Not Dead Enough
Within our imagination lies the truth
You know the stories. Tales told around campfires and at slumber parties. Urban legends, myths, and yes, ghost stories. The stories that draw people to the movies begging to be scared. Entice them to buy the newest horror novel the minute it hits the shelves. To practically beg to be scared. Wanting fear. Needing it. Getting a high off the adrenaline rush of spine-tingling terror. A safe rush, acceptable because it's all about our imagination – because none of it is real. Or rather, that's what we want to believe and that's what evil wants us to think. It thrives on ignorance. Most days I'm glad I know the truth, that I know evil exists. That I, at least, have a chance to fight back.
But tonight, on my twenty-second birthday and the two-year anniversary of my mother's death, as I walk the sidewalk lining the highway that crosses the ever-gloried Golden Gate Bridge, this is not one of those times. Tonight I wonder if ignorance wouldn't be bliss.
I inhale the thick night air, as icy cold and unnatural as the fog shrouding the structure, blending with the black sky and blacker waters, hiding the heavy steel climbing the sky, just as it hides the high, full moon. It's amazed me how easily people have dismissed the ever-present fog around the bridge, going so far as to call it "normal." Just as the bridge has enchanted them with its beauty rather than embodying the tragedies it's represented — the lives lost during construction or the suicides of the more than twelve hundred people who've jumped to their death, into the sea.
I finished my walk at the exact center of the bridge, knowing this location, both instinctively, and by the way my body hums with a charge of energy that I feel clear to the roots of my teeth. Instantly, that same fog everyone thinks is so normal thickens around me, almost congealing, alive with a malevolence, with the ominous lure that has called so many to their death. Angry because I, Samantha Yardell, am immune to coy manipulations. I look up through the pasty white film that isn't fog at all. It is the afterlife, spirits both human and otherwise, the real horrors of this world and the next. Horrors that have escaped from the spiraling black hole inked with damnation, invisible to the human eye, and what I am both privileged and cursed to see all too clearly…the Devil's Eyes.
Chapter One
In the last five years, I've developed a tolerance for demon blood and zombie flesh. Smoke-filled bars, though … not so much. In fact, they downright turn my stomach. Nevertheless, duty calls and I answer.
Leaving the chilly San Francisco October night behind me,
I stepped inside the doorway of the Pelican's Wharf Pub, my boots scraping on the wooden floor as I swiped at the musty air. My gaze raked over the backless barstools lining the heavy mahogany bar, ignoring the sunken rooms full of tables on either side of me, as I spotted the thorn-in-my-side who'd demanded my presence, Detective Smith.
His call had been urgent, but then they always were. He'd demand a meeting and then try to pry information from me about some unsavory event deemed "paranormal," that I may or may not have been witness to. And then he'd hit on me. He did both every other week, neither of which were handled all that creatively. He'd tell me he wanted information about whatever case he was sure I knew information about. I'd insist I knew nothing. He'd threaten to take me downtown for questioning where there are little things called "bars" that I dislike immensely.
Finally, when I've convinced him he's milked me for all the information I have — even though, most likely he has not — he then offers to buy me dinner. Which I refuse. A real romantic, the detective threatens me and then offers to take me to dinner. Somebody give the man a romance novel. He needs to learn some strategy. Not that his romantic skills change anything. His tall, dark, and sexy appeal only works on women who like the brooding, arrogant, badge-wearing types. I don't. In fact, I'd light up a cigarette myself before I'd be desperate enough to venture into 'badge' wearing territory.
I sauntered toward the detective, the distinct grind of agitation biting at my nerves, only some of which was his fault. The majority I blamed on the nasty things that go bump in the night that neither the detective, nor the rest of the human race, believe to be more than fables. Namely, the "Shades," the spirits lingering in our dimension, who normally chatted it up on my "Guardian" frequency, but were now silent. As in not even a creepy little whisper. It was a good thing then that, aside from the ability to banish evil spirits and a few other nifty abilities, I didn't need much sleep, because I hadn't had a good night's rest since I'd become a Guardian. The past few nights were no different. Only it was the silence keeping me awake.
Every Guardian instinct I owned said this was the calm before the storm. And for me, as Guardian of the most powerful and unstable portal to the Otherrealm – or rather purgatory as most people knew it - trouble tended to crowd my personal space in a not-so-polite way. I have to kick it around to get it to roll over and play nice. And my gut was screaming that I was going to need some really big shit-kickers real darn soon.
"Planning to arrest me or what, Detective?" I asked, sliding onto a stool beside him. He was tall, over six foot to my five foot five, and the high seat ate away some of the distance.
"Hello to you, too, Blondie." There was a serious look chiseled in his handsome face, framed with dark, conservatively cut hair, despite the playfully delivered jab.
"Be nice if you'd call me Sam for once," I said dryly. "You know … short for Samantha Yardell – what the rest of the world calls me."
A smile tilted up the corners of his full lips, softening some of that seriousness. "I'm not the rest of the world, sweetheart," he said. "Surely you've figured that out by now. But I'll make you a deal. When you call me Greg, I'll call you Sam." He winked and then flagged the bartender. "Coffee for the lady. Two creams."
He had that look of gloat on his face, as though the knowledge of how I took my coffee meant he owned some secret to the world. My world, that was.
"With sugar," I said to the bartender, knowing a place like this would serve their coffee too strong and packed with a bitter punch. And because, I wasn't letting the Detective own anything of mine – not even the way I take my coffee.
I rotated slightly toward him and crossed my legs, silently cursing the mud caked on my soles. If he asked about it, I'd have to lie. I doubted the truth – that I'd been out hunting Zombies at a nearby cemetery – would go over all that well. Humans were funny about those kinds of things.
