Wings to the Kingdom by Cherie Priest

Author:Cherie Priest [Priest, Cherie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2006-10-16T13:00:00+00:00

13

Back to the Battlefield

I met Benny at his home about twenty minutes after midnight, after calling Lu and Dave and telling them I’d be out for another few hours. God bless them for not asking any questions; I think when I told them Jamie was involved they assumed I’d gone out dancing, which I do almost exclusively when Jamie drags me. We usually go to the gay bar out in the bad part of town, because the drinks are strong, the music is good, and the worst thing that happens to Jamie there is that he gets hit on because he acts gay—which he finds more palatable than just plain getting hit because he acts gay. This is a tough town for a guy to be so femme in, and if there’s anything I respect about Jamie it’s that he doesn’t let that stop him from doing as he pleases. Dave and Lu think he’s funny, and they don’t mind if I stay out late with him—which aided my small deception.

My uncle hadn’t noticed that I’d made off with one of his older cameras. I figured the missing equipment would fly under his radar, since I’d selected an older manual number that he’d set aside for a newer model a year or two before.

I was pretty sure I remembered how to use it.

Jamie was waiting at Benny’s too, as previously arranged. Between us, we ran through a final rundown and made sure we had everything we needed. We even played back some of the EVP for Jamie, who hadn’t heard it yet.

“You think we’ll catch more of the same?” he asked, clicking the mouse on the play key again.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.” I reached around him and picked up the tape recorder, and I stuffed it into my bag. “If we’re lucky, maybe some generous dead guy will recognize us from last time as friends, not foes, and lead us to where the action is.”

“What about the Marshalls?” Benny let fly a half-smile that said he didn’t object too deeply to the thought of running into them.

“Let’s hope we miss them altogether,” I said, hoping to nip his apparent enthusiasm in the bud. I didn’t want any subconscious sabotage, and I sure as hell didn’t want to meet the Marshalls any more up close and personal than we had earlier.

“But what if we do run into them?” he pressed.

“Then we will run the other way and hope they don’t see us. Back me up here, Jamie.”

“Sure. What she said.”

“Thanks, I guess. I’ve got the camera. You got the film?”

Benny shook the baggie until the canisters fell out. “I got the film.”

I tossed my head over at Jamie. “What’ve you got?”

“Passion. Charm. Talent. And an irrepressible desire to charge around a battlefield while I’m being pursued by the dead.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “If that’s all you’ve got, it’ll have to do. We ready?”

“We ready,” they said, and I believed them. Benny was carrying his same khaki bag with the military

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