“True,” said a low, sexy voice behind me.
I did a weird shudder that was a combination of being surprised out of my skin but trying not to spill the wine. “Can…you not scare me like that?” I glanced behind me, knowing it was going to be the incubus again, and also realizing that he was really going to be some trouble for me.
“I apologize. I noticed you were alone again. And it seemed tragic to eat alone. Especially if that is what you’re eating.” He looked at the square-shaped piece of chicken, the red sauce, the glob of cheese, and the watery side broccoli.
“I’ve been working hard all day,” I said, abandoning my plans to go poke around the library. “I just need calories and some sleep.”
“I’m surprised you weren’t snooping around, looking for secrets.”
“Are there some, then?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you.”
I laughed. But he looked at me with total seriousness.
He also looked at me with a level of sexiness that could have destroyed lesser women. It was hard not to be intimidated. I didn’t meet very many incubi. I knew he was a ghost and he could only take on a solid form for a short time, and thank god he was a ghost, but…
Certain parts of him looked extremely solid.
“Hoo boy,” I whispered to myself. “Look, we need to talk.”
“Of course.” He gestured to the sofa, and then he sat down in the old man’s chair, crossing his legs. “Let us talk.”
“You seem like a pretty with-it ghost.”
“I guess you could call me that.” He grinned but then I saw a little brooding smolder in his eyes. “I know I’m dead. It’s a very stark thing to be aware of.”
“Uhh…right.” I guess it would be. “And so you know…I can’t let you stay here. I mean, I’m sure you don’t want to stay here. I need to help you move on.”
“Hm.” His fingers laced.
“Right?”
“No comment.”
Great. He was going to be a typical long-term resident ghost after all. Didn’t want to move on. Didn’t want to talk about anything. It was like trying to convince my parents they needed a therapist. Ghosts were usually just people who really, really needed therapy, so much so that they were stuck in their unhealthy relationship with living in one particular house forever.
I had many hats, doing this job. Ripping up carpet, picking out paint colors, obliterating imp swarms, and ghost counseling.
I sipped my wine. “When did you die, anyway?”
“1973,” he said.
1973? He looked so darkly romantic that I felt like he should have died in 1873, in Paris, from drinking too much absinthe or something. “Oh, so you really know about the carpeting. And…the drugs?”
“It wasn’t that,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me a little, while turning back on the killer smile.
“So, you and Mr. Capello were…friends?”
“This is your ghost interrogation, is it?” he asked, leaning forward a little, his golden eyes dancing a little with a combination of danger and amusement. “I’ll tell you my story of woe, and then move on to the afterlife, and you will sell my dear friend’s house as a vacation home for a family of five. He’s a lobbyist for the Potions Bureau. She’s a secretary at a mundane company, just for fun. The kids are spoiled as hell but well-trained in surface manners…”
“Nooo,” I said. I drank half my wine. “I don’t have the energy to get into it with you tonight, okay? But you can’t stay. And you know that.”
No woman could have looked at him without feeling something, and it was annoying me, because I knew it was just incubus magic. He was just so gorgeous and so…charged. Looking at him was making my body quiver with unspoken need, making me think about the fact that incubi were all seriously hung. I’d never experienced that before. He leaned forward just a little, panther-like.
“I’m here for a reason,” he said. “And I hope you figure out what it is.”
“You can’t tell me?”
“No. My lips are sewn shut.”
With that, he disappeared again, and a little shiver went down my spine.
CHAPTER NINE
HELENA
AND JUST LIKE THAT, I was up late, scouring the library. The shelves had large gaps, but it was still full of dogeared paperbacks and Encyclopedias I needed to clear out. Graham said he didn’t have any other family, and I could see why he didn’t want most of his grandfather’s stuff. Most of it was just more mystery novels. But there were a few common spell books left, the mass produced type. They surely had a little spell on them to deflect the notice of ordinary humans so they escaped the estate sale. I found the spell that shows how to sew shut the lips of a corpse to keep dead men from telling tales. There were even detailed engravings to illustrate! I probably shouldn’t have been so excited, but there was still a creepy little kid inside the competent adult.
What I didn’t find was any inkling as to why the incubus was dead or in any sort of trouble.
Hmm…
What do you want to bet…that stuff Graham buried…
I wished I could travel back in time, get those books, and then ring his clueless neck. What could I say for him to tell me where he put the stuff? I wasn’t finding any grimoires. Just thinking about it made nausea churn through my stomach. That stuff he got rid of might have been worth more than this entire house. My internal accountant was already dying, but my internal witch would be tortured for all eternity.
Eventually I decided to try a different tactic as I noticed some photo albums shoved in the corner of a low shelf. Weird that Graham left family photos behind. Maybe I needed to start by finding out
