by Ким Харрисон
"Thanks." I blinked in surprise when he gave me a hug. The scent of Old Spice puffed up, and I couldn't help my smile when he awkwardly dropped back. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
He smiled and rubbed his elbow. "Don't worry about it. It wasn't you."
I exhaled in relief, though still feeling guilty, and I looked over the kitchen for anything to eat. Nothing was cooking, but the coffeemaker was gurgling its last. The cake had been frosted, and it sat on the counter as a sad testament of how things were supposed to be. Depressed, I sank down at my spot at the table. "Kisten wasn't at the apartment?" I asked, desperate hope almost painful as it settled in around my heart, and I glanced at the other guy, now shifting awkwardly. "Jenks said he called to say he was going underground. And Piscary has lied before. If Kisten might be alive, I'll do anything."
Edden's friend went to speak, changing his mind when Ivy pushed away from the sink and slunk to her chair before her computer—her safe spot. Jenks stayed at the window, standing on the sill where he could keep an eye on his kids. I hadn't realized how noisy they were at sunrise.
"Edden thinks human psychology can bring back your memory." Ivy said, scowling "Human science can't best a witch charm. It's only going to tear you up, Rachel."
Ignoring her, Edden turned to the man, and he came forward with a hesitant confidence. "Dr. Miller, this is Rachel Morgan. Rachel, I want you to meet Dr. Miller, our psychiatrist."
I leaned forward in my chair and shook his hand. The hope that Kisten might be alive was desperate and painful, and the color of the amulet Dr. Miller was wearing shifted from a deep purple to white. "Nice to meet you," I said, indicating he should sit down, and he and Edden took two chairs to my right.
The young man had a nice grip, which wasn't surprising if he was the FIB's shrink. What did surprise me was the slight lifting of ever-after that had tried to pull through me when we touched. He was human—I didn't sense any redwood coming off him at all, and he worked for the FIB—but he could do ley line magic. And his amulet was metallic—clearly a ley line charm.
He was taller than me, and his brown shoes, made an odd statement against his gray slacks and gray-pinstriped white shirt. His black hair was cut to an easy style. His frame was spare, and he was wearing wire-rimmed glasses before his brown eyes.
Glasses? I mused, No one wears glasses unless…
My suspicion was borne out when Dr. Miller tucked them away with a grimace. Crap, they were for seeing auras without tapping in to one's second sight, which humans generally couldn't do unaided without a lot of practice. Great. Nothing like a good first impression.
The amulet he wore shifted to a reddish gray, and the FIB's psychiatrist gave me an apologetic smile as he scooted his chair in. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Morgan," he said from between Edden and me. "Call me Ford."
Jenks's wings clattered, and he flew to land on the table, standing with his hands on his hips so the hilt of his garden sword showed. "That thing reads emotions, doesn't it?" he said belligerently. "Is that how you do your job? You use that to know if people are telling the truth or not? Rachel isn't lying. If she says she doesn't remember, she doesn't remember. She'd want to find Kisten if she could."
Ford glanced down at it again, taking it off from around his neck and setting it on the table. "The amulet isn't reacting to her, it's reacting to me. Sort of. And I'm not here to find out if Ms. Morgan is lying. I'm here to help reconstruct what I can of her artificially muted memory with the intent to find Mr. Felps."
I felt a stab of guilt, and his ley line amulet flashed a brief gray-blue once more.
"If she allows it," he added, fingering the metallic disk. "The longer we wait, the less she will remember. We are under a time constraint, especially if Mr. Felps is in trouble."
Ivy's eyes were closed as she struggled to hide her emotions. "Rachel, he's dead," she whispered. "For the FIB to play on your hope to make their job of finding him easier is wrong."
"You don't know he's dead," Edden protested, and a chill took me when she opened her eyes. They were black with pain.
"I'm not going to listen to this," she said.
I stiffened when she rose and walked out. Jenks hovered uncertainly, then buzzed out after her. The smell of the coffee pulled at me, and I went to pour myself a mug, filling two more for Ford and Edden. The first gulp hit me like a balm, doing as much as the soft breeze coming in the window to soothe me. Maybe there was something to this up-at-dawn stuff.
