I was tempted to just let him sleep on the couch, but he stank and was covered in grit and mud.
“Keep going,” I ordered, as I changed direction and got us aimed toward the nearest bathroom. “You need to shower.”
He said something, but it came out in a mumble I couldn’t decipher.
The bathroom was between two guest rooms. I steered Card into it and sat him on the closed toilet.
The bathroom wasn’t fussy, just knotty wood walls, white porcelain, and brushed bronze fixtures. I stepped around him to start the shower, holding my fingers under the spray and waiting for the hot water. I adjusted the temperature and turned to Card.
“Okay, you got this?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I...yeah. Thanks for... Thanks.”
I pointed at the towel on the shelf. “Clean towel there. Soap in the shower. Use the scrubber. You reek.”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
“Don’t put your clothes in the hamper, just leave them on the floor. I’ll put them in the wash as soon as you’re done.”
At his frown, I said, “I have a pair of sweats and a T-shirt you can change into.”
“Probably good,” he said, plucking at his shirt. It peeled away from his skin with a tearing tape sound.
“Card?”
He looked up at me, blinked until his vision cleared. “Yes, Ricks?”
“Don’t pass out and drown in my shower, okay? I don’t want to be on the hook with Fate alone.”
“No. I got this.” He braced his hand on the counter, pushed to his feet, then tugged his shirt, drawing it up and over his head.
I tried not to look at all that muscle, covered in mud, scratches and bruises, and failed completely. I had to force myself to walk out the door and shut it behind me.
I leaned on the shut door for a moment and exhaled. God, he was good looking. One-hundred percent trouble, but damn good looking.
“I started the kettle for tea.” Val appeared at my elbow and grinned.
I’d wondered where he’d been. “I love you.”
He splayed fingers on his chest. “I didn’t know we were taking our relationship to that level,” he said. “Warn a guy next time. How did it go? I see neither of you are dead, which is good.”
“We got one coin.” I walked into the guest room and dug through the dresser for sweats that would fit Card.
“Are you okay?” Val asked.
“So far. Did you think of anyone who might help us?”
“Lula Gauge,” he said. “She’s got her finger on the magical item black market trade. She might know if someone’s trying to sell a coin.”
I stacked the sweats and shirt in my arms. “Not a bad idea.”
“Plus, it will give me a chance to try calling them again.”
“To bother them.”
“Well, yes. Tea first?”
“Give me a minute.”
I knocked on the bathroom door. “Clothes!” I opened the door and set them on the counter without looking at the shower. Warm, soap-scented fog filled the room.
“You still awake?”
“Mostly,” came a mumbled reply. “Almost done.”
I shut the door and headed to my bedroom. After locking the door, I went into my bathroom, stripped, and started the shower.
The Crossroads was old, but I’d done a lot of upgrades. Running two showers at the same time didn’t steal pressure or heat from either bathroom, something I was grateful for at the moment.
I left my clothes on the floor and stepped into the warm spray.
I groaned in relief and just stood there for a couple minutes, letting the water pound the ache out of my shoulders and back. Little stings from bites and cuts bloomed as I rubbed tea tree soap over my skin. I kept lathering up and rinsing until I could no longer smell the swamp, and the cuts and bites and itching had gone numb.
“He could just find the other two coins on his own,” I said, as water poured over my face. “I could still kick him out. Go back to my life. Build my shop.”
But even as I said it, I knew the words were hollow. I wanted more than just his tree to make it through this encounter with Fate. I wanted him to make it too.
The image of him shouting and happy after he’d made the tree walk made me chuckle.
“You, Cardamom Oak, are delightfully mad. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I’m glad you came back.”
I wanted to linger, but it was getting late, and I was very aware of time slipping away.
I dried, dressed in comfortable jeans and a tank with a light shirt. I didn’t know when I’d have to move and move fast, so I wasn’t going to put on my pajamas and fuzzy slippers.
I shook my fingers through my hair, then stopped in my room long enough to grab socks and a pair of running shoes.
By the time I made it downstairs, Card was already in the kitchen and the smell of melted cheese, butter, and something sharp like vinegar hit my nose.
