Raintree: Oracle

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Curled in his arms, naked and sweating and sated, she sighed. All they had was now, this moment. It wouldn’t last. He’d loved Sybil at one time, and look how that had turned out.

  “I need a shower in the worst way,” Echo said as she disengaged, slowly and reluctantly leaving him and heading for the small attached bathroom. She flipped on the light, illuminating herself. She was picture perfect, nude and shapely and relaxed.

  Maybe she wanted some company in that shower.

  He joined her under the hot water, scrubbed her back, let her scrub his. He hadn’t had many really nice moments in the past few years. Hell, in his entire life. This was one. This was a moment to remember, a memory he’d call back after she was gone.

  “I need to try to bring on another vision,” Echo said. Water ran down her body, pooled at her feet. “I’ve never been able to do that, but I am stronger now, and the more we know about what’s going to happen...” She shook her head. The tips of her hair were wet, her body gleamed. “I need to figure out how we can save Cassidy. There must be something we can do!”

  Echo’s vision of a danger to Cassidy was one of the future. He wanted to agree with her that, given the timeline, surely circumstances could be changed. If they could determine a date and a time, they could make sure Cassidy was properly protected. Nothing about the future was certain.

  Snow. They wouldn’t see snow for months, unless a freak weather system of some kind moved in. They rarely saw snow here at all.

  A shiver walked up his spine. Echo smiled up at him. “If you help me...” she began, and then she went silent. Her smile faded away as she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Echo had an untrained and uncontrollable effect on the weather. When she was sad, it rained. When she was happy the skies were clear blue.

  Sometimes. Nothing about that particular power was defined. It was new and unpredictable.

  Was it possible she could make it snow? What emotion would bring on that kind of weather?

  “We have to go,” he said, taking her hand and leading her from the shower.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked again.

  Rye threw her a towel and began to dry his body with another. “It was cold, you said, there was snow. But was it a natural snow?”

  Echo paled as she read his thoughts. She, too, dried her body vigorously. “Oh, hell, I don’t know.”

  “In your vision, what was Cassidy wearing?”

  Echo closed her eyes for a moment, thinking back, searching her memory. Her eyes popped open and she tossed her towel aside, rushing into the bedroom to grab her clothes and start pulling them on with efficiency. As Rye did the same, she described the dress his daughter had been wearing in the vision. Pink-and-yellow flowers, old-fashioned, short sleeves.

  It was the same dress she’d been wearing when he’d left her.

  * * *

  Cassidy’s first niggle of warning came too late. Her da had warned her, time and again, not to rely on the knowing. She might see things about other people, but when it came to herself and those she loved most dearly, there was a veil. Granny said no one on this earth was meant to know too much about their own path, not the good or the bad.

  Someone knocked loudly. Cassidy, who had been reading in her room, stood slowly. She started to call out, “Don’t answer!” but she was too late. Her grandmother opened the door.

  Cassidy glanced at the window. She could escape by that route, perhaps, but then what? Whoever had come for her had Granny. Granny was old. She didn’t have many powers, and she had none that would offer any self-defense. If the person who had come for Cassidy didn’t find her, would they take their anger out on Granny?

  By the time she decided to go out the window and get help, it was, again, too late. She’d hesitated too long! The door to Cassidy’s room opened slowly. Please be Granny. Please be Granny! It was not Granny, of course. It was her. The woman standing there smiled.

  Cassidy remained strong. Crying and begging would not help. Not with this one. She lifted her head and said, in an almost-even voice, “I did not expect you.”

  “Good.” Maisy smiled. “I love the element of surprise. It makes life so much more interesting.” Her eyes scanned the room, quickly, efficiently, and then she turned those scary eyes back on Cassidy. “Give me any trouble, and I’ll kill your grandmother.” She delivered the threat with that weird smile in place and an ordinary tone in her voice. As if she were saying, I think you’d like this book. “Then the people I’m working with will go after your friends. The brown-headed boy who always needs a haircut—you like him a lot, don’t you?”

  Brody! She wouldn’t dare...no, she would. She would, without a second thought. Librarians were not supposed to be evil! It was just wrong.

  “I won’t give you any trouble,” Cassidy said. If she was going to, it’s not like she would tell. The librarian said she liked surprises...

  “Good. Then the old woman should be fine.”

  “What about my da?” Cassidy asked.

  “We won’t hurt your da.” Maisy stepped closer.

  Instinctively, Cassidy leaned away. The librarian’s shields dropped, and her aura changed. Black. There was so much black!

  Leaning down, placing her face too close to Cassidy’s, the librarian finished with, “Your da’s going to become one of us.”

  * * *

  They ran. Echo had immediately offered her car, but Ryder insisted the way the roads twisted around to get to the cottage, running—even walking—would be faster.

  They ran. His legs were longer than hers so he pulled ahead easily, but she pumped her legs harder in an attempt to keep him in sight. More than once she offered a silent thanks to spin class. Maybe she should’ve gone to more...