"What do I do?" I said as I put the coffee before the two men and sat.
Ford's smile was brief but sincere. "If you would put this on?"
The amulet settled into my hand, and I felt the hum of ever-after running through it, tugging on me as if trying to pull it from my fingertips. "What does it do?"
He hadn't let go of the charm yet, and feeling his fingers slide against mine as he I looked up in almost shocked surprise. His lips quirked in a smile when the amulet in my hand turned to a delicate lavender. I was starting to see a pattern here.
"Your friend was correct. It's a visual show of your emotions," he said, and I cringed. I could guess what lavender meant, and I forced my thoughts to remain puritan pure as I looped it over my head. Unlike an earth-charm amulet, this one only had to be within my aura to work, not touching skin.
"But you said it was responding to you, not me."
A brief look of pain passed over his features. "It is."
My eyes widened. "You mean you can feel other people's emotions? Naturally? I've never heard of that before. What are you? You don't smell like a witch."
Chuckling, Edden took his coffee and retreated to the corner of the kitchen, pretending to watch Jenks's kids in order to give us some privacy.
Ford shrugged. "Human, I guess. My mother was the same way. She died from it. I've never heard of anyone else like me. I'm trying to find a way to make it work for me instead of against me. The amulet is for you, not me, so you know exactly what I'm feeling from you. The intensity of emotion is shown by brightness and the type of emotion by color."
I started to get a sick feeling. "But you can feel my emotions whether I'm wearing the amulet or not?" I asked, and when he nodded, I added, "Then why am I wearing it? "
Edden shifted nervously at the window. I knew he wanted us to get on with it.
"So that when we're done and you take it off, you have the illusion that I'm not listening anymore."
Jenks came in right about then, changing his mind about landing on my shoulder at the last moment to park it on Edden's shoulder when he saw my look. It made sense, even if it was a lie. "That's got to be hell," I said. "Someone ought to make a muffler for you."
Ford's expression blanked. "Do you think you can?"
I shrugged. "I don't know."
His brown eyes were distant, and the amulet around my neck went pearl gray. Taking a deep breath, he brought his attention back.
I couldn't help but wonder at the misery of sensing everyone's emotions all the time. Poor guy, I thought, and the amulet burst into blue. His lips parting, Ford blinked at me, clearly feeling my pity for him. The amulet shifted to red, and my face flamed to match it. Embarrassed, I reached to take the amulet off. "This isn't going to work," I said.
Ford's hands enveloped mine, stopping me. "Please, Ms. Morgan," he said earnestly, and I swear I could feel the amulet warming in our hands. "This is a tool. The reality is that people are far more adept at reading facial expressions than this amulet can indicate. It's simply a way to make a data point of something as nebulous as emotions."
I sighed, my entire body easing, and the amulet peeping between our fingers went a neutral gray. "Call me Rachel."
He smiled. "Rachel." His hands left mine to show that the disk was a silvery purple. Not the purple of anger, as when I thought of the I.S., but lavender. Ford liked me, and when I smiled, he went red in embarrassment.
Jenks snickered, and Edden harrumphed. "Can we get on with this?" the FIB captain complained.
&n
bsp; Letting the amulet drop to where I couldn't see it, I straightened, suddenly nervous. "Do you really think Kisten is still alive? "
His brow knitting, Edden crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. "I don't know. But the faster we find him, the better."
Nodding, I settled into the chair and glanced at Ford for direction. I'd been to family counseling with my mom when my dad died, but this was different.
Ford angled the chair so that his legs ran perpendicular to the table, rather than under it. "Tell me what you remember," he said simply, hands folded.
Jenks's wings increased in pitch, then went silent. I took a sip of coffee, closing my eyes as the liquid slipped down. It was easier if I didn't look at the amulet. Or Ford's eyes. I didn't like the idea that I couldn't hide my emotions from him.
"I left him at Nick's apartment to wash his clothes," I said, feeling a pang of heartache. "It was a few hours until sunset, and I had to move the car before it was recognized. I was going to go back."
