Chapter 8
“I’ll meet you there,” Talia
said.
Layla agreed and hung up the phone.
Library, first floor, half an hour. With Talia Thorne. Wow. Layla
still couldn’t believe it.
Her couple hours of crappy sleep were
not enough to clear her exhaustion, but the appointment gave her a
jacked alertness.
Talia had been the shock of a
lifetime—a kindred spirit. Until now, Layla had believed those were
a myth. But as she thought of last night, her heart gave an
off-rhythm, double-beat glub. She’d never felt like this
before.
More difficult to face was the idea
that wraiths might have a viable paranormal explanation after all,
rather than the science-based origin she’d been pulling for since
day one. Personal bias might have slanted her articles, which made
her wince. And here she’d thought she was being so scrupulously
neutral. She’d have to ask her editor to hold that last
article.
Layla was hoping to see some case
files, but Talia said she’d have to be set up on the view-only
interactive tablets that accessed Segue’s database. So, for now,
she’d be going old school and browsing the texts amassed on the
library shelves behind her, then later doing some staff interviews
with those who felt comfortable sharing their findings. Dr. Sikes’s
work on wraith cellular regeneration was very high on her wish
list.
She intended to get started any minute,
but she couldn’t rip her gaze from the painting over the library’s
fireplace mantel, not even to enjoy the fire licking below, though
the room was cold.
Trees and more trees, craggy with age
and glowing with magic, filled the canvas. The artist’s execution
gave the forest an uncanny, realistic depth, yet the paint had the
texture and surface immediacy of brushstrokes.
As Layla stared into the boughs, her
breath grew short, her body hummed, and her nerves crackled. These
were Khan’s trees, the ones in his mirror, the ones she’d glimpsed
when she’d passed through Shadow in his arms. But more than that,
she’d seen this place, time and again, though mostly darker, over
the course of her life. Thank God, someone else had seen it, too.
The proof was right there.
Layla cocked her head. A child was
crying close by. Had to be one of Talia’s kids, but with each
squall, the leaves on the magic trees rustled. The painting, like
Khan’s mirror, was alive.
She glanced at the corner of the
canvas. Kathleen O’Brien was written in a
loopy script. Talia’s mother. So that’s why it was here and not in
some gallery proving to the world that Layla wasn’t crazy. Talia
kept her mom close.
Layla stepped back and forced herself
to turn away; otherwise, she’d stare all day.
The library was old-fashioned, with
dark wood bookcases, thick and deep. Books lined the shelves, their
covers faded, the old paper smell prevailing over the wood burning
in the fireplace. Three neat cubby desks had laptops ready for use.
And centered in the room were two large tables for spread-out
work.
Better get started.
As she skimmed her fingers over the
first row of spines, an old guy stepped out from among the deeper
shelves, a short pile of books in his hand. He was white bearded,
disheveled, with a bit of a belly hanging over his pleated slacks.
He moved his reading glasses down his nose as he approached, his
gaze sharp on her face.
“You’ll want to begin with these,” he
said.
“Excuse me?” Layla had to keep from
looking behind her to see if he addressed someone
else.
“For background. One of them is mine.
It has the most comprehensive review of what you’ll be looking for.
The bulk of what’s out there is just sloppy work.”
He handed her the books, and she
glimpsed the titles: The Soul of Man in Philosophy
and Social Anthropology and Relativism and
Rationalism in Paranormal Linguistics . Talk about taking
her work in another direction.
“Um, thank you.” She hated initiating
introductions. “I’m Layla Mathews, by the way. New
here.”
“Not so new, from what I’ve heard.” He
held out his hand, and they shook. “I’m Dr. Philip James. Talia
asked me to get you started. Colic keeps her busy with her
children.”
Disappointed, Layla turned back to the
painting, from which she could still hear the faint cries of a
baby. She was used to seeing things, not necessarily hearing them.
“You mean they’re not down here?”
“No, but I’d not be surprised if you
could hear them scream. Their mother, after all, is
a—”
A chair went skating across the
room.
Goose bumps swept across Layla’s body.
Oh, crap. Not another one. “Ghost.”
