Bloodstone

by Gwen Hunter

  “Very dramatic. Especially that finger-pointing thing,” Noe half shouted over the raucous applause, her tongue stud catching the light. Noe’s tone was jaded, but I could tell she was impressed with the speech and the woman. “Abby can drink any man here under the table, beat them all at poker or in any financial bid for development. She’s rich, she’s tough and she’s canny. They say she was a beauty in her day, but that she refused to marry because she couldn’t find a man who was worthy of her.” Noe grinned, her expression fierce. “And since she owns the local newspaper and two radio stations, she can change the political climate in a heartbeat. My money is on tabling the development.”

  Which happened quickly. As Noe predicted, the motion was tabled until next month and a recess was called. My brother had four weeks to be found, healed and gotten back in the saddle to carry out his dreams. I owed Abby Marshall a hug. The girl who had hugged Abby turned and moved with her. She was a pretty thing, with winsome features and a soft smile.

  Others in the crowd were less pleased with the ruling. Colin Hornsburn stood, trailing a short line of men. Noe identified them as they filed past. “Orson Wylie, the man with the money. Floyd Feaster, bills himself as a land-use consultant to developers in the area. He’s a geologist with a background in building.”

  A geologist? I studied Feaster as he passed by, a frown hardening his face. There were too many people for me to get a feel for the man’s mind, but his body language was distressed, angry, frustrated. I knew just how he felt. It had been a while since I’d punched anything, too.

  “The last guy is the construction expert, the one responsible for cutting roads through vertical hillsides and hanging houses from shear cliffs, making them safe enough for people to travel on and live in. He’s out of Tennessee. Raybuck Arbuckle. Honest to God, that’s his name.”

  Raybuck Arbuckle should start a country band with Tommy T. The names alone would draw a crowd. Arbuckle was the only one of the three men who seemed unconcerned by the events of the past few minutes. He looked like the happy-go-lucky type, a man who should be lifting a beer in the corner tavern rather than cutting roads into the sides of mountains, but looks were often more deceiving than dependable. What I really wanted was to see inside his mind. And the fact that I wanted a moment alone with the guy to try out my St. Claire gifts was really scary, in a “who the heck am I turning into?” kind of way.

  In the crowd, as we stood to mingle, I spotted Gail Speeler—Davie’s “affianced,” according to her television interview, which I didn’t believe for a second. They’d dated, but that was it. Gail Speeler wasn’t the first woman to think there was more to his feelings than there really was. Davie attracted women like honey attracted flies, and he didn’t like letting them down when a relationship cooled. But if there had been more between them, Davie would have told Jane and me right up-front. That had happened in the past, too, though it fizzled after a while.

  Gail approached Hornsburn and tapped his shoulder. She looked angry, but then, I’d been seeing a lot of that lately. People mad. Maybe I was reading things wrong.

  To the side, watching them was a soft, willowy blonde. Eloise Carter. The name popped into my mind from a year ago. Eloise had set her sights on, and her claws into, Davie, determined that she would marry him. Davie had stopped dating her after two weeks, but the damage had been done. The woman had latched onto him and refused to let go. Getting her to go away had not been pretty. And right now, she was staring at Gail Speeler as if she would rather see the other woman flayed, filleted and fricasseed than take another breath.

  “If looks could kill,” Noe whispered.

  “Yeah.” Even with the background mental noise, I could feel her hate. The only thing good about the woman was her jewelry. It was reeaaal nice. Diamonds in her ears, several understated gold bangles on her wrists, a necklace that flashed at least four carats, ring with rubies in a spray across the globed setting. I looked back to the Hornsburn contingent. “Let’s get some doughnuts.”

  “You go ahead. I want to scope out that good-looking green-logger. He sounds like my kinda man.”

  “Keep your hands to yourself, Noelle Constance Macdonald.”

  “Never. He has a really great ass.”

  “Your grandpa will put a hex on you.”

  “Not if the guy has any Irish genes. Gramps just wants to make sure I marry a man with sufficient quantities of God’s own blood running in his veins.”

