Psychic Page 18

  It felt strange to say it out loud. They were together. Him. Samantha. They were a pair. Even when she was playing at dating Jason. Even when she was dancing with Alexander. It had seemed inevitable. Doris gave him an encouraging smile and he nodded. Well, it was what it was. She had warned him all along, and he had finally said it. She was right.

  He wove his fingers behind his head as the front door opened and Jason called him. He looked over at Doris again and shrugged.

  This is what moving on feels like.

  <><><>

  They burnt the day with shopping and a movie and visiting Tanner’s friends, getting back to the house just before dinner. Jason told the story of the past weeks over dinner; neither Sam nor Samantha was up for giving it the dashing flair it needed to avoid killing conversation for the evening. Carter played only a passing role; Lange featured. In Jason’s version, he took on the feel of the Sheriff of Nottingham, dark, oily, smug, just begging for someone to take him down a peg.

  “He’s not that bad,” Samantha complained.

  “Says the one who was about ready to stab him in the eye,” Jason said, winking.

  “That’s just… how we are,” she said.

  “And you always want to stab all of them,” Sam said. The table paused as Samantha dropped her head and laughed.

  “I can’t say you’re wrong.”

  “So, anyway,” Jason said, continuing his story.

  Eventually, Doris started collecting plates. Sam and Samantha both stood to help, but she motioned them back down into their seats.

  “You want to go out?” Tanner asked.

  “Yeah,” Jason said. He looked at Sam.

  “Sure.”

  Attention swung to Samantha.

  “Okay,” she said. Tanner grinned down at the table.

  “Don’t let me twist your arm.”

  “We had a bad kill,” Jason said. “We need a night out.”

  “That’s all we ever have,” Sam murmured.

  “What?” Jason asked.

  “Nothing,” Sam said. Samantha looked at him. She had heard.

  “Come on, Sam,” Jason said to Samantha as she stood. He shouldered her playfully. “We’ll go to that place where you dance. It’ll feel good.”

  “Music would be good,” she said. He looked at Sam.

  “It’ll get better,” he told her. “It always gets better again.”

  “Yeah.”

  <><><>

  “You hear about the rash of possessions up north?” Tanner asked. Jason shook his head.

  “Been underwater for a while. What’s going on?”

  “You didn’t make it to Chicago this year, did you?” Tanner asked.

  “No.”

  “We don’t do Chicago,” Sam said darkly.

  “Right,” Tanner said, sipping his whiskey. “I forgot. No, I heard they pulled a half dozen out across Minnesota and Wisconsin. Maybe one in Montana, dunno.”

  “Weird,” Jason said.

  “Tell me about Detroit again,” Tanner said. “The real story.”

  Jason glanced at Sam.

  “No, not that part. The psychic. How you found her. Her story.”

  “Oh, well, okay. So, she was taking people off the streets. Just snatching them, looked like,” Jason started. He had told stories like this for so long he barely had to pay attention in order to get the pace right. Tanner like his stories unembellished, factual, and to-the-point. Jason had to work a little harder at that, actually, making sure he got the facts right and in the right order, rather than just telling a good story, but he still had plenty of time to watch Sam and the rest of the room.

  Sam had only a polite attachment to the table, shifting when the waitress came by with fresh drinks, leaning one way and then the other to indicate he was following the conversation, but it didn’t come close to fooling Jason. His mind was elsewhere, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out where.

  “I thought Carson said she danced,” Tanner said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Your girl Sam,” he said. Jason looked through the crowd on the floor to find Samantha leaning against a wall, eyes closed.

  “I guess the last few days took it out of her more than I thought,” Jason said. Tanner leaned back over the table.

  “I also heard you two were together,” he said to Sam. Sam took a breath, dragging his eyes from Samantha to Tanner.

  “Nope. Common misconception.”

  “Look, I get that the way things ended with Carly is pretty much the worst breakup ever, but…” Tanner glanced over his shoulder. “You only get one go at this. We all die.”