Dr. James frowned into his jowls as his
gaze darted around the room. “Ms. Mathews, you need to do a lot
more reading if you believe a spirit did that.”
Layla remembered what Marcie had said.
“Ghosts can’t act on the world.”
“Correct.”
“Then what?” She knew of wraiths and
now angels, both of whom she’d seen with her bare
eyes.
“You, more than anyone, should know.
You brought him here.” Dr. James crossed himself and took a
backward step toward the door.
“Khan? Fae can be invisible?” If it
was he, there was no need to bolt. Sure,
Khan was intimidating, especially with his shows of magic, but as a
person, he wasn’t that bad.
The light in the room darkened so that
not even the fire cast a glow. Okay, that was eerie.
“The fae don’t need to be invisible.
They exist in Shadow, which is everywhere,” Dr. James murmured,
then louder, to the room, “My apologies. I meant no
offense.”
“Khan, knock it off and come out.” Way
to scare away a great potential source of information.
“No.” The sharpness of Dr. James’s tone
brought her head about. “No,” he repeated. “I don’t want to see
him.” He took another step back and gave a slight, but respectful
nod toward the room. “I’m not ready.”
“But . . . ?” Now Layla was completely
confused.
“Call me when you’ve finished with
those.” His gaze flicked to the books in her hand, and then he
left, footsteps hurrying down the hall.
Layla was alone. She waited a beat,
looking into the murk of the room. “Okay, he’s gone. Come out. I
have a lot of questions for you.”
After everything Talia had told her
last night, Layla had decided to start from scratch. She needed a
deeper understanding of the underlying processes at work within the
framework of the three worlds, and how the wraiths fit into the
scheme. And Khan still had some explaining to do about the
gate.
He didn’t show.
“Khan?”
The chair, of its own accord, returned
to the table, but slightly pulled out, for her to sit.
“Okay, fine.” She’d just ignore him
then. Eventually Talia would be down, and she was far more
forthcoming with answers than anyone else had been. Working with
her would be a pleasure. Besides, Layla had no patience for games,
especially as tired as she was. In fact, with all this paranormal
business, she was shocked she got any sleep at all last
night.
“I am not strong enough for your world
right now,” Khan said.
Layla whirled back to the painting.
Khan stood in the trees wrapped in his cloak, dark and pale. His
appearance had the same brushstroke quality, the fine ridges of
texture, that comprised the rest of the work. The painting, like
his gilded mirror, was a window, a passage to another world. She
understood that now. But when she put her hand to the canvas, all
she felt was the surface slickness of the dried oil
paint.
“Will this do?” he asked.
She’d seen Khan in his vampire pose
before—yesterday, when she’d been attacked and knocked unconscious.
She’d had a ridiculous princess dream. His look had been the same:
solemn, so dark as to be mistaken for shadows, his eyes full of
power and feeling.
And come to think of it, he’d been in
her nightmare last night, too.
“You were there,” she said. He’d been a
presence when she was all alone. Because of him, for once, the
dream hadn’t been as bad.
He gave a rueful smile. “I’ve been many
places.”
He was dodging again. “How about in my
dreams? If you’re not strong enough for my world, are you strong
enough for that?”
She held his gaze until he
answered.
The smile faded. “I should have been
there to protect you.”
So he had been
there in her head. “You can read minds, too?”
“No.” He walked forward, shifting the
motley daubs of color over the canvas as he moved, then crouched in
the foreground nearer to the canvas barrier. This close she could
see the brushstrokes on his skin, the fine lines that created his
hair, and the swirls of paint that were his shadows. “That is for
the angels. But I can sense what you feel—your loneliness, your
isolation, even among people.”
The soft rumble of his voice was
getting to her, and the color smudges of his appearance gave him an
old-world romantic cut, though he needed no help in that
department. He belonged in those trees, and something about their
rustling sway made her want to join him. It was a fantasy, and the
accompanying yearning was mixing her up. Again.
“Well cut it out.” Her feelings were
her own. “All these superpowers are going to give me a nervous
breakdown. And by the way, I happen to prefer my
isolation.”
