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

by Victoria Raschke

  “How could–”

  “There were two mugs on the table, and there were breakfast dishes for two. You came in alone.”

  “Now you’re Sherlock Holmes, too?” He’d washed the dishes. It was inconvenient when assholes did nice things.

  “That does not require much in the way of deduction. You never did like to sleep alone. And clearly you have no problem playing with fire.”

  Why did she care what he thought? Her face and chest flushed.

  “And you still blush like a schoolgirl.”

  She kicked him in the shin, not that it did much damage in slippers.

  “I hardly deserved that.”

  “You deserve more than that.”

  He ignored her pronouncement. “What do you know of Faron’s abilities?”

  The shock must have registered on her face.

  “He has not told you. I thought he might call after we met.”

  “Wait. What? You saw Faron? You spoke with him?”

  “Yes. And I got the distinct impression his next conversation was going to be with you.”

  “My phone’s turned off and in a drawer. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.”

  He laughed. “You seem to have found someone here to talk to.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  He grabbed her wrist. “Oh, but it is.”

  She tried to pull away, and he let go. “How I loved your fire. But I see your stubbornness still prevents you from seeing. Have you figured out what you can do for your ghost lover? Did you fuck him anyway?”

  She stood up. “I think you should leave.”

  “I am not going anywhere until I am finished. Sit down and listen to me.” His eyes, his irises, flashed dark.

  Fear crept into the back of her throat. She backed away. “What are you?”

  He looked up at her. His eyes were completely black with no edge to the space they contained, like looking into the sky on a starless night. “What I am matters not. That I can protect you from what others want from you and Faron is far more important.”

  She edged back to her seat and sat down farther away from the table. He blinked and looked at her again with familiar green-gold eyes.

  “You do not need to fear me, but you need to do as I tell you.”

  “How am I supposed to trust you?” He had to be a demon. She’d fucked a demon, and Faron was a half-demon baby. What had she done?

  “I am not evil, not a demon.” He laughed. “Nothing as petty as that.”

  “Then what?”

  “You are not going to let it go, are you?” He stood.

  As he stretched to his full height, his clothes changed to a dark shroud cinched with a belt of human bones. His skin blackened and absorbed the light from the room. She looked up into his face; his eyes had gone dark again, but she could see through and into them to the stars beyond their own sky. Snow started to fall inside the house. The griddle plate on the woodstove hissed as each snowflake landed. The world fell out from beneath her. Dušan, or whatever he was, grabbed her hand before she disappeared into the nothingness that engulfed them.

  When he touched her, her stomach lurched and bile rose in the back of her throat. She begged him to stop, but no words came out — or if they did, they were lost in the abyss they fell through.

  After what felt like hours, they didn’t land, but they stopped. He pulled her into him, and his cloak enclosed her so only her face was exposed to the blackness around them.

  His voice echoed inside her head, its honeyed tones softer than the words he’d spit at her in the kitchen. “You asked. And I will show you.”

  The air around her lightened, like her eyes growing accustomed to a darkened room. The landscape was a charcoal sketch of wasteland. Shades, or what she assumed were shades, crowded against them, each touch filling her veins with ice.

  “These are the dead who have not passed into the next existence. They faded from the world you know without crossing, because they could not accept death.”

  “They’re being punished?”

  “No. They are lost.”

  “Why are you showing me this?” The thought that souls could exist in nothingness forever brought on a new wave of nausea.

  “Because you need to understand. This is how it works. There can be no paradise without a place of sorrow.”

  “Okay. But what does this have to do with me?”

  His hand reached into the pit of her stomach and wrenched the center of her back up through the darkness. She landed back in the chair at the scrubbed table in the farmhouse and vomited into her hands.

  Dušan, now dressed in black street clothes and with his perfectly human eyes, waved his hand to clean her up. “Faron can bring people back from the dead. Together, the two of you have a power even I do not possess as the god of darkness.”

  “Why would we do that? You just said it is against the natural order of things.” God of darkness. Could she go back to when she thought she was a demon fucker?

  “There are those who believe they are beyond the natural order of things, Miška.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “You will always be Miška to me.” He was standing in front of her and brushed her hair from her face.

  Miška, the mouse, the easily cornered. The bile was rising again in her throat. She ran to the toilet and threw up again and again until there was nothing left inside her.

  Dušan stood in the doorway and handed her a warm cloth to clean her face.

  “I hate you.” She stood up. “I loved you so much. Even after you left. Even after I knew you weren’t ever coming back and you didn’t give a shit about me or Faron. I still loved you, and I spent twenty fucking years trying to drown it.” She looked in the mirror, like Henry had done. Had he hated what he saw there as much as she did in that moment? “You used me. You knew what my family was. You knew …” She leaned against the sink. “None of it meant anything to you.”

  “Miška, it meant everything.”

  “You are a terrible liar, O Lord of Darkness.”

