Water of Souls Page 19

  “What I want is for you to give me a chance,” Liam whispers. Why is whispering so much more intimate than speaking in a normal voice? It is though, like little tender fingers walking up your spine.

  We walk to the bed, Liam’s arm around my waist, and I perch on the edge. Liam helps me, leg by leg, to pull the underwear up. He gets points for being efficient, for not hovering where he didn’t belong. He’s a gentlemen, managing to avert his gaze whilst helping me dress. It earns him points.

  “Can I get you anything else before I go?” Liam has his back to me, looking at the door to my room and beyond that the door to leave my apartment.

  “You’re leaving?” I can’t help the note of worry in my words. Kyle is passed out on the floor. Braeden could come back. I’m not strong enough to fight him. I don’t know enough yet.

  “You have your guardian berserker right there,” he points to Kyle, “like a guard dog slumbering on your throw rug.”

  “He seems pretty out of it.” I’m cross legged on the bed. The radio is still playing in the bathroom. And Kyle seems to be sleeping like a baby. Definitely a dilemma. Do I let Liam leave, as he clearly wants to, so he can get away from me and my constant refusal of his feelings or do I ask him to stay, using my pitiful girly wiles, so that I’m protected from the big bad wolf? Dammit. I want him to stay.

  I wish I could say, honestly, that I only want him to stay for my protection.

  “He’ll wake up if you are in danger, Victoria. You will be fine.” Liam’s voice is matter-of-fact. Almost as if he’s giving up on the situation. “I’m not giving up on you, Victoria. Someday, you’ll realize the truth and you’ll begin to crave a love that’s real, not a device of dutiful magic.”

  He doesn’t give me time to respond. He becomes the swiftly-moving metallic cloud, flying towards the kitchen, opening the door, and leaving my apartment. And leaving me to the company of only my own confusing thoughts.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kyle slept what was left of the day away. Braeden didn’t come back.

  When my beau, all de-furred, looking well-rested and wearing one of the sets of clothes he kept in the uppermost shelf of my closet, came out of the bedroom he was greeted by fried fish. Piles and piles of fried fish. I don’t know what made me drop every single piece of the fish Leslie had given me into a water bath to thaw. And then every single piece into milk, flour, egg wash, cornmeal, spices, and then a big hot vat of vegetable oil, but it’s what I had to do.

  I wanted the evidence gone, the evidence of where I’d found the little heart earring, of the shit that was going down, of the people who had died and who might still die. I just wanted it all gone. And what I especially wanted gone was this whole situation with me loving two guys at once.

  Because all the therapeutic cooking had helped me decide one thing. I did love Liam, and not just as a friend dammit. And he was probably following right along with my thoughts, so he’d know the conclusion I’d come to also.

  “Hey, you’ve been busy.”

  “While you were sleeping.” I smile at the movie reference. I could watch that film over and over, especially the revelation at the end when she finally tells everyone that she was never actually engaged to X and that she had fallen in love with Y while pretending.

  “That floor’s not great on the back.”

  “Well,” I flip over a battered piece of fish and step back as the sizzling oil begins to pop and fly in little hot drops out of the tall cooking pan, “I would have moved you, but you sort of weigh a ton.”

  Kyle moves to sit at the table, pushing the chair back far enough that he can lean back and stretch his legs over the center shelf of the pedestal and place his feet on the opposite chair. “How exactly did I end up passed out on your floor? Last thing I remember, I was at the bar talking to Mikey.”

  “Blackouts must be part of the whole beasting out thing.” I move the piece of fish onto a clean paper towel to dry. I’ve got six plates of various sizes scattered across the countertops already laden with oily fish.

  “Jesus,” Kyle swipes a hand across his face and then lets it drop limply against his lap, “What the hell happened? You must have been in trouble, like last time? Was it your brother?”

  I nod slowly, turning off the burner as I take off the last piece of fish. It was very small, took only a minute a side to cook. “Brother dearest paying a visit. Waterboarding at its finest.”

