Angel's Touch (9 page)

Sure thing. Nothing like a little added pressure.

The angel who was closest held her arms out to her in a gesture that was both pleading and welcoming, but mostly sad. What would happen if Kira built here? Was this a portal where angels came to earth? Would moving the standing stone destroy the portal?

“I’ll do my best,” Megan promised.

A wave of caring and compassion rushed from the angel’s hands and hit her with such force it was almost violent. It wasn’t the same as the energy she’d filled herself with earlier, the energy she’d drawn from the ley lines and the standing stone. This energy was warmer and more chaotic, and it built and built and built, brighter and hotter than anything she’d ever channeled. She sat up straighter, trying to keep the flow of energy from overwhelming her. Her body heated like it was going to melt away and all that would be left would be a core of white-hot light, too bright to look at.

The combined angel/ley energy changed, gathered itself into a sphere that contained her whole body, and started pressing inward. It found the glob of fear that was the survival-level root of her chest problems, the karmic patterning that had cracked her sternum to begin with, and pressed on it from all directions at once, trapping it, compressing it until it was a fist, a BB, the smallest speck of darkness. Megan stopped breathing for the longest time.

Then the speck of fear imploded.

It didn’t spew darkness; it spewed light—blinding, frightening, world-destroying light. An uncontrollable chill tingled up her spine as her buzzing energy system realigned itself.

The light receded; her spine sagged. She started breathing again, and peace seeped through her jangled nerves. Something had happened to her. Something big. But what, she wasn’t sure.

“My pain is completely gone,” Megan told Svetlana as they walked through town to Kira’s hotel.

Megan shifted her tote bag, which held gardening gloves and a pair of pruning shears, to her other hand. She’d invited a few people to meet them by the hotel to check out the ley lines, and afterward they were going to clear some of the overgrowth from around the standing stone to make the place more inviting.

Svetlana tried on the gloves she’d loaned her and modeled them without much enthusiasm. “Pain is gone because you sat by this mysterious stone?”

“There were angels there. Lots of them. They lined up on the ley lines, and then…I’m not quite sure what happened. They hooked up to the energy of the ley lines and zapped me with it and broke through a blockage.”

“And now you’re healed?” Svetlana sounded confused. “I never know what it is necessary to think when you talk about angel. You seem so rational about everything else.”

Megan swung her arms, twirling her tote bag, showing off how good her shoulder felt now that she could move it without worrying about pinching a nerve in her chest. After all the frustration of not being able to heal herself, not being able to find anyone else who could help, and not understanding why, she was almost giddy at being pain-free. “I haven’t felt this good in ages.”

“Then I’m glad for you,” Svetlana said firmly. “The energy is amazing, yes? You think I’ll feel it?”

That was a good question. Megan hoped that anyone who knew how to work with energy would be able to take advantage of the ley lines to magnify their skills. Whether someone like Svetlana, who was not an energy healer, would be able to sense the ley lines, was a separate issue, and she was afraid the answer would be no. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

“I wonder because maybe this energy is what is necessary to help me astral travel.”

Megan stopped swinging her arms abruptly. “You’re interested in astral travel?” Practical, medical-minded Svetlana? “Since when?”

Svetlana tugged disdainfully at her borrowed gardening gloves, which were probably too small since they didn’t seem to want to pull off. “My grandmother, she had the ability. She used to visit my grandfather with this astral travel after he was exiled to Siberia. When I was young girl, she tried to teach me, but I didn’t have the knack.”

“I had no idea you were into that sort of thing.”

“Only curious.”

“Don’t be. Astral travel’s dangerous.”

“What could be dangerous about it?”

Megan stared. Sure, what could be dangerous about your mind abandoning your body? “You’re leaving your body unguarded.”

Svetlana shrugged nonchalantly. “My grandmother never had problem.”

“How is this better than calling someone on the phone?”

Svetlana looked incredulous, as if Megan, of all people, should understand. “Phone call is nice, but it’s not real visit. I have not seen my parents in years. I miss them.”