  He touched her face to turn her to look at him. “I never lied to you. I never promised you anything.”

  “What is Faron? What did you give him?”

  “Your son can raise the dead.”

  “Like zombies or like me?”

  “No.”

  “No to what?”

  “To both. Come, sit back down. Finish your coffee.”

  She barely had the energy to stand to walk him to the door. Every sentence he’d uttered was a new terrible revelation. She wanted him to leave. She wanted to sit alone to figure out what to do next. She’d have to send Henry away.

  “Miška.” He put both of his warm hands on either side of her face and kissed her chastely, as a goodbye.

  She flushed with the embarrassment of wanting more from him. Desire had come out of nowhere up through her chest with the barest touch of his lips against hers. Gods should not have that kind of power.

  “There may be time for that later, but are you certain it is what you want?”

  She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

  “When I leave and your friend returns, do as he asks you, then go back to Ljubljana. You should be with Faron, but you have obligated yourself here.”

  He put his finger under her chin like he was going to turn her face up to kiss her again.

  She stepped back and slapped him with all the force she could muster. “That’s for Faron. And for leaving me, whether you lied or not.”

  He laughed, but his cheek was crimson where she’d struck him. “I probably did deserve that.”

  “And so much more.” She closed the door on him and leaned back against it. The SUV tires crunched against the gravel on the drive. She stood there listening with her eyes closed until he was gone.<
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  The air chilled around her, and she opened her eyes again. Henry stood in front of her. Why did everyone want something from her?

  “Are you all right?”

  “No. But that is what it is.”

  He reached out to her, but she put her hand up. “First you need to tell me what it is you want from me.”

  “I need you to let me go.”

  “I’m hardly keeping you here. I have no control over the comings and goings of shades.”

  “No. I need you to help me.” The word help caught on his tongue like an epithet.

  “Apparently that is my lot in this life.” She sighed. “What do you need me to do?”

  He explained his plan to her. She started to gather her things to go out onto the mountain and begin.

  Henry stopped her. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

  “It can’t. I need to go back to Ljubljana.”

  “You aren’t going down the mountain tonight.”

  She sighed. She wanted to slide right down the door and sit on the cold flags in the entryway, but her butt would get wet.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  His eyes were heavy-lidded. He put his hands flat on the door on either side of her head and leaned in to kiss her. It was a hungry, open-mouthed kiss that pushed Dušan and his demands to the back of her mind, at least for the moment.

  He led her to the small sitting room and sat on the couch, pulling her onto his lap. Her knees dug into the upholstery as she straddled him, and she shivered in the chill air surrounding him and with the cold trace of his hands on the bare skin of her back under her sweater.

  “Thank you.” He kissed the words into her hair.

  She leaned back to look him in the face. “For what?”

  “For these hours. For bringing me here.”

  “I didn’t bring you. You showed up in the woods when my hat fell off.”

  He laughed. “I had seen you before, walking. You pulled me to that place.”

  She shrugged. “I’m glad you came.” She leaned in to kiss him again, but he stopped her.

  “That first time you saw me in the woods, you were burying something.”

  She waited for him to continue. Goran had given her the spell to call a lost shade to her. The ritual hadn’t worked, and telling Henry probably wouldn’t break the spell, but dwelling on the whereabouts of a dead ex-lover would produce a very different end to the evening.

  “What did you put in that hole?”

  She shifted her weight against him. “This is more important at the moment.”

  He moaned and pulled her to him, covering her mouth with another kiss. “You do keep your secrets, Jo.”

  She leaned back again and looked at him. “Not so many as you, Henry.” She stood and offered him her hand.

  “Why not here, nearer the fire?”

  “Because I’m about to have a couch spring embedded in my kneecap.”

  He laughed and took her hand. When he stood, face to face, she had to look up at him. He wasn’t that much taller than she was, but so close, the few inches were noticeable. His eyes were still soft with hunger, but there was a sadness there, too.

  He ran his fingertips over the hair at her temple. “I think I would have loved you.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you.”

  Chapter 8

  Picking up a rental car had to be up there with having dental work done and removing splinters on Leo’s list of things he’d prefer not to do. He’d prefer not to drive at all, but there wasn’t an easy way to get to Tolmin and Jo’s remote location without a private car. The agent at the desk clearly hated his job and possibly all of his customers, as well.

  “Sir, you have to get the insurance if you are taking the car off-road.”

  “I am not going off-road. I am going to Tolmin on official paved roads.” Losing his cool in public and berating a clerk at a rental car company wouldn’t be great PR for the church.

  “In winter. You should get the insurance.”

  Leo sighed. “Where do I sign?”

  The clerk pushed the paper back to him after circling a blank at the bottom and two places to initial to indicate that he had read whatever agreement he was offered and would not use the car for illegal purposes or to transport burnt offerings, or whatever nonsense was necessary to procure a vehicle for a mission he was less and less sure he should undertake.

