He shrugged. “You have to admit it might explain the increased violence we seem to be experiencing in this decade.”
“There might be other factors,” she argued. “Dissatisfaction with lives and job, a drop in the quality of life or the number of toys that a man can buy. These all play into the possibility, don’t you agree?”
“Orielle may have a point,” I said. “Unhappy people are on edge more, may snap easier. At the same time, it seems like there is more to the madness. And it may have been there all along and we just haven’t had the kind of access to the news that we do now.”
“Point taken,” Gavin said. “What else do you have, Ori?”
Putting on a pair of thin, white gloves, she picked up one of the scrolls. “I borrowed this. It’s the original scroll and as you can see, it is very delicate.”
Gavin’s right eyebrow had gone up when she said borrowed and I wondered what that meant.
“I thought you might be able to get a reading from it,” she went on, looking at me. “The only thing is that you cannot touch it without gloves.”
I puckered my lips a bit at that. Read it without actually touching it? “I don’t think I can do that. I pick up the impressions by touching the object and gloves block the contact.”
“Are you sure? Even the thin ones like these?” She held up one of the gloves she had for me.
I reached across to touch it, feeling the thin silky texture. They weren’t quite a tight weave so there was more of a chance of contact with the object without putting destructive body oils on it. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried with any gloves as delicate as this.”
She nodded toward the scroll. “You do not have to unroll it or even pick it up. Just try to touch it.”
Nervous, I pulled the glove onto my right hand and reached out to hover my fingers over the scroll where Orielle had set it on the table. With a light movement, I lowered my index finger to make contact with the ancient document. Butterflies skittered in my stomach as I feared I might put too much pressure on it and damage the surface.
“That is good. You are doing fine. The scroll can bear a little pressure,” Orielle encouraged.
I paused just a scant centimeter above it and let my fingers hover there, trying to see if there was any impression trying to reach me. I heard the scratch of a pen or stylus of some sort on parchment. With a start, I lifted my hand a bit as I realized this wasn’t paper, but an animal hide. A very thin one, so probably not a pig, but something with thinner skin.
“I can sense the author of the scroll writing on it. But I’m not getting any idea of what he was writing about or even how he felt about it at the time.”
“Put your fingers on it,” Orielle said. “You may not sense anything unless you actually touch it, yes?”
Still cautious, I pressed my fingers to the scroll as gently as possible, feeling only the slightest give of the skin. I closed my eyes and tried to focus in on anything it might show me. A vague scent of candle wax and oil came to me along with the flickering of light and the repeated sound of the stylus scratching on the scroll. I breathed deeply, pulling in the few clues I’d gotten, and I sensed the writer’s breathing and a wave of sadness as he wrote. Grim matters–those words came across to my mind. A sense that he grieved for those lost to the creatures, perhaps. But no detail. I didn’t even get a feel for what he was writing, only that he felt sad.
I lifted my fingers and shook my head. “No, nothing of interest. The scroll only gives me a sense of the place and a bit of the mood of the writer. Nothing at all about the content. Since my gift picks up visions or impressions of what happens around the object, it’s limited. It shows me the act of creating it and that’s only because the writer was emotional while writing it.”
“Not much help there,” Gavin said. “But it makes sense that the scroll wouldn’t hold any details.”
Orielle looked disappointed. I guess she thought that the content of the scroll would be visual or more extensive than the words, but that wasn’t how it worked. “Sorry.”
I removed the gloves and got up. “I need to move a bit.”
I went to the backyard and stretched my muscles that felt tight after the tension. A few clouds and a breeze had started up, suggesting a storm moving into the area. Sometimes the winds roared through the valley and the temperatures dropped by ten degrees. I hope this wasn’t going to be one of those days. Even though the band was playing indoors, it still meant it would be less likely people would come out to the event.
I barely heard Gavin come up behind me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. Just a little stiff. Why?”
“You seem tense and a little agitated to me. You sure something isn’t bothering you.”
Apart from your sexy girlfriend? My eyes narrowed a bit as I thought it. Oh, yeah, and putting on a show and tell for said sexy girl.
But I said, “Yeah, it’s been a tough week. The guy who used to stalk me was killed in a snowmobile accident. The Sheriff seems to suspect foul play and a pair of detectives pulled me in for questioning. Then, to add to it, the stalker’s mom called and wants me to sing at his funeral. So, yeah, a little tense.”
“You can’t sing at the funeral,” Gavin said before I even finished the last bit. “It’s too risky until we know how to fight these yiaiwa.”
“I know that,” I answered, my voice carrying some bite. “I already told her no.”
“But it’s worse than that,” I added after a couple of moments of thought. “I think the guy is on the yiaiwas’ side of the cemetery. At least that’s what my dream showed me.”
“What dream?” he asked in concern.
“One of those dreams,” I answered. “The ones where I’m in the ethereal graveyard. Should we get the expert?”
He shot a surprised look at me as if he didn’t understand what I meant. “You mean Ori?”
“That’s why she’s here, isn’t it? Because she has the answers, we hope.”
He let out a breath, “She came to help because she’s worried about this also. No, she doesn’t have all the answers, but she’s hoping we can figure it out. I thought you wanted that also.”
