Beckham, Hannah Read online

  After a few moments of waiting, she opened her eyes. Matt, Stephen, and Paula lay in heaps on the floor, and the darkness had gone. Maya leaned against the wall and slid down until her knees touched her chest. She had resolved herself for death, and death went away. There was no comfort in the thought. It meant the entity was unpredictable, wanting to kill her one moment, then fleeing the next. Well, she wouldn’t punch a gift horse in the mouth, but still.

  The thing had body-hopped through the three most important people in her life as if it were a knife and they were butter. But why hadn’t it jumped into Maya? It seemed if it could possess and control a body, the easiest solution would be to jump into Maya and use the 9mm to blow her brains out. Suicide by proxy. No muss, no fuss. So much for Ockham’s Razor.

  She didn’t feel like crying. Not this time. She did, however, feel like screaming. So, she screamed. And screamed. Then screamed again. It didn’t make her feel better. “Shit.”

  She moved to Matt and Stephen, both of them healing already, breathing just fine. They looked sweet, like sleeping little boys. She checked Paula next. Same. Breathing, peaceful.

  Because she didn’t know what to do next, she called Jack.

  Chapter 6

  Jack sat on the couch with Paula cradled in his arms. She hadn’t woken yet, but she was talking in her sleep. A good sign, right? Matt and Stephen were cleaning up in the bathroom, because while they’d healed, dried blood could be a bitch to scrub off. Jack had brought Neely along, and the ex-cop was happily whistling as he shampooed the carpet in her bedroom with a steam cleaner.

  “You’re good at that.”

  He grunted. “I like housework.”

  That surprised her. Not so much that he liked housework, but more the fact that he’d admit it. “Thanks for coming.”

  “You are surrounded by freaky shit.”

  Strange response, but she took it. “Yep. That’d be me. I’m just going to go check on everyone.”

  Neely grunted again. A man of few words.

  In the bathroom, Matt and Stephen stood shirtless, both with washcloths, wiping the blood from their chests. Matt didn’t have any on his back, but Stephen had a large area on his shoulder where the bullet had exited and Matt had bitten him. “You guys okay?” She took the incubus’ wet cloth and used it on his back.

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “You?”

  They’d already gone through the formalities of asking earlier, but the constant reassurance was nice. They both touched her, stroking her shoulders, her arms, comforting. “I feel like the favorite pet.”

  Stephen smiled. “You are.”

  Maya snapped her fingers. “Now is not the time for pussy metaphors.”

  “Matthew?” a voice called from the front room. Woman. Prissy. Snooty. Isy.

  “Dear God of all that is sweet and good, what the hell is your mother doing here?” Maya whispered harshly.

  “Be out in a minute, Mom.” He glared at Maya.

  “I’m getting a cowbell for that door if it’s the last thing I do.” She was tired of people coming and going, well, mostly coming, without her being aware of it.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, dear.” Isy poked her head into the bathroom. She saw the bloodstained washcloths. “Oh, my. What happened?” Then she caught a whiff of Stephen. “Oh, my.”

  Maya recognized the look. “Close the door. Matt. Close the door.” Isy was getting a dose of Stephen’s good ju-ju juice, aka sex pheromones, and lycan plus ju-ju made for some really bad mojo. Isy’s eyes were already shifting as she licked her lips, body shaking with lust.

  Matt tried to push her out, but Isy wasn’t having it. She pushed back with the strength of a momma bitch in heat. She reached out for Stephen, but Maya stepped between them. “I’m going to snap you like a rag doll if you don’t get out of my way. I want him.” Isy growled to make her point. She swatted at Maya, who ducked, and her hand came in contact with the incubus’ chest.

  Then things got crazy. “Stop her!” Maya yelled. Matt grabbed her around the waist as Isy wered out -- fur, snout, teeth, and all.

  Then it got even worse. “Isadora?” Duncan Brewer’s voice came down the hall. When he saw Matt trying to tackle his wife out of the room, he decided to come on down and join the party.

