| |
The layer of light between Jamie and Dahlia felt like a cushion of air. When he touched her, he didn’t quite touch her. Soul condom. Buzzing blue lights the size of gnats shot through his vision and filled his veins and nerves. Part of the plan had been that he and Mae would seek spiritual protection before they started. When he’d done the calling-in song, asking for a protector, he’d expected something benevolent to show up, like the guide that had come through him when he tried to heal Ximena, or even the doctor that had helped him cope with failing. Not the trickster and the buzzing things.
Dahlia showed him pictures on her phone, some of her modeling shots. In her lifeless voice, she narrated her successes. She clearly had no idea how to make conversation except about herself.
Jamie waited for the spirits to move him, his light-coated arm around her shoulders. After Mae, Dahlia felt like half a woman, so delicate she could break if he really squeezed her, but there was something strong in her too, like a caged creature, a huge thing about to break free. The human soul in him was terrified of it, but the spirit in possession of him dared tease the one that lived in her. “Nice shots, except for those ugly shoes. Bloody torture devices. And the makeup makes you looks like a fucking alien. You look better when you’re more natural. Remind me more of your mum.”
Dahlia closed the pictures and jammed her phone into a little pocket on her purse. “I do not.”
“Yeah. She’s got that nice hair and skin, pretty face. I know she’s got the great big bum, but maybe when you’re her age you’ll fill out a little—”
“I will not. What is the matter with you? I hate her. I don’t want to talk about her.”
He heard a thump in the kitchen, and Mae let out a little cry. He asked, “You all right, love?”
Mae said, “The wok keeps sparking, where the cord plugs into the pan.”
“Careful.” Had to be Dahlia fucking with it. “Turn it off. Use the stove.” It was a gas stove—she shouldn’t affect that. “Got fry pans if you can find ’em.”
His real self wanted to make sure Mae was all right. The spirit made him stay put and cuddle Dahlia. He lifted her hair back. It was so heavy it had to hurt her scalp. If he struggled with keeping his untangled, what did she do? Spend hours brushing hers? She had to. How vain and lonely. “They should get you on a Godiva chocolate ad, in the nuddy on a horse, eating chocolate. Not that you eat. And your dad wouldn’t like that nude bit, would he?”
“You don’t know what he’d like.”
“Yeah, I do. Doing the fair, remember?”
“I’m not talking about him.”
“What’s with you and your parents? I get not wanting to be known as Harold Petersen’s daughter, like you have to live up to it. Mum’s a poet and Dad’s written all these books on shamanism. I don’t like people dragging my music through those filters. But I don’t go telling people they’re dead.”
She jerked out of his embrace, and Mae let out another little shriek in the kitchen.
Dahlia’s face bordered on having an expression. She straightened her already rigid posture. He thought she might say something, but she didn’t. He felt a change in her energy. Something flew out of her like a small dart. It bounced off him, but he sensed danger. Maybe this was the weapon she’d used on the models Mae had mentioned. This new power of hers was fascinating to the inner visitor, disturbing to Jamie.
“Don’t mess with me,” Dahlia whispered. “It’s not funny.”
Guided by the spirit, he ran a finger along her jaw. “Thought you wanted to mess with me.”
“I changed my mind.” She cast a derisive look at his belly. “Now that I’ve seen you better. You’re not my type.”
“You saw me in my yoga clothes back in March, and I’m the same shape I was then. You want ...” He brought his hands palm to palm with hers, testing to see if she would try something. She drew her power in, like a turtle into a shell, and he couldn’t feel it any more. “What do you want?”
Gasser began to meow again, his calls long and pleading. The spirit didn’t care, but Jamie’s heart inside the envelope of possession ached to comfort his pet.
Dahlia said, “I want your stupid cat to shut up.”
“Let’s talk softer, maybe he’ll forget about us.”
He lowered their joined hands. After a brief stillness, Dahlia let go and lightly touched his bracelet. “That is totally amazing.”
Jamie pulled his wrist away and covered the bracelet with his other hand. “Thanks.”
“Can I look at it?”
Letting her touch it troubled him. “Dunno. I’m funny with it.”
“I won’t get fingerprints on it. God, you’re so sweaty, I can’t believe you think I’d be icky.” Dahlia stood and got a petite brown shopping bag with the logo of a downtown jewelry store on it from the top of one of the bookshelves. When she sat beside him, she was cool yet friendly. “Look at this.”
She spread the contents of the bag on the coffee table and opened the boxes. Jamie touched the necklace. He recognized Oscar Kahee’s work before he even saw the card. Hiding from Oscar’s pain in order to bury his own, he hadn’t spoken to Kandy’s father since her death. He hadn’t even gone to her funeral. A heavy guilt overtook him, and he lost touch with the trickster. The buzzing lights vanished.
It was like waking up from being drunk and having no idea how he’d gotten where he was. Dahlia’s cold soul paralyzed him. Was he going to have to do something to her on his own?
“What is the matter with you?” she snapped. “It’s only jewelry.”
Jamie’s hand went protectively to his bracelet. “His daughter made this.”
