SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (171 page)

He made a left onto the next street and Evelyn’s stomach plummeted. They were on her street now. Jesse’s car had every head turning their way, fleshies and spirits alike. Her muscles tightened involuntarily, waiting for a thug to come for Jesse’s car or a spirit to come for her. When he slowed at the curb in front of her apartment building, a local street runner walked up to the driver window, took one look inside, and kept on walking. She supposed there were advantages to riding with a man who looked like he could accidentally dismember you if he shook your hand hard enough.

“Wait there until I come around,” he told her and started to open his door.

“Don’t worry, I left the tiara at home,” she answered back. “You can skip the chivalry.”

He stood and checked the weapons strapped at his hips and calf. “It’s not chivalry. It’s my job. Now keep your ass in that seat, Doc.”

He left his door unlocked and came around to her side. Some lanky teens peered out from an alley, eyeing his car and talking amongst themselves. “
I dare you
,” Jesse said loud enough to carry across the street. The teens darted back into wherever it was they came from.

Evelyn took a deep breath. She was going to suffocate in testosterone fumes if she and her new partner had to ride together often. She hadn’t realized how much bigger Sentinels were in real life. They took up more space. More air. They made her feel smaller somehow, and she was small enough as it was.

Jesse unholstered his gun and looked around, his chest seeming to expand with his presence, as if announcing he owned where he walked. After a minute, when he seemed satisfied, he bent and opened the door for her. “I believe you said you left your tiara at home, so lead the way, princess.”

“Thanks,” she said dryly and secured the napkin around her father’s dinner before getting out of the car.

As Jesse followed her up the dank cement stairwell, every dirty step seemed to mock her, every dead roach and discarded cigarette butt screaming what a sham she was, parading around in a business suit when she’d grown up in this very building.

Her hands weren’t just sweaty now, they were tingling as though starting to lose feeling, and she didn’t know if it was from signing with Immortal Bounty or the fact that her new partner was walking into a part of her life that she didn’t share with anyone. “It’s up this way,” she said quietly. “You have to give me a minute to deactivate the electric wire over the door. My parents are a little overly cautious with me and my little…problem.”

“What’s the wire do?” he asked.

“Not much. It’s supposed to make it harder for wandering spirits to get in, but it’s more superstition than anything. Oh, well. It makes my folks feel better, like they’re protecting me.”

“I understand.”

She pushed the door open slowly, not wanting to surprise anyone. “Hi! It’s me. And, uh…a friend.”

Her mother floated their way. “A friend? Lord almighty—a man! Well, show him in.”

* * *

Jesse felt like a slime ball. He’d grown up in poverty like Evelyn, but it was clear that she was mortified. And when she’d been so undernourished that she’d practically inhaled her dinner and then looked like she’d keel over in shame, he’d wanted to punch somebody. Of course, he usually wanted to punch somebody, but this was different.

He glanced around the shabby living room, the carpet so threadbare you could probably see through it if you held it up to the light, and he knew what they were doing to her was wrong. So fucking wrong. The poor kid didn’t have a clue.

“How do you do, Mrs. Vale?” Jesse nodded to the spirit who must have been Evelyn’s mother. He saw the similarities in the sprite-like bone structure of the women’s faces. His new partner might be a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she was a cute little shit. He’d give her that. Like a kitten with her claws out, ready to scratch her way up the drapes of life.

“Larry, turn that damn television off!” Mrs. Vale went misty, floating right up in front of the old man’s face, and the screen flickered behind her, strobing light across the dimly lit room. Interesting. Power seemed to run in the family.

Evelyn’s father stood from his recliner, turning down the volume on the TV as he rose on swollen knees. He wore loose-fitting polyester shorts over his skinny legs, and his sunken chest was bare.

“Sir.” Jesse tried to smile. He’d heard he looked like a hard-ass when he didn’t. It was hard to remember sometimes, since when he was on an assignment to catch a fugitive, smiling wasn’t usually high on the list of priorities.

“A friend of Evelyn’s?” The man stuck out his hand, but his expression was dubious. His daughter clearly didn’t bring friends home very often. Then again, if she did, they probably didn’t have an arsenal of guns and knives strapped to their sides, either.

