The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (14 page)

“Oh, aye? What about?”

“She thinks…” I began. Then I realized to whom I was speaking and clamped my mouth shut, hard, my stomach lurching as if I’d narrowly avoided falling off a cliff. Gods, what an awful slip I’d almost made. At best, he would have laughed. That would have wounded me, but it still would have been better than the alternative: that he’d become as blank and cold to me as he’d been the other morning. We couldn’t afford frigid distance, not when we still had to work together. Not any more than we could afford torrid passion. I needed to keep a tighter rein on my emotions. He was just too damned easy to talk to.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “Girl stuff.”

He raised his hands in a gesture of warding. “Far be it from me to interfere in girl stuff. Though I do have four sisters.”

“I’d think having four sisters would be enough to warn you right off,” I said.

“Aye, well. There’s that.”

I glanced up at him through my bangs. He still looked rotten tired. Beautiful, of course, but drained. I searched for any hint Gina’s idea might have some truth in it, and found nothing. Not even a suggestion of the attraction that had been so strong mere days before. At least that would have been something. Because, like it or not, I wanted him even now. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to feel him next to me. I wanted to feel him inside me. Crap. I had to stop thinking about it, or I’d start crying. And then I’d have to explain myself, and I just couldn’t.

I moved a few inches farther down the bench.

“Did you get Spruce’s car back to her in time?” I asked, hoping my strain didn’t show in my voice.

“Aye. Only just, mind. She’s in a terrible temper with me. I may have to find another place to stay. She threatened to throw me out on my ear.”

Don’t go there.

“I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

“She can be a feisty wee bitch when she’s roused.” His eyes gazed past me, into some distance I couldn’t imagine. I looked away, giving him space. For a time, I watched the skate punks doing their thing around the band shell. I found their obsessive energy and the sound of wheels on concrete strangely soothing.

At length, Timber cleared his throat. “So. What to do about this?” His hand strayed to the thong holding his Soul Catcher.

“You’re the shaman.” I shrugged. “You tell me.”

“It would help if I knew what it was.”

“Haven’t you any idea?”

“A few. Nothing certain.” He clasped his hands between his knees and stared at the ground. “It spoke to you. Did it tell you nothing?”

I remembered the warning I had intended to give him. Gina had driven it right out of my mind.

“It was looking for you.”

“Was it?” The fact seemed to interest him.

“I’m pretty sure it meant you. It called you the Lion. And the Raven’s Child.” I had no intention of telling him the other part. The part about smelling him on me.

“Mountain Lion is my totem. Raven is Mitch’s.”

I nodded. The first I had known. The second I had guessed.

“It must have been the same thing I encountered on the paths. I suspected as much,” he said, stretching out his legs. “Well, it found me.”

“Doesn’t it worry you?”

One corner of his mouth lifted even as his eyes grew shadowed. “I’d be lying if I said I had no concern about it at all. And I try very hard not to lie. But it can’t get to me unless I let it out. And worrying makes no difference about a thing, in any case.”

“Oh.” I didn’t think I could carry around so much darkness with such composure. “You said it was a soul.”

“Aye. But of what type?”

“A bad one, I’d think.”

“Not necessarily. Sometimes things, bits and pieces, get lost on the paths, ken. If they stay there a long time, well. It can drive them a bit mad.”

“A bit?” I stared at him appalled, remembering the wreckage in Stonefeather’s studio. Remembering the psychic stench. “What do you do then?”

Timber’s face clouded. “Put them back where they belong. And help their…their people understand and move on.”

From his tone, I knew beyond certainty that somebody, Mitch most likely, had done the same for him. And that he still struggled with the moving on part, maybe always would. After all, he’d lived on the streets for three years when most boys would be playing football and experimenting with girls. How many pieces of his soul had he lost along the way? And what condition had they been in when he’d got them back? I’d probably never know.

I wanted very badly to hold him. To give him the small comfort of my body.

“It told me it was Stonefeather,” I said instead.

“Means nothing.” Timber’s shoulders lifted and dropped. “Things lie. Aye, it could be a piece of him. Or it could be something he pissed off. Or it could be confused.”

“It didn’t feel confused until it discorporated,” I offered.

