“There’s a brown packet in the right-hand drawer, add a teaspoon. Don’t forget the sugar,” he called out.
Opening the little brown paper bag, and sniffing the mixture before adding it to the water, Tatya recognized a few herbs, but there were others that were unfamiliar.
Changing Sky opened his eyes as she entered the room carrying a steaming mug of tea. “There’s nothing wrong with me other than old age.” The look he gave her and the line of his mouth warned her not to ask questions.
“Let me at least check there’s nothing wrong. After all, healing is my gift, and you taught me everything.”
“If I needed your help, don’t you think I’d ask my star pupil?” Affection softened his expression as he took the cup and breathed in the pungent aroma. “Make yourself useful, and pack everything away.” He smiled. “And stop bothering an old man.”
Tatya looked in on Changing Sky after she’d packed away the ceremonial paraphernalia and cleansed with the sage sticks again.
He was sleeping, soft snores rising from his slightly opened mouth.
The scrying had depleted his psychic energy, and a good rest would replenish his stores. She tip-toed out and found Forked Lightning sitting on the cabin steps.
He stood and glowered at her. “I’ll walk you to your car. We have to talk.” And he strode ahead, not waiting for an answer.
What’s got his hair in a knot, Tatya wondered. He switches moods more than a weather vane in a storm. She made no effort to catch up with him. Let him wait, she was preoccupied with far more serious matters than keeping a temperamental were happy. She thought of Otakay’s words. Her gut instinct said the creature was Angelus, but she’d been convinced she would sense him if he returned. If he’d learned to mask himself, he’d attack before they had time to ready themselves. Vanse needed to know what Changing Sky had discovered. He had access to a different branch of knowledge from the shaman, and perhaps somewhere among the lore he’d gained throughout the centuries, something might be of use. As she got to the bottom of the track, she dug her keys out of her pocket.
Forked Lightning stood with his legs apart, hands on his hips, and practically snarling, by the driver’s door of her truck barring her way. “You have the nerve to come here, where you’re not welcome, and ask our tribal shaman to perform ceremonies for you and your vampire lover?”
“What?” She was too astonished by his words to anything but stare at him with her mouth open. Judging by the antagonism in his eyes, if looks killed, she’d be dead. Then her anger warmed, loosening her tongue. “How dare you? You have no idea of what happened here last year. Or of the bond between me and my teacher. Compared to Changing Sky, you’re just a babe starting to walk. Tell me, what qualifies you to say who can visit him or what he can do? Are you his keeper now?” The words were out before she could stop them. Okay, maybe not the most diplomatic way to talk to him, but how dare he talk to her in that way? Who did he think he was? Asking her help when he needed it, yet berating her for doing the same. Exasperated with his behavior and irritated by his words, she tried to move past him to get into her truck, but he refused to move. She didn’t need to be psychic to sense the strength of his antagonism. Resentment boiled off him as he blocked her way.
“Move.” Her voice was ice. She shoved the wave of rising resentment down. She didn’t want to hurt him. He was just an ignorant, arrogant, idiot.
“Or you’ll do what?”
“Really? Do you think we’re in the playground, and you can bully me?” This time she let the power rise. She’d not accessed her power for months, until she’d healed Vanse earlier in the day, but, despite the occasional lapse, she did have better control than before, and it coiled, poised, waiting in her fingertips. She tightened the leash on her temper, resisting the urge to teach this pup a lesson.
As if he sensed he’d pushed her too far, he moved aside. “He’s sick.” In a flash, his aggression folded, and his mutinous expression melted into one of misery. “He made me promise not to tell you.”
The herbs. She should have figured it out, but her mind had been elsewhere, preoccupied with Angelus—and Vanse. “It’s cancer, isn’t it?”
Forked Lightning nodded. “He’s only just received the diagnosis. That’s why he was away. He said he’d tell you himself when the time was right.”
She knew without asking it was terminal. “Where is the cancer, and how long do the doctors say he has?”