Megan gave a dismissive shake of her head. So much for Svetlana being the practical one. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

She didn’t think she had much to worry about, though. Chances were good that if Svetlana had already tried astral travel under the guidance of her grandmother, and hadn’t been able to do it, she wouldn’t be able to do it now. No ability—no danger.

***

“Here it is.” Megan waved toward the standing stone and stepped out of the way so everyone could get a closer look.

They clustered around the monolith, trying to sense what she had sensed, each in her own way. Vanessa dangled a quartz pendulum, Dara walked back and forth in slow motion holding dowsing rods, and Svetlana, who couldn’t sense energy, put her hands on the stone, examining its shape. Gwynne merely mouthed the word “wow” and retreated to stand next to Megan.

“Dara’s going to hurt someone with those dowsing rods if she doesn’t open her eyes,” Gwynne commented under her breath. “What did she make them out of? Coat hangers?”

“Be nice. Just because you can see without tools…”

“Well. She
is
on the right track,” Gwynne conceded. “But what good she thinks her rods are doing if she doesn’t look at them, I don’t know. Kind of defeats the purpose. How is she going to know which direction they’re pointing?”

What was up with Gwynne today, making her so irritable? Actually, Megan had a pretty good guess. People like Dara Sullivan often wished they could see angels and auras the way Megan and Gwynne could, but those abilities set them apart. Watching Dara fumble with her dowsing rods, and knowing Dara was one of the better energy healers—well, sometimes it got lonely.

“So, what do you think?” Megan asked.

Gwynne was dipping a toe in and out of one of the energy streams with a fascinated look on her face. “About the ley lines?”

“Yes, about the ley lines. Unless you have more to say about Dara. Like you noticed her eyes were closed because you can’t stop thinking about what color they are?”

“You must be out of your mind. Sitting on these leys last night must have fried something crucial.”

“It’s possible,” Megan said easily. “The power here is incredible.”

“It is,” Gwynne agreed. “And you know what else? Something weird is happening with that standing stone.” She sauntered over to the monolith, careful to stay out of range of Dara’s swinging dowsing rods.

Megan followed. “What is it?”

“There’s a funnel of energy anchored to the ground under this stone, and it’s not a ley line. It has an angelic residue.”

“I know. I saw angels traveling down it.”

“I wonder what it is.” Gwynne tilted her head thoughtfully.

“The angels called it a crossroads.”

“Whatever that means. But I can see why they like to hang out here. It’s a powerful spot. I’ll have to come back.”

“You don’t have an uneasy feeling you should leave?”

“A spell of ward?” Gwynne looked startled. “No. Do you?”

“I thought I did, briefly, the last time I was here.” She figured her encounter in the woods with Mr. Creepy could have been the manifestation of a warning spell—a psychic Do Not Enter sign. But she trusted Gwynne’s intuition, and if Gwynne didn’t sense a spell, maybe it was something else. “You really don’t sense it?”

“Maybe it’s masked by the uneasy feeling I have that I should get out of here before you set me up on a date with Dara Sullivan.”

“Shh.” She hoped Dara, who was approaching with her eyes still squeezed shut in concentration, hadn’t heard.

Gwynne scrambled out of Dara’s way. “You sure it wasn’t the rumors about this place giving you the heebie-jeebies?”

“The murder?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

Dara came to a halt in front of them, opened her eyes, and lowered her dowsing rods. “Thanks for showing us the stone.”

“No problem,” Megan said. “Are you going to stay to help us pull poison ivy?”

“I wish I could, but I jammed my thumb yesterday playing volleyball.” Dara held up her injured hand. It looked swollen. “I know I shouldn’t play, but…what can I say? I’m an idiot. I have two clients tomorrow and I need to save my strength.”

“You’re not going to cancel them?” Megan suggested. Yeah, like she was one to talk. How many times had
she
canceled on a client when she really should have? Not nearly enough. “You don’t want to overdo it and get permanently injured.”

“I’ll push through. I don’t want to lose what few clients I have.”

Megan winced. “I understand.”

“I might have to cancel my gig at Avalanche, though. I work there four nights a week giving free back rubs. Free for the patrons, I mean. The club pays me. Not much, but it’s good advertising. But it’s hard on the thumbs.” Dana clasped her hands together in beg mode. “Would you be willing to cover for me sometime this week?”