Dahlia looked at the card, at the bracelet, and then at Jamie. “Kahee.” A shadow shifted in her eyes. “The girl that died. Did you know her?”
“Yeah.”
When she laid her hand on his arm, no layer of light came between them now. He sensed something coming from her again. The tube, this time. He’d let himself be vulnerable. Shaking her off, he drew on his rage against Jill and his horror of Dahlia’s touch. The feeler stopped, but it didn’t let go. She whispered, “Jill tells me everything. Do you want to know how Kandy Kahee died?”
“Fuck, no. I already do.”
“You can’t. Jill never told anyone but me. How did you find out?”
He wasn’t about to betray Mae and have Dahlia go after her, too. “I talk to the dead.”
“Seriously? Like that fat woman?”
The sucker pushed in again. Could Jamie do what he’d told Mae he would, and turn the negative energy back at Dahlia? He was supposed to heal her, not hurt her, but she was attacking him. His pulse accelerated, his breath grew shallow, and he felt sick. Desperate, he imagined vomiting out her intrusion.
The invading sensation stopped. Dahlia put her jewelry back in its box. Jamie knew he should try to get back on track with the plan, but she scared him too much now, and Gasser was crying again. “’Scuse me. Need to take care of my cat.”
Her expression so subtle he couldn’t tell if she was angry or pleased, Dahlia pinched up a wad of Gasser’s hair off the pillow and twisted it into a little rope. There was a vibration to her energy, something as powerful and hot as her face and voice were cold. “You do that.”
––––––––
The cat fell silent. Worn himself out, poor thing. Jamie opened the guest room door. “All cried out, mate?” No response. The cat’s sides didn’t swell with breath. Jamie crouched and felt him for a pulse. “No, fuck, no—”
Downstairs, Mae screamed and the smoke alarm blared. The front door slammed.
Clutching Gasser’s inert body, barely aware that he was crying, Jamie ran down to the kitchen. Mae, her back to him, was aiming a fire extinguisher at smoke pouring from the outlet where the wok was plugged in. She was alone. The slamming door had to have been Dahlia. The wall began to smoke and darken. Mae swung the nozzle of the extinguisher up and down the area of the fire. “I couldn’t touch it to unplug it or turn it off.”
“Stop. Let it go.”
She kept spraying. “No. You worked so hard on this place—your painting, your new furniture—”
Holding Gasser with one arm, he grabbed her elbow and pulled her toward the door. “I’m not risking you for my fucking stuff. Let it go.”
––––––––
While Mae banged on Fern’s door, shouting to her to call the fire department and get out, Jamie dropped to his knees in the dirt of the front yard. Gently, he laid Gasser in front of him and felt again for something to revive, probing though flesh and fur for a pulse. None. He turned him face up between his knees and pressed the cat’s chest rhythmically with two fingers in a desperate attempt to resuscitate his heart. Nothing happened.
Jamie let the inner door of his vision open. He moved his fingers up to Gasser’s second chakra. The soul was thready but present. He returned to the physical heart. One of Dahlia’s little darts stuck there. It felt like a miniature arrowhead carved from bone, yet made of spirit stuff. Jamie sent everything he could into saving his pet, an effort as fluid and intense as singing at full volume, holding his highest note. Gasser spasmed and let out a strange, choking yowl. The dart broke loose, floated out of his body, and then vanished. Gasser lay limp, heavy, and silent.
Mae knelt in front of Jamie. “Oh my god, sugar, what happened? Is Gasser ...?”
His voice cracked. “Dunno.”
Dimly aware of Fern’s dowdy form hovering behind Mae, Jamie examined his cat again. There was another spirit-bone arrowhead in his tail-spine chakra. Again, Jamie flooded him with full healing force. Again, Gasser spasmed, but this time he gave a little mew of relief. The dart popped loose, left him, and dissolved. Jamie stroked him, feeling his breath and heartbeat, speaking soothing words through a new flood of tears.
When the fire truck arrived, he got to his feet, hugging Gasser to his chest, and walked away from the building, away from Mae’s attempts to comfort him and Fern’s persistent questions about what had started the fire. They didn’t understand. His companion had almost died, and it had been his fault. He’d failed. Called out the witch instead of healed her.
He paced down the sidewalk, away from the noise, and cuddled the cat to his face, listening to what could be a purr. “Jesus, mate, are you really all right?”
The cold sense of being stared at snagged him. He looked for its source. Dahlia was standing across the street, as motionless as a mannequin. The moment they met each other’s gazes, she vanished. A white owl flew into a tree in a neighbor’s yard. A chill gripped Jamie’s bones. He bowed his head over his cat and hunched his shoulders protectively around him. The huffing of large wings passed overhead.
He stood still, closed his eyes, and summoned the strength and focus to close his inner vision. He never wanted to see Dahlia’s soul again.
––––––––
The apartment stank with smoke, though only one wall in the kitchen was damaged. Jamie called his parents and told them he needed to come out for the night, bringing Mae and Gasser. He didn’t dare stay home. Dahlia knew where he lived, and how to kill with power. Why she would do it, he didn’t know, but she’d tried.