  Maya yanked Stephen to the floor while the lycan trio grappled in the doorway. “Crawl,” she told him. Stephen nodded and they slipped past the distracted wolves. Jack and Neely came running to see the commotion. “On my say, I’ll grab Matt, you guys shove them in.” Them being Isy and Duncan.

  She stood up, grabbed Matt’s arm, and yelled, “Now!” Neely, Jack, and Stephen (even though it probably wasn’t a great idea) shoved at the were-couple who went tumbling toward the tub. She slammed the door between them.

  “Man the door,” she ordered Matt. “You,” she pointed at Stephen. “Go next door until they settle down.”

  “What do you want us to do, boss?” Neely already had his .38 pulled.

  “If they get through the door, shoot them.”

  “You’re not going to shoot my parents,” Matt said while trying to keep the door from coming off the hinges.

  Damn it, she’d already had one door ruined. “They’ll survive.”

  “Not the point.”

  “Fine!” She turned to Neely and mouthed the words, “Shoot them.”

  He nodded his affirmative.

  Soon, the two lycans quit beating at the door, and god-awful noises could be heard from within. A howl, a growl, a screeching moan. “What the hell is going on in there?”

  Matt looked haunted. “You do not want to know.”

  Oh. Yuck. Sex! They were having sex in her bathroom. At least it’d be over soon, right? Wrong. Twenty minutes later, their songs of passion were driving a migraine into Maya’s head. She left the hall and went into the living area. An old woman sat on the couch. Paula was in the chair across from her, staring numbly ahead, unaware of the commotion.

  The old woman cackled. “Ah, lycanthropes. They are vigorous creatures are they not?”

  “Yeah, they are. Who are you?”

  Even her wrinkles looked surprised. “I’m the shamus.”

  “And that means?” Maya noticed that her left eye was milky in color, while the right was a dark brown. Her wrinkled skin was bronze, resembling cracked leather, and her hair, while tidy in a bun, was snow white.

  A howl resounded through the apartment and neither the shamus nor Paula reacted, but it startled the bejeezus out of Maya. Staring at Paula, she worried. The blank stare, no reaction -- what if the thing had scrambled her brain?

  “Your friend is fine. She’s simply catatonic for the moment related to post-traumatic stress.”

  “So you’re a head shrink?”

  “Of a type. I did actually study psychology in my youth. But women were allowed so little in ways of employment back then. It was sheer folly on my part, but I don’t regret the time I spent.”

  “Who are you again?”

  “The shamus, my dear. Do pay attention.”

  Okay, it was like getting scolded by her third grade teacher. “Assuming I knew what a shamus was, why are you here?”

  “Matthew Brewer. He asked his mother to arrange a meeting with me. I haven’t been to the city in such a long time, I thought it would be a hoot.”

  Maya laughed. “A hoot, huh?” She heard crashes from the bathroom and grimaced. “I think my sink just hit the floor.”

  “Vigorous.” The old woman fought to keep the smile off her face, but she couldn’t keep it out of her voice.

  “You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, why not.” She clapped her arthritic hands together. “I’m old. And this is the most entertainment I’ve had in a while. Your incubus is quite good looking, by the way. Very handsome.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’ve got eyes, dear.”

  “I mean about him being an incubus. You’re not lycan, or you’d have followed him to the apartme
nt across the way.”

  “That. Well, as I’ve told you…”

  “I know, you’re the shamus.” She was waiting for the Twilight Zone music to begin, and Rod Sterling to come out from behind the curtain.

  Series of grunts and groans ensued. Maya tried to block them from her mind. Thinking of Isy having sex, ewww, her ponytail hair extension thing-a-ma-jig bouncing up and down. Yikes.

  The shamus leaned forward. “Why don’t you tell me about this possessing ghost of yours while they’re finishing? It may take your mind off the unpleasantness you feel about their impromptu coitus.”

  Who talked like that? “Is that why Matt wanted to see you? About the… entity?”

  “That’s a start. Yes. That’s why he wanted me to come. I’m an expert in the realms of paranormal. Better yet, instead of telling me, why don’t you show me?” She held her hands out for Maya to take.

