Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo Read online

  His mouth suddenly feeling numb, he could hardly speak as he asked, “And her past? Do I tell her the truth about who she is? What little I know?”

  When Scarlett discovered all the lies he’d been forced to tell, all the facts he’d omitted, she’d never forgive him.

  “No.” She held up her hands. “She has to learn these truths for herself.”

  His skin rushed with heated prickles. One thing he knew about Scar was that she didn’t forget easily. Her temper was explosive, to say the least. If she found out he’d kept something like that from her, she wouldn’t even listen to his reasons. She’d be pissed as hell, and rightly so.

  “I have to tell her,” he said, “I have to—”

  Pandora cocked her head, her gaze raking him. “Why? To absolve your own conscience? Tell her who she is now, and it could fracture the delicate shell containing her. You have no idea the creature that lives inside your woman.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  She snorted. “That’s where you’re wrong, wolf. Because I do. Everyone in my life lied to me. They all played the game.”

  Hearing the pain shading her words, he knew she was telling the truth. “And how’d you take it when you finally learned the truth?”

  “I killed almost all of them.” Her words were soft, but her smile was velvet laced with venom.

  He shivered.

  “But,” she said, “eventually, I realized there wasn’t a choice for some of them either. See, hindsight is a beautiful thing. Scarlett can’t know. Not right now. She’s still too unpredictable. Too unstable.”

  He frowned at her wording, latching onto it like a lifeline. Mercer had his suspicions of what Scarlett really was. She was more, so much more than the other Veilers in the world, but even his imagination could only take him so far. “So what exactly is she?”

  Smirking, she said, “She’s a badass with a seriously nasty attitude problem. But I kind of think that hellcat might like you too, Merc. And for her sake, you’d better hope she does.”

  Chapter 6

  Scarlett

  Declan Bentley of Bentley and Bentley Law Firm stood, snapping his briefcase shut with decisive movements.

  “We’ll be in touch,” he said, all smooth manners and polished Southern gentleman, reminding me a little of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, with his dark coloring and equally dark, intelligent eyes.

  Licking my front teeth, I tipped down the invitation he’d just handed me not a second past. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Pursing his lips, he nodded first at Carter then at me. “Lieutenant. Vampire. Good day.”

  Shit hadn’t quite hit the fan as I’d imagined, but the situation certainly wasn’t a bed of roses, either.

  As I watched the vampire liaison—who, incidentally, was very, very human—walk out the precinct doors with his head held high and his nose tipped in lofty superiority, I mumbled to Carter. “Did this really just happen?”

  Steepling his long, perfectly manicured fingers together, Carter nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off the door that Bentley had just walked through after a nearly five-hour debriefing.

  “Think it did,” he muttered with that familiar smooth whiskey twang of his, which had first caught my notice over two decades before.

  Apart from some new scars to his face and neck, Carter looked remarkably healthy for someone who had, just a few months back, appeared butchered and dead as a doornail after his sister had gutted him from lower spine to upper.

  From the little bits I knew of skinwalkers, the skins they wore aged in the same manner that a human’s skin would—wrinkling, livering, and so forth. Just a few weeks ago, his skin had been badly damaged again after he was abducted by a fae hell-bent on vengeance. I’d not realized that skins could be repaired, but that made twice that his had undergone restorations.

  That made me wonder who in the hell had that job and whether they were ever as creeped out about it as I was.

  I shook my head, trying to ward off the random thoughts that still plagued me whenever I was around him.

  Carter’s full bottom lip was twisted up at one corner, and he was looking at me as though he knew where my thoughts had gone.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, “I’m trying, Car... ter.” The old nickname had almost spilled off my tongue, causing me to clear my throat. “It’s hard sometimes.”

  He nodded, casting a glance down at my hands, and he nodded slowly. I could read the pain in his expression, the isolation he felt. Not everyone in the precinct knew what he really was, but those who did gave him a wide berth.