  They ran. Echo was too soon breathless, but she didn’t stop. Ryder drew ahead of her, but he never left her sight.

  She’d barely had time to be angry with Ryder for not telling her the truth about Cassidy, but considering what she’d seen in the vision it was hard to blame him. He was a father protecting his daughter. She could argue that Cassidy didn’t need to be protected from her or her Raintree family, but Ryder didn’t know that.

  She lost sight of him for a moment when he crested a small hill. What if she went over that hill and he was nowhere in sight? How would she know where to go? She topped the hill and there he was, farther ahead than he had been before. Lights from a small cottage glimmered directly before her. The front door stood wide-open. It was a nice enough evening, not too hot or too cold, but somehow she knew the open door was not normal.

  Echo reached the cottage a few minutes after Ryder. He knelt beside a woman who was lying on the floor in an unnatural position. As she watched, he cradled her head and lifted it carefully. The woman was still alive, but a deep gash in her head was bleeding badly.

  Ryder glanced back at Echo. She could see the pain in his eyes, the anger. “It was Maisy who took my daughter. Help me find her.”

  Maisy? The librarian? That was wrong on so many levels. Echo shook her head. “How can I do that?” It wasn’t near cold enough to snow, and even if she could control the weather with her emotions, it was hardly a gift she’d honed.

  Without rising, he offered his hand. She took it.

  What she saw in his frantic and disjointed thoughts made her jerk away from him.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “That’s not what I asked you to see. Where’s Cassidy? Where’s my daughter!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is she safe?”

  It was the older woman on the floor who said as she tried to sit up, “Cassidy is fine, for now. You will not see her again until the first night of the full moon. Tomorrow night.”

  “I can’t leave her with that woman for a full day!” Ryder shouted. The rafters shook, but
the injured woman was unmoved.

  “It does not matter what you do or say, you will not see her until that time.” The woman grimaced. “Maisy will not harm her until then. She wants...she wants...” Pain and terror filled the woman’s eyes. “She wants what Sybil wanted, and she is willing to do...the same.”

  Echo realized that this woman was Sybil’s mother, Cassidy’s grandmother. She cared for and loved the child her own daughter had tried to kill. She held the hand of the man who had killed that daughter.

  The injured woman continued. “You must find a way to save Cassidy without...” Suspicious eyes cut to Echo. “Without doing what you think must be done.”

  “There’s no need to talk in circles around me,” Echo said. “I saw more than enough when I took Ryder’s hand.”

  She didn’t want to think about what she’d seen, what might be.

  Ryder without control, without the talismans that kept him, as he said, dampened.

  Without the stone at his neck and the leather band at his wrist, Ryder Duncan was a monster.

  Chapter 16

  Rye called Bryna’s gentleman friend to collect and care for her. He refused to tell McManus anything about what had happened, and so did Bryna. Fortunately, the old man was accustomed to keeping secrets, and did not balk when others protected their own.

  It was odd to see the man he normally knew as one of three friends who drank together and told bad jokes and argued about politics in this position. McManus held Bryna’s hand. He comforted her, and did not press to know more as he helped her pack a small bag. He walked out the front door with that bag in one hand and Bryna’s arm caught in the other.

  There was no sound of an engine after they’d disappeared from view. They would walk. McManus’s little cottage was not far away.

  With Bryna in good hands, Rye was free to concentrate on his daughter and her kidnapper. Was Maisy working alone, or did she have an accomplice? Or two, or twenty? He didn’t know what he was up against, and he did not dare ask anyone in Cloughban for help. He would have trusted Maisy, if Bryna hadn’t told him what she’d done. Why hadn’t he seen the danger for himself? What other truths hid from him?

  He fingered the stone that lay heavy at his throat. Once he removed the talismans he’d know without doubt whom he could trust. He would see all.

  Echo stood silently near the door. Poised to run? He couldn’t blame her. This was not her mess, not her concern. Bryna and McManus were long gone when he finally looked squarely at her and said, “Go.”

  She shook her head. Stubborn woman.

  “I don’t need you,” he insisted.

  “Yes, you do.”

  He was going to have to be blunt with her. Could he lie well enough to fool her? He tried. “I don’t want you here.”

  Again she answered softly, “Yes, you do.”

  He’d been so afraid of the Raintree coming in and taking his daughter, he’d missed the signs of betrayal under his nose. His own people. A Cloughban resident, someone he knew, had made his worst fear come true.

  He didn’t think for a moment that Maisy was working alone. She wasn’t that smart, or that powerful.

  If she took Cassidy’s abilities, she’d be more than powerful enough.

  “I have to stop her, no matter what. I will sacrifice myself.” His voice was sharp when he added, “I will sacrifice you if I have to. If I think for even a moment that it will help to offer you up, I won’t hesitate. You’re Raintree, after all. A prophet, and more. If they would take you in exchange for Cassidy, I would hand you over without a second thought.”

  Instead of running out the door as she should’ve, Echo walked toward him, took his hand and sat on the love seat. She drew him down beside her, and he let her. She was warm, soft, much calmer than he was.

