The shabby apartment building squatting on the corner shared all the architectural charm of the finest state penitentiaries. Riley shifted from foot to foot, nerving himself to open the door and go inside.
Stupid. This was stupid. Why did proximity to Logan french-fry his logic circuits? Any reasonable man would have given up on Logan the first time he bailed.
Any reasonable man wouldn’t still be in love, damn it.
Apparently Riley could no longer claim reasonable as an accomplishment on his CV.
“Pathetic, yes. Reasonable, no,” he muttered, shoving the fatal bar napkin in his back pocket. This wasn’t just about the two of them anymore. Other people were involved—Julie, Scott, the rest of the crew. Even Joseph Geddes and Trent Pielmeyer, if they were still trapped in the ritual. He took a huge breath and blew it out, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag. Somehow, he’d force Logan to see the bigger picture. Not that he’d ever managed before. The guy couldn’t multitask if his life depended on it.
One of the double front doors sported a sheet of plywood tagged with unimaginative obscenities, but the other still had its safety glass intact. Riley opened it and slipped inside.
The narrow ill-lit stairs might just as well have been the path to any of a score of different underworlds, the cinder block walls breathing damp and cold like the dank bowels of a cave.
The second-floor hallway smelled of cigarette smoke and mildew. Why would Logan, who loved the outdoors and wide-open vistas and the elegance of art deco style, choose to live in this depressing place?
Logan had never been hard-up for money. He’d bartended in Eugene, and he’d done all right, with no expenses to speak of other than food, rent, and his precious Ducati. Riley had tried to talk him into going to school, into doing something besides bartending, but Logan had refused. His whole problem back then had seemed to be a lack of ambition that stifled his potential.
Now, in light of what Riley had learned about Logan’s supernatural experience, he recognized that lack for what it was. Fatalism, with a heaping helping of guilt to top off a classic early-Christian martyr complex.
The big overprotective jerk.
Locating Logan’s unit at the end of the hall, he knocked, making the flimsy door rattle in its frame. Riley leaned closer, trying to detect any sound from inside above the blare of the television from the next apartment. He knocked again, and the door flew open under his fist. At first he thought he’d actually broken the thing down, and staggered forward in an attempt to grab the knob.
Logan caught him by the arms, steadied him. “Take it easy, tiger.”
“Sorry.” Riley stepped back, out of reach. “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Logan muttered. “Come inside before the spores invade.” He gestured to a vomit-green sofa, cigarette holes dotting its arms. “Have a seat and tell me what brings you to this lovely four-star shithole.”
“Heather . . . um . . .” Riley shuffled across the faded orange shag carpet. “She gave me your address.”
“Of course she did.” Logan didn’t sound surprised or angry. Just resigned.
That was a good sign, right? At least he hadn’t left Riley standing in the hallway, or tossed him down the rickety stairs. Riley sat gingerly on the edge of a stained sofa cushion. A spring poked him in the butt. “Jesus, Logan. Do you have to disinfect yourself every time you sit on this thing?”
Logan leaned one hip against a narrow counter that separated the living room from the galley kitchen. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s totally that bad. It’s worse.” Riley wove his fingers together, heels bouncing in a threadbare spot in the carpet. “We need to talk.”
Logan crossed his arms and scowled. “Look, I didn’t trash your equipment.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
Riley shrugged. “You said you didn’t. I believe you.” Besides, given the way Zack and Heather bantered about “special equipment,” anyone in the bar could have overheard them.
“Then what’s there to talk about?”
“You may not have done it, but someone did.” Riley clamped his hands between his knees. “Someone has a vested interest in killing the story. Someone other than you.”
“Not my problem.”
“I think it is. I think it’s been your problem from the beginning.” He took a deep breath. “Logan. I know about Joseph Geddes. I know about the whole thing.”
Logan grunted. “I doubt it.”
“Then tell me. This is the reason you don’t want the crew in the park on Saturday, right?”
“Mmmphm.”
“Logan . . .” Riley loaded his voice with as much warning as he could. “Don’t be a dick. Not now.”
