War-N-Wit, Inc. – Resurrection (7 page)

“Tour bus?”

“You’ll love it. Easiest way to see Savannah.”

Chapter
Eleven

Chad turned his phone back on when we got to our room. Voice
mail showed one message.

“And I’m sure we know from who,” he said.

“Whom.”

“Baby girl.”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Hedgepath?”

“Of course. Can’t stay on the Seer’s bad side.”

I groaned. “Get it over with.”

Chad laughed and sat down on the bed, patting the cover
invitingly.
 
I joined him and he played
the voice mail.

Hedgepath’s voice grated every nerve I had. “I apologize for
any misunderstandings or miscommunications we may have had. However, the
importance of this matter demands that we all put our personal differences
aside—”

“
Yewwwwwwww
,” I
said, over the message. “I can feel the slime from here!”

“—and handle this as befits adults for the good of mankind.
The Seer has a responsibility to the Tear of Isis and I have a responsibility
to make sure she realizes it. Please return this call so we can arrange a
meeting to discuss the situation. Goodbye.”

Chad
burst out laughing. “Okay, way to win friends and influence people.”

“Ain’t it though? I’m the Seer even though I don’t deserve
it and he doesn’t understand why in the hell I’ve been chosen, but he’s going
to make sure I do it right because I certainly don’t have enough sense to
handle it on my own. But—and this is the real question—Chad, what’s he
really
after? Okay, so the Seer can
see somebody’s past lives. Great parlor trick. Good conversation piece. That
won’t buy you a cup of coffee. There’s something else, there’s got to be.”

“Got to be. The Tear hasn’t been the subject of a lot of
research. But it’s been speculated that it also has other powers and
properties. You feel any different? Notice anything different?”

“Let’s see. In the last three months, I met a warlock
soul-mate I’ve reincarnated with over centuries. I found out my baby sister’s a
ghost-whisperer. And oh yeah! I found out I’m a witch. And now I’ve found out
I’m the Seer of the Tear of Isis. Different? Oh, no. My life’s completely
normal, what could be different?”

“You’re beautiful when you’re sarcastic.”

“I know. Any ideas on what this other power or powers of the
Tear could be? That I don’t even know I have?”

“Not a clue. Other than whatever it is, it’s got to be
something that’s generating Hedgepath money. And a lot of it. You wanta even
guess a price tag on that house? On the furnishings?”

“No, I’d be scared to.”

“Exactly.”

“You think G’s got a clue?”

“I hope so.”

G must have radar. He picked that exact minute to call.

“Yo, Magic Man! Whut up?” Must be his standard greeting.

“There’s a new Seer in town, all right,” Chad said.

“But not you.”

“And of course you knew that already. And who the new Seer
is.”

“Kinda thought maybe, and so did you, don’t lie about it.
Her power’s been growing so fast she’s sending ripples into the mystic mix even
up here. She’s probably a damn tidal wave up close. Hello, new Seer. We got to
get you a handle, Ariel. Something befitting. Snazzy but classy. I’ll think on
it. Lady Seer? Lady Tear?”

“Chad’s
fond of Witch-Bitch,” I said.

“Precious Witch-Bitch,” Chad said. “Or beautiful
Witch-Bitch. Not just Witch-Bitch.”

“Naw. That’s his private little endearment. I’ll think on
it. So. What’s the assessment on Hedgepath?”

“He’s a pig. A slug. A megalomaniac. A miserable excuse for
a man. An embarrassment to magic.” Was that me? Taking over the conversation
like I’d moved in the inner councils of high magic all my life?

G laughed. “You got to learn to be a little clearer there,
we need more definite statements. Okay. Then he’s not the original Oliver
Hedgepath. Not the one I knew. Which I didn’t think he was from your first
phone call. Damn. I hate that. Ollie was a gentle man. I hope he’s all right,
but I sure wouldn’t lay any bets on it.”

“Bottom line here, G,” said Chad. “This past lives thing just
isn’t enough for all this. It has nothing of value insofar as any shyster or
con artist could use for the type of money Hedgepath—or whoever the hell he
is—has been pulling in. Legend has it the Tear gives its Seer other powers.
What are they? Anybody know? And by legend, the Tear picks its own Seer. It
picked the original Hedgepath. It picked Ariel. You say the real Hedgepath was
one of the good guys, a gentle man. Ariel picks up bugs and puts ‘em back
outside, I kid you not.”

