Thor'sday Night - Paranormal Erotica (21 page)

‘And where is this ship?’

‘In his grave.’

‘Did she say “his grave”?’

‘If you don’t snap her out of this right now,
Westgate, I’m calling a doctor.’

‘And I’m arresting your ass.’

The violent emotional currents washing over her
body threaten to drown the little courage she possesses. ‘Just do
it,’ she moans.

‘Carmen, look at me. That’s an order.’

Jay is sitting beside her on the leather couch
in the vice president’s office, and Will and Mike are standing
behind him.

‘How do you feel?’ There is as much curiosity as
concern in her lover’s voice.

‘What,’ she has to clear her throat, ‘happened?’
Yet there is only one possible, if unbelievable, explanation for
her recumbent position. ‘Did I faint?’

Jay stares intently down into her eyes. ‘Don’t
you remember what you said?’

This worries her. She has too many secrets, and
the searching intensity of his stare pins her against the blank
wall of the last few minutes in a way that makes her want to run.
‘I said something?’

‘Yes, you did, you—’

‘Wait a minute,’ Mike interrupts him, ‘are you
sure she should hear this?’

‘Yes, I definitely think she should. She has to
try and understand what just happened to her.’ Jay grasps one of
her hands, and holds it tightly in his. ‘Carmen, you said his ship
was ready to sail, and when I asked you where that ship was, you
said “in his grave”.’

‘She’s just fucking with our heads,’ Will
convicts her, ‘and if she isn’t, this is all too weird for me.’

Jay looks up at Mike. ‘You know about her
dreams?’ It sounds more like a challenge than a question.

‘Yes, she mentioned them, something about
Vikings, and flaming arrows.’

Will moves away from the couch, and his
weapon-laden hips emit clinking sounds that seem to arouse the
electrical atmosphere outside into a series of rapid, silent
flashes. He turns back to face them, and demands in the tone of a
cop about to make an arrest, ‘What’s going on here?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to determine,’ Jay
answers patiently, still looking searchingly down into her
eyes.

Mike sounds compelled to repeat, ‘I think we
should call a doctor.’

‘No!’ she cries.

‘A doctor wouldn’t help,’ Jay backs her up.

Will contributes dryly, ‘It sounds to me like
what we all need is a shrink.’

Jay looks over his shoulder at him. ‘Oh, and why
is that?’

‘Because we’re all letting her lead us around by
the nose, that’s why. Here I was feeling guilty about almost taking
advantage of her the other night, and it turns out she’s fucking
half of Miami.’

She attempts to sit up indignantly.

Jay rests his free hand on her shoulder, and
holds her down. ‘I’m beginning to suspect something,’ he says
quietly.

‘What?’ Mike sound’s oddly hopeful.

‘I suspect that we’re all caught like flies in
the sticky web of her erotic Viking fantasy,’ he gives her hand a
painful squeeze, ‘or that some intense karmic drama is playing
itself out here.’

‘God, I hope so,’ Mike says fervently. ‘I’d hate
to think…’

Jay pulls out that grin he keeps hidden like a
knife. ‘What would you hate to think?’

‘Never mind.’

‘I haven’t been able to get a certain article
out my head,’ Jay goes on, still pinning her down with his stare.
‘An article about a Viking grave they just discovered.’

‘
I’ve seen it,’
Mike realizes out loud, ‘in National Geographic. The cover caught
my eye. There was also an article about it in Archaeology Today.
Linn subscribes to it for pictures of ancient artifacts to inspire
her,’ he explains. ‘She’s a sculptor.’

‘And a real piece herself,’ Will adds
rudely.

‘Then you’ve seen the skeleton of the girl with
her wrists tied over her head and her legs spread open,’ Jay says.
‘She was found amongst the dead warrior’s belongings.’

‘Barbarians,’ Will mutters.

‘A Viking funeral was always attended by his
closest male friends and relatives, so it’s safe to assume they
were the ones who put her there. And there’s an obscure, but
fascinating, theory about how she was killed, as the climax of a
sacred rite in which all the men—’

‘I’m sure it’s very interesting,’Will interrupts
him, ‘but I don’t have all day, and I really need to know why I
haven’t been able to sleep since I met her. I literally haven’t
closed my eyes since that night I rescued her in the Grove. I’m too
tired to do my job because I can’t stop thinking about her, and
it’s driving me fucking crazy!’

