I kissed the top of his head. “Can I ask you something?”
“How’d I turn out so normal coming from that?”
I laughed. “No. Your grandfather showed up when we were at the house—”
“My grandfather?” he interrupted, sitting up to look at me. “Sam was there?”
I nodded. “You didn’t feel him?”
Heath stared at the gearshift. “No. But that could’ve been because I was too focused on not telling my uncle Vern to shove it.”
I ran my hand through his silky black hair. “I have the distinct feeling that Sam’s very glad you held back.”
Heath grunted. “So what’s your question?”
“Sam showed me this pot.”
“A pot?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to think how to describe it.
“What kind of pot?”
“It was sort of round and it was painted black, but on the side was this white feather. I had the feeling I needed to ask you about it, but not in front of your family.”
Heath blew out a breath. “You aren’t kidding about not mentioning that, Em,” he said. “He was showing you our family’s urn.”
“An urn?”
Heath nodded, but his eyes were far away. “It was in my family for generations,” he explained. “Each time a Whitefeather died and was cremated, a small portion of their ashes went into the urn.”
That surprised me. “Why?”
“Well, it has a lot to do with our belief that we’re looked after by our ancestors. It’s why our lands and our burial grounds are so sacred. Our ancestors, we believe, are very powerful spirits and having their ashes collectively together in one spot allows us to call on them for help in times of trouble.”
I remembered something then. “You said ‘was.’ ”
“Huh?”
“You said this urn ‘was’ in your family. It isn’t with you guys anymore?”
“Depends on who you ask,” Heath said, and I noticed the bitter tone in his voice right away.
“So if I ask you, what’s the answer?”
“Well, that’s the irony. I don’t know. But it’s the one thing my grandfather asked of me on his deathbed. Something I haven’t been able to do for him, which is no wonder that he’s bringing it up to you now.”
“I’m lost,” I said. “Can we start from the beginning again?”
Heath sighed and it sounded like there was a lot of dirty laundry in that sigh. “The urn went missing right around the time my mom left the Pueblo. Vernon’s convinced that my mom took it. Rex too, I think. But Milton, he always suspected it was someone else. Someone outside the family, who might’ve been jealous of us and our success and status within the tribe. He thought the person who took it wanted to deprive us of the benefit of our ancestors.”
I waited a beat before I asked, “But your mom didn’t take the urn, did she?”
Heath looked at me sideways. “No,” he said. “At least, I’m ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent sure she didn’t.”
“Why not a hundred?”
Heath shrugged. “Who else could it have been? It disappeared the exact same weekend she left the Pueblo and she was the last person to see it. Hell, she was even in charge of it.”
I waved at him. “Hi, yeah, I’m lost again.”
“My mom was a master potter,” he said. “That’s what our tribe is known for, actually. We’re famous for our pottery and special kiln techniques. Specifically that black-on-black glaze we give our pottery. Our Pueblo has produced quite a few stars in the Native Indian art world, and my mom was one of them.”
“Really?” I asked. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, she hasn’t thrown anything new since my stepdad died. She says it makes her too sad. But it put a little extra food on the table for a lot of years, and she was able to save a little for my college fund too.”
“So, she was the last person to see the family urn?” I asked, getting back to the point of the story.
“Yep. She was repairing a crack in the side. According to her, she fixed the crack and left it on a shelf in the tribe’s workshop. That night she left the Pueblo for good. The next morning, the urn was gone.”
I thought about that for a bit. “Then, really, anyone could’ve taken it,” I said.
Heath pulled his hair away from his face, reaching into his pocket for a rubber band to secure it with. “Yeah. But no one’s ponied up to take the blame for, like, twenty-five years, Em. And lots of Whitefeathers have died since then. Their ashes haven’t been able to join their ancestors, which means they’re left to face the spirit world alone.”
My brow furrowed. “But you know that’s not true, right? I mean, Sam’s made it across okay, and he personally told me that he’s met up with your ancestors.”
“Oh, I know that’s how it works,” he assured me. “But try to convince my family of that and they’ll call you a liar right to your face. It’s what they believe, and nothing I say is going to change their minds. Especially since most of them believe it was my mom who took the urn in the first place.”
“But what possible reason could she have for depriving your family of the urn?”
Heath leaned forward and started the car again. “That’s a whole other story,” he told me. “And one I’ll tell you later. Right now, I just want to get back to the hotel and lie down for a while.”
It was then that I remembered the talon marks I’d seen on the side of Beverly’s car. “Heath,” I said, “there’s something you should know about your aunt’s accident.” I then explained to him what I’d seen on the side of her car. “I didn’t mention it when you came out of the station because I didn’t want to say anything in front of Ari, and I don’t know for an actual fact that they’re really demon marks. I mean, in theory I suppose they could’ve been gouges from the tree she hit, but the pattern is way too similar to that demon we encountered in San Francisco. I really think we should check it out.”
Heath’s face was hard like granite, and without a word he put the car into drive and pulled back out onto the road. At first I thought he might be mad at me for telling him, but he reached for my hand again and gave it a gentle squeeze.