  “It’s him,” Sam said.

  “It’s what?” Tanner asked. Sam leaned forward in his chair, showing his first signs of animation all night. It didn’t take Jason long to find him.

  “Alexander,” Jason said.

  “The local?” Tanner asked.

  “So we thought, until he turned up in New Orleans,” Jason said.

  “What were you doing down in New Orleans?” Tanner asked.

  “Mortuary full of wraiths,” Jason said, watching as Alexander made his way into the heart of the crowd. Samantha’s eyes were open - Jason guessed Sam had tipped her off - and she was looking for him. The song changed, and the crowd parted where Alexander had stopped. Samantha stepped off of the wall, disappearing into the crowd. Jason glanced at Sam, but his brother’s face wasn’t giving anything away.

  “And why was he in New Orleans?” Tanner asked.

  “You get him to stick around long enough to ask him that, be sure to let me know,” Jason said, standing.

  “Let it go,” Sam said.

  “Suspicious, if you ask me,” Tanner said.

  “They just dance together,” Sam said. Jason looked at Sam, his hand resting on the back of his chair as he edged toward the dance floor.

  “She’ll let me cut in if I ask,” Jason said.

  “Let it go,” Sam said. “He makes her happy.”

  “Sam, if she means something to you,” Tanner said.

  “We’ve said everything there is to say,” Sam said. “Let it go.”

  Jason sat back down in his chair and Sam drained his beer and motioned to the waitress to bring another. Jason swallowed the last of his scotch and put up a finger for another, as well.

  “So… the wraiths,” Tanner said.

  “Apparently they’re human,” Jason said, watching as the crowd split. Samantha and Alexander were in form, he leading with a hand or a forearm, but otherwise leaving her space. Bigger than life, the two of them.

  “They’re what?” Tanner asked, sounding not particularly interested.

  “Human.”

  “What else would they be?”

  “Dead,” Sam said.

  “Of course they’re dead,” Tanner said.

  “Not so much,” Jason said.

  “No way.”

  “’S what Sam says,” Sam said.

  “How does she know?”

  “We’ve learned not to ask,” Jason said.

  “You think she’s right?”

  Jason glanced at Sam, who acknowledged the look and the question with a shrug, but didn’t turn his attention.

  “She’s been turned twice,” Jason said.

  “Who?”

  “Sam.”

  “And yet you travel with her?” Tanner asked.

  “She pushed it back both times,” Jason said. Tanner’s head swiveled to look where Samantha and Alexander were in shadow, she moving with the staccato of the music, he in a smooth echo of her motion.

  “You’re sure?”

  “We’re sure,” Jason said. “Apparently the rules are more complicated than we’ve got them pegged.”

  “They’re simpler,” Sam said. Jason shrugged.

  “That, too.”

  “What?”

  “They’re just human,” Sam said. “Humans trying to be immortal.”

  “Wraiths don’t turn people,” Tanner said.

&nbs
p; “Another misconception, apparently. Zombies and wraiths are the same boogers.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Zombies are just doing a worse job of staying alive,” Sam said.

  “The wraiths in New Orleans were clean. Human-looking as us,” Jason said. “Hell, they were better dressed and smelled better than we do.”

  “I’ve heard of wraiths that clean up okay,” Tanner said skeptically. Jason sighed and dove into the full explanation about Mother. Tanner listened with incredulity, but a willingness to be wrong. Sam jumped in less and less with details.

  “And you think she’s got it right?” Tanner asked as Jason finished.

  “You should have seen her on the side of the highway, Tanner,” Jason said. “I mean, with everything else she’s been right about… It would be a shock for her to have gotten this one so wrong.”

  Sam cleared his throat.

  “Look. Um.” He dropped his head, then finished his third beer. “I want her to be happy, but I can’t sit here and watch. I’m going to head back to the house.”

  “I’ve got a morning,” Tanner said. “I should head home, too.”

