been, if you wanted to get right down to it, a bit of an asshole. I hoped I was starting to improve, but in the meantime, Thor—whose real name was Edward—had admitted that as nicknames went, Thor wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t have expected him to put on a costume and run with it, but people surprised me all the time. Sometimes I surprised even myself.
Like now. I popped up on my toes to gain another inch in height, and for once I ran with it and gave myself permission to see a little more clearly.
Not just see, but See. Edward had an aura that suited the nickname I’d given him: it was all stormy grays and blues, with shattered bits of white crashing through it. He was, by nature, good-humored, and those sparks of brilliance were usually wit, but I expected if he got his dander up, they’d be as deadly as the lightning Thor was supposed to be able to call.
For a few seconds, the entire room danced with light. Everyone was in high spirits, obvious from not only the laughter and ribald teasing, but the warmth and camaraderie of people feeding each other’s energy and keeping it going in a positive cycle. It felt good to revel in that energy, but watching it constantly made the real world harder to see, and despite it all, I still preferred the real world.
It’d been nearly a year since I’d been laid out in a parking lot with a sword in my lung and a smirking coyote offering me the choice between death or life as a shaman. In all my waking hours I’d never thought of wanting any kind of mystical gifts or healing powers, but I’d wanted to die even less. It had occurred to me once or twice since then that even in the absolute worst of circumstances, there were choices to be made. The sticky bit was that we tend to think of choices as being one good thing versus one bad thing. When the available options all suck, you took the one you could live with.
In my case, that was a very literal what I could live with. It’d taken me the better part of six months to chin up to the responsibilities I’d agreed to, and finally doing so had changed the shape of my life. Now the least of my esoteric skills was turning second sight on and off, letting me see more deeply into people without so much as a blink.
A party was not the time to be dwelling on my unnatural skill set. I did blink, even if it wasn’t necessary, to clear away the glimmering colors, and moved to lose myself in the crowd. Edward would be able to find me; I was taller than almost everyone in the room, and he was taller than I was. I squirmed by a pair of clowns whose eyes were on the level with my breasts. The one with his nose in my cleavage looked entirely too pleased. I threatened him with the yin-yang thing and his companion had the good sense to turn his face away. I moved in the other direction, hiding a laugh. Being amused by people ogling my chest seemed out of character for my leather-clad persona, never mind me.
A big chunk of a man in a blue satin evening gown with a matching bolero jacket edged through the crush, trying not to step on anyone. I escaped the clowns and waved my mask in greeting. “Hey, Billy. You look great.”
Billy Holliday, paranormal detective extraordinaire—he saw dead people—my work partner, and overall one of the solid, reliable linchpins of my life, looked me up and down and said, “You look surprisingly naked.”
I covered my bare stomach with the mask and wondered if a blush could start as low as the xyphoid process. It felt like it. “I don’t think that was the response I was looking for.”
Billy, without a hint of genuine repentance, said, “Sorry,” as his wife appeared at his elbow. “I’ve just never seen you quite so, um.”
Quite so um. There were probably worse compliments a girl could get, but overall I think I’d have preferred better. Then again, married men probably weren’t supposed to open with a salvo of you’re surprisingly naked to begin with, so maybe I should take what I could get.
“Bill, you’re not supposed to let the pregnant wife get lost in the madhouse.” Melinda Holliday stood a full foot shorter than her husband, and wore a velvet tuxedo that properly squired his evening gown. Wonderfully long tails nearly dragged on the floor, and she adjusted a cummerbund stretched over a very round belly as she examined me. “Joanie. You look…”
I sighed. “Surprisingly naked?”
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “yes. Fantastic, actually, but surprisingly naked. Who convinced you to wear that?”
I said, “Phoebe,” in a voice that I hoped spelled her doom.
Melinda laughed, which boded poorly for my doom voice. “Half the force will thank her for it. Have you seen Michael?”
“Michael? Morrison?” I didn’t know a lot of other Michaels, but I never thought of my boss by his first name, and found it bewildering that Melinda did. “Morrison’s at my party?” I had a fair amount of experience with the world ending. None of it had looked anything like a costume party, or else I’d have put Morrison’s attendance down as a sure sign of the apocalypse.
Melinda’s eyebrows shot up. “You invited him, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think he’d come!” Curiosity got the better of me as I craned my neck to look around. “What’s he dressed as?”
“A cop, of course.” Melinda sounded delighted.
I squinted. “He is a cop. That’s not a costume. Unless he’s in uniform, but that’s cheating.”
Billy, sounding every bit as pleased as Melinda, said, “Oh, he’s in costume.” I turned my squint on him, then peered around again. Morrison typically wore suits, except for when protocol demanded he pull out the full captain’s dress uniform. I hadn’t seen him in that since a funeral in June, and while he’d looked as handsome and solemn and reliable as a police captain should, I didn’t think he should get away with it as a Halloween costume. Especially when I’d let Phoebe put me into some strategic bits of leather and a sword. I’d have died of hypothermia if the party wasn’t a success.
Thor reappeared, bearing drinks and a look of amusement. “Have you seen the captain?”
“I don’t even believe he’s here.” I took one of the plastic cups he offered and sniffed its contents—pink and foamy—suspiciously. “What is this?”
“I didn’t ask. There were two choices. One involved dunking my head and apples. I took this one.” He took a sip of his own drink cautiously, then made a moue. “Typical fruit-drink-and-soda party stuff.”
Reassured, I took a sip, then coughed, eyes tearing. “You forgot to mention heavily spiked.” I blinked tears away, then took another sip more carefully. Woo. Worse than the Johnnie Walker I’d gotten wasted on a few months ago. At least I expected that to knock me senseless.
Melinda heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Do they have anything nonalcoholic?”
“They better. I told Phoebe we had minors attending the party.” I nodded at Melinda’s belly. “You look ready to pop.”
“I was ready to pop three weeks ago. I’ve forgotten what my feet look like. My children have taken to calling me El Blobbo.”
“They have not,” Billy said equitably. Melinda beamed at him and he said, “They call her La Blobbacita,” which earned him a sudden reversal of the beam into a credibly injured pout.
“When’s the big day?” Thor took a swig of the pink drink and made a face.
Melinda let go of her pout to sigh gustily.
