Soul Loss

by Amber Foxx

  Chapter Nine

  Kate took Lobo out into the front garden and turned on her cell phone to check messages. She wasn’t quite taking a break, but almost. Inhaling the scents of the garden’s herbs mixed with the smell of the hot, dusty earth, she turned her back to the sun and let it warm her like an embrace. Five seconds of true peace. Immediately destroyed. The message was from Jamie.

  “Busy as a cat buying shit, can’t remember what time I’m supposed to meet you. Found my planner and forgot to write you in it. Let me know. Catcha.”

  He’d made it sound like she was some insignificant blip on his schedule. A movement at the corner of her yard caught her eye as she called him back. A hole in the dirt opened up and a small gold-brown head emerged. Crap. Her neighbors were tolerating a prairie dog town on their property and it had spread to hers. Lobo was clearly struggling not to give chase. She praised him. “Stay. Good dog.”

  “Been called a lot of things, Kate ...” Jamie had picked up while she was distracted.

  “Sorry. Lobo is resisting going after a prairie dog and I’m reinforcing his good decision. Cute little critters but they have fleas. Sometimes plague.”

  “Plague? Like the black death? Jeezus. The city’s full of ’em. I—I like them.”

  “Well, don’t pet them. You should be here in twenty minutes.”

  “On my way. No worries.”

  She hung up before she could snap at him. God, he got on her nerves.

  “Lobo. Pick up.” Kate pointed at a rock. Her dog lifted it to her in his mouth. She pitched it at the prairie dog, which stood, paws resting on its belly, staring at her with fearless interest. To her shock, her missile struck its little shoulder. She hadn’t even aimed to hit it. The animal squeaked in pain and ducked into its hole. “I only meant to scare you,” she whispered. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  She had written the press release and was on the second revision by the time a vehicle pulled up, opera blasting from the open windows. Ten minutes late. A door slammed, and Jamie’s tenor voice continued the opera up Kate’s front walk. The man was noisy except for his feet, which made no sound at all. Still working at her computer, she called, “Come in,” when he knocked.

  He hesitated in the doorway as Lobo scrambled across the floor pursuing a tennis ball. “Sorry. Working on it. Been scared of dogs for twenty-four years, though.” Jamie turned his back and lifted his hair, displaying an ugly scar on his neck and around the back of his right ear. “Five years old. Had to have my ear put back on.” He dropped his hair and faced her with a please-like-me smile. “Got to where I can trust a leashed dog, but, y’know, if you don’t mind ...”

  I was paralyzed in a car crash when I was seven and I’m not scared of cars. No, give him a break. That was traumatic for a little kid. She called Lobo, clipped a lead to his collar, and told him to lie down.

  “Thanks. So where do we start?”

  “I’ve written the press release announcing the new name and the plans for the formation of the guild. I’d like to mention some of the major psychics and healers who’ll participate but I can’t. We’ve still got squat.”

  He crossed to stand behind her and read over her shoulder. “Fuck. Seriously?”

  “Yes. Wish I could figure out what’s going on. Grab a chair and let’s go over the to-do list.” He stared at the screen without moving. “Jamie?” Kate prodded.

  “Sorry. Lost a synapse. I’m buggered.” He closed his eyes and shook his head in that way he had, as if something was on him, then pulled up a straight-backed wooden chair and sat on it backwards. “Had a gutful of piss last night. Sorry. Shouldn’t talk about that with you, should I?”

  “As long as you’re ready to learn this and get started, I don’t care what you did last night.”

  “Insulted Jill Betts.” He tapped a finger back and forth between two slats of the chair’s back. “Did a good job of it, too. Mind if I get some water? Be right back. Can I get you anything?”

  “There’s lemonade in the fridge. Thanks. And don’t piss Jill off. I may need her.”

  “Nah. You’re never that desperate. Never.”

  Kate almost argued, but stopped herself. She might need Jill in the future, but she needed Jamie today. She opened the fair’s web page and wrote down its password. It was hard letting go of it, but she had to. As the only other board member with any energy, Jamie had to take over some of this. She needed time for meetings, for Tim, and for sleep. “Did you get through to Azure or Ximena?”

