Luke gingerly took the makeshift dressing away from his nose. He held it close to his face as he waited to see the result. When nothing spurted, he pinched the bridge, winced, and shoved the bloody bits of tissue in his pocket.
“I’ve been sent home,” he said.
“Told you it’d be a bad day,” Jonah said. “I didn’t know you were police.”
“I’m not,” Jonah said. “I mean, I work for the Jerusalem PD, but I’m not an officer. I’m a forensics tech.”
“No gun, then?”
“Would it help?”
Jonah shrugged. In his experience, some people thought it did. At the end, if all else had failed. At least it was quick.
“Who punched you?”
“The girlfriend of some two-bit drug dealer,” Luke said. “She threw her coffee at me and then followed it up with a paperweight. She played varsity baseball, apparently. Good aim.”
“Why?”
“I stopped at the vending machine to get a bag of pretzels,” Luke said. “She started yelling, ‘what are you looking at?’ and next thing I know… The captain wanted to know what I’d done to provoke her, if I knew her before today. When I kept saying no, he sent me home to think about it.”
“If we deal with the hag, tomorrow will be better,” Jonah said. “You just need to ride it out.”
Luke looked haunted for a second. “And what if we don’t deal with her?” he asked slowly. “This just goes on forever? What happens if—”
“You’ll be dead,” Jonah said. “I might be too. Do you have any clean clothes?”
Fear and despair flashed over Luke’s face, followed by confusion. “What?”
“Take your shirt off,” Jonah told him. When Luke didn’t move quick enough, Jonah shrugged off his jacket and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He tossed it into Luke’s lap. “Put that on.”
Luke picked up the T-shirt, took in the sweat stains and grease, and grimaced. “Really?” he asked
It had been a long day, even before Jonah had to change the tire on a truck in a seedy motel parking lot.
“Just do it,” Jonah said. “We’re in the weeds, Luke, so you can’t afford to be picky.”
Luke stood up and unbuttoned his shirt. He took it off and held it awkwardly for a second, white linen dangled by the collar from his fingers.
“Are you going to—“
Jonah took the shirt and pulled it on over his tank top. He left it unbuttoned and just tucked it into his jeans.
“You should have listened to me,” Jonah said. “Stayed at mine. It might have given us a bit more time. Instead, you gave it a trail to follow.”
Luke shook his head and then pulled the grubby T-shirt on over it. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice muffled by the fabric. “I was going to. But the longer I sat there, the stupider it seemed. It obviously wasn’t real. Magic isn’t real. Ghosts aren’t real.”
He said it hopefully as his head popped out of the stretched neck of the grubby top, as if maybe he could talk himself back into that frame of mind.
“Yeah,” Jonah said. “It’s easier to believe that during the day, not so much when the shadows start to set.”
He grabbed the waistband of Luke’s jeans and pulled him close. Luke leaned back on instinct, his chin up and eyes surprised, and Jonah snorted as he pulled the wad of bloody tissue out of Luke’s pants
It went into the back pocket of his jeans.
“If you can’t beat them,” he said as he let go of Luke, “confuse ’em.”
Luke took a deep breath and then leaned in suddenly. He brushed his mouth over Jonah’s in a quick, tender kiss. His mouth tasted of faded latte and fresh blood, sugar, and salt, and the warm, heady taste that was specifically Luke. Jonah leaned into the kiss and cupped Luke’s face in one hand. He grazed his thumb along Luke’s cheekbone and slid his fingers up into dark, neat hair.