“All good?” he said without looking away from the griddle. “I thought I’d put together some sandwiches. Hope you still like Rubens.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll make tea.”
“Already done.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Kettle was hot when I got here. Tea’s on the table. Sit if you want. These are almost ready.”
I sat at the table in the center of the room and poured myself tea from the pot he’d left steeping. He’d also cut tomato wedges and sliced cucumber. I forked the veggies onto my plate. I was hungry. I was tired. And not having to make my own dinner was heaven.
“Tea strong enough?” he asked, turning off the burner and moving the griddle to the side.
I took a sip and sighed. “Yes.” It was perfect.
He plated the sandwiches, tossed a towel over his shoulder, and brought them to the table.
He sat.
I claimed one of the sandwiches, cut it in half and took a bite. The contrast of toasted, buttery bread with warm, soft cheese, meat, with the vinegar tang of sauerkraut and sauce was delicious. Half the sandwich was gone in short order, and I refilled my tea before realizing we’d fallen into the kind of comfortable silence couples usually have.
Or friends, I thought. Friends could do comfortable silence too.
“I don’t remember everything clearly,” Card said. “Well, not after the tree walk. That, I remember.” He grinned into his tea. “Would do again, even if it did throw me off my game a little.”
“You passed out.”
“I was overwhelmed by my own ingenuity.”
“Face down. In the mud. You were sucking mud.”
“Communing with nature. Kissing the green, as the dryads say.”
“The dryads very much do not say that,” I laughed. “You were magic drunk, and if I hadn’t been there, that siren would have stepped on your head so she could keep the coin.”
“Naw, she was cool.”
“The hell. She wanted you dead. She didn’t like you.”
“Everyone likes me.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“They do. Even Gary likes me. Or he would have, if we’d stayed to talk to him.”
“Gary was going to smash you into chunky soup for messing with his tree.”
Card smiled. “But that tree walked. You saw it right? So good.”
“It was chaos, Card. It always is.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “It usually is.” He cleared his throat. “So I remember the walk. But not much else until the apple tree. Did Lilt Keyva force you into any despicable deals?”
“No. I made her pay what she promised us and that was that.”
“She didn’t try to tempt you into a trap? I mean, sirens gotta siren.”
“No she...just... No, nothing.”
“Something,” he said. “Was it about me? Did she offer to show you my future? My impending death?”
“I thought you said not everything is about you.”
“Ooooh. But this was about me. But not my future. Hmm. What else would she offer you that she’d think you’d want?”
“Please leave it.” I finished off my sandwich, unable to look him in the eyes.
“Oh,” he said, like someone had just punched him in the chest. “Thistal.” His sister’s name fell from his lips like a prayer. “She said she’d tell you about Thistal.”
I drank tea, so I didn’t have to answer him.
“But she already told me. She said...”
“I know,” I said. “The siren told you she was not alive.”
He looked down, suddenly interested in the tabletop.
“Card,” I said. “You do understand sirens manipulate people. They’re all about illusion and distraction. Card?”
He nodded. “I know.”
“She didn’t say she was dead. It’s a very slight difference, but it is a difference.”
“Not alive is the same as dead, Ricks.”
“It’s not.” I reached over and touched his wrist. His skin was warm from the shower, from cooking. I wondered how the texture of someone could bring back so many memories.
“It is not the same,” I said as his gaze lifted. “Sirens are all about misdirection. They tell you what they want, to make you break yourself on their rocks. Don’t do your own drowning for her.”
His eyes glittered, and he cleared his throat again. He gently pulled his wrist from under my touch, trying to make it look as casual as possible.
“You didn’t tell her yes, did you?” he asked.
“What kind of dummy would ask a liar to tell them the future?”
He huffed a short breath. “Ouch. Maybe someone desperate?”
“Obviously.” I took my plate to the sink, running the water over it, then turning. “I’m going to call a friend and see if she’s heard about a new coin hitting the black market. Can you give me anything on the other two coins? Do you know where they are?”
“One is, should maybe be, where I left it. The other one I...um...gave to someone.”
“So who has the other coin?”
“He might not even have it still.”
“Someone with a crystal ball? A Ouija board?”
“Why don’t we focus on the coin I hid? I could go find it now.”
