Our Lady of the Various Sorrows (Voices of the Dead Book 2)

by Victoria Raschke

  He put his hands on the edge of the sink and pushed away, looking down at the cracked tile on the floor. “Early sixties going on dotage.”

  “You look more fortysomething now.”

  “Those were good years. Or at least better ones.”

  “You don’t look too bad for a shade. Feel better?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that question.”

  She took his cold wrist. “Let’s go back to the couch and you can answer different questions.” She was sure he wouldn’t have an answer for why the shade of a suicide would find his way to her, now. Maybe the whatever gods were responsible for that, as well.

  He looked up at himself in the mirror one more time. “It’s best not to dwell on the past.”

  “I’m learning that lesson.”

  He stood up straight and walked back toward the sitting room.

  Once they were both back on the couch, closer than they had been before, she asked more questions, trying to parse out who her mysterious guest had been in life. She was drawn to his loneliness, and her thoughts spun out into where that might take the evening.

  “What did you write?” She poured more wine into both their empty glasses.

  “Novels, stories. I worked as a correspondent.”

  “Anything I would have read?” She looked over the rim of her wineglass at him as she took a sip.

  “Possibly. What did you study at school?” He was very good at changing the subject. Almost as good as she was.

  “Photography and history.” She wasn’t giving away any more than he was, but his nearness with the flickering lamplight and the wine were chipping away at her reserve.

  “What do you do now? I don’t see any cameras in your house.” He turned facing her on the couch, his arm stretched along the back. He picked up a few strands of her hair and rubbed them between his thumb and fingers.

  She took another sip of wine and moved closer to him on the couch. What did she do now? “I don’t live here. I live in Ljubljana. I own a teahouse with a couple of friends.”

  “Why aren’t you a photographer?”

  “I gave that up.” She’d had a mouth to feed, and photography had lost its luster for her. Picking up a camera had reminded her too much of Dušan.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have a good answer for you.” She didn’t want to pierce this fragile thing they were weaving with complaints about an old lover.

  He nodded and ran his fingers down her arm. “And does owning a teahouse fill that same creative need?”

  “Sometimes. I work there, too. Baking and scheduling bands. I’ve started sketching again. It seems to be filling that void.” His light touch made her aware of other needs.

  “What do you draw?” He brushed his thumb over her earlobe.

  “People mostly. Faces. But sometimes buildings or landscapes or my friend’s cats.” She turned in her seat and shifted inside the crook of his arm.

  “Do you have them here?” His voice deepened, and his words slowed in a languid, aroused way.

  She laughed. “Yes, do you want to come to my room to see my sketches?”

  He smiled. “Is that an invitation to your bed, Jo?”

  She turned her face toward him to answer, and he brushed his lips over hers.

  “It might be.”

  Chapter 4

  Leo took the cup Vesna handed him. “It’s not that green tea, is it?”

  “No. Irish breakfast. The one you like.”

  He nodded and took a sip. “Have you spoken with Jo?”

  His niece shook her head.

  “I’m worried about her being up there alone. That place.” It was a beautiful natural area, but the memorials and the starkness of the mountains made it feel like a place of the dead to him.

  Vesna curled her legs up under her on the giant couch. It was still a puzzle to him, how she’d managed to get it into the cramped flat.

  “She’ll be fine, I think.” Vesna held her cup in the air while one of her cats, a sleek orange tabby, made itself comfortable on her lap.

  “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

  “Jackie told her how to make that ward with the hat, and I think she needs to be alone, but …” Vesna looked out the window, but her eyes were focused somewhere in the middle distance.

  “But what?”

  Vesna shook her head like she was coming back from somewhere far away. “She has been in a dark place. I thought she was getting better, but the week before she left she barely spoke to anyone, even at work.”

  He had thought she was dealing with things better, too, until the last time she’d come to visit. She had asked him again how she could have saved Katarina. She was convinced it was her fault she had died. He’d tried to reassure her that death was beyond her control, but she was still haunted by the possibility that there was a choice she could have made or an action she could have taken that she had failed to see. Jo had said that working with Ivanka every day at the teahouse was a reminder of her failures.

  He interrupted his own thoughts to share them with his niece. “She thinks everything that happened is her fault.”

  Vesna sat up, and the cat protested in her lap. Vesna pushed her dark hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ears. “I think she realizes she couldn’t have stopped it. I think it was seeing Veronika and Ana in the house. She keeps telling me about the blood on Veronika’s face.” Vesna paused. “I don’t think that’s the only thing.” His niece started to say more but stopped herself, either for his comfort or her own preservation.

  Death was inevitable. He and Jo had discussed that, but she clung to an idea that people got the death they deserved. And she didn’t believe any of those killed by the demon, who had come for her, had gotten the deaths they deserved. She thought her duty to the dead meant she should have stopped it.

  “She hasn’t mentioned anything else to me.”

  “There might be other reasons for that.” His niece cocked her head and arched her brow at him. “She’s not going to get past any of this if she won’t talk to anyone.”

