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“We as in…?” Smoky piled his plate high with biscuits, sliced ham, sweet potatoes, salad, and everything else that was on the table.
“You guessed it.” Shamas accepted the bottle of wine and filled his glass, then handed it on to Vanzir. “We as in—us, meaning all of you. I have to investigate it while I’m off duty. Chase can’t do anything officially because there’s no sign that anybody is truly missing. But at least four reports of family members withdrawing their life savings to give to the organization and breaking all ties have come in during the past few days.”
Once we were all settled and the food had been passed around, we began the discussion. Everybody had been filled in on our trip back to Otherworld, and we all knew what had gone down last night with the ghosts. I took notes to free the others up for eating.
Morio started. “I stopped in to talk to Carter. While he’s not an expert on ghosts, he was able to verify what we feared. Gulakah has made his headquarters somewhere here in Seattle, and we don’t know where.”
The silence was deafening, the only sounds those of people chewing and sipping their wine and milk.
I jotted everything down on my steno pad, along with Shamas’s news and the facts we’d learned about Telazhar being in Otherworld. Things were going from grim to grimace worthy. After a moment, I cleared my throat.
“We knew he would be. So let’s just check that off as a verified expectation and move on. So, we have the Lord of Ghosts living in our backyard and we now have to deal with his freak show agenda. We can talk about that in a while. What next?”
“I did some digging into the delightful world of freaky-assed ghosts,” Camille said. “I still can’t figure out what we were facing last night, but I did find out more about doppelgangers. While they have trouble speaking actual words, other than a laugh or a scream, they don’t need a sorcerer or necromancer to summon them up. Their ability to mimic is innate. However…the charm thing? Not so much in their league. Therefore, it’s likely that the one last night was under control of someone.”
“Sorcerers?” I jotted the information down.
“Actually, no.” She consulted her notes. “You know, the screwy thing is that most people don’t realize that doppelgangers are part of the Netherworld. They’re not spirits per se, but they are creatures that—when they journey to the physical realm—need to take the form of a person here. They often just mimic whoever they were last in contact with until the next meal comes along.”
“What happens if they don’t feed?”
“They’ll fade back to the Netherworld after a while. So when they’re summoned here, it will usually be by a necromancer. But when they’re charmed, they appear to their targets as the object of their desire. In other words, if I’d been out there last night, I would have probably seen the creature as Smoky or Trillian or Morio.”
Trillian coughed. “Yeah, that makes me feel better.”
“Could Telazhar have empowered it? But he’s over in Otherworld.” Vanzir stabbed another biscuit with his fork and bit into it.
“Think about it,” I said. “Gulakah was originally from the Netherworld, until he got kicked out. I think the Lord of Ghosts might just be into necromancy in a big way.”
“Fuck…just when you thought it couldn’t get worse…” Rozurial still looked a little pale, but mostly he seemed back to his usual self.
I’d let go of the guilt over last night, and now I just wanted to find the cocksucker who was responsible for charming me into that little episode.
“Yeah. And I have a feeling we’re only probing the surface right now—” The sound of the front door opening put all of us on guard, but then Nerissa’s voice rang out through the hall.
“Honey, I’m home!”
I hit the ground running as Nerissa burst into the kitchen, her tawny mane coiling down her shoulders. She looked tired, and was still in her business suit. My love was striking, statuesque, and her Amazon-like stature exuded a pheromone that drove me nuts.
She dropped her briefcase and held out her arms. I raced over and she caught me up, her soft, lush lips meeting mine. As I melted into her kiss, melted into her love and her passion, for a moment the world was okay, and all the ghosts were driven away.
Chapter 7
“I’m so glad you’re safe!” My fears vanished as the warm smell of sugar vanilla filled my senses. I loved how Nerissa smelled—and when I was around her, I did my best to wrap myself in her fragrance because it made me feel loved and at home. Nerissa was still dressed in her suit from the conference—a tweed skirt that stopped three inches above her knees, and a tailored jacket over a baby blue button-down shirt. She had on three-inch spikes, which brought her up to Delilah’s height, making her a foot taller than I was.
I floated up to stare at her eye level, then slowly reached out and kissed her nose. “We have problems. Did Iris tell you what went down?”
Nerissa nodded, sliding her big leather hobo purse to the ground. She shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over an empty chair, then kicked off her heels. “You mean about the ghosts and the doppelganger? Yes.”
“Has anybody strange been hanging around you lately? We’re feeling watched.”
Nerissa stared at me for a moment, then looked around the room at the mob scene that was our kitchen. She snorted. “Um…you mean anybody stranger than normal?”
“Dork.” I tapped her nose. “Yes.”
Nerissa dropped into the chair, leaning her head back. “I was at a conference with two hundred people. There were bound to be oddballs there, but nobody sticks out in my mind. Give me a few minutes to relax and maybe something will come to mind.”
I leaned down and placed another kiss on her lips, then nuzzled her cheek. “Are you hungry?”