“I do.” I dropped my eyes to the ground where the grass was half-frozen and yellow. “I do want answers and help. It’s just I feel so inadequate. I’m not an expert at any of this.” I shook my head slowly, wishing I’d never opened my mouth.
Gavin pulled me into a warm hug, his hands rubbing across my back. “Not an expert? There are parts of this you know more about than either one of us. You’ve been on the front line, chica. You want to show Ori how you can blast a bird out of the sky with your power?”
I chuckled into his neck where my mouth faced it. “I don’t blast birds unless they’re black with red eyes.”
“Quoth the raven...”
I felt his laugh, enjoying the close contact with him and feeling that tingle of pleasure running through my core.
When we went back inside, we found Orielle had put the scrolls back in her room, probably even into the carrying case she’d brought them in. Undoubtedly, they had to be worth a fortune, and I still wondered how she’d managed to bring them here. I didn’t think the library in Tibet would be all that willing to loan them out to her, but maybe she had enough of a reputation they would trust her.
She looked up when we came in and smiled. “Do you want to try reading the object?”
I hesitated. “You know what, it makes me feel a little drained to do the readings. I have a high energy show to do tonight so I don’t think it’s a good idea to do it now. Maybe we can do it in a few days.”
“Yes, I see. That will be fine. In the meantime...” she opened the notebook again. “...I found this reference to a puzzle box. The writer speaks of a ceremony to lock the leader of the yiaiwa into the box and seal it so that he cannot break free again. He describes the box as being made of ivory.”
“Is that like the box you found, prof?” I asked, thinking of the artifac
t he’d told me about.
His eyebrows lowered and his mouth tightened a little. “It could be. What else does it say?”
“It does not say much more,” Orielle said. “Just that he and a shaman sealed the chamber where he put the box, and they locked it away for all time ensuring that none of the yiaiwa could come through the portal.”
I saw the worry come into Gavin’s eyes. He’d opened a sealed chamber in a tomb when he found the ivory puzzle box. I bit my lower lip in sympathy for the guilt I knew he was feeling. “It might not be the same one.”
“No. You’re right,” he said without conviction. “I’m sure there have been lots of similar boxes over the centuries.”
“Where is the box now?” Orielle asked.
“In Washington state. At the university who sponsored my trip.”
We all sat in silence, thinking about the obvious next step. At last, Gavin spoke. “I’ll get the dean to send it to me. It will only take a few days.”
I shuddered as I recalled his story of the box. It wasn’t something I wanted to touch, but I had a horrible feeling that I might have to do it.
SIXTEEN
My nerves tingled as I paced backstage before our show. Ferris and Digby had already checked everything out by the time I got there. I’d looked at them and my watch and complained, “But I’m on time.”
Digby had laughed. “You are. We just got here a little earlier and didn’t wait. Nothing to get excited about.”
Now, I worked off a little nervous energy while I waited for the show to start. I wasn’t normally too tense before a show. We’d been doing them for almost a decade so it wasn’t stage fright or anything like that. It was the uncertainty of whether we’d get through it without someone heckling me about my funeral singing gig. I hoped it would die a peaceful death, but I feared it would linger for a while.
As the band was announced, we scurried onto the stage to be in place when the curtains opened. This was a show at one of the bigger venues in town, so there was a pretty good-sized audience. On a weekend, Reno visitors plus the locals could add up to some nice numbers.
We launched into our rock and roll opening song and really got the crowd moving. Getting a vibe like a great party was brewing, I relaxed and let the music flow. Things kept grooving until about mid-way through when a small group of guys, about five, started shouting at me.
“Sing one of your funeral songs, freak. Let’s hear what you sing to the dead.”
There was a moment of stunned silence and I glanced at Digby. How do you turn that into something humorous? I put on my tough voice and said, “You know, I’m glad you brought that up, fella. People seem to think I’m some sort of weird person who would sing at a funeral service, but I’m actually singing for the living. They’re the ones grieving and feeling the loss, so yeah, I have sung a few jobs at a funeral parlor and you know what? I sing pop songs, I sing the Beatles and Anya. So, how about we do one of those songs right now?”
I mouthed the song name to Ferris and Digby and hoped they got it right, but since I had the opening chords on the keyboard, I knew they’d follow me on “Let It Be”. Most of the crowd cheered when we started it, so I thought it was a good plan.
Nonetheless, I heard an occasional boo and a few other words that were not as nice hollered out while I was singing. Some of the people nearest to the hecklers tried to get them to shut up, but it just came across as more of an incentive for them to get obnoxious.
As the song ended, one of the others called me a “weird fucking bitch” and another joined in with something even ruder. Ferris hit the cymbals a couple of time and yelled into the microphone at his drum set. “That kind of language is totally inappropriate at a public event. Either keep your mouth shut or leave.”
“Or you’ll do what, motherfucker?”
And that started it. From someone in the general area of the hecklers, a bottle of beer came hurtling toward me. I barely saw it in time to twist my head out of the way as it hit my shoulder with enough force to make me stagger and beer flew all over me.
