Wild Hunt (11 page)

I half expected him to fling open Katie’s door and run into her room, but instead he carefully pushed it open a crack, just enough to peer inside. He was still for a moment, then sighed, his shoulders slumping. “She’s asleep,” he said, closing the door.

“You’re sure?”

“If she were awake, she’d be fake-snoring. Katie’s a champion sleeper. It takes a lot to wake her up once she’s finally down.” He exhaled, running both hands through his hair. “Evie, I’m sorry. I’m not usually…I usually have that under control.”

“Well,” I said, carefully setting aside for now what “that” might be, “I’m not usually clawing at the front door and forgetting how locks work, so I suspect we’ve both had a bad evening.” I started to lean against the door frame, then hissed as my hand, splinters and all, scraped against it.

Nate reached for my hand. “Jesus, Evie, what did you do?”

Hell.
One more undercurrent matter I’d be dragging him into. “Would you believe me if I told you?” I snapped, moving out of his reach.

He was silent a moment. “I seem to remember,” he said finally, “telling you that I’d believe anything you ask me to. It’s still true.”

I couldn’t look at him.
I can’t do this to him
, I thought,
can’t keep dragging him back into the undercurrent, not when it harms everything it touches.

But he was right. He’d believe what I asked, and I needed that.

“Ghosts,” I said at last. “Angry ones. I was trying to ask them something on behalf of a client, and it kind of got out of control.” I glanced up at him. He’d gone pale, but not horrified or scared or repulsed—all reactions I’d gotten from people who’d learned about
my undercurrent links in the past. “I’m here, though, and I think I’m all right.”

“And that’s why you’re here,” he said slowly, gesturing to the apartment, including it (and the couch) in that
here
. “I’m glad. Here, let me do something for your hand.”

I followed him to the bathroom and watched as he took down several bottles from the medicine cabinet. “I won’t need all of that.”

“Can’t hurt to have it.” He turned on the light over the mirror, then took my hand and turned it over, palm up.

A little electric shiver ran through me, and I caught my breath without meaning to. His fingers were warm on my skin, and somehow their pressure didn’t hurt as much as it should have. I couldn’t help remembering that just a little while ago I’d been curled up close to him, his breath in my hair. Even if it had been innocent—and I knew myself too well to assume such a motive—with just such a simple touch, it no longer was.

A sudden, quick pulse fluttered in the hollow of his throat, where the lines of sinew and bone met in a curve just barely touched with sweat. I curled my other hand against my side to keep from reaching up and following that curve with my fingers.

It took me a moment to realize that one, my hand still hurt, and two, Nate hadn’t moved. He stood with his head bowed, looking at my hand instead of my face, still as deep water save for that quickening pulse. For just a flash, I remembered the look in his eyes when he’d struck the idiot undergrad, when we’d touched before—and the glint of eyes in darkness just a moment ago—and the air seemed to leave the room.

The tweezers dropped into the sink, and he let go of my hand so suddenly that it grazed the porcelain. I hissed in pain. “I’ll, uh, I’ll let you do this,” he said in a low voice, and edged past, careful not to touch me.

I stood there for a moment, chilly for reasons that
had nothing to do with either the undercurrent or the weather. “Goddammit,” I said finally, and fished the tweezers out of the sink.

When I emerged, Nate was as collected as I imagined he must be when teaching. “It’s about four o’clock,” he said. “I can call you a taxi, if you want, or you can stay here.” When I looked up at him, that same iron control was down over his features. “If you give me a moment, I can make up the couch for you. It’s not too uncomfortable; I end up sleeping here half the time anyway.” His smile was a little too strained, and I refrained from pointing out that he—we—had been doing just that before whatever psycho wake-up call had jolted both of us out of bed.

“Don’t worry about the couch. I’m fine with just a place to lie down.” I stopped, then sighed. “Nate,” I said, “do you want me to go?”

“No,” he said automatically, but he looked away as he said it. Slowly, as if without his volition, his hand reached out and snapped off the desk light. It didn’t leave us in darkness—the streetlight was directly outside, and a greasy orange glow lit up everything in the room—but it was enough of a shock to my eyes that I couldn’t quite see his face. “No, I don’t want you to go,” he said, so softly I almost couldn’t hear him.

“Then why are you shutting me out like this?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, and again it was a growl, a sound that shouldn’t have come from the man I knew. “It’s—look, don’t worry about me.”

