“That too.” Senior gave his kid a kindly look. “Make sure you walk on the lit side of the street at night. And don’t think, just because you don’t have a fever, that you should skip going to the doctor when you feel sick. People die that way, you know.”
“Yeah, Dad. I know.”
“Al right, then. If you can figure out a way to that won’t send her screaming to her psychiatrist, tel your mom I love her.”
“Okay.”
Vayl slipped his hand around mine, his signal to stop eavesdropping on the family convo. We backed off as Raoul signaled Senior that it was time to stand, or rather hover, front and center.
“Keep watch,” Raoul muttered quietly.
He meant for anything that might come through the opening he was about to make. Anything undirected and entirely neutral, with the ability to slither through the cracks before we could catch it.
I said, “Okay.” I held my bolo as Vayl lifted the tip of his cane from the ground and rested the shaft over his shoulder, casual y, as if he weren’t primed to spring the shaft off the sword that rested inside and skewer the first monster that crossed his path.
Casting a frightened look at his son, Senior had moved to stand in front of Raoul. Raoul clasped his hands together, making a smal circle with his own body, and began to chant. I always felt Vayl’s powers, like a slow simmer that usual y gave me the kind of comfort you get from locked doors and wel -trained dogs. Raoul’s were never evident until he blasted them at you like a wel -aimed rocket.
Now the tips of my curls wound tighter as they emerged, ful and pure as a Brazilian waterfal . Fal ing over Aaron Senior, they began to reveal him as he truly was, a scared and wounded soul desperate for redemption. As the seconds ticked past he stopped resembling a pale echo of an overworked beer bottler, and instead took on the glittering beauty of a gem-laced spirit ful of the colors his life had laid on him, most of them the sweet pastels of spring.
As Senior took his true form, the words of Raoul’s chant blew from his lips ful y formed, wisps of silver coated in the cold fog of his breath. And I realized my
Aaron Senior gasped, tears running down his face as he rose into a whirlwind composed of pine needles, snowflakes, and bil owing clouds so purely white I final y knew the color of peace. Another minute and he was gone. Vayl and I fel silent, though we couldn’t let each other go. We just stood there, lost in one another’s eyes, the rapture of entanglement so complete I knew we’d never feel alone again.
Then Junior sniffed. And said, “Does anyone have a handkerchief? I hate rubbing snot on my shirtsleeves.”
I looked over at him. Tears were streaming down his face. And, yup, his nose was trying to add to the river. I sighed. Then I looked at Vayl. “I’l bet they don’t have boogers in heaven.”
“No. And, most likely, your underwear never gets stuck up your crack just when you are required to meet important people like, oh, the President of the United States.” I dropped his hands. “How did you know about that?”
His lips twitched. “Sometimes you talk in your sleep.”
“Great. Just great. My most embarrassing moments are a hit parade for you the second I start snoring!”
He pul ed me into his arms. “You are quite adorable. And I know you have always wanted to meet Abraham Lincoln. So I am simply assuring you that when the time comes, you can calm yourself in the knowledge that your panties wil remain securely in place.” Raoul cleared his throat. “I’m uncomfortable now!”
Vayl laid a soft kiss on my cheekbone, a caress completely innocent to witness but highly erotic to receive from lips so warm and promising, before he smiled over the top of my head at my Spirit Guide and said, “Then let us rejoin the rest of our crew, shal we? I believe I have another son to account for.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Vayl’s positive mood lasted until Dave’s report. After which he snapped that since our trip to hel was stil on hold, we might as wel be driving in the direction of Hanzi’s rescue as staring baleful y at one another like a bunch of grave diggers. Then he dropped into the passenger seat of the Galaxie and began to brood. He spent long tracts of time staring out the window as we headed toward Spain, where Dave was sure he’d seen Hanzi in dire straits. He interrupted his thoughts only to throw a barrage of questions at my brother, who’d given his tour bus responsibilities to Cole so he could report on what Cassandra cal ed his “Spiritwalk” directly to Vayl. Our psychic sat in the backseat beside him to help fil in the blanks, though his memory never failed, possibly because he’d reviewed Astral’s holographic recording of the event three times before leaving the cat with Bergman. (Yeah, it would’ve helped to have her in on the review as wel , but our tech guru had said he wanted to tinker with her some more to make sure she didn’t have another funky fal ing-people episode. I thought he just wanted something to take his mind off his near-death experience. Hey, no judgments from my corner. If it worked for him I was going to try it the next chance I got.) We’d been driving for three hours when Vayl twisted in his seat. Cassandra poked Dave to wake him just before my
“Vayl, we’ve been over this,” Dave said. “It was some kind of accident waiting to happen. Your kid on a col ision course with a semi.”
“No, I do not mean the specifics of the vision. I mean the periphery.” Vayl shook his head with frustration. “A Sister of the Second Sight told me that I would meet my sons in America. It was why I moved there over eighty years ago. And I did encounter Badu, pardon me, Aaron,” he said, nodding toward the tour bus behind us, where Junior was snoring loud enough to be heard over Bergman’s Party Line, “in Ohio. So it makes no sense to me that we should be heading toward Andalusia.”
“Your kid’s in southern Spain,” Dave insisted. “That at least I could figure out from the writing on the side of the truck.” I recognized the tone in his voice. He was starting to get pissed. Which meant he’d dug in his heels. But Vayl had spent enough time with me to know how to handle Parks stubbornness.
