Spy High (8 page)

Moonbeam mercifully left me to my
workout, and after nearly an hour I was drenched in sweat and
feeling almost human again.

She finished her cooling-down stretches
and rose from the mat, her lithe movements belying her wrinkled
features. When she glanced in my direction I braced myself.

She padded over barefoot, her blue eyes
seeming to look right through me. “You were very agitated earlier,”
she said softly. “I’m glad the exercise is helping. Do you want to
talk about it now?”

I was about to brush her off when I
realized this was a good opportunity to warn her about her tenants
without arousing suspicion. “Actually, yes, I think you should know
about this.” I let out a breath and headed over to flop down on the
mat.

She pulled out another mat and joined
me, sinking gracefully into full-lotus position and eyeing me with
concern.

“The tenants on the other side of the
river…” I began. “I met one of them today.”

“I presume there was conflict.”
Moonbeam gave me another unsettling inspection. “You had huge
spikes of energy stabbing out of your aura when you arrived.”

“Um, yeah.” I shifted on the mat,
wishing I could hide behind a psychic shield or something. “So
anyway, I ran into this guy over at the garage. Short, maybe
five-seven or so, and skinny. Black hair and beard, kind of
rat-faced. I don’t know his name so I’ve been calling him Ratboy…”
I broke off at Moonbeam’s scandalized expression. “Not to his
face,” I added hurriedly. “Sorry, but he just…”

I gathered my scattered thoughts and
returned to the point. “Anyway, what I was trying to tell you was
that he was really angry and aggressive to Skidmark and me. He
called me a whore and I think he might have hit me if Skidmark
hadn’t been there.”

“Oh, dear.” Worry lined her brow. “Are
you hurt, Storm Cloud Dancer?”

“No, he didn’t actually hit me.”

“I didn’t mean physically hurt.” Her
gaze passed through me again. “Oh, dear. Almost as bad as when you
first arrived.” Her hands rose to stroke the air a few inches away
from my arms and shoulders. “Please let Karma and me do some energy
work for you. Your aura is too beautiful to sully with such
destructiveness.”

“Um…” I squirmed backward and stood.
“Maybe later, okay? I want to finish my workout.”

“Of course. But please don’t let this
fester, Storm Cloud Dancer.” She rose and hugged me despite my
sweat-soaked clothes. “Promise you’ll let us do a Spirit healing
for you tonight.”

I shot a glance over my shoulder, but
there was no escape. And her concern was so sweet and genuine that
I sighed and capitulated. “Okay. How about after supper? That’ll
give me a chance to get washed up and changed.”

“Oh, good! Yes, please come to our tent
around seven-thirty.” She hugged me again and left.

Finished and cooled down, I had stopped
by the main building to draw a bucket of hot water from the boiler
of one of the wood stoves when Moonbeam poked her head into the
kitchen.

“The mail’s here, Storm Cloud Dancer,
and there’s a package for you from Cosmic River Stone.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Relief sent a wide
smile to my face before I realized it might be misconstrued as
excitement over a ‘gift’ from my ‘boyfriend’. I hid my internal
wince and hefted my bucket of water. “I’m just heading back to my
tent to wash up, so I’ll grab it after supper…”

I trailed off as the inconvenient voice
of duty reminded me that I shouldn’t leave the package exposed to
curious eyes any longer than necessary.

“Never mind,” I amended, and headed for
the closet that doubled as a mail room. “I’ll just take it
now.”

“Here, dear, let me help.” Moonbeam
hurried over to tuck the box under my free arm. “There you go. See
you at seven-thirty.”

I nodded and shuffled out, the edge of
the box jammed uncomfortably into my ribs while I tried not to
spill the bucket along the uneven path to my tent.

“Hey, wait up, Storm! Let me help you
with that.” Orion materialized apparently out of nowhere and took
hold of the box.

My arm tightened defensively around it.
“No, it’s okay, I’ve got it… shit!” Water slopped onto my sneaker
and I relinquished the box to shake my wet foot vigorously. “Damn,
I knew I should have put my hiking boots back on!”

Orion laughed and fell into step beside
me. “You didn’t have to fight me. I wasn’t going to run off with
it. Besides, even if I did, you know where I live.” He dropped his
voice to a suggestive purr. “There’s a thought.” He made a teasing
detour toward his tent. “I could entice you into my lair by holding
your parcel hostage.”