“Not all bugs,” I said. “Just bugs like Daddy Long-Legs and
Lady Bugs and stuff. I wouldn’t put a cockroach back outside.”

G laughed, and Chad continued. “So the Tear only
entrusts its powers to white magic. Why would it ever have picked this
Hedgepath in the first place? For any length of time?”

“Don’t know,” said G. “But I’m going to put some research
people on it. Get back with you as soon as I get any answers. Or don’t get any
answers, as the case may be.”

“Hedgepath left us a message he wanted a meet.”

“Of course he does.”

“Be nice to have some answers before we see him again.”

“Set it for tomorrow night. I’ll try to have something for
you before then. And I wouldn’t call him back until morning, either. Let him
sweat. Because whatever the reason is, he’s damn sure sweating.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Chad agreed and said goodbye. Then he
tossed the phone on the the nightstand and grabbed me, falling back onto the
pillows.
 
“Savannah’s such a romantic
city,” he said. “Such a great place to finish an interrupted honeymoon.” He
reached over and clicked off the lamp.

Chapter Twelve

Tossed clothes. Tangled sheets. Entwined limbs. Moving
mouths. The magical melding and merging, every time a first time. Electrical
current building in intensity to circuit overload. Always, amazement at the
coolness of his body against mine, never overpowering, never oppressive.

“No man outside out the pages of a romance novel knows how
to make love like that,” I whispered, my mouth against his neck.

“You always say that,” he whispered back.

“Always true.”

“Because you taught me. Over many years.”

“And you always say that.”

“Always true.”

We slipped into slumber together.

* * *

I chased dreams throughout the night. Or maybe they chased
me. Through prisms of light, ever shifting, scenes in flash mode, bright as
daylight. The man and woman I’d dreamed of our first night back at Pine Whisper
Plantation. Me and not me. Chad
and not Chad.
In a grand epic thrown against a panoramic screen. Rome. White togas. Rich purple. Deep crimson.

White columns of marble stretched out against the brilliant
blue of the Mediterranean sky. Always, floating in the fringes of every scene,
t
he profile of a warrior, a screaming
eagle emblazoned on the sides of his helmet, the distinctive crest of a Roman
soldier proud at the crown. The image solidified. Caeso Gellius Acilianus. The
name so clear it could have been a credit at the end of the panoramic epic that
filled my dreams.

The woman stood
beside him. Livia Rufinus. At a state dinner. And then in their home, the
privacy of their own baths. Then in the stables, spirited horseflesh
surrounding them. I could smell the stable smells. In the markets, fresh fruit,
the smell of citrus tangy in the air. Jewelry, pottery. Furs. The known universe,
consolidated into one open-air market.

Gellius Acilianus. Chad
Garrett. Roman soldier. Bounty hunter. His personality hadn’t changed much from
that life to this, and probably not in any intervening ones. He didn’t give a
damn about the rules now, and he hadn’t then. Which is why I sat in the Roman Coliseum,
heart pounding, holding screams within. Furious with Gellius. Enraged at the
Roman Powers that be. Waiting. Waiting for the charioteers to emerge from the
doors and enter the track. He, a patrician of Rome, didn’t have to do this. Or
he wouldn’t have had to, had he been able to play the game, keep his mouth shut
and his opinions private. Though there was something else, too, something just
out of the range of my dream.

I chased the dream
for it, that something else, but the cacophony of noise distracted me. Roaring
crowds, pounding horse hooves, clash of metal on metal, hideous sounds of wheel
spokes cut by the wicked razor-sharp blades of the other chariots as they
jockeyed for position. In my dreams, one chariot flipped, end over end. My
private movie screen moved in slow motion, the body falling beneath the hooves
and wheels of the other chariot, tangled in reins. Gellius Acilianus. Broken.
The sand absorbed the rivers of blood pouring from his body. In the stands, I started
screaming. And didn’t stop.

* * *

“Ariel! Ariel, wake
up!
Wake up, damn it!”

Chad leaned over me,
shaking my shoulders. I gasped, and he grabbed me and pulled me to his chest.

“What in the hell happened?
You wouldn’t wake up, you scared the shit out of me! I hope the police don’t
knock on the door. If anybody heard that, they’d be sure you were getting
murdered!”

I sorted myself back
into the present. Chad
Garrett. Ariel Garrett. Savannah.
Not Rome. Not
Livia Rufinus. Not Gellius Acilianus. Maybe not now, but he used to be.
Gellius, I mean. And Livia owed him one.

