Absolution (17 page)

At least four shoppers had stopped, introduced themselves, and offered the same appraising reaction when she said Mirren was her sponsor. She got the impression her new roommate—well, sort of roommate—had sold the rest of Penton on his tough-guy act. They hadn’t seen the side of him she had—the side that liked the smell of stew and watched old John Wayne movies in the wee hours before dawn. She realized the only reason he’d let her so far into his life was that she’d been forced on him, but she liked the way it made her feel to know these things about him, as if she were special somehow—but not in a freak show way.

When she began her experiments, she could only lift a single can out of the box before getting distracted by a sound from the store or a stray thought slipping into her mind. As soon as that happened, the green beans or English peas would crash to the concrete floor. Thankfully, only a couple of cans had gotten dented. If she had to spend her whole paycheck replacing damaged inventory, she’d never pay Mirren back.

But Hannah had convinced her that she had to learn to control her talents. She’d said Glory had some role to play here, and Glory believed her. She believed in Hannah’s “touch” because she knew the truth of her own.

The girl had arrived around midnight, knocking softly on the front door. Glory had been curled up on the sofa, watching back-to-back episodes of
Rawhide
and trying to figure out the mystery that was Mirren Kincaid, at least when she hadn’t been marveling over an extremely young Clint Eastwood. She’d had no idea he got his start as a TV cowboy.

Will hadn’t been gone long, so when Glory heard the knock, she assumed he’d forgotten something. Instead, she opened the door to a smiling child.

“You’re here!” Hannah’s black eyes sparkled, and Glory had felt a jolt of recognition. She and little Hannah could easily be related—the same black hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones. Glory’s skin was lighter, but they could still be sisters.

Glory had embarrassed herself by demanding why the child was out so late alone and then realizing the girl was a vampire. Whoever would turn a child should have his fangs ripped out.

Like Glory, Hannah was the descendant of a Creek medicine man, and Glory was excited to finally meet another person who had talents that couldn’t be explained away by science.

“Maybe your father was my ancestor—we could be distant cousins or something,” Glory said. She liked the symmetry of thinking she and the young girl—well, young in human years—were related.

Hannah laughed. “Maybe. My father might have had other children after I was taken away. That’s something my visions don’t tell me. But I would like to have a cousin.”

They’d never know for sure. Granny had held the Cum mings family history in her head, and by the time Glory was old enough to want to know about her heritage—and her gift—Granny had died and taken the lore with her.

Glory’s parents were all about business, about moving ahead and never looking back. They’d pulled themselves out of what they saw as the quicksand trap of the tribal lands and gone to college. Her dad was an accountant near Macon. Her mom joined the Junior League. It was a great disappointment to them that their only child turned out to be someone they couldn’t parade at the country club for fear she’d lose control and draw the wrong kind of attention to them.

“I know you can move things, and I can see things,” Hannah had said, explaining how, in her culture, those with any kind of psychic talents were thought to be blessed by the gods.
Blessed
hadn’t exactly been Glory’s experience.

“I have to warn you, though.” Glory didn’t want Hannah thinking she had some great gift that the people of Penton could use. “I can’t control what I move when I get upset. I could end up hurting someone.”

Hannah leaned forward on the sofa where they’d sat to talk, grasping Glory’s hand. “I don’t know how to make myself see things better. It just happens, or it doesn’t. But you can practice. You can learn how to move things when you want to and stop when you want to. I have dreams, and in my dreams, I saw someone like you who can help us. You can help Mirren too, and he can help you.”

The stuff about Mirren had been the most disturbing part of Hannah’s visit. Glory was already important to him, the girl had said. He would need her. They might survive whatever was ahead if they were together. If they were apart, Hannah saw only emptiness in the future for either of them.

Of course, it would have been nice if the girl could’ve said exactly what was ahead, or how she could help Mirren, or in what way she was important.

Hannah’s assertion that he’d grown important to Glory was something she couldn’t deny, but it bothered her. Could caring about a vampire bring her anything but trouble? Glory had her doubts, but her thoughts strayed to him in idle moments, the strength in those hands, the sheer size of him, his utter lack of social grace.

She’d wanted to ask the girl more about Mirren, but stopped herself. It felt too much like gossip, and he didn’t deserve that. She wanted to know more about the man who’d saved her and who fascinated her, but she needed to learn it from him, however far he was willing to let her in. But she wanted to know him on her terms, not as the woman he’d been forced to support. This job was the first step in that.

Peeking out the stockroom door to make sure no customers or staff had wandered too near, Glory took a deep breath and lasered all her focus on a case of canned Ro-Tel tomatoes. She blocked out the vision of the great nachos she could make with them, focusing on the box itself and not the contents. She visualized it rising slowly off the floor, twisting in midair, then settling gently back to the concrete.

She felt giddy with excitement when the heavy box rose. Once its midair turn began, she clapped her hands in amazement, and then she lost it…the crash of the case hitting the unforgiving floor practically jarred the stockroom walls.
Oh boy, here it comes.
Glory counted to thirty before Jeff poked his head in the door. “Problems back here?”

“No, sorry, just lost control of a box.” She was relieved that he looked amused rather than angry and took her word for it that things were under control.

Well, everything but her skills
. Idiot. Focus, focus, focus. How hard can it be to focus?