Changing Sky had taken Tatya when she nothing but a sullen teenager who’d not known what was happening to her, and despite her lack of submission, a prerequisite for any pupil wishing to acquire knowledge, had shown her how to use her raw talents for good. She’d never be able to repay him. Not that he’d ever asked anything of her, except to practice until she mastered the lessons he gave her. “Is he having chemo?”
“The cancer started in his pancreas, but it’s spread into the lymph glands. With chemo, they think maybe a year. Without, they refuse to say. He’s still deciding whether he wants to have the chemo.”
Tatya blinked the tears away. Changing Sky was getting on in years, but this... she hadn’t foreseen this, hadn’t experienced any premonitions. Why hadn’t he told her?
“And now I’ve broken my vow to him.” He looked away, knowing this was nothing compared to what he’d just told her.
“He won’t be cross with you. I’ll guarantee that.”
“And I’m sorry about what I said. When I’m angry, things I don’t mean have a way of jumping out of my mouth.”
She wondered if he was ready to shoulder the weight of being the tribe’s spiritual leader. “And thank you for telling me. I have herbs I’ve used on patients before. They don’t cure the disease, but they’ve proved effective in combating several of the chemo’s side effects. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She climbed into the truck, and drove out of the reservation, oblivious to the tears rolling down her face.
Chapter Fourteen: Building Bridges
Tatya paused, about to turn on the coffee machine, as someone rapped on the front door. She went through and lifted the blinds to see who was demanding entrance at this time of the morning.
Forked Lightning paused, hand in mid-air.
Mentally she rolled her eyes and groaned, but gave him a bright smile as she opened the door. “What can I do you for? I’m heading out to see Changing Sky any minute now.” She looked at her watch, making it clear she didn’t have time for a social visit.
“Well, actually, he sent me here. I had to tell him I’d told you about the cancer.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “And you were right, he wasn’t upset. But he’s got a big meeting with the tribal elders this morning, which would make your visit pointless. He also ordered me to put myself at your disposal for the day as atonement for breaking my promise to him.”
Tatya shook her head. “Say that again.” She stopped him after two words. “Come in. Why doesn’t he want me to perform a healing? I know it won’t cure the cancer but it helps, and I recognized certain herbs yesterday. They’re for pain.”
Forked Lightning chose his words with care. “He’s fine.”
“Fine? How is he fine?” Worrying about him made her on edge. She’d spent most of the night battling with guilt for asking him to scry for Angelus in the first place, and remembering how weak and tired he’d looked after the ceremony.
“He’s using every second he has preparing himself for the future. Whatever that turns out to be. Maybe he feels you could put your energies to better use.”
Tears sprang unbidden. She blinked them away.
“He is going to have a conversation with you, but he’s got a lot of demands on his time.”
“Then why aren’t you there helping him?”
He stiffened. “Because he instructed me to come here.” He enunciated each word with barely hidden hostility.
“I’m sorry.” Neither of them seemed able to talk to the other for more than a sentence or two before the exchange degenerated into snide r
emarks. What was wrong with them? With Changing Sky sick, they should put their differences aside. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Let’s start again, shall we? Coffee?”
Forked Lightning grinned at her, and his face transformed. He must have been the kind of teenager who drove his parents and teachers wild, and then in the next second had them eating out of his hand. “White—”
“With extra sugar, right?”
During the morning, while Tatya served customers and caught up with paperwork, Forked Lightning dug over most of the plot. The soil was dry, but she knew he’d be quick. As a werewolf, even in human form, his strength and endurance were greater than normal, but even so, he surprised her with the speed at which he worked. Despite the niggling worries about Vanse and Changing Sky hovering like storm clouds on the horizon, she smiled at the progress she was making. Establishing the herb garden was a vital aspect of getting her business up and running.