  I lost sight of Noe in the forest of shoulders and waists and backs. Being short has major drawbacks, finding anything to wear being only the more obvious. I got elbowed in the boobs twice before I made it to the fringes of the crowd, close enough to listen to Colin Hornsburn. And close enough to see Adam Wiccam.

  He approached Hornsburn and I thought they might shake hands, maybe engage in some polite introductions and small talk, an exchange of cards. Instead, the government man just passed behind the developer and touched his arm before moving on.

  What was the Treasury Department employee doing, touching someone in that deliberate way? Touching a developer that Davie hated.

  I remembered the sense of knowing I had experienced in Wiccam’s presence. A St. Claire kind of knowing. But I hadn’t gotten St. Claire vibes from him. Not exactly. He wasn’t one of ours, but there were other types of mentally endowed out there. Was Wiccam gifted? Was he trying to take a read from Hornsburn? Was this weird or what?

  Then Wiccam was stopped by Detective Jack Madison, the man involved in the search for Davie.

  “Well, well, well.” The voice came from the room at my back. “Man trawling, are we? Need a little tryst between the sheets, I’m your man.”

  “You couldn’t satisfy a blow-up doll between the sheets.” Snot and decay! That had actually come out of my mouth.

  Harry Boone paled, flushed, balled the fingers of one hand and reached to his hip with the other. As if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to hit me or shoot me. Rather than commit murder in front of the entire town, he pivoted on a heel and goose-stepped away.

  “That was good, Tyler. Why don’t you just kick the man in the nuts and get it over with?” Noe said from the side.

  “Yeah. My mouth—”

  “Is going to get you shot someday.”

  Just then Colin Hornsburn passed behind me. Even without any St. Claire gift, I knew he was one seriously ticked off man. In a flash, I turned and touched his arm exactly as Adam Wiccam had. I opened myself to him in a rush. His anger didn’t so much flow into me as slam into me, a tsunami of destruction. I jerked back. And fell against Adam Wiccam.

  Pain exploded in my head, a ricochet of agony that bounced from temple to temple and lit up my mind like fireworks. Over the roar of pain, I felt Wiccam. I knew Wiccam. He was cold. Violence flowed though him like a black river, menacing, deadly. He was death. He wanted death. Wanted to kill. There was crimson on his hands. Blood on his bones. He caught me as I stumbled and smiled.

  Something ripped apart in my mind. With the sound of shredding steel echoing in the darkness, I fell.

  Shaking from pain and the reaction to Wiccam’s mind, I barely made it up the stairs to the loft, Noe’s arm around my shoulders as she half carried me. I scarcely saw Isaac and Jubal when I entered my apartment, stumbling to the kitchen and the drawer I used as a medicine chest. All thumbs, sick to my stomach, dizzy, I wasn’t able to open the bottles of pain relievers, so Noe took them from me and shook out two Tylenol and two ibuprofen. I drank them back with a handful of tap water and fell onto the couch.

  The headache that I always got when I tried to use my gift was much, much worse than usual. After touching Wiccam, the pain was a caustic, cutting agony boring through my brain. I could hear myself groan. The pain was so intense that the light from the lamp hurt my eyes, and I had a moment to feel sorrow for migraine sufferers, if this was what they felt each time a headache took them over.

  “What happened?” Jubal asked, his voice far away and yet booming.

  “Shh.
I don’t know. She was fine one minute and then she collapsed. My mom used to have migraines and this looks like what she did.”

  “Jane?” I whispered, each letter burning acid across my mind. Shivers gripped me. Nausea boiled up my throat.

  “Jane’s in bed. Asleep,” Jubal said.

  Water ran in the kitchen, a faint tink of ceramic against ceramic, then metal. Someone was making tea. I hoped it was one of Isaac’s eastern medicinal teas, the awful brews he concocted from stuff like bark and leaves and mold from the underside of last year’s leftover firewood. I hated the stuff, but I’d try anything right now and the bitter tea might even help.

  Time drifted in a haze of pain. A warm cup was placed in my hand and lifted to my lips, a straw slipped between them, making me gag.

  “Drink it, Tyler.” Isaac. His inflexible tone, the one he used in the do jang when he forced a student to try some new movement that they feared.

