Those were the happy ones. Tucker concentrated on them, ignoring the sinister man in gambler’s garb with a knife in his fist. The beaten young woman, covered in blood, dragging the scalp of her attacker behind her. The two young men, running hand in hand from a mob that would catch them if Tucker didn’t look away.
There was too much tragedy in the world. And Tucker could only do so much. He closed his eyes against the worst of it and tried to find his center.
He found it in the thought of a puppy and wanted to cry.
Angel was right. A puppy wouldn’t be able to take all of this; dogs were already too attuned to ghosts as it was. Maybe a cat? Not that cats didn’t see psychic forces—cats just didn’t give a shit. If something freaked a cat out, they hissed and let it alone. A cat wouldn’t offer unconditional love like a puppy could—but if a cat did love you, it could return affection.
Okay, then. The purring of a cat would have to be enough. Tucker was finally living in a place that didn’t expect half his rent in a cleaning deposit, and where he could let the cat go outside without the fear that it might become a victim of traffic. Ten acres spread outside his window, and there may be ghosts, but there were also birds, mice, and voles. A cat could weather the psychic storms of this place—and maybe give Tucker some stability as well.
But a cat would want to roam the house. Tucker couldn’t blame it. He felt trapped in this room by its very existence. The one “clean” room here, and it was vaguely corrupted with the memories of an irritated nurse. Tucker wondered if he could bring his next “mission” here, and perhaps they could refresh the room with a sexual epiphany, giving the place the sort of joy it didn’t have now.
But it would still be just one room. Tucker closed his eyes and pushed out with his imagination, remembering the oppressive Victorian décor he’d seen on all sides as he’d walked from the kitchen and down the corridor. Fifteen rooms, Angel had said, not including Aunt Ruth’s and this one here. Well, sort of. He’d said, “There should be fifteen bedrooms,” which didn’t bode well since he’d existed at Daisy Place for at least seventy-five years and should know exactly. And he hadn’t been counting the bathrooms either.
This had probably started off as a large family residence before it became a hotel, possibly a B and B–style place, which is what it had been before it had become a burden on the back of a frail old woman.
Tucker wasn’t ready to populate the place with a family again, but he could make it into a B and B. One room at a time.
He opened his eyes, and the macabre pageantry of souls on the lawn didn’t bother him quite so much.
“Angel?” he said, swinging his feet over the side of the bed. “Angel, are you awake?”
“I don’t often sleep, but I do rest,” Angel said from his pose on top of the dresser. “What do you need?”
“For starters, I need a cat.”
“But—”
“And for finishers, I need some books on home decorating, some home improvement tools, and a fuckton of paint.”
“Tonight? I thought we’d start with an object or two. I have a pretty paperweight picked out—”
God, this guy had an agenda. “Sure. Whatever. We’ll do the paperweight. You show me the room, we’ll start with the paperweight—but make it a good room, Angel, ’cause I’m spending the next month touching shit and clearing the place out. If I can’t change being stuck here, I’m going to change where I’m stuck. You understand?”
Angel hopped from the dresser like he was a real boy and nodded. Standing, he was short—five eight or nine to Tucker’s six two. He regarded Tucker soberly, as though giving real weight to his words, and Tucker tried not to let his chest get too achy at the sight of those vulnerable freckles. Aw dammit, Damien! You would have hated this place. We could have wreaked beautiful havoc here and made it lovely.
All he got back from Angel was a brooding silence.
“What?”
“What do you think will happen to this place, once all of the psychic energy is gone? It’s an energy trap, Tucker. Do you really mean to let people stay here again?”
Tucker shrugged, standing up and wandering to the window. The ghosts were starting to wander in, fading as they got closer to the house. He wondered if…. “Why not? I mean, we could even bill the place as haunted. It’ll be great!”
“But… but….” Angel actually sputtered, flailing his hands in untold directions as he tried to find words. “It will self-perpetuate. Don’t you understand?”
“What were you going to do with it?” Tucker demanded. “Raze it to the ground? What good will that serve?”
“What good?” Angel asked blankly.
“Yes! It was obviously built as a place to trap souls—”
“Not trap,” Angel said primly.
“Of course trap,” Tucker argued. “If it wasn’t a trap, why won’t they leave on their own?”
Angel blinked. “You know, in almost seventy-five years, I don’t remember your aunt ever asking that.”
“Well, we’ll put a pin in it,” Tucker said. “You’re the one who told me it was surrounded by fairy-repelling metal. I’m pretty sure that’s not great for the souls who get stuck here.”
Angel was mouthing the words “put a pin in it,” and Tucker took a deep breath.
“It means ‘save it for later,’” he said patiently. “Can you tell me why we shouldn’t let people stay here now?”
Angel shrugged. “A hunch? Empirical evidence? Just… history? It attracts the living too—people coming to this house or this hostel were troubled, in transition in their lives. So if they visited here and never found peace—”
“They didn’t know to stop wandering,” Tucker acknowledged. “I get it. But that doesn’t mean it has to die! I mean, it was obviously built for a purpose. I looked out there at the garden—not all those people were bad. Maybe it does have a purpose, but not a sinister one. Maybe we should keep the old place from crumbling around our ears and find out, you think?”
“No,” Angel muttered. “I do not think.”
“Lucky you, I am here to do the thinking for you,” Tucker said grandly. He looked outside and watched the shadows stretch longer. Well hell—it was July. If they were stretching that long, odds were good it was near nine o’clock anyway. “But the home improvement will wait until tomorrow. So will the cat. In the meantime, let’s get a snack and get busy.”
He slid into his loafers, yawned, scratched his head, and grinned. Angel stared back at him, still probably trying to find a reason the plan to renovate the place wouldn’t work.
Screw him. Tucker had long ago learned to accept that his life was not under his control. God knew when he was going to be forced to wander down the street and into some stranger’s bed. But he’d learned that the things he could control—what to eat, how he decorated his apartment, how he chose to keep his body in shape—these were the things that made his existence as sweet as it could be.
He had found the equivalent of roast beef au jus, Henri Matisse paintings, and tai chi in this situation, and he wasn’t going to let a snarky, opinionated ghost talk him out of it!