Soul Loss

by Amber Foxx

  “I had a whole busload of spirits show up.”

  Mae almost dropped the brush. “When?”

  “This morning.” He opened his eyes again. “Bloody fuck-up, but I tried to help Ximena.”

  “You tried to do my job for me? I told you—”

  “She asked me.”

  “How did she know you’re a healer?”

  “My teachers. Told her I’d be good. But the whole thing was bloody awful.”

  Hearing the agitation in his voice, Mae resumed his grooming. “It’s not just you. I couldn’t help Azure, either. My Granma’s spirit did it for me.”

  He sat up abruptly, jarring her hand. “So Azure’s healed?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You did it like Gaia would.” He craned his neck around to look at her. “Is that what you wanted to talk about? You made it sound so—dunno—stressful or something.” After giving her knee a congratulatory rub, he laid his head back down. “Guess it’s scary the first time you do it, but, Jesus, I’m so happy for Azure. That’s great. You called in a spirit.”

  “Not really. She showed up on her own. And then she didn’t come back when I asked her to. I guess dead people have some special feeling for Azure. That’s the only way I can explain it.” Mae told him what had happened with Mary Kay. “Dahlia’s one heck of a strong witch. She almost got me. You took a big risk, going up against her. Did you feel that thing pulling on you, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  As he drank his beer, Jamie described the attempted healing, the spirit doctor, and the buzzing lights.

  “Are those your guides or something?”

  “Dunno.” Jamie bowed his head, an unsubtle hint, and Mae began to untangle the knots in the back of his hair. “That’s who showed up.”

  “You don’t invite certain ones?” Mae thought of Kenny’s worries about what an amateur shaman could conjure. “You don’t know them?”

  “Nah. Gaia must know who they are, though.”

  “If they’re the same ones she calls. Be careful.”

  “Fuck—you had a dead person. You think I’m messing with stuff I shouldn’t?”

  “It’s different. She’s my Granma, and she was a healer. Half the crystals I use were hers. It wasn’t some random stranger from the other side popping in. You wouldn’t ask people you don’t know into your home. I don’t think you should let them into your head. Jamie, please—I’m proud of you for taking on the healing work—but I don’t like you calling in spirits when you can’t decide who comes.”

  “Didn’t think I’d ever have to, y’know? Just send ’em away.”

  She brushed his hair, sipped her tea, and brushed some more, until she sensed he was calm again. “I had a spirit I couldn’t ... I don’t want to say send away, because I’d been looking for her, but, I couldn’t—”

  “Stop.”

  “Sugar, this is what I needed to talk about.”

  He grasped her wrist softly, his voice firm yet pleading. “No. I can’t.”

  He let go. She finished his hair, and Jamie kissed her hand and thanked her. He stood, took his shirt from the back of the chair, walked to the window and opened the blinds. Silent, he slipped the shirt on—red with yellow lightning bolts, in the same cut as all the others—and took his time to button up. Between buttons he rippled, flexed, and criss-crossed the fingers of his right hand. “Still numb in one spot. Still hurts sometimes, too.” He rubbed the outer edge of his little finger with his thumb and then did another button.

  When he’d finished, each hand massaged the opposing forearm while he stared out the window. “Fuck.” He pressed his fingers into his hairline and closed his eyes. “It’s like that nerve, all right? You touch it, I get worse. The whole bloody chain reaction starts. Some things only heal if you leave ’em alone. Talking is like—” He lifted his flexed arm and whacked the inside of his right elbow against the edge of the window frame, recoiling with a silent gasp, his face scrunched up in pain. “Like that.”

  Mae was too shocked to know what to say. He’d deliberately aimed the notch where the ulnar nerve was exposed onto a sharp corner, striking with force and precision. How could he hurt himself like that?

  He stood huddled, rubbing his arms, looking out the window. Mae pictured him alone in this apartment, working on the plan to drown in the lake like a prisoner plotting an escape while some gloomy, death-soaked opera played on the stereo. Only ten weeks ago. If Kandy wanted Jamie to know her story, she would have to find a different messenger or tell him herself. Mae wasn’t going to add to his troubles. All she wanted now was to take them away.

