Authors: Jeanne C. Stein
Tags: #Fantasy, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #General, #Horror
Crossroads (19 page)
“Did you attend the tribal council tonight?”
He shakes his head. “No. But I heard what happened.”
“Can you tell us? We don’t know any of the details except that Sarah and Mary had their accident on the way home.”
He seems reluctant at first to answer. His jet black eyes bore into mine. But there’s nothing accusatory in his gaze. It’s more resentment that he has to talk to Frey and me. Hardly professional. He hasn’t written anything in that little notebook still perched on his knee, either. It dawns on me that he’s not here to shed light on the accident. In fact…
Before I can complete my thought, he says, “I don’t know. Exactly. Nobody’s talking. Sarah had a request of the elders. Whatever it was, it wasn’t well received. She was asked to leave. She was pretty upset by all accounts.”
His voice has lost the demanding “me cop/you suspect” staccato. His shoulders sag a little before he catches me studying him and recovers himself. Too late. He’s not here on an official visit. He’s here on a personal one.
If I had to guess, I’d bet Kayani had something going with Sarah.
Frey hasn’t picked up on the same vibes that I have. At least he gives no indication that he has. Not surprising, since his main concern now is his son’s grief.
Kayani is quiet for a long moment. He and Frey stare at each other but I suspect, for different reasons. Frey is waiting for more questions, Kayani sizing up the man he may see as having been his competition. For the first time, I wonder if Sarah still loved Frey. If, in spite of everything, she put off a life with anyone else because of it.
The sound of another car approaching draws us all back. Frey’s eyes dart toward the door. Kayani stands up, as do I.
I touch Frey’s hand. “I’ll go.”
This time, I wait for the knock. When I open the door, George is there, holding John-John. There is a momentary flash of surprise in his eyes when he sees me. Then it’s gone and all I see reflected there is sadness. He puts John-John down and the boy scoots around me, his arms out flung. It’s not until I turn that I realize Kayani is behind me and it’s to him that John-John runs. The surprise I saw in George’s eyes becomes clear. He did not expect to see Kayani.
Kayani scoops John-John into his arms and stands up. I tense, wondering if he’s going to say something about Sarah. They’re talking in Navajo and from John-John’s reaction, it’s only friendly greetings being exchanged. Maybe Kayani caught the warning look on George’s face or maybe he just didn’t want to be the one to break the kid’s heart.
One thing’s for sure—Kayani is no stranger to John-John.
Kayani puts John-John down, nods to George and me, and leaves without a word. I shut the door behind him and we join Frey in the living room.
John-John has run to Frey, scrambled up on the couch to climb into this lap. He’s chattering in Navajo until with a kid’s intuition, he realizes something is wrong. Frey hasn’t moved, not even to put his arms around John-John.
George taps my arm. “We should leave them.”
I’m reluctant until I realize Frey is nodding at me, a tiny, subdued movement. “We’ll be in the kitchen.”
I can’t think of anything else to do. I follow George like an automaton into the kitchen. We sit at the table—not across from each other but side to side. Harder to look at each other that way.
But it’s harder still to turn off that acute vampire hearing and not listen to what’s going on in the next room. I’m almost relieved when I succumb and find Frey and John-John speaking in Navajo. I can’t understand the words, but the emotion comes through in heartbreaking clarity. I think they are both crying.
I close my eyes and will my thoughts to center on something—anything—else.
I turn to George. “Who is Officer Kayani? What was he to Sarah?”
The abruptness of the question catches him off guard. He answers just as abruptly, without taking the time to censor his reply. “Kayani loves Sarah.” He stops himself, draws in a breath. “He
loved
her.”
loved
her.”
“Did she love him?”
George looks away, toward the living room. “I think she did. In a way. He was good for John-John.” His eyes slide my way. “A father he didn’t have.”
There is accusation in his tone. Accusation directed at me. “You think I kept Frey from Sarah and John-John?”
“Didn’t you?”
“I didn’t even know about them until recently.”
“But you and Daniel—”
“There isn’t any me and Daniel. We are friends. That’s all.”
George gives no indication what he’s thinking. I get the feeling, though, that I haven’t convinced him. I rub my hands over my face and ask wearily. “What happened last night, George?”
He looks at me with cold suspicion. “What kind of question is that? You know what happened.”
“No. I don’t mean the accident. I mean at the council.”
A flash of satisfaction flares in his eyes. “You don’t know, do you? Your request was turned down. All this”—he sweeps a hand around the room—“was for nothing.”
George brusquely pushes himself away from the table and stands up and away as if he needs to put distance between us. “You are unclean. Evil. A dead thing. I hope Daniel puts an end to you and stays here with his son where he belongs. I can’t be here with you any longer. Tell Daniel I will see him at the burial.”
He leaves without another word through the back door, back unyielding, long strides stiff yet brisk, determined to waste no time in getting away from me.
So much for the cordiality of our first meeting. Can’t say I blame him, though.
I watch him leave. In spite of what Frey thinks, I am unconvinced he could not be the skinwalker who planted that bead in my arm. Even before he knew Sarah’s request was turned down, he might have thought the quickest way to rid the tribe of my presence was to rid it of me. Maybe the surprise I saw in his eyes when I met him at the door was not because Kayani was here but because he didn’t expect me to be.
I don’t know what to do with myself. I still hear soft voices from the living room. I can’t intrude on Frey’s time with his son. I let myself quietly out the back door and find myself drifting down toward the corral in the back of the house.
The sun has risen over the horizon, not in a blaze like yesterday but in smeared shafts of light filtering through the clouds. The horses watch me approach with intense curiosity and nickering expectation. Feeding time. I wonder if they’ll let me get close enough to feed them. Animals tend to react badly when they sense a predator. They do indeed start to shy away, but when I pick up a pitchfork and toss a couple of flakes of hay into the feeder, their natural defenses are overcome by another compulsion—the need to fill their bellies. I am ignored as they start to feed.