Timber didn’t respond. We watched the skate punks together for a while. I wondered about the time. It couldn’t be much past three, I decided for no reason. If Timber had been up since the morning after the Solstice, he was going on thirty-six hours without sleep. And working some serious mojo the entire time.

“You should get some rest,” I said, just as he said,

“There’s no help for it. I’m going to have to go to his house.” His spirits seemed lighter for his having come to some sort of decision, and he sat up straighter.

“Stonefeather’s?” I recalled something else. “Gina said he was there. Friday night. Don’t be mad at me!” I added, noting a spark in his eyes. “She called him, to break up with him, actually. I don’t know whether he’s been there in hiding all along, or whether he was just passing through.”

Timber relaxed a touch, evidently having reconsidered taking my head off. “Funny him taking the call. If he didn’t want anyone to find him.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Makes no matter, I suppose. I’ll still have to go. I’ve a thought… Gods, I’m tired.” He rubbed his eyes and rolled his shoulders. “I dinna want to think it and I canna think it right now. D’ye fancy a bit of breaking and entering tonight? I may need your help.”

“All right,” I agreed. “If you promise to get some sleep first.”

“I will.” He stood, preparing to go. “Spruce gets off work at eleven. It shouldn’t take her long to get home. Shall I pick you up at…”

I shook my head. “I’ll meet you. At the cab stand at Eleventh and Pearl, outside Old Chicago. At midnight.”

He chuckled. “The witching hour it is, then. A proper time for dark doings.”

I got to my feet. “Not too dark, I hope.”

“We’ll see. Caitlin…” He hesitated, and just for a moment something passed between us. The barest flicker of the energy that had been. His hand twitched toward me, almost against his will. Then he dropped it. “Take care.”

“Sleep.”

“Aye.” He gave me a nod, and sauntered out of the park and off down Broadway. I watched him until his dark head vanished beyond the trees.

Chapter Twelve

M
idnight came sooner than I would have liked. At five ’til, I locked up the shop and headed to the rendezvous. So late on a Wednesday night in the summer, the Mall was almost deserted, with only a few die-hard partiers wandering from bar to bar. I hung around the cab stand, fending off bored and hungry-looking taxi drivers, as well as a couple of adolescent punks who tried to hit me up for spare change. They seemed more obstinate than needy, so I didn’t give them anything.

After fifteen minutes or so, a pair of widely-spaced headlights swung onto Eleventh Street, and the ugly Pacer pulled up at the curb.

“You’re late,” I grumbled, sliding into the denim passenger seat.

Timber grunted in reply and turned down Pearl. From what I could see in the dim glow cast from the streetlights, he looked better. Preoccupied, but more rested. At least, his energy seemed nearer its natural level, if somewhat rumpled.

“Do you remember where to go?” I asked as he turned the car onto Ninth, heading for the Hill.

“Near enough. Up to that big park, aye?”

“Chautauqua, yes. Then hang two rights, from Baseline onto Grant Place, and go three blocks.”

“Any alleys up there? I dinna fancy going in the front door.”

I thought. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

He glanced my way for the first time. “At least you had the sense to wear something dark.”

“We’re breaking into a man’s house. I’m not an idiot,” I snapped.

“No, you’re not,” he replied, and fell silent again.

Timber concentrated on his driving. I stared out the window, trying not to let his reticence bother me. Trying not to feel his agitation. About the job? Or about me? I decided the former. He had no reason to be agitated about me.

We had passed University before he spoke again, so unexpectedly that I jumped.

“Spruce and I had words.”

I slid my eyes at him. He was staring straight ahead, both his hands in a death grip on the wheel. I had a sudden, clear vision of how he had handled it when we’d gone to the studio: his touch light and capable, the barest contact of his fingers guiding it where it needed to go. The vision slipped into a memory of those same fingers on my skin, and I twitched.

“Oh?”

“Aye. She thinks… Well. It’s why I was late, is all.”

I wondered what they’d argued about and what Spruce had said to make her brother so tense. Doubtless she didn’t want him breaking into some stranger’s house and risking arrest in a strange town. It didn’t occur to me that he might not have mentioned his plans for the night. I got the idea he didn’t keep much from her. I got the idea she didn’t allow it.