We wound our way through a variety of roads until we crept onto one that, I was guessing, didn’t see much traffic. There was nothing as far as the eye could see but scrub and low mountains. We drove for about five minutes when Heath slowed down, and leaned forward, letting go of my hand to focus on the road ahead. “What’cha looking for?” I asked him.
He stopped the car and pointed out the windshield. “Those.”
Heath put the car into park and got out, and I followed suit, joining him at the site of a set of skid marks that began near the yellow dividing line and ended at the trunk of a tree that’d been nearly broken in half.
My breath caught, especially when I remembered poor Beverly’s car. We walked beside the marks, softly and reverently as if following a funeral procession, until we both stood under the boughs of the lone tree.
Heath’s face was pinched and clouded with emotion. I moved closer to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m so, so sorry about your aunt and uncle.”
He hugged me and said, “Would you reach out to Aunt Bev and see if she’s here, Em?”
“You think she’s grounded?”
He shrugged. “You know how it is with car accidents. Lots of ’em end up stuck at the scene.”
I stepped back from him and took a deep breath, opening up my senses, looking for her spirit in the ether. I bumped into nothing but the emotion still lingering in the area, and I let myself follow the thread.
I moved back along the skid marks to their point of origin and then even a few steps farther along the road to spread my hands out, literally feeling the air as I went. “What is it?” Heath asked, coming to my side.
“She was really scared,” I said. “Like . . . terrified scared, and the weird thing is that she was terrified some feet before the skid marks start.”
Heath studied me. “What else are you getting?”
My eyes fell on the tree and I lowered my hands to walk back over to it, sensing the waves of terrified energy running like rain down around me as I went, and when I got to the tree, the terror just . . . stopped. “She was killed instantly,” I said, my hand going to my neck. “Her neck snapped.”
Heath was still studying me. “That’s what Pena said.”
I moved around the tree then, because something was still tugging at me. When I got to the back of it, I gasped.
“What is it?”
“Take a look at this,” I said.
Heath hurried to my side of the tree. There, he ran his fingers along three distinctive talon marks carved deep into the wood. “Son of a bitch!” he whispered.
“Son of a bitch” was right.
Chapter 3
Heath and I stood there for several minutes just staring at the evidence of a demon on the loose, both of us muted by the sudden gravity of the situation.
“This is bad,” Heath said at last.
“Really bad,” I agreed.
Heath looked at me. “My grandfather told you about this thing, right?”
I started to nod, but my phone rang and I held up a finger to check the display. It was Gilley. I figured I better answer it, but I was annoyed that he’d called right in the middle of a heavy discussion. “Yeah?” I asked.
“Well, good morning to you too,” he said. His voice was thick and froggy and I knew he wasn’t feeling well. Still, what Heath and I were dealing with was much more important. “I’m a little busy, Gil. Can I call you back later?”
“How much later?”
“I don’t know. Half hour, maybe?”
“That’s fine,” he said, coughing into the phone. “Assuming I’m still alive.” And then he muttered something that I could have sworn sounded like “Gilley Gilleshpie.”
“Are you running a fever?” I asked.
“Probably,” he said, coughing again wetly. “I’m delirious, so you might not want to take my word for it.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Gilley could be a handful. “Okay,” I told him. “Heath and I are wrapping up and we’ll be back soon.”
“How soon?”
I sighed heavily and glanced at my watch. “I don’t know. . . . Soon, Gil. I promise.”
Gilley coughed a third time. “Okay, I’ll call the ambulance. Maybe they’ll get here faster.”
With that, he hung up, and I pulled the phone away from my ear to glare at it.
“Gil?” Heath asked.
“Yep.”
“I gather he needs us?”
“He’s sick. Probably the flu.”
Heath put his hands on his hips and eyed the road sullenly. “He was the one who picked that spot next to those sick guys at O’Hare.”
“I know, I know,” I agreed, feeling like I was being torn in two directions. “But when he gets sick, he gets really sick, so maybe we should just go check on him?”
“Yeah, okay,” Heath said. “I have to call my mom anyway.”
“Isn’t she flying here today?” I asked as we walked to the car.
Heath nodded. “She doesn’t leave Phoenix till ten p.m., though. Her flight should be in by midnight.”
I got in the car and asked, “Why so late?”
“It was the cheapest fare she could find.”
Heath started the car and took one last look at the skid marks and the tree before pulling onto the road again. “We’ll need to talk about this, Em,” he said. “If some demon is really out there killing my family, we’re gonna have to shut it down.”
“That’s what your grandfather said,” I reminded him.
Heath’s eyes cut to me. “Bev wasn’t out there?” he asked belatedly.
I shook my head. “Not that I could sense. I think she’s made it across, but I can’t feel her there either, which isn’t unusual. You know how they all need a little adjustment period.”
Heath grunted. “Especially when they’ve been in an accident,” he said. “Jesus, how big would a demon have to be to make talon marks like that?” he asked, shaking his head like he could hardly believe it.
I eyed Heath carefully. There were dark circles under his eyes and his features looked pale and drawn, not to mention seriously stressed-out. I thought it was probably a good thing we were heading back to the hotel. I could check on Gil, and maybe convince Heath to rest. The emotional and physical toll on him the past few days looked like it was killing him.