  Reluctantly, Maya accepted. As soon as their palms connected, the entire series of events revolving around the darkness flashed through Maya’s head like a slide show. It was uncomfortable, but not painful. And it was as if she were watching it as a bystander, not someone involved. Detached. It was what she imagined a Vulcan mind-meld might feel like. Live long and prosper, and all that good jazz.

  When the old woman let her hands go, she breathed heavily and slumped back onto the couch. “Strange. Yes. Peculiar.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “Not exactly. No. But it’s familiar.”

  Isy, Duncan, and Matt chose that moment to come down the hallway. Neely and Jack followed them close behind. Neely still had his gun drawn. Matt narrowed his eyes at Maya. “Can you tell this guy at ease, already?”

  “It’s okay, Neely. Good man.”

  He grunted and turned back toward the bedroom. Maya could only assume he was going to finish the cleaning job.

  Isy primped her hair, smoothing her squirrel’s tail, aka the hairpiece, and clearing her throat uncomfortably. “That was… unsettling.”

  Duncan, for the big, bad wolf that he was, looked wholly satisfied. Eww! again.

  Maya rubbed her chin. “Would you like a smoke?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t indulge,” Isy answered.

  “Kidding.”

  “I don’t do that either.” She took Duncan’s arm. “You all talk with the shamus. We’re going to go sightseeing.” She winked at Maya as she passed. “Tell Stephen it’s safe to come back now.” On her way out the door, Duncan in hand, Isy had an extra dip in her step. More boot knocking would ensue, of that Maya was certain. But at least, thank heavens, it wouldn’t be in her apartment.

  As the door closed behind them, Maya sighed. “What a disaster.”

  Matt became defensive. “You’re a disaster.”

  She was too tired to fight. “Yep. That too. I can’t believe your parents had sex in my apartment. And loudly, I might add.”

  “Tell me about it. There are some things a child should never know about his mother.”

  “Like the fact that she screams fuck me harder when she’s getting ready to orgasm,” Jack interjected.

  Matt snarled. “Yeah, exactly like that. Thanks for the reminder.”

  Watching Jack, his arm around Paula, stroking her hair, she realized how very human he could be. “How come you didn’t tell me you were dating her?”

  “Because it’s none of your business.”

  Wow. “Fair enough. I think you should take her back to your apartment. It’s not safe around me.”

  Jack helped Paula to stand. Then he picked her up, cradling the blonde in his arms. “It never is.”

  So much for a warm fuzzy moment. Neely came out of the back winding the steam cleaner cord up around his arm as he pushed the machine. “Done.” He gestured to Jack. “Ride?”

  “Sure.” Jack looked at Maya. “Don’t die.”

  “Okay.” She smiled, tight-lipped. Such touching concern, she didn’t know what to do with herself. “Can you knock on the apartment across the way? Just to let Stephen know it’s safe to come back.”

  He nodded, and the three of them left.

  Matt took the old woman’s hand. Kneeling, he kissed her gnarled knuckles. “Hello, shamus.”

  She nodded. “Matthew. Always such a good boy.” Stephen walked in. She looked at him wistfully with her good eye. “Ah, the incubus returns. If I were eighty years younger, you’d be in trouble, young man.”

  Stephen grinned. “I bet I would.”

  Touching. Not. “Stephen, the shamus -- shamus, Stephen.”

  “I know who she is, Maya. I’m not a complete dope.”

  No, apparently, Maya was the only dope around there. “Well, excuse me. I was trying to be polite.”

  “It’s all right, my dear. You’re all on edge and sniping at each other won’t help. Come sit, all of you.”

  Good little kids that they were, they did as she told them. Maya sat between Stephen and Matt on the couch, while the old woman perched in the chair opposite them.

  “Where are your people from, girl?”

  People? “My parents? They live about an hour east of Kansas City. Haven’t talked to them since I was fifteen, but I’ve been told they still live there.”

  “You were adopted.”

  Maya knew she was adopted, but the old gal sounded like she knew it as fact also. “How do you…”

  “I know things, Maya. If you can accept that, it’ll make the whole process easier.”