I did something I’d
never done in my life to any living human being, something I’d never believed
I’d do. I pulled away from him, reared back, and slapped him. Hard.

“Owwwww!!! What the hell was that for?”

I glared, though I’m
sure that wasn’t noticeable in the dark.

“That was for
Livia
, Gellius! Since she never got a
chance to do it! ‘Cause you were
dead
!
‘Cause you couldn’t play well with the big boys! Just couldn’t keep your mouth
shut!”

“Oh, shit. You
didn’t see that in the Tear, though, I made sure I was turned away from you.
Just in case.”

“I don’t think the
Seer always needs the Tear.”

“Now if you could
just figure out what else the Seer can do.”

I lay back down and
turned on my left side, my back snuggled close to his chest. “I’ll sleep on it.
You seriously think anybody heard me screamin’? How loud was I?”

“To me, pretty damn
loud, but I think that was just ‘cause you scared me to death when I couldn’t
wake you up. But these rooms are supposed to be sound-proofed, so I doubt the
cops’ll show up.”

“Hope not,” I said.
Must be something about the flashbacks. Exhaustion hit me. I closed my eyes and
went out like a light.

Chapter Thirteen

Another voice mail
from Hedgepath greeted us when we got up, his usual nauseating blend of
superiority trying to be conciliatory.

“I fail to see why
you two are not treating this with the importance it deserves. But whatever I
can do to impress on you how absolutely necessary your cooperation is in this
transfer of power from one Seer to the next, I will do. The courtesy of a
return call would be greatly appreciated.”

“Bite me,” I said to
the voice mail. “I’m hungry,” I said to Chad. “Breakfast?”

“Your wish is my
command and all that jazz,” said Chad. “We’ll grab some hotel
breakfast and catch the tour bus at the

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know.
Make a threat. Lay a finger on you. Hate to have to kill him. Especially before
we figure out what the hell he’s been doing that he wants to keep doing.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I
know. Damn it.”

We didn’t have to
call Hedgepath back, though. Chad’s
phone announced an incoming call before we got the chance.

“Three guesses and
the first two don’t count,” he said.

“Let me take it,” I
said, knowing how irate it made the man to talk to me, a mere woman. A mere
witch. “War-N-Wit, Inc. Ariel Garrett,” I said, hitting speaker.

“And exactly the
lady I need to speak with,” Hedgepath said. It was costing him a lot to sound
halfway jovial. I heard the strain in his voice.

“Why, good morning,
Mr. Hedgepath.”

“Did you get my
voice mails?”

“Yes, sir, we did,
and were just about to call you back when you called us again. I have you on
speaker. So we can all discuss whatever arrangements might be necessary for—oh,
what did you call this? The transfer of power?”

A surge of black and
crimson color rolled out of the phone. I could see it. Frustrated rage. He kept
his voice steady, though, I’d give him that.

“I believe I might
have called it that, yes. I thought we could discuss this over dinner tonight,
like civilized people. Seven o’clock back at

“You’re inviting us
to dinner?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, that’s very
hospitable of you, Mr. Hedgepath—”

“Call me Oliver.
We’re practically family, Ariel.”

My eyes widened at
that one, and Chad
threw out a cautionary hand. “Don’t!” he mouthed at me.

“How nice of you to
say so,” I said, choking back my initial reaction to being classed as any part
of Hedgepath’s family. “But thank you, we won’t impose for dinner. We’re making
this trip a bit of a substitute honeymoon, our first one got cut unexpectedly
short. We’ll drop by at six, if that’s all right.”

“Does that mean I
should plan on five?” A trace of venom got through on that reference to our
early arrival Friday night. I’d better get off the phone before we both lost
our polite facades.

“No, sir, I told
you. This is a bit of a replacement honeymoon, we have plans for the day. And
the rest of the evening.”

“Seeing a bit of Savannah, I hope? You
should consider one of the tours. Well worth it for an introduction to the
city.”

Chad
cut in quickly. “I know Savannah well, Ollie. I think we’ll forego
playing tourist on the trolley bus.”

“You know best, of
course. Six o’clock, then?”

“Six o’clock.”

I hit “End” and
turned to Chad.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You don’t want him to know what we’re doing today.”

“No, ma’am, I surely
don’t. Though I’m more interested in him not knowing where we are than what
we’re doing. Not that knowing we’re on a tour bus would give him a clue where
we were unless he watched us get on and off at the stops.”