  Obediently I sipped. Warm liquid puckered my mouth. It was like sucking on a tree root. The nausea faded instantly. I drank it all. Warmth filled me, spreading out from my stomach, to my knotted abdomen, to my spine. Something deep inside eased. I might have slept. For a while, I floated in the darkness, becoming sluggishly aware that the pain was beginning to subside.

  But my feet were aching. I was having foot cramps. I moved my legs. The cramping worsened. I fought back to the surface of the dark lake beneath which I swam. My feet…

  Someone untied my boots and pulled them off. They fell to the floor, sounding like a bass drum falling over and over. A large hand lifted my sock-covered feet into the cold air and settled them into a lap. Warmth kneaded the cramps away, pressing against my toes. I pressed back and groaned my appreciation. The hands continued to work into the muscles of my ankles and calves and up my thighs. Across my buttocks and into my lower back, where the migraine had twisted my muscles into a snarl. I heard myself sigh. The hands moved up to my shoulder blades, the very center of my back, working out knots that felt like stones. The aventurine necklace was unclasped and slid away. My earrings and bracelets were removed. An ice-filled bag was draped gently over my head. Each act of kindness seemed to bring more ease.

  Gradually the sound of voices came clear. Jubal, Noe and Isaac. And closer, the deeper tones of Evan Bartlock. It was his hands on my spine, spreading warmth and healing from the outside even as the tea and the meds worked from the inside. Time passed.

  Isaac spoke, Texan accent mellow. “If they are coordinates, then what do we do?”

  “Then we find out where they are and call the cops,” Noe said.

  “The state cops,” Evan murmured as I rolled over. “She’s awake.”

  I could feel my friends gather around me, Jubal at my head, his hands just touching my temples. Noe took my hand for a moment before she pulled a chair close and sat. Isaac bent over the couch. I found I could place them all without opening my eyes. Jubal started a gentle scalp massage and I sighed again, managing a smile. “A queen and her court,” I said.

  “Don’t get used to it, honeybunch. I’m the only queen around here,” Jubal said.

  I could feel the love and worry in his mind. The fear in Noe’s. The calm of Evan’s. The cop exuded warmth and peace. From fourteen inches away, I could sense Isaac evaluating me, assessing us all. The wall I usually hid behind was gone for the moment, pulverized by the massive headache. Or by whatever had happened when I touched Adam Wiccam? Had we touched before? It was all fuzzy right now.

  “How’s the head?” Evan asked.

  “Not good.”

  “You know she’s sick. She didn’t cuss. Not even her version of cussing.”

  I considered a moment, then said, “Like a dipsomaniac douroucouli on Drambuie.”

  Evan laughed. “A drunken monkey?”

  I was pleased that he got the joke and smiled at the sound of his voice. “What coordinates?” When no one answered, I said, “I heard you talking about coordinates.”

  “For the gold. To get Davie back,” Noe said. She kissed my forehead and I heard her rustle as she went to the door. “It’s past my bedtime. Later, guys.” The door shut. Her mental aura faded, her mind filled with worry and images of the gold in the crates.

  Weird. I could actually feel her moving away.

  “Let’s get you to bed,” Jubal said, his voice inches from my face.

  “Yeah,” I said on a breath and tried to sit up. Pain lanced through me again. “On second thought…” I started to lie back, but an arm slid between me and the couch. A second arm went under my legs and I was lifted. The motion threatened to bring back the pain and the nausea.

  Evan stopped, just holding me against him. “It’s okay. I won’t move until you say to,” he murmured, his mouth near my face.

  Finally my stomach settled. “Okay. Now.”

  A moment later I was between cool sheets, the room went dim, and I drifted off.

  Long before dawn, a soft ringing woke me, my brain blurry with sleep. Movement in the loft. A man’s voice. I froze, shocked awake.

  “Yeah. You’re sure. Two voice patterns? Speech? Okay. Why do they think that? Never mind. Tell the techies thanks.” Evan Bartlock was in my apartment. I put out a hand and encountered Jane. No male body. The voice was coming from the couch. Why was Evan Bartlock on my couch before dawn?