“Jesus, Riley. You can’t— Why don’t you— Ah, fuck.” Logan stalked across the room and threw himself into the sagging recliner. He stared at an empty bookshelf as if he could set it on fire with his eyes, his jaw as tight as marble.
“Come on.” Riley used the same tone he used to cajole Julie out of production-induced hysteria. “Please? I want to help.”
Logan let his head fall back and closed his eyes. “So you know my grandfather and another guy—”
“Joseph Geddes.”
“Yeah. They were out in the park, hunting. Not with guns, but still not strictly legal. Geddes’s family was in rough shape. Granddad wasn’t as hard up, but he knew how to trap small animals, so he went along to help.” He opened his eyes and gazed at the ceiling. “They were ready to leave, but Geddes cut his hand while they were skinning the last rabbit, and Granddad was patching him up when it happened.”
“The ghost war rose.”
“Yeah. But for them, it was different. The figures were distinct right from the beginning. With Trent—”
Riley straightened. “Hold it. You were there? You saw the ghost war too?”
Logan met Riley’s eyes. “You said you knew.”
“That you were questioned, not that you were there.” Riley’s eyes widened. “The blood at the scene. It was yours.”
“Yeah.”
“How did you manage—”
“To evade the law?” Logan’s tone was bitter. “My father. He lied himself blue that I’d been with him since my last class the day before. He was a city commissioner. They took his word.”
Riley stared out the window at the fading light. “So two men have been drafted into the ghost war.”
“Not drafted. More like they volunteered.”
“What?”
“Granddad said Geddes wasn’t interested in trigger-happy Balch and his pathetic story. He fixated on the supply wagon. He had a wife and kids. They were starving, so he tried to intercept one of the bags. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded—but instead of taking food home to his family, he’s heaving phantom flour forever.”
Riley threaded his fingers through his bangs. “Whoa.” These weren’t random kidnappings at all. They were purposeful interactions between two planes of existence, instigated by the victim.
“You know the fucking ironic thing? If Granddad had kept his mouth shut, he’d have been fine. He got away clean. But he insisted on giving those rabbits to Geddes’s family. He told them about what had happened. Hell, he told anyone who would listen, insisting what he’d seen was real, that he hadn’t killed his friend, that Geddes had turned into a ghost. But he could never find that other guy again to back him up.”
“Wait.” Riley let go of his hair and scooted down the sofa toward Logan. “‘That other guy’? What guy?”
“I told you.”
“No. I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered a guy.”
“Geddes didn’t just get sucked into the war. He displaced someone. When he went in, the other guy fell out.”
Riley blinked and tried to recalibrate his brain. “You mean . . . your grandfather witnessed an actual possession?”
Logan shook his head. “Don’t think so. That’s when a ghost takes over another person’s body, right? My grandfather said they swapped places—one here, one in the ghost war.”
God, this was bigger than Riley had imagined. An actual corporeal manifestation? Un-freaking-believable. He edged closer. “Go on. What happened then?”
“My grandmother was away, visiting her sister with my father, so Granddad took the guy home. Gave him a meal. A place to sleep. Claimed he stayed for several days but then took off before the police showed up.”
“What was his name?”
Logan snorted. “John. John Doe. Yet another reason why the authorities questioned my grandfather’s credibility. Nobody believed he existed, but you’d think if Granddad wanted to lie, he could have come up with a more convincing name.”
“Do you think he was lying?”
“No.” Logan’s gaze shifted away from Riley’s face to a point over his shoulder. “I know he was telling the truth.”
“Because of Trent.”
“Yeah. Because of Trent.”
“Don’t you think it’s time to tell me everything? Not just the pieces that are convenient or unembarrassing or nonincriminating, but the whole freaking story. Because I’ve got to tell you, after what you just laid on me, anything I imagine is bound to be worse than the truth.”
Logan ran both hands through his hair. “I doubt that. The truth is fucking horrible.”
As Logan told Riley the story of his last night with Trent, his shoulders hunched until they were practically up to his ears. He stared down at his hands, and from the occasional awkward pause, Riley could tell he was censoring his words, damn it. Was it on purpose, though, or from his long habit of hiding the details? If the first, Riley needed to call him on it; if the second, though, Riley would have to tease it out of him. Pay attention. There’ll be a test later.