Distracting him, I motioned to the detective's drink. "Hitting the heavy stuff tonight, I see."
Ice clinked against his glass as he finished off the caramel-colored liquid before rotating to face me. "Two employees from this establishment were sitting in this very moment have been taken to a psych ward."
My coffee appeared in front of me and I reached for it, fiddling with the creamer packets and discreetly settling my mud-crusted boots on the wooden ledge of the stool before observing, "Sounds like management needs some serious employee relations training." I stirred the mixture in my cup, added sugar, and took a sip.
"The grocery store up the road had three employees admitted as well," he said. "They ran through the glass wall of the building, all rambling some kind of incoherent nonsense. And then there was a taxi driver who drove off a bridge with customers in the backseat. The man swore his dead ex-wife made him to do it. Want me to go on? Because I can."
So the spirits were talking, but not to me. How the heck was that happening? I refocused on the detective, feigning disinterest. "And I suppose you believe I know something about these events." It wasn't a question.
"We both know weird shit follows you," he said, accusation draped all over the statement.
"I run a paranormal investigation agency," I reminded him, leaving out the part where I hunted things he didn't want to know really existed. "There's always an explanation." I left the "logical" part of the explanation out of the equation.
"Funny how your 'investigating' manages to put you at so many crime scenes," he said dryly, more acidy accusation threading through the words. "I'm not waiting for you to show up for someone's funeral this time. What do you know?"
"What do you know?" I countered.
He leaned in close, so close I felt his warm, whisky-scented breath trickle against my cheek. "Don't play me, Blondie. I can take you down to the station with the snap of my fingers."
Touche. An exact example of why I avoid "arrogant" and "badge." Both came with rules and demands. Two things I've never done well. Or so said my father, the Master of the Council of Lords, the almighty of the paranormal world and with an ego to match — on the rare occasions we'd managed a civil conversation.
"Your threats get old, Detective," I assured him. "I suggest you try a new tactic."
"I did." Agitation laced his words. "It's called buying you coffee."
I raised the ceramic mug he referred to and sipped, forcing him to back off or risk a mouth-numbing wallop as I tipped it forward to drink. He gave me all of two inches. I regretted the mud on my boots. Crossed legs would have offered a nice groin shot I'd revel in right about now.
I set the mug on the bar. "Surely you can be more inventive than coffee, Detective."
A deep scowl appeared between his brows. "I've put my neck on the line for you," he claimed. "Do you know the kind of shit I could get into if anyone found out about the times I conveniently covered up for your appearance on a crime scene?"
"Crimes I solved and gave you credit for," I reminded him. I'm doing a lot of reminding tonight, it seemed.
His eyes glinted. "Crimes I'm supposed to believe your too innocent, not-for-profit, paranormal agency led you to."
"People look for anything that might explain why someone close to them would perform an illegal or heinous act," I explained. "And that includes the supernatural. That's when they call me. You want help? Wait for the medical reports. A drug or toxin would explain the craziness you described in those people tonight. Stop looking for ghosts. You might find one."
His cell phone rang and he eyed the number. "I need to take this." He stepped away, apparently unwilling to let me overhear the conversation.
I pushed to my feet, prepared to deliver a clipped goodbye upon his return, when a tingling shimmered down my neck, a warning of something non-human. Casually, I picked up my coffee, eased an elbow onto the bar and turned toward the door, finding the source of the awareness tingling through me as I did.
He stood in the entrance – no, that was an understatement. The man consumed the entrance and the room with it. Both broad and tall, his shoulder-length, dark hair brushed the top of the doorframe. Hard muscle was poured into leather because … what else did a hot, supernatural guy wear? Apparently there was a code book that held such information, but in my twenty-seven years, I'd yet to see the official document. And this guy didn't need leather to be a badass anyway. I had a feeling he could wear plaid and make any man tremble in his shoes.
Several women cast lusty looks in his direction — looks hot enough for me to assume he could make women tremble too. They certainly were entranced by the edgy quality he oozed, unaware it wasn't charisma that made him so addictive to the eye, but magic – the kind I was thankfully immune to. Not that I didn't appreciate a fine specimen of male – and that, he was. But what kind of male? Not human. Something I'd never sensed before. A powerful unknown that showed up right when the shades had gone silent. I didn't like it. Not one bit.
He scanned the bar, oozing a dark, dangerous, sex appeal that screamed lethal until his eyes locked on me. Dark eyes glinting with intelligence. Good. Then, my undaunted stare should make my message clear. I wasn't one of his drooling, fan-club members. My lips twisted with a hint of amusement, and he arched a brow in challenge.
Detective Smith sauntered back to my side. "You know that big son-of-bitch, or what?" I forced my gaze from the stranger, and focused on Detective Smith.
"No. And I don't know anything supernatural that would make people drive off bridges or jump through storefronts. I'll let you know if I hear anything."
I set my coffee down and straightened. Detective Smith's hands gently shackled my bared arm, just below the sleeve of my Bon Jovi "Have a nice Day" shirt. I thought it would be lucky and I'd have one. Not so much, it seemed.
"Isn't this called unnecessary force, Detective?" I challenged, though I felt no threat.
His voice was low, tight. "I need your help, Samantha."
The use of my name took me aback, but I didn't react. The tiny hint of desperation in his voice made me wonder, though, if he sensed the big bad that I did. "I'll see what I can find out," I promised. He didn't let me go. I eyed my arm. He seemed to hesitate, but then released me.
My hopeful attention swung to the entrance, and unfortunately, though as expected, the stranger was gone. I took my time crossing to the door, my gaze doing a slow slide around the establishment, seeking him out, and coming up dry. But he was there. I felt him like a second skin, in a strangely intimate, far-too-potent way.
He was trouble, I had no doubt. I was definitely going to be needing those shit-kickers.