Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery eBook Bundle

I awoke with a strangled scream, gasping and flailing like I was still being dragged by my teammates back to the base. But when I opened my eyes, it was to my brother’s tiny apartment ceiling and the realization that I’d fallen asleep on his couch while waiting for him to get home from work.

Fuck.

I sat up and rubbed my face. It was after two in the afternoon. My hip ached from sleeping at a contorted angle and likely from the nightmare. Nap dreams were the worst. Though that memory popped up a lot. I’d stopped mentioning it to my therapist months ago. Survivor’s guilt, they told me. Our base had been lost the next day, only three of the nearly two dozen making it out at all. The two men, who had seen what I’d seen, killed as well. The military said I misremembered things. There had been no man in the dark, no omen of doom. It was all in my head.

Yeah, the memories were always in my fucking head. It was easier to discredit a man by calling him crazy than explain whatever the fuck had decimated our base.

The door opened, Lukas stepped inside and closed it behind him. He set a messenger bag on the table and went to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. It was a ritual for him. Bag down, hands clean, then usually off to change clothes. All things to leave the work day behind. 

The apartment was one large space for the kitchen, living room, and dining room, and a small bedroom and bathroom. Not really enough room for two people at a little over 700 square feet, but he hadn’t bought it with the idea that I’d be crashing on his couch, semi-permanently. He’d moved to NOLA when I enlisted, leaving behind Charlotte, North Carolina and a lot of asshole cops who treated him like they’d rather hang him than work with him.

Lukas rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt, which was tucked into fitted tan pants. He looked like a business executive instead of a police detective, but I knew it was part of being professional for him. And since he was one of the highest-ranking homicide detectives in the New Orleans Police Department, I figured his professionalism hurt nothing. He handled sensitive topics carefully and always seemed to take care of the families of the victims. He also showed up in a lot of news reports, as his good looks and charming personality made great press for the police department.

Lukas cropped his hair short, leaving a hint of blond curls to decorate the crown of his head, and a tiny sweep to soften his forehead, sides cut too close to allow for any shape. Mine was a shoulder-length mass of curls that frizzed in the humid NOLA air, the only proof in our shared brown eyes, blond hair, and bronze skins of our African-American father. Anyone would look at Lukas and think attractive, put-together, and dateable. I was none of those things.

“You okay, little brother?” Lukas asked. Little brother because he was thirty minutes older. Identical twins, Lukas and I, but different in so many ways. I must have been quiet too long because he said, “Alex?”

“I had a nightmare. Sorry.”

Lukas glanced around the apartment, took in that nothing was broken. It had happened, PTSD, they told me. Sometimes I woke up and reality was hard to parse from fiction. I was getting better at sorting it out… most of the time.

He dried his hands and turned to lean against the counter, looking thoughtful and worried all at once. “You okay to start work today?”

“Yes, though I’m still not sure a retail job is the best idea for me.” I was out of options. Few jobs for an ex-Army Ranger weapons specialist with severe PTSD issues. My social services coordinator had given me the grim fact that over 70% of ex-Rangers were unemployed. So much for the Army’s promise of great things after the horrors. Three extensive tours and all I got was a bum hip, added cynicism, and nightmares. I’d have preferred a T-shirt.

“It won’t be all retail. Micah needs help with stock, shipping and receiving, which is a lot of his business now that he’s gone online, and I already told you about the tours.”

In the French Quarter of New Orleans, ghost and vampire tours were a big thing. Apparently Micah, whom I had yet to meet but was a friend of my brother’s, owned a little wicca shop that also scheduled and hosted walking tours of the Quarter and the Garden District. Sometimes he even hosted ghost hunting on particular haunted properties. I’d read the brochures and studied his website.

“I don’t think I know enough about New Orleans to give tours.”

“You’re the muscle,” Lukas reminded me. “He’s licensed as a tour guide by the city. One of the few officially licensed.” He shrugged. “Micah is small and sometimes that makes people think he’s an easy target. Drunk frat boys often interrupted his tours and you’ll be there to send them on their way if it happens again. It will save the NOPD time.”

“Ghost tours,” I grumbled, running my hands through my hair. I’d have to shower and work some gel into it before going out, otherwise I’d probably scare the guy. “No such thing as ghosts. It’s all in our fucking messed up heads.” Mine more than most, or so my therapist told me. Simply because I saw things others didn’t, didn’t mean those things were real. “Does he know how crazy I am?”

“You’re not crazy.”

