The Legacy of Buchanan's Crossing

by Rhodan, Rhea

  Dillon took another bite of the pizza and chewed on it. He swallowed and belched, then said, “You don’t believe me. Listen, I saw him a couple days later. Those gouges in his face weren’t made by fingernails. I know what bitch scratches look like.”

  That was the only part of the story Clint believed. In search of a happy ending, he asked, “Did this guy get kicked out?”

  “What? No, she was the one who got tossed, couple weeks later. Blew up the chemistry lab, I heard.” He had sandwiched two pieces of pizza and was talking around the massive slice by the time he finished the sentence.

  He gulped the first half whole, like a snake eating a mouse on a late-night nature show, and said, “She knows your name. You need to find somewhere else to shop, man. I think she’s one of those loony bitches who hold a grudge. They make shit up in their tiny loony bitch heads. That one’s dangerous. Real scary, like I told you. Think about it. A fucking flock of crows, man.”

  Clint didn’t waste his breath reminding Dillon whose idea it had been to stop at HandiMart or who had offended Cayden. Talk about rejecting reality and inserting your own. That was something this moron could teach a class on.

  Dillon demolished the rest of the pizza in blessed silence, or more accurately, without any further conversation. Silence would have been golden. Clint was happy to settle for the slobbering, chewing, and gulping over anything more Dillon might have said. By the time he pulled up to Dillon’s apartment building, the asshole was snoring. Clint shoved him out of the truck onto the boulevard, not caring whether he made it to his door or not.

  His finger itched again. He wondered if he should get some ointment for it. He wondered too, why in the hell he’d ever felt the need to impress guys like Dillon. The loser had been right about one thing, though. If Clint had been uncomfortable at the prospect of seeing Cayden before, taking a nail gun to his ass would be more fun than facing her after tonight.

  “Unbelievable! That drunken pig called me a fat little…? ‘Grateful,’ huh? He’d just better be grateful I’ve been busting my butt focusing on control.”

  Not that it had lasted long. She’d had to coax the circuit breaker and replace every light bulb in the store in the aftermath. At least she hadn’t blown the place up.

  Cayden continued to rant as she slammed the apartment door behind her. “Keeper, huh? Well, he can just keep his…” Well, except for the once. After that, he was history.

  After that, she’d be alone, like Gran after her wedding night. It had been, uh, fruitful, and Gran had raised Muriel alone. No one in her family talked about why her husband had left.

  ‘“You have to believe in yourself,’ she says. Well what if I don’t? What then, Dr. Seuss?” She directed this question to the full-size suit of armor that acted as her valet. His long Dr. Who scarf merely fluttered in the breeze her entrance created, his steely visage offering neither wisdom nor consolation.

  That’s what it came down to, really. Her inability to trust herself, Gran said, was why Cayden couldn’t control her power. Well, Gran hadn’t been there all the times it had gotten out of hand. She hadn’t witnessed the disasters. She’d tried to stick up for Cayden against Muriel and Todd, though, and what had it earned her? Disownment, same as Cayden.

  No, Gran couldn’t understand because the power was easy to manage around her. As if her faith made up for Cayden’s lack of it.

  She stomped up the narrow curving staircase, soothed by the sight of her dearest friend on his perch near the open skylight window, his black feathers shining blue in the noonday sun.

  “Why does he have to be the Keeper, Nevermore? Clint MacAllen is just a has-been jock, even if he is drool-worthy.”

  “Clint MacAllen stupid jock bastard like Cornell stupid jock bastard?” Nevermore inquired with his scratchy voice and cocked his head.

  Nevermore maintained a poor opinion of most humans, males in particular, having been rescued by Cayden from some older boys who’d been using him as target practice with their BB guns. She’d nursed him day and night for a week. She would have loved him even if he hadn’t turned out to be the best familiar a witch could ask for. If he’d picked up an expletive or two somewhere and was a little over-protective, she couldn’t hold it against him.