When Logan described the point when the spirits had become visible, Riley frowned, something snagging at the back of his mind, something critical that he’d missed. If he could just . . .
Logan slammed his fist into his thigh. “But I swear Balch could see Trent. He stopped and focused on him, stared right at him, before he offered him the gun.”
The hair on Riley’s neck sprang to attention. “Hold it. Trent displaced Danford Balch?”
Logan snorted. “Yeah. Leave it to Trent. He’d never settle for being anything less than the star of the show, even if it turned him into a murderer and got him hanged at the end of act three.”
Riley pressed his fists to his temples. God, and he thought the HttM job threatened to detonate his head. That was nothing compared to this. “Danford Balch has been on the loose for the last seven years?”
“Yeah. Don’t think he’s had an easy time of it though. He looked like hell on a biscuit.”
“Holy . . . shit, Logan. You— What the bleeding fuck? You’ve seen Danford Balch? Here? In Portland?”
Logan leaned forward and grasped the back of Riley’s neck. “Hey. Take it easy. You’ll give yourself an aneurism.”
Not an aneurism, damn it, but the connections had definitely started clicking in Riley’s brain. “God, Logan. This is . . . this is huge.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You’re right. This isn’t a case of possession. I’m not sure it’s truly a ghost story at all. It makes so much more sense if you think of it as—” Riley jumped up and paced across the shabby room. “Look. When you cut away the loaded words—Witch’s Castle, ghost war—I mean, the Balches and the Stumps had issues, but they never had an actual war. No violent family feud, a la Montagues and Capulets or Hatfields and McCoys. It’s more of a metaphor than a battle reenactment.”
Logan nodded. “She said she wasn’t sure they were ghosts.”
“She who?”
“Marguerite Windflower, psychic counselor.”
Riley squinted at Logan over his glasses. “You’re joking.”
“I wish. But she seemed like the real deal, as far as mediums go. She sensed the spirits. Picked out Balch and Mortimer even though the figures weren’t distinct.”
“Did she have a solution?”
Logan’s cheek twitched. “Nope. Not ghosts. Nothing she could do.”
Hello, big fat lie. He’d deal with it later. Now he was in the zone, buzzing with the adrenaline rush of discovery. This is the right trail. I’m sure of it.
“Think about it. Anna Balch, Cuthbert Stump, the other townspeople—none of them died at the same time or place. Balch wasn’t hanged on the same day he shot Mortimer.” Riley dropped to his knees, rummaged through his messenger bag and pulled out The Golden Bough. “It’s more like a . . . a ritual battle. What Frazer calls a mimic conflict.” He located the page and handed the book to Logan. “Here. See? The battle between winter and summer. The Holly King versus the Oak King. The ducks versus the ptarmigans.”
“The what?”
“Never mind. The point is that it’s not like on a battlefield, with the spirits of dozens of people who all died at the same time haunting the place of their death. But those events—Anna and Mortimer’s star-crossed love affair, Balch’s crime and punishment—had huge emotional resonance for everyone involved. Energy like that leaves a . . . a stain. A residue. Especially if so many of the participants had a soul-deep longing for another outcome, the desire to make things right.”
“Or wanted vengeance.”
Riley’s elation dimmed at Logan’s terse comment. “That too, but the power of ritual is undisputed. Ask any superstitious hockey player. People engage in rituals because they believe that the actions, the tokens, the trappings, will cause a specific result. They’ll win a game, find a husband, turn back winter. That’s what this is. A ritual battle that arose because of the emotions and desires of people who desperately wanted a different outcome.”
“Good versus evil?”
“I don’t think you can make that kind of judgment. Is winter evil? Summer good? For every hockey team that wins, the opposing team has to lose. But win and lose. Love and hate. Life and death.” He nodded at Logan. “Vengeance and redemption. It’s powerful stuff.”
“Okay. I get it, but so what?”
“So these ceremonies, the ritual battles, are exaggerated representations of how to satisfy some primal need for the community. But one way or another, they’re driven by belief. By force of will, either of the society or the sacrifice himself.”