Pretty hard, apparently. Glory practiced with every box she pulled out for shelf stock and finally got skilled at willing them to move. Keeping them aloft until she intentionally set them down was another matter.

At two p.m., Glory finished her first day of work, if four hours could be called a day. Jeff had told her she was full time, technically, but once the stocking was done for the day, she was free to leave. She’d still get paid for her eight hours.

Not exactly a normal way of doing business, but what in Penton
was
normal? Money wasn’t treated like a valuable commodity here, which was hard for her to wrap her head around after so many years of struggling.

Over the next half hour, she spent part of Mirren’s hundred-dollar bill to better stock his kitchen and pick up some inexpensive clothes for herself in the shop next door, including a purse and a watch.

What she hadn’t done was think ahead about how to get all the stuff back to Mirren’s. She struggled out the door of the superette with her bags, wondering if she was in good enough shape to walk a half mile lugging at least twenty pounds of food and clothes. Before Matthias had taken her, she could have done it, no problem. She still tired easily, though.

She’d only gotten as far as the end of the superette parking lot when a silver Toyota stopped beside her.

“Need a lift?” The man must have assumed her answer would be yes, because he stopped the car and got out without waiting for a response. He’d begun pulling a bag from her hand before it finally seemed to hit him that she wasn’t cooperating.

“Who
are
you?” Glory gave him a once-over. He didn’t look dangerous, and he obviously wasn’t a vampire since it was midafternoon, but she had plenty of right to be paranoid.

He straightened and blinked at her. He was handsome in a baby-faced kind of way, with thick blond hair and eyes the rich color of a bluebird’s wings. “Oh, sorry. I’m Mark Calvert—Melissa’s husband. I saw you when you first came here, in the clinic, but you…” He blushed and trailed off.

“But I was too stoned to remember?” Glory laughed. “Sorry, those first days were kind of a blur.” She honestly didn’t remember him. She’d have been more embarrassed if Melissa hadn’t told her a little of Mark’s background. He’d been where she was, only worse. She’d wager her own forced addiction was a lot easier to shake than his had been.

“How about that ride?” Mark’s grin was infectious, plus she really didn’t want to walk that far loaded down like a pack mule.

He drove her to Mirren’s, then helped her unload the groceries. Like Melissa, he wandered around Mirren’s house with curiosity. Did the man never invite friends over? Did vampires not do those kinds of things, or was it just Mirren?

“You and Melissa should come over for dinner one night,” Glory said on impulse, only then wondering how Mirren would feel about a gaggle of humans invading his space. Still, she enjoyed cooking for people, and he could go off and do vampire things if he didn’t like it. And they could promise not to touch his TV.

“That’s a great idea—Mel said you liked to cook. Aidan meets with all the lieutenants two or three times a week in the

clinic office to go over projects, mostly city management stuff. We can do it one of those nights.”

Glory liked the idea of entertaining here. It was a great house—unlike any of the others she’d passed on her walk into town this morning. Penton had a real hodgepodge of styles. Early century Colonials lined the main road into town and had probably belonged to Penton’s upper crust back in the days when the cotton mill churned money into the local economy. Ranch-style houses from the sixties and seventies would have been built toward the end of the mill’s life as most of the textile industry moved overseas. And then there were smaller cottage-style houses from the period in between.

Mirren’s house was different. Its shape was similar to the cottages, but its facade was constructed of heavy stone, its roof sharply pitched.

It was as unique as the man who owned it.

After Mark left with a promise to talk to her later about setting up a dinner, Glory eyed the food spread out on the coun tertops. Maybe this had been a really bad idea. Mirren used his kitchen to store mechanical doohickeys. Glory couldn’t even identify enough of them to do more than guess at pairing related things together. What if he got angry because she’d moved them?

He told you he wanted you to stay here, and he knows you’ve gotta eat. What’s he going to do, slit your throat?
She was being ridiculous. Shaking her head, Glory organized the food and began consolidating some of the bits of metal that appeared similar. Bolts and screws together, chains neatly coiled, what looked like gears. Tools. Why couldn’t the man use a toolbox like a normal person?

Glory laughed. Maybe she’d buy him a toolbox and some industrial shelving with his own money.

According to her new watch, about ninety minutes of daylight remained. One image Glory’s mind kept revisiting throughout the day had been the expression on Mirren’s face when he’d uncovered the pot of stew and inhaled. He’d closed his eyes, and a world of memories seemed to march behind those lowered lids.

Will had given her an idea, and as she’d shopped the aisles of the superette, she thought about what foods might make her blood taste differently. Fatty foods were a natural, and sugar. All the stuff that was bad for you. Maybe some spices—she’d have to do some research. Did Penton have a library? Or Internet access?

She took out the loaf of days-old French bread she’d pulled from the store’s sale bin, tore it into hunks, and spread it out in a Pyrex dish she’d found there as well. She mixed together whole milk, butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and poured it over the bread before putting the whole thing in the oven. Glory went to the living room and retrieved the bottle of Jack Daniel’s she’d spotted on the corner table, then whipped up a rich whiskey sauce with cream and butter.

By sunset, the smell of warm bread pudding filled the kitchen, and Glory had wolfed down a generous helping topped with whiskey sauce, thinking if this worked and she began eating for Mirren’s enjoyment, she might grow so round he wouldn’t want to feed from her anymore.

Or any of the other things she’d begun to hope for.

CHAPTER 16