  “She’ll get there. She questions why Tomaž and Katarina didn’t appear to her after they died.” He put his hand on hers to reassure her, or maybe himself.

  “I wondered about that. But don’t you think they would have crossed quickly?”

  He nodded. “I would have if what was left of my body was a–”

  Vesna put up her hand. “I really don’t need another description of Tomaž’s death.” She went a little green around the gills.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. I know you’ve dealt with more of this than I have.”

  “That should make me more circumspect about what I repeat.” He took a sip of his tea and leaned back into the couch. He looked around at the flat. His niece’s personality was on display in the photos and tchotchkes she managed to cram onto every surface. It was orderly though, even in its Victorian excess.

  She nodded. “And how are you?”

  She could see his aura, so there was no sense in lying to her. “I’ve had a lot to think about.”

  “Perhaps the thing you should most consider before you break your vows is whether she feels anything for you.” His niece wasn’t being patronizing, though she had every right to be.

  He had considered that, often in the early hours of the morning while he stared at the ceiling above his bunk. He had fallen in love with Jo. Her attempt at holding herself together and trying to soldier on had only deepened his affection for her. “I don’t believe she does.”

  “I honestly don’t know. I know she trusts you implicitly.” A shadow of a thought flitted across her face.

  “But?”

  “I’m just worried about how she’s coping.”

  “She’s finding a new normal. Slowly.” He was, him
self, part of Jo’s new normal, but he had no idea if it was a welcome part.

  “She is, but I’m not sure she’s chosen the best way to go about it.”

  “Ah. … I don’t think I want to know.”

  “Probably not, but maybe she would talk to you about it. When I bring it up, she rolls her eyes and throws things at me.” Vesna sat her empty cup on the table in front of them.

  “She’s being violent?” Jo could be testy and often threatened to kick people in the shins, but he’d never actually seen her hit another person.

  “I don’t think tossing a tea towel at my head counts as being violent.”

  He laughed. “That sounds more like Jo.”

  “It does.” His niece wasn’t laughing.

  “That’s not why you’re worried about her.”

  “It isn’t. She’s in this reckless abandon mode, like she was when I met her.” She shook her head. “I think she’s forgiven Rok, but he isn’t around to talk her down. Or keep her occupied.”

  “I don’t think he feels responsible for her unless she’s in real danger.” Rok, Jo’s longtime, long-lived friend with benefits was not his favorite person. It was pure jealousy, which shamed him, but he was still relieved the man had been in the wind for the past few months.

  “You don’t think picking up different people every other night at Niko’s gallery in Metelkova is dangerous?” She looked like she could shake him.

  “I got the impression Jo could handle herself where … that’s concerned.” His skin crawled at the thought of her with random men, or women. The ones he knew about were bad enough.

  “Not physically dangerous. She’s not dealing with everything that happened. She’s using sex, like she always does, to avoid having to face her own feelings — about anything.” Vesna flung herself back against the couch.

  “Then you should be happy she is up in the mountains alone.” He was beginning to warm up to the idea himself.

  “Not really. It’s just another way to get away from what’s going on here.”

  “So what is going on here?” His niece’s concern was overblown. Jo spending time alone to heal and grieve, to do what she wouldn’t let herself do around all of them, had to be a good thing.

  “I wish I understood all of it. Faron is being secretive. His aura has changed, but I can’t describe what’s different. I figured it was just the shock of everything that happened and taking on some responsibility in his relationship with Ivanka.”

  Leo nodded. “That would change him.”

  “It’s more than that. I can’t explain it.” She shook her head again, like she could shake the words she needed loose. “And I think Jo needs to get rid of Helena. That is not a healthy relationship.”

  “Do I sense a touch of jealousy?”

  “Good grief, no. But Helena badgers her about getting together with Matjaž. It’s probably why Jo is sleeping with half of Ljubljana.”

  He shuddered more than he would have liked at her words.

  “And you’re asking me if I’m jealous? You do realize even if Jo is interested in you, she isn’t going to stop being who she is? If you can’t accept that, you should go back to your closet and pray about it.”

  He had thought and prayed and gritted his teeth about it. He wanted to believe he had more control over his emotions. He did in most areas of his life, but not now and not where Jo was concerned. “You’re right.”

  “Wait. Can you say that again? It’s so seldom you admit it.”

  “I’m going to chuck a tea towel at you.”

  Vesna snickered, then looked at him with what Jo described as her “serious mom” face. “You should go see her in the mountains. Just go check on her. We’ll both feel better.”

  “Didn’t she specifically say she didn’t want anyone to go up there?”

  “She did, but she didn’t mean it.”

  He frowned at her. “You’ve known her much longer, but I’ve gotten the distinct impression she says exactly what she means. Besides, there are storms forecast for the week. The roads will be terrible.”

  “See. An even better reason to go check on her. What if her electricity is out and she runs out of wood?”

  “Didn’t Gregor take her up there with a year’s supply of everything? I was here when they left, remember?”