I climb up on the fence to watch. There are three horses. Small of build, sturdy and well cared for. Two are pintos, brown and white with dark manes and tails. One is a buckskin, golden coat shining, taller than the other two, dark mane and tail and four black hooves. I wonder which was Sarah’s and which was John-John’s. Did the third belong to Kayani?
I haven’t been on a horse for a long time—since a long-ago birthday party and that wasn’t really a horse at all but a pony. Mary’s invitation springs to mind and the gloom deepens. We won’t be taking that ride after all.
I close my eyes and let senses take over from emotion. The smell of the horses, warm, earthy, pungent; the smell of sage and mesquite and hot sand; the warmth of the sun where it touches my face; the sound of the horses crunching the fragrant hay; wind blowing softly through desert juniper; the sound of a fox slinking back to its den; the call of a crow circling overhead—
My eyes snap open.
A crow.
I jump down from the fence and scan the heavens. Against the horizon, a large black crow flaps glistening wings, flying due east away from me.
Shit. It could really be a crow.
Or it could be George off to spread the bad news that I’m still alive.
CHAPTER 25
I
DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I STAY IN THAT POSITION, back against the fence, eyes on the sky. Partially it’s because I’m still numb with what’s happened, partially because I hear George’s words repeat in my brain.
DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I STAY IN THAT POSITION, back against the fence, eyes on the sky. Partially it’s because I’m still numb with what’s happened, partially because I hear George’s words repeat in my brain.
All this was for nothing.
He’s right. Worse, what happened to Sarah and Mary is my fault. If I hadn’t persuaded Frey to come, if I hadn’t been so curious about a shaman I won’t be allowed to meet, if I hadn’t once more drawn Frey into my own private battle, John-John would still have a mom and an aunt.
How can Frey ever forgive me?
Movement from the house breaks through the pall of despair shrouding my thoughts and look I over to see Frey coming toward me.
He’s alone.
“John-John?”
“Cried himself to sleep. He’s on the couch. I don’t want to be gone long in case he wakes up, but I wanted to check on you.” He looks around. “George left?”
Couldn’t leave fast enough. I glance toward the sky then nod.
“Did he feed the horses?”
“No. I did.”
“You did? Wouldn’t have thought a city girl like you knew the business end of a pitchfork from a branding iron.”
“Like you’re the expert. How much time have you spent on the range, cowboy?”
He lets a tiny smile touch the corners of his mouth. “Touché.” The smile is gone as quickly as it appeared. He leans back against the fence, resting a foot on the lower rail. Once again we’re side by side, silent, weighed down by sadness that pulls at us the moment we let an unguarded thought slip through.
The sky should be light by now, the sun casting shadows across the burnished landscape. Instead, the clouds crowd thicker and lower until a light mist begins to fall.
I put a hand on Frey’s arm, afraid if I don’t say it now, I’ll lose courage. “Frey, I’m sorry.”
He straightens up, not meeting my eyes, pretending, I think, not to hear. “We’d better get inside.”
We trudge back to the house. John-John is still asleep on the couch. I give Frey a gentle push toward his son. “Go. Be with him. I’ll make coffee.”
Frey settles himself on the couch, gently lifting John-John’s head to rest on his lap. The boy stirs but doesn’t waken. Frey rests his own head back against the cushions and closes his eyes, too. I leave them and head for the kitchen.
It shouldn’t surprise me that Sarah has no coffee in the house. Only various kinds of loose tea in glass canisters. I pick one up, feeling a tingle of irritation until I catch myself.
The woman is dead. I’m criticizing her because she doesn’t have coffee in her own home.
She’s dead because of me. She’s dead because I let Chael influence me. She’s dead because I didn’t have the backbone to do what I should have the moment I saw him in my house.
And I’m irritated because she drinks tea.
My fingers tighten convulsively around the glass canister and with a crack that shatters the quiet, the canister breaks, sending shards of glass and tea as fragrant as sage across the kitchen floor. I glance down at my hand. Only the metal ring lock is left. It glistens with blood from the gash across my palm.
There’s no pain and as I watch, the cut starts to heal. Skin tingles as it reknits over the gash, blood soaking down through the skin until it’s reabsorbed. Soon there’s nothing to show but a faint flush and then that’s gone, too.
Why can’t I perform that same magic on Sarah and Mary? What good is power if I can’t use it on others?
I let the metal ring drop and look around for a broom. There’s a closet beside the back door and in it, I find what I need. I sweep up the debris and deposit it into a trash can under the sink. I do it without thinking. I don’t want to think. I want to turn the clock back and start over from Tuesday morning. I want to walk in on Chael and snap his neck before he has a chance to say a word. I am the Chosen One and I let myself be drawn in with his tale like a stupid child.
Why is this happening?
I close the closet door and sink into a kitchen chair. I’m not prone to tears. Even as a child, crying seemed a sign of weakness. My brother never cried. I’d be damned if I would. But becoming vampire while making me stronger in so many ways pushes some emotions closer to the surface. There’s a little boy in the next room who has no mother.
Because of me.
I feel the sting of tears. Swallow hard to fight them back, press fingertips against my eyes until the pain drives away the bitter urge to break down. It’s a sign of weakness I don’t deserve to indulge. I need to figure how to make things right.
Restless, I push myself from the table, cross to the sink, let my gaze fix on the view from the back window. Rain is falling in soft sheets, turning the landscape into an impressionistic blur of red and brown. The sound as it hits the tile roof beats a counterpoint to my efforts to sort through tangled emotions.
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