  Kyle’s up in a second, walking quickly to me to wrap his arms around me. “I don’t like that I’m not me when I change. I don’t like that I can’t remember.”

  I smile up at him and then lean into his body, resting my head against his chest. “Your eyes are the same when you’re in beast mode, warm and kind. So that’s something.”

  He kisses the top of my head and kneads my back gently. “So I saved you? Braeden’s gone?”

  “You and Liam.”

  Kyle pulls away a little so he can read my face. I try to keep it as neutral as possible. Then his eyes widen a fraction. “Wait, you said waterboarding? How?”

  “I was in the bath at the time.”

  “In the bath...”

  “Yes.”

  I let the unspoken words build between us.

  “And Liam was here.” Kyle fills in one of the missing blanks.

  I nod.

  To his credit, however, Kyle lets it go. “I’m just glad you’re safe, Tori. That’s all that matters.”

  “Yes, but I don’t know if you’ll be there every time to help me. Or if Liam will be. I have to get control of these powers. When I was...” I try to explain it as easily as possible, “just a necromancer, things were easier. I had a job, I dealt with the dead. Spirits and ghosts and the occasional wraith pushed back from the anti-ether, but now the Blood Queen’s been awakened in me. I can’t just use the simple blood magic and the shaman magic I was taught growing up. It’s different, it’s a living breathing other force inside of me, almost like I’m two people. I have to get control so that I can beat Braeden myself. It has to be me, in the end.” I don’t know how I know the last bit, but I do.

  The truth is black and white. In the end, when Braeden is finally destroyed, it will have to be by my hand alone.

  “Then we talk to Liam and see what needs to be done. He was training you before he left. You’ve shown me the journals. He needs to start again, but not just information and filling diaries. He needs to teach how to balance your dual gifts. He needs to teach you how to keep the Blood Queen in check.”

  “Yes, I know.” But I also know what it will mean if I begin working closely with Liam again. I’ve admitted that I have feelings for him, forty fish filets later. I don’t want to betray Kyle. I don’t want to even take the chance that I might.

  “Good, then we’ll talk to him and—” Kyle is cut off by my phone ringing once more. I’d tossed it on the couch earlier after speaking with Mei, right before the marathon cooking session. I rush around Kyle.

  “Hold that thought. Sorry, but it might be Terrance.”

  My cell is pushed between two couch cushions and I press answer before the phone is lifted even halfway to my face. “Terrance, how’d it go?”

  “Weird. Really fucking weird.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know, Tori. I just got a weird vibe. The doctor was cool as a cucumber, not even a flicker of emotion when I was talking about his wife’s murdered son. And the mother, shit, fucking piece of work. She showed emotion, but it came in the form of saying her son was everything that was wrong with the world. She showed me photos of her daughter, had a fully rehearsed story about how the kid died in a boating accident years ago. The doctor took me aside as I left and told me that he allows her the delusion, it’s the way she copes.”

  “Wow...” I let my voice trail off, at a loss for words.

  “Yeah, wow is right. I’m going to look into this Sherwin character some more, see how long he’s been in the area. I just can’t shake that there’s something really o
ff about him.”

  I glance up at the time. It’s six o’clock, the sun going down, light flashing off the icy lake outside and playing against the tiffany chandelier above my dining table. “You were on the way out there this morning, have you been interviewing them this whole time?

  “Yeah, we got interrupted pretty quickly. The silent alarm at their house was tripped. They asked me to drive over and check it out with them. Security response was already there, but no one in sight. Didn’t seem to be anything out of place or any doors busted in. Strange stuff.”

  “Yeah, real strange.” Though, it actually wasn’t strange to me. Had Liam gotten in? Or given up at the first sign of a security system? “Maybe a diversion? Interrupt your interview, put you off your game?”

  “No, seems too elaborate and they seemed genuinely surprised when they got the call. They live in one of those really ritzy communities. Gates to the heavens, code to get in, monitor on every door and window. Damn house was locked up tighter than Alcatraz in its heyday.”

