Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 (18 page)

Back when I was going OOB, out of
body, I discovered I could overshadow someone by slipping my astral
self into their body. I hadn't done it since I'd started shifting
to Wraith while still wearing the meat suit. So I wasn't really
sure I could do this. I wouldn't have trusted anyone else to do
this to.

Only Joe.

His reaction was a bit more dramatic
than my own as I settled back into the little theater behind his
eyes. It was a lot like I remembered it. Dark room, no real solid
walls, and the huge screen up in front of me. I could see what he
saw and hear what he heard. But there was something else…a really
odd whirring noise coming from what felt like all around me. "Hey,
Joe…"

When Joe didn't answer, I realized
he'd slumped against the steering wheel. The screen in front of me
was blank. Oh shit!

"Hey, Joe." I could hear Mastiff
wrenching the truck door open, then I felt Joe's body being moved.
"Hey, buddy…can you hear me? Are you okay?"

Get up, wake up! No no
no…this isn't what was supposed to happen!

"Really?" Joe said, and the
screen sort of faded in. I could make out blurry images of the
truck's windshield, the top of the steering wheel, and then
Mastiff's face. "
Buddy
? After everything you've been threatening me
with?"

Whew…he sounded okay.

"I am not okay! Get out of
me!"

I put my hands to my ears. Ouch.
Loud.

Joe sat up and I sat down
on the floor so I wouldn't get dizzy.
Can
you hear me?

"Don't shout."

"Joe? I'm not shouting. Are you okay?
You don't look so good. In fact, you've been looking a little rough
these past few days."

Oops. The
don't shout
was for me.
So I stayed quiet.

"Sorry, George. I haven't been
sleeping well." Joe waved at Mastiff to move back as he grabbed the
truck's door frame and pulled himself out of the cab…and fell on
his knees.

"Shit…Joe, something is very wrong
with you."

"No, no…I'm fine. Just a little bitchy
bug I need to exorcise as soon as I can."

!!!

I am not a bitchy
bug!

"I told you never to do
this again."

Deal with it and get in
the house.

"Bitchy bug."

"Maybe you need some time off?"
Mastiff helped Joe to his feet. "You've lost weight."

"Gee, thanks, Marge." Joe's tone
dripped sarcasm. "I got this." He moved to his feet and leaned on
the bed of the truck. "I'll be fine in a minute. Just need to get
used to more added weight—"

Ah!

"—so why don't you fill me in on the
shop?"

Mastiff glanced back at the house.
"CSU's in there now doing their thing—"

"They got here fast."

"Well, they were in the area already,
over on Moreland. Someone broke into Abbadabba's."

I frowned. Abbadabba's was one of the
premier footwear places in Atlanta. I'd bought my first pair of
bunny slippers there several years ago and often went there just to
see Woshi the cat in the Little Five Point store. It was a sad day
in all of kittydom when Woshi passed away.

But why on earth would someone break
into a shoe store?

"Why would anyone break into a shoe
store?" Joe echoed my thoughts, although I doubt what I was
thinking was any great influence on his mind.

"Dunno." Mastiff shrugged. "The owners
are there now taking inventory, but so far the word is nothing was
stolen. That break-in occurred early yesterday morning and CSU got
there this afternoon. They were finishing up when we got this call,
so…" He gestured to the house. "Here we are."

"Anything stolen here?"

"Not that I can tell. Or anybody else.
The neighbor insists Ms. Martinique's necklace was stolen, but
we'll have to wait until Ms. Martinique can recover and have her do
an inventory…" He leaned his head toward his right shoulder as he
studied Joe. "Unless you can convince Zoë to help? I'm pretty sure
she knows about her mother by now."

"Mmhm. I saw the cops you
had at the hospital. I doubt Zoë's going to show up anywhere with
cops just so you can take her into protective custody. Just leave
it alone, George. You know Zoë's special…ah, I mean
unique
gifts. I'll let
you know if there's any development with Frasier or Gibbons, though
I still say you're trying to finger the wrong guy for the
rapes."

"I told you," Mastiff said as he filed
alongside Joe as they walked toward the house. It was a weird
feeling…'cause Joe just felt really off balance. "I agree with you.
Gibbons is the rapist and murderer. But Frasier is somehow tied to
all of this."

"No. He's not," Joe said as they
neared Mom's. "How long before I can go in?"

"Soon as they're finished. Shouldn't
be long."

"Shouldn't be long" translated to "two
hours." The sun had peaked over the trees when they packed up their
vans and left. Mastiff kept one black-and-white parked on the
premises and offered to get coffee while Joe did a walkthrough. If
Mastiff suspected Joe was up to anything, he didn't show
it.

Does Mastiff know about
your magic?

"No."

So he won't suspect you're
about to do mojo.

"Zoë…get out
now."

He was pretty emphatic, and
if I wasn't a stronger person, I'd be taking his anger as
rejection.
Fine. But first, what is that
whirling noise?

"That's the Orbital Veil
spell. Remember?"

Oh, right! He had things
whirling around him. Was this what it was like to be on the inside
of that thing?
Can you always hear it like
this?

"I don't hear anything but
you, and you're giving me a headache. Now get out, Zoë!"

Pushy
. I didn't want him angry at me. In fact…I couldn't really
remember if Joe had ever been angry at me.
Are you mad?

"Zoë…"

I figured it was better if I slipped
out and then remained Wraith while I looked around. But just as
started my jump out, I caught sight of those whirling objects. Holy
shit! The image made me want to duck. I saw a clock, several books,
a piece of paper, a cup, a small box, and what looked like a
knife.

You have a knife in
there.

"Zoë!"

