Kit and Ivy: A Red Team Wedding Novella (8 page)

More long moments of silence, then Rocco stood up. “Wouldn’t want to miss the fun.”

Kit slowly came to his feet, standing in Rocco’s space, blocking him. “What’s with the attitude?”

Rocco stared at him in the dark light of the yard. “You think I got a problem? I don’t. Ain’t a single fucking thing wrong. I have my son back. I have a woman men would start wars over. I have a job I enjoy. What makes you think I have a problem?”

“I don’t think you have a problem. I think you got devils. I think you need help working through them. You aren’t alone, Rocco. Blade and I are here for you now, like we have been all along.”

Rocco shrugged then shoved a hand through his hair. “Forget it. I’m fine. I just get a little stir crazy when things are too quiet.” He stepped around Kit and started for the party at the opposite end of the long patio.
 

Kit shoved his hands in his pockets and followed him. When his feet stepped into the pool of light spilling from the billiards room, he forced himself to relax his shoulders and hide the tension he felt. He and Rocco were met with the perceptive eyes of his sister and Ivy. He smiled to reassure them all was well.
 

But it was not A-okay for Rocco. Far from it.

Ivy’s nose came awake first, roused by the rich scent of coffee in the mugs Kit brought with him into their room. She propped an eye open and saw the bright light of day the heavy drapes tried to block. She shoved herself up to look at the clock. “Oh, God! What time is it?”

Kit sat on the bed. He wore jeans, but otherwise was barefoot and shirtless. “Take it easy, Iv. You’re not late for anything. Val said you girls weren’t due at the hair salon until noon. And your parents won’t be here before this afternoon.”

She looked at Kit, giving her mind time to finish waking up. She shoved her hair out of her face, glad to realize she hadn’t had so much to drink the night before that she was uncomfortable now. She pulled herself to a sitting position and leaned back against the headboard. Kit handed her a mug. She cupped her hands around it and lifted it to her nose to breathe in the antidote to last night’s excesses.

“Where is everyone?” she asked, venturing a sip of the steaming liquid.

“Casey’s with Zavi and Mandy, taking care of the horses. Angel and Val have taken the women home. Fee and Eden are cleaning up the billiards room.”

“Why didn’t they wake me earlier? I could have helped them.”

“I thought it best, given that it’s D-Day, that you got as much rest as possible.”

She sipped the coffee again. “Kit, I’m fine. I’m a grown-up. You don’t have to tiptoe around me. Yes, my parents are coming. I’m sort of looking forward to seeing them, now that I’ve gotten used to the idea.” She reached over and held his hand. “I trust you. If they’re vile, evil, terrible people, you’ll vanquish them. And if they’re essentially nice people who screwed up, we’ll figure things out.”

Kit smiled and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “That’s my girl.” He settled next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to him. “So you’re not worried about meeting them?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I’m scared to death. But I know you’ll make it right. One way or another, it’ll work out.”

“Kelan’s shaman has arrived, Dan Broken Knife. He agrees with K the place is toxic. Blade and Kelan are helping him get settled. He’s going to be starting immediately. It’s a big job. He wants to get the house cleared before tomorrow night so that he can treat us and prepare the space for our wedding ceremony.”

Ivy looked up at Kit. “What do you think of him? Is he the real deal?”

“He’s an interesting guy. Owen’s pretty skeptical of the whole process. In my mind, anything that helps Blade heal from the shit that went down here as a kid, and anything that helps us get started on the right foot, well, it just can’t be all that bad.”

“It was a nice gift from Kelan.” She took a last swallow of coffee then threw off the covers. “I have so much to do today. But first, a shower.” She took his hand and got off the bed, towing him along behind her.

* * *

The house was unusually quiet, Ty thought. Val and Angel were seeing the girls back to their cars. Kit was with Ivy. The other guys were in the bunker. Kathy and Carla were in the kitchen, talking softly. He didn’t know where the rest of the women were.
 