  “Thank you.” The clerk handed him the keys and walked him out to an Opel estate car parked outside the door.

  “Is this the best you have? Nothing with all-wheel drive?”

  The man shrugged and handed him the keys.

  Leo folded himself into the car and pushed the driver’s seat back as far as it would go. His knees were even with the dashboard and wedged on either side of the steering column. The man returned to his counter inside the dusty office as Leo backed out and drove to the edge of the lot.

  He sat for a minute at the lip of the street. He could go on to Tolmin and be there about eleven. Jo would be furious. That line between her eyebrows would deepen, and her eyes would darken to a stormier blue than usual as she glared at him. He and Gregor and Vesna had promised not to go to the farmhouse and not to ask when she would return. But too much had happened in the past few days not to make contact, and she hadn’t answered her phone no matter how many messages Vesna left.

  Lunch. He would stop at the market and put together an indoor picnic as a peace offering. She’d been up there for more than two weeks. Surely she was tired of whatever she’d brought with her. And wine. Maybe a couple of bottles. What if there was a reason for him to not drive back? Maybe it was best not to think on that either. Shakespeare had it so wrong. Frailty wasn’t named Woman. It was the weak will of a lovesick man.

  He turned left out of the parking lot when the street cleared and headed to the closest market. Wine, cheese, bread, fruit, and, he hoped, with it, forgiveness.

  ——

  Faron didn’t want to see Dušan again. The more he thought about his conversation with his father, the more he wished he hadn’t told him anything. He should’ve talked to his mom first. Or to no one. He shouldn’t have told Ivanka. If he’d kept his secret, he wouldn’t be worried about what plans his father had for him or what danger he may have dragged his girlfriend into.

  He stopped in front of Cacao. It was one of his mother’s favorite places along the river. She liked to sit outside, even when it was cold, but the day was too wet for outside service. He opened the door to the smell of roasted coffee and burnt sugar. His father sat against the wall at a small table at the front of the shop. A few faces looked up at him but returned quickly to their conversations. A few more heads turned when he sat down with Dušan, and his father’s name floated above a couple whispers. People pretended to casually glance at him but looked away when Faron caught them.

  If this was what it was like to have a famous father, he was grateful for the anonymous upbringing his mom had given him with her last name. Being teased for being British or American was much easier.

  Dušan shook his hand and motioned to the server at the counter.

  “Bela kava, prosim.” Faron looked up at the server.

  As soon as the man walked away, Dušan dug into the conversation. “Have you spoken with your mother?”

  “No. I tried to call after I saw you and again when the shop got vandalized but–”

  “The teahouse? What happened?”

  “Some jerks spray-painted racist garbage on the front and broke the door and some pots.” The thought of it made him angry again and worried for Fred. And for Ivanka.

  “I would have thought your mother and that witch who owns the antique shop would have put up better protections against such things.”

  “What?” Goran was a witch?

  “The good professor studies things
much more interesting than European domestic arts.” Dušan scratched his jaw where his beard shadowed the skin.

  Since the night Faron had brought a dead mouse back to life at Helena’s apartment, nothing was as he thought it had been. His mother was a Voice of the Dead. His girlfriend’s parents had been murdered. Now his old neighbor was a witch and his father was whatever dark thing he was. Dealing with white supremacists seemed like the most normal thing he’d done all week.

  “Your mother said there was not much left that could surprise her. You must feel the same.” Dušan took a sip of his water.

  “It’s hard to be surprised by much after you find out you’re a freak.”

  “You are not a ‘freak,’ as you say. What you are and what your mother is and even what I am, is part of nature. It is not a part available to everyone, and the Board has made certain of that for a very long time.”

  “People used to know about these things?”

  “They had their ideas and superstitions. They asked cunning folk for assistance and left offerings for the house elves and whatever else they believed kept the fires burning and the milk from souring. That all changed, and we became fairy stories and legends. Who needs magic when you have industry and technology?”

  “Everyone? Look at movies and TV and books. People seem to desperately want all those things to be real. Even the monsters. Even demons and devils.”

  “No. They want to escape their own boredom and the isolation of modernity. Do not kid yourself that anyone will welcome the weird back into this world with open arms. Even your girlfriend.”

  He was not going to discuss Ivanka with his father. She was none of his business.

  “I saw your mother.”

  “You went to Tolmin? Jesus, I bet she was pissed.” Faron took a sip of the coffee that had appeared at their table.

  “Angry. Yes.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “It is the reason I went to see her.”

  She would be hurt. She had promised not to keep secrets from him the night they were all sitting out in the cold on lawn chairs at Gregor’s. She’d barely been able to walk, she had been so badly beaten trying to save him, but she’d wanted to look at the stars. He had lied by omission then. He’d done the same thing he’d been angry at her for, because he thought he was protecting her, like she had thought she was protecting him. Families were really fucking complicated.