Bad Luck, Baby

34 - Bad Boys

With these bracing words, I marched to the door, flung it open, and found myself face to face with my father's ghost. Effectively startled, I stifled a shriek, stumbled back a pace, tripped, and fell into Lucian Drake's waiting arms.

From there, I glared up at my father's apparition and scowled.

"I wondered when you'd show up again," I muttered. "What use is having a ghost-dad, anyway, if you're not going to step in and help solve your own fucking murder?"

"Attempted fucking murder," he said in a clear and notably un-ghostly voice. "And as you've made rather a grand mess of things, I figured it was, indeed, high time I 'step in' before you make it worse."

I laughed with bitter incredulity and shook free of Lucian's hold as I regained my feet. "There's the dad I remember. Gods, I wish everyone could see what a fucking dick you really are."

He lifted a pair of gray, grizzled, and unusually solid-looking brows at me, and shed his coat. "Wish granted," he said.

I snorted, imagining that I looked completely unhinged, talking to thin air, but when I glanced at my companions, I found them all staring, open-mouthed with shock, at the very place my father stood.

"Wait... you guys can see him, too?" I asked.

"Of course they can see me, idiot," my father said. "I'm not dead."

Kyrie gaped silently, Lucian breathed a single word — "impossible" — and part of my brain was telling another to hit the reset button and put me back to factory settings, because something was clearly malfunctioning.

Meanwhile, Janelle took three steps forward and slapped my father, quite hard, across the face.

The crack of her palm against his cheek startled us all, and she rubbed her hand and frowned.

"Yeah, he real, alright. Dunno how, but he's no ghost."

"Impossible," Lucian repeated, his dark eyes ringed in white. "If he's not a ghost, he's an impostor, or... or something. I saw him dead. I certified his death myself."

"And you never make mistakes, do you, Lucy?" My father hung his coat on a hook by the door, like any casual visitor, and cast Janelle a disapproving look as he rubbed his face. "You know all my tricks; I thought you'd have seen through this one — or that my useless daemon would, eventually. Where is he, anyway?"

At this, whatever was left of my sanity departed, and with a feral scream I summoned every ounce of power I could muster, raised hands wreathed in white flame, and reached for my father with the full intention of burning him to a crisp.

A sharp blow on the back of my head put an end to that. My vision burst with stars, I fell, someone caught me, the noise of shouting filled my ears, and then everything faded to black.

❧

I woke on the couch, my head in someone's lap, and someone's fingers gently combing through my hair. Janelle leaned over, purple braids framing her kind, round face, and gave me a small, apologetic smile.

"Hey, kid. You okay?"

I blinked and winced as my head throbbed. "What happened?"

She grimaced. "Lucian saw you 'bout to make crispy-fried daddy and stopped you the only way he could. For my apartment's sake, I'm glad he did."

Carefully, and with Janelle's help, I sat up.

"That... really happened, then? He's really here?"

"He's really here," Janelle confirmed unhappily. "He's banished, for the moment — at least until I'm sure you're okay and not gonna treat anyone to premature cremation. He and Lucian are up in Tobin's room, pokin' 'round."