  With each word, my heart was falling further into my stomach. I’d sent Liam to break into a house that’s securer than the constitution at the National Archives. Liam, are you okay?

  He doesn’t respond. My heart lands in my stomach.

  “I told them there’d be paperwork to process and asked them to come to the station on Monday. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get them separated for questioning. Doctor Sherwin made it clear that anything that had to be handled, he’d be there to support her.”

  “I think I can help in that department, woman-to-woman, see if I can get her to open up about Timothy, see if I can break through the delusion a little bit.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Makes sense for you to be there, you’re handling the funeral and consulting with the coroner on when the body will be ready. You want to make sure you can get them the information on the time of the service and such, in case they change their minds and want to come.”

  I’m nodding absentmindedly. “Yeah. And you pull Doctor Sherwin aside for paperwork. They sound like the sort of couple where he’d have power of attorney on her. Does that work like that? I only know how that pertains to the funeral business.”

  “Even if it doesn’t, I can spin it so it seems to work that way. Have him do the paperwork and if it’s wrong, say it was an honest mistake and pull her back in.”

  “Great, I’m clear on Monday. What time are they coming?”

  “After his last patient at two. With the drive and such, I expect them around three, three-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks, Tori.”

  “No problem.”

  I hit the end button. Liam, are you there? Liam?

  A knock at the door makes me jump.

  “I’ll get it.” When I turn around, Kyle’s already walking to the door. When he opens it, Liam walks through the door. “Evening, Liam.”

  “Evening.” I’m fine, Victoria. There’s an awful lot of concern flowing in your mind.

  Concern for a friend.

  I can almost taste his exasperation, so strong is it voiced in my head.

  “Listen, thanks for being here for Tori earlier. I don’t like that I can’t remember what happens when I transform.” Kyle pushes the word ‘transform’ out and doesn’t stumble over it. He’s coming to terms, little by little, with what he is. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

  “I’ll always be there for her, when she needs me. It seems to be both of our plights in life.”

  Kyle looks at Liam. Liam looks at Kyle. Energy comes alive in the room. It feels like... an animalistic rage versus the power of pure, unadulterated light.

  And for a moment, I think I’m going to have a déjà vu moment. But this time, instead of a dwarf and a law man playing at fisticuffs, it’ll be a berserker and a fae. For a maniacal moment, I wonder who would win and how interesting of a match up it would be.

  But only for a moment.

  “Yes, thank you for running Braeden off. Both of you. I don’t think I would have survived that particular encounter with my little brother without your help.”

  Kyle and Liam turn away from each other and I can tell it takes some effort. The energy, the palpable promise of fight, dies down a fraction. It continues to decrease as I wave towards the living room sofa and chair, inviting them both to sit. I sit first though—in the chair, so they won’t go through the motions of trying to figure out who was going to sit next to me.

  See, I can problem-solve all on my own sometimes.

  We all sit awkwardly for a while. It’s obsidian outside, the sliver of a moon and the twinkle of stars masked by the heavy clouds that have momentarily broken from delivering their constant, uninterrupted, falling of snow.

  “If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of fish.” When I say it, it occurs to me that I’m sitting staring at my very own plenty of fish. Fish in the sea. Men on my sofa. Love to go around. And I laugh.

  God, I laugh.

  I laugh and I laugh and I laugh until everything hurts and I’m crying.

  When I finally control myself, my current beau and my would-be beau are staring at me uncomfortably.

  “Sorry, I just had this whole inner thought moment. Something not very funny, but it just hit me exactly right. You know? Square in the funny bone.” I wait for one of them to respond. Neither of them do. Stellar loves of my life, they are—not even throwing me a life vest when I’m clearly drowning in my own idiocy. “So, fish. Anyone want some?”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  “Yeah, I’ll have some.”

  Kyle and Liam respond simultaneously, their words and voices threading together in a strange amalgam of sound that almost seems right.

