Holiday Mates: Supernatural Enforcers Agency Short Stories by E A Price Page B

naughty smile on her face was hardly encouraging.
    Erin patted her mate’s hand.  “Another night,” she promised.
    “Should have got the fucking Ghostbusters,” grumbled Gunner.
    *
    “You could run over there and be back within an hour,” wheedled Shannon.
    “No.”
    “Oh, come on!”
    Erin sighed as she peeled her orange.  The babies may be making her crave meat, but Erin was determined she would have fruit, too.  Even if it looked very unappetizing when compared to a meat platter.
    “You heard what Gunner said.”
    Shannon smirked and folded her arms.  “You always do as you’re told?”
    “No, I do as I’m asked because he rarely asks me to do anything unreasonable.”  Apart from asking her never to cross a road without holding his hand because he was afraid she would be run over.  Or when he insisted he taste all her food first in case it was undercooked and he was afraid she would get food poisoning.  Sometimes he was too protective.  She decided not to mention those instances.  Shannon didn’t need any more oil pouring on her red-hot fire.
    “You let your husband boss you around?  I’d never let mine tell me what to do.  In my house, I’m the boss.”
    Erin gave her a deadpan look.  “You sure he didn’t kill you?”
    “Har de har har!  Now go to my house and get a vision or whatever!”
    “Shannon, Gunner is looking into the case.  And he’s right, if I were going to get a vision, I would have when I was over there on Valentine’s.”  Erin gave her a sad look.  “Perhaps you’re going to have to accept that we may never find out what happened.”
    “Get over this you cow!” yelled Shannon as she lunged at Erin.
    Erin didn’t move, or flinch, as a frustrated ghost tried to slap at her.  Other than a slight chill as the spectre passed through her, there was no effect.  Although…  She blinked as an image of a woman in a hospital bed flickered through her mind.  The woman was hooked up to life support.  She got a look at the name on the chart.
    “Does the name Diane Temple mean anything to you?” asked Erin, slowly.
    “No!” griped Shannon as she started pacing the kitchen.
    “When you passed through me I saw a woman called Diane Temple in a hospital bed.”
    “So what?”
    “So, I must have seen it for a reason.”
    Shannon stopped and stared at her.  “Are you saying you got a vision?”  Excitement shimmered over her form.
    Erin hesitated.  “Maybe.  I just don’t know what it means.”
    “Well let’s find this Dinah Trumpet and shake the bitch until she spills what she knows about me.”
    “Diane Temple,” muttered Erin, “and I think she’s in a coma.”  She paused.  Gunner told her explicitly that he didn’t want her going to the house until they had… appeased Shannon.  But surely a hospital would be safe.  And it looked like Los Lobos General.  She remembered the hospital vividly from the time she was there after a wolf shifter tried to throttle her… long story .
    “I suppose I could call the hospital and ask about her.  And I suppose if I called Gunner and told him…”
    “Yes, yes, yes!”
    *
    Erin peeked inside Diane Temple’s hospital room.  She had flashed her SEA badge to get past security.
    “Well?  What’s happening?  What’s going on?  Who is this woman?” demanded her very own annoying ghost.
    “You’ve been with me the whole time; you know as much as me.”
    Erin approached the bed carefully and gasped as she recognized the occupant.  “It’s you!” she whispered as she looked up at Shannon’s ghost.
    “You really shouldn’t have come here,” said an angry voice behind her.
    *
    Gunner sifted through the files as he sipped on a cup of the gawdawful SEA coffee, which seemed to have been percolating since dinosaurs roamed the earth.  He doubted he was going to find anything.  He wouldn’t admit it to the arrogant, shifter-hating LLPD cops, but they did a thorough job.  And if the reward Mike had