Page 17 of Grim Tidings

I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. I stand there on the other side of the small reception desk and wait, my magic buzzing. I clench my hands, but it doesn’t do any good. My magic pops out of me like a champagne cork, agitated because I’m agitated. It would seem I’ve reached my limit of rude, mediocre men for the day.

Before I can come up with a reasonable excuse for the flames at the edges of my fingers, the man behind the desk looks up. His eyes flick from my hands to my face, and then he sets his book to the side. “Well, now. You didn’t say you were a spirit.” He lowers his voice to a rough whisper, his accent thick like honey. He flicks his fingers at me, and the flames on the end of mine extinguish. His magic feels like the brush of an old sweater. Not exactly comfortable, but not unfamiliar either. He grins. “You from the department?”

I manage a jerky nod.

He presses his palm over his chest, smoothing it down the line of buttons on the front of his shirt. He’s handsome, in a rough-and-tumble sort of way. The type of good-looking that comes from sun and sweat and hard work. He looks like he could chase me down, truss me up, and toss me over his shoulder.

He settles back into his chair, lazy limbed.

“This changes things,” he says.

“How so?” It is taking every ounce of my control not to let my magic slip again. I’m usually a lot more controlled than this, but … extenuating circumstances. I brush my braid back behind my shoulders. “Is there a room for me or not?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. Still nothin’ available. The new owner is”—he sucks in a deep breath through his nose and rolls his eyes to the ceiling—“well, she’s a right pain in my ass. She wants everything done a specific way. No new tenants until everything is just so.”

“God forbid,” I deadpan. “A woman knows what she wants.”

“It’s not the knowing that’s grating on my last nerve, that’s for sure.” He scratches roughly at the back of his head. “She’s putting me through my paces, is all I’m saying. Do you know she’s tried to exorcise me seven times? And when that didn’t work, she started giving me tasks. Mend the post. Mow the lawn. Man the desk. A constant fucking headache since she came here.”

“Which office are you from?”

“Poltergeists,” he answers, distracted.

That explains the mischief, then. And the way this conversation seemingly has no end in sight.

“How many spirits are in this damned town?”

First Gabriel. Now this. Typically, when I’m on assignment, I don’t see anyone else from the department. When you’re forced to hover at the edges of someone else’s existence, you can’t exactly maintain a social calendar.

The stranger behind the desk gives me a bored look. “Annapolis was founded in 1649 by a bunch of Puritans, honey. Pretty sure there are more spirits than mortals at this point.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” The headache behind my eyes spreads, pushing up and out until I swear I can feel the ghost of my heartbeat in the palms of my hands. “I just need somewhere to stay while I’m assigned here. It doesn’t need to be fancy.”

The man behind the desk drags his fingers through his hair, his smile hitching up higher on one side than the other. “No problem, sugar. You do a little something for me, and I’ll do a little something for you.”

“Which is what?”

I’m in desperate need of some mortal comforts. A glass of wine. An extra thick down-filled comforter. That television show where they have the contestants talk to each other through those weird pods. If I need to grease the palm of a mischievous spirit to get my way, I’ll do it.

I’ve done worse for less.

He leans closer, his palms flat on the desk. “I’m bound to this place. I can’t leave these four walls unless she lights her damn incense and sends me spinning through the stratosphere.” He swallows heavily, his eyes losing their mirth. There’s only desperation now, with a touch of madness. “I’m losing my mind here. I’m not meant to be contained. I need space. I need the big blue sky above me. Do you understand?”

Not really, but I want a room for the night.

“Do you need a—I don’t know. Do you need a skylight?”

He leans back with a huff, scribbling something down across a notepad. He rips off the piece of paper, folds it up, and slides it across the desktop. “Next time you’re in the department, give this to Siobhan.”

I hesitate. “Siobhan?”

“She oversees the Poltergeist department. She’s been ignoring my messages for the better part of a decade.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

I take the paper and start to lift the edge, but his hand snaps over the counter, his fingers curled around mine, keeping it closed.