And this was the awkward part. “Uh, no. Some of the more recent ones, if there’s a living participant or a descendant or—”
“So one touch, one ghost?” Tucker’s glance took in the entirety of the house and grounds. “Because that seems easy enough. I know this place was a hotel for quite some time, but Ruth should have taken care of them all.”
Angel blew out a breath. “Well, it’s more complicated than that. You have to… to read their entire story. Sometimes the thing that got them stuck here wasn’t in just one coin or one brush up against a doorknob, or even one visit. Ruth once had to tell the story of secret lovers who met here at least ten times in the course of their life. It’s detective work, really.”
Tucker groaned for a moment and buried his face in his hands. “You know, there’s a fairy hill about fifteen minutes away. Even the humans have to know it’s there. Wouldn’t they have an empath you could use?”
Angel took a deep breath in spite of his incorporeal form. “We don’t talk about that,” he said with dignity. “Ever.”
Tucker peeked through his fingers. “That’s… uh, absolute.”
But Angel dug in his heels. “Please, don’t mention them. They’re not even supposed to exist.” Angel had no idea where this knowledge came from, but it seemed certain, like something he’d known from the beginning of his existence.
Whenever that had been.
Tucker’s bitter laugh rattled through the kitchen. “Look—from what I’ve seen, those folks don’t give a shit if they’re supposed to exist or not. They’re sort of here. I mean, right here.”
Oh no—Angel was not about to let himself be distracted. “Even if they did exist,” he said, throwing arrogance around his shoulders like a cape, “they can’t come here. This place has cold iron, pure silver, and soft gold in its foundation. That pretty much repels any of the, uh… well, the people we don’t talk about and pretend don’t exist.”
“Oh.” Tucker’s shoulders slumped. “That’s too bad. I saw a lot of them in Sacramento. They were like ghosts—they were everywhere. They were nice people. I liked the werecreatures especially.”
“I told you,” Angel snapped, “they don’t exist!”
“Fine! Fine! They don’t exist.” Tucker huffed and stood up to put the groceries away. “And thank you, by the way, for the groceries, and for keeping the electricity on. Was that you?”
Angel nodded, relieved. Apparently Tucker’s temper didn’t last long. “I’m afraid I couldn’t keep the dust out,” he said apologetically. “But I’m rather good with electronics.” Angel gave his best, most winning smile, because Tucker still seemed irritated about the fairy hill, which absolutely did not exist. “I did have a cleaning service come in and clean up the old—Ruth’s bedroom, and the guest room next to it.”
“And whatever the hell that was didn’t knock them on their asses?” he asked. It was true—he did have a right to be frustrated.
“They came in through the side door. That one there.” Angel gestured. “It was added when Ruth updated the kitchen, so most of the ghosts don’t use it. They prefer the french doors to the back porch or the front door.” Angel shrugged. “That’s one of the rules of ghosts, I guess—”
“They respect thresholds,” Tucker said. “Yes, I know. I got my college education in folklore, religions, and old languages.”
“There’s a degree for that?” Angel asked, eyes wide because that could mean his next hunt for an empath might not be nearly so desperate.
“There is now that I’ve graduated,” Tucker said grimly. “So where do I stay?”
“Well, like I said, I had two rooms cleared out—your aunt Ruth’s and her live-in nurse’s. Do you have a preference?”
Tucker stared at him blankly, closing the refrigerator behind him. “Preferably a place where nobody I know has died.”
An odd sort of shame swept him, and Angel had to fight to keep his expression calm. He was asking this man to sacrifice his future for this house, and he could offer him no suitable place to live. “I’m sorry, Tucker. Like you said, this place started as a hotel—one of the few in this relatively uninhabited place for over one hundred years. It only closed down when your aunt was a very young girl. There’s a lot of history here. Someone has died in pretty much every room of the house.” He gave a sheepish smile. “Usually more than one someone. And sometimes it’s not just dying that keeps spirits here. If something life-changing happened here—heartbreak or falling in love or losing a loved one—that soul will stick around too. But your aunt was the only person who died in her room for a good seventy-five years.”
“Ooookay? So I can face the psychic residue of total strangers or the psychic residue of a poor woman who was lonely and bitter and pissed off that she was locked up in this mausoleum with no company and no help. Which one ever shall I choose?”
Ouch. “How do you know she was lonely and bitter and pissed off?” Angel asked plaintively. He liked to think they’d achieved a certain rapport in the later years, a certain job satisfaction, as it were. He’d certainly missed her when she’d passed. He’d even mourned her passing, although he seemed to exist with the certainty that she was much happier now.
“Because I’m lonely, bitter, and pissed off already,” Tucker snapped. “And I just got here.”
“Well, not too lonely,” Angel sneered, wishing he could get that vision of Tucker, sleepy and sex-sated, out of his mind, but it kept playing back on a loop. There was a certain… touchability to Tucker’s body, although Angel had no memories of ever being able to touch.
Tucker leveled a flat gaze at him. “You go ahead and think that’s what you saw,” he said, no inflection in his voice whatsoever. “In the meantime, show me to my room. I’ll take the one without Aunt Ruth, thank you very much.”
“Of course,” Angel mumbled, feeling shamed for no good reason at all.
Tucker grunted. “Do you have a name?” he asked after a moment.
“Angel,” he said, brightening. “That… that is my name.” Because that’s what Ruth had called him, right?
“You don’t sound too sure,” Tucker said suspiciously, and Angel fought the urge to just disappear.
“Your aunt called me Angel for fifty years,” he said with dignity. “You may call me Angel too.”
Tucker grunted. “Of course,” he muttered, and Angel had to fight the impulse to thunk his head against a wall. For one thing, his head would probably go through the wall again, and Tucker had made it clear he’d had enough of that.
Don’t Touch That, Dammit!
TUCKER WAS exhausted.
Sex for epiphanies usually did that to him—it was one of the reasons he’d been so dependent on his aunt Ruth’s generosity and his parents’ inheritance. Besides never knowing when he’d have to duck out on work, there was the fact that his sex life would literally kill him if he didn’t take a day to rest.