I went back to watching the scenery. There were cows scattered close enough to the road that you could make out color and size. If it wasn’t a Jersey, a Guernsey, or a Black Angus, I didn’t know it. I watched the strange cows standing at impossible angles on the steep hillsides and waited for Edward to finish thinking. Twilight seemed to last a long time here, as if the light of day gave up the fight slowly, struggling to remain and keep the darkness at bay. Maybe it was just my mood, but I wasn’t looking forward to darkness. It was as if I could sense something out there in those desolate hills, something waiting for the night, something that could not move during the day. It could be just my own overactive imagination, or I could be right. That was the hard part about psychic abilities: sometimes you were right, and sometimes you weren’t. Sometimes your own anxiety or fear could poison your thinking and make you, almost, literally see ghosts where there were none.
There were, of course, ways to find out. “Is there a place where you can pull over out of sight of the main road?”
He looked at me. “Why?”
“I’m . . . sensing something, and I just want to make sure I’m not imagining it.”
He didn’t argue. When the next exit came up, he took it. We took a side road from the exit. It was dirt and gravel and full of huge dry potholes. The shocks on his Hummer took the road like silk flowing down hill, comfy. A soft roll of hills hid us from the main highway, but the road was very flat in front of us, giving a clear view of the road as it went almost straight towards a distant rise of hills. There were a handful of tiny houses on either side of the road, the major cluster some ways ahead with a small church sitting to one side by itself, as if it were part of the houses and not. The church had a steeple with a cross on top of it, and I assumed a bell inside of it. Though we were too far away to be sure. The town, if it were a town, looked down on its luck but not empty. There were people there and eyes to see us. Just our luck, the land had been so empty and the road we go down has a town.
“Stop the car,” I said. We were as far from the first house as we could get without backtracking.
Edward pulled over to the side of the road. The dust rose in a cloud to either side of the car, settling over the clean paint job in a dry powder.
“You guys don’t get much rain up here, do you?”
“No,” he said. Anyone else would have elaborated, but not Edward. Even the weather wasn’t a topic of conversation unless it affected the job.
I got out of the car and walked a little way into the dry grass. I walked until I could no longer sense Edward or the car. When I looked back, I was yards away. Edward was standing on the driver’s side door, arms crossed on the roof, hat tilted back so he could watch the show. I don’t think there was another person I knew who wouldn’t have asked at least one question about what I was about to do. It would be interesting to see if he asked any questions afterwards.
Darkness hung like a soft silken cloth, hanging against the sky, and the dying light. It was a soft comfortable twilight, an embracing dark. A breeze blew across the open land and played with my hair. Everything felt fine, good. Had I imagined? Was I letting Edward’s problems get to me? Was the memory of the survivors in their air-compressed hospital room making me see shadows?
I almost just turned around and walked back to the car, but I didn’t. If it were my imagination, then it wouldn’t hurt to check, and if it wasn’t . . . I turned and faced away from the car, away from the distant houses, and looked out into the emptiness. Of course, it wasn’t really empty. There was grass rustling in the wind, it sounded so dry, like corn in autumn just before it’s harvested. The ground was covered in a thin layer of pale reddish-brown gravel with paler dirt showing through. The ground ran until it met the hills that continued on and on towards the darkening sky. Not empty, just lonely.
I took a deep cleansing breath, let it out and did two things at once: I dropped my shields and spread my arms wide, hands reaching. I was reaching with my hands, but it wasn’t just my hands. I reached outward with that sense I have—magic, if you like the word. I don’t. I reached outward with that power that let me raise the dead and mix with werewolves. I reached outward towards that waiting presence that I’d felt, or thought I’d felt.
There, there like a fish tugging on my line. I turned to face the direction of the road. It was in that direction, going towards Santa Fe. It—I had no better word. I felt its eagerness for the coming night and knew that it could not move in daylight. And I knew that it was large, not physically, but psychically, because we were not close to it, and yet I’d picked it up miles away. How many miles I couldn’t say, but far, very far to have sensed it. It didn’t feel evil. That didn’t mean it wasn’t evil, just that it didn’t think of itself as evil. Unlike people, preternatural entities are rather proud of being evil. They embraced their malignancy because whatever this was, it wasn’t human. It wasn’t physical. Spirit, energy, pick a word, but it was up ahead, and it was not contained in any physical shell. It was free floating. No, not free . . . Something slammed into me, not physically, but as if a psychic truck had run me down. I was on my butt in the dirt, trying to breathe, as if someone had hit me in the chest and knocked the wind out of me.
I heard Edward’s running footsteps, but I couldn’t seem to turn around. I was too busy relearning how to breathe.
He knelt by me, gun in hand. “What happened?” He was looking out into the thick twilight, not at me, searching, searching for the danger. His sunglasses were gone, and his face was very serious as he searched for something to shoot.
I gripped his arm, shaking my head, trying to talk. But when I finally had air enough, all I said was, “Shit, shit, shit!” It wasn’t helpful, but I was scared. Most of the time when I get this scared, I get cold, shocky, but not when it’s psychic shit. When something goes wrong with “magic,” I never go shocky or get cold, I stay warm. If anything it’s like tingling, warm, as if I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. Whatever “it” was, had sensed me and shut me down.
