Darkangel, Christine Pope [ebook reader screen .txt] 📗

Sydney’s expression clouded, but I didn’t give the exchange a chance to go any further, instead slipping out from behind the jewelry counter and saying, “Sounds great. I’m starving — let’s go up to Haunted Hamburger, okay?”

I took my friend by the arm and steered her back out of the store. Once we were a few paces away, she said, “Oh, my God, Angela, I am so sorry — ”

“Not here,” I broke in. Not that the patio of the Haunted Hamburger would be much better, but I had to hope that anyone overhearing us there would probably be tourists who had no idea of what was really going on.

At least she got the hint. “Okay.”

We walked down the street for a block and then cut up to the next street by using the stairs located at the park. Jerome was like that, built in terraces on the side of Cleopatra Hill, and although you could go the long way around if you didn’t want to take the stairs, why bother?

The place was crowded, but we were able to get a table out on the patio. Normally the view out over the Verde Valley was enough to distract me for at least a minute or two, but I had more important things on my mind right then.

“Oh, God, Angela, I had no idea that Perry guy was going to be such a douche! He came pounding on Anthony’s door at, like, eight in the morning, saying he was going to have you arrested for assault or something, and — ”

“You spent the night at Anthony’s house?” I interrupted.

Red flared along her cheekbones, underneath the pink blush she was wearing. “Well, I really wasn’t in any shape to drive, and he said I could crash, so I went home with him, and, well, you know how it is.”

No, I don’t, I thought wearily. All I said, though, was, “So Perry showed up this morning — ”

“Yes, banging on the door, saying how he’d spent all night in his truck and almost froze to death or something, which is just stupid because it wasn’t even close to freezing last night, and that you’d assaulted him, and please, the guy has to have sixty or seventy pounds on you, so how could you have done that?”

Since she’d paused to take a breath, I said, “Well, I sort of did, but only because he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Her blue eyes widened. I didn’t talk much about spells and powers and all that around Sydney, mostly because those exact details were something we witches preferred to keep private, and partly because I didn’t want to scare her off by revealing too much. She thought the whole “McAllister witch” thing was pretty cool, but probably because she didn’t have the whole story. Maybe an eighth of the story, if that.

“So you, what” — her voice lowered — “put the whammy on him or something?”

That word made me laugh, despite the situation. “No, I just…called on someone to give me the strength to fight him off. And according to the police, he’s bruised, but that’s about it, so he doesn’t have all that much to complain about, considering…”

I hesitated, then looked around at the crowded tables to either side. One family was arguing whether to continue up the mountain to the hiking trails and picnic area or to go over to the Tuzigoot Indian ruins, and at another table a mother kept telling her daughter that no, she wasn’t getting soda, so it was milk or nothing. Obviously they weren’t paying any attention to the two girls at the far table having a sotto voce conversation, probably about boys or something equally uninteresting. So I pushed up one sleeve and showed her the band of bruises around my arm, then just as quickly tugged my sleeve back down.

“Holy shit, Angela, he did that to you?”

“I told you he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

The conversation was interrupted then by Eileen, the waitress on duty that day, coming out to take our orders. Since I’d been to the Haunted Hamburger hundreds of times, I already knew what I wanted and ordered a barbecue burger and fries, along with an iced tea. Sydney shot me an envious look but still only ordered a charbroiled chicken salad.

After Eileen had left, Sydney remarked, “It is so not fair. You must have the metabolism of a hummingbird or something.”

“Or something,” I replied with a shrug. My mother had always looked thin in the few pictures I had seen of her, so maybe that was where I got it from. At least I had something of a chest, despite being thin, although nothing as eye-catching as Sydney’s curvaceous frame.

“Anyway,” she plowed on, “you said ‘according to the police.’ Did you a file a report on him?”

“No, he tried to do that to me. But once I showed the officer the bruises Perry left behind, they dropped the whole thing.”

“You should’ve had him arrested.”

“What’s the point? I think he learned his lesson, and we’re all about not attracting attention, you know? Bad enough that it went there at all.”

Her mouth drooped. “I am so, so sorry about that. Anthony seemed like a nice guy. Who knew he’d be friends with such a dickbag? I won’t see him again, if that’s what you want.”

At once I shook my head. “Why would I want that? Do you like Anthony?”

“Yes. I mean, I think so. He was super nice to me last night, and he’s, well — ”

“I don’t need to hear the gory details.” I tried to keep my tone light, but I didn’t know how successful I was. Despite my best efforts to suppress it, a flicker of jealousy licked through me. It was so easy for her. Meet a cute guy, go out, spend the night. No baggage, unless you wanted there to be. I knew there was more to it than that, but seriously, I was kind of tired of feeling like the last virgin in the Verde Valley.

“Okay,” she said at once. “I just mean that we’ve been friends for a long time, and if it was going to be weird for you — ”

“It’s fine. You’ve been wanting to go out with Anthony for a while now. I hope it works out. Just don’t ask me to go on a double date with you guys and Perry.”

She actually laughed at that, and a short time later Eileen reappeared with our food and drinks — apologizing about the wait for the tea, but that things had gotten a little crazy in the kitchen. I assured her it was no problem, and she told us thanks before hurrying back inside to pick up another order.

For a few minutes both Sydney and I were silent as we plowed into our food. Yes, my aunt had fed me a decent breakfast that morning, but all the stress and nervous energy that followed the police officer’s visit had pretty much burned up any calories it had provided. Even though I felt like inhaling my burger, I tried to keep my chewing to a more or less decorous pace.

After we both slowed down a bit, Sydney gave a furtive look around and asked, “Is she here?”

“‘She’ who?” I returned, although I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“You know. The ghost.”

There was a reason why the Haunted Hamburger was called that. Many of the buildings in Jerome had their own resident spirits, and the restaurant was no exception. Four ghosts actually haunted the property, two of them tradesmen who’d been killed when the scaffolding they were working on collapsed, one a miner who’d had a heart attack and died there purely by accident. Then there was Edith, the “she” Sydney was asking about. Edith had lived in the flat on the second floor and killed herself when her fiancé confessed to her that he’d been visiting some of the prostitutes down on Hull Avenue. Needless to say, she was not a very happy ghost.

“Well, this is her home,” I pointed out. “So she’s always here.”

Sydney shot a furtive glance over one shoulder. “Okay, but is she here here?”

“She’s not out on the patio waiting to steal one of your croutons, if that’s what you’re asking.” I paused and looked up toward the second story of the building. A pale face glimmered behind one of the windows and disappeared. “I think she’s upstairs, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

A lift of her shoulders in a shiver. “I still don’t know how you can stand seeing them. I mean, doesn’t it freak you out?”

Good question. I’d started seeing the ghosts soon after my tenth birthday. In fact, at first I hadn’t even realized that the kindly Chinese gentleman I was talking to down in the alley actually was a ghost until my aunt had come outside to put out the trash and asked me who on earth I was speaking to.

The truth came out then, and that was when Aunt Ruby declared that I was in fact the next prima, and this great talent only proved it. All primas had some kind of talent that tended to manifest itself around that age, although I really didn’t see what good there was in being able to talk to dead people.

I sort of got the impression that Sydney thought my life must be like that scene out of Ghost where Whoopi Goldberg’s character was surrounded by specters wherever she went. It wasn’t like that at all, though. They approached me if they had something to say — like my first encounter with Mr. Hong outside the English Kitchen. I’d been playing in the street, and he came out to scold me for not being careful, warning me that I could get run over by a car. Over the years I’d interacted with most of them, although some, like Edith here, were quite reclusive.

Every once in a while I could pry some information out of the spirits if necessary, but most of them, with the exception of