I found Gil in his room, spread-eagle on the top of his comforter with a wet cloth on his forehead and a surgical mask covering half his face.
“Attractive,” I said, nodding to the cleaning woman on her way out of Gil’s room. (She seemed like she’d been looking for a reason to leave quickly.)
“I’m dying,” Gilley moaned.
I softened and came over to sit next to him. It was then that I saw the litter of candy wrappers and empty potato chip bags on his nightstand. Apparently, the cleaning woman had missed those. Or she just didn’t want to get that close to patient zero. “You’re not dying,” I said, lifting the washcloth and feeling his forehead. It was a little warm, but not as bad as the night before. “And your fever’s beginning to break.”
“I still have a headache,” Gil moaned. “Gilley Gilleshpie.”
“I see the headache hasn’t dampened your appetite,” I said, picking up the clutter on his nightstand.
“Feed a fever,” he told me.
“I believe that’s feed a cold, starve a fever.”
“There’s no way I’m going down hungry,” he told me, following that with a small fit of coughing.
I threw out the trash, heated up some water from the coffeepot, and poured him a cup of Theraflu. He took it and lifted the mask to slurp it down. While he drank, I eyed him worriedly. He finished the medicine and handed me back the cup, then settled his mask back in place and lay back on the pillows. I couldn’t tell if it was just the mask, or that Gil was developing a lung infection, but his breathing was definitely starting to sound like Darth Vader.
“Nice mask,” I said, after rinsing out his cup.
Gil rolled his eyes lazily to me. “Thanks.”
“Where’d you get it?” I didn’t think the hotel gift shop was the source.
“There’s a Korean couple staying next door,” he said. “I rode the elevator down with them and they gave it to me. They said I look like I have SARS.”
I wondered how quickly they’d also put one on themselves. “You don’t have SARS,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“You have the flu. That’s it. Just the plain old flu.”
“How do you know?” Gil pressed.
“Because Heath and I both got our flu shots before we all left for Europe and you said—what again?”
Gil narrowed his eyes at me, and said nothing. Not even “Gilley Gilleshpie,” so I answered the question for him. “You said that you didn’t need the flu shot because you never get sick.”
“The flu shot doesn’t protect against SARS, M. J.,” he grumbled.
“Exactly my point, Gil. If those businessmen at O’Hare had really been infected with SARS, we all would have gotten sick, but only you caught a bug, which means only you caught the flu.”
“Shuddup,” he snapped grumpily, rolling over so his back was to me.
I suddenly felt bad. “Hey,” I said after a few long seconds of stony silence. “I’m sorry, Gil. I didn’t mean to be a pain. It’s just been a long couple of days. Can I get you anything?”
“A new body,” he said, rolling back over to lie on his back again. “This one aches all over. And if you find a new body, make sure it’s got really good pecs.”
I grinned and moved to his side again. Taking up the washcloth from the nightstand, I wrung it out under cool water from the faucet and came back to put it on his head again. “I’ll come back in a little while and check on you,” I told him, but Gil was al
ready asleep.
As I was leaving, Gil’s phone gave a chirp. I didn’t want it to wake him up, so I moved over to turn his phone on silent when I caught the text on the screen. It was from Gopher, our producer.
Network approved salaries. Tell M. J. and Heath that your paychecks have all been wired out. Still working on production funding. More later.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief, grateful for the news. Our funding had been pulled weeks before in Ireland, and since then, we’d had to float mostly on our savings. And the airfare to New Mexico from Ireland had put a serious dent in those, so this was really welcome news.
I clicked Gil’s phone to silent and left it on the bureau, but wrote him a note and set it on his nightstand.
We’ve been paid, it read. Then I left him alone and went to find Heath.
Heath was on the phone with his mom when I got back to our room, and the joy of discovering that we’d finally been paid plummeted when I saw his face. “Yeah, okay,” he was saying, waving me over to sit next to him. “There’s no rush, Ma. If the airlines are willing to let you change your flight without a penalty, and you want to stay there tonight with Aunt Evelyn because you’re too upset to fly, then do it. And I’d tell you to do it even if there was a penalty. You take all the time you need, okay?”
I waited patiently through the rest of the call, and bit my lip when I heard through the receiver that Heath’s mother was crying. Finally he gave his good-byes and clicked off.
He then, quite unexpectedly, reached out and hugged me to him, holding me tightly without saying a word. I was a little taken aback, but I recovered and squeezed back. “It’ll be okay,” I told him, not really knowing what else to say. It’s ironic, isn’t it? My business is all about death, but when personally faced with it, I never know what to say.
The rest of the night and most of the rest of the following day I did nothing but play nursemaid to Gil and comfort Heath, bouncing back and forth between the two hotel rooms like a Ping-Pong ball, and tending to them in much the same way, making sure they ate a little, drank a little, and rested.
During a brief one-hour period in the middle of the afternoon, both of them were asleep, and I took the opportunity to head out for a run, my first real exercise in well over a week.
Ghoul Interrupted Page 5