“Card.”
“I’m not up for more magical travel, but we could get there and back before noon tomorrow, I think, if we leave now.”
“Leaving us the other coin to find and no time. Card. If you hid it, it’s going to stay hidden. Who did you give the other coin to?”
He took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. “I had, well, not exactly a good day today. It was long. Exhausting. Painful.” A small smile curved his lips.
“But it’s been good, too. Getting things done. Being with you. I know.” He rocked his head back down and shared that small smile. “You don’t like me, but I’ve missed you, Ricky. More than you’d believe.”
“What I believe,” I said, ignoring the pang of loneliness his words set off inside me, “is that you are completely side-stepping my question. Who did you give the coin to?”
He rubbed his face and stood. “It’s probably long gone by now. He probably sold it. I really think getting the one I hid would be our best move.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll play along. Let’s say we go get the hidden coin, wherever that is. How are we going to find the other coin you gave away, if you think that person—the man—sold it.”
“If I can get some sleep, build my strength, I’ll talk to the trees and see if they can feel it in the world.”
I waited for the rest of it.
“Your trees. Ah, hell,” he said. “I’ll talk to your trees if you let me. They’re familiar with magic, and they know me, so it should be easy, well, not as hard, to ask them to ask other trees if they’ve felt Fate’s coin.”
“You think the trees know where the other coin is?”
He spread his hands. “I think we should ask.”
It was true that his tree’s roots began here, which meant he would be able to reach a lot of roots, a lot of land, a lot of green that could tell him if they’d felt Fate’s coin passing by.
“You could have done the same thing with your own tree,” I said.
“I thought Fate would find her if I did. Turns out it didn’t matter.”
I shifted over as he put his plate and cup in the sink. He was moving like every muscle ached. He wasn’t lying about needing some recovery time.
“Okay, yes. You can talk to my trees,” I said. “But so help me, if you try to make any of them walk, even a single blade of grass, I will wash my hands of this whole mess and sell you to the siren, or Fate, or whoever will pay the contract fastest.”
He tucked his ring finger under his thumb in some sort of an oath signal. “No green walking. Promise.”
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I? Why do I know I’m going to regret this?”
“You won’t. I promise. We can get to the hidden coin, then I talk to the trees and this will all be over. Soon.”
He braced his hands on the counter, then turned, propping himself against it and trying not to look like he was so exhausted he was about to fall asleep on his feet.
“How far away is the hidden coin?”
“About four hours.”
“Round trip?”
“Yeah. Round trip.”
“Okay, so you’re going to get some sleep. No, don’t argue. I’m giving you an hour and a half. That will give me time to take care of a few things, and then we’ll go.”
“There’s not a lot of time...”
“There’s enough. We have one coin. We know where one is. And if your tree talking plan is going to work, you need sleep. I’ll sleep in the car on the way home. Go.”
He hesitated a moment more, then nodded. “Wake me.”
“I will.”
He walked, still barefoot—I’d forgotten how sexy that looked on him—across the kitchen and down the hall. Before he stepped out the doorway, he paused. “Thanks, Ricky.”
“You getting tired of saying that?”
“No. Never.”
“Sleep. I’m going to follow up on a lead.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and poured myself another cup of tea.
He lingered, then left, the soft shush of his feet on the old wood floors, fading.
I waited until the bedroom door closed, then groaned. “He knows where the coins are.”
“He might not know where one is,” Val said, strolling into the kitchen. “That one with the man.”
“No, he knows. He just doesn’t think I’d approve of who he gave it to.”
“That narrows it down. Who would you hate him trading the coin to? Wait,” Val said. “It also has to be someone he’d think would have information or resources he’d need to find his sister.”
Val sat in the chair Card had just been occupying, the ghostly wolf lying at his feet.
“There are a lot of beings in this world who could help him. Gods, demigods, supernaturals, witches, wizards, seers. He knows about all of them. It could be anyone.”
“Someone you don’t like?”
“I don’t like a lot of people.” I pushed my phone across the table to him. “Okay. Give it a try. Remember, it is energy, you are energy, the whole world is energy.”
“Very Zen,” he muttered. He held his palm flat above the screen and closed his eyes. I drank tea and waited.