I jumped out and hovered beside him.
Joe, on the other hand, grabbed the railing along the back porch.
He lowered his head, and I put a hand on his arm. "Joe?"

"Please, Zoë…don't do that
again. It's bad enough I've got this extra, weighted, whirling veil
all the time, but then to have you hitch a ride…" He looked at me,
and I noticed the circles under his eyes again.
"
In
your body, I
might add. It's just physically exhausting."

Shit. "I'm sorry, Joe. But…I saw a lot
of junk in that thing when I was stepping out. Can't you get rid of
some of it?"

"I will." Joe straightened up and took
a deep breath. "But Nona's right—I need to keep the heavy stuff in
so I can adjust to the weight and not be caught off guard. It's
like…before you go on a hiking trip. You practice moving around
with the backpack fully weighted down so when it comes time to the
actual hike—"

I waved my arm in the air. "Yeah,
yeah. You're not weighted down by the pack and get tired so fast."
I'd made sure I was physically between the two planes of existence,
more of a Shade, so that Joe could see me but no one else could.
The hearing me part…well, I had to be careful there. If one of
those uniformed police officers stepped in while I was talking,
he'd hear me and think Joe wasn't alone.

Or he'd think Joe was as loopy as the
department suspected and was now talking to himself, and
answering.

In a girl's voice.

Creepy.

"Ready to take a look?" Joe put his
hand on my ashy arm.

I looked down at it, always
amazed at his warmth. "Yeah." I saw real concern in his face. This
was my mother's home, a place she'd built with a lot of hard work
and sacrifice, and something other than a Phantasm had come into it
and
physically
attacked her. Whatever it was had been powerful enough to
withstand my mom's defense magic and go through her
wards.

The whole place
screamed
danger
and he was concerned for me.

I moved my arm to slip my hand in his,
and gave it a squeeze and winked. "I'll protect you."

Chapter Eighteen

I'm not sure what I expected to find
when we stepped inside, but the mess blocking our way into the
kitchen was enough to send me into a fit of anger. I stood in the
doorway, a half-visible Wraith with her wings tucked into her back,
squeezing the shit out of a cop's hand.

"Zoë…."

I let go, and he moved forward, then
stopped.

"What is it?" I continued to look at
the mess in the kitchen. Every cabinet was open, a few of the doors
hung by their hinges, both lower and overhead cabinets. Pots, pans,
glasses, utensils…all of it scattered on Mom's formerly spotless
kitchen floor. Even the freezer contents sat on the floor in
puddles of water beside what had once rested comfortably in the
refrigerator.

"The wards," Joe said as he took
another step into the kitchen. He picked his way through the mess
and then offered me a hand. I didn't want to touch him. Not in my
present mood. I wasn't going to risk sucking his soul out just
because I was in a bad mood. Instead, I lifted up and hovered above
the mess and vanished.

"Yeah, well…" Joe muttered and
continued his way into the house.

The shop was totaled. The intruder had
broken every table and chair and smashed the windows out in the
front of the house. The cake- and pie-display glass was smashed,
the desserts covered in glass. The beaded curtains that separated
the tea shop from the botanica had been rendered into little more
than a scattering of beads. Joe tried to not step on them, but the
crushed ones were evidence the police and CSU team hadn't been as
careful.

What about the
wards?
I moved into the botanica. The
disaster seemed to be worse in there. My papasan chair cushion was
ripped to stuffing. Books littered the floor. The only evidence
there'd ever been statues on the mantel was the pieces of them
still there and on the hearth below.

"Well, they're…broken."

What does that
mean?

"Means whatever came in here didn't
have much of a barrier to get through. Everything feels…" He
shrugged and went quiet.

I sieved upstairs, although I pretty
much figured it looked the same. And I was right. Mom's room was a
mess. I hope she never saw it looking like this. I'd need to get
whatever furniture was salvageable repaired and buy her new stuff
to replace what was beyond fixing. This guy had even ripped her
clothing.

My room was in the same state. I
nearly lost it when I saw what remained of my headless Mary lamp. I
went corporeal enough to pick up the little woman's torso. Now she
didn't have a head or a bottom. The rest of the lamp was in pieces.
I heard Joe coming up the stairs, so I dismissed the Wraith. Now I
was just…me.

He approached me where I stood in the
center of the small landing. My door was open, a was Mom's and the
door to the bathroom that joined my bedroom to the spare. I hadn't
bothered looking in the bathroom. The pieces of glass just inside
the door on the floor gave me a clue to its condition.

I wasn't surprised when he put his
arms around me. That's just Joe. Caring. Loyal. And compassionate.
I wrapped my arms around him as well and just let my emotion tumble
out the only way I knew how.

Joe didn't tell me to hush, and he
didn't say, "Sshh…" Instead, he stood there and rocked me gently in
the semi-light of the room.

They don't call it the ugly-cry for
nothing.

"You okay?" Joe said in a gentle
voice.

"Yes and no. It feels like my whole
life has been falling apart since last Halloween. Ever since I saw
that poltergeist in the house off Web Ginn House…nothing's been the
same."

He didn't say anything. He just held
me.

I sniffed. "All of this…for the
Eidolons?"

"They're a pretty good incentive. I
mean, think about it: They commanded you."

Yeah. They had. Bertram, one of the
rogue spirits that forced my mother's soul from her body, had used
the Eidolons to order me to attack Rhonda and kill her. I'd killed
her uncle instead. "So the Seraphim wants to use them to control
Dags."

"Or Rhonda," Joe said. "Think about
it. Rhonda knows how to access that book, and even if she is being
overshadowed by a Dominion, I doubt she'd consciously or
unconsciously do anything to hurt the guy. The Seraphim might think
it has to have the Eidolon to force her."