  She came up behind him, wrapped her arms around his belly, and rested her forehead on the back of his head. Jamie’s arms slid down to form a layer over hers. His hands were hot, even hotter than the rest of his body.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “No matter how hard it is for you to heal, or how long it takes, I’m with you. Even when I don’t understand, I love you.”

  He turned to face her and pushed his fingers through her hair to the back of her head. His kiss was tentative, and he interrupted it. His eyes searched hers. “It won’t be easy. Loving me.” He stroked her cheek and kissed her lightly again. “Are you sure you want to?”

  “Letting go of you would be a whole lot harder.”

  She returned the kiss. In a moment that was all there was. The sweet wet darkness of the kiss.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hours later, even after furniture shopping, a buzz of bliss still vibrated in Jamie’s body. He couldn’t help smiling at everyone, laughing at nothing, dancing as he carried the last of his instruments into the Magic Bean for the evening’s show.

  His phone rang. Arms full, he hurried across the dance floor, stepped up onstage, and set the drums down. Mae could miss him already. He missed her, after ten minutes apart. He’d scarcely been able to let go of her while they’d shopped, and he’d kept feeling her thigh during dinner, delighting in that little intimacy, finally free to be as affectionate as he wanted.

  The call was from Gaia’s husband, Mike. “The shamans at the clinic in Tuva are doing a healing for Gaia tomorrow, to drive out the curse. She wants you to do a song for her, too.”

  Jamie promised he would. It meant a lot to him that Gaia had asked. With a twelve-hour time difference it was already tomorrow in Tuva. If he did the song tonight, he and Gaia’s teachers might sing at the same time. Gaia could be healed, and in some small way he could be part of the ceremony. He wouldn’t do the sacred music exactly as the shamans would—Gaia had taught him adaptations of the songs and dances for concerts—but the performance version could still add strength to the sounds that reached the spirits.

  He waited for his mates to reach a good stopping point so he could tell them the new plan. Dagmawi Molalenge, a long, lean, young Ethiopian, was warming up with a soft chant, beating on a pair of tall drums. Mwizenge Chomba, a round-faced Zambian man with a short graying beard and bright, protuberant eyes, tested the sound system with a few lines of a song.

  They were busy. Maybe this was a good time to get cake.

  Jamie had felt funny about getting dessert after dinner with Mae, so he hadn’t done it. It could have made her nag him and spoil the moment. No such problem now. He jumped off the stage and headed for the coffee shop, a second room delineated by a wide archway and a change in wall color from cream to café-au-lait. At the counter he ordered vegan carrot cake and coffee. Sugar before singing—bad idea, and he would have to brush his teeth again, but Magic Bean’s cake would be worth it.

  His phone rang, and this time it was Mae.

  “Hey, sugar.” Her voice tickled his ear. It charmed him endlessly, such a sweet little voice coming from such a tall, strong woman. “I got so wrapped up in everything, I forgot to tell you—I’m supposed meet Fiona tonight. I thought I’d find a way to sneak in a healing. That doesn’t look promising, but we’re gonna—”

  “Fiona answered a call?”

  “No. Dahlia
invited me to your concert tonight with her and Jill.”

  “How in bloody hell do you know Dahlia?”

  “I found her card lying around your place and called her.”

  “Jeezus. Forgot I had that. She was flirting with me or something. Scary.”

  “I’ll try to keep her away from you. I thought I might figure out what’s up with her and Jill.”

  “Jill’s a bloody fake.”

  “I think so, too. Do you have any idea why Dahlia spends so much time with her?”

  “Dunno. Jill’s bi.” The barista delivered Jamie’s order. He ate a tiny bite so he wouldn’t have to talk with his mouth full. “Gets around a lot. Might be—Jesus, don’t want to picture it.” Especially not while he was eating. “But they could.”

  “Maybe. I kinda hate to say it, but it’s in character for Dahlia to be trading sex for something.”

  “For teaching her? Nah. Doesn’t seem—” He slurped his drink. “Sorry. Coffee.” Another sip, less noisy. Medium roast black coffee, a perfect balance to the cake. He wanted to enjoy it, not think about the scary-soul girl. “Dahlia doesn’t seem naive enough to believe Jill’s crap. And even if she was, she could pay. Wouldn’t have to lick her fucking cunt.”

  “Jamie!”