“Bad idea,” I said lightly, hiding the
uptick of my pulse. “You wouldn’t want to come between me and a
care package from home.”

“Oho!” He returned to the path and made
a show of sniffing the box as we walked on. “Are there scrumptious
edibles in here?”

“I’ll never tell.” I set the bucket
down at the entrance to my tent and held out my hands. “Give.”

He sighed. “You’re a hard woman.”

“And don’t you forget it.” I rescued
the box from his grip and shouldered inside. When I returned for my
bucket, he was already striding away.

At seven-thirty I presented myself at
Moonbeam and Karma’s tent, braced for yet another bizarre ritual
and wondering what idiotic impulse had made me agree to it after
successfully avoiding their offers for the past four months.

I sighed. Maybe the run-in with Ratboy
had shaken me more than I wanted to admit. I had so desperately
wanted to believe the commune was a refuge from the violence and
evil of the outside world.

Well, grow up, Pollyanna. Safe havens
only happen in fairy tales.

I squared my shoulders and scratched at
the tent flap.

Moonbeam answered immediately, smiling
and drawing me into the tent. “I’m so glad you’ve finally decided
to let us help,” she said. “We’re all ready for you.”

“Welcome,” Karma agreed, his voice a
deep drumroll in the barrel of his chest. “Please come in and make
yourself comfortable.” He gestured toward a blanket-draped table in
the middle of the tent. Beside it, a smaller table held a pitcher
and a trio of fat candles that provided the only illumination.

What the hell? Were they planning some
outlandish sacrificial thing? I was
so
out of there at the
first sign of goat’s blood. Or my blood…

“Um…” I tried not to let my gaze dart
around the tent, but I couldn’t help tensing. “What… exactly… are
you…?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear, I should have
explained.” Moonbeam patted my hand. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing
invasive. We’ll ask you to lie on the table and we’ll be moving our
hands above you, in your energy field. You’ll be fully clothed and
we won’t touch you without asking permission. All you have to do is
relax and try to release your negative energy.”

“Okay…”

I sidled toward the table and hoisted
myself up. As I lay back, Karma tucked a pillow under my head while
Moonbeam did the same under my knees.

“Are you warm enough, dear? Would you
like a blanket?” she asked.

“Um, no, that’s okay. I’m fine…”

My voice choked off in alarm as Karma
removed his shirt, leaving him standing barefoot in nothing but his
sarong.

Shit, I knew the commune didn’t buy
into the usual taboos about nudity, but there were some things
about Stemp’s father I just didn’t need to know.

And from my vulnerable supine position,
I suddenly realized how big he was. I was used to seeing him at a
greater distance, and I had tended to focus on his piercing hazel
eyes surrounded by their maze of laugh wrinkles, made even more
striking by the way he kept his iron-gray hair sleeked back in a
tidy ponytail.

But looming above me in the candlelight
his powerful musculature made him look much younger, his age
indicated only by the leathery texture of his skin. And that was
‘way more skin than I’d been expecting to see…

He frowned down at me. “Does this make
you uncomfortable? Would you like me to put my shirt back on?”

“Um… it’s okay…” I eyed him nervously.
“But… you don’t have to, um… get naked for this, do you?”

His booming laugh filled the tent. “No,
I won’t get naked…” He paused and cocked a mischievous brow in my
direction. “Unless you ask me to.”

“Karma Wolf Song!” Moonbeam’s
remonstrance was softened by her laughter. “The poor child is
nervous enough already.” She turned her luminous smile on me.
“Don’t mind him. It’s just that you have such tremendous energy
pouring off you, it will be hard work to deal with it all. We’ll
work up quite a sweat, you’ll see…” She paced slowly around me, her
hands gliding through the air as though riding invisible updrafts
over and around my body. “Merciful Spirit, Karma Wolf Song, feel
this!”

Karma joined her at my feet and they
waved their hands some more, exchanging a smilingly incredulous
glance.

“You’re tremendously grounded, dear,”
Moonbeam said, backing slowly away, hands outstretched. She stopped
a couple of yards from my feet, still smiling. “All the way out
here.” She shook her head and gave Karma a rueful glance. “I hope
you’re ready for a workout, my dearest.”