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Mike is either being
sarcastic, or intensely sincere. ‘At least I’m not the only one
losing sleep around here.’

Carmen tries to slip her hand free of Jay’s and
sit up again.

‘Stay down, baby.’ His tone is disarmingly
gentle in lieu of his implacable grip. ‘We don’t want you passing
out again.’

Mike’s fists carve themselves out of the shining
ebony material containing them. ‘Let go of her.’

Will strides back over to the couch as if to
enforce the request. ‘She wants to get up,’ he states.

‘No, she doesn’t,’ Jay says mildly, ‘she’s
enjoying herself.’

Will’s hand rises to his gun as he moves past
him to loom directly over her face. ‘I’m out of here, Carmen. If
you prefer this guy, that’s your problem.’

Jay reminds him, with an arresting blend of
sympathy and disdain, ‘But aren’t you so obsessed with her that you
can’t sleep? How then do you suppose walking away now is going to
help you?’

‘He’s right.’ Mike strides past both of them to
stand behind her where she can’t see him. ‘She’s done something to
us.’

‘Actually, I think it’s the other way around.’
Jay is in control. ‘We did something to her once. What happened to
her in the Grove the other night seems a mysterious reflection of
something. It also seems significant that I met her that morning,’
he glances up at Will, ‘and that you met her that night.’

‘And that I haven’t been able to stop thinking
about her since she told me what happened to her.’

Will cuts in, ‘Carmen, would you mind telling me
what these two are raving about?’

‘
You were in the
restaurant when I knocked over those toothpicks,’ Mike reminds him.
‘You saw how she reacted to them. She just knelt there staring at
them, and later she told me they looked like runes to her, that she
almost felt she could read them. That was in the gallery, where by
some strange coincidence there was a whole exhibit inspired by
Viking art, including a painting that looked just like the rug in
John Martin’s littered with toothpicks, a painting of Viking
runes.’

Jay asks Mike even while looking down into her
eyes, ‘You were the one who knocked over the toothpicks?’

‘I’m an atheist,’ Will states bluntly, ‘I don’t
believe in the soul or in reincarnation, or anything. This all
sounds like a load of bullshit to me. If you two want to play this
game with her, that’s you’re problem, but I’m not—’

‘Will,’ her gaze feels painfully stuck to the
frozen panes of his eyes in the dark room, ‘this isn’t a game.
Please listen to—’

‘To what? I came to see you, Carmen, not these
two.’

‘What you believe doesn’t matter, officer,’
Jay’s patience is at an end. ‘However, what you want does matter to
me since I happen to be in love with what you want, and she has
certain feelings for you, which force me to care. Understand?’

‘No, I can’t say as I understand what some old
skeleton has to do with Carmen.’

‘I haven’t told you about my dreams, Will.’

‘So you have a Viking fetish. Some women feel
that way about cops. It’s violence that turns them on, plain and
simple. I made a mistake being nice to you.’ He turns away, and
walks stiffly out of the room’s bloody atmosphere.

‘Well, he’s right about that,’ Jay says
lightly.

In contrast, Mike’s voice is hushed, almost
reverent. ‘A few days ago I would have agreed with him, but I
haven’t felt like myself lately at all. I’m endangering my
marriage, and that’s just not acceptable. I’ll listen to anything
you have to say that might explain my behavior, and help me stop
myself.’

For the first time, there is a gleam of respect
in Jay’s eyes when he looks up at him. ‘Well, Mike, I believe
Carmen was brutally raped and murdered in a past life – by us.’

Chapter Nine

The world is a jeweled dream. The rain stopped
abruptly, the clouds retreated, and now the sun glistens
triumphantly off the wet leaves, bringing out the spectrum in all
the water drops sparkling in the trees.

Jay’s car feels like a black-and-silver bullet
aimed straight at the heart of everything – life and death, time
and space, love and desire, possible and impossible. He is going
thirty miles per hour over the speed limit, and she is enjoying his
skill. She doesn’t ask him to slow down because she wants him to
know that she trusts him and respects him enough to let him
endanger her life like this.