I pulled my shields around me like clutching a coat against a blizzard, but strangely it had backed off. Though if that one swat of power was any indication, it could slice me, dice me, and serve me on toast if it wanted to. It hadn’t wanted to. I was glad, thrilled, but why hadn’t it hurt me worse? How had I sensed it from so far away, and how had it sensed me? Usually, my greatest talent is with the dead. Did that mean whatever “it” was, was dead, or had something to do with the dead? Or was this one of the new psychic abilities that my teacher, Marianne, had warned me might crop up. God, I hoped not. I didn’t need more strange shit in my life. I had plenty.
I forced myself to stop the useless cursing, and said, “Put up the gun, Edward. I’m all right. Besides, there’s nothing to shoot and nothing to see.”
He put a hand under my arm and pulled me to my feet before I was ready. I’d have been very happy to stay sitting for a while. I leaned on him, and he started moving us back towards the car. I stumbled and finally had to tell him, “Stop, please.”
He held me up, still searching the new dark, gun still in hand. I should have known he’d keep the gun out. It was his security blanket—sometimes.
I could breathe again, and if Edward stopped dragging me on, I might be able to walk. The fear had faded because it was useless. I’d tried a bit of “magic,” and I hadn’t been good enough. I was learning ritual magic, but I was a beginner. Power isn’t enough. You’ve got to know what to do with it, like a gun with the safety on. It makes a fine paperweight, but that’s about it unless you know what to do with it.
I slid into the car, had my door closed and locked before Edward opened his door. “Tell me what happened, Anita.”
I looked at him. “It would serve you right if I just looked at you and smiled.”
Something crossed his face, a frown, a snarl, quickly lost to that perfect blankness he could manage. “You’re right. I’ve been a secret-loving bastard, and it would serve me right. But you’re the one
who said we needed to stop the pissing contest and solve the crime. I’ll stop if you will.”
I nodded. “Agreed.”
“So,” he said.
“Start the car and get us out of here.” Somehow I didn’t like sitting on the nearly deserted road in the freshly spilled darkness. I wanted to be moving. Sometimes movement gives you the illusion that you’re doing something.
Edward started the car, turned around in the weeds and drove back towards the highway. “Talk.”
“I’ve never been to this area before. For all I know what I sensed is always here, just some local bugaboo.”
“What did you sense?”
“Something powerful. Something that’s miles away towards Santa Fe. Something that may be connected to the dead in some way, which would explain why it called to me so strongly. I’m going to need to find a good local psychic to see if this thing is always around or not.”
“Donna will know some psychics. Whether they’re good, I can’t say, and I’m not sure she can either.”
“It’s a place to start,” I said. I snuggled into my seatbelt, hugging myself. “You got any local animators, necromancers, anyone who works with the dead? If it is something connected to my type of power, then an ordinary psychic might not sense it.”
“I don’t know of any, but I’ll ask around.”
“Good.”
We were back out on the highway. The night was very dark, as if thick clouds hid the sky. The headlights seemed very yellow against the blackness.
“Do you think this whatever-it-is has anything to do with the mutilations?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know a hell of a lot,” he said. He sounded grumpy.
“That’s the problem with psychic shit and magic. Sometimes it’s not very helpful.”
“I’ve never seen you do anything like what you just did. You hate the mystical crap.”
“Yes, I do, but I’ve had to accept what I am, Edward. This mystical crap is a part of who and what I am. I can’t run from it because it is me. You can’t hide from yourself, not forever, and you can’t ever outrun yourself. I raise the dead for a living, Edward. Why should it be a shock that I may have other abilities?”
“It’s not,” he said.
I glanced at him, but he was watching the road, and I couldn’t read his face. “It’s not,” I said.
“I called you in to be backup not just because you’re a shooter, but because you know more about preternatural stuff than anyone else I know, that I trust. You hate the psychics and the mediums, because you are one, but you still deal in reality, and that makes you different from the rest of them.”
“You’re wrong, Edward. I saw a soul today hovering in that room. It was real, just as real as the gun in your holster. Psychics, witches, mediums, they all deal in reality. It’s just not the same reality that you deal with, but it is real, Edward, it is very, very real.”
He didn’t say anything to that, just let the silence fill the car, and I was content with silence because I was tired, terribly, terribly tired. I’d found that doing psychic shit sometimes exhausted me a hell of a lot faster than physical labor. I ran four miles every other day, lifted weights, took Kenpo class, and Judo, and none of it made me as tired as having stood in that field and opened myself to that thing. I never sleep in a car because I don’t trust the driver not to have a wreck and kill me. That is the truth about why I don’t sleep in cars, no matter what I say out loud. My mother was killed in a car accident, and I’ve never really trusted cars since.
I settled down in my seat, trying to find a comfortable place for my head. I was suddenly so tired, so tired my eyes burned. I closed my eyes just to rest them, and sleep dragged at me like a hand pulling me under. I could have fought it, but I didn’t. I needed the rest, and I needed it now, or I wouldn’t be worth shit soon. And the thought crossed my mind as I let myself relax that I did trust Edward. I really did. I slept huddled in the seat and didn’t wake until the car stopped.