Logan handed him the book, and Riley stuffed it back in his bag. “Belief? In ghosts?”
“Not that.” Riley knee-walked closer to the recliner and gently placed his hand on Logan’s arm. “Joseph’s family was starving. He wanted those provisions desperately. Trent wanted the ghosts to be real, to be the star.” Riley shrugged. “It must have been enough to trigger the exchange. To let them take their place in the ritual.”
Logan’s brows drew together, eyes narrowing. “Yeah. I guess that would do it.”
Riley didn’t trust that calculating look, but he couldn’t stop to call Logan on it, not with an idea hovering at the fringe of his consciousness. Almost got it. Ah. There.
He tightened his grip on Logan’s arm. “Every ritual has its own power. A life of its own, sort of like the alternator in a car. It generates its own charge, keeps itself going, as long as the initial need is still there.”
“So to interrupt the ritual, take it down for good . . .”
“We have to figure out the need and fulfill it.”
“You think we can do that?”
“If not us, then who? Max?” Riley shook Logan’s arm, willing him to see. “It’s not just about you or your grandfather or Trent. If it happened before, it could happen again. Think about it, Logan. How long before some poor idiot displaces Mortimer?”
Logan’s face paled behind his scruff. “Fuck.”
“Exactly. It has to be stopped.” Riley released Logan’s arm and squeezed his knee. “We have to stop it.”
Logan stared at his lap, his throat working.
Riley’s heart sank. He’s going to refuse. He’ll bail again and go all loner knight on me. He sat back, but Logan grabbed his hands, lacing their fingers together, and Riley’s heart rebounded, fluttering against his rib cage.
“You’re right.” Logan raised his chin and looked Riley in the eyes, his mouth grim. “It’s already destroyed enough people. We can’t let it go on.”
There was that twitch again.
He stood, drawing Riley to his feet along with him. “We’ll fix this, but you need to trust me. Trust me to make it right.”
Riley’s lungs seized. He’d made an extreme tactical error. In that instant, he knew that if they couldn’t find a way to end the ghost war, Logan planned to offer himself in Trent’s place.
It would be just like him, the stupid noble asshole.
God. It was bad enough that Logan’s damned savior complex made him ready to take a bullet for his grandfather or Trent or some unknown future victim. Did Riley have to keep handing him ammo?
He raised his chin, fixing his gaze on Logan’s face, waiting for the telltale twitch. “The way you trust me?”
Logan trailed the backs of his fingers down Riley’s cheek. “I trust you. You’re the world’s most stand-up guy.”
God. Stand-up. One step away from sweet and caring. Riley clenched his teeth against the shiver that threatened from Logan’s continued caress. “I’m not talking about my stupid personality. I’m talking about what I do. What I know. If you can’t trust my intellect—”
Realization hit him like a boulder launched by a catapult. He gulped and pulled back from that insidious stroke, the familiar wash of shame starting in his belly and working its way up.
“What’s the matter?” Logan murmured.
“You don’t think I know what I’m talking about, do you? You think I’m as worthless as Scott does.” And despite her championship, her support, her love, he knew Julie believed he was equally hapless. She humored him, the way Logan was doing now, but her priority was her career. She could afford to encourage his contributions as long as he kept the coffee coming and remembered to order extra mayo on Scott’s turkey club.
Logan reeled him back with a finger under the collar of his Henley. “If they think you’re worthless, they’re idiots.”
Riley’s heart thumped like a bodhrán in his chest. Resist. Resist. “Is that why you don’t want me anymore? Because you don’t respect me?”
The corners of Logan’s eyes crinkled with a suppressed smile, and the dimple quivered in his cheek. “I’m pretty sure we settled the want question the other night.”
Damn it, where had Logan’s anger gone? His assitude? His douchebaggage? How could Riley fight with a freaking dimple? “I don’t mean like that. Not just to scratch an inconvenient itch.”
Logan grinned, deepening the damn dimple. “Nothing wrong with scratching an itch. Sure, we’ve got shit to do, but if I know you, you’ve got it half-done already.” He hooked the fingers of one hand under the waistband of Riley’s jeans, behind the belt, and tugged him forward. “So we’ve got time.”
