LITMIR.BIZ

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me what happens whenever your sister tries to speak of her death.”

      “He knows it. He stops her,” Lana said. “And he hurts her more.”

      “Which proves Aubrey does know who killed her and could lead us to him—if he let her,” Raef said. “Damn! It’s frustrating as hell!”

      “Aubrey can still lead you to her killer, she just has to do so through positive emotions. Use them to Track him.”

      “Positive emotions?” Raef snorted. “How the hell do I learn about Tracking with those? Joy isn’t gonna lead me to a murder site and a serial killer.”

      “You don’t have to learn about positive emotions, sudzius. I have told you before, if you let go of your attachment to negative emotions, your soul will naturally reset itself and begin to accept and understand their opposites.”

      “And I’ve told you before—I’m not like the rest of your touchy-feely gang,” Raef said.

      “Great, you mean he has to get happy to find my sister’s killer?” Lauren said.

      “What the fuck is this, a motivational speech? I don’t have any attachments to negative emotions. Negative emotions are my damn job. I don’t need to get happy. I just need to find a murderer,” Raef told the two women.

      Both women smiled knowingly back at him.

      He considered pouring more Scotch into his tea. Instead, he faced Lana. “So, that’s the bottom line? I have to move through positive emotions to find this killer?”

      “That’s the bottom line,” Lana agreed. “Like you, the guy is a fish out of water when he’s not attached to hate and fear and pain. Let Aubrey show you how to flank him through joy and love and happiness.”

      “Flank him, huh? I knew you were a Russian spy,” Raef muttered.

      Lana grinned. “Here’s the good news. All human soul are designed to accept love and happiness and joy, or at least they are if they can let go of their attachments to hate and fear and pain. And you’re human, even though you are a man. Good luck. You’ll need it.” Lana waved a goodbye to Lauren and then disconnected the Skype call.

      Raef and Lauren sat in silence, watching the screen saver come on—a series of pictures of a North Side beach house in Grand Cayman where he vacationed every year. At that moment Raef wished desperately he had his ass in the sand and a cold beer in his hand.

      “Do you think that’s true?”

      Lauren’s question seemed loud and out of place, but weirdly enough Raef thought he knew exactly what she was asking.

      “You mean the part about all human souls being designed to accept love and happiness and joy?”

      “Yes, that’s what I mean,” she said.

      “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

      “I don’t think I do, either, but I can promise you Aubrey would think it’s true—even now. Even dead.”

      He looked at her and saw how tired she was and how dark and sunken her blue eyes were. “I guess it’s a good thing Aubrey’s leading this hunt, then.”

      “She won’t be doing anything for a while. When he jerks her back like that, so hard and so painful, it takes a lot out of her and she doesn’t manifest for hours, sometimes a whole day.”

      “It takes a lot out of you, too,” Raef said.

      Lauren shrugged. “I’m still alive.”

      “You need to rest. Let me take you home, or to your mom’s. Whichever you’d rather,” he said, disconcerted by how hollow the thought of Lauren being not alive made him feel.

      “Thanks. You’re right. I’m exhausted. You can take me to my home. Not my mother’s. Never my mother’s, no matter how out of it I am.”

      “You’re not out of it. Actually, I think you’re doing pretty damn well for someone who’s being soul sucked by a serial killer.”

      Lauren smiled as they walked back to the car. “That shouldn’t make me feel better, but it kinda does.”

      “Hey, that’s me. Mr. Warm and Fuzzy.”

      Lauren laughed then, and Raef was taken aback by how much she suddenly reminded him of Aubrey—so taken aback that he didn’t have much to say as he drove the short way to Lauren’s house, which was in the Brookside area of Midtown Tulsa, just a few miles away.

      When he pulled up in front of the neat little bungalow, Lauren said, “Thanks, Raef. I guess I’ll see you soon.”

      “I’ll call you tomorrow. Let me do some digging about this soul-sucking crap and then you and I will take another whack at working with Aubrey.”

      “Sounds like a good plan.”

      Raef went around and opened her car door for her, and when she hesitated, obviously gathering her energy to get out of the car, Raef took her arm and guided her to her feet.

      “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be fine from here.”

      “I’m going to make sure you stay that way,” he said.

      Lauren looked up at him, and as their eyes met and held, Raef felt a sensation deep inside him—one he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.

      “I believe in you,” Lauren said, eerily echoing her twin. Then she went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek softly before turning away from him and going into her dark house and leaving Raef to drive away rubbing his cheek and muttering, “Cluster fuck … a total goat-herding, cat-roping cluster fuck …”

      6

      Raef didn’t go home. Instead, still muttering to himself about unnatural disasters, he stopped by his After Moonrise office and grabbed some Psy books from a very surprised Vivian Peterson, who was their resident expert on ghosts.

      Raef didn’t like her. Never had. She was just too damn ooie-ooie. Her hair was green, for God’s sake.

      On the way back to the house he stopped for take-out pizza at the Pie Hole and a six-pack of Blue Moon beer—both the liquor store and the pizza place were within walking distance of his house.

      “Which is just one of reasons this place is so perfect for me.” Raef sighed with contentment as he chugged the first bottle of beer between bites of the Everything Pie Hole Special. He didn’t open the first research book until he’d worked his way through half of the pie and half of the six-pack. Then he started reading.

      Within fifteen minutes he was shaking his head and opening another beer. He flipped through the chapters of the first book, The Spirit Hunter’s Guide, reading quickly. “‘Possession, succubus infestation, poltergeists, noxious aroma invasions …’” Raef read aloud. “This ghost stuff is some seriously not right shit.” He swigged another beer and tossed that book aside, picking up a slimmer volume titled Shamanic Retrieval. Paging through it Raef found essays sectioned off with the titles “Soul Theft and Loss,” “Souls Lost to Love” and finally “Retrieving a Stolen Soul.”

      “About damn time,” he said under his breath and began to read.

      Retrieving a stolen soul must be done with skill and care. Remember, we must act in harmony with the universe—harming others, even others who have stolen souls, puts us out of harmony.

      Raef snorted. “Like I give a fuck?” He kept reading.

      Soul thieves usually take spirits because they believe they need the power to live. This is rarely true. Only one psychic in thousands can actually feed from the energy of another’s soul. The problem is some less than scrupulous psychics can convince themselves that they can use the power of another—therein you find a soul thief.

      “The problem is the

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