  Sam looked at Jason with intensity. Jason nodded.

  “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Stay where she can see you,” Sam said. Jason nodded again.

  “You got it. Do what you need to do.”

  Tanner clapped Jason on the back and leaned in to speak into his ear.

  “Give me a call if you need help with a body.”

  Jason laughed.

  “Thanks, man.”

  They left, and Jason put his feet up on the chair across from him, sipping scotch and watching girls. One of them noticed him and, giggling to her friends, came trotting over to his table.

  “Are your friends coming back?” she asked.

  “No, they’re gone,” Jason said.

  “And you’re here by yourself?” she asked, edging an empty chair away from the table. He grinned.

  “I’m here with her,” he said, motioning to Samantha. Her eyes widened.

  “She doesn’t look like she’s here with you.”

  He shrugged as the chair made it waist-distance from the table and stopped.

  “I guess she doesn’t.”

  The girl hopped up onto the chair.

  “I’m Tiffany,” she said.

  “Jason,” he said. “What are you drinking?”

  <><><>

  Tiffany was a dental assistant. She wanted to be an actress, and she had tried out for a singing show on television three or four times, because she thought she was a triple-threat. Jason had nodded and ordered another drink, only late in the conversation figuring out the television show part. Prime-time television apparently wasn’t what he had grown up with.

  Her friends were Amy and Ellie, and they had wanted to come over before Sam and Tanner left, but they’d been too shy. She giggled a lot. The two at the bar giggled a lot. She kept looking down at her drink, flashing glittery blue eyeshadow at him. The eyeshadow was not shy.

  He ordered another pair of drinks, grinning at the perfection of her white teeth and the nervous way her fingers fluttered while she talked. She was not a dancer. She was a ‘do you want to get out of here’. He was aware of his keys in his pocket.

  His phone rang.

  “Oh,” she said. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “No, you should at least look,” she said. “What if it’s important?”

  He pulled the phone out of his pocket and tipped his head to the side.

  “It’s my brother. Sorry. Just a second.”

  He answered.

  “What do you need?”

  “Can you see her?”

  “She’s fine,” Jason said.

  “No. Are you sure? I think he put something in her drink,” Sam said. “She’s high.”

  Jason scanned the dance floor, not seeing them at first. Tiffany, frowned at him, black eyebrows appearing from under blond bangs, and started scanning the dance floor as well. Jason found them first. He laughed.

  “Hate to tell you this, Sam. She’s fine.”

  “You’ve been watching her drink?” Sam asked.

  “She hasn’t been back to the table.”

  “She doesn’t feel normal,” Sam said. Jason nodded and Tiffany giggled, finding Samantha. Or, more likely, spotting Alexander. Jason licked his lower lip and sat back down.

  “Sam. I’m sorry. She’s. Fine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The shadows from the dancers around them made the details of what was going on a bit vague, but the specifics very clear.

  “They’re making out, Sam. Go to bed.”

  There was a long silence as Jason looked at Tiffany for lack of something more appropriate to watch, then Sam hung up. Jason put his phone away. Tiffany opened her eyes wide enough that he could see the dark ring around her blue irises all the way around.

  “Is she your girlfriend?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you spying on her?”

  “No. She’s my friend. I’m making sure she’s okay.”

  “Oh. You’re a good friend.”

  “I am a good friend.”

  Tiffany nodded and put her elbows on the table, crossing her arms at the wrist and leaning toward him. Her breasts nearly exploded out of her shirt.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He grinned, motioning to the waitress again.

  “No.”

  <><><>

  The bar was nearly empty by the time Samantha and Alexander came stumbling back to the table. Samantha stole Jason’s beer - he had switched from liquor an hour ago - and drained it.

  “Alexander, you remember Jason,” she said. Jason shook his hand.

  “Good to see you, man,” Alexander said. Jason nodded.

  “You, too. This is Tiffany.”

  The girl nodded and smiled at Samantha.

  “You’re a really good dancer.”

