Divine and Dateless (27 page)

As if!

"Ahhh." Shadow chuckled. "So you’d rather see
your girl
pick up garbage in the rat-infested slums of level two than hold a prestigious job as a member of The Agency?"

Grim turned to me with an accusatory look. "Picking up garbage?"

I looked away, too embarrassed to meet his eyes as memories of our lovemaking came flooding back. "We were kind of busy last night, so I never got to tell you. Lovelace assigned me to level two park clean-up."

Grim grabbed my hand, holding it possessively in his lap. "You let me handle Lovelace. You’re not joining a ghosting squad."

"Ghosting squad?" I gasped. "As in you go to Earth and haunt places?"

Shadow rose from his chair. "That’s exactly what we do, and for many of us, it took years of training to be able to manifest an aura that can be seen thirteen levels away."

My jaw dropped. "Really?"

"You have a rare talent, Ashley MacLeod." He walked up to the sofa, bearing down on me with stony features. "We need you to come work for us."

I turned to Grim. "Did you hear him? He said I have a rare talent."

Grim stood, puffing out his chest like a rooster preparing to fight. "You’re not working for them, Ash." Though he was talking to me, his gaze was centered on Shadow, and I could have sworn his chest inflated another four inches. Shadow, who was built more like a bean stalk than a hulking giant, probably knew when he was beat. He smirked at Grim, assessing him from head to toe with a cool glare.

Jack whimpered beside me. He was probably tired of all this testosterone overload, too. I knew I was certainly sick of Grim trying to run my life. One night in the sack, and he thought he owned me.

"Excuse me?" I stood and waved my hands in Grim's face. "I don’t know how you treated women in
your
day, but in
my
day, we get to make our own decisions."

Shadow shook his head, snickering. "These modern girls have such spirit, don’t they?" He walked over to an ornate mahogany bar and poured himself a glass of white wine. I licked my lips as I watched him drink. It sure would have been nice had he offered me something.

"You haven’t mentioned the dangers of the job," Grim said in a low grumble.

"Because there are none. We haven’t had a breach in over fifty years." Shadow eyed him over the rim of his glass.

Sheesh. What kind of host was he that he couldn't offer me a ginger ale?

Grim widened his stance, folding his arms. "Which means you’re about due for another."

Shadow downed the rest of his wine, and then closed his eyes while pinching the bridge of his nose. Either he had a bad migraine, or he was tired of Grim's attitude. I suspected the latter. After a drawn-out pause, he opened his eyes, focusing his gaze solely on me. "I’ll tell you what, Ashley. You can come work for The Agency for a few weeks. If you don’t like it, you can go back to your other job sifting through rubbish on level two. Although if you stay with us, we'll assign you a new creditor, one who works solely for The Agency."

No more Lovelace! Where do I sign?

"Ash, ghosting is dangerous." Twin storms brewed beneath Grim's eyes as his voice dropped to a menacing growl. "Very dangerous."

I pushed back my shoulders, fixing Grim with my most determined expression. I appreciated his concern, but it was time I made some decisions for myself. "I’ll be the judge of that."

Though I suspected Grim might be right, it wasn't like I was left with much choice. So what if he said he could handle Lovelace? What if that was an empty promise to get me out of ghosting? After all, if Grim had been able to deal with my creditor, why hadn't he helped me before? Shadow had offered me two weeks, which was plenty of time to decide if ghosting was right for me.

Grim did a lot of grumbling when I left him with Jack and Shadow took me to what looked like a surveillance room. There were dozens of monitors lining the walls, each showing images from the Seattle area. The monitors rotated different scenes, mostly houses of worship, abandoned homes, and cemeteries.

One monitor, though, was stuck on the cemetery where I was buried. My mom was thankfully no longer there. The screen next to that one was focused on my mom, who was dripping all over my sister's leather car seat and frantically trying to explain she'd seen my spirit. My sister was doing her best to calm down my mom, but it obviously wasn't working as Mom alternated between laughing and sobbing.

It was a hard scene to watch. Really hard. As in, I was fairly certain I'd rather lie spread eagle at an all-day pap smear, foot stirrups, tongs of torture, and all, than watch my mom go on about my spirit. My sister probably thought she’d lost her mind.

After I asked Shadow to turn off my mom's screen, he proceeded with the first test, a reenactment of what had happened with my mother, only instead of her at the cemetery, there was an orb of glowing light hovering above my tombstone. Why did I get the feeling that light was a ghost?

Shadow had me try to summon my feelings of panic when I'd seen the man with the knife and then scream into the television. The light in the screen pulsated a few times and then dimmed.

"Did I do it right?" I asked.

"Perfectly," he answered with broad smile. After that he ran a bunch of strange psychic aptitude tests on me, such as asking me to guess the word he was thinking and to predict the next card he'd pull from a pile.

Having failed all of the tricks, I only hoped I wasn't being graded on my psychic ability. I clearly didn't have the sixth sense. Heck, with my bad luck dating streak, it should have been obvious I couldn't read people or the future.

Someone rapped on the door. Shadow grumbled something under his breath, leaned over and popped open the handle. Two men entered from the hallway; one was a buff dude in surfer shorts and a ripped T-shirt with a shaggy strawberry blond mane, and a short, scruffy beard to match. The other was an old man with ebony skin and a gleaming bald head. His spine was bent at an acute angle. If it hadn't been for the cane he clutched, he would have probably fallen over.

