“Cupid’s a real god, Lu. A dangerous one at that. He’s not some little angel with a cute bow and heart-tipped arrows. His arrows are made of gold and lead—what one connects, the other can destroy—and it’s not just people he uses them on. He can force heaven and earth, light and darkness, worlds and universes together, or tear them apart. And he’s out in the world. You shouldn’t meddle in the business of gods.”
“I’m gonna find a place to stay—a real bed,” she said, ignoring me. “A shower. Maybe take off my boots for a day or two. I know hotels aren’t good for you, but there’s a nice house renting out a couple rooms just down the street the other way. Let’s see how that one feels, okay?”
I sighed. “You don’t have to decide where you’re staying on my account,” I said. “Anywhere there’s you, is good with me.”
“Anywhere there’s you is where I’m gonna be,” she said.
I squeezed her hand a little harder, even though she couldn’t feel it.
Chapter Six
“It’s not much,” Mrs. Just-call-me-Dot-Doris-was-my-mother’s-name said as she strode through the old, three-story house that had been renovated into rentable rooms. Dot was short, round, and powerful, like she’d been bulling her way through brick walls and glass ceilings all her life. She had on a gauzy kind of bright orange shirt and white pants. Her shoes sparkled with little rhinestones on the sides of them.
I liked her immediately.
“But the mattress is top-of-the-line, and I only use the softest sheets. You’ll have a view of the neighborhood, breakfast is available in the kitchen—I bring it in from BunBun Bakery, because a chef I am not—and the bathroom’s right down the hall.”
She stopped at the door painted a soft green, inserted an old brass key, and gave it a turn before pushing the door open.
“This is it,” she said proudly.
I walked into the room before Lu could, shouldering by both woman and trying my best not to touch them. Lorde followed on my heels. The walls were painted white with touches of that soft green on the molding and the edges of the window sills. Everything else in the room was white and green too, with a few pops of blue flowers on the pillows, a lamp, and a lap quilt.
I drifted over to stand by the window and gave the room one last look.
It was clean, bright. A soothing sort of place.
Which was probably why the woman was sitting in the padded chair in the corner, her eyes closed, her knitting pooled in her lap.
Great. A ghost.
I hated ghosts.
“Lorde. Tell Lu we have company.” I pointed at the chair.
Lorde’s kitten-soft ears perked up, and her tail lifted and stiffened. Her nose twitched double time. She marched over to the ghost and stared. Hard.
Not quite a point, but we’d had Lorde since she was a puppy. Lu knew what Lorde was doing.
“This is nice,” Lu said. Regret she couldn’t hide weighed down her words. “But I’d like to see the other room.”
“Oh,” Dot nodded. “I suppose, if you’d like. It’s a little smaller, doesn’t have quite as much view.”
“This is a little more than I need,” she said wistfully.
She liked this room. Dammit.
“It’s okay, Lorde. Tell her it’s a Friendly.”
I hadn’t even tried contact with the ghost yet, so I was lying out my face.
Ghosts couldn’t always see me. It had struck me as odd at first, but hey, I was not fully in any state of existence. I’d come to accept, and sometimes use to my advantage, the fact I could sneak up on people. Living and dead.
Lorde’s tail wagged and she panted. Her face broke into a happy smile, black tongue only sticking out a little bit.
Lu paused, halfway out the door. Her eyebrows went up. “Um… On second thought, I changed my mind.”
“Oh?” Dot paused, a new brass key already pulled out of her pocket and at the ready.