  “Thank you,” Samantha said. The waitress appeared and Samantha pointed at Jason’s beer.

  “Another one of those,” she said.

  “Two more,” Jason said.

  “Three more,” Tiffany finished.

  “Water, please,” Alexander said, smiling wholesomely. Jason felt like kicking him. Samantha looked at him with open amazement, then raised a hand at the waitress.

  “A water for me, too, please,” she said. The woman nodded and left.

  “So you’re from around here?” Jason asked Alexander. He nodded.

  “Sort of. I just kind of drift around, but I have family here. I’m here more than I’m anywhere else.”

  “Where did you learn to dance like that?” Tiffany asked.

  “I just… do,” Samantha said.

  “You should teach,” Tiffany said.

  “So… what do you do?” Jason asked Alexander. Alexander accepted his water with a warm smile for the waitress, then shrugged as he took three huge gulps of it.

  “I got my PhD in physics, and then I realized that I just wanted to have fun for a while,” he said. “I’ve been traveling, seeing the country… going out dancing… for a couple of years now.” He grinned. “It freaks my mom out. I’ll go back to real life some day.”

  “I would take that class,” Tiffany said.

  “Pretty big coincidence, us running into you down south,” Jason said.

  “Yeah, I couldn’t believe it,” Alexander said. “Had you been there before? I love it. Great food.”

  “You’d been there before?” Jason asked.

  “Sure. Never go for Mardi Gras, obviously, but…” He glanced at Samantha. “You get favorite places, and you just keep going back.”

  “How do you guys know each other?” Tiffany asked.

  “I travel with Jason and his brother,” Samantha said. “And I dance with Alexander when I’m in town.”

  “Oh,” Tiffany said. “What do you do?”

  “Local work,” Jason said. Tiffany loo
ked from him to Samantha, and he could feel himself losing her, but didn’t much care. He watched Alexander’s reaction instead.

  “Oh,” Samantha said. “Jason, give him your number.”

  “My what?” Jason asked.

  “Your phone number,” Samantha said. “And get his.”

  “Yeah. No.”

  “I don’t have a phone,” Samantha said.

  “How weird is that?” Alexander asked. “Do you mind?”

  Jason got out his phone, feeling ambushed.

  “How do you not have a phone?” Tiffany asked.

  “I don’t like people being able to find me,” Samantha said. Tiffany batted her eyes.

  “Why not?”

  “I get it,” Alexander said. “I don’t give out my number much, either.” He took Jason’s phone and slid his across the table. Jason stared at it and Samantha sighed and snatched it.

  “Why not?”

  Alexander paused and looked at Tiffany.

  “This is the… what? fourth? time I’ve danced with Sam, and every time, I just figure, hey, I’ll see her again or I won’t. It was fun, but why try to turn it into something else?”

  Tiffany sighed and leaned on her elbows.

  “What changed?” Jason asked. Alexander looked at him and grinned, recognizing the tone but not taking any offense at it. He handed Jason’s phone back.

  “I want to see her again.”

  Samantha handed Alexander’s phone back to him.

  “I’d like that.”

  “So how did you meet?” Alexander asked, glancing at Jason.

  “I found them on a job that they hadn’t cleaned up properly,” Samantha said. “They’re a little sloppy, without me.”

  “That’s not true,” Jason said.

  “How much of our work would you finish - right - without me?” she asked. He took a mental tally and shrugged.

  “Okay, maybe it is.”

  “What do you do?” Alexander asked. Samantha shrugged.

  “Technical stuff,” she said.

  “Like lighting?” Tiffany asked.

  “Sometimes it feels like one demolition job after another,” Jason said. Samantha grinned.

  “You’re right.”

  “You in town for a while?” Alexander asked.

  “Until we get another job,” she said. He nodded.

  “You should tell me where you go next. Maybe we could meet up.”

  Jason finished his beer and looked at Tiffany, then Samantha.

  “Well, are you guys ready to call it a night?”