“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
“What?” I looked up from his hands. “Urn. 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 nutcase who was murdering children. I’d told Kevin I’d find the guy who’d killed his wife. “I guess I don’t think people basically suck. I think…I don’t know what I think.” I put the coffee cup down and my head in my hands, trying to work my way through a thought. “I think we lost our sense of direction,” I finally said. “I think we need to…” I looked up. Casey’s eyes flashed emerald-green at me, like a reflected light was somewhere behind my head.
A thin trickle of cold followed the warmth of the coffee down the inside of my throat, spreading out through my stomach. “I think we need to heal the people who are hurt.” I picked up my coffee again and twisted around to look behind me. There was nothing green, not even as much as an exit sign. “Heal the ones who can do the most harm, first, and then work our way down through the ranks.” I turned back to him. “I think we should start with you.”
Casey’s eyes shifted. “Me? Since when did I become one of the bad guys?”
“I think you always were,” I whispered. “Herne, son of Cernunnos.” Names had power, I’d read that. Casey began to stand up and I reached across the table to knot my fist in his shirt, locking eyes with him.
“Give me my friend back. Now.”
Color bled out of Casey’s eyes, pale blue giving way to virulent green. A small numb part of me watched it and knew I should be scared, but after watching all the color drain from Marie’s eyes, after reliving the memory of the teenagers’ deaths, all that I could feel was rage replacing the fear that had chilled my belly. I saw surprise deepen the color of his eyes: he expected me to be afraid. I hauled him forward a few inches, and snarled, “Give me back my friend.”
“What if he was never here?” Casey’s voice tinged with a nasal, arrogant accent. Herne’s voice in his garden had been richer, fuller and far more heavily accented, but the intonations were the same.
“All the better,” I growled. “Then you’re the only casualty I’ll have to worry about.”
“You can’t,” he murmured with absolute confidence. “Healer.” The word was an epithet. I tightened my fingers in his shirt and moved around the table, until I was face-to-face with him. I could feel power again, the way I’d felt it earlier, roiling through me. It was free now, unlocked and ready to be used. There were other patrons in the restaurant, some of them watching us openly, a few of them pretending very hard not to see us. I didn’t
All I’d used the power inside me for was healing, so far, but my skin felt abused by the pressure of light on it. Invisibility was just a matter of bending light waves around something. I pushed the bubble of energy inside me out, expanding its surface so that it swallowed Herne and me whole. It felt silver-clear to me, ticklish, as if the rules of the universe had changed in the space I was standing in. I guessed they had: I could see, from the corners of my eyes, that the watchers were frowning faintly, then dismissing what they’d seen—or not seen—as impossible. In a few seconds no one was looking our way at all. My fingers tingled with the outpouring of energy.
Beyond the restaurant, the airport hummed with power, the energy of people leaving and returning home. I only had to redirect all that energy, and I could fry Herne right here where he stood, without any witnesses. I began pulling it in, as natural as breathing, even as the idea made me shudder.
Herne smiled, thin-lipped. “Healer,” he spat again. He looked nothing like Casey any longer, canines dangerously curved and build resuming its natural narrow-hipped shape. “You can do nothing here. What will happen to these people if you draw on the energy output here? How many planes will come down when the airport falls off the radar? How many children will you frighten with blackouts? Let me go, little healer. I know how to choose my battlegrounds.”
Like a heartbeat, the truth of his words pounded into me. Cause and effect. I could destroy him here, on the physical plane, and it would cost hundreds of lives. I would be as bad, worse, than he. I loosened my hold on the invisibility that wrapped around us, unsure if maintaining it might cause damage, too.
“Why didn’t I recognize you?” I didn’t release my grip on his shirt. “I was sure I would. After today. After the