“Okay,” I said. “I got a little worried you might have changed your mind about bringing me along, though.”

“I would have called you.”

I didn’t know why, but I thought he meant more than just tonight. I believed he wanted to tell me he would have contacted me after the Solstice fiasco, even if I hadn’t called him first. It made me feel a little better. Maybe some slim chance remained that we could, I didn’t know, stay friends after this ended. If I could only start over. Stop remembering him the way I did.

“Thank you. That’s reassuring.”

“I still think I may need you, though.”

He swung the car onto Baseline, and took the next hard right onto Grant, mute once more. Two blocks later, he killed the lights and pulled into an open spot on the curb across the street from Stonefeather’s and a few houses down.

“Have you ever done anything like this before?” he asked, not getting out of the car right away.

“Break into someone’s house?” I snorted. “Not my style. Not unless the studio counts.”

“It doesna. I have.” He sounded neither proud nor ashamed of it. “So. Try not to make a great noise. Walk like you belong. When we get to the target, head for the back. Dinna hesitate, but dinna hurry, either. Dinna attract attention.”

“I’m good at not attracting attention. You know,” I ventured, “I can make people not see me. I told you so. Before.”

He stiffened at my oblique reference to the Solstice. I barged ahead, cursing my slip of the tongue.

“I think I could extend it to both of us. I mean, I can do my whole shop when I need to.” Of course, it would mean bringing Timber inside my psychic protections. That might complicate matters.

“Would it strain you?”

I sniffed. “No.” Not the way he had in mind, anyway. “I’ve been doing that kind of thing since I can remember.”

I watched him think about it. “Do it, then.”

We got out of the car.
Reaching
out, I
bent
shadows and light around us. It came easily, more so than I had expected. Maybe because the night was so dark, just a few days off the new moon. And having Timber inside the circle of my defenses troubled me very little. As long as I kept my mind off of it. As long as I didn’t dwell on how much it felt like he belonged there.

“There,” I said.

“That’s it?” He raised an eyebrow, impressed. I could see him better now, because the bent light filtered in on us as though we stood in a kind of bubble of radiance. I had never bothered to figure out why the magic worked that way; it just did.

“That’s it.”

He smiled, and I wished I were still blind.

“Well, then. Let’s be about it.”

Crossing the street, we ghosted up to Stonefeather’s place, our passing no more than a whisper of night. Only a tabby cat paused in its nocturnal rambles as we slipped by it, put its ears back, and hissed.

“Very convenient, this,” Timber remarked. “The law should praise the Powers That Be you’re not of a burgling mind. What is it?”

We had come to the end of Stonefeather’s drive, and I had paused.

“The blackness,” I gulped. “It’s as strong as ever. I hoped…” I waved a vague hand in Timber’s direction. “I hoped with that thing caught, it might dissipate. It did at Gina’s. But it hasn’t here.”

“Are ye going tae puke again?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Not right away.”

With a grimace of annoyance, he took my elbow and steered me up the drive and into the back yard. I had too much to do to fight the nausea and revulsion swirling around Stonefeather’s property to appreciate the contact, and as soon as we reached the back porch, Timber let go.

“You can shield yourself, aye? So as not to feel it?”

“Yes.” I swallowed a new surge of bile.

“Then do it. Dinna worry about keeping us from being seen. It doesna matter now.”

“If I shield myself, I won’t be of any use to you.”

“Dinna be a fool.” He looked as if he’d like to throttle me. “Ye’ll be of nae use if you’re puking your guts out, either.”

“You said you might need me,” I protested. “I can cope.”

“No, you can’t,” he said, very slowly and distinctly, taking care with his accent; he wanted to make a point. “And I canna do what I need tae do if I’m burdened taking care of you. If the shadow aura is strong enough that it’s yet hanging on, it wilna go until someone cleanses it. I could do it, but then I wilna be able tae see what I need tae see.” Again, he made his words clear. “So put up a fucking shield.”

Sufficiently chastened and humiliated, I did it. I felt better at once.

