“Well, when you put it like that, I don’t have a leg to stand on. Okay, but call me if something comes up, okay?”
“Of course, mon cher.”
I left the experts to it, snagged Quinn, and off we went to Opelousas. Of course, we had to stop and get the supplies first, but once we made it to Edmée’s house, she had the door open and ready for us. A bright smile stretched from ear to ear as she waved in greeting.
“Brandon! Thanks so much for coming back to help us with this. And this must be Quinn?”
“That’s me,” Quinn returned, one hand already full of tools.
Edmée took the free one and shook it firmly. “Enchanté, Quinn. Come in, come in. I made a big pot of chili, you stop and eat when you’re hungry. I’ll try to keep Cali out of your hair.”
Reminded, I reached back into the car and brought out the wooden stable I’d found at the hardware store. A local craftsman made toys for kids and apparently sold them all over the city. Before Cali’s room had become a mess, I’d noticed she’d mostly played with toy horses. I figured a stable was a better bet than a dollhouse.
Edmée’s eyes fell to the white stable in my hands with its painted green roof and stable doors and her jaw dropped. “Brandon, that’s gorgeous! But you didn’t have to buy her anything.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Think of me as an honorary uncle. I basically am one.”
Edmée didn’t get a chance for another word of protest before her four-year-old popped out of the doorway. Spying me, she lit up and ran to me as fast as her little legs could carry her. “Brandon, Brandon!”
“Hey, sweetie.” I ducked down onto my haunches so she could get a good look. “I got you a stable for your horses. What do you think?”
Her hands roved over it, her apple-green eyes wide with wonder. “Pretty.”
Seemed like I’d done a good job shopping. “Want me to carry it into the living room? You can play with it there while we fix your wall.”
Cali nodded, eyes still transfixed on the stable. “Horsies too?”
“Absolutely.” I wished I’d gotten a picture of her face. Mack was going to be sorry he’d missed this.
It took more than a few minutes to get the little girl settled with her stable and horses, and the room cleared enough and under a drop cloth so we didn’t get sheetrock dust over everything. Mack and I’d made such an irregular mess of the sheetrock we had to first cut the hole square so we could patch it.
“She’s adorable,” Quinn noted as we used chalk lines to square the area off.
“Who, Cali? Yeah, cute as a button. You can see why we were so angry when the ghost was terrifying her every night. She’s only four, for god’s sake.”
“Yeah, any case involving a kid is always rough on the feels. I’m glad our division’s policy is kids’ cases first but man, we take an emotional beating sometimes.” Quinn shot me a look before putting the chalk line back. “The hero worship afterwards is nice too.”
I laughed, as he wasn’t wrong.
We rigged up a temporary table between two buckets so Quinn could cut the sheetrock. Putting the saw down, he paused and gave me another look so masked I couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking.
“Brandon. I know we’ve talked a little about you working cases steadily with us. After watching how you and Mack coordinated with us so well, I want to say this again: know we’re all very serious about it. Work with us?”
How many times had someone blithely assured him yes, working with him was fine, only to back out later? How many times had he been burned, that he’d be this insecure even after we’d both given him a yes? Too many times was the only possible answer.
I took in a breath, reining in my temper, before I answered him. “Quinn, Mack and I really enjoy working with you. I mean this with all sincerity: please call us. We’d love to work with you again.”
That was the right answer. He grinned and looked a second away from hugging me. “Okay. We definitely will.”
I wasn’t the sort to let almost-hugs happen. I hauled him in and gave him one of those manly, one-armed back-slap hugs. He was beyond pleased and grinned at me. Seriously, this man. He didn’t know it yet, but we were going to be good friends. “Let me in on what kind of cases you’ve handled,” I suggested. Not only because I rather needed to know what to brace for, but also because I wanted to show I truly was interested. “Mack said it’s the cases no one else can handle, but that doesn’t tell me much.”
“Well, Eli’s not really a demon hunter. That’s a different part of the division. She handles cases more like this one, with the malevolent. Things that are too powerful for a regular medium to handle. Sometimes it’s a case where there’s just too many ghosts for any one person, so she needs a second exorcist to help. Or a medium who can exorcise. Mack said he can, but it takes something out of him. How bad?”
“He’s really still learning his limits on that. It wasn’t until he went into training with the FBI that he even tried to exorcise. I mean, an exorcism, from what he tells me, is brute force. You’re literally scattering the ghost into atoms. Passing is so much easier because he’s guiding them through, not scattering them to bits. Most of the time he negotiates the ghost into passing on their own, and he guides it. The one time he forced a manifestation and then forced a passing, he was a zombie later that night. So, I’d say he could probably exorcise one or two before he’s done. And then need at least a day to recover.”
“That’s pretty amazing for a medium. Just that much will be a huge boon to Eli. Hell, if he can just hold a ghost long enough for her to get to it, that’ll be enough to help.”
I held the sheetrock in place as Quinn screwed it in, the two of us talking nuts and bolts the whole time. I learned more about exorcists in a half hour than I ever had during my training course. Turned out exorcists were more than just the power hitters in the division—they were brute force all around. They might technically know how to coax a ghost into passing, like a medium, but it was hard for them to hold the power steady for long intervals of time to make it achievable. Their power levels were too large. Exorcism was more of a wham-bam approach, quick and brutal. A medium’s power was the opposite—perfect for finesse and long power projects, but not strong enough for exorcisms usually.
It was really nice, this camaraderie. Being able to talk shop with a colleague was something I sorely missed from the early days of being SWAT. It was nice to think I could have this again.
We had the room cleaned up, the mud drying—it would have to sit for twenty-four hours before we could sand and paint—and were heading for lunch when I heard the front door open again and Mack’s voice greeting the girls in the living room.
Stepping out of the hallway, I said, “Hey, love. Done already at the dorm?”
“We shouldn’t be,” Mack returned wryly. “But the students learned we’d exorcised the bad ghost and were willing to pitch in and clean up so they could reclaim their rooms. Eli and I found the good ghost and helped her pass on. She was more than ready after what had happened.”
“We’d have been back sooner, but I had to write a quick report of how useless Delaney is,” Eli pitched in. She was already cross-legged next to Cali and examining the stable. “This is way cool, Brandon. I understand you bought it?”