“Mom. Dad—” Evelyn began, but then she looked toward the hallway when two forms drifted their way, their facades shifting from a pale elderly couple to the watery tan of their prime. The woman’s hair seemed styled from the 1950’s and the man was dressed to match. Jesse’s hand slowly grasped his taser.

“Jesse,” Evelyn said to him, “these are the prior residents of our happy home, Diane and Ernest Getfield. And little Casey.”

He couldn’t see Casey, but from the direction Vale was looking, he or she must have been a child spirit. It was always dicey deciding who to acknowledge on the job. If a spirit didn’t have enough joules to manifest, they didn’t usually merit his special kind of attention. Still, politeness and all. “Hello,” he said, offering another attempt at a smile.

“So… I have some big news.” Evelyn paused and seemed to steel herself. She looked so regal, so out of place in this dump.

Mrs. Vale whirled around the room a couple times and came to a blurry stop in front of her daughter. “You’re getting married!”

“Rita!” Mr. Vale bellowed. “How is Evey getting married? She doesn’t even date!”

“Smell him,” she answered, drifting a little too close for Jesse’s comfort, so close he figured she would have dragged her nose down his neck if ghosts had any sense of smell at all. “Does he smell like coffee? Did she meet him at The Grind?”

Her father’s brows rose and he looked at Jesse again. Really looked this time. “No, he’s not from The Grind. How’s he gonna make coffee with all those guns?”

“You guys. Stop,” Evelyn said. “I am
not
marrying him. He’s my partner. I got the job!”

“A job? What job?” The husband of the other couple asked his wife, but her energy was wavering.

Evelyn’s chin tilted higher. “Not
a
job.
The
job! You’re looking at Immortal Bounty’s newest investigator.”

Jesse tried not to snicker, but she stood so tall and straight, he could have sworn she’d just grown an inch.

Her mother’s image bled a little around the edges, all nervous energy and excitement. “Whoo-hoo! You did it, honey! I told you it would happen if you kept at it!”

Her father looked to Jesse. “So you are…”

“I’m Dr. Vale’s partner, Sentinel Jesse Hayes, sir.”

At the word
Sentinel
, the small ghost he still couldn’t see let out an audible yelp and the Getfields backtracked down the hall. “Well, goodnight now,” Mr. Getfield called before melting into the walls, straight through the peeling floral wallpaper.

Mr. Vale walked to Evelyn and took her hands. “Congratulations, darling. I can’t believe you really made it. My little girl, a bounty hunter.”

Evelyn’s hands tightened around her father’s. “This is going to be so good. I’ll be able to afford a nicer place for you all. Maybe we can even arrange transport for the Getfields back to Holland.”

A face emerged from beneath the wallpaper and its dark eyes blinked. “Really, Evey? You think that would be possible?”

She nodded. “Anything is possible now. I mean, I’m on probation for the first month, but after that—we’re golden.”

“And your…” her mother went so transparent she almost disappeared, and she whispered something near Evelyn’s ear.

Evelyn shook her head. “Don’t worry about that, Mom. I promise, this time around, it’s not going to be a problem. They know all about it.” She cast Jesse a nervous smile.

“Well, Doc, do you need help getting your things together?” Familial scenes like this made him twitchy. Fathers of young women didn’t usually like him much, and he didn’t blame them. He would never entrust his daughter to someone like him.

“You’re leaving?” her father asked.

“Yes, Daddy. You knew if I got hired, this job would require me living on the Central IB campus. There’s no way around it.”

Mrs. Vale came to hover behind her husband. “But it’s so soon. You just went on the interview today.”

Mr. Getfield’s face appeared again at the end of the hall. “Don’t make Evelyn feel any worse than she does. Goodness gracious, she’s a grown woman. Let her go.”

Mr. Vale frowned. “Butt out, you. Do I tell you how to handle your family when your wife goes wailing all over the neighborhood at every full moon?”

Evelyn stepped forward and hugged her dad. “I love you both. You know that. But I have to get my stuff and get back to the IB campus. I’ll visit soon, and I’ll call every day. I promise. Plus, Daddy, I brought you this.” She held the wrapped chicken out to him. When he peeled back the napkin, his expression lit like the horizon at dawn.