I was. Certifiable. If not for Lukas, I’d still be in a psych ward somewhere, likely a ward of the state. It was how they kept me quiet until I learned it was better to not tell anyone what I had seen. Shadow men. Monsters in the dark. Omens of doom. An entire troop lost to some sort of invisible sand monster. Yeah, I was nuts, but I said nothing to Lukas because he still took care of me no matter how crazy I was. It was the only thing keeping me here.

Lukas was all I had. Without him, I’d have been homeless, probably dead from starvation or suicide. Serving had changed me. And I wasn’t sure if it had changed Lukas too, or my perception of him. Had he always been so stern and silent? Or was that how he dealt with me? Was it my months in rehab and then later in the psych ward that made him so careful? Was it the burden of supporting a worthless twin brother that made the laugh lines around his eyes turn into frown lines? Thirty-two was young to have frown lines, but they decorated my face too.

“You don’t believe in that stuff,” I said. “Supernatural bullshit.”

“No,” Lukas agreed. He folded his arms across his chest and looked at me. “But I believe you.”

Well, didn’t that take all the steam out of my self-pity? I sighed.

Lukas stood there another few seconds, studying me. “You should know a few things about Micah,” he finally said.

“Like?” I looked his way, trying to discern his expression. 

“You might recognize him.”

“Okay,” I said.

“He’s your type.” He paused for a minute. “I guess both our types.”

“Are you into him?” Lukas didn’t have a preferred gender. Well, so long as he got sex—he was a bit of a whore—it didn’t matter the gender. I was wholeheartedly gay despite having a particular kink. Lukas liked pretty. Pretty anything, man, woman, a mix of the two, just pretty. He never dated, but maybe Micah was an ex or a weird hanger-on.

“He used to work in porn.”

That wasn’t something I expected.

“If I recall, you were a fan.”

I tried to think back to my time between tours. It felt like a long time ago. Another lifetime, even. Before endless doctors, waiting rooms, and psych wards, and before some sort of monster killed my team. “Okay?”

“Went by Cosplay Boy or something.”

The vivid memory of clear blue eyes staring through the computer screen with an intensity that made me come more than once flashed through my head. I felt heat flush my face and my dick stirred. Wow, I hadn’t even thought that fucker worked anymore; my dick hadn’t twitched since before the attack. It wasn’t at full mast, but more of a ‘hey, hello, I’m awake.’

“Or maybe it was Fem Boy. I know you sent me a link once. Blue eyes, black mask, usually pink hair.”

Oh fuck, yeah, him, I remembered. Cute and small, with kohl rimmed blue eyes to die for. Nose and mouth always covered in a black mask while he wore little school girl outfits and cosplay bright-colored wigs when getting fucked by some guy with a big dick. Yeah, I still had those saved somewhere. “His always covered his face, not sure how’d I’d recognize him, anyway.”

“I recognized him,” Lukas pointed out. “From the one video I saw. It’s the eyes. Unmistakable. Haunting. Like they could look right through you.”

Yeah, those eyes had been something. He’d been fantastic about eye contact in the videos. I cleared my throat. “He doesn’t do that anymore?” Obviously. Not that I’d searched out his videos since I’d been back in the sane world. But if he owned a shop and did tours, did he have time for porn?

“No. He had an incident two years ago that set him on a different path. I didn’t want it to get weird if you met him and recognized him right away. You’re not exactly subtle.”

Subtle was not the army way. “You weren’t in the videos with him or anything were you?” ‘Cause not only would that be awkward but also gross since I’d gotten off to them. 

“No. Micah and I have been nothing but friends.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “So the drunk frat boys, do they hit on him because they recognize him?”

Lukas shrugged. “Maybe? All I know is that it happens a lot. I’d rather he not do the tours at all. He’s one of the few guides who has access to some of the most dangerous areas of the city, like the graveyards. We don’t have enough cops to be trailing him every night, and he’s making enough now to pay for help. I thought maybe you could put your hero complex to work.”

“Asshole,” I said without heat. “I don’t have a hero complex. I think you’re confusing me and you.”

He snorted and made his way to his bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt. “Right. Get cleaned up. I’ll walk you over and introduce you before your first shift.”

He vanished into his bedroom and into the confines of his closet. I followed at a slower pace, making my way to the bathroom to shower, trim up the beard on my face, and make some sense of the rat’s nest on my head. I’d be meeting my number one favorite porn star of all time. Only he was no longer a porn star. How did one bring that up in a conversation? Or did I avoid the topic? Fuck, I was so bad at being human anymore.

I sighed and hoped that whatever happened, at least the job would work out. I needed something. Not for money, but to keep my mind from wandering to dark places that didn’t always want to let me go.