Tatya’s appetite had dropped back down to normal after returning to Orleton, and she usually ate fruit, made a smoothie or didn’t bother with lunch, but today she closed the shop and phoned out for pizza. It was the least she could do for Forked Lightning, and she wanted to keep his energy up. This afternoon she’d have him plant seeds.
“Hey!” Tatya stood in the kitchen doorway, unashamedly checking out and admiring Forked Lightning’s gleaming muscles—he’d taken his shirt off. “You ready for pizza?”
He thrust the fork into the freshly turned soil, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, tossing his long plait over his shoulder. “Pizza sounds great. I’ve kinda worked off my breakfast. Is there somewhere I can wash up?”
They sat at the breakfast bar eating in a comfortable silence. Tatya ate one pizza, and her unexpected guest devoured the remaining two, barely pausing for breath.
“More caffeine?” she asked, glad she’d ordered three large pizzas, she didn’t care to think ab the cost of keeping him well fed.
“Oh, yes. Mmm. That was good. Thanks.” Forked Lightning relaxed. “Just give me five and I’ll get going again. Can I ask you a question?”
“Can’t guarantee I’ll answer, but, fire away.”
“Changing Sky gave me a little of your history, and I noticed a few vamps hanging out watching the place.” He glanced at her, watching her reaction. “They make me feel real uncomfortable. Can you get rid of them?”
“I would if I could, but they have orders to guard me. I’m sorry, but where I go, they follow.”
The beginning notes of Beethoven’s Fifth rang out.
“Hi, Bill.” She listened for a minute. “No problem. Be there soon.” She turned to Forked Lightning. “That was the sheriff.”
“You’re on first names with the sheriff?” He narrowed his eyes.
“Yes, and I have to go. I’m helping him with something—”
“And it’s on a need to know basis.” A sneer crept into his voice.
Tatya’s warmth toward Forked Lightning dissipated fast. “Yes, it is. For your information, I work as a consultant for the sheriff’s department. They use my skills as a seeker to find missing things, well, mostly people.”
Forked Lightning stretched. “I guess being a witch has its uses.”
Tatya’s jaw dropped. “Witch? Did you just call me a witch?” She seethed. People had been calling her that as an insult ever since she’d unintentionally animated a favorite teddy bear in kindergarten.
“Hey, I’m a werewolf. It’s no big deal.” He looked away, uneasy at the menacing edge in her voice. “You know that, right?”
“Yes, I’m well aware of what you are, and I’m a psychic and a healer. I’m. Not. A. Witch.” Not that she thought there was anything wrong with witches, she simply preferred people didn’t confuse what she did with witchcraft. The thought of giving him a demonstration flicked through her mind, but she had better things to do than impress an ignorant werewolf. Even if said werewolf had spent the morning weeding and digging over her yard. “I don’t need spells to have power.”
“Okay, okay. What chores do you want done this afternoon?”
“No. Leave that. I need you to stay here and serve customers while I’m out.” She grabbed her bag, dropping her phone in and keys inside, and headed for the door. “I’m still waiting for the card company to send a machine. In the meantime, put the money in the red box underneath the counter. Prices are on the items or on the list next to the red box.” She glanced at him, and almost laughed at the horror on his face. She turned the ‘Closed’ sign around. “And clean yourself up. Customers don’t appreciate grubby fingernails.”
The flummoxed look on Forked Lightning’s face kept a smile on hers till she parked the truck in the visitors’ parking space outside the police station. Determined not to let what Angelus had done to her in the past affect her, she focused on her immediate surroundings, the sounds of birds in the trees, the sunshine glinting off new leaves, the hum of the occasional car. Before entering, she secured her shields to avoid the turmoil of past and present emotions piled up in the stale air of a building that saw the best and worst of human emotions.
Bill Corwin was exiting his office, Branton in tow, as she hurried along the corridor toward his office. “Great timing, Tat. I need your skills. We’re interviewing the friends who were with the last dead girl, the barman, and a few customers. The victim was Meli Taloa, in her first year at Nebraska on a scholarship, bright, doing well, home on a break, and hanging out with her old high school buddies. Tell me if you think anyone’s lying or you pick up something suspicious.”