  “Sorry.” Sometimes he still forgot how much Americans disliked that word. He checked to see if the barista had overheard. She didn’t look shocked or red-faced. Dagmawi’s drumming was loud enough to have spared her. “But pussy’s too nice for some part of Jill. And it’s true, whatever I call it. Dahlia could pay with money.”

  “Whatever way she’s paying, she seems to think Jill is genuinely teaching her.”

  “Nah. Couldn’t be. But someone did. Scares me to say this but—I took those healing classes and turned it around, right? If I could do it backwards, could Dahlia do it evil? What if she studied with Fiona and used it against her? Jeezus. Can you picture that?”

  “Fiona hasn’t been working for a while. Dahlia couldn’t have studied with her long.”

  “How long did you study to be a healer?”

  “I didn’t, really. I had only one lesson. Bernadette gave me things to read, but mostly it came to me with practice, and using Granma’s stones.”

  “Right. A natural. Born to it.”

  “Like you, sugar.”

  “Mmm.” He paused for a bite of cake. “Dunno about me. But—” An idea struck that made his skin crawl. “Dahlia could be a natural, too. Naturally unnatural, y’know?”

  “Come on. She’s done some bad stuff, but she’s still human.”

  “Just barely.” He suddenly realized he was talking about this in public. That was worse than saying cunt. Though the place was almost empty except for a few people at one far table and his band mates warming up, he’d better stop while he was ahead. “Got to go, love. Catcha. Make sure you bring your suitcase.”

  Mae would be spending the night. Jamie played a celebratory drum roll on the counter and danced on his stool.

  He finished the cake and coffee and rejoined Mwizenge and Dagmawi. “Listen, I want to add a new song tonight. One of the ones I’ll be doing with Gaia Greene in Spirit World Fair. Do it as the end of the first set. It’s too weird to flow into anything else.”

  Dagmawi asked, “Do we have time to rehearse this?”

  “Don’t need to. I’ll lead into it with some bird-sound stuff on the shakuhachi and some drones on the didg. All you have to do is the one-one beat.” The joke brought a chuckle from Mwizenge and a groan from Dagmawi. Jamie knew the Ethiopian didn’t like shamanic trance drumming. He liked complex rhythms, which he played with such skill he could sound like five men. “I’ll show you the tempo, and that’s all you need. Just keep it going, and speed up when I start the dance.”

  Jamie picked up a drum, tapped the beat, and began to warm up his voice with a soft rendition of the chant. When he’d rehearsed this with Gaia, they’d gone in and out of serious work and silliness, rapping as the Flamin’ Shamans. She’d put her antlered headdress on him and said he looked like a Bill Worrell sculpture, one of those mystical deer-shaman figures. He’d felt like one and taken it off, terrified. Gaia had grinned. Came through, didn’t it? He missed her. Maybe Dahlia would feel the shamans in Tuva driving her witch spirit out—unless she latched her little tubes into them. No, she couldn’t, could she? He had to push hard against her in the song. Really do it as a prayer for Gaia, calling her spirits back to her.

  Jamie forgot about Dahlia during the show, swept up in communion with the crowd on the dance floor. The concert featured Mwizenge as lead singer and Dagmawi and Jamie on harmonies. They did a mix of African songs and the group’s original compositions featuring Jamie’s woodwinds and the other men’s drumming. Andrea, who studied African dance, came out on the dance floor from time to time, dancing solo close to the stage. She wasn’t part of the show, but she added to it, shaking everything she had in a body-hugging red dress, while Wendy prowled the perimeter of the stage and the dance floor with a camera, capturing video for Jamie’s web site.

  During one of the African songs, Jamie set his drum aside and jumped from the stage to dance with Andrea. Her energy kicked up a notch as they challenged each other to sliding jumps, crouching turns, and hip-pulsing, shoulder-pumping moves like a cross between flirtation and competition. The other people on the dance floor moved back to let them cut loose.

  Breathless and sweating, Jamie bowed to Andrea and sprang back up onstage in time to rejoin the band for a final chorus. They finished the Zambian song with an exuberant double-thump on their drums and became still. The audience, who had been asked in advance to keep the trance-like flow of the concert, didn’t applaud but waited for what would come next. The musicians exchanged looks.