Ten minutes later, Jesse was putting a small, worn suitcase in the trunk of his car, trying not to notice Evelyn wiping her eyes. “We can come back in a few days and get the rest of your stuff,” he told her, hoping that might make her feel better. He could only imagine what the guys in his unit would say if he returned with an actively weeping woman.

She shrugged, her screw-you shields back in place. “That’s all I have. Not much, huh? No early-American cars. No boxes and boxes of shoes. I don’t even own an evening dress.” She gestured to the filthy streets around them. “Welcome to the real world, Hayes.”

He shook his head and opened the passenger door for her. “Most of us came from the ‘real world,’ Doc. Who are you preaching to?”

It was hard not to get pissed when the woman was so damn defensive, but he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes and knew she’d had a hell of a day. It wasn’t just leaving her family and getting a life-changing job offer. It was realizing that the term of that offer involved getting used as little more than a vehicle for another driver.

He started the car and pulled onto the street, willing to give it one last shot to smooth things over. “I think I might rather have my fingernails pulled out with rusty pliers than go girl-shopping, but if you need some supplies for this job…you know, a dress or something, I could take you to the county mall.”

“You mean, the Parkfield Pavilion? Really? It’s more than an hour away.”

“It’s fine. But don’t expect me to go into the stores with you or anything. I don’t do
shopping
.”

“Great, but don’t feel like you have to do this. I can take the bus after I get paid.”

“You’ll need the clothes for this assignment before your first paycheck, so I’ll put it on the company card. Anyway, I figure I owe you for scaring your parents’ house guests—the Getfields, right? So if you grew up in that apartment, and that’s where the Getfields ended up after the Collision, does that mean you grew up with them, too?”

“Yeah. There was no way to avoid having them around since that apartment is their final resting place. Casey’s too. I know my mom and dad would have liked more privacy, but after the Collision, everywhere they could afford was inhabited just the same. At least Diane and Ernest were dead people we could live with. And honestly, they’re like a second set of parents to me. I can’t imagine not having them in my life.”

Jesse glanced at Evelyn. When she let her guard down, he could glimpse the woman underneath, and he really like what he saw. He admired the loyalty that made her fight for those she loved. “You know, I’ve never been taken home to meet the parents before—especially two sets. How’d I do?”

She reluctantly met his gaze and smiled—and the force of it just about blew his hair back. Damn, if they hadn’t picked a pretty package for this mission.

“I think they liked you. But you’re probably right…your guns might have scared them.”

He flexed his biceps, feeling the muscles cord in his arms. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Oh, please.” She laughed and shook her head. “I was talking about the guns in the holsters on your hips, not
these
guns.”

When she reached out and squeezed his biceps, energy sizzled up his arm. Was it wrong to want to kiss a partner he’d had less than a day…a woman his company was planning to use and then toss away like a tissue? Yeah, that thought pretty effectively killed the heat stirring in his groin. But that was probably for the best.

They hadn’t gone two blocks before the crowd got too thick to keep driving. What in the hell was going on? Some sort of block party?

“Uh-oh.” The humor was gone from her voice.

His gaze flashed to her and then back to the street. “Uh-oh, what?”

“You know those boys who were checking out your car?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, they’re scouts. And they work for—” she pointed out the window to a group of four large men, armed with crow bars and bats, “—them.”

“Shit, Vale. And you
live
here? Why didn’t you tell me about the boys?”

Her eyes went squinty at the corners, like she regretted the decision now. “They’ve never bothered me before. Guess I didn’t have anything they wanted.”

Air huffed from his nose, just as one of the men came toward them and put a hand on the hood of Jesse’s Mustang. “I doubt that’s true, short stack.”

“Oh, crap.” Her small hand tightened on the arm rest. “How are you going to get out of here? Run him over?”

At that moment, a dry voice echoed in his earpiece. “Everything okay, Commander? Your partner’s vitals are skyrocketing.”

“We’re fine,” he answered.

Evelyn cocked her head. “Fine? This is not fine. Those guys are serious.” When another thug came around to her window and smiled, twirling his bat, Evelyn yelped and pushed away from the glass, straight into Jesse’s shoulder.