  It wasn’t her daughter in the hands of a traitor.

  “Of course you would,” she said in an even voice. “I’d expect nothing less from a father who loves his child dearly.”

  “I should look for Cassidy tonight, no matter what Bryna says.” He said the words, but he did not stand.

  Echo’s response was clear and too damn calm. “You won’t find her.”

  He looked at her, this small, pretty, deceptively powerful woman who had come into his life and blown it apart. Everything in his life had been just fine, before she’d shown up. Was she a part of this?

  You know I’m not.

  Her words were clear. In his head, a whisper no one else could hear. He responded in kind.

  I should do something. Anything.

  She’s fine. She’s unharmed and she is not afraid. Cassidy is strong, like you.

  You can’t be sure.

  I am.

  With that the connection was broken. Echo leaned into him, placed her head on his shoulder.

  Why couldn’t he establish a mental connection with Cassidy the way he had with Echo? He could if he...

  Echo’s hand closed over his, drew it down from his throat and the stone there. He thought she would try to convince him that it wasn’t necessary that he undo all he’d done. He thought she’d plead with him not to go to that dark place.

  Instead, she simply whispered, “Not yet.”

  * * *

  Echo had dozed on the love seat, curled against Ryder. She was almost positive he had not slept at all.

  “Did you dream?” he asked as she came awake.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you dream of Cassidy?” His voice was so stoic it was almost dead, and that scared her.

  “I did, but I saw nothing new.” Just another horrifying dream of snow and a sharp blade and Ryder becoming something dark. She could not make herself see anything beyond that point. Maybe because what had happened beyond that point had not yet been determined. She patted his hand, noting as she did that he continued to wear the leather wrist band. She glanced up. He wore the stone at his neck, as well. She didn’t really need to look. When they were gone she would know it. She’d see and feel it. “You should sleep.”

  “No, I should not.” He turned his head and looked down at her. “Go. Go now. Take your rental car and drive to Shannon, and get on the next plane to the States.”

  It was tempting. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t. The girl she had once been would’ve done just that without being told. She would’ve washed her hands of this family that wasn’t hers, of this trouble that wasn’t hers, and in a matter of hours she’d be on a plane headed out of here.

  That girl had never known love. The woman she had become did. Funny, she’d always thought love would be all flowers and beauty and fun. Tra-la-la, love songs all around. Ha. So far, it was anything but.

  “You need me here,” she insisted.

  “I don’t need you or anyone else.”

  Her feelings should be hurt, but she understood Ryder’s pain. More than that, she felt it. For once, experiencing the pain of another didn’t make her want to run and hide. “Someone has to make it snow,” she said lightly.

  “I can make it snow, once I’ve...once I remove the talismans.”

  She experienced yet another pain. He should never have to make that decision, should never have to become someone he’d left behind years ago in order to save his child. That old Ryder...that wasn’t a man she ever wanted to meet.

  But saying that now wouldn’t make things any better. She kissed Ryder on the cheek, surprising him, and then she released his hand and jumped up. “I hope there are eggs. That’s pretty much all I know how to cook.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’ll eat,” she said confidently.

  The kitchen was small but very well organized, and there were indeed eggs. Some kind of thin ham, too. She wished she knew how to make scones, but she didn’t. Eggs and ham would have to do. Maybe the
re was some leftover bread she could toast. Echo didn’t bother to look up when she realized Ryder had followed her into the kitchen. He stood in the doorway and watched her.

  “Don’t argue with me,” she said. “In my vision it’s snowing when you take that thing off. To my knowledge, I’ve never been wrong. Unless you can make it snow now, before you...” Change? Transform? Go dark? She wasn’t sure what to call it. “Well, you know. Unless you can do it now, then I’ll still be around tonight.”

  “My mother was a Gypsy.”

  Echo turned to face him then, and though it was hard, she smiled. “I know. I saw the look in you the day we met.”

  He did not look surprised. To be honest, his expression remained so blank it was impossible to tell if he felt anything at all. “My father took a lot of grief for marrying her, rather than one of their own, but I suppose he loved her. One of my earliest memories is of her teaching me a spell. I didn’t have quite enough power to suit her, so she supplemented my mental powers through her own kind of magic. I could control all the elements by the time I was eight. The way her face lit up when I did something extraordinary...I lived for those moments.

  “Unfortunately for her, I didn’t remain a child who was willing to perform for his mother’s approval. I studied on my own, and I grew stronger every day.” He caught and held her eye. “I can shift into any animal, make you see and believe anything I wish you to see and believe. A little snow? All it would take is a snap of my fingers.”

  “What happened?”

  “Why do you assume something happened?”

  “Because if everything was hunky-dory, I doubt you would have gone to the bother to suppress all those abilities.”

  The moment of silence that followed that statement was almost palpable. He was deciding what to tell her, how much, how little. With a push she might be able to see for herself, but she wanted him to tell her. She wanted him to trust her.