He lifted a brow, not mocking exactly,
but telling her he knew better. “Emotion penetrates Shadow, so I
sense the truth. And if you don’t want me in your dreams, shut me
out. You have the power.”
Emotion penetrates . . . ? Well then he
had to know she was irritated. “I just say, ‘Go
away’?”
“That will do.”
“Then—” She stopped herself. She’d have
made a definitive statement blocking him, but the Joyce nightmare
had haunted her for years. The possibility of a good home. The
encroaching dark ones. The blood. She just couldn’t shut him
out.
Layla was shaking again. Better to
change the subject.
She floundered to gather her thoughts,
then focused on what was right in front of her. “Is the painting
under a spell? Or is it another way to your world?”
“You know about my world?” His gaze
went very, very serious. And not a little scary.
Layla squared her shoulders. “Talia
told me. She said that you were fae and that your kind exists in
the Shadowlands, a world between mortality and the
Hereafter.”
His gaze grew darker still. “Is that
all she said?”
“Yes,” she lied. It was also much
better to stay away from volatile subjects, like the suggestion
that she and Khan had been something to each other. “Now about the
wraiths—”
“Layla.” Khan’s voice lowered. “What
did she say?”
She winced. Okay, fine. Might as well
get it over with. They had to reach an understanding about this,
too, if she was going to get any work done. “She said that, um, you
and I . . .”
The tension in his eyes relaxed. Then
the man smiled, big and dangerous. “Yes. You and
I. Exactly.”
Something about the way he spoke sent a
fever burn over her skin. Had to be exhaustion, or she wouldn’t be
reacting so strongly.
“We were bound together with those
words,” he went on.
Layla choked. “Like
married?”
“That’s right. You’re
mine.”
No, no, no. The closest she had come to
marriage had been Ty, and she’d known from the beginning that it
wasn’t right. She went to fidget with the band of her engagement
ring, but it wasn’t there. Just that white stripe of skin. “I’m not
married.”
“What passed between us might be lost
to your memory, but nonetheless, I swear we came together, made
vows in our own way, and created a life.”
She shook her head. No. Although, if
she was going to be honest with herself, her body had been
remembering from the first moment he had her pressed up against
that awful gate. And Talia had confirmed as much last
night.
“A life?”
Something clicked in her mind. Talia
had said, Welcome to the family. Layla had
thought that Talia was being kind, putting her at ease. Was there
more to it than that?
If so, Layla didn’t want it. All her
life family had been a dirty word, an empty
promise. A joke. She was all grown up now and still hadn’t been
able to find her way into one.
Cold anger replaced disbelief. She was
so stupid. How had she let herself be conned? All the weird shit
yesterday, then Talia’s compelling explanation. Now she was
related? No. Suggesting it was cruel and twisted. Take an orphan
and pretend she’s long-lost family, except some upside-down
creation where the lost one was the mother? Come on. She wasn’t
falling for it. What were they trying to do?
Manipulate her and her story. Had to
be.
From inside the painting, Khan reached
her way. A current of Shadow emerged from the canvas, rippled
through the air like a smoky arm, to stroke her cheek.
She reeled back.
“Believe it,” he said.
Of all things, she thought of the gate.
If she listened hard enough, she could still hear its rattle,
kat-a-kat, calling her. She had placed her
hand on the lever. And then Khan was there, looking at her with
such terrible joy and yearning. He’d known
her. Had asked her how she’d found him. He’d called her . .
.
“Kathleen.” Layla’s heart tripped. “You
think I’m Kathleen.”
And when she’d recoiled from him and
explained who she was and why she was there, he’d obligingly filled
her head with his illusions. He’d said everything she wanted to
hear, promised a prize interview with the elusive Talia Thorne. And
after one conversation with Adam her welcome at Segue was assured,
when Adam had been so vehement only moments before about getting
rid of her.
Kathleen O’Brien. Talia’s
mother.
No.
It was ridiculous.
They were trying to control
her.
“Stay away from me.” She swatted at the
Shadow still hanging in the air.
“Why do you think you were drawn here?
Why endanger yourself for the wraiths when there are so many other
things you could do with your life?”