“Good.” Timber gave me a curt nod and squatted at the back door, taking a couple of lock picks out of his pocket. He had the door open faster than I could have done it with a key. In mere seconds we stood in John Stonefeather’s kitchen.

The smell hit first: a staggering reek that seemed comprised of onions and sulfur burnt together and liberally doused with ammonia.

At almost the same time, Timber stumbled and only prevented himself from collapsing by catching at the kitchen table. Rushing to his side, I grabbed his arm to haul him upright. I may as well have tried to shift Stonehenge with my pinky finger; he was just too heavy and too solid. I should have remembered that. I had no clue what I’d do if he passed right out.

Fortunately, he recovered on his own before too much time had elapsed. Straightening up, he scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked a bit grey around the gills.

“What is that foul smell?”

“Asafoetida,” I told him, before I realized myself that I had identified it. Liking to cook came in handy in more places than the kitchen. I sniffed and coughed, wishing I hadn’t. “Lots of it.”

His eyes turned inward, as if he were trying to access some catalog written on the far side of his brain.

“Aye,” he said, his gaze regaining a little of its focus. He sounded grim, as if identifying the source of the odor had confirmed suspicions he’d rather not have had confirmed. “That would work.”

“Never mind the smell. Are you all right?”

“Hmmm?” He didn’t seem to understand what I meant.

“You about passed out just now. Or didn’t you notice?” Stupid man.

“Och, that. Aye, I noticed.” He glanced down at his chest, and I saw for the first time that his Soul Catcher hung outside his shirt instead of under it. Evidently, he didn’t want the shadow thing touching his skin. “It got heavier. All at once. And tried to get out. I had a bit to do, to keep it where it belongs.”

“Oh, is that all?” I snapped. “I thought you said it couldn’t get out.”

“Well, it didna, did it? Dinna take on. I know my job.” His unwonted patronizing tone irked me. Quite a lot.

“Thank you for condescending to tell me!” All at once, the toll of the last few days caught up with me, and I found I’d had enough of Timber MacDuff’s job, of his arrogance, of his insufferable attitude. I wanted to jump down his throat and rip his lungs out. “The next time you take it into your head to lose consciousness, I’ll just leave you to it, shall I?”

“I didna lose consciousness!” he shouted back at me. We’d both forgotten that we had broken into the deserted house of a missing man and the neighbors’ place lay not so far distant, on the other side of a broken-down fence. “I had a piece of work tae do!”

“You were on your knees!” He hadn’t been, but I’d been afraid of it.

“I wasna!” he shot back, catching me out. “I had a perfectly adequate grasp o’ my feet!”

“Oh, perfectly adequate,” I retorted. “You about knocked the table over!”

“So what?”

“So if that shadow thing or whatever gets too much for you, I can’t pick you up like… Like Sam carrying Frodo up Mount Doom!” Anger and panic had made me absurd. If he laughed now, I’d never forgive him.

“I dinna need ye tae carry me!”

“And a good thing, too!”

“Fucking leave be, woman!” He tossed his wayward hair back from his eyes with a glower. “I’ve work tae do and you’re keeping me from it!”

“Get on with it, then!”

“Fine! I will!”

“Fine!”

We glared at each other for another minute. At last, Timber stormed out of the kitchen, heading gods knew where. I thought about leaving. Letting him go about his precious business on his own. It would serve him right if he did collapse. Curiosity got the better of me in the end. I followed him.

Stonefeather’s house was a modest one for the area. The kitchen door led into a narrow hallway with a single bedroom on the left and another, smaller bedroom and bath on the right. From what I could see in the near pitch dark, the walls were depressingly bare, the wood floor scuffed. It seemed Stonefeather didn’t spend much on extras. I surmised anything past living expenses went to the booze. Sad.

A large, open space lay at the end of the hall. Living room, most likely; I could see light from outside shining through the front door. That was all I took in before I tripped over something large right in my path.

“Ack!” I squawked.

“Oof!” Timber grunted. He was on his knees just inside the room, shoulders hunched, his hands pressed to his temples as if his head hurt him. “Watch where you put your feet, aye?”

The strain in his voice made me forget my irritation. “Are you all right?”

“Not at the moment,” he replied with more honesty than I would have credited. “But I will be.”