The five of us went around the corner, nervously peeking around at the flashing lights. We saw the man’s body get pushed out in a body bag and placed into the ambulance.
Ambrosia lit up a cigarette—I’d seen her smoking socially in the bar—and Perry stuck her hand out.
“I’d like one please,” she demanded, her voice shaking.
I would have said something about that, but she’d just seen a man die right beside her. She could have the whole pack if she wanted it.
While Perry smoked, Ambrosia told us about the man. She’d danced with him earlier. His name was Tuffy G (because of course it was), and he was an okay guy, he just got a bit pervy when he got drunk. As far as she knew, he was a bit overweight but there was nothing wrong with him. He was in his early thirties and lived somewhat close to the haunted house we were investigating. He tiled bathrooms for a living.
“Well, I guess sometimes people just die,” I said.
Ambrosia shot me a dirty look that still managed to look sexual. She flicked away her cigarette butt. “You know, for someone who sees ghosts, you don’t seem to have a lot of respect for the dead.”
“Dex doesn’t have a lot of respect for the living either,” Maximus put in.
“Shut it, ginger balls.”
“We should get going,” Rose interrupted us before we could get into another sniping war. “I have to open tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry that ended in a bit of a bust,” Ambrosia said apologetically. “Still hope you had a nice time. And I wish you the best of luck with the house. If you need anything before you go, here’s my card.” She handed it to me and I slipped it in my pocket. She looked us all in the eye. “Seriously, if you need anything at all, I’m happy to help. I don’t care how ludicrous it sounds. I like you guys.”
Rose grumbled something and then started walking down the street toward her truck. We said goodbye to Ambrosia and hurried after her.
Back at the bed and breakfast, Perry was still in a state of shell-shock. I ran her a bath, making it overflow with sweet-smelling bubbles, and led her over to it. I bathed her while she sat there, and I made her drink a glass of bourbon that I’d bought earlier in the day.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked her as I ran a washcloth down her milky white back.
She shook her head. “I’ll be okay.” She looked up at me. “Dex, make love to me.”
I cocked my head, not hearing her right. “What? Now?”
“I need to feel you,” she said, her voice barely above a whimper.
“Okay, baby,” I told her. I brought her out of the bath, quickly dried her off, and then carried her over to the bed. I lay her down on it, then slowly, gently, covered her silken body with kisses, from the curve of her shoulder to her delicate ankle bones.
While I was inside, staring deep into her eyes, pushing slow, pushing soft while I was so hard, I felt a tingle at the back of my neck, a wash of heat covering my head.
I love making love to you, Perry’s thoughts crept into my brain. I need you, I need you.
I couldn’t help but smile and took us both over the edge. It wasn’t quite I love you. But it was a start.
CHAPTER TEN
“Dex, wake up.” Perry was whispering harshly, trying to shake me awake.
I slowly opened my eyes, the room dark except for the streetlights that were being filtered in through the gauzy curtains.
“What is it?” Where was I? I sat up and looked around. Perry was beside me in bed, topless, her br**sts glowing in the dim light. We were in New Orleans. The bed and breakfast.
“There’s someone on our balcony, she says she wants to speak with you.”
I shook my head, blinking fast, swallowing the terror. “What?”
I looked over to the French doors. There was a silhouette of a woman standing on the other side of them. The curtains billowed, a ghost dance.
Perry whispered in my ear. “She says she’s going to take me with her, all the way to hell.”
I spun around to see what Perry meant by that but suddenly she was gone. I was alone in the bed. The woman wasn’t on the balcony.
My teeth began chattering, my limbs turning to blocks of ice, holding me to the bed. The fear came so suddenly, so strongly, that I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything.
I just knew that someone was in the room with me. It wasn’t outside anymore.
It was in.
“Dex,” Perry’s small voice called out from the bathroom. “Dex, she’s in the mirror.”
I tried to call out to her, but my teeth were chattering too much.
“She says she’ll give me the baby if I step through the mirror.”
No! I tried to scream, but now my jaw was glued shut and my lungs were filling up with internal screams and fluid as cold as dead bones. Dirt began to fill the room, raining down from the ceiling.
“I have to go,” Perry said, her voice just an echo. “I’m sorry, baby.”
I blinked in my rage, and my mother stood at the edge of the bed, waist deep in the dirt that was rising around the bed like floodwaters. She picked some up in her hands. “I’m coming back for all of you, Declan.”
Then she threw the dirt on my head, again and again and again, until it filled my mouth, my nose, my ears, and finally my eyes.
It was all over.
I was dead and buried.
***
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Perry asked during breakfast, gently pushing my hair off my face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I said right back to her, returning her suspicious look. “You’re the one who had someone die right beside them last night.”
“And you’re the one who woke me up in the middle of the night, acting like you were dying. So that’s two scares for me.”
I looked around the breakfast dining room of the B&B. We were alone, drinking cup after cup of dark coffee and pulling apart flaky beignets, having gotten to breakfast just at the cut-off point. We were probably pushing our luck, but the breakfast server was sitting outside on the veranda and smoking away, not really caring.
“Well I’m fine, I just had a nightmare.”
“How often do you dream about your mother?” she asked. I had to tell her what happened, everything except the baby part. But anyway, it was just a dream; it wasn’t real. When things got real, then that’s when they became something. This was just my overactive imagination coupled with my raging hormones. Weird shit like this happened all the time.