Scorched Fury: A SkinWalker Novel #5 (DarkWorld: SkinWalker) (10 page)

B
ACK
IN
L
OGAN
'
S
room I sat on the loveseat by the window, my cup of tea sitting on the sill, long cold as I stared at nothing. I knew I had to call Darcy, but a part of me was hesitant. As if I knew that taking that step would change things forever.

At last I grabbed my phone and made the call. Darcy answered on the second ring and sounded keen on helping, especially if it concerned Logan.

Before I could offer to arrange transport, Darcy assured me that she'd see me in less than an hour. Apparently she was closer than I thought.

I used the time to shower, change and throw a bunch of clothes into the wash. With Logan at my father's house I'd taken to keeping enough clothes in my old closet to be safe. I was glad for the work though.

Chores were calming.

Darcy knocked on the open door. I looked up and knew immediately why she was in Chicago. I'd know the scent of my brother anywhere, and finding the beautiful blonde enveloped in Iain's musk made me want to throw a bunch of inquisitive questions at her.

But I didn't.

I quashed the urge and waved her inside, trying to subdue the grin on my face.

Darcy walked to me, her gaze drifting over Logan's sleeping form, and in her eyes I recognized sadness and regret. She sat on the loveseat beside me.

"I'm assuming this is to do with Logan's condition?" She glanced at him again, her expression now revealing something I was sure I was misinterpreting.

Guilt.

I had no time to pursue that line of thought. "Yeah. But it's worse than what you can see."

"How do you mean?" Her gaze was still locked on Logan's unmoving form.

"He's got this weird fire under his skin," I said, absently rubbing my forearm and wrist.

The cushion moved as she shifted next to me. "That makes sense considering he's a fire mage."

"But do fire mages have fire living inside their bodies?"

"I'm not sure." I could have sworn I felt her stiffen. Then she let out a sharp breath. "It could be a side effect. Maybe his power is trapped inside him. He's been unconscious for a while. So that would make sense."

My forehead knitted. "I hope it's just that. And I hope it doesn't mean he's going to spontaneously combust or something." I went for the joke, knowing it was something Logan would have found amusing, but for many reasons it fell flat.

Even Darcy didn't reward my effort with a smile.

Instead, she got to her feet and walked to Logan's side. She spent a few moments looking at his face. She seemed about to say something, then hesitated. Instead, she took a few calming breaths, her shoulders rising then falling.

"You okay?" I asked, going to stand beside her. Whatever troubled her was concerning and though we weren't technically friends, I wanted to help.

But she shook her head. "I'm fine. I'm going to need a chair so I don't fall flat on my face, or Logan, while I work." She made a face. "There is a tendency for the mindmelder to faint at inopportune moments."

I smiled and fetched a chair from the hallway. A long time ago, probably a century now, someone had placed a matched pair of spindly-legged chairs on either side of a table topped with a ragged slice of a redwood, felled to make way for the house. The smoothed and varnished surface, bore a giant sized arrangement of dried flowers, equally ancient.

The chairs with their dainty, soft upholstery with delicate gold-printed cream fabric were astoundingly mismatched, rugged wood set against a chair that looked like a feather would be too much weight for it.

Even Darcy raised an enquiring eyebrow at the chair as I hauled it to her side. "Don't ask."

"Antique?"

I nodded. "In all my years it never once crossed my mind to use it as an actual chair."

"You sure it's not going to fall apart?" she asked, concerned as she studied the chair, her butt hovering a few inches above it.

"I think it's sturdy. You'll know for sure when you sit." I smothered a giggle, watching Darcy perch gingerly onto the chair as she held her breath and waited for it shatter beneath her weight.

It didn't.

We both sighed, relieved.

Darcy sobered as she studied Logan's face again. I did too. His dark hair, though lacking its usual life, was still thick and tempted me to brush my fingers through it. His lips, once full and firm were much softer now, and paler. How long had it been since I'd last kissed him? This awful sleep kept us excruciatingly apart.

Darcy shifted as she leaned forward and placed her fingertips on either side of Logan's temples. A light dusting of stubble covered his cheeks and I wondered who'd shaved him.
 

I'd done it that first week or two, but having been away, I'd expected a thicker mat, not this clean-shaven patient. I smiled. Mom or Grams, maybe. I just couldn't imagine Iain or Dad performing that task. My eyes drifted to the open door and a face flashed from my memory.

Lily.

Now it made sense as to who'd been taking care of him while I'd been absent, and where Lily had been in those times when she'd claimed errands or homework.

But now, I pushed her from my mind and concentrated on Darcy as she closed her eyes and fell into a trance not too different from Mel's tracking mode.

Her eyelids fluttered as her fingers tightened against Logan's head and I forced myself to remain as still as possible. With everything going on I was wired and sitting still was incredibly difficult.

Minutes passed and Darcy hadn't moved so much as a muscle. Perspiration beaded her forehead and the skin of her neck, making me aware for the first time how taxing this must be for her, on her body and her mind.

Then she stiffened, her muscles tightening as her head fell back. The veins at her temples flared, rising high and tight; her heart probably speeding like a freight train. A spurt of panic flared within me. Were we endangering Darcy too? Would Logan appreciate lives being sacrificed in order to save his?

Darcy's work felt and looked pretty intense.