  Bearing down on my molars, I did something I’d only managed to do a few times since learning the truth of him. I reached over and swiftly patted his hand. The gesture wasn’t much, more of a flyby touch, but his entire body stilled as he locked eyes with me and held his breath.

  Giving him a weak smile, I grunted, withdrew my hand, and slapped it against my chest as if to clear a cough, and I asked, “Well, what now?”

  My what now of course referred to our impromptu visit, and visit was really putting it mildly. Few pleasantries had been exchanged—just a no-nonsense interrogation and play-by-play of what had happened that night. He’d spent several hours rehashing the same things over and over, each time giving me a look as though he was sure I was keeping something from him.

  I’d even told him about the necklace and pendant I’d found in Juliet’s ashes after I incinerated her—being careful never to mention her by name. I wasn’t giving the vampires ammo to use against me if I could possibly avoid it.

  Bentley had quickly taken the necklace from me and deposited it into his briefcase, handling it with an air of reverent care. That told me my hunch about it being valuable, possibly even priceless, had been correct.

  Of course, I hadn’t exactly owned up to the fact that I’d been the one to incinerate Juliet. Years of Mercer’s “be prepared for anything” training had rubbed off on me after all, for I’d impressed even myself by producing a keychain-sized flamethrower from my pocket as proof when he’d asked me how she could have been found in her condition.

  Bentley had looked less than impressed by what had made even Carter sit up in wide-eyed fascination.

  Carter knew damn well what’d fried Juliet because I’d told him everything about when I’d gone toe-to-toe with his sister, but he’d said nothing, looking preoccupied with a folder on his desk when Bentley had cast him a quick and suspicious glance.

  For a human, Bentley was shrewd and quick and missed absolutely nothing. That was probably why the vampires kept him on retainer. The cold ones only ever secured the best of the best, no matter what they did.

  I’d managed to keep my composure, which was a minor miracle, and not once did I huff or grunt when he made me repeat my story over and over in excruciating and mind-numbing detail. I even managed to remain calm when he grilled me about Mercer. “Who was he? Why was he there? A vampire and a shifter... Hmm.” I didn’t like the way he said that, but I’d pretended not to be fazed.

  Then, out of the blue, the interrogation was over as suddenly as it’d begun. Bentley reached into his breast pocket and pulled out one gold-foil invitation to the Vampire’s Ball the next week.

  While that might have seemed like some sort of olive branch, I knew for a fact it definitely wasn’t. I was being “invited” merely as a courtesy. If I failed to show, the vampires could, and probably would, drag my country ass out there, no doubt starting the third vampire/shifter war, since treading on Alpha-sanctioned lands without invitation was verboten.

  “Considering the invite came from the old ones, the only thing to do now is go find your plus one and pray to the gods this is only some weird vampire custom and nothing more,” Carter said, staring at me meaningfully.

  Knowing Carter as I did, knowing he was far more intimately familiar with the monsters of our world than even I was, I read what he wasn’t telling me. My old partner was nervous as hell, and when a skinwalker got nervous, shit was de
finitely about to get real.

  Grunting, I flicked at the edge of my pretty gold-foil invite before flipping it open and shaking my head.

  “I don’t like this,” I muttered, staring at the elegant, scrawling black calligraphy within. Vampires were my people, yet I felt nothing but ambivalence when it came to them.

  Mr. Bentley had assured me that Cole, the master vampire of the Infantes clan, had no ulterior motives other than a desire to meet the freed vampire who’d willingly taken up residence with the shifters. Apparently, I was a minor celebrity and had never known it.

  I didn’t doubt for one second that Cole couldn’t give a shit about my status as a fur lover. The master vampire wanted me there because he wasn’t done with me, period.

  For every question Bentley had asked, I’d had a sound and plausible reason. They couldn’t really get me for anything, but I suddenly couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d stepped right into their snare somehow without even realizing it.