  In the kitchen, Jamie rummaged around in cabinets and the refrigerator, making too much noise to have heard her.

  “Jesus, Kate. This is a fucking decent kitchen. Second good kitchen I’ve seen today. Need to work on mine.” More sounds, dishes, glasses. “This is a custom job. You can do anything you need in here.”

  “My boyfriend Tim did it. He’s an electrician, but he’s also a good carpenter.”

  The refrigerator opened and closed. “Electrician? I’ve got this weird electrical thing going on.” Jamie emerged with a plate of fruit and two glasses of lemonade. He carried the plate balanced on his forearm. It struck Kate as a good way to break her plate, but he delivered it to her desk without disaster. “Sorry. Presumptuous. But you ever eat junk and then it makes you hungry for something healthy?”

  Settling into the chair, he bit into a peach and closed his eyes. “Perfectly ripe. Don’t you love that?” He wiped juice out of his goatee with his shirt sleeve. Couldn’t he just chew and swallow like a normal person? Did it have to be such an event? “The electrical thing.” He snapped out of peach-bliss. “Stuff turns on or off-and-on by itself.”

  Though it was as irrelevant to the work at hand as the rest of his jabbering, this particular random tangent was interesting. “Does anything else happen?”

  “Nah. Mostly stuff turning on. He ever mentioned seeing anything like that?”

  “Yes. With one of his neighbors. Except her things sizzle.” Kate sipped her lemonade and picked up a peach. It was presumptuous of Jamie to root around in her kitchen, but she should have thought of offering food and drink. He was a guest in her house, about to do her a big favor—if he could get his mind to stop wandering. “She’s always needing him to check it out.”

  Jamie mopped more peach juice from his chin, stuffed the rest of the fruit in his mouth and sucked the flesh off the pit, which he spat out into his hand perfectly bare. “Nothing wrong with her appliances? They just act up?”

  “That’s what he said. She burns out bulbs, or things shoot sparks, but there’s nothing Tim can ever find to explain it. You’ve never had anyone look at your wiring?”

  “Can’t see the point. Happens other places, too.”

  “That’s really weird. I’ll try to remember to mention it to Tim.” She glanced at the time on her monitor. “We’d better get to work now. I want to be done before he gets here so we can get to dinner and a meeting.”

  “Sorry. Yeah. My fault. Show me.”

  She showed Jamie the web site and then opened a document with a list of the advertisers who promoted in the program and a second, listing places to advertise the event itself. “I’ll e-mail this to you. You know how to work with web sites, right? Yours is incredible. I just checked out the updates with your new pictures and videos. It’s really good. Feel free to redo this—well, you’ll have to, with the new name.”

  “Um—yeah. Sure.” Jamie’s eyes clouded. He slumped, corrected course, and straightened up, pushing a renewed brightness into his face and voice. “What part will you do?”

  “Take care of the basics—insurance, trash, recycling, toilets, power. And I’ll solve the hassles, like who wants a space where, and who needs electricity at their booths. Check on business licenses. Recruit some more artists if I can. I’ve sent out the first inquiries to vendors and done the ad budget. You’ll need to change the ads of course as people commit—or don’t.” She closed the documents. A feeling of loss gave way to pride and relief. She had actually let go of
some of this. “I’d love to see you in an ad for the event.”

  “Me? Dunno. Not exactly photogenic. On my own site that’s one thing, but ...” He sat back, ate some grapes. “Have to remember to eat normal meals. Done this for two fucking days now. Bog in to some sugar feast.”

  Kate sensed he was about to share. She wasn’t in a mood to be shared with—which struck her as bitchy to the point of absurdity, since she would go to an AA meeting later tonight and think it wonderful when people shared, and she would share about her anger. She just didn’t want this neurotic man confiding about his trivial issues with his weight.

  No, food could be an addiction, too. She was just in a bad, judgmental mood. Mary Kay Dieffenbacher, the medical intuitive, had been the final straw. Another famous psychic declining to participate. Kate had been angry ever since that call, and taken it out on the poor prairie dog. So angry she didn’t notice she was hungry until Jamie brought the fruit out.