It is imperative that he not sense how much a
part of her had longed to stay with Mike in Seaside’s dark and
deserted bowels. She keeps remembering the way he looked at her as
she left, and she’ll never forget the substantial energy of his
tongue surging around hers in a violent kiss, or the feel of his
fist…

‘A Viking coin for your thoughts, Carmen.’

Guilt makes her snap at him, ‘What do you think
I’m thinking about?’

‘I know who you’re thinking about,’ he turns the
wheel sharply to the left, forcing her to grab a hold of the
dashboard, ‘I’m just wondering if you’re honest enough to admit
it.’

His condescending attitude makes her want to
tell him to go to hell, so she doesn’t say a word.

‘How far have you two gone together anyway?’

For a long stretch the runway of the Miami
International Airport is visible from the palmetto. She watches a
huge metal bird, stuffed with human bodies smaller than worms from
this distance, soar effortlessly up into a foaming sea of
clouds.

‘Answer me, Carmen.’

‘We kissed…’

‘Is there any man in Miami you haven’t
kissed?’

‘Are you taking me home, Jay?’

‘No, I’m taking you to my place.’

Surprise, relief and fear react inside her like
chemicals that should never be mixed together, and like a test-tube
overflowing with bubbles, she laughs without meaning to, relieving
some of the tension building up inside her.

He floors the accelerator, and passes a speeding
truck whose bulk cuts through the air in an invisible roaring
wave.

When they can hear each other speak again, he
demands, ‘What the hell are you laughing at?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Let’s see if you feel like laughing when I’m
through with you.’

His seductive threat involves her so completely,
the conversation dies without her even noticing, or caring.

On Brickell Avenue she finds herself resenting
all the high-rises blocking her view of the sky’s dramatic cloud
formations. She is admiring a giant white arrowhead when the low
ceiling of a parking garage blocks her view.

Jay is out of the car before she even has time
to unbuckle her seat-belt. He opens the door for her with fierce
gallantry, and then strides away from her towards the
elevators.

Carmen discovers that she is literally weak in
the knees with fear and excitement. She knows she is treading a
very fine line as she hurries after him. She can’t possibly resist
her physical attraction to Mike, and she really likes Will. Yet how
can she keep dividing herself between three men without disastrous
consequences?

She barely has time to catch up with Jay before
the elevator arrives, and he steps inside.

The little metal car gives a bone-jarring jolt
before starting slowly up into the building.

The silent ride up to the ninth floor seems to
take forever.

Finally, the doors open onto a dimly lit,
carpeted hallway.

Jay unlocks a door at the end, and lets her walk
in ahead of him.

The first thing she notices is the stillness;
she is so used to having four warm bodies purring around her ankles
when she gets home. On the bright side, none of the plants have
been tipped over and spilled half their dirt across the carpet, and
the black leather couch is still beautifully smooth.

She drifts over to the glass doors that lead out
onto a balcony. It offers an uninterrupted view of water and sky
and the Miami skyline that at night will bloom beautifully with
lights. The shore below, cluttered with boats and small buildings
and parking lots, isn’t visible from inside.

The abundance of plant life, both inside and
out, prompts her to ask suspiciously, ‘Do you have another
girlfriend, Jay?’ She turns back to face him. ‘Or is it your
housekeeper who waters all these plants?’

‘She’s a very nice girl, Miriam, from Colombia.’
He shrugs off his jacket, and tosses it onto a white leather chair
shaped like the crescent moon. ‘Would you care for something to
drink?’ He slips off his tie, and it becomes a bloody gash across
his black jacket.

His polite tone is insulting, but she controls
her temper. She hopes this isn’t how he plans to punish her. ‘What
have you got?’ She falls onto the couch.

‘Anything you can possibly desire.’

His arrogance also annoys her, but the couch is
as comfortable as it looks expensive. His home is furnished exactly
as she had imagined it would be, in a modern minimalist style
relieved by plants, and what she judges to be a variety of antique
furnishings and objects strategically scattered around the room.
She kicks off her high heels, and stretches her legs across the
firm leather cushions. ‘You don’t have to go back to work, do
you?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’d like a cold glass of Chardonnay.’ She
deliberately leaves out the ‘please’.