  Matt and Stephen both took her hands. They sensed her vulnerability. To not be wanted by her biological parents, then again rejected by the parents who chose her, it’s the sort of thing that does major damage to the psyche. “Why not? I can read emotions. Why can’t you know? Makes perfect sense.” But it didn’t. Not really.

  “You use your humor as a weapon. A defense mechanism. You believe that if you make yourself hard, inside and out, nothing and no one can hurt you.”

  Third rate pop psychology. “Try telling me something helpful.”

  Matt squeezed her hand in warning.

  What? Was the old woman going to limp across the coffee table and gum her arm to death? Jeez. “Look, I’ve had a very bad two days. I apologize if I sound snippy, but something has tried to kill me three times, and it’s the way I feel. Snippy.”

  “Twice.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s only tried to actually kill you twice. The first time, you’d already died.”

  Maya coughed. “Semantics.”

  “Truth, my girl.”

  Maya coughed again. “Bullshit.”

  The old woman narrowed her brow, all humor gone from her face. Her milky eye began to swirl and sparkle. “I grow tired of your smart mouth. If you weren’t such an interesting specimen, I’d leave you to your fate.”

  Interesting? A specimen? Something to pickle in a jar? Is that what the shamus thought she was? Maya didn’t care how much her eye went all creepy and such, she wasn’t going to let some old fart treat her like a science experiment. “I’ve had enough.”

  “Shut up, Maya. Enough already.” Stephen’s tone was bitter, angry. “For fuck sake. You may not give a shit about what’s going on, but we do. Or have you forgotten that the thing has to come through us to get to you? Do you even care?”

  Unexpected. “I…”

  Matt’s turn. “I’m sick of your crap. Goddamn. Anytime someone tries to help you, you chew their head off, or worse yet, shoot them. You want to chase us away? Is that the deal?”

  Again, unexpected. And a little mean. “I have…”

  “We do everything we can to be with you. To make you happy so you’ll give just an ounce of your attention, but you can’t even do this? Just sit and listen. God! And you call us idiots.” Stephen.

  “I’m out of here,” Matt said, suddenly standing. “I can’t do this anymore. You coming, Stephen?”

  Stephen looked at Maya and shook his head. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  The front door slammed behind them. Maya felt
dumbstruck. Suddenly numb. “Happy now?”

  The shamus wearily watched her. “Are you?”

  “Do I look happy?”

  “No, but isn’t that what you wanted? To drive them away.”

  “I wanted to drive you away.”

  “Are you sure? I’m still here, while the men in your life have gone.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I wanted to talk to you alone.” She leaned forward in the chair, her widow’s hump becoming more prominent. “I want you to listen.”

  Maya sighed, rubbing at the pain forming between her eyes. “So talk.”

  Chapter 7

  “You think it’s a what?” Maya asked. The old gal had a serious Brothers Grimm complex. Gory fairy tales that didn’t end well.

  “They were called the Astrallu. It’s where the name astral came when people talked of spirits. Ghosts. They were a people destined for great things, but they all but vanished over the last century.”

  Maya huffed. “The only thing I’m destined for is a purse sale at Macy’s.” Actually, shopping sounded really good at the moment.

  “I’m not saying you are Astrallu. I’m not saying you aren’t. I’m just saying, it’s a good probability.”

  “So these people, these Astrallu, why are they targeting me?” The question of the week.

  “I don’t think anything is targeting you, as you say. I think you are Astrallu and the entity is your astral half.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “You’re an empath, Maya. A lot of people would say that’s impossible. The uncertainty lies in the timing. According to legend, Astrallu were joined at puberty. You are beyond that time in your life.”

  “Thanks for pointing out how old I am.”

  “Let me put it in terms you can understand. You attract supernatural and paranormal creatures like a bug light. No human can do that. You read human emotions, and lately you’ve been able to read thoughts. You heal with the rapidity of something inhuman. And all this evidence doesn’t make you wonder? Consider the possibilities, my dear.”