  His niece huffed at him. “I think you should go. I just have a bad feeling about her being up there alone.”

  He wanted to go. Alone with her on a mountain in a snowstorm might be his best chance to tell her he loved her. “Yes, but you have to pay for a rental car. One that can get through the snow.”

  Lichtenberg caught him on the stairs. Leo was more at ease with him than he had been in the past, but every encounter gave the officious man an opportunity to piss him off again.

  “Leo. One of the people I most wanted to find today.”

  Leo nodded a greeting in return.

  “I have need to speak with Ms. Wiley. Do you know when she will return from her trip? She was very vague with me about her plans.”

  “She said she didn’t think it would be longer than a month.”

  “A month? This cannot wait. I will call her. Thank you.” Lichtenberg started up the stairs on the way to his apartment.

  “You won’t have much luck. Vesna said her phone goes straight to voicemail. She thinks she’s turned it off so no one can get through.”

  “That is a very bad idea. What if she is in danger?” His expression hovered between genuine concern and deliberate manipulation.

  “Gustaf, she has Helena if she needs anything. She’s fine. I’m sure whatever you need to speak to her about can wait a few days.”

  “A few days, maybe, but not weeks.” He stroked his beard.

  “Why is it so important that you speak with her?” Lichtenberg being vague was never a good sign.

  “Dušan Črnigad is in town.”

  That was part of it, but Gustaf was holding something back. He always did. “Faron is an adult. I’m sure Jo won’t be happy Črnigad is here, but she’d hardly come rushing down from the mountains to see him.”

  “Wouldn’t she?”

  The man’s smugness was infuriating. Jo had loved Dušan. She had told Leo that much, and he suspected the wound was deeper than she would ever admit to herself, let alone him. But that Lichtenberg thought to use the man’s presence as a pry bar on him was delusional. “I don’t know, Gustaf. I need to be on my way.” He hurried down the stairs away from the little gray Austrian. He could feel his stare on his back until he turned on the landing.

  He’d intended to pop into the teashop to say hello to Ivanka and Frédéric, but he didn’t want to spend any more time in Lichtenberg’s vicinity.

  ——

  Gustaf watched the priest scurry down the stairs. The red tendrils of his aura drifted behind him and turned the corner a second after he did. An outsized aura for an outsized man. He didn’t need to be able to see auras to know the man was in love and trying with everything he had to fight it. Leo Kos would never be the man he would choose for Jolene Wiley, but Leo’s feelings for her made him easier to manipulate.

  At the moment, Gustaf had bigger concerns than a lovesick priest. As dangerous as he had believed Ms. Wiley’s unexpected and untrained powers to be, her son’s were a more pressing issue. Gustaf had suspected Faron would have some supernatural gift after Jo had relayed the story of her affair with Dušan Črnigad to him. Gustaf had not told her then who or what Črnigad was. The Necromancer had taken advantage of her, and it only added to Gustaf’s distaste for the man.

  Črnigad had the Board at his disposal, and someone had informed him his former paramour might be of more interest to him now. But Faron Wiley and his ability were a much greater prize for a man with Črnigad’s powers than a Voice could ever be. He needed to tell Ms. Wiley about Črnigad before he got to
her or convinced Faron to reveal the secret he was still hiding.

  Chapter 5

  Henry traced the edge of the tattoo at the base of Jo’s sternum. A solar eclipse, a solid black circle edged in white with coronal flames in orange and red. One flame, a solar flare, extended to her navel. Under his fingertip he could feel the beading of a circular scar covered by the dark moon of the eclipse.

  She didn’t speak and closed her eyes as he worked his way around the tattoo.

  “You have a scar.” He kissed a flame tip.

  “Many.” She sighed and arched her back.

  He had noticed the three silvered lines under her left eye when they stood outside in natural light. The marks disappeared in the dim interior of the farmhouse. The scent of her skin reminded him of bakeries in a long-ago place and a feeling he couldn’t find a word for. “This one is different from the others.”

  “An old god possessed me to save the world, or something like that.” She said it as if it were nothing. As if it were the same as “I took a walk this morning.”

  He kissed the center of the moon. “It must have been painful.”

  She opened her eyes and raised her head to look at him. “The tattoo?”

  “No. The god.”

  “Not like you mean.” She closed her eyes again.

  He kissed his way up her body, moved his lips over the tattoo again, between her breasts and up to the place where her jawline met her ear. “What do you want, Jo?” He kissed again, feather-light.

  She arched her back, straining against him. “I want to forget.”

  She said it so softly, he almost missed it. He pushed himself into her, expecting to feel alive again. He expected the rush of power a woman’s contented sigh conferred. He felt instead how alive she was. As he moved against her, as she opened herself to him, a silver fire enveloped him. He didn’t know what she was, but he understood then what she could do.

  He paused inside her. She opened her eyes. An exquisite anguish washed over her face as he crashed into her, hungrier, angrier.

  She pushed him over and onto his back. “Not so quickly.”

  He closed his eyes again and thought only of being at the center of her and she of him.