He nodded and they joined hands,
looking deeply at each other before closing their eyes for several
moments.

Feeling like a voyeur but too edgy to
close my eyes, I concentrated on the canvas ceiling above me. When
Karma and Moonbeam began to move I watched them from my peripheral
vision, wondering what, if anything, I was supposed to feel And
what they were feeling.

They worked in silence broken only by
soft requests for permission to touch my ankles, hips, arms,
shoulders, and head, and I slowly relaxed when nothing else
happened. They certainly did seem to be working hard. Their hands
moved constantly, sometimes stroking the air around me; other times
making scooping motions as if to gather something undesirable and
move it away. Sweat ran in rivulets down Karma’s face and chest,
and a fine dew of perspiration glistened on Moonbeam’s
forehead.

At last their movement ceased and they
clasped hands again, heads bowed and eyes closed.

Then they disengaged, and Moonbeam
moved to the small table that held the jug. “You can sit up now,
Storm Cloud Dancer,” she said. “Slowly, though. Here…”

She poured a glass of water and handed
it to me, then did the same for Karma before pouring one for
herself. They sank together to sit on the queen-sized mattress that
formed their bed on the floor and sipped their water while I
perched on the edge of the table and wondered what I was supposed
to do.

“How do you feel?” Karma inquired.

“Um, fine…” It seemed as though I
should say something appreciative, but I didn’t know exactly what.
“Thank you for working on me,” I added. “I feel more relaxed
now.”

At least that was the truth. I could
hardly have gotten more tense than I’d been when they’d
started.

“Oh, good.” Moonbeam’s smile told me
I’d said the right thing. “Please rest there a few minutes and make
sure you drink all that water. It will help cleanse your
system.”

I nodded and sipped obediently.

“So how long have you known Cosmic
River Stone?” Karma asked in the easy tones of small talk, but I
caught a tiny edge of something else behind his words.

“Um, not long…” I eyed him, trying to
gauge his reaction, but his poker face was as good as his son’s. “I
guess nearly a year,” I added cautiously.

Moonbeam leaned forward, her hand
finding Karma’s in a grip tight enough to whiten her knuckles.
“Tell us what he’s like,” she begged.

“Um…”

Shit, where were they going with this?
I sensed a minefield ahead, but I didn’t have a clue what would set
off the explosives.

“I’m sure you’d know him better than I
would,” I prevaricated. “We work together occasionally, but that’s
about it.”

“No. We don’t know.” Moonbeam’s voice
sounded tight, but I couldn’t tell whether it was anger or some
other emotion. “Please…” Her voice broke and she swallowed before
continuing, “Please tell us about him.”

“Well, uh…” I racked my brain for
something to say besides ‘he’s a manipulative snake-faced
dickhead’. “Uh, he’s, um, very dedicated to his work…”

“Is he good at it?” Moonbeam eyed me
pleadingly.

“Absolutely.” At least I didn’t have to
equivocate on that. “He’s excellent at his work. I couldn’t imagine
anybody else doing a better job.”

“Oh…” Moonbeam’s smile trembled on her
lips. “Oh, that’s wonderful. What else?”

“Well, he’s, um…” Inspiration struck.
“…very trustworthy. In fact, I’d trust him with my life.”

And I did, every single day. If he
leaked the secrets he knew about me, I’d be dead in short
order.

Looking at Karma and Moonbeam leaning
forward with their hands clasped like eager children, I cast about
for some other small detail.

“Uh, he likes houseplants and he’s
really good at growing them,” I offered. “You should see his
hibiscus trees and cyclamens. A whole house full of plants and
flowers…”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Moonbeam’s eyes
were bright with unshed tears. “He was always so close to the Earth
Spirit as a child. I’m so glad he hasn’t lost that connection. What
else can you tell us?”

“Well, um…” I shifted uncomfortably.
This was weird. “He’s, um… a good neighbour. He plays cribbage with
the elderly man who lives across the street from him, and they look
out for each other…” I frowned. “Why are you asking me? I’m really
not that close to him.”

She and Karma exchanged a glance, and
Karma laid a gentle arm around her shoulders before turning to me.
“We had a… falling-out. Decades ago, when he was eighteen. He left
the commune and never returned.”

“But you talk to him, don’t you? You’ve
visited him…”