The old man hobbled up to me, the scrutiny of his sharp gaze making me feel smaller than a grain of dust. "We heard you found a new candidate. We came to see for ourselves."

"Got a little spy checking up on us?" Shadow's laughter sliced through the air like a steel blade.

"No." The old man flashed a sideways smile. "Our telepath saw her."

Shadow rolled his eyes. "I see, and you trust her rambling nonsense?"

The old man shrugged, the intensity of his gaze sharpening to a fine point. "She gets it right sometimes, and I think she was dead-on this morning."

"Ashley." Shadow nodded toward the men. “Crow and Boner, two of our ghosters from Delta House.”

"Hi." I waved at them. When the surfer dude called Boner flashed a wide, warm grin, I instinctively added. “You can call me Ash.” I only hoped the dude got his nickname because his death was related to choking on a chicken bone, not a Viagra overdose.

Boner stepped forward and held out a hand. “You just came from level twelve?” He shook my hand so hard, I feared he was going to pull my arm out of socket.

“No. I died last week.”

“No shit,” he said with an awe that could only have been perfected by years of smoking weed. “Sorry.” He ran a hand through the scruff on his chin. “It’s just, it took me years to make the squad.”

“Ashley has an unusually powerful aura,” Shadow said in a haughty tone, his gaze focused on the older man he’d called Crow. “Which is why you will understand why I need to keep her by my side at Alpha house.”

Crow leaned forward, gripping the ball of his cane. “Actually, I don’t understand. You promised us the next candidate. We’ve got the smallest squad in The Agency.”

Shadow turned up his chin. “Exactly, and I don’t think a small unit can handle a ghoster with such raw power. She’d engulf you with her energy.”

Crow shook his head, snickering. “I’ve been ghosting for near thirty years.”

Shadow’s shoulders bunched as he slowly stood and smiled condescendingly at Crow. “A drop in the bucket to those of us in Alpha Unit, which is why we’re taking Ashley. You will get the next candidate. I promise.”

The old man rolled his eyes. “Where have I heard that before?”

Shadow laid a hand across his heart. “Crow, I give you my word.”

Crow slowly straightened until he was standing full height. I could tell by the lines etched deep into his features the effort was painful. “No, not this time.” He shook his head, puffing out his scrawny chest. “We want Ashley. We’re invoking our scare rights.”

Boner stepped forward, placing a hand on the old man’s shoulder as the two shared a look of understanding. “Scare right number five from the Amendments to the Supernatural Intervention Rules of Order.” Boner intoned as if reading a cue card. “Any squad with a ghosting party less than six may invoke first rights upon the claim of a new candidate, regardless of the candidate’s aura brightness or supernatural capabilities.”

The glare Shadow shot the two men could have melted iron. “She’s too strong for you.”

Crow lifted his chin, the lines around his eyes looking more pronounced as he waved a fist at Shadow. “I don’t care. We’re taking her.”

My flesh crawled when I turned to Shadow. His cool gaze had turned to granite, and I could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees. “Where exactly am I going?”

“Ashley,” Shadow said through a frozen smile. “These gentlemen are taking you to Delta house, one of our younger ghosting units. Upon inspection, if the Delta squad appears less than desirable"—he emphasized that part with a wink—"you may decline their invitation, and I will assign you to our manor, where you will have your own living quarters and a housekeeper.”

“Housekeeper?” I gasped. “As in she’ll fold my socks and clean my toilet?”

“Of course.” He scowled at surfer dude. “Tell me, Mr. Boner, does Delta House offer housekeeping services?”

Boner’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You know we can’t afford one, but we offer something more.”

“Oh, really?” Shadow laughed. “What do you offer?”

“Well, for starters,” Crow said, “ever since Sarge whipped us into shape, we’ve had the best ghosting track record in The Agency. We might look like a ragtag bunch of mavericks, but we don’t lose souls, and we don’t botch jobs.”

“Yes,” Shadow said with a disinterested slur, “you’ve had a run of good fortune these past thirteen years.”

“Also,” Boner added in a mocking tone, “we’re not a bunch of stuck-up assholes.”

A chill stole up my spine, causing me to shiver as Shadow stilled beside me. Boner held his chin up high as he matched Shadow’s scrutinizing glare with an unwavering gaze.

I didn’t even know Boner, but I liked him already.

Delta House was nothing like the Alpha mansion. Sure, it was nice, but it wasn't as big, and it certainly wasn't jaw-dropping elegant. Thank goodness for that. The carpet in the common room was threadbare, the hardwood floors had a few loose planks, and the sofas were faded from use, which meant if Jack pissed on anything, the other residents probably wouldn't mind.

Boner took to Jack immediately, calling him his “Buddy” and leading him into the kitchen for leftovers. Grim dogged my heels while Crow showed me around the place. My bedroom had a beautiful antique canopy bed with a baby blue satin bedspread and fluffy matching pillows. Someone had already taken the liberty of retrieving my things from my apartment. My grandma’s dresses were hanging neatly in the walk-in closet, along with a few ugly blue T-shirts and gym shorts. My room had its own balcony with wicker patio furniture and a staircase that led to a huge backyard with lots of pines, blackberry bushes, and grass. Now Jack had plenty of room to play and do his business, and I no longer had to take him to the park three blocks away.

The bathroom down the hall was nice, too, with a deep antique tub, complete with claw feet, double sinks, and a separate shower. Crow told me I had to share it with the other woman in our squad, but he assured me she hardly used it. I didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.

Grim grumbled about every little thing during the whole tour, starting with the distance between my new home and his apartment.