Perspiration dripped down the back of her neck and soaked into the neck of her blouse. I got to my feet as quietly as possible and tiptoed to a stack of clean towels on a cart behind the door. Returning with two, I placed one loosely around her neck and used the other to dab her forehead.

Though I worried I may have disturbed her, when Darcy moved next, two hours had passed and the muscles in both my arms and legs ached. Darcy must have felt worse considering the constant strain she'd shown.

She gave a shuddering sigh, her torso jerking sharply back against the chair. So sharp the fragile seat gave a frightening squeak and I tensed, expecting to have to pick Darcy up from the floor.

Thankfully, she opened her eyes and groaned, leaning forward onto the mattress with the look of a drunk about to hurl a week's worth of dinners. Thankfully, she didn't.

Instead she bent and rested her forehead on Logan's arm. She inhaled slowly and I waited, holding my own breath.

When she finally shifted her head to look at me, I asked, "Are you okay? Do you need anything?"

She shook her head and straightened, wiping a hand over her forehead. She frowned and gave her fingers a strange, confused look. Then her hand went to her neck where it brushed against the coarse weave of the towel.

When she looked at me, a small smile erupted at the corners of her mouth. "Thank you. I'm usually soaked through when I return."

I smirked. "I could hardly allow you to melt all over our good wood floors." She grinned, her eyes sparkling. "Can I get you something? Water? Coffee?"

Darcy nodded. "Water, please. Coffee isn't a good idea."

I was moving toward the door when Darcy touched my arm. She hesitated, then looked back at Logan, her expression filled with guilt.

"Are you okay? Is something wrong with Logan?"

She shook her head then gave a dry, almost heartless laugh. "Something
is
wrong with him."

Then she shifted in the chair to face me. I heard the fabric rustle, watched a stray bead of perspiration drip from the edge of her collarbone and trickle into the hollow at the front of her neck.

Something told me that what she was about to tell me wasn't good.

CHAPTER 13

O
DD
HOW
THINGS
SEEMED
TO
SLOW
down just when your gut tells you that bad news was about to hit you like a ton of bricks.

"Kai, I haven't been totally honest with you." Then she laughed again, harshly, angrily. "Come to think of it, I haven't been honest with you at all. I owe you the truth, especially since . . ."

"Since what?" I asked, anger burgeoning like a storm cloud. I disliked dishonesty.

Then I tamped down my outrage. Who the heck was I to talk about dishonesty when I'd never told Logan about Justin, his offer or his kiss? That was dishonesty right there.

"I'm not so sure that now is the time for either self-blame or pointing fingers." I sighed, feeling the burden of something bigger weigh down on me. "What did you want to tell me?"

"It was me." Darcy got up and walked to the window, staring out into the black night. The moon was low and curved, a half smile that, like me, didn't appreciate the gravity of Darcy's words.

"What do you mean?" I filled dead air with a question. Darcy seemed to need some impetus.

With her eyes on the moon she said, "In my time inside people's minds, I've seen a million different memories of the moon. Memories are tainted with a person's own state of mind, with the feelings one experiences at the time of the memory."

"So if someone unknowingly says something harsh to you, the memory of that moment is colored with the hurt of it, while the speaker's memory is clear of any negativity." I nodded.

"That's it exactly." She didn't remove her eyes from the moon. "It's so massive, so influential. I've seen benevolent moons, cold unfeeling moons, magical, powerful and powerless moons. There is no end to our interpretation of that ethereal sphere. It's like multiple interpretations of the mind. I'm not sure what human scientists would take away if I had to explain to them how exactly the mind works."

I let her talk.

"The mind is built up of layers and layers of thoughts and experiences and learnings. Everything is coiled together, and it all looks like one big jumble, but it's compartmentalized, organized so well that if you know what you are doing you can go within a person's mind and take from them their most precious memories and they'd never even know they'd had them in the first place."

Darcy was rambling and though I'd heard something similar a while ago she seemed to need to get this off her chest so I let her speak.

"The beauty of our memories is that they each have a tenuous link. Like Logan's memories. The ones that are missing all have a common factor that links them all together. Chocolate cake, an empty swing, and table in a diner where a milkshake stands waiting for its owner.

"All linked together by a thread that a mind-melder can access and use to navigate that mind." She took a breath, a shuddering shaky sound that made it seem like Darcy was going to keel over. "My job with Omega, and Sentinel I might add, was to help them retrieve important pieces of information from the minds of criminals and victims alike. The criminal's mind confirms what they were doing, or going to do or have already done, while victims give confirmation one way or the other. Omega hired me to either remove or mask memories. Most of the time the reasons made sense to me. Make a man forget the face of the person who gave evidence against him; for the safety of the witness. Make a killer-for-hire forget the face of the president in case someone ever pays him to take POTUS out. Make a bomber forget how to create anything bomb-like.

"But then the jobs became stranger. Make this High Council member forget that he was ever wronged by a particular man. Make this mage forget he has family so he'll stay with Omega forever.

"Make this boy think that he was the one to decimate an entire diner so that he'd think himself saved. Make him forget that he'd been innocent. Make him forget that he'd had a sister. A sister more powerful than him. Make him forget all about her because her safety was at risk. Because she's so powerful that
she
could be used as a pawn if people knew she existed."