“T-t-time?” Riley, mesmerized by the scent of Logan’s skin, of soap and leather and a hint of musk, of the way his thumb stroked just to the outside of Riley’s fly, could only try to catch his breath.
“Riley.” Logan leaned forward, his scruff brushing Riley’s cheek, his breath warm against Riley’s neck. “Take me to your hotel. I can’t stand the idea of making love to you in this mold-pit.”
“Make love?” Riley pulled back to scan Logan’s face, but couldn’t detect any mockery or contempt in his heavy-lidded gaze. “Not itch-scratching? Did you decide to abandon your quest for meaningless sex?”
“Sex, yes. Meaningless, no.”
“Don’t you have that backwards?”
A slow, sinful smile curled Logan’s mouth. “You know what I mean.”
“You think I’ll have sex with you?”
“I know you will.”
Riley sighed. There were definitely worse ways to distract Logan from getting stupid ideas about martyring himself. “You’re probably right.” He poked Logan in the shoulder. “But you’ll still have to work for it. Let’s go.”
Since Riley had thrown himself headfirst into this crapfest, the best chance Logan had of protecting him was to stay close. Really close.
That was his story, and he was sticking to it, damn it.
Back at the hotel, he crowded against Riley’s back as Riley tried to fit the card key in its slot.
“Hurry up and open the door if you don’t want me to pants you right here in the hallway.”
“I’d have better luck if you weren’t humping my ass.”
“Want me to stop?”
“Hell no.” The green light flashed, and they staggered into the room.
Logan locked the door and advanced on Riley. “Clothes off. Now.”
Riley shucked off his jacket and backed away, a smile playing on his delectable lips. “You sure? Don’t you want something from the minibar first? Snickers? Some overpriced Evian? Cracker Jacks?” Riley waggled his eyebrows. “Nuts and a prize in every . . .” he swiveled his hips in a slow bump-and-grind that triggered an involuntary thrust from Logan’s hardening dick “. . . box.”
“You know what I want,” Logan growled, shoving the desk chair out of his path, “and it’s not in the damn minibar.”
“Ah. I think I know. You want to watch TV.” Riley flourished the remote, swinging his other arm wide and making a show of punching a button.
Logan grabbed the remote, and flung it across the room to clatter against the wall and disappear behind the bed. “I don’t want to watch the damn TV. I want to watch you. Coming. I want to hear you scream my name when I’m buried in your ass. I want to—”
A burst of pounding on the door cut Logan off midfantasy.
“Yo, Wiley!”
Riley bunched his fists in Logan’s T-shirt and tugged him forward, whispering in his ear. “It’s Max. Be quiet. Maybe he’ll go away.”
“Wiley, you jackass. I know you’re there. I saw your light go on from my room.”
“Shit,” Riley muttered. “Sorry.”
He let go, but Logan grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him because damn, he hadn’t done that yet tonight. Lips, tongues, a slight clash of teeth because he was in too much of a hurry for finesse. “Don’t forget the plan. Sex till you scream. Get rid of him.”
“I’ll try.” Riley returned the kiss, with interest. “But you don’t know Max.”
More pounding. “Wiley. Open the fucking door.”
“Christ.” Logan released Riley with one last stroke down his spine and across the curve of his stellar ass. “Let him in before he brings the wrath of management down on us.”
Riley walked to the door with an awkward stiff-legged gait. He stopped and adjusted his jeans, pulling on the crotch and, judging from the elbow action, repositioning his dick. Logan snorted, even though he wasn’t much better off.
“Laugh it up, pal.” Riley paused long enough to skewer Logan with a glare. “Tell me how funny it is an hour from now when Max is still yammering at me and your balls are turning blue.”
As soon as he unlatched the door, it flew open.
“About time.” Max pushed past Riley, pulling up when he saw Logan standing by the window. “Hey, you’re that bartender. The one who told us—”
“Yeah.” Logan cleared his throat. He didn’t want Riley to find out how far he’d gone to sabotage the show with his ghost stories, especially since it hadn’t worked.
“Then you know.” Max’s voice throbbed like a twelve-inch subwoofer. “You know. What. Did. This.”