CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nothing happened.
Nothing kept right on happening while I fell asleep leaning on the door. My knees buckled, jolting me awake, and I staggered to the computer chair. There had to be something I could find about Herne, something that would tell me what was going on. If it wasn’t on the Internet, it didn’t exist, right? So it had to be, some kind of information about Cernunnos’s sullen son. I clicked through to a new site, slumped in my chair and wondered how many shoes had already dropped.
“Shoes,” I said out loud, and looked at my feet. My luggage. I hadn’t actually promised Morrison I’d stay home, and I was out of underwear. I glanced at the computer screen, where the page loaded with excruciating slowness. Stifling a yawn, I went into the bed room and kicked over my carry-on, digging through it until I found my baggage ticket. The page still hadn’t loaded when I came back out, so I switched the screen off and left it to load, grabbing my keys on my way out the door. Airports seemed nice and safe. They had all those metal detectors that would keep people with swords from coming after me, and lots of security with no sense of humor to discourage someone if he evaded the metal detectors.
Not that it seemed even slightly plausible that airport security could handle Cernunnos. Or Herne, for that matter, since he seemed to be the one going around actually killing Seattleites. I switched lanes and listened to the uneven pattern of changing asphalt textures under the wheels of the car. Headlights flashed by, going the other direction, rhythmic whisks of light and sound in the dark. When this was over, I promised myself, I was going to go take a nice long drive to somewhere very quiet and try to get a grip on my shiny, weird new life.
Which task I would obviously accomplish with the copious spare cash hanging around in my savings account, during the long periods of free time I’d have between writing parking tickets.
An old Cadillac, big as a boat, flashed by. I remembered the church and reached across the car to open the glove box, letting the butterfly knife tumble forward with the various papers stuffed into the box. It made a solid thud, cushioned by paper, and I glanced at it while I drove.
Marie swore it hadn’t been Cernunnos waiting for her outside the church. I believed her: Cernunnos was not someone I would ever mistake for somebody else. That suggested it was Herne; certainly he appeared to be the one who’d murdered her. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the shape of the man I’d seen from the air, wondering if he fit Herne’s shape. Then I remembered I was driving. Maybe I should stop thinking until I wasn’t on a freeway.
I left the knife in the car when I got to the airport. Security might not be able to stop Herne, but they could certainly stop me. There was a Back in Fifteen Minutes sign on the baggage claim desk, so I wandered upstairs to one of the cafes to find some food, half-expecting to see someone I knew. I always expected to, at airports.
I got an overpriced but surprisingly good hamburger, and a cup of too-hot coffee. I took my bounty and found a table by a window, where I could watch the midnight international flights take off in the distance while I gnoshed on my burger.
“Waiting for someone?”
I focused on the reflection in the window, a broad-shouldered man in a sweatshirt, wearing his long brown hair tied in a ponytail. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “My boyfriend.”
He grinned. “Your large, bad-tempered, jealous boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I repeated. “Big. Bigger than you. Samoan,” I added in a fit of inspiration.
“Mind if I join you?”
I looked over at him. “I’m not a prostitute or out looking for a good time, and I’ve had a bad day,” I warned him. “If you make one pass at me, I’ll kick your ass right back to the Carolinas.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Joanne.”
“What the hell are you doing here, Casey?” I stood up and hugged him, letting out an oof as his hug popped my spine.
“Looking for lost souls,” he said by my ear, and put me back down. “Did I find one?”
“Funny you should say that. You look good. You bulked up.”
“It’s been a couple years. People change.”
“It’s been three and a half. And you always looked good.” Round-faced and quiet, Casey O’Brien didn’t come anywhere near what I considered my type, but he had graceful hands that I’d lusted after in college. He never stood up straight, which drove me crazy, because he was three inches taller than me but came across as shorter.
“You’re lying.” Casey sat down across from me, wrapping his hands around mine. I discovered I hadn’t stopped lusting. “What are you doing here?”
“What?” I looked up from his hands. “Um. Trying to locate my luggage. It got left here a couple days ago. What’re you doing here?”
“On my way back up to Alaska. New job up there.”
“Congratulations. Hey,” I said suddenly. “Do you know a Doctor Marie D’Ambra?”
“Not personally. I’ve heard of her. She’s kind of a kook. Claims to know when people are going to die. I think she’s been reading too many fairy tales.” Casey turned my hand over and traced his thumb over my lifeline. “Why, did you meet her?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s dead.”
Casey looked up, pale blue eyes shocked. “You’re kidding.”
“No. I met her yesterday morning. She was murdered last night.”
“Jeez, Joanne, I know you go on first impressions, but you really think you should start killing people you don’t like?”
Despite myself, I laughed. “Is that my mistake? I’ll work on that.” I shook my head, sobering. “She thought someone was after her. Look, you’re an anthropologist. Do you think…” I trailed off, uncertain of what to say. “Do you think studying old civilizations can make you susceptible to their beliefs?”
“You’re asking the wrong person. I’m an archaeologist, not a cultural anthropologist.” Casey pressed his lips together. “I don’t think an anthropologist should dismiss the reality of what she studies. But claiming you can tell when someone’s going to die? If she could do that, how come she’s dead? Shouldn’t she have known to run away?”
“She thought she was going to die,” I admitted. “She thought…” I really didn’t want to tell Casey that Marie had thought an old Celtic god was after her. Not even if it was true. The only reason I believed was because I’d come face-to-face and blade to blade with something that pretty definitely wasn’t human. “She thought I was going to die,” I said instead.
“You’re looking pretty perky for a dead girl.” Casey studied me, then reached out and turned my face, frowning. “How’d you get that scar? I just noticed it.”
I rubbed it. “Guess it’s not wildly disfiguring, then. Marie D’Ambra cut me with a knife.”
Casey’s eyebrows crinkled. “What’d she do that for? I thought you said you met her yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“But it’s all healed up.”
“I know. Have you ever had a week so strange it was inexplicable?”
“Um.” Casey studied me again. “I don’t think so.”
I picked up my coffee cup. “I’m having one. If I live through it and manage to get some perspective, I’ll tell you about it.” The coffee was cool enough to drink, and I took a grateful slurp. “Tell me something. Do you think the world needs saving?”
“Needs? Sure. Deserves? Dunno about that.” Casey reached across the table and stole one of my fries. They were cold, so I didn’t stop him. “People basically suck. Maybe we should kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. Let the planet start over.”
“Do you really think that?” I pushed the plate toward Casey as he took another fry. He chewed slowly, thinking about his answer.
“Sometimes,” he said after a minute. “What do you think?”
I took another sip of coffee and stared at the dwindling pile of fries while I thought about it. A few days ago I would have laughed and agreed. Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out.
But I’d told Billy I felt like I could save the world- or Seattle, anyway. I’d promised the priest I’d stop the
