Mahogany entered Hot Brews, ordered an iced chai, and sat pondering her predicament with Guy when Evelina took an empty seat at the table when her shift ended.
"How's your cute ghost?" Evelina asked, eying the empty chair at the table.
"He's not mine, and he's not cute," Mahogany answered. She took a noisy sip of her chai, the ice clinking against the glass.
"Hey! I am too cute. I was dating a young lady from here before my murder, by the way. Karrie Samuels. Do you know her? Her brother hated me," Guy said. He stared pensively into the distance, his eyes misting over. "Karrie might have been the one."
Mahogany buried her face in her hands and groaned.
"I can see I did the right thing in poking around," Evelina said, pressing her lips into a line.
"Poking around what?" Mahogany said from behind her hands.
"I did some research on how to get rid of ghosts. There are two main ways to send murdered apparitions to the other side." Evelina shifted in her seat to better face Mahogany.
"I'm listening." Mahogany peeked through her fingers.
"The first is banishment, which doesn't send them to the other side but dissipates their soul through the cosmos." Evelina rolled her hands in front of her, as a magician would before pulling a rabbit from their hat.
Guy's mouth dropped open, and what little color his pasty, translucent skin held drained from his face.
"Tempting." Mahogany glared at Guy from behind her fingers.
"That method," Evelina continued, "takes a year to complete."
"A year?" Mahogany almost shouted, slapping her hands on the table. Several customers glanced in their direction. "What's the other way?"
"Solve the ghost's murder." Evelina scrunched her face apologetically.
Guy held his hands out. "I've been saying it since day one."
Mahogany shook her head, pink curls bouncing. "I don't know the first thing about solving murders."
"Sure you do," Evelina said, giving Mahogany a soft shove in the shoulder. "We used to watch all those detective shows as kids. We're already armchair mystery-solving pros. We just need to translate all we've learned from TV to real life."
"We?" Mahogany raised an eyebrow. "I remember sneaking away, but I was alone."
Evelina shook her head. "I followed you. Didn't you know?" She tapped her lip, her eyes distant. "All this time, I figured you knew I was there."
Mahogany was silent for almost a minute, considering Evelina's words. "No, I had no idea. You followed me?"
"Well, yes and no. I wanted to see what you were doing. You were much more interesting than the other kids at those boring Guild meetings." Evelina brushed the words away like they didn't mean anything.
"Oh, well, thank you for the offer, but this is my problem. I can take care of it on my own," Mahogany said, her head reeling. She'd never known that Evelina found her interesting. Most of the kids in Pandemonium had bullied her. Taking the lead from their parents, where humans were considered less than magical Folk and not deserving of respect.
Evelina crossed her arms. Her eyebrows arched high on her forehead, and her bow-shaped mouth puckered. "There is no way I'll let you do this alone. It's way too massive. An out-of-town wizard and his apprentice get murdered at a rental in Pandemonium? And my best friend almost gets killed as collateral damage?" She shook her head. "No way. I'm in for the long haul."
Mahogany wanted to ask Evelina what else she had learned about the case, but all she heard was 'best friend.' She'd never considered anyone a friend, much less a best friend. She could certainly do worse than Evelina.
"Still." Mahogany shook her head, frowning. "I don't want to drag you into my problems."
Guy snorted. "Problems? I'm the one with the problem. I'm dead before my time. The possible love of my life was ripped away from me. My chance to be a great wizard snuffed out just as it was beginning." He folded his arms over his chest and frowned at Mahogany, muttering.
"You don't have to drag me into anything. I am coming with you because I want to." Evelina placed a warm, perfectly manicured hand over Mahogany's nervous-chewed fingers.
"Why? Why don't you treat me like everyone else treats me?" The warmth of Evelina's hand seeped into Mahogany's fingers, sending a tingling sensation up her arm to her chest. It was the polar opposite of what the cursed anelace had done.
Evelina blinked at Mahogany, her expression blank. "I like you. I always have. Plus, I'm a nonconformist. I don't care for the opinions of others. Also, if you bothered to notice, our generation doesn't fall in step with the older Folk. Maybe when we were kids, you were bullied, and now you expect to be mistreated when the reality is much different." She smoothed her luscious blond hair out of her face and nodded to the counter. "By the way, have you seen the new guy?"
Mahogany stared at Evelina, a loss for words. Had she been walking around for the last fifteen years, imagining no one liked her?
"New guy?" Mahogany said, happy to change the subject. She followed Evelina's gaze. The man she'd bumped into as she'd left Hot Brews that morning stood at the counter ordering hot cocoa. His dark hair was cropped short, and he wore jeans with a t-shirt sporting The Animals' album cover, House of the Rising Sun. The new guy turned, his hazel gaze found Mahogany, and he smiled. A deep dimple pierced his golden cheek.
Mahogany tried to smile back, but she found her cheeks numb and unresponsive. An electric zing ran up her spine, making her head buzz. Warmth filled her belly in an explosion of nervous butterflies.
"I bumped into him this morning," Mahogany said, her voice far away.
"His name is Tony," Evelina said. "He just started working at the record store. Beautiful, isn't he?" She raised a hand and waved. Tony nodded with an easy smile, grabbed his order, and headed over to join Evelina and Mahogany.
"Tony, this is my friend, Mahogany. Mahogany, this is Tony. He's working over at Backmasking," Evelina said, making introductions.
"You're the girl with the massive spider," Tony said, pulling the chair out that Guy occupied. "How was your smoothie?"
Still acclimating to his spectral form, Guy floated for a moment before falling to the ground.
Tony sat and a sneakered foot poked into Guy's back. Guy giggled and shifted away from Tony's intruding foot.
"Did the air just kick on?" Tony peered under the table. "My ankles are catching a draft.
Evelina smiled and mouthed, "ghost," to Mahogany, who shook her head slightly.
"There must be a vent pointed toward us," Evelina said. "My feet just got cold too."
Tony scooted his chair under the table and took a sip of his cocoa with a frown. "So, where's your spider?"
"Oh, Bazgul's at home napping. It's been a crazy few days." Upon the utterance of his name by his master, Bazgul materialized in a puff of red-brown vapor on Mahogany's lap. She gave a tiny yelp of surprise and took a quick drink of her chai. Never before had Bazgul appeared without being summoned.
Evelina's gaze dropped below the table and landed on Bazgul, her eyes growing wide."I've never seen a Brachypelma smithi get that large before," Tony said.
Startled, Mahogany glanced at Tony. Evelina was right. He was beautiful.
"Bachy-what?" Evelina said, prizing her gaze off Bazgul.
"It's the Latin name for orange-kneed tarantulas." In Mahogany's lap, Bazgul's weight condensed. This change was followed by something damp seeping through Mahogany's leggings.
"Oh," Evelina said. She sat back, a slight, sly grin pulled at the corners of her mouth. "That's interesting. Do you know the Latin name for a South American bullfrog?"
Tony shook his head and turned to Mahogany. "I have a few tarantulas at home. You should check them out sometime."
The wet patch expanded, and she was sure Bazgul, the toad, had just peed on her. "Sure," she said, trying to sound nonchalant. "But we won't tell Bazgul. He gets jealous."
_____
A/N: What's up with Bazgul? If I didn't know better, I'd say he's jealous of Tony and acting out. But, in Bazgul's defense, Tony is a hottie, and the way Mahogany's fawning over him, he has reason to be jelly.
This chapter is dedicated to my buddy, AudreyTLennox, whose series, My Father's House is a fast-paced thriller about secrets that could prove deadly. It's such a good read, I can't recommend it more.