  Deep down, I suspected this invitation would lead to an assassination attempt. I’d killed someone of their house, and this was just the quid pro quo of the Veiler world. I wish I could say I had a choice in the matter, whether to stay or go, but I didn’t.

  Being a freed vampire sucked balls sometimes because I had no clan to come to my defense. I was truly an island unto myself, and I didn’t fucking like it. No, I did not want to go to this thing. At all.

  “You don’t have to like it, Scar,” Carter said as if he’d heard me. He flicked his glance to the embossed card in my hand. “But you know you have to do it. You can never afford to make enemies of the old ones. That’s a fight you’d lose no matter which way you slice it.”

  Sighing heavily, I nodded. “Yeah.”

  Mercer wasn’t gonna like this situation, and I briefly debated not telling him, but no way in hell was I going to walk into that den of thieves without him beside me. No matter how pissed off I was at him right then, he was the only realistic option I had for a plus one.

  “Yeah,” I muttered again before frowning.

  “What?” Carter asked.

  Looking over at him, I stared deep into his amber eyes. Carter didn’t even flinch, one of the things I’d always liked about him. The man was fearless.

  “I don’t know.” I wrinkled my nose because maybe I was making more of the issue than there was, but... “Was it just me, Carter, or did it seem a little strange to you how suddenly tight-lipped he got when I mentioned that guy standing beside Juliet?”

  Carter’s thick eyebrows dipped. “Juliet?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that was the vampire I killed.”

  “Ah, you got a hit on the pendant after all, eh?” His eyes sparkled.

  Maybe I hadn’t told Bentley everything. I grinned and shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Snorting, he leaned back in his seat. “I did notice that. Come to think of it, guy was real smooth until that point. There was a flinch.”

  “Yeah, there was a fucking flinch. I saw it too. Thing is...” I leaned forward, glancing left and right before modulating my tone so that only he would hear me. “I lied. That scar-lipped guy wasn’t there.”

  Carter gave me a worried frown. I hadn’t meant to lie. In fact, I hadn’t even thought much about Scar Lip at all that day until I’d seen the way Bentley had handled that pendant. It’d been a hunch—actually, more like an incessant nagging in my skull—that I had to mention it.

  The smooth-talking shark had gone immediately tense. The flinch had been lightning fast, and he’d recovered quickly enough, but it’d been enough to make me think that maybe Scar Lip was significant, and if so, why? I also wondered what Bentley knew about it.

  “Hope you know what you’re doing, Scar,” Carter drawled.

  I shrugged. “Do I ever? I still don’t really know shit. I’m just convinced now that I know a little more shit than maybe I’d thought at first.”

  He spread his hands, giving me a blank look.

  Sighing, I got to my feet. Too much had happened, yet I still felt as though I knew next to nothing. Frustrated didn’t even begin to describe how I was feeling. “I gotta go make preps.”

  Brows gathering tight, he glanced around the crowded precinct, and I noticed no one would look him directly in the eye. Even those who didn’t know what Carter really was had enough sixth sense to keep their distance.

  They’d never realized before that they were working with a monster who made vampires look like pussycats, but everyone knew Carter shouldn’t have survived his wounds as he had, not to mention his returning to work only two weeks later, fully healed and functional. If it walked like a duck and quacked like one too, then it was a duck. Carter wasn’t human—that much was clear to everyone by then.

  “Scar,” he finally said, “you know you’re not gonna be alone in this, right?”

  I thrust out my jaw. “Yeah, I know. Merc will probably be—”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Look, you did me a solid when I got in over my head with Tatiana a few months back—”

  “I did what anyone would have.”

  “No,” he said succinctly, “no one else would have. Just you. Look, the Alpha might own me now, but I’ve never been afraid of dancing with the devil. All I can promise you is this: you won’t be alone in there even if it looks like you are. I’m gonna figure out whatever I can on this clan. Just give me a few days to network through my contacts. I’ll put out some feelers on scar lip and try to learn who this Juliet really was. You’re coming back home, Scar.”