I shook my head. “You’re not making sense.”

“I have to make sense for ninety percent of my day, Evie. Forgive me if I can’t explain everything clearly just now.”

“Goddammit, Nate—” I stopped, biting back my words.
I need you to be normal
, I wanted to say. But my eyes had adjusted, and I could finally see his face again, even if most of it was in shadow. “Okay. All right.”

For a moment I felt that same prickle, that same sense of something not quite right. But he nodded, and when I settled onto the couch in the same hollow that our bodies had made, he looked away from me. “Sleep well, then,” I said.

He winced as if I’d cut him. “Sleep well,” he said, and didn’t look at me as he went to his own empty bed.

I
woke the next morning to sunlight flooding in from the wrong direction, a pillow that wasn’t lumpy enough to be one of mine, and knots in both legs. The door to Katie’s bedroom creaked open as I sat up, and I was still too out of it to do more than blink sleepily as Katie emerged in a nightshirt that, judging by the nigh-illegible Celtics logo, had probably started life as one of Nate’s tees. “Hey, kid,” I said, and managed a smile.

“Evie?” she said, then, before I could croak a response, ran over and hugged me. My ribs creaked. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be here yet.”

“Change of plans,” I said, then paused. Katie had a little touch of Sight on her—nothing big, nothing that had messed up her life yet, but enough that she could sometimes unnerve people who weren’t used to her. And enough that it sometimes became difficult to parse her words, especially when she got her grammar confused. I had to get this kid to visit the seer enclave sometime soon. “What, was I supposed to be here later on?”

She shook her head against my shoulder, but that could have meant either
no
or
I don’t want to talk about it
. “Are you okay?” she said, pulling back a little so she could look up at me.

“Sure,” I said automatically, then stopped. I raised
my left hand and flexed it. “A little sunburned.” A thin network of red lines remained, but the skin wasn’t in that scary flash-fried state anymore. I’d have to put something on my hand to make sure my biking glove didn’t chafe against it. “How about you?”

Katie took my hand in hers, scrutinized it, and gave me a long look that was far too serious for her years. Goddamn Hunters; they both had the same eyes. “
I’m
okay,” she said, and let go. “Are you staying for breakfast?”

I cleared my throat. “I don’t think—” An alarm chimed behind Nate’s door, and I sprang up from the couch as if it’d been my own. It was the second time I’d heard it, I realized; that was the sound that had woken me up. “I’d better go.” Shoes, where had I put my shoes? And my helmet—no, I hadn’t brought my bike over, I’d walked. What was I missing, and what could I afford to leave behind?

Katie followed me like a diminutive shadow, so close behind me I almost tripped over her when I turned to scan the room for anything else of mine. “We’re going to Revere Beach today for day camp,” she said. “You could come.”

“Thanks, but no.” Too late. Nate stepped out of his room, still fastening his belt over jeans a size too large for his narrow hips. Damn. He looked straight at me, and my language centers shut down in self-defense. “Good morning,” I said, although it came out more like
gmurn
.

“Morning,” he echoed. Goddammit, I was already blushing. And it wasn’t like I’d had any cause for it. Nate swallowed, then seemed to shake himself. “Katie, get dressed. We’re on an early schedule today.”

Katie sighed, the momentary strangeness of her Sight falling away to reveal the ordinary kid underneath. “I can’t find my clothes,” she whined.

“Top of the dresser, right where you put them last night.” He was moving as he spoke, heading for the kitchen and picking up the pans that had fallen as if it
was totally normal to find them on the floor first thing in the morning.

Katie thumped into her room. I briefly felt sorry for their downstairs neighbors; no one thumps quite like a sullen eight-year-old. “Nate,” I began.

Katie stomped back as if the door had bounced her out. “They’ve got Little Ponies on them. Only babies wear Little Ponies.”

“Then you’ve got two minutes to find something else. Move.”

Katie got a mulish look on her face, but she looked at me and ran into her room. I glanced after her, then at Nate, who had unearthed a pair of lunchboxes from the pile of cookware. “Is it like this every morning?”

“Sometimes.” He shook his head and took a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard. “I don’t know, last night she was fine with the Ponies shirt.”

“I was
not
!” Katie yelled.

“Okay, sorry, Katie, you weren’t.” He made a pair of sandwiches and cut one into triangles. “Usually we’ve got a little more time. I wasn’t kidding about an early start.” He hesitated and glanced over his shoulder at me. “We don’t have much of a selection for breakfast, but you’re welcome to join us.”