My eyes opened. If Piscary was right, I did go back.
"And you don't remember anything after? "
I shook my head. "Not until I woke up in Ivy's chair. I was sore. My foot hurt." My inner lip was cut.
Ford's eyes went to my hand clutching my upper right arm, and I forced my hand down. Even I was starting to realize it was my subconscious trying to tell me something.
"Don't try to remember, then," he said, and I felt some tension leave me. "Think about your foot. You hurt yourself, and that's hard to wash away completely. Who did you kick?"
My breath exhaled slowly. I closed my eyes, and my foot seemed to throb. Not who, but what, I thought suddenly. My hair had been in my mouth, and it blocked my vision, making me smack into the archway to the door instead of the handle. The damn door was so freaking narrow, and it hadn't been my fault. The floor had moved, throwing me off balance.
I felt my face go blank, and I opened my eyes. Ford had leaned forward, knowing that I had remembered something, and his eyes seemed to demand an answer. The amulet between us glowed a slurry of purple, black, and gray—anger and fear. I didn't remember the night, but there was only one place Kisten would go with narrow doors where the floor would move.
"Kisten's boat," I said, standing up. "Edden, you're driving."
Thirty-eight
We sped down the paved road, hitting the potholes caused by last year's frost and snowplows. The back roads outside of the Hollows didn't get much attention as the cities grew larger and the country grew wilder. Edden had called in support, and we quickly found out that Kisten's boat wasn't at Piscary's, but a FIB officer on patrol remembered seeing a boat matching its description downriver at an old warehouse dock.
That's where we were headed, lights on and sirens off, speeding through the outskirts of the Hollows and beyond until we were at the edges of whereever I would go after dark. It wasn't that the neighborhood was bad. It was that there was no neighborhood at all. Not after forty years of abandonment. Entire neighborhoods had been bulldozed under and left to go fallow when the survivors of the Turn fled to the cities. Cincy had been no exception.
Trees arched overhead, and I could tell that the river was close by the winding road and the occasional glimpses of silver water. I was up front with Edden, and Ivy was in the backseat with Ford. That she wanted to come had surprised me, until I realized her earlier words had been meant to quash her hope that Kisten might still be alive. Or undead. Or something.
Jenks was with her, working hard to keep her distracted and calm. It wasn't working, if her black eyes and Ford's growing nervousness were any indication. Putting them together might not have been a good idea, but I didn't want to sit next to him either.
"There!" I exclaimed, pointing to the outline of an abandoned brick building peeking from behind huge, ancient trees. It had to be the place. We hadn't seen anything but empty lots framed by large trees for half a mile. I tried to quell my nervousness even as I searched my feelings for having been here before. Nothing looked familiar. The hot morning sun glinted on the leaves and the river as we slowed and pulled in to the weed-choked gravel drive. My heart gave a painful thud when I saw Kisten's boat.
"That's it," I said, fumbling for the door even before the car stopped. "That's the Solans." Jenks left Ivy, hovering as I undid my belt.
"Rachel, wait." It was Edden, and I scowled when he hit the button and the lock engaged The Crown Victoria rocked to a halt, and he put it in park. Ivy tried her door, but it was a cop car and wouldn't open from the inside even if Edden hadn't locked it. "I mean it," he said as a stuffy silence filled the car, broken by the agitated hum of Jenks's wings. "You're going to stay in the car until backup gets here. There could be anyone in that building."
Jenks snickered and darted under the dash to flip Edden off from the other side of the windshield. I glanced at the two-way radio and the chatter coming from it. It sounded as if the nearest person was five minutes away. "If it's undead vampires you're worried about, they won't be coming out for a suntan," I said as I manually unlocked the door and lurched out. "And if it's anyone else, I'm going to kick their ass."
Ivy scooted into Ford's space, and while the man sat wide-eyed and scrunched in the corner, she kicked the door. The lock snapped, and she slid out, unruffled and moving with the eerie grace of those that belong to the night. Jenks was gone, and we followed him to the boat with a grim determination. We were halfway there when Edden caught up.
"Rachel, stop."