  I only nodded once and trailed my fingers along his forearm before I turned and made to go. I didn’t want Carter to put himself in danger, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t grateful that he cared enough to bother. Maybe there was still hope for us yet.

  “Well, if you need me for anything, just call,” I said. “Otherwise, guess I’ll see you in a few days, old friend.”

  “Yup,” he said, already distracted as he typed away at his keyboard.

  Walking out those precinct doors, I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized just how much the prospect of being around my kind really bothered me until Carter said what he did.

  Deep down, I knew Mercer would agree. Whether we were on the ins or outs, I didn’t think our relationship was so broken that he’d let me flounder.

  Even so, as I hopped in Betsy, I found myself heading not toward home but toward the Silver Creek cemetery. I had to talk with Boo. I wasn’t sure why, but my instincts had saved my ass a time or twenty, and right then, something inside me was relentlessly driving me toward my old flame.

  Chapter 7

  Mercer

  Steven was already asleep, Scar had missed most of the night, and the sun was going to rise in only a few hours. Mercer sat on the porch swing, rocking lazily back and forth as he studied the crossroads before Scar’s home for any sign of her.

  He’d had time to think about what Pandora had said, and though he went back and forth with pros and cons, in truth there was never any doubt in his mind what he would ultimately wind up doing.

  As far as professing his undying devotion to her, that wouldn’t happen. Scarlett wouldn’t understand it, and he’d spent so many years pushing her away that he wasn’t sure how. All he knew was he was going to deal with her differently, and to do that, he’d need to have a chat with Death sooner rather than later.

  No sooner had he thought it than he smelled the crypt keeper’s scent curl through the breeze. The beast in him immediately tensed up, and a growl vibrated softly from his throat.

  Even after many years of cooperation, he didn’t consider Death an ally.

  Glancing up, he caught sight of the creature he’d once known only as the Darkness. Dean, as was his current incarnation, was dressed in steel-gray tailored slacks and a black silk shirt. He looked as though he’d just stepped out of a board meeting, and he certainly didn’t belong in the middle of a dust-strewn road with a banjo strapped around his chest, strumming Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads.”


  “Seriously,” Mercer said tersely.

  Dean wasn’t to be rushed, though. He played through the entire song, wearing a smirk. Having dealt with that particular devil for years, Mercer knew he could do nothing but wait out the impromptu concert. Dean rushed for nothing and no one. As he played, he walked closer, stopping only once he stood at the end of Scar’s stoop.

  Finally, after plucking the last string, Dean slid the banjo off, set it on the deck, and planted one foot on the bottom step, staring at Mercer with cold, intelligent eyes that burned like flame in the night.

  Mercer had fought like a demon ripped from the bowels of hell in the shifter war of 1868. He feared nothing and no one. That was what gave him the edge in battle. He never cared enough about anything to worry about getting back to it. He was wild, reckless, a furiously whipping rage that’d plowed through his enemies. The blood running through his veins was made of ice, but being caught in the gaze of a predator like Death made him squirm, made him remember the burn of having his neck snapped, of sinking into Hell, of hearing the cries and screams of the damned.

  Judging by the smirk that still hadn’t left Dean’s lips, he was remembering that too.

  “A little bird tells me you’re about to reset the game, shifter. You really sure you wanna go there?”

  His heart pumping violently in his chest, Mercer took a deep breath. He was not going to be goaded or lose his temper. Losing control was never wise around a creature like Death.

  Wetting his lips, he bore down on his molars quickly before saying, “Had a chat with a woman named Pandora.”

  Dean’s brows lifted, giving him nothing back.

  Undeterred, Mercer pressed on. “Said she knew you. Knew you well enough to tell me things. ’Bout me. ’Bout Scar.”

  Dean’s face might as well have been carved from stone, still giving nothing away. “Get to the point, shifter. Or I’ll think you just decided to waste my time. And I’m pretty sure by now you know I’m not one who takes kindly to being dicked around.”