  She ate her peach. “They have this saying in AA. H-A-L-T. Halt. Don’t get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. It’s supposed to keep you from drinking. If sugar’s your vice, I guess it’d work for that, too.”

  “You’d have to be really honest to stick to that. Pay attention to the inner.” He reached for another fistful of grapes, rolled one around in his mouth before biting into it. “I mean, tired, I’ll own up to. Hungry fucking takes over. But ...” he looked down at his feet, fidgeted, placed another grape in his mouth, again tonguing it before chewing it, and picked up a pear. “The other two. Fuck. Don’t notice ’til the train’s already run me over. Sorry. I’m eating all your food.”

  Was this a symptom like her urges to drink or smoke? “Are you all right?”

  He slurped as he took a bite of the pear, then wiped his chin on his sleeve again. “Sixty-forty, thereabouts. I’ll survive. But listen, I’m worried about Fiona McCloud. She’s—y’know, like how Azure and Ximena—” He cut himself off. His eyebrows scrunched together and he bit his lower lip. “Jeezus. Dunno how to explain that.”

  “Explain what?”

  “You have to promise not to tell anyone.” He held her gaze with such intensity, Kate made the promise. Jamie said, “Azure and Ximena have lost their gifts.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Everyone has a dry spell once in a while. They’re probably ...” Probably what? She’d almost said trying to get out of the extra work for the board. That would be out of character, though. More likely, they’d had some off days and fretted themselves into thinking it was a disaster. Even more likely, Jamie had misunderstood. He had a hangover and a short attention span. “Are you sure you heard right?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. You think I’d say it if I wasn’t? And when I saw Fiona last night, she reminded me of them. Drained. Unhappy. Won’t do the fair. Won’t be a member of the guild, either.”

  That was a strange coincidence. “Where did you see her?”

  He bit the pear again, and let the juice drip onto his shirt. “It was weird. She looked sick but she was at the Desert Star. Out for a drink with Jill and this fucking zombie. Weird girl. Purple eyes. Should be pretty but there’s something wrong with her.” He gave a shudder, too dramatic for Kate’s tastes, and took the pear core and peach pits into the kitchen. “Do you compost?”

  “Yes, the plastic tub on the counter marked compostable.”

  “I can take it out for you. It’s getting full.”

  She gritted her teeth. I’m paraplegic, not helpless. “No. Tell me about this girl. I think I had her for a reading. Is her name Dahlia?”

  “So she says.” Water ran, and Jamie returned, drying his hands on his pants. “Real name’s Lily Petersen. Harold’s daughter. She’s a model. Living here of all places, with this other name.”

  “Maybe she’s doing it for privacy. You never use Jamie Ellerbee as a performer.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. But she’s not talking to Harold. Or her mum. Could be hiding from them. Reminds me—he says he’ll do the fair so he stands a better chance of seeing her. Thinks she’ll come to it because she hangs out with healers.”

  “Oh my god. That’s great.” Jamie’s frown suggested she had been insensitive. “Come on. You know what I meant. Not great that she’s not talking to her father. Great that he’s doing the fair.”

  Jamie nodded and began cleaning his immaculate-looking nails. Probably digging out tiny fruit fibers and dropping them on Kate’s floor. She wanted to tell him to stop. “Your reading tell you what’s wrong with her?” he asked.

  “I don’t share people’s readings. That’s confidential.”

  “Sorry. Just thinking, y’know?” He crossed the room to the window. “Trying to figure something out.” Jamie ran his fingertips around squares of the window panes, tracing a maze. “There’s this diagnosis Ximena uses. Susto. Sort of translates as ‘soul loss.’ You have a trauma and part of your soul runs off and hides. For her and Azure and Fiona, it’s the healer-psychic part that’s lost.” He tapped a pane. “Some other part for Dahlia.”

  The description fit with Dahlia’s reading, but the rest was a stretch. “They all have soul loss?”

  “Yeah. Except, instead of coming from a trauma it’s contagious. Like your prairie dogs and the plague.”

  “Come on. A spiritual or psychological problem—contagious? That doesn’t happen.”

  “Lot of crap that doesn’t happen happens.” Jamie rubbed the top of his head and shook his braids. He had five of them today, like tiny sun-bleached snakes crawling on the cloud of his hair. “Fuck. You’re a psychic. You should know that.”

