Soul Whisperer (5 page)

She met his gaze and it was hard for him not to flinch or look away from the pain he saw in her eyes.

“He was murdered two years later in what your kind called The Cleansing.”

He'd been afraid of this. So it was her father who was the Skinwalker and he'd been killed after the bloody war between their races.

The Skinwalkers wrongly believed that keeping the balance of nature meant killing men and their protectors, the Niyanoka. The war that followed had been
bloody and long, but after the defeat of their great leader, Fleetfoot, the Skinwalkers had scattered like the animals they were. In time, his people brought the rest of Fleetfoot's followers to justice. This final blow brought the remaining Skinwalkers to the negotiation table. An uneasy truce had lasted through the century. But neither race trusted the other and his people still did not gather in large communities in order to make it harder for the Skinwalkers to find them the next time. Most were certain there would be a next time.

She was his natural enemy. How had he let a touch make him forget that?

“He fought?” asked Cesar, still staring down at the bloodred wine.

“No. But it didn't matter. None of your people cared who was guilty or innocent.”

“Times have changed since then. We have rules against such things now.”

She folded her arms across her chest and hunched over as if he had punched her.

“I know of your rules. They shot my father out of the sky before my eyes. So don't speak to me of Niyanoka rules, for I have seen them.”

His face fell, losing any hint of superiority. “No wonder you hate us.”

“I do. You and all the rest of them. Others of my people have forgotten, but not me. Because I know what lies beneath all those fancy words.”

“It was war.”

“It was
after
the war. The vigilantes just chose to ignore the truce.”

“Because of the losses we suffered. It took some time to bring them back to their right minds and restore order.”

“Stop it. You say you were too young to take part, and I believe you, Cesar. But don't you dare make excuses for the men who tracked my people down and killed them. And as for the one who shot my father, I remember his face. And I search for him still.”

“Bess, you mustn't talk like that.”

“Because you'll hunt me down if I kill him?”

He nodded. “I'd have to.” He folded one arm over his chest and used it as a rest for his opposite elbow. He rested his chin on his fist. “Was he a raven?”

“Harrier Hawk.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

An uneasy silence followed. None of them were innocent. Not according to what he had been taught.

“Is there anything else you wish to know?”

“How did you escape them?”

“I had not yet changed and so I did not have the aura of a Skinwalker. They found me, but assumed I was human and let me go.”

“That was lucky.”

“Lucky.” She gave a short exhalation and a half smile that seemed laced with hatred, as if she had also just recalled who and what he was. “I should go.”

“No.” He rested a hand on her knee and the depth of her loss rolled through him, cold as an ice storm. He drew back his hand, unable to bear it. “At least stay for supper.”

Her nod was barely perceptible. He blew out the breath he'd been holding. He had her for a little while longer.

She pressed her hands together and lowered her head for a moment as if praying. But he knew better. Bess was reining in her emotions. When she lifted her chin her face was placid, but her eyes were intent as ever.

“Why do you always take your women to Dominicos?” she asked.

Now she was trying small talk. He appreciated the effort and responded with honesty that even surprised him.

“Closer to my bed, I suppose, and impressive enough to get them there.”

Her eyes rounded and she pressed her hand over the smile that had returned like the sun emerging from behind a storm cloud.

“Honesty? Something I never expected from one of your kind.”

“And you, Bess. What keeps you from boredom as the decades inch past?”

“My work you mean? I'm with the National Wilderness Coalition. Mostly on the coast, but I do travel domestically if there is a natural disaster that affects wildlife. It's all about The Balance, for us, as you know.”

To the point of making man extinct, he thought, but said nothing. The Skinwalkers made the most militant of animal rights groups seem like a litter of kittens by comparison. Still, he did not want to say anything that would add further cracks to their fragile truce, so he held his tongue.

The waiter brought all Bess's appetizers at once, as she requested. Cesar wondered if their discussion had spoiled her appetite, but she attacked the calamari with singular attention.

“It's been so long since I've been in human form. I'd forgotten the pleasure of eating fried food.”

Her comment reminded him of all the reasons that teaming up with a raven was a bad idea. Such a liaison would have consequences for them both.

But he found himself saying, “Been a long time since I enjoyed a conversation with a fellow Halfling.”

She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes searching his face for what was left unsaid. But he had years of practice and knew his expression revealed nothing.

“I thought Niyanoka lived in tight groups. You must have many opportunities to converse.”

In answer he lifted his wine and took a large swallow.

She leaned forward. “They really won't talk to you?”

He lowered the wine and glared at her, heartily sorry he had brought it up.

She flopped back in her chair, indignation making her cheeks turn an appealing pink. Did she know how lovely she looked?

“That cracks it. Only Spirit Children would make an outcast of one of their own and one who holds such a valuable gift.”

Valuable? Now there was a word he had never heard associated with his ability. Nor was it a gift, but rather a curse.

“I'm tainted by the dead.”

Bess waved a dismissive hand, graceful as a conductor leading an orchestra. Then she used her fingers to pick up a piece of fried calamari, its brown batter-coated tentacles twisted in some representation of a dreadful second death in the fryer. She lifted it between them.

“Dead,” she said, and then popped it into her mouth. “And they are hypocrites unless they are all vegans.”

“It's different.”

She rolled her eyes and headed back to the bisque. It was both refreshing and maddening to have someone not understand how impossibly difficult it was to
be outcast by his own people. He didn't tell her that he was a double outcast, first for what he was and second for what he had done.

“So you only date human women then?”

He nodded. It was lonely passing like a shadow among them.

“That's depressing. Not that I've managed anything long-term, except for Gordon. I was with him twenty-one years. One day he didn't come home. I found his remains in the snow. An eagle got him.”