“We’re here,” Edward said.
I struggled to sit up, feeling stiff, but rested. “Where?”
“Ted’s house.”
I sat up straighter. Ted’s house? Edward’s house. I was finally going to get to see where Edward lived. I was going to snoop and strip some of his mystery away. If I didn’t get killed, finding out Edward’s secrets would make the entire trip worthwhile. If I did get killed, I’d come back and haunt Edward, see if I could make him see ghosts after all.
17
THE HOUSE WAS ADOBE and looked old or genuine, not that I was an expert, but there was a feel to the house of age. We unloaded my luggage from the back of the Hummer but I had eyes mostly for the house. Edward’s house. I’d never really hoped to see where he lived. He was like Batman. He rode into town, saved your ass, then vanished, and you never really expected an invitation to see the Bat Cave. Now here I was standing in front of it. Cool.
It wasn’t what I’d pictured. I’d thought maybe a high-tech condo in the city. LA maybe. This modest appearing adobe house hugging the land was just not what I’d had in mind. It was part of his secret identity, his Tedness, but still, Edward lived here, and there had to be more reason than just Ted would have liked it. I was beginning to think I really didn’t know Edward at all.
The light over the front door switched on, and I had to turn away, shielding my night vision. I’d been staring right at it when it glared to life. I had two thoughts: one, who had turned on the light; two, the door was blue. The door was painted a blue-violet, a rich, rich color. I could also see the window nearest the door. Its trim was painted the same vibrant blue.
I’d seen it at the airport, though with more flowers and an addition of fuchsia. I asked, “What’s with the blue door and trim?”
“Maybe I like it,” he said.
“I’ve seen a lot of doors painted blue or turquoise on a lot of houses since I’ve been here. What gives?”
“Very observant.”
“A failing of mine. Now explain.”
“They think witches can’t cross a door painted blue or green.”
I widened my eyes. “You believe that?”
“I doubt most of the people who paint their doors believe it anymore, but it’s become part of the local style. My guess is that most people who do it, don’t even remember the folklore behind it.”
“Like putting out a jack o’ lantern at Halloween to frighten the goblins away,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“And because I am so observant, who turned on the porch light?”
“Either Bernardo or Olaf.”
“Your other backups,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Can’t wait to meet them.”
“In the spirit of cooperation, and no more surprises, Olaf doesn’t like women much.”
“You mean he’s gay?”
“No, and implying that to him will probably mean a fight, so please don’t. If I’d known I’d be calling you in, I wouldn’t have called him in at all. The two of you in the same house on the same case is going to be . . . a fucking disaster.”
“That’s harsh. You think we can’t play nice together.”
“I’d almost guarantee it,” he said.
The door opened, and our conversation cut off abruptly. I was wondering if it was the dreaded Olaf. The man in the doorway didn’t look much like an Olaf, but then what does an Olaf look like?
The man was six foot, give or take an inch. It was hard to tell his exact height because his lower body was completely covered by a white sheet that he had clutched in one hand at his waist. The sheet spilled around his feet like a formal dress, but from the waist up he was anything but formal. He was lean and muscular with a very nice set of abs. He was tanned a lovely even brown, though some of that was natural color because he was American Indian, oh, yes, he was. His hair was waist length falling over one shoulder and across the side of his face, heavy and solid black, tousled from sleep, th
ough it was early to be in bed. His face was a soft, full triangle, with a dimple in his chin, and a full mouth. Was it racist to say that his features were more white than Indian, or was it just true?
“You can close your mouth now,” Edward said near my ear.
I closed my mouth. “Sorry,” I mumbled. How embarrassing. I didn’t usually notice men this much, at least men I didn’t know. What was wrong with me today?
The man folded the sheet over his free arm until his legs showed and he could come down the two steps without tripping. “Sorry, I was asleep, or I’d have come out to help sooner.” He seemed perfectly at ease in his sheet, though he was going to a lot of effort to spill it over the same arm that was holding it in place, so he could grab a suitcase.
“Bernardo Spotted-Horse, Anita Blake.”
He was holding the sheet with his right hand, and he looked mildly perplexed as he dropped the suitcase and started the process of switching everything to the other hand. The sheet slipped down in front, and I had to turn my head away, fast.
I kept my head turned because I was blushing and wanted the darkness to hide it. I waved my hand vaguely behind me. “We’ll shake hands later when you’re wearing clothes.”
Edward’s voice. “You flashed her.”
Great, everybody noticed.
“I’m sorry,” Bernardo said, “truly.”
“We can get the luggage,” I said. “Go get a robe.”
I felt someone move up behind me, and I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I knew it wasn’t Edward. “You’re modest. I expected a lot of things from Edward’s descriptions but not modesty.”
I turned around slowly, and he was standing too close, invading the hell out of my personal space. I glared at him. “What were you expecting? The Whore of Babylon?” I was embarrassed and uncomfortable and that always made me angry. The anger showed in my voice.
The half-smile on his face faded round the edges. “I didn’t mean any offense.” His hand came up as he said it, as if he’d touch my hair.
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