Jeanie London - Going All Out

“As I was saying,” he continued. “The curse is almost broken. You should be grateful, so you can finally rest, too.”

“I’d rather watch you fail than rest, pirate.”

“Fail? You seem to have forgotten the new skill I acquired to help me bring Tallis and Christien together.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” she said in an irritating singsong voice. “I’ve forgotten no such thing. You have every right to be flush with your new skill.”

A compliment? Had he been alive, the hairs on his neck would have been bristle-straight. This woman loathed him. He loathed her, too, truth be told, but she actually had more of a reason. He had been the biggest fool where the beautiful Madeleine had been concerned.

But hadn’t he heard somewhere that forgiveness played a part of death?

Sheer stubbornness forced Gabriel to turn away and pretend to ignore her. He would not ask what she meant because he knew she wouldn’t tell him. No forgiveness with this one. She would only reveal herself when she knew it would stab like a knife, and he’d entertained her far too often with his failures to doubt that. He wouldn’t let her see that her words had hit their mark. And honestly, he wasn’t all that confident of his ability to help Breanne overcome her ambition.

Even in sleep his granddaughter’s aura gleamed the dull gray of one who would never know any true emotion. She’d wandered through life in pursuit of ambition, restless in spirit and unfulfilled by her goals, never experiencing the plunging despair that made the heights of happiness all the more sweet.

And Breanne was only one in a long line of descendents he’d watched suffer the same cursed fate because of his selfish actions. When all was finally said and done—and it would be—he wondered if there would be much forgiveness among any of them.

To his credit, though, Breanne also had him to thank for remaining in one piece after her stupid stunt in the yard of Number Sixteen tonight.

Not that she knew it, of course. Spirits had no substance in the living world. A fine thing, too, since had he been of corporeal form, he would have broken his bloody neck saving her when she’d fallen off the wall. But he had managed to cushion her fall—a fine feat.

Generally, spirits could not appear to the living. Apparently only those old enough or powerful enough could learn to summon matter and affect the living world. It had become rather a race between him and the old crone to see who could sharpen their abilities best.

So Gabriel had practiced summoning his strength to bridge death to the living world. It was draining business, to be sure, but he continued to prevail and proudly added new and useful skills to his repertoire.

His proudest achievement thus far had been fully materializing to Tallis and her fiancé.

That had been the only reason he’d finally convinced Tallis to recognize how precious love was. But Breanne was even more headstrong than her sister, and until tonight there hadn’t even been a potential male around.

But Gabriel had seen the way her aura had sparked off Lucas. Lucas’s aura had sparked right back.

These two had the potential to share a truly great love. Auras never lied, and he’d grown quite sensitive to reading the nuances of energy that radiated off the living.

“What shall I do with you, Breanne?” he asked aloud, almost forgetting the old woman who watched him. “Aha. I know.”

He would start by whispering suggestions while she slept.

Yes, the helpful man in Number Sixteen is very handsome.

Yes, he had been a gentleman to bandage your wounds and see you home.

Yes, the sparks had flown between you.

Yes, you want to see him again.

Gabriel sat on the bed beside Breanne, leaned close to her ear and summoned his strength to materialize so she could hear him speak….

Nothing happened.

He felt no echo of the life that had once pulsed through his veins, no stirring of the heart that had once beat in his chest. He felt no rush of the air through his lungs.

Puzzled, he inhaled deeply—another habit of old that had no place in the afterlife—and tried again.

Nothing.

He heard the crone’s laughter.

Amazing how he could feel fear chase up his spine. “What have you done to me?”

“I have done nothing.”

“I appeared to Tallis. And Christien. They could see and hear me. Why can I not now? Is this some new trickery of yours?”

“You credit me with too much power, pirate. And yourself.” She held up her hand dismissively when he opened his mouth to argue. “You did nothing special to appear to our Tallis. You delude yourself in death the way you did in life. In all these years of haunting you, I still cannot fathom what my darling granddaughter ever saw in you.”

Shaking her head, she sent lank white hair whirling around her face. “The curse gave you the ability to appear to two people. Only two people. It was your chance, pirate.”

Two people?

The twins.

It made such coldly logical sense that Gabriel couldn’t believe he hadn’t guessed sooner. Instead he’d appeared to Tallis and her lover and had prided himself on gaining enough power to take a ghostly form again.

Damn his pride!

Nearly two hundred years spent haunting this court. Nearly two hundred years denied his eternal peace. Denied any peace when he stared at the horrible old crone who had been his only companion. Nearly two hundred years to atone for his sins.

Nearly two hundred years and he’d learned nothing.

“You tricked me,” he cried. “You set me up to fail.”

“I only cursed you. Your failure is your own.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Do not despair, though. Perhaps if you practice materializing as hard as you practice your other parlor tricks, you may be able to manage the task in another century or two.”

Which was how long it would take before another set of twins would be born into this family.

She blew him a kiss and stepped back through the wall, and with her laughter still ringing in his ears, Gabriel stared down at the bed where Breanne moved restlessly. He was so close to breaking the curse, to ending this eternal limbo…and all he had to rely upon were parlor tricks.

ALTHOUGH MONTHS HAD PASSED since Bree had joined Krewe du Chaud, she still hadn’t decided why she’d become a part of this organization. It certainly wasn’t to hand over her hard-earned money paying steep annual dues.

But Josie hadn’t given her much of a choice. The acting president had been pretty strong-handed about the whole thing. A bully, really.

When you move into a court that’s a huge part of French Quarter history, Josie had told Bree in a tone that left no room for debate, it’s your duty and responsibility to keep the legend alive….

Blah, blah, blah.

Tally, of course, had jumped in with both feet. No surprise there. Tally had been enamored with the krewe since they’d been kids, standing on the streets as the captain’s floats had passed by in the Mardi Gras parade.

Bree had never understood her sister’s obsession with all this historic family tradition stuff. It was sort of cool to bring up the connection in party conversation, but Bree had never found it much use otherwise.

Being descended from the captain certainly hadn’t done anything for their mother, who’d spent her life—was probably still spending her life, as far as any of them knew—trying to capitalize on the connection with her alcohol-induced get-rich-quick schemes.

Only Tally had ever managed to change her fortune. And she’d been on quite a roll lately, and Bree wished some of her luck would rub off.

After last night, Bree could use it.

Scooping up her mail from the floor in her foyer, she locked up the house and headed out into the bright afternoon. She walked through the alley past Café Eros, inhaling deeply of all the wonderful smells emitting from within. Beignets. Coffee.