  “Fine. Then tell me how it happens.”

  “Dunno exactly. But Azure thinks she gave it to Ximena.”

  He returned to the desk, turned his chair to face it, found a pencil and scratch paper, and sketched as he talked. “This is half-baked. Seeing it in my head better than I can explain it. The flea carries the plague, right, like with the rats and half of Europe? But this flea is like a photon or electron that jumps ... sucks blood like a flea, only it’s not blood, it’s like chi or prana ...”

  To Kate’s surprise he was a good artist, with a cartoonist’s flair. His sketch showed atoms with electrons jumping their orbits to other atoms and to prairie dogs. Some of the animals were alert and perky, others flat on their backs, paws up, tongues out, X’s for eyes. He glanced up at her. “It’s possible. At an energetic level, right?”

  “No. It’s absurd.” Kate had done readings all afternoon. Her psychic gift hadn’t fled, and she’d been around all the supposed victims. “If it was contagious I’d have it, and I don’t.”

  “You could be immune.” Jamie wrapped himself into a semi-fetal position, massaging his forearms, feet up on the rung of the chair. Squinting at his sketch, he gnawed on his thumb knuckle, and then stopped abruptly. He uncurled partially and looked at Kate. “I can’t market the bloody fair. What if it’s hit everybody but you? How many people have committed to be in it?”

  “Psychics or healers? Ten. All of them people you’d call quacks. None of the big names except Gaia, and she’s only doing music.”

  “Jesus. None of them?”

  “Mary Kay Dieffenbacher turned me down this morning.”

  “Fuck.” Jamie paced to the window again and then back to the desk. He sat, tapping the eraser end of the pencil on the scratch paper. “What do we do?”

  The disturbing scope of what he imagined began to dawn on Kate. She made herself focus. The idea was testable. It could be disproven. “We need to find out how many people are affected.”

  He wrote, erased, rewrote, and looked to her with eyes that reminded her of Lobo waiting for a command. A look she wanted from a dog but not from a board member. “And?”

  “We need to find out if it’s really the same thing for everyone and if it’s really contagious.”

  “Who do I ask?”

  Kate’s frustration exploded. “I don’t know. Stop asking me to think for you.”

  His expression now reminded her of the r
ock-struck prairie dog. God, he was like one, a big one—the round dark eyes, the blond hair, the strange energy poised between running up to you and making friends or scampering to safety. Silence sat between them. Jamie ducked his head and drew random lines for a while. Gone back in his hole.

  He wrote something, dropped the pencil, stuffed the list in his pocket and stood. “You can give me a kick when I need it, y’know. Just not too hard.”

  “Sorry.” She meant it. “I need a meeting. It’s been a while.”

  “No worries.” He bent down and hugged her so long and hard she started to get embarrassed. “We’ll work it out.” He straightened up. “Hooroo, then. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “Thanks. I’ll work on it, too.”

  “And I owe you a fucking fruit basket. Next time.”

  He left. She freed Lobo and studied Jamie’s sketch. Kate doubted he would come up with any solutions, or fruit, but he’d come up with a terrifying problem. What if it was a plague?

  Chapter Ten

  The AA meeting around the tables in the church basement took the open topic format. Kate shared her struggles with anger and impatience and explained how she had always used self-righteousness as an excuse to drink. An old man in a cowboy hat said, after a pause, “Shit. You needed an excuse?” When the laughter subsided, the chairman reminded him to introduce himself. “Oh. I’m Dougie and I’m an alcoholic.”

  Everyone replied, “Hi, Dougie.”

  The laughter, the unloading, Tim’s solid, reassuring presence beside her—Kate felt better than she had all day. She let go of the plague, the fair, the prairie dogs, Jamie, and everything else that had bothered her, and finally relaxed. The meeting was like coming home.

  A brunette in a fitted T-shirt and tight jeans spoke up. She was about forty, with short, crisply styled hair and precise makeup. “Hello. I’m Hilda and I’m an alcoholic.” The group greeted her and she continued. “You don’t recognize me because this is my first meeting, even though I’ve been sober ten years.”