you said Kenny didn’t give you the account numbers?”

I shook my head slightly.

He cracked his knuckles and let out a loud sigh that rattled everything that wasn’t nailed down. I’d been at this for almost an hour and I was no closer to getting the information now than when I first summoned him. Time to go to plan B.

“You know what?” I said suddenly, smoothing the front of my mini dress. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m a pretty girl, right? And I’m all alone now so…” I let a perfectly depressed sob escape from my lips before I continued. “I don’t have anything now that you’re gone. I just want to thank you for the little time we had, Brooksey.” I turned toward the exit, walking briskly, but not too much so, hoping he didn’t call my bluff.

“I have one more account,” the ghost said, scratching his chin. “Kenny, Melissa, no one knows about it but me and the bank manager in the Caymans.”

Jackpot
, I thought excitedly. “Okay baby, I’m ready.”

After I finished writing it down, I blew him a kiss. “Thanks so much.”

“That’s more than enough,” he said, with an edge to his voice. “5.5. I’m sure Melissa has already picked the bones, so you’ll have to make do.”

“Oh I will,” I said, walking over to the door. Since he was already pretty powerful, I didn’t think my usual shtick was a good idea.

Normally as my last hoorah I’d release my glamour and the guy or gal would realize they were duped. Hilarity ensued.

While the ghost certainly didn’t deserve any sort of peace, I figured no harm, no foul if he flitted back to the All thinking his small fortune was going to this chick instead of his very, very angry wife. Who was waiting in the lobby.

“OW!” the ghost bellowed as she chunked a stream of salt onto him. I cringed as I watched the line bubble, leaving a red, oozing streak on his face. One of the few old wives’ tales grounded in truth--salt is to ghosts as angry is to a woman scorned.

“You stupid bitch!” he thundered, his eyes filling with hate. I felt the room begin to tremble and shake. There were only ten seconds left in the summoning but that was more than enough time to do some serious damage. B would kill me if he had to have the room re-constructed again.

“Ego transporto vos tergum ut vorago!” I said, putting a bit of my will behind the words.

The ghost flickered away, leaving only me and his wife. Melissa still stood beside the circle, her fingers still wrapped around the can of salt.

“Bastard,” she muttered for good measure. She looked over at me, embarrassment coloring her fair face. “I-I’m sorry, Jade.”

I shook my body, feeling the rest of the glamour wash away. I ruffled my stringy hair and gave her a halfhearted grin. “No need.” I extended the piece of paper. “You deserve it.”

Thinking about the potential haunting I’d caused for a woman that was dressed in an outfit that cost as much as my rent for a whole year, I knew my words was far from the truth.

Chapter Two

Temptation is Good for the Soul

I looked out at the quiet street and took a long drag from my cigarette. If you would have told me a year ago that I would stare at a Raleigh night with fondness, I wouldn’t have believed you.

The maddening sound of where I grew up was a symphony of awesomeness---everything in New York is magnified in vibrant Technicolor, every street an adventure. Life in North Carolina moved slower, the crammed apartments replaced by fields and Bojangles. But there was something charming about the south, personified by the caramel drawl of the locals. My oasis used to be Central Park in the wee hours of the morning…now I’d traded the park for the patio of my apartment.

I tilted my head when I heard the familiar squeak of the patio door. I gripped the rail, biting my lip as my boyfriend’s scent flooded my nostrils. Jack Xavier Badeau-he always smelled like Harlequin romances say a man should-bittersweet, heavy, and strong.

“Come back to bed,” he said behind me. I sighed contentedly as he wrapped his thick arms around me, pulling me close to his chest.

I could still remember the first time I saw him at Royal Bean. His shoulder length, blonde hair hung in waves, his chiseled jaw set in concentration. He looked like Sawyer from LOST and I have to admit-my attraction was purely physical at first. I practically drooled all over myself imagining all the naughty things I wanted to do with him. On an island, in my bedroom, wherever.