And it was easier to talk to me in daylight with a pint-sized chaperone, I thought sourly. But after last night—all of last night—I could use the reconnection with the real world. The undercurrent has a nasty habit of dragging you in as soon as you set foot in it, and I had enough trouble keeping myself balanced.

Maybe Janssen was right that pretending something didn’t exist didn’t make it go away. But that didn’t mean you had to drag it to the top. “I probably shouldn’t—”

Katie burst out of her room wearing a red tank top turned inside out and jeans with faded pink ribbons sewn onto the pockets. It didn’t quite match, but it looked okay. Nate glanced at her, then at me, his lips quivering in a suppressed smile.

“What?” I said, then realized that I was still wearing the clothes I’d changed into after work yesterday: jean shorts and a sleeveless top a few shades darker than Katie’s. I sighed. “Okay. Maybe coffee.”

I watched Nate as he packed an apple and celery into each box (one showed a peeling corporate logo, the other several Disney Princesses with their dresses colored over in black marker), cajoled Katie into finishing her cereal even though it was the last “fuzzy” stuff from the bottom of the box, and remembered in time that I took my coffee black. It wasn’t just that he seemed like a different person, I thought. That would have implied an act of some sort. But Nate seemed normal, natural, and his scent was as I’d always known it. I could see a trace of the man I’d seen last night, but it was quiet, turning its attention elsewhere.

Just then Nate looked up from his coffee and met my eyes. I went scarlet—well, redder than usual—and he froze like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow. No, I thought, more like a dog when someone moves to take its food away…Coffee slopped over his hand, and Nate cursed, coming back to himself.

I looked away, anywhere but at him, and just then the phone rang. Nate frowned and glanced over his shoulder. “Katie, get your books together.”

“I don’t need books for day camp!”

Nate was already at the phone. Katie shrugged and dragged her chair a little closer to mine. “Why aren’t you eating?”

“Not hungry.”

She tipped up her cereal bowl to finish it. “Sarah thinks it’s gross that I drink the milk when I’m done.”

“She does, huh?”

I watched as Nate straightened up, still holding the phone. His back was turned, but something about the lines of his shoulders made me think this wasn’t a good call. “…get this number?” I heard faintly.

“Do you drink the milk when you’re done?” Katie held up her bowl to demonstrate.

“I don’t know. I hated cereal as a kid.” Or maybe I was just finding an excuse to ogle Nate’s back.
Mind out of the gutter, Evie.

Katie made a thoughtful noise, then got up and set her bowl on the thin strip of counter next to the sink. “So what did you have instead?”

“Toast. Or oatmeal.” I’d hated oatmeal too, but my mom had had limited patience in the mornings. Nate was speaking again, but the sound of something dragging over the floor drowned out his words. I turned to see Katie pushing a stepstool into place next to the sink. “What’s that for?”

“You wash your own dishes.” And she did, fumbling a little with the faucet, since it wasn’t designed for the reach of shorter arms. “I’ll wash yours, though, since you didn’t know.”

“I’m not done with it yet.” I finished the last of my coffee as Nate hung up. “Who was that?”

Nate didn’t look at me. Instead he picked up his coffee mug and drained it. “Katie, go get your books.”

“I told you, I don’t need books for today—”

“Then get your backpack. And make sure you bring sunscreen this time.” She climbed off the stepstool and retreated to her room. Nate ran a hand through his hair, disheveling it even further. Was it possible to have permanent bed-hair? “That was my father,” he said finally, still looking into his mug.

“Ah.”
Shit.

Nate shook his head. “I don’t know how he got my number, but…he wants me to meet him. Says if I just meet him once, he’ll stay out of my life.”

It sounded like emotional blackmail to me, but then again, I didn’t have the best relationship with my father either. Distance was something I knew better. “You’d like to talk to him one last time.”

He smiled thinly. “First is more like it. I wasn’t in a mood to actually talk the last time we met.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He finally glanced
over at me. There were lines starting at the corners of his eyes—nothing new there; I was starting to get a couple as well—but somehow on him it just made him look more ground down. “I’ve arranged to meet him tonight. Get it over with quickly.”

I thought about reaching out for him, but couldn’t make myself do it. “Are you sure about this?”