Mae drove, and Jamie held Gasser in his lap. He felt underwater with exhaustion, his words struggling through to the surface, but he managed to tell her everything that had happened, up through the moment Dahlia had done something witchy with Gasser’s fur.
Mae asked, “Do you think she did it to get power from his death?”
“Dunno. Maybe she did it at me when I pissed her off.” Then he remembered what Andrea had said, when she’d been laughing about Jill’s drum circle and their secrets. “Fuck. She really thought he was my power animal.”
“She believes that stuff?”
“Yeah. She’s got one.” He shivered. “I saw it.”
He described the owl. Mae remained silent for a while, and then said, “Kate saw that. In her crystal ball. She doesn’t want me to share her readings, but you should know. In the next part of the vision, Dahlia hitched a ride with someone who crashed into a cliff.”
Jamie petted his cat’s spreading sides, cherishing the furry heat. Life. “Probably me after she killed Gasser.”
“Or one of the people whose power she took. Some of them have crashed pretty bad. Especially Fiona.”
Fiona. “Bloody hell.” Jamie had failed her, failed Ximena, failed everyone by not healing Dahlia. All he’d done was make her act even worse. “Can’t believe how bad I fucked up.”
Mae reached over and rubbed Gasser before she took Jamie’s hand. The gesture touched him even though Gasser didn’t respond to it. “You tried your best, sugar.” She glanced at him, and then back at the road. “You gave it a good shot. At least she didn’t get Gasser. He’s your baby. Good thing you’d been practicing on him.”
––––––––
It was hard for Jamie to let go, but he knew the cat needed to rest. He put him on the bed in his room at his parents’ house, and went downstairs to join Mae, Stan, and Addie. Their conversation drifted to him from the back yard, far from the lights of the house, where the stars would be at their brightest. Addie’s voice carried like a bell.
“Showing Mae the view, love. Come on down.”
He found them sitting on the bent trunk of an old, wind-twisted juniper that formed a natural bench facing the arroyo, under a black sky blazing with stars. His parents sat hip to hip, and Mae a seat-width from Stan. Jamie slid into the space and put an arm around Mae.
“I told them about Dahlia and Gasser,” she said. “And about those little arrowheads.”
Addie leaned around and patted Jamie’s knee. “I’m proud of you, love. You saved him.”
“But that’s all I did. I fucked up the rest.”
Mae squeezed his hand that held her shoulder. “If you could have kept that spirit guide with you, maybe you could have won. There had to be some reason why he was pissing her off like that.”
Jamie kicked a heel into the dirt. “But I had no fucking control. I can bring a spirit in, but I can’t control it once it’s there. Bloody thing runs off.”
Stan said. “Control might not have mattered. You couldn’t have known what was coming. I’ve met two shamans in my entire life who could kill that way. You could hardly expect it of a nineteen-year-old fashion model.”
“Dunno. She said something about animal sacrifice, but I didn’t hear it as anything serious. She was in the middle of snarking about my food and Mae’s metabolism and everything else, and it sounded like the rest of her crap.” Jamie picked at a piece of the tree’s bark. He stopped. This was its skin. It would feel it. He patted the hurt place. Sorry. “I should have noticed.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Stan said. “You didn’t know what she did was possible. I didn’t want to scare you, so I never told you.”
A disturbing possibility crept in. “Did you publish it?”
Stan turned to face him as much as their close seating allowed. “I wrote about it—in that skeptical manner of the professional observer—as an unexplained phenomenon attributed to extraordinary powers. It’s an obscure article, too bizarre to have ever gotten much attention. It was about fifteen years ago.”
“Jill could have read it. She was still a scholar back then, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, but she isn’t a shaman. You know that. She wouldn’t be able to do anything with it.”
“She wouldn’t. But there are people the spirits want, y’know? Me, Mae—maybe Dahlia. And Jill knows some rituals, even if she doesn’t have the power to use them.”
“So she finds a gifted person and turns her into a monster?” Addie said. “Even for Jill, that’s quite a stretch.”
“Nah. She finds a monster and turns her into a shaman.” Jamie stood and walked to the brink of the arroyo. The emptiness below exhaled a drift of warmer air, the earth breathing in its sleep. “She’s using Dahlia to hurt me so she can hurt you, or to show she’s a real scholar who knows her stuff so well she can—”
“Kill a harmless animal?” Stan cut in. “That’s a lot of firepower for an academic argument.”
Jamie looked back at him, and noticed that Mae and Addie were leaning forward on the bent trunk, poised like sprinters in blocks. His closeness to the edge probably made them nervous. He moved away from it. “She used Kandy that way.”
“Yes—but I don’t think Jill meant for her to die,” Stan said. “An alcoholic blackout, a surrender—that was all she needed to have happen.”
True. Jill had manipulated Kandy into giving up, but she hadn’t intentionally murdered her. Cold-hearted as she was, Jill wouldn’t kill his cat, either. It was Lily that hated cats—and her mother.