She wasn’t going to listen. “You guys
are screwed up.”
Layla gathered the stack of books. She
was going back to her room, where she would think of what to do
next.
“Layla!”
She walked briskly down the hallway.
She’d seen and experienced enough in the last twenty-four hours to
know that the paranormal existed alongside this world, and that she
was involved somehow.
But this was too much. This was
personal.
The hallway grew dark, but she ignored
it. Ignored him. Was it even possible to have a relationship with
that . . . creature?
She turned the corner to the elevator
just as Talia stepped out. A bright smile lit her face. “You going
somewhere?”
“Forgot something in my room,” Layla
mumbled. The soul ache flared, and not even holding her breath
would dampen it. Talia. Her daughter from another life?
Riiight.
“Then I’ll see you back here . . .
?”
“Yeah, sure,” Layla lied and punched
the button.
Little lines of worry formed between
Talia’s brows as the elevator doors closed. Well, Talia would just
have to deal. Better yet, she could ask her father what was wrong.
As far as Layla knew, he was still down there.
Or, oh, God, maybe he was in the
elevator.
She hugged herself tight.
She had to find Zoe. Zoe hated the
Thornes. Everyone could see that. If anyone would give her a
straight answer, it was she. Although . . . she had been the one to tip her off about Khan. Did she even
have a sick sister?
When the elevator doors opened she took
the right-hand hallway, not the left. To the west
wing.
Layla would see for
herself.
“What did you do?” His daughter slowly
turned to address the Shadow in the corridor. Her pale hair whipped
in the churn of her panic.
Do? I told her the
truth.
“She just got here!”
And Fate is conspiring
at this moment to take her away.
A human man exited his office, blanched
in fear of the gathered storm, then darted right back
inside.
Talia jabbed a finger in the air and
spoke through clenched teeth. “This is family business. I’m going
back to my apartment, and you will meet me there. Because I’ll be
damned ”—her voice rose, took on the
shattering quality of a banshee—“if I’m going to let you screw this
up for me.”
She turned to the elevator and slapped
the button, then waited, glowering in Shadow, for the vehicle to
come.
Khan sensed Layla’s soul light above,
moving briskly. He’d intended to push her, whether she was
frustrated or not. She wasn’t a weak woman, and they had so little
time. Kathleen had taught him how each beat of time was
precious.
But he hadn’t intended to hurt Layla,
and though he tried, he couldn’t fathom the turn of her mind that
had sent her fleeing from him. It wasn’t his claim on her. That had
only shocked her. And he knew, though she might not admit it to
herself, that she was intrigued and aroused by him. He had only to
stoke that fire, and she would be his.
So what had gone wrong? She’d come back
to Earth for Talia, so rediscovering her connection to her daughter
should only be joyful. An end to her loneliness.
He didn’t understand. Mortal men had
declared women’s minds a mystery. He agreed. Perhaps Talia could
shed light in his darkness.
The elevator doors slid open. A long,
quiet hallway stretched before Layla, the rug a classic red, beige
doors with white trim off to each side. Crap. Which floor, which door would lead to
Zoe?
She stepped out and knocked on the
first one. Waited. No answer. Knocked again. Somebody was going to
open up or she’d kick it in. She rapped again, harder.
Waited.
Down the hallway, a door opened. A
woman leaned out in a bathrobe with a towel turban on her head.
“Can I help you?”
Yes. Layla
strode over. She wanted a peek in the woman’s room. “I’m looking
for Zoe Maldano.”
The apartment had the same neutral
furnishings as Layla’s own, though it was cluttered with framed
photographs and papers. A coat was thrown over the arm of the
couch. The place was lived in, nothing unusual. The woman herself
was damp from a shower. The lines on her face put her in her
forties. Brown eyes.
“Zoe is on the fifth
floor.”
“Which room?”
The woman held out a hand, but her
expression had turned wary. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve
met.”
Layla smiled. “Oh, I’m Kathleen
O’Brien, Talia Thorne’s long-dead mother.”
“Is that supposed to be
funny?”
“Hilarious,” Layla answered, then
strode to the elevator again. Fifth floor, this time.