  “I’m not sure. He’s awfully clueless considering he’s the Keeper, though. And Nevermore, I do wish you wouldn’t swear.”

  “Clint MacAllen clueless bastard.” Nevermore shimmied his body and ruffled his feathers, the crow’s version of a shrug.

  She let go an exasperated snort. “I don’t want to think about him anymore. It’s Gran I’m worried for, not me.” Which wasn’t altogether true, because she couldn’t worry about Gran without worrying about her own responsibilities and inadequacies. But she wanted it to be true.

  “Gran sick?” Nevermore shifted from one leg to another on the perch. “Maybe Rob Roy bastard cat…”

  Cayden grinned in spite of her mood. There was no love lost between the crow and the tom. “She’s not sick, but she’s not well, either. She’s so frail. She needs rest. I wish I were ready to take over as Warder.”

  “Trouble Cayden not trust Cayden. What good Keeper?”

  “As usual, you’ve summed it up very nicely. Why should I worry about the Keeper? I need to work harder on focus and control if I’m going to be able to take the heat off Gran. On the bright side, getting that sample of his blood is going to be more fun than I thought.”

  Nevermore shook himself hard enough to send a feather floating down to Cayden’s pillow.

  “Cayden need sleep. Dream now.”

  “Right again, on the first count anyway. I’m shot. Please don’t wake me for at least eight hours.”

  She pulled the tie-back, loosening the heavy brown drape that screened the room off from downstairs. The last thing she heard was Nevermore ruffling his feathers. She was too tired to wonder what it was about.

  The Darkness filled Cayden’s awareness. It wasn’t the simple comfort of dark without light. It was a Darkness with all the light there had ever been sucked out of it. It both chilled and slicked her skin with sweat, pressing down on her with its aching emptiness. Surely, her chest was too heavy for her heart to beat.

  Sounds echoed: The voices of two men were rushing toward her, or she was rushing toward them, yet no one was moving at all. The uncertain physics of it brought the sour taste of last night’s supper to her tongue, until she was able to make out their words. Then, her blood froze in her veins, bringing an end to concerns about the loss of her last meal.

  “If we can’t break the old witch’s warding spells and gain control of the Crossing, it must be destroyed. That would be an unforgivable waste.” The tone was laced with contempt. “And an unforgivable sin against our family. With my last breath, I would curse you.”

  “It won’t come to that. Please, Father, just be patient a little while longer. My plan—”

  “Your plan,” the older man hissed, “is as impotent and disappointing as you are.”

  “It is working, Father. You were right. He’s perfect, ambitious and dissatisfied. He does have an integrity issue, but I’ve already begun his enlightenment. I’ve got him right where I want him.”

  “You have nothing!” The voice rose, dripping with scorn. “I raised you myself, taught you everything you know. The rare blood of great witches flows in your veins. Rarer still, my blood. It’s mine, not that of your feckless mother, that gives you the power of persuasion, a power that should brook no resistance. Yet you were barely able to get him to sign a simple contract, one to his advantage, at that.”

  A coughing fit interrupted the cold voice’s tirade.

  The other voice whined. “That wasn’t my fault. There was something working against me, some kind of magic.”

  “Bah! He merely carries the blood. As with most of our kind, but unl
ike you and me, he has no power. That’s why I picked him, you fool, not because he might be biddable. You are supposed to be able to handle that, you miserable excuse for a last scion.”

  Distance was slowly gathering between Cayden and the two men. A vast sense of relief to be away from them battled with her need to hear the rest of their conversation.

  “Now stop making excuses. If you fail, all will be lost. If you succeed, centuries of waiting for vengeance and power, power that should have been ours from the beginning, will not have been wasted. That power will heal me.”

  “Father’s” sigh rattled, though he seemed to have regained some of his composure. The cunning in his voice alarmed Cayden even more than his words.