Following right behind the launched beer, one of the guys, a little shorter than Ferris but much heavier, charged the stage and hurdled onto it, a switchblade knife in his hand. I had stumbled back a couple of feet from my keyboard and prepared myself to take on this jerk, my eyes already tracking from the weapon to his glaring face in anticipation.
I got a glimpse of movement from my right as I heard the crash that I guessed was Ferris jumping out from behind the drums and upsetting the cymbals. What I didn’t expect was Digby tackling the guy and they both went down onto the stage as Dig struggled to keep the guy’s knife hand away from him. I ran toward him to help, ready to kick the guy as hard as I could when another one of the jerks came up the stairs behind me and made a grab for me.
I twisted, dropped, then lifted my body backwards into him, thrusting my full weight onto him and knocking him off balance. He stumbled back into my keyboard crashing it to the floor with an aborted shriek of a high C note as it hit. Now, Ferris plunged into the fray, his fists pounding into the guy’s face.
Twisting free from my attacker, I turned and kicked him where it counted, then looked back to Digby. My heart almost stopped as I saw him sprawled out on the boards, trying to get the bulkier guy off him, and a bloody splotch on Dig’s shirt around his middle. I screamed his name and launched myself onto the back of the guy. He still held his knife as he brought his arm up, ready to plunge it into Dig again.
My weight was enough to throw him off and we tumbled to the side. As I sprang to my feet, he was right with me, a growl coming out of his throat. “Freaky bitch.”
Then he lunged for me, his arm already swinging the knife toward my torso.
I lurched into him, dropping my head and shoulders into a tackle and hitting him full on as the knife grazed my right arm. My head landed in his middle, knocking him back. By now, Dig was on his feet and wrapped his left arm around the guy’s throat, yanking him backward while his free hand made furious grabs for the knife.
A second or two later, I had my right hand wrapped around the blade’s handle and dug my fingernails into the man’s wrist with the other hand. My well-manicured and reinforced nails could be like little knives when pressed into the flesh. An angry scowl covered his face as his hand involuntarily opened enough to release the blade.
About that time, the building security made it to the stage and two officers took over, hauling the guys away in no time. I straightened up, realizing that blood was running down my arm from where the knife had grazed me and a patch of blood oozed on my shoulder from the bottle hit. Minor damage, but now as my adrenaline faded, I began to feel the sharp sting of the injuries.
I turned my gaze to Digby, who’d doubled over, his hand holding his side where he’d been stabbed as blood oozed between his fingers. Face blanched, he tried to force a smile at me, but it turned into a pain-filled grimace. Ferris paused beside me and I shifted my gaze to him.
“Any serious damage? I can see the cuts,” he muttered, his voice concerned as he looked toward Digby.
In a moment’s glimpse, I noted a cut above his eye and a few bruises. Minor damage. I shook my head. “Go to him.”
He hurried on to Digby and I followed him a little slower as he eased his arm around our bandmate and tried to get a look at his side. One of the security guards told him that the police and EMT’s were on the way. Together, Ferris and I got Dig off the stage and to a chair.
“Sit,” I told him, urging him down. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Stay with him,” Ferris said and went back out to the stage, picked up the tumbled microphone, and tapped it.
Someone from security handed me a First Aid kit and I dug into it for a thick pad. Lifting his shirt, I got a look at a lot of blood and a deep-looking cut in his left side.
“Didn’t quite dodge at the right time,” he gasped as I wiped at the blood with an antiseptic wipe, then pressed the pad against the injury.
For the first time since the fight had broken out, I looked toward the crowd and realized that chairs were overturned. It looked like the brawl might have extended to the floor. Two more security men stood in the center of an open area, holding a pair of the hecklers, and three or four other men clustered around them.
I still held the pad against Digby’s side as Ferris came back to us. “EMT’s are just outside,” he said. “I saw the lights through the doors. Hang in there, Dig.”
He nodded and pointed to me, “She’s bleeding.”
“Yeah, I know. But you should see those hecklers,” Ferris answered. “She’s not bad, but you’re both going to the hospital.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Anything other than bruises and little cuts? You should go, too.” I was worried, even though he seemed fine.
“No, I don’t think there’s anything more serious. I need to get the instruments put away, then I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
“Screw the instruments,” Dig managed to say. “Get checked out first.”
“He’s right, Ferris. We all go together.”
About that time the EMT’s arrived and took over with Digby. One of them, a young woman about my age pulled me aside and told me to sit as well, then cut my blouse open to get a look at the shoulder wound.
“What happened?” she asked, a curious look in her eyes, no doubt wondering how I got a cut like that on my shoulder.
“Flying beer bottle,” I answered. “The concert broke out into a brawl.”
As she worked, I tried to keep an eye on Digby. The attending EMT was hooking him up to an IV bag and had applied a stretch bandage around his middle to keep compression on the wound.
Speaking of compression, the gal with me shoved a pad against my shoulder and taped it down, then turned to the knife wound, ripping the sleeve off my blouse. This one still oozed blood, but it had slowed a lot. She wiped it off and peered at it.
A Song of Forgiveness Page 14