He and Kelan were with Dan Broken Knife and his assistants. The shaman wanted to start his work in the basement. Interesting choice, Ty thought. He wondered if Kelan had given him the history of the house. Ty watched the basement door as they approached, breathing through the tightness clamping his stomach. It was a door. Then stairs. Then the whole fucking basement. Lots of houses had them. Concrete walls and windows. There was nothing down there. Not anymore.

Kelan put a hand on his shoulder. He looked over at his friend, realizing they’d been standing outside the door longer than he’d intended. Ty’s gaze bounced from Kelan to Dan and his two assistants. None of them seemed in a hurry, nor were they concerned at the delay.
 

“Kelan,” Dan said without taking his eyes from Ty, “your friend and I will go down alone at first. You will wait for us here.”

Ty opened the door and stepped onto the wooden landing. He didn’t pause, didn’t wait to be sure Dan was behind him. He went down the stairs and moved to the back of the house where the window wells let in the morning sunlight. Dan followed him down. He looked at Ty, then walked to the opposite side where the cage had been.
 

The bars had been removed and the steel ends had been dug out of the concrete. The excavation had left deep tracks in the foundation that had been filled in with freshly poured concrete, making a rectangular scar in the floor, a ghost outline of the cage. Dan lifted his hands and mumbled something unintelligible. After a minute, he walked the entire perimeter of the basement, feeling the air with his hands, murmuring into the space.

The shaman came back to stand in front of Ty. He was a middle-aged Indian with twin braids wrapped in crisscrossing strips of red rawhide that hung in front of his shoulders. He had a deep, barrel chest and wore a natural cotton tunic shirt that was heavily beaded around the neck, over the shoulders, and down the arms. Hanging from his ears were silver earrings that looked like elongated teardrops. A large squash blossom necklace of silver and turquoise hung about his neck. Several heavy silver and turquoise cuffs covered his wrists. On one hand was a heavy silver ring with a design Ty couldn’t quite make out. His black eyes were never evasive. They were, in fact, uncomfortably perceptive. Ty forced himself not to look away.
 

“We’ll go back upstairs now and prepare for the ceremony.” He gestured toward the stairs, then followed Ty up. Once in the hallway, he spoke to his assistants in their Lakota language.
 
“Kelan, you will take us out to the east side of the house,” Dan directed.

Ty walked with the men through the kitchen and out the door. They crossed the porch and went over to the grass. Kelan had warned him ahead of time to leave his weapons in the safe in his room. “Please, remove your shirts and your shoes,” Dan requested. “You must stand barefoot upon the ground.”

One of his assistants set out four clay dishes with shallow bowls of sand on the ground nearby. Next to that, he set out a few dozen clumps of bound and dried herbs. The other assistant brought over two drums that were made from wood and animal skins, each of a size that a single person could carry and play it.
 

The first assistant handed Dan a fifth clay bowl of sand and one of the herb sticks. He lit the herbs then blew out the flame, letting the stick smoke. Dan took a large owl feather from his pouch and pushed smoke in the four directions, north, west, south, and east, chanting in Lakota.
 

“We will begin now by purifying ourselves and our tools so that we can be protected from the things that we wish to clear from this house and its grounds. There is nothing you must do other than fill your mind with thoughts that give you joy and for which you are grateful.”

He went over to his assistants, who remained fully dressed and still wore their moccasins. Moving from the ground, up the left leg over the center of the first assistant’s body, to his head, he used the feather to puff the smoke to his left. As he descended from the head down the torso to the right, the shaman pushed the smoke off to the right side. As he stirred the smoke, he chanted in a singsong voice words that Ty didn’t understand but which he found wonderfully comforting.
 

“Why do they get to keep their shoes and shirts on?” he asked Kelan ash the shaman repeated the smoke gestures over the assistant’s back.

“They are wearing leather and cotton, materials from plants and animals of the earth. Plus, they’ve likely been purified before coming onto the property. This is a reminder to the spirits to protect and care for them as they help to heal this space and its occupants. We are in need of a much deeper cleansing. It is good to be connected to Mother Earth as the bad energies release their hold on us.”

“Why smoke?” Ty asked, whispering so he wouldn’t break Dan’s concentration.