  “We will rule together. If you want the power of the Crossing, my son, not the ashes of it, you must succeed. In spite of your weakness, it may yet be done before it is too late. Offered freely and spilled properly, the blood of three men born of ancient witches’ lines can break the old Warder’s spell.”

  Chapter Four

  Clint groaned, resting his forehead on the steering wheel. The monster headache had been with him since he’d woke up this morning, if he could call it waking up when he hadn’t really slept.

  The HandiMart scene had played over and over in his mind, a bad movie on an endless loop. He looked like a piece of shit in every reel. The way Cayden had said his name echoed in his head. During the restless nights since he’d first talked to her, he’d dreamed of her saying it. In those dreams, her voice had been filled with heat and need. It sure as hell hadn’t sounded like she was spitting something disgusting out of her mouth.

  When he’d finally dozed off last night, it had been straight into another nightmare. Two men arguing in the dark. The only other thing he could remember was a choking darkness and finding another crow’s feather on the windowsill later. His head had throbbed ever since.

  The shrill twanging of Cumberland’s ringtone at seven o’clock on this not-so-fine Saturday morning had been the final nail in sleep’s coffin. And that was before Dean had insisted on seeing him first thing Monday morning. If the meeting was only about a progress report as Dean had stated, then why had he sounded so tense? After a week of leaving him in peace, Clint’s finger had chosen that moment to start itching again.

  He’d begun popping aspirin with his first cup of coffee and hadn’t stopped. They hadn’t helped. Up until this spring, he could have counted on one hand how many headaches he’d had in his entire life. He should make a doctor’s appointment, get that weird recurring itch on his finger checked while he was at it. Fine, but what was he supposed to do now? Bang his head on the steering wheel until it stopped pounding?

  The headache was bad enough that he’d been forced to call off dinner with Darcy. She’d been pissy and had made it abundantly clear that he’d best not even think about canceling their plans for tomorrow.

  Then the real hammer had struck. By the time he noticed his spare bottle of aspirin was the one he emptied, it was after ten thirty. HandiMart wasn’t just the closest possibility for relief, it was the only possibility for miles. Walking there had been out of the question; every step he took drove a spike between his eyes. Driving hadn’t been much better. Five minutes behind the wheel in minimal traffic had damn near finished him.

  At this point, two basic options were available. Door number one would require hauling his ass out of the truck and into HandiMart, offering some kind of miserable apology to Cayden for what had happened with Dillon last week, and hoping she had a more forgiving nature than Darcy. If she didn’t throw him out, he’d be able to eat a handful of aspirin, chase them down with half a Handi-Freez, and hold the rest to his head. Door number two pretty much meant sitting here with his pounding head until his eyeballs bled.

  It was a tough choice. He wrestled with it until he realized how much he wanted to apologize to Cayden. Then he hurried inside before he could talk himself out of it.

  Any urge he might have had to turn around died when he got an eyeful of her in a super-short black dress. The bottom of her marble white ass cheeks and a peek of black lace panties were visible because she was stacking boxes on a shelf far above her head. While standing on a three-legged stool. Wearing four-inch spike-heeled shoes.

  His boots scraped to a halt. She jumped while trying to pull her dress down. The stool wobbled wildly. The lights flickered. He must have moved because he was suddenly aware his hands were squeezing the studded belt at her waist, of setting her on the floor, of her cool soothing green scent.

  “I’m going to have to replace that bell right away.”

  “What?” He’d meant to ask her if she’d been trying to break her neck. Now he asked himself why, since his head had stopped pounding, she still wasn’t making sense.

  “The twerpy, chirpy tinkling was driving me nuts, so I tossed it. I guess I should’ve waited until I had a replacement. I’m thinking a cowbell would be a nice change.” Her curly head tipped up from his chest. “You can, uh, let go of me now.”

  A deep, steadying breath through his nose delivered another dose of her rain-soaked earthy scent. Yes, he could. He definitely should. That’s what he instructed his hands to do. They responded slowly, one finger at a time. Once he took a step back, he remembered what he wanted to say to her.