  “Great, coming right up then. Fair warning though, I have zero condiments that go with fish, no bread item, and I’m clean out of coleslaw. I’ve got plain old white bread and mayo if you’d like to make a fish sandwich though? I might even have some lettuce buried. Shouldn’t be too wilted.”

  “Just the fish.” Liam says as Kyle stands up and begins to follow me.

  “I can make my own sandwich, Tori. Don’t worry about me.”

  I turn around and smile. “You always worry about the people you love, Kyle.”

  Kyle’s face lights up with a full-out grin. I flash a look at Liam, still sitting on the couch. He is not smiling. He is not even looking at us. He’s staring out the window and I wonder what he is thinking. Not for the first time, I think that I hate that this whole ‘mental conversing’ thing seems to be under his control. I’d like to delve into his mind uninvited once and a while.

  As Kyle’s making his sandwich, my phone rings again. I look down, not recognizing the number. As a general rule, I don’t answer numbers I don’t recognize, but this time I make an exception. “Hello, you’ve reached Victoria Cage of Cage’s funeral home.”

  “Um, yeah, hey, Kyle there?” the voice is deep and guttural. There’s a catch in his words that almost speaks of a disability or deformation.

  “Can I ask who’s calling?”

  “It’s Mikey, from the bar.”

  “Oh, Mikey! Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. Sure, he’s right here.” I hand Kyle the phone, my eyebrow quirked up in question. He places a hand over the receiver and holds it against his chest.

  “Sorry about that. He couldn’t reach me one night and panicked, so I gave him your number.”

  “Totally fine.”

  “Hey, Mikey, I’m so sorry I disappeared earlier. I had a family emergency.” Kyle falls quiet as Mikey responds on the other end. “Jesus, Mikey. You know you can’t drink on the job.”

  Mikey raises his voice enough that I can hear the murmur of it as I stand leaning against the sink eating fish smashed on a folded piece of white bread and slathered with way too much mayo and salt.

  “I’ll be right there.” Kyle pauses to listen again. “No, you can’t drive home. Go in my office and crash on the couch.” An
other pause. “Mikey, I’m not going to fire you.”

  I can hear the other man sobbing on the other end.

  “Everyone messes up, Mikey. Just relax. You said no one’s at the bar right now. Just close up and I’ll be there soon.” Kyle hangs up and hands me over the phone.

  “Sorry, something’s set him off. You going to be okay?” His gaze flits from me to Liam, who’s still staring out the window in silence.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Liam and I have some talking to do anyways.”

  “About him helping you with your powers, I hope.”

  I nod. “Yeah. Better now than later, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely.”

  I feel bad letting Kyle think I only want to talk to Liam about teaching me control, but he doesn’t need to know more than he already does about the case and what’s going on. He can stay firmly in bare-minimum-land where it’s safer.

  I walk Kyle downstairs and kiss him in the frigid air wafting through the door he’s already opened. His car is parked beneath the carport, where my Bronco normally is, and he doesn’t have to clean any snow off to drive. “I really miss my baby.” I sigh, staring over his shoulder as we hug.

  “I’m right here, Tori.”

  “Not you, you know how I feel about pet names. I’m talking about my car.”

  “I thought you had it towed already?”

  I pull back away from him. “No? Why’d you think that?”

  “Because I saw some guy hooking it up to a truck and pulling it away the other day. He didn’t look like the city contractor.”

  “Dammit.” I fight the urge to stamp my feet. “I waited too damn long. It was probably the city and now it’s going to be sunk down in the mud in that nasty impounds lot.”

  “It really didn’t look like the guy who does the city work. This truck was dark green with some cream writing on the side, but I don’t remember what it said. Something like...Louise or Louisa. Maybe a ‘D’ thrown in.”

  I freeze, mouth falling open. It takes me a moment to stutter out the words. “Do you mean Louis D. Taxidermy?” I taste dread in my mouth like sulfuric acid ready to burn divots in my tongue.