  Jamie indicated the tempo, hoping his cardiovascular system would slow down to match it, and Mwizenge and Dagmawi played the steady pulse in unison. Jamie wasn’t sure how to pray any more than he had been when trying to heal Ximena, but he sent the song to Gaia’s helping spirits. He picked up his shakuhachi and blew some startling shrill sounds, like eagles’ cries, bats’ calls, and the shrieks of spirits, and then sat on a stool to play the didgeridoo, beginning the drone. The circular breathing, the inhale-exhale loop that kept the sound going, altered his mind like a drug. When the music felt ready, he left the didg in its stand and strapped on a drum.

  Pounding the heart-like beat, he chanted a wailing minor key song, broken up by staccato calls and shouts. His mind emptied, filled with only the sounds. At the end of the vocal, he set his drum aside and started to dance.

  As Mwizenge and Dagmawi picked up the tempo, something took over Jamie’s limbs, like lighting in his nerves. A buzzing swarm merged with his muscles. He didn’t choose the movements or know what they meant. He only knew that when the drumming reached a peak he was whirling, and somehow stopped exactly when Mwizenge and Dagmawi stopped.

  The crowd inside his body left except for one wild stranger riding in his chest behind his heart. A spirit. How could he have called in spirits? Hadn’t they been paying attention? He was sure he’d done the concert version, and even if he’d messed that up, he’d asked them to go to Gaia. Had he drawn her helpers into himself instead?

  The three men took a bow, indicating the end of the first set. The audience exploded into applause. Mwizenge thanked them and let them know that they could hear Gaia Greene with Jangarrai, doing more music like the final song, at Spirit World Fair.

  As the musicians started toward the coffee bar, talking about the show, Jamie saw Dahlia gliding toward him. Tonight she wore dark burgundy lipstick and a shimmery black dress. Both emphasized the whiteness of her skin. She stood in front of him and touched the tip of one long nail to his arm. Strangely, she didn’t chill him, though she was so close he could smell her floral perfume. There was a layer between them, like a thin cushion of air. She said, “That song was beautiful.”

  “Pig’s arse. It was cacophony.”

  She ignored his reply,
her hand resting lightly on his forearm. “Can I buy you a coffee?”

  “Nah.” He shook her off and adjusted his hat like a cool sexy man in a movie. It didn’t feel like a Jamie gesture, or as if he had made the decision to do it. “Get my own.”

  Her eyes barely shifted expression but might have flickered with interest. “You didn’t call me.”

  The voice was his, but the words came from the same source as the arrogant hat-tilt. “No law says I have to, just because you gave me your number.”

  “Come talk with us. I’m over there.” She angled her chin toward a table far in the back of the coffee shop. A subtle hint of amusement crossed her face. “With Jill Betts.” She swayed off in a willowy runway walk.

  At the coffee bar, Jamie sat beside his fellow musicians. He ordered an iced black coffee. More caffeine? What was the matter with him? The carrot cake called him again. He ordered that, too. The spirit craved the food and drink. It didn’t interact with his friends or the server but sheltered in the pocket of his heart as if waiting for something. It seemed oddly comfortable in him, and he was, to his own confusion, so enmeshed with it he couldn’t fully react to its presence.

  “Who was that girl?” Dagmawi asked with a frown. “Not your girlfriend is she?”

  “Fuck, no.” Jamie looked around for Mae, but didn’t see her. “Girlfriend’s healthy-looking. Dahlia—Jeezus. Fucking zombie.”

  Mwizenge’s eyebrows shot up. “Be careful.” He paused. “She might be from Zombia.”

  His deadpan delivery made Jamie and Dagmawi crack up. Jamie paid for his cake and coffee, still laughing when the server brought him his order. Zombia.

  Dagmawi caught his breath, sipped his coffee. “Don’t let her bite you, man. She looks more like a vampire to me.”

  She did. A vampire witch. Jamie felt cold. The joke was over.

  No, it wasn’t. With a tickling, giggly, hollowing sensation, his inner visitor bumped his hand, making him spill a little coffee, and climbed from his heart to the posterior curve of his skull. What the fuck? Did he need to do another song to send this thing away? It seemed friendly in a bizarre way, but it had to be Gaia’s helper, not his. It was too strong for him. It pushed him to his feet.