“Sure,” Megan said. “How long is your shift?”

“It’s only an hour. It can get pretty hectic, though.”

“Is Friday one of your nights? I could help out then.” She didn’t love Avalanche’s throbbing, too-loud dance music, but an hour wouldn’t kill her.

“I could take a couple nights, also,” Svetlana volunteered, overhearing their conversation.

“Thanks,” Dara said. “That would be fabulous.”

***

Kira surveyed the site of her future spa and stuck her hands in her pockets. She wasn’t surprised that Megan was back. And what do you know, she’d brought a bunch of her woo-woo friends, just as she’d predicted. She was starting to wish she’d never brought her here. Would have made life so much simpler.

Even worse, they were weeding. Weeding! You didn’t weed a construction site. Why bother, when heavy machinery was on its way, and would strip the soil of any and all greenery? Weeding was something you did to a garden, or maybe a park. Some place you wanted to take care of. Someplace you were trying to protect.

Exactly what she’d like to avoid.

Megan had her back to her and was tugging with both hands at a vine of poison ivy that had grown up a tree trunk. She wore a cropped T-shirt and shorts, her only protection a heavy-duty pair of gardening gloves. It wasn’t enough. What if she pulled that vine off and it fell on her face? Or brushed against her bare arms? Poison ivy was nothing to fool with. Kira watched anxiously as Megan successfully pulled the vine free. When she started to tackle another one, Kira kicked at some brush to make it rustle, annoyed that Megan hadn’t noticed her. Megan still didn’t notice.

“Please tell me my construction crew’s not going to get here tomorrow morning and find you chained to a tree.”

Megan turned around. She wiped the sweat off her brow with the back of her arm, holding her gloved hands well away from her body. “Now there’s an idea.”

No. There was
not
an idea. Not that she was ready to start work on the site, but once she was, tree huggers could hold up construction for weeks. Kira groaned. “You’re messing with me, right?”

“We’re totally serious.”

“Please don’t do this.”

“You’re not really starting construction tomorrow, are you? Patrick went down to the county office for me and said you don’t even have the permits yet.”

Shit, this was sounding worse and worse.

“I’m not a big-time developer,” Kira said. “You bankrupt me, someone a lot worse is going to get this land at a bargain price and do God knows what to it.”

“We’re not going to bankrupt you.” Her friends started to object, but Megan shushed and flapped at them until they quieted down.

Kira relaxed a fraction. At least one of these nuts was willing to see reason. Not that Megan was a nut, exactly. Maybe a small one. A pistachio. That was it—a loveable little pistachio. The arm flapping was certainly adorable. Now if only she would forget the tree hugging idea. And stop clearing poison ivy.

“We’ll work this out.” The look in Megan’s eyes, like she wanted to connect with her on a gut level and find out what made her tick, was almost enough to make her want to discuss a compromise—if it meant they had to spend more time together hammering out the details.

Almost.

“How’s your injury?” Kira asked quietly. “A couple days ago you couldn’t use your arms at all. And now…” She gestured toward the pile of vines at Megan’s feet. “You look like you’re doing great.”

Megan smiled, and Kira suddenly worried that telling her she looked great might not have been the smartest thing in the world, because the way the pistachio’s smile slowly got wider and wider made her think she had just ceded her the upper hand. She didn’t know how yet, but somehow she had just made a mistake.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t the pain-relieving gel,” Kira said.

“No,” Megan said. “It wasn’t.” She spread her arms wide. “And you’re right. See, my chest doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Kira cleared her throat. She could do without an invitation to look at Megan’s perfectly lovely chest. “I can see that.”

“It was the ley lines. And some…well, mostly it was the ley lines. I sat here last night and their energy healed me. Like that.” She snapped her fingers mutely with her glove. “I woke up this morning and the pain was completely gone.”

Kira had to admit she didn’t look like she was in pain. The way she’d been tugging on that vine, no one would ever guess that two days earlier she’d been unable to move her arms at all without flinching. But she found it hard to believe her property had anything to do with Megan’s supposedly miraculous recovery.