“Smoke moves between dimensions. It transports our thoughts to the spirit realm. It’s a link between the here and the hereafter.”

Dan repeated his ministrations on the second assistant, then stood while the first assistant performed that service for him. And then it was Ty and Kelan’s turn. The smoke smelled of sage and left him a little light headed. When the humans had been treated, Dan purified the tools he would use for the ceremony.
 

“You may dress again.”

Once they’d put their shirts and boots back on, he and Kelan carried two clay bowls and followed Dan back down to the basement.

“Dan, this isn’t the lowest part of the house. Do you want to start in the lower basement?” Ty asked.

“No. We will begin here, then move upstairs. When we are finished, we will do the bunker and move outside through the tunnel to the grounds. If you feel overwhelmed by what happens here, you may sit down or go back outside.” He and the assistants opened all of the windows in the basement. “The spirits have lost their way in here. We will orient them again and send them home to the Creator.”
 

The assistants lit the herb logs in each of the clay dishes, then set them in the four compass directions as far apart as possible. They took up the small drums and waited for the shaman to begin his chant as he moved the smoke strategically about the room.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Ivy had been banished to the den—with the girls and Val—to wait for her parents. If the afternoon had gone on much longer, she feared Val would have broken out a round of charades just to keep the mood calm. It felt silly hiding in there, but Kathy and Dennis had convinced her to let them be the ones to admit her parents and show them to their room. They felt it would set the proper tone for them to be met by people who worked for the team and who respected Kit.
 

The doorbell rang. “Shh-shh. The ogres are here,” Val said.

“They’re not ogres,” Ivy corrected him with a small laugh. She started for the door but Val stepped in front of it with his arms spread wide.
 

“You can’t go out there yet. Let’s see if Dennis and Kathy survive their encounter first.”

“Val—”

“He’s right,” Mandy told her, drawing her back into the room. “Sure it’s pomp and circumstance, but it sends the message that you and Kit and Casey are important to us. Kathy is going to tell them to come downstairs when they’re settled. You can’t go to them, Ivy. They have to come to you. It’s a power thing.”

“I agree. It’s a non-verbal cue that sets dominance,” Eden added. “Works the same way with dogs.”

Ivy looked at Casey, who was big-eyed and pale. She crossed the room to give her a hug. “I just want to get this over with. Did you tell Kit they’re here?” she asked Val.

“Yep. He’s on his way up.”

There was a sound in the large storage closet, then the door opened and Kit came out. He looked at Ivy and Casey, then grinned. “Showtime!”

Ivy caught her breath. He looked relaxed, carefree even, as if two ogres hadn’t just entered his house. This was what he did for a living, she realized—face down the evil elements of life. He came over to her and held her face.
 

“Iv, there’s no point cataloging what happened in the past. Now is the time to look at them with adult eyes and adult hearts and see what their hearts say back. The rest is done. It’s over. It hurt them. It hurt us. It hurt Casey. But look how strong you are. Both of you. And the future, for a fact, will be one we’re all comfortable with, no matter what that means.”

Ivy nodded. She pulled Casey close so Kit could hug them both. “Ready?” she asked them.

“Affirmative.” Kit smiled.
 

Ivy felt full of dread as they walked down the hallway, despite his cheerleading. Kit was walking between her and Casey, holding their hands. Her daughter leaned forward and looked over at her. “Mom, can we take them over to the diner tomorrow?”

“I think that would be nice. Maybe they’d like to see what we’ve done.”

Mandy had set out some games in the living room in preparation for what might be a long, tense wait for Ivy’s parents to come down from their room. Casey, Fee, and Eden got involved in a game of Apples to Apples. Ivy couldn’t sit still. She paced back and forth from the hall to the patio doors until Kit came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
 

“I got you. Lean on me.”

She drew a deep breath, then tried to relax back against him, her hand gripping his wrist. A commotion on the bridge upstairs caught their attention. She and Kit turned to see her parents midway on the steps, at the landing that overlooked the living room. Her mom gasped when she saw them, pausing to hold the banister in a white-knuckled grip. Her dad stood next to her. Looking over the room, he nodded at her and Kit.