“Okay.”
Branton nodded at her; she nodded back and followed Bill as he marched into the interview room.
At a small table, positioned against one wall and facing them on the far side as they entered, sat a young woman. Her dark honeyed skin and long black braids said she was from the reservation. Tatya wondered if Forked Lightning knew she was here.
Corwin sat in one of the two chairs on the near side of the table. He pulled out the second one for Tatya.
Branton lounged against the wall by the door.
The girl’s eyes, red from crying, flicked from away from them, then back again.
“Relax, Miss Chee. You’re not under suspicion. An account of what happened from the people who were with her last is routine. A small detail you or someone else remembers could offer a vital clue.”
Reassured that she wasn’t a suspect, the girl relaxed her guard and answered every question with as much information as she remembered. But the students had been drinking, and The Devil’s Own wasn’t the first bar they’d visited that night. Someone had suggested it as a dare as it had the reputation of being a vamp hangout, but they’d been disappointed to find the place filled with ordinary punters.
The flashes of memory Tatya picked up as the girl talked weren’t clear images, smiling lips, laughing eyes, arms around her friends as they walked from one bar to the next, the boys joking behind them, a kiss on a dark doorstep. She hadn’t been incapacitated but intoxicated enough that the end of the night was a blur in her mind. She did remember the conversation with Meli when she and her boyfriend Jake decided to stay longer. The pair had recently started dating, and the rest had left, positive she was safe.
“Was she speaking the truth?” Bill asked Tatya after she’d gone.
“Yes. She’s riddled with guilt because they were supposed to stay together.” There had been a point in the girl’s memory that felt odd, but every time she tried to focus on it, she was unable to pick out any specific details. She decided to wait till they’d interviewed the other witnesses before mentioning it to Bill.
“Poor kid.” Bill shook his head. “The rest of them are waiting downstairs. Let’s hear what her date, he’s next, has to say for himself.”
Jake Stone, the youth in question, was devastated. He swore that a few minutes after their friends left, she changed her mind about staying and went after the group. Otherwise, he’d never have let her leave by h
erself. The memory of her departure was colored with his disappointment.
Tatya observed with pity that his aura was heavily laced with the deep brown of guilt as he recounted the night’s events. “May I ask him something?” Tatya interrupted.
“Yep, go ahead,” Bill replied.
“I want you to hold that picture of her going toward the door in your mind for as long as possible,” she told the youth.
Jake tried and Tatya caught the image, dark hair in a long plait, red jacket, jeans and leather boots, as she walked away, but the impression was out of focus. He was too upset to hold what had maybe been the final sighting of her for long. “Thank you, that’s enough.”
The other students confirmed the first witness’s account, with varying degrees of recall.
“Did you get something from her boyfriend?” Bill asked after they finished questioning the victim’s friends.
“A vague sense of something off, but nothing tangible that’d help.”
“The bartender is our last interviewee and should have been the most sober. Maybe he remembers someone new coming in that night.”
Tatya sensed Bill’s frustration. Until now they’d not heard anything that gave them a lead. Deputies were doing the leg work of canvassing door-to-door, but that late at night, most residents were slumped in front of the TV or in bed, although someone might have peered out the window and spotted the girl and a companion.
The bartender looked tired. “I’ve just pulled three double shifts,” he told them. “Not certain I’ll remember too much from two days ago, but I have a teenage daughter of my own. Fire away, I’ll do my best.”
Again, neither Bill’s questions, nor Tatya’s scrying found anything that contradicted what they’d already heard, or offered a lead. Police had located half a dozen other customers who’d been drinking in the bar that night. A few remembered the group of students, because they weren’t the usual patrons, and one had a memory of the dead girl at the bar buying drinks.
The Kala Trilogy: An Urban Fantasy Box Set Page 33