We ate our hotel
continental breakfast and walked to the

We grabbed a prime
seat on the next tour bus that hit the

“Do you? Light
candles? For who?”

He smiled, not a
particularly happy smile. “Shouldn’t that be for whom? For a few folks. And by
then, we’ll want lunch. Clary’s is a block or two up from it. Local spot. You
saw it if you saw
Midnight in the Garden
of Good and Evil
.”

“The café? With the
fly guy?”

“Yep. And you get to
split an éclair with me after lunch, or I’ll eat the whole thing by myself.”

The tour bus
finished loading the passengers at this stop. The driver closed the door and
started the smooth spiel of humor and information honed to a fine art that
belonged to the professional tour guide.

“Ladies and gents, a
little background info to get you started here. For those of you just joining
us, remember we’ll be making fifteen stops during this tour and you’re welcome
to get off and back on one of our tour buses at any point, but please remember,
we can only stop at the actual designated stops. So please don’t try flaggin’
us down in-between stops and then get mad when you think we’re ignoring you.
Big fines for that, and the company don’t pay ‘em, that’d come out of our
pockets! Now, from this point in our tour, we’ll be coming up on City Market,
built over the original center market of the city…”

We’d actually gotten
on at one of the last stops on the tour which meant we reached the company’s
home base at

This driver resumed
the professional spiel of tidbits of city history. “Welcome folks, we’ll be
coming up on

The Savannah Squares
were indeed little jewels scattered throughout the city, twenty-two of them,
framed with huge live oaks bearded with Spanish Moss.

“Love that Spanish
Moss, don’t you?” asked the driver. “The early settlers stuffed mattresses and
pillows with it. That was before they figured out lots of
bugs
live in Spanish —Moss—that kinda put the quietus on that one!”

The passengers all
laughed.

“Georgia’s one
of the original thirteen colonies, you know,” the driver continued. “Had some
specific rules in its charter. One of them was no lawyers, y’all know that?”

“Damn,” I said to Chad. “They
shoulda stood firm on that one.”

We went around the
entire tour once, just so I could see where everything was. Savannah was full of museums. Full of old
houses with lots of history, like the Sorrell-Weed House, famous for its
exorcism and wall topped with broken glass cemented into the stone. Full of
squares, those city delights. Squares that used to have the actual park bench
where Tom Hanks once sat as
Forrest Gump
,
where the statute made famous by
Midnight
in the Garden
once stood. Both those artifacts had been moved for their own
protection. Savannah had lots of local “characters” and the driver wasn’t shy
about sharing their stories. Restaurants and eateries abounded, many of them
also used as movie sets. Savannah
was a popular movie locale, and the tour drivers referred to those movies
frequently.

“If y’all look over
on the left there,” said our driver at the corner of

“Lady Chablis!” I
exclaimed with the driver. “Chad!
What are the odds we’re here on one of the weekends Lady Chablis’s back in
Savannah!”

He jerked his head
around to stare at me.

“We’re not. Are we?”

I smiled back. I
didn’t say a word.

“We are,” he said in
resignation. “Aren’t we?”

“Yes, we are.”

“Okay. After
Hedgepath, we’ll walk up to the Club and get tickets for the late show before
we eat. Just in case it’s a full house.” He sighed. “The things I do for you.”

I leaned over and
kissed his cheek. “Only truly secure men would go to a drag queen show,
darlin’. And you are definitely one of the securest men I know.”

We changed buses one
last time back at the main terminal, so we could go around again to the
Cathedral of St. John. We exited and went inside. The entire structure, inside
and out, was a true work of art, the Stations of the Cross detailed and perfect
and achingly sad. Chad
lit his candles. I hung in the background. This was personal. I left him alone
a few minutes.

When he was ready to
go, we walked down the few blocks to Clary’s on Abercorn, its stained glass
sign with the Irish green lettering throwing bright color out to the street.
Something was different though. Had been since we’d changed buses for this
final tour loop. Like daggers in my back again.

We went in and
picked a table. “They’ve got to have some of the best hamburgers in the world,”
said Chad.
“But I feel the corned beef calling.”

I couldn’t get past the menu’s description of the hamburger.
I ordered an original with cheddar cheese. It was so good I ignored the
daggers. Which were now hitting me from the front.

I leaned forward.
“How close are we to

“Real close. We crossed

“Yeah, but it
started with the last bus, it didn’t just happen.”

“I know. But it’s not stopping me from having my chocolate
éclair.”