  “Because I spent the night here when you passed out cold. How are you feeling now? Still like a dipsomaniac douroucouli?” He had answered my unasked question. Now that was freaky.

  I remembered the night before, the meeting, Adam Wiccam, the pain, and relaxed into my pillow. “Not so much.” I slid a hand down my side and discovered I was pretty much naked. T-shirt and undies. Socks. “So, who undressed me?”

  “I offered, but the gay guys objected. I don’t see why they got to have the honors. They didn’t even enjoy it.” He sounded disgruntled, his voice closer in the darkness.

  “And you would have?” I burrowed my head into the down, oddly happy. “Even with me in pain and unconscious?”

  “Oh, yeah. A guy can always enjoy looking.”

  “Pervert.”

  The mattress sagged beneath his weight. Evan slid onto the bed beside me, on top of the covers. “This is better. Your couch is too short.”

  “Not for me.”

  “Yeah. Just too short for ordinary-sized people.” The cop pulled me closer, the comforter and sheets separating us, and we drifted off toward sleep.

  Moments later a scream woke me. “Daddy! Daddy! No, no, no, nonononono!” Jane thrashed, hitting my side.

  “Jane! Jane. It’s all right. It’s all right, baby.”

  I cuddled the distraught girl against me. Evan turned on a light.

  “Daddy’s in trouble.” Her eyes were haunted, pupils wide and black. “They put him in the snow,” she wailed. “They put him in the snow.”

  And suddenly I saw what Jane was seeing. The vision bloomed in my mind, a visual and textural image, sharp and crisp and with all the detail of sensory input.

  Icy white in the black of night. I’m cold. So cold. And I’m heavy. I can’t move. A hand lifts me. Rolls me over. I’m outside. In the snow.

  “You stupid idiot. Just tell me!” Shocking pain. A fist drawing back again.

  “Daddy!”

  The vision shattered. And was gone. Jane rolled against me and cried into my shoulder, her body racked with misery. I held her, rocked her until she calmed. And Evan Bartlock held us both. Rocked us until Jane quieted.

  There was no getting back to sleep. Giving up, we all three got up and dressed, ate a silent breakfast of hot oatmeal, the kind that had to be cooked, not that instant stuff with the texture of gruel. Old-fashioned oats served with lots of sugar and whole milk. Comfort food. And we sat close together at the old table, knees touching.

  10

  Thursday, 7:22 a.m.

  “You sure you’re up to this? You were pretty sick last night.”

  I slammed my kitchen table across the floor in front of me
and pushed the two chairs to the side. “They stopped calling. They haven’t contacted us. And Davie’s been moved.” I bent and put the candle on the tile. “I can’t stand around and do nothing anymore.” So wired I was unaware of the cold, I sat on the floor and lifted Mama’s crucifix around my neck. I settled myself, legs crossed, and positioned the candle in front of me, equidistant between my knees.

  I held up my hand for the small packet Evan had brought from the local cops. Reluctantly he gave it to me and I opened the packet and emptied it, tossing the envelope aside. I set Davie’s letter on the floor beside me and placed the other thing, the small bit of gold, into the palm of my hand, closing my fingers around it.

  “Hit the lights,” I said. The loft went dark. I struck the match and the smell of sulfur burned my nostrils. Flame bright, I stopped, stared at my hands lit by the match, my body bent over, my breath tight against my ribs. “He’s going to die. Soon. He was outside in the snow. They’re killing him, Evan.” I lit the wick and waved the match out. I looked up. “So either get out or shut up and sit down. I have to work. And if I get a headache, then I get a headache.”

  I concentrated on the flame and calmed my breathing. Evan sat, though I could feel his eyes on me. I breathed in and out, letting the peace of simply being alive fill me. I forced out the images of Davie, tamped down the feel of his pain, his cold, his spirit hovering, indecisive, almost ready to go. I found the center of myself, and breathed. Just breathed. Only when a sense of peace had filled me completely did I allow myself to go deeper.

  I regulated my breathing to a slow, easy pace. I closed my eyes, ignoring the cold that seeped into my thighs and feet, blocking out the fans and the blower and the green eyes watching me. Concentrated on my breathing.