We’d done this a few times in the last couple weeks since Lu and Brogan had left.
Val had decided to stay behind with me. I thought he’d really stayed behind to figure out his afterlife relationship with Danube, a werewolf from one of the nearby packs with whom he had unfinished business.
It was also possible he’d stayed behind so he could better bother Lu and Brogan as they drove Route 66.
The phone lit up.
“Good,” I said. “It’s on. Now find their contact on the list.”
Val rubbed his fingertips with his thumb, then hovered his hand over the screen again. The screen flipped, the app opened, and the contacts I’d stored slowly scrolled by. He rolled past Lula’s number, then frowned and narrowed his eyes.
Contacts reversed in a very slow tick, tick, tick. I thought he’d miss it again, but the screen stopped on Lu’s number.
“Showoff,” I said. “Now dial.”
He sat back for a second and closed his eyes. I knew it took a massive amount of energy to bridge the planes of the living and the unliving. But he was determined.
He straightened, cracked his knuckles on one hand, and winked at me. “I got this.”
“Lots of talk, wolf. Let’s see the action.”
“I’ll show you action.” He stabbed his finger down.
Nothing.
Then the screen shifted and the phone rang.
“Yes!” he yelled. “Hell, yes. I dialed the crap out of that phone!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, proud of him, but not wanting to listen to his celebration all night. “You dialed a phone. Yay.”
“Hey, Ricky. This is Brogan,” a deep male voice answered.
“Hi!” a smaller, child-like voice said at a distance. “It’s me, Crossroads! Abbi! Remember me?”
“She remembers you,” Brogan grumbled. “No one can forget you. That’s half your problem.”
“Hey!” she chirped. “I am the moon! And all will bow...”
Her voice cut off in a laugh. There was a scuffle like Brogan had shoved her over, or maybe that big cat of hers had pounced on her.
“Sorry,” Brogan said a minute later. “What do you need? And if this is actually Val dialing us, I’m gonna hang up now.”
“What if I had really important information about that book you’re looking for?” Val asked.
Brogan paused. I had found it fascinating the first time Val had called Brogan and only Brogan had been able to hear him over the phone. But that had something to do with the fact that Brogan had been mostly dead for almost a hundred years, and was still able to see and hear ghosts.
Whereas his wife, Lula, had been mostly alive for that same time, soul-tied to him. And even though she was not quite dead, but more half vampire, she couldn’t hear ghosts.
Not even when they were using my cell phone.
“I’d say you’re full of shit,” Brogan growled. “Good-bye, Val. Stop messing around with Ricky’s phone.”
“Hey, Brogan,” I said before he had a chance to end the call. “I’m here. I was just letting Val practice dialing.”
“All right,” Brogan said. “You, I’ll talk to.”
“Thanks. I need some information, if you have it.”
“From me?”
I knew I should proceed carefully here. I’d been Lula’s friend for many years while Brogan had been an earthbound spirit. Lula and I had a good relationship, a great relationship.
I’d assumed Brogan and I would be instant friends now he was back in the physical world. But to my surprise, Brogan had disliked me on first sight.
Lula had told me it was jealousy. She and I had spent time together for decades.
Now that he was alive, he was terrified of losing the time they finally had together.
He’d mostly gotten over being jealous of me. I thought we were friends, now. But that friendship was new and fragile.
“You want to talk to Lula, don’t you?” he asked.
“I just need to know if she’s run across a god coin on the black market.”
He inhaled, exhaled. “You don’t have to make excuses for talking to her, Ricky.”
“It’s not an excuse. Card showed up. He tangled with a god, which, and I will state for the record again, my friends seem to have a disturbing habit of doing lately.”
“Card? Cardamom Oak? I thought you kicked him out years ago.”
“Mostly,” I said, not really wanting to rehash my heartache. “But you know how it goes. All sorts of outcasts blow up on my steps.”
“You want us to come back?” He was moving again, I could hear it from how his voice got louder and quieter as he adjusted the phone. “We aren’t that far out, Ricky. Just in Oklahoma.”
“No. Not unless you actually have the coins?”
“Coins? More than one?”