“You’ve got to go easy on her,” Talia
was saying. “You just can’t blurt this stuff out. It has to be
handled carefully.” She threw her hands up in frustration and paced
to the other end of the couch, where Adam was sitting on the arm.
From him, Khan felt her draw strength; her frustrations eased
somewhat.
“She came back for you,” Khan said.
“And she found you. That should make her happy.”
But he understood what his daughter
meant. Some things took time and some things were best left unsaid.
One glance in the wide mirror over a dining table was sufficient to
illustrate the problem. His daughter, like every other mortal, had
shaped his appearance based on her conception of Death. For her, he
was a man of impenetrable darkness, lacking any pigment of any
kind, except for his eyes, which glowed red in the reflection. A
demon man in a cloak. Still, after all this time.
“She’s overwhelmed and confused,” Talia
argued.
“She knows me. On every level but
consciousness, she accepts me.” It was consciousness that concerned
him most.
“Then court her.”
“There is no time.” Not when he had to
search for the devil as well. The creature should be near Segue
already, setting her traps.
“You don’t have a choice.”
Adam put an arm around his wife, easy
in his affection. “You want me to go after her? Do a little damage
control?”
From another room, a babe let out a
piercing wail. Talia fetched him, and returned, bouncing the infant
on her shoulder with a shhh, shhh,
shhh.
Khan had seen his daughter’s children
before, little bright lights full of noise and wonder, but Shadow
was deepening in this one. The black of his eyes was only the
slightest indicator of his heritage, though. The squalls that
lifted from his throat already stirred Twilight. Did his mother
know?
“Talia, girl, watch that child
carefully. Power rises in him.”
She stopped bouncing. Her jaw went
tight as her concern filled the space. “I know.”
“Like you, if he crosses into Twilight,
his mortal half will perish.”
Adam stroked Talia’s arm. “I’ll hold
them here. I’ll hold them both.”
“But, Adam,” Khan observed, “you have
two children, a wife, and only two hands.”
A loud crack brought Adam up.
“Gunshot.”
Layla found Zoe waiting for her outside
one of the doorways, so the woman below had to have called to warn
her. Zoe was in a holey T-shirt, the curve of one breast visible,
and rolled-up Segue sweats.
“Abigail is sleeping. If you make a
racket, I swear I’ll kill you.”
“Apparently,” Layla said, “I’m already
dead.”
“Look, I don’t do drama, and you seem
unhinged.” Zoe made a little scat motion with her hand. “So just
turn yourself right around and go back the other way.”
“I need to talk to you. Now.” Of all
the people Layla had met at Segue, Zoe was the least complacent.
She had to have an idea about what was going on.
“I have a gun just inside the doorway.
Please give me a reason to use it.”
“Why did you want me to write an
article exposing Adam and Talia? What are they really doing here?
Why are they messing with me?”
Zoe leaned inside her apartment and
came back with a Glock. “Found it outside last week.”
Layla startled, then put two and two
together. “That’s my gun.”
Zoe smiled. “Finders
keep—”
And the gun went crack!
Khan was already dissolving into Shadow
when Talia begged, voice urgent, “Find her. Please, don’t let her
go.”
It was easy to locate Layla; no soul
fire glowed so bright, so sure. She stood inside the living room of
another mortal woman, laughing, “How about I show you how to handle
a gun, eh?”
Fate had made yet another attempt on
her life, but Layla still lived, and she was unharmed.
The woman next to her was young and
hale, but her spirit was broken, curious faint trails of Shadow in
the air around her. She was wan with exhaustion. And he knew why.
In the next room, her kin, a sister, lay propped on a bed. The
woman bore an awesome gift, rare to humankind. In ancient times
they would have called her an oracle or a prophet and set her up
like a queen. Mortal blood and Shadow commingled within her veins,
and thus she aged rapidly toward the brink. She would have crossed
into Shadow already if not for the devoted hold of her sister, who
would not let her go. And so love once again trumped
death.
“It’s not a crime to want to protect
myself,” the woman said to Layla. Her expression was rude, her
emotion sick with old fear. “Wraiths keep coming, but Adam won’t
let me have a gun.”