“No.” Nate poured the last of the coffee into his mug, dumped another three spoonfuls of sugar in, and took a sip. I winced at the thought of how it must taste. “But I think I owe him this much. This much, and no more.” He stared into his mug, then drank down the rest of it in a few quick swallows, grimacing. “Last night—”

“Don’t.”

“No, Evie, that’s not—” He ran a hand over his face. “What you were talking about last night. The ghosts, your hand…Will you be all right?”

“You’re asking
me
that?” I grinned at him.

Nate blinked, then grinned back. “Yeah. I guess I know the answer.”

“You know I will, Nate. I’m used to dealing with this sort of thing.” Maybe not ghosts specifically, but the undercurrent for one, and the elements of Boston life that turned nasty fast. I handed him my coffee mug, and my fingers grazed his palm. Goddammit. “Good luck.”

First thing I did when I got home was put on a fresh pot of coffee, then shower. My clothes still smelled like salt and desiccation—the result of the amalgam’s ire—and there were spots on my jeans where the cloth had dried out so thoroughly that the threads had frayed. Still, the shower helped, and my hand had almost started to feel normal, enough that I didn’t bother to get out when the phone rang. The machine picked up, and I ducked my head under the water again, trying to keep the world at arm’s length a little longer.

As it turned out, it wasn’t yet another call asking
for something from me, but a cancellation: Rena, sounding like she hadn’t slept in a week. “Evie, it’s me. Forget what I said about the Kamikaze Karaoke night. It’s not going to work. Don’t ask why, just—God, this case is either going to put my name in lights or pull me over the rack, I swear to God. Why the hell did I agree to quit smoking?” She sighed. “Anyway. Maybe a week after that we might be able to do something. I don’t know. I’ll call.”

Damn. I didn’t know what this case could be, but Rena was seriously going to need some club therapy when it was done, regardless of the outcome.

I argued with the radio while I got dressed. The Sox hadn’t been doing so well of late—enough that the pessimists were starting to say that this was just like every other year: now that the All-Star game was over they’d crash and burn, moan moan moan. Two of them had managed to clog up the radio’s comment lines, and it was only a stroke of luck that the host was in no mood to take their crap either.

Unfortunately, the persistent blind spot was still there, right over my shoulder. I’d forgotten about it in the confusion of last night, but it remained like a gap in my perceptions. “Fuck it,” I muttered, switching off the radio. “At least it won’t stop me from working.”

Once showered and dressed and ready for the day, I took down my bike helmet from its place above the little waterfall. Today could be a good day. And the Sox were playing tonight. My stomach gurgled, and I snapped my fingers. Breakfast. And maybe more coffee. Feed the addiction, Evie.

I took two steps into the kitchen, then stopped dead. Abigail Huston sat at the table, hands clasped around an empty mug. “You don’t have any tea.”

I’d like to say that I had a witty retort ready, that I was so used to unusual appearances that I could take one more in stride. Instead I just gaped at her. “What?”

“I said, You don’t have any tea. I expected a little better of you.”

I stared a moment longer, trying to understand what my nose was telling me. Yes, she was real. No, there wasn’t any trace of her on the threshold or in the office, and there weren’t any windows in the kitchen itself. No, she hadn’t materialized, because magic of that sort takes five years to set up and is a lot less efficient than taking a taxi. Yes, she was actually present.

I hated impossibilities. Just once, I’d like for what I knew of the undercurrent to not be yanked out from under me. “How long have you been there?”

Abigail shrugged. “Since you came home. A little before, really.” She sniffed, which I gathered was going to be the only comment on my scandalous absence. “You just didn’t happen to see me before.”

“How the hell did you get in?”

She smiled, her lips pressing together thinly rather than curving. “I won’t insult you by saying the door was open.” She ran a finger along the rim of the mug as if searching for dust. “You don’t have wards up.”

I took a deep breath, set my helmet down, and leaned against the door frame. “Would they have mattered?”

Abigail shrugged.

“Christ.” I shook my head. “This is just too much. Where do you get off—”

I stopped. Abigail raised her chin. “Do go on.”

But I couldn’t, not now that I understood what my nose was telling me. While Abigail’s scent hadn’t changed much since I’d seen her, there was a thin edge to it, like the whine of an off-kilter ball bearing in the sound of an otherwise smoothly running engine. Beneath the ice of her demeanor, she was terrified, and while she wasn’t so gauche as to show it, the fact that I could scent it at all meant that things had gotten worse.