  “Hey, Cayden? I’d like to apologize for what happened last week.”

  “Mm-hmm. You just want me to sell you a bottle of aspirin.” She stepped back, too, crossing her arms under her chest.

  Making a supreme effort not to appreciate the way the position pushed her breasts up into the deep square neckline, he looked into her eyes. He expected flashing fire under her raised blackened brows, but found smoldering gold sparks. A rosy flush warmed her pale cheeks. Her full lips were painted a red so dark it was nearly black. They canted a bit, as though she were biting the inside of her cheek. She didn’t look mad—skeptical maybe, and so damn hot it took him several seconds to remember what she’d just said.

  “No. Yes. I mean, I really am sorry. I should have shut him up. I should have decked the asshole.”

  “I thought all you jock-types stuck together, like cops and soldiers.”

  “Dillon’s a guy on my crew, that’s all. He had too much to drink, so I figured I should drive him home.”

  “Really? I got the impression you two were old pals.”

  How in the hell did she do that?

  He exhaled, focusing on a hole in the linoleum flooring where a tiny patch of wood showed through. “Okay. We were part of the same crowd a long time ago. I thought he was all right. The way he acted, the things he said last week, well, they changed my mind. I really should have popped him. He took me by surprise. I didn’t have a clue he was like that.”

  But he had, hadn’t he? Or at least he hadn’t cared back then, as long as he was with the top pack.

  “That must have been hard for you, after what that guy at Cornell tried to do. Did you call the cops, report it to the administration?”

  “I reported it to the campus police. You can guess how it went, though. He was the star jock. I was—” she swallowed “—what I am. I knew how far the investigation was going to go when the first question they asked me was what I was wearing at the time of the ‘alleged’ incident. I wish I’d tried harder. If I had, maybe he would have been put away sooner. Maybe I could have saved some of the women who weren’t as lucky as I was.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for that sicko’s crimes. I guess I never thought about how hard it must be to report something like that. Are you okay now?”

  “It was easier for me to let it go once I knew he was locked up. Thanks for asking.” She glanced at the yellowed round clock on the wall advertising Milk of Magnesia. “Now let’s find you a bottle of aspirin for your headaches.”

  “Three bottles, please.” Wait, shit, how…? “How do you
do that?”

  “I pay attention.” A blush flamed her fair cheeks. She looked back at the clock. “Maybe you’d like to try a different product. This stuff doesn’t seem to be working on your headaches.”

  He would have missed another of her uncannily accurate guesses if the pain in his head hadn’t cleared. “I’ve admitted you were right about the aspirin, but what makes you think I’m taking it for headaches? It could be for something else.”

  “The dark shadows and that pinched squint around your eyes. They’re new, since the night of the anchovy pizza.”

  Oh, that night. Now that she mentioned it, that was when the headaches had begun.

  “Before that, I’d just assumed you were sleep-challenged.”

  How much she knew about him was a little unnerving. Were all women that observant? If Darcy had noticed anything different, she hadn’t said a word.

  “So, what would you recommend?”

  “For the insomnia or the headaches?” Her lips twisted in a half-grin.

  “Both.” He couldn’t help grinning back.

  “I drink tea specially blended for headaches.”

  “Tea, huh? Sure, why not? Which aisle?”

  Her low chuckle caressed his ears. “We don’t sell it here. I make my own with peppermint, plus some secret ingredients.”

  She could be yanking his chain. “Okay, so what do you do for insomnia?”

  “I sleep like the dead, always have.”

  Now she was being just plain mean.

  “In your case, I’d recommend a good book in place of TV. You were interested in this one.”

  He followed the ripple of the silky black dress’s hem across the back of her thighs until it disappeared behind the counter. She ducked down to retrieve a vaguely familiar beat-up black leather backpack. He caught himself wishing she’d bent over to get it and gave himself a mental slap. Since when was he such a perv? And why did he have to keep reminding himself that the only woman further from his type wouldn’t be a woman?