“You hold on to it for now; just be
careful. There’s no standard safety on it, just that little lever
on the trigger, so don’t rest your finger there unless you mean
it.” Layla, whose anger had abated, held the gun out. “Go on, Zoe,
take it.”
“Fine.” The girl named Zoe grabbed the
gun. “I have to have something.” What went unsaid but Khan
understood was that she had to have something . . . for her sister.
“The world’s gone fucking nuts.”
“You’re telling me,” Layla
said.
“Oh, give it a rest,” Zoe sneered. “My
sister’s told me about you. I know you’re in thick with them and I
know why.”
“Care to share? Because frankly I’m at
a loss.”
“It’s really not my
problem.”
Layla turned back to the door,
frustration near bursting within her. “Right. Not your problem.
Happy times with the gun.”
“Wait,” Zoe said with a long-suffering
eye roll. Khan wondered why everything about the girl was at odds:
her body was young, but her soul was old; she expressed one thing,
but felt another; she said she hated Segue, but she clung to its
security. If she weren’t standing there in mortal flesh, he’d think
she was fae. “What did June and Ward Cleaver do to get you all
worked up? Must’ve been good, whatever they told you.”
Layla faced her. “Basically that I’m
related to them. I just need to know if they’re screwing with my
head. Because if what they say is true . . .”
“It’s true.”
“But . . .”
“It’s true.”
“Why should I believe you?” Layla’s
frustration gave way to acute anxiety, but Khan didn’t put a stop
to the conversation. If he couldn’t convince Layla, perhaps this
contrary woman could. “Maybe you’re in on it,” Layla
continued.
Zoe’s eyebrows went up. She put a hand
to the bedroom door, pushed it open. “Because I didn’t actually
mean to shoot at you, I’ll help you out. Then we’re
even.”
Layla looked inside. The ailing sister
lay slack on the bed. She was aged beyond her youth, hair thin and
colorless, wrinkled skin hanging loose and dry on her bones. Her
lips were cracked, Shadow filmy on the whites of her eyes. But Khan
knew Layla could see deeper than an illness of the flesh. For
Layla, the veil was as thin as a membrane, and just as transparent.
She looked on an oracle for the ages. Layla would see the trees of
Twilight looming darkly at the woman’s back. She’d see how Shadow
breached the matter of the oracle’s body, impregnating the pitiable
mortal with its capricious and jealous churn.
“That’s my sister,” Zoe said. “She
basically knows everything about everyone, which is why she’s so
sick. Add Adam and Talia’s fucked-up business and she’s ready to
die.”
Layla was silent, her breath stopping
as she looked on. Wonder and horror and sadness flooded out of her
and into Shadow, and Khan knew she was ready to
believe.
Finally.
“I’m so sorry for bothering you,” Layla
said to the oracle, stepping back.
The oracle’s eyes cracked open. “You’ve
finally come,” she rasped. “I’ve been waiting for
you.”
“Me? Why me?”
“You started all this. You and your fae
lord.”
Khan caught the rheumy shift of the
oracle’s gaze as it flicked up at the ceiling of the room, where he
watched.
“You mean Khan?”
The oracle grinned.
“Khan.”
“What about Talia?” Layla asked. “Are
we—? Is she—?”
Yes. Khan very
much wanted the oracle to answer this question. It would settle
everything.
The oracle’s smile faded. A tremor went
over her body, but she breathed a response. “Why do you ask what
you already know to be true?”
Shadow rolled into the room, and the
oracle’s eyes darkened, the lids widening in horror at a pressing
vision. “Rose is coming,” she choked. “Watch
yourself.”
Confused, Layla looked to Zoe. “I don’t
know a Rose.”
Zoe shrugged, murmuring. “The visions
overlap sometimes and don’t make sense. Did you get what you came
for, or what?”
Shadowman was tempted to see into the
oracle’s Shadow himself and witness this Rose who frightened her
so. Could she be the devil? But Layla was backing out of the room,
saying, “Yeah, I think I did.”