“An eagle? How could an eagle kill a full-grown man?”

She met his eyes and held them, her expression unapologetic. “Gordon was exceptionally bright and terribly handsome. But not human. Raven, full raven, not a Inanoka. We met in British Columbia in the 1920s.”

He couldn't quite get his mind around that. “You stayed with a raven, a bird, for twenty years?”

She cast him a look ripe with annoyance. “Twenty-one, and yes. He was very attentive and a great provider.”

“Did he know what you were?”

“Of course. It didn't matter to him.”

Cesar lifted the bottle and poured himself another full glass as their dinners arrived. Bess held on to the calamari but had finished everything else.

“What about you? Any Soul Whisperer ladies in your life?”

“I'm the only one of my kind,” he answered.

“What? How can that be?”

“One at a time, that's the deal.”

“How does that work?”

He knew only that it seemed as if the world had been structured to close him out.

He shrugged. “I'm not really sure. I was born a Truth Seeker. It wasn't until…well, no one realized for some time that I was a Soul Whisperer. I was thirteen before it was discovered.” He'd nearly told her, nearly mentioned how he'd learned of his terrible curse. He wondered if she noticed his hesitation. Cesar reached for his water glass and took a swallow. His mouth still felt dry.

“Your people have too many rules.”

“Designed to keep us safe while working toward the betterment of mankind.”

She gave him that enigmatic stare and then she cut into her salmon.

Cesar tried to keep his attention on his steak, but he was distracted by his thoughts and the woman. How did she call to him without saying a word? He should ask for the check and leave her here. That was the proper thing to do. His people used their ability to read auras to avoid such encounters. This was exactly why. He reconsidered bringing her back to his place. After all, she might take a cleaver to him while he slept.

For all his training, he'd failed to recognize a Skinwalker when he finally met one. But she knew him on sight. Until today he never knew any of her kind could spot them the same way. It made him wonder what else the textbooks got wrong.

Bess finished first, licked her lips and eyed the remains of his steak.

He exhaled in a gesture of bewilderment. “You cannot possibly still be hungry?”

“Always,” she said and smiled.

He slid his plate a little closer to himself and she laughed outright. He liked the sound because her mirth had a rich genuine tone to it.

“So, you don't work with a partner?”

He lowered his fork. It was a touchy subject, but she couldn't know that, could she?

He was careful to keep his tone level, to prevent her seeing the depth of pain this question caused. But inside he coiled like a nest of rattlers.

“No partner,” he managed.

“So what makes you so furious, not having one or what the last one did?”

“I'm not furious.”

She slung one arm over the back of her chair and motioned with one finger. “Your aura says differently.”

He should have thought of that. The nice dark room and candlelit tables made for perfect conditions to read auras. No wonder she seemed to know what he was thinking. She just made educated guesses from his changing auras.

“I'm not discussing my past with you.”

Bess's smile turned wicked. “What about your job with the FBI?”

Cesar glanced around. A few patrons now sat within earshot but seemed absorbed in their own conversations.

He lowered his voice. “I don't talk about my work with…” He was going to say his women but decided against it.

“Of course. Why should you have to explain anything to the likes of me? It must be so frustrating to have to deal with an inferior species.”

He lowered his knife and fork to the table. “I didn't say that.”

She snorted. “You do, with every breath.”

“We do not have to be enemies in this. What do they
say about common interest leading to strange bedfellows?”

“That's politics and why does everything lead back to bed with you?” She studied him in silence as if trying to decide if she should waste her breath on him. “Despite what you Niyanoka think, Inanoka have perfectly good minds. But if you feel you cannot speak of your work, I assume you don't need my help. You'll likely solve the case, eventually. No need for me to tell you what I discover from those young mothers.”

“Bess, that's not fair.”

“Really? I thought you worked alone.”

He lifted his gaze from his plate and saw her leaning in, her chin lifted in a clear challenge.

“Is that what you really want to know, why I work alone?” he asked.

“I want to know how you've existed without anyone to talk to about something other than the weather. You want my help. That entitles me to some answers and I don't give a damn if you aren't accustomed to sharing.”

He pushed the remains of his meal aside and looked for the waiter. He was interested in sleeping with this Skinwalker. Conversation was not part of the deal.

The waiter caught Cesar's eye and hustled right over. “All finished?”

Cesar nodded and the plates were cleared, leaving them alone amid the other diners, who were unaware of the threat posed by the two Halflings among them.

“Sharing goes both ways,” he said.

She gave a nod in concession to that point.

“So if I tell you, you'll promise to share what you find out from the two deceased women and explain to me about your powers.”

She hesitated. That boded well, for a quick accep
tance might mean she did not intend to keep her word. But Bess deliberated over her answer and then gave a slow, thoughtful nod.

“Done.” She sat back, regarding him, as if deciding where to begin, but he asked the first question, comfortable in that role.

“So you can read auras, travel the Way of Souls, speak to the dead. Anything else?”

“I can't speak to the dead. I can only speak to those who have followed the Red Road, led a decent life and gained entrance to the Spirit World. I can't see the ghosts who remain upon the earth, nor can I speak to those who have failed to cross because of their misdeeds upon the earth. Those, as you know, have fallen into the Circle of Ghosts. Besides that, I have all the powers of a raven. I can fly, I can see exceedingly well and I am a more than passable thief, though I shouldn't say so in present company. I do love glitter and flash. Gemstones especially. What about you?”

“Besides the ability to see how a person died, you mean?”

“But you can't talk to them.”

He was reluctant to tell her but decided it wasn't worth watching her walk away if he didn't, so he answered.