Ivy's expression was awful, and after a single glance that showed the depth of her fear, she continued without me.
"Get your hand off me," I exclaimed, voice loud with misplaced anger as I yanked away from his grip. "I'm a professional, not some distraught girlfriend." Well, I was that too, but I knew how to act at a crime scene. "You never would have found him if not for me. He might need my help, or are you admitting you manipulated me, knowing he was dead already?"
Edden's face creased up in the bright light, and it made him look old. Behind him Ford sat leaning against the front of the car. I wondered what his range for reading emotions was. I hoped it was less than the twenty feet that separated us now.
"If he's dead…"Edden said.
"I can handle myself!" I shouted, the fear that he was right making me reckless. "I'm going in there! It's not a crime scene until we know there's a crime, so get a grip!"
Ivy had reached the boat and swung up the four-foot height to the deck in an enviable motion. I jogged to catch up, my swollen eye hurting from under the complexion charm and my foot throbbing. "Kisten?" I shouted, hoping for his voice. "Kisten, you here?"
From the corner of my sight, Ford remained leaning against the car, his head bowed.
Feeling awkward, I levered myself up onto the deck. Different muscles protested, and I got from my knees to my feet, tossing my hair out of my eyes. Ivy was already below the deck. Jenks still hadn't shown, and I didn't know if that was good or bad. I shivered at the dampness of the dew-wet deck, trying to remember being here. Nothing. Nothing at all.
The boat hardly moved with my weight, and I half slid to the cockpit door, grasping for handholds. "Ivy?" I called as I went belowdecks, fear winding between my soul and reason when she didn't answer. The silence ate away at my hope like bitter acid, drop by drop, breath by breath. If Kisten was conscious, he would have answered. If he was undead, he would be dead from the sun unless he had made it to the warehouse. Either option was bad.
It was quiet as I passed through the kitchen, only the sounds of my heartbeat and a plane high overhead. Ivy would have said something if she'd found him. The smear of blood on the high window looking out over the far shore shook me. A handprint.
"Kisten?" I whispered, but I knew it wasn't his. And it wasn't mine. It was his killer's.
The tears pricked. I couldn't remember anything. Why in hell had I done this to myself?
The sight of the splintered door between the kitchen and the living room brought me to a breathles
s halt. My foot started to throb, and my heart raced. I couldn't look away. I knew…
My breath came back in a gasp when Edden's bulk landed outside the window, jarring me. The boat scarcely moved under his weight either. As if in a dream, I stepped to the door, reaching to touch it to make sure it was real. Sharp, smooth slivers brushed my fingertips, and I felt dizzy.
The light was eclipsed, and I didn't turn when I felt Edden and Ford fill the doorway.
"I did this," I whispered, my hand falling. I didn't remember it, but my body did, my foot throbbing and my pulse fast. I stared at the shattered frame. My foot had broken the doorframe.
Gaze unfocused, I leaned against the cupboard for balance as remembered panic took me. I remembered crying. I remembered my hair in my mouth, and trying to escape. My arm had hurt so badly I couldn't manage the door, so I'd kicked it open. My eyes closed, and I felt it all over again. Scattered images were all that was left. I had kicked the door in, and then the back of my head had met a wall.
I touched the back of my head as it began to throb. There had been someone else here. And at the faint hint of unfamiliar, vampiric incense that still lingered, I knew it had to have been Kisten's killer. It had happened here, and I had been a part of it.
"I did this," I said, turning to the two men. "I remember doing this."
Edden's face was tight, and he held a drawn pistol pointed at the ceiling. Ford was behind him looking like the professional psychiatrist he was, out of place and gathering information I wouldn't want his opinion on.
The soft sound of dragonfly wings brought my tear-streaked face around to see Jenks, his wings sparkling in the light coming in the low windows.
"Rache, you better come in here."
Oh, God.
"Ivy?" I called out, and Edden shoved his way into the cramped space.
"Get behind me," he said, face grim, and I pushed through the broken frame before him, desperate to find her. Either Kisten was dead and no threat or he was undead and destroyed from the sun, or his killer was still here, or Ivy had found Kisten and she needed me.