Zoe closed the door again. “If Abigail
says you’re related to those bastards, then you are. Goody for
you.”
“How long does she have?”
Zoe studied the floor. “I don’t know.
She’s all I’ve got. As long as I can hold on to her, I
guess.”
A similar conviction rose in Layla,
painful in its sharpness, so sweet in its fast-rising hope. She
looked to the outer door, as if seeking her daughter, Talia. “Yeah,
me too.”
And Khan knew, for the moment, all was
well. And it would be better still tonight when he could go to her
in her dreams. In the meantime, he had work to do.
Someone was cooking, and it smelled
like Heaven. Bacon, coffee, fresh bread. Rose wanted to cry, she
was so happy. After twelve years of being hungry and deprived,
tortured without reason, a home-cooked breakfast was just the thing
to start the day, and a new life.
All she had to do was take care of a
Ms. Layla Mathews. And Rose would, right after she
ate.
The B&B had been a godsend. A sweet
Victorian in the middle of downtown Middleton. The inside was
meticulous, woodwork gleaming, and the hand-sewn quilts decorating
the walls reminded Rose of her mother. Braided rugs kept the cold
off the polished floors. The owner, Grace, was a woman after her
own heart.
“How’s your hand this morning?” Grace
asked when Rose came downstairs and sniffed out the dining room,
ready to dig in.
Rose glanced at her bandage handiwork.
The proportions were a little off since her hand had lengthened and
thickened. Underneath, the yellowish cast to her skin had turned to
a bruised, unsightly green.
How provoking of Grace to mention
it.
“Just fine,” Rose answered and
approached the table. The lace runner had been removed and several
dishes were set out. The mix of savory and pastry scents made her
dizzy. “This looks delicious.”
Rose tried not to be annoyed by the
woman’s thoughts. Right now Grace was thinking, Just ask her. She’s got to be expecting it.
Grace smiled. “Wait till you try the
blueberry pancakes. They’ll keep you warm all day. But before we
start, how about we settle up? I can run it real fast, and we won’t
have money hanging over our heads while we eat.”
The woman had the nerve to congratulate
herself. There. That wasn’t so
hard.
Rose looked at the steaming plate of
cakes. She didn’t have any money. Not even a credit card. She’d
been dead twelve years. Besides, Mickey used to pay for
everything.
“I really should’ve taken care of it
last night, but you came in so late and seemed so tired,” Grace
said, then to herself, Don’t let her weasel out of
it.
Weasel? Rose’s
bad hand itched and ached, the binding suddenly too
tight.
She flashed her dimples. “I don’t have
my purse with me. When I come down again, I’ll take care of
it.”
No. You’ll sneak
out.
Grace put a hand to the back of Rose’s
chair, keeping it tucked under the table. “It’s just, you didn’t
have your purse last night either.”
A red haze swept over Rose’s eyes. She
really, really wanted to do something to Grace. Her hand was
burning with it, and her ears were pounding with the urge to act.
But the gate had warned against further bloodshed, even if it was
warranted. Said she could and would be tracked by it.
Inconvenient. The food was getting
cold. Her belly was rumbling.
“How about you just run up and get your
wallet.”
“How about you put a fork in your eye?”
Rose snapped.
No one was more shocked than Rose when
Grace did just that. Opaque fluid mixed with blood spurted, then
ran down her hostess’s cheek. Grace held the fork’s weight up, hand
shaking, and covered her oozing eye with her other hand. Goop
leaked between her fingers.
The screams that followed made Rose
ball up one of the nice linen napkins and stuff it in Grace’s
mouth. Too bad the screams went on in Grace’s head.
Helpme, please,
ohgodohgod, pull it out! Ohgod, hospital, helpme helpme . . .
!
Rose pushed Grace into the kitchen
pantry, shut the door, lodged a chair under the knob, and took her
breakfast to go. She wore Grace’s coat, a classic wool in royal
blue, and had Grace’s wallet in her pocket.
The old lady in the antique store was
harder to push, but after a few forceful suggestions, she handed
over the money in the cash register and danced around her store
naked like a monkey.
There really wasn’t anything Rose
couldn’t do.