Strange Brew

I pressed my hand over his heart, feeling the strong, steady pace. "You can't stay with me," I said. My voice, normally so steady, sounded soft and uncertain. "We don't get second chances, Andy."

He smiled. "Sure we do," he said. "What's this, if it ain't a second chance? Or, more proper for me, a third?"

And he kissed me. Warm lips, blood-warm, tasting of the potion that I'd given him. Toxic, something in me warned, but I didn't care.

Andy's thumbs stroked my cheekbones, and his big hands seemed so certain about what they were doing.

I was kissing a dead man, and I didn't care a bit. I wanted to keep on kissing him until the sun burned out.

The memory of the harsh, bloodstained photographs Prieto had shown us flashed across my eyes, and I pulled free with a gasp, stepping back.

"What?" he asked. He took my hands, but didn't try to pull me into his arms.

"It's not safe," I said. "We're not safe. We need to get inside."

Andy smiled—a real, full smile. "You think I can't protect you, Holly?"

"I don't want you to have to."

He nodded out into the dark. "Ain't the only one. Prieto sent a couple of fellas on our tail. They're parked over there, watching us."

I shuddered. Somehow, that made it even worse, both that there were eyes on us, and that I was putting Prieto's men at risk just by being such an easy target. "Let's go home."

We got back in the car, and I broke speed limits on the way.

Andy was all business when we pulled into the drive. Although he'd never worked as a bodyguard, at least not that I knew of, he made me stay in the car with the motor ru

I nearly screamed when he popped up next to the car and motioned for me to get out. I closed the garage door, shut off the motor, and followed him into the house.

"Locks?" he asked. I turned them, and then set the security alarm for instant alarm. If any door or window opened, we'd know, and so would the police. My heart was hammering. I thought about Lottie, evidently surprised in her sleep. Monica, taken in the evening as she was getting ready for bed, bathwater gone cold in the tub. "They come at night," I said. "Don't open any doors or windows. The alarm will go off."

"Fancy."

I smiled faintly. "Normal, these days. We live in scary times."

"Ain't nobody ever lived any other time." Andy, not content with the electronic alarm, was roaming around and testing doors and windows, engaging all locks. "You set this magic watchdog when you left today?"

"I didn't know I was being stalked."

Andy stopped and looked at me, hands gone still on a windowsill. "They didn't tell you." I shook my head. "Why not?"

"People all that fond of resurrection witches, back in your day?"

That earned me a full crooked grin. "Not enough so you'd blush. Stay here, I'll check the other floor."

I watched him take the stairs, then went to the kitchen and put away the ritual pots I'd washed. I fixed myself a sandwich. Spellcasting took a lot out of me, and despite everything, I was feeling a small, significant drain of energy through the bond with Andy. Needed to keep my strength up, through the magic of carbs and protein.

I was just swallowing the last bite when Andy walked into the kitchen. "Never got to see your house last time," Andy said. He sat down at the kitchen table and looked around. "Big place. Warm. You live here all on your own? What about your family?"

"My parents and my sister live in New England. You going to tell me a woman can't live on her own?"

"I'd never dare," Andy said. " 'Specially not one who holds the keys to life and death. Then again, that's pretty much any woman, so I'll just keep my peace about it. Besides, I don't know your world all that much, 'cept it's about as full of villains as the time I knew. Could be women tell men what's for now, strange as that would seem."

"Andy—"

His blue eyes stopped surveying the granite countertops and focused on me, and wow, that packed voltage. "I'm not sorry," he said. "Stupid for a man to fall in love once he's dead, but I've done it, and there it is. But at least you know I'll do everything in my power to keep you alive, Holly A

I couldn't even speak. What do you say to that? A dead man falls in love with you, and there's no chance for a future together. I knew that every minute, every second of this was limited. I wanted to take him straight to bed, but I didn't know—I didn't know for certain how that worked. Or even if it did. The subject of the sexual performance of dead men had never been included in my apprenticeship—probably deliberately. The potential for abuse of resurrections was huge, and our limits were strict. It was part of why we maintained such emotional distance.

Andy sensed my internal struggle, and he brought out his gentlest smile. It did great things to his face, put a devastating sparkle in his eyes.

I stood up, barely able to feel my legs. "I'm—going to bed. Do you want—?" My throat closed up, and I had to clear it. Embarrassing. "Do you want me to make up the spare bed?"

Andy kept smiling. "No. I ain't sleeping, am I?"

He had a point. Bodyguards didn't, and neither did the dead. I felt flushed and awkward and out of control.

"Okay, then," I said. "Good night."

He nodded, and watched me as I left the kitchen.

A hot shower and a pair of silk pajamas later, I retreated to my soft, lonely bed and tried to sleep. It was getting on toward the wee hours of the morning, but I didn't feel tired. I felt anxious, and achy, and relentlessly squirmy.

I could hear Andy roaming around downstairs. I wondered what he was doing—looking over my bookshelves? Examining my pictures? Getting intimate with me in ways that didn't involve climbing into bed with me?

Shut up, I told myself when my brain started to run wild with images. The man is dead. He's here to do a job, and then he's gone. And that's it.

Except it wasn't, and Andy had said he loved me, and I knew I loved him. No getting around that. Bringing him back a second time—no, for him it was the third—had been cruel, and u

I didn't want Andy dying for me.

I'd drifted off into an uneasy half slumber when something woke me up. I felt a tingle inside, and opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling. I knew that feeling, all too well. No chance of sleeping now.

I slipped out of bed, wrapped myself in a silk robe, and went downstairs.

Andy was standing at the windows, looking out. He didn't wait for me to ask. "I'm fine," he said.

"You're not." I'd carried my black case in from the car, and now I flipped it open and reached for the second vial of the stepped dose.

It felt light.

The bottle was empty.

I stared at it in stupefied horror for a few seconds, then dropped it back into the holder and pulled the third. The fourth.

The bottles were all empty. I began yanking the rest out to check. Empty, empty, empty!

Andy turned at the sound of my labored breathing and the rattle of glass. He frowned. "What?"

"It's not—someone sabotaged my case." Breathe, I told myself. Come on. Think. The case had been with me, and completely full, at the morgue. All the time? No. I'd set it in the corner of the viewing room, and we'd both gone with Detective Prieto to look over files. The case had been left unattended. "The potions. They're gone."