“To cover the bases, I’m saying two. Might only be one on the market.”
“Hold on.”
He moved the phone away from his face. “Lu, love. Ricky has a question about god coins.”
I could hear her in the background, but couldn’t quite make out her words. Then Brogan said, “Which button? This isn’t... Okay, that one. Can you still hear me?” he asked. “You can talk now. To both of us.”
“Hi, Ricky,” Lula said. “You’re on speaker. I’m at my computer. What are you looking for?”
“Hey, Lu-lala. Two of Fate’s coins. Have they popped up on the magic black market yet?”
“Fate’s coins? As in the goddess Fate?”
“Yes.”
She huffed a breath. “Where were they last seen?”
“In Card’s pockets, apparently.”
“All right. Where was he?”
“A diner out in Oregon. But you know him. He moves around.”
She hummed, and I could hear her fingers on the keyboard. “So, Card’s back, huh?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Do you want me to come by and kick his knees out?”
I chuckled and looked up at the ceiling, suddenly missing her, my best friend.
“Tempting. But you just left, and you have god problems of your own.”
“Like I wouldn’t take time to stand beside you.”
“I know. I know you would, Lu-lala. But there’s a time limit on returning the coins.”
“Of course there is,” Brogan said. “Gods invented time. Now suddenly when they want something, they are surely the fuck determined not to have enough of it. How long do we have?”
My heart jumped at him saying “we.” “Brogan Gauge, you are fast becoming my second best friend in the world.”
“Of course I’m your second best friend. Wait. Who’s your first? Because if it’s Val...”
“Finally, someone’s talking about me,” Val said. “I am at least her first best friend.” The ghost winked at me. He leaned toward the phone so he could yell into it. “And you are way, way down the list way, way after me.”
“Best thing about this conversation?” Brogan asked. “You are half a state away.”
“You can’t deny it, Brobro. I’m your best friend.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Ricky? Would you please throw some holy water in his face?”
“That’s for demons,” I said. “And I don’t have any handy at the moment.”
“We’re packing up,” Lula said. “We can be there in a couple days.”
“No, don’t. Listen,” I said. “We have until noon tomorrow to find the coins.”
“What happens if you don’t find them?” Lula asked.
“They kill his tree. Card’s tree.”
“That man jilted you years ago,” Brogan said. “Do we care if they kill his tree? What? Why are you scowling at me?”
“Ricky?” Lula had obviously turned off the speaker. “We’ve got your back. Whatever you need, we’ll do it. If you want us there in a few hours, we can find a way.”
I thought about it. It’d be really nice to have friends next to me, especially since I had a trio of goddesses camped out just a couple blocks down the road, and time was ticking out.
But if we didn’t know where the coins were, having Brogan and Lula here in Fate’s blast range wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good.
“I need your contacts,” I said. “Anyone you can call who might have seen a coin. We still have tonight and half of tomorrow. If we can get a lead, then I might ask you to help us get them back.”
“Does she mean steal?” Abbi asked in the background. “I want to try stealing something from someone. I’d be good at it.”
“Hold on,” Lula said. “I got a hit.”
There was the soft sound of fingers on keys again.
Then she inhaled and held it.
“What?” I asked after an extended moment. “Did you find one? Both?”
“No, but... Okay. Ricky, I searched for Fate’s coins, and because you’re in Missouri, I used that as a possible location and got a hit.”
“Finally.” I grinned at Val. “So where’s it at?”
“I didn’t find the coin. Not exactly,” she said.
“Lula.”
“This isn’t going to make you happy, so I hope you’re not holding an antique you don’t want smashed against the wall.”
“Well, hell. Did I tell you I had to deal with a siren today? A swamp siren. And a rougarou. Like today can get any worse.
“So just tell me the next pile of crap I’m gonna wade through. Is it demons? More gods? Hellspawn? It’s hellspawn, isn’t it? Dammit, you know I rash when I kill those things.”
“No,” she said. “None of that. Take a deep breath.”
“Just pull the Band-Aid already.”
“There’s a note. That’s all that came back from the search terms.”
“A note.”
“Yes.”
“Read it, so I can weep.”
“It says: ‘Call me, Erica. Dad.’”