After a couple of nights out-old movies on the lawn outside the art museum, Italian at Bella Monica, Cocorosie at Cat’s Cradle, and gravehopping off Glenwood Avenue, I found myself wondering if my no dating rule was well founded. After all, I’d found an attractive, smart, well-adjusted everyman who made me want to pretty up and fight the new day. And the sex was, well…earth shattering.

Then I realized that he always left before dawn. When I joked that my morning breath wasn’t that bad, he shut down completely. In spite of myself, I concocted all these theories. The most fantastical was that Jack was a super spy, and broke all the rules by even being with me. The lamest was that Jack wasn’t a morning person and was worried his bad moods would turn me off.

The truth was a little more alarming.

When I kept suggesting meeting up for lunch and doing other day-time activities and he always got sick at the last minute or pumped out some other sorry excuse, I showed up at his apartment for lunch. Jack had already eaten…a preppy co-ed lying on his living room floor, drained of all her blood.

Usually having a boyfriend that wanted to suck your blood would act as a kind of repellant or red flag of some sort, but one of the perks of being a necromancer is that my blood is poison to vampires.

There’s a long drawn out prophecy that kind of explains it, but mostly it’s because I communicate with the dead, or more specifically our consumption of the blood of the dead. During our first summoning, a necromancer has to ingest a large quantity of dead man’s blood. It acts a bridge connecting us with the All, or the underworld where spirits go when they kick the bucket.

Unfortunately, my blood doesn’t guard me against werewolves, shifters, or a whole host of other supernatural creatures, but I try to appreciate the small things.

At the moment, it was hard to appreciate much of anything. I was a couple of hundred dollars richer, yes; but I felt a chill remembering the ghost’s power rippling through the room. Sherry Jackson’s ghost threw a glass across the room--the one I summoned an hour ago almost shook the very foundation of the building.

I let out a sigh, staring at the embers that burned from the tip of my cigarette. My hands still shook a bit. The ghost had really done a number on me. I finally answered Jack’s request. “I’m not really that sleepy. Sorry.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Jack asked, his strong fingers tousling my hair. He knew I hated it, especially when it was freshly twisted, but it gave him thrills to wind me up. And okay, maybe I liked to have my buttons pushed. Sometimes.

“Are you, Dr. Badeau?” I said with a smirk. Back when he was a human, Jack was Jacques Xavier Badeau III. He studied medical arts in Montpellier, even working under Jean-Baptiste Denys for a time before forsaking an opportunity to work as the personal physician to the crown after Denys stepped down due to accusations of malpractice. Before he met his maker, a few days before his 25th birthday, he’d opted for a simple life in the Americas. Still, every now and then, I’d catch his head in some medical journal, his eyes full of life and excitement.

“Truth be told, as your personal physician, I require you to make love to me several times more before the sun rises,” he said with a grin.

I turned to him then, batting my dark lashes at him flirtatiously. “Why, doctor! Are you sure such a vigorous regimen is warranted?”

“Only one way to find out.” He tickled me then, his touch soft and hard on all the places he knew intimately. He stopped when he saw that my mind was elsewhere. “You’ve gotta talk to me, babe.”

I’d been necromancing with NACA for almost a year now. At first, I’d thought it was glamorous. I was paid in cash, with very little effort on my part. I burned the oils, I walked in a circle, I said a few words in Latin, I got paid.

And working for NACA had other perks-I had access to supernatural resources that I’d been barred from as a free agent. From having lattes with fairies to meeting a real, live dragon, I’d seen fantastic and terrible things.

But there are only so many times one can summon some greedy fat cat ghost for an equally greedy living relative. I mean, as pissed as Mrs. Brooks was, that couldn’t have been the first time she experienced how truly sleazy her husband was. And as far as money, while she may not have been able to lead the life that she’d grown accustomed to, everyday Americans were making it by on less.

To make matters worse, I involved some other guy, essentially putting him in grave danger. What I’d done was sloppy, careless and downright dangerous. And for what? A new pair of Converse and a fancy athame I’d been eyeballing? What was I becoming?