The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (4 page)

Sage’s last class of the day was still in progress, so Timber had plenty of time to take in the scene. He blinked at the murals—they were rather imposing—but didn’t bat an eye at the altar.

“So your friend’s a Houngan?”

“Mambo,” I corrected him, once again feeling a little smug at my superior knowledge. “Houngan is the male High Priest of Vodoun. Mambo is the High Priestess. And, to answer your question, yes.”

“Then what’s she doing teaching a dance class?”

“Earning a living; what do you think? Besides, it’s part of her responsibility to preserve the traditions. She sees teaching dance as a way to do that.”

Just then Sage’s deep voice bellowed over the incessant beat of the accompanying drums.

“Hips! Hips! This is a fertility dance, not a ballet! You ain’t doing no punk pogo here. You’re calling down rain; how you expect the gods to listen to you if you ain’t got no hip action? Remember the snake in your spine!”

Her students, almost exclusively petite dance majors from CU, tried their best, but none of them managed more than a half-hearted wiggle before Sage made a slashing motion at the drummers and called an end to the lesson.

“You practice those hips for next time,” she called after the retreating backs. “Pretend you’re with a man! If any of you has ever actually been with a man,” she added in an undertone to the drummers.

“New class?” I called from my place at the sidelines.

“Caitlin, hey.” Sage made her way over as the last of the drummers paid his respects at the altar and left. Sage’s drummers were the real thing. “First lesson. They’re always shy. But don’t you worry; I’ll have them shaking their tail feathers before long. Hello, who are you and where have you been hiding all my life?”

Her voice changed from brusque to seductive as her eyes lit on Timber. All at once the sweat the dance had left on her face turned to a golden glow and her generous curves seemed even more pronounced: lush flesh begging to be caressed. Her smile widened, and as she licked her lips her tongue left behind a silver sheen that aroused an ache to kiss, even in me.

Behind me, Timber made a strangled sound.

“Tell Erzulie to knock it off. She’s already got three husbands; she doesn’t need any more,” I said with some asperity. I had been looking forward to seeing how Sage reacted to her first sight of my companion, but now that the moment had come I didn’t find it at all amusing, somehow.

Sage gave one last, rich chuckle low in her throat and then the supernatural aura around her vanished as if it had never been.

“Just having some fun, Sugar,” she said.

“Timber’s not here for fun. He’s here on business.”

“Timber, hmmm?” Her eyes traveled the length of him from their natural level somewhere in the vicinity of his chest to the top of his head. “Good name for an oak tree man.”

Except she didn’t say “oak tree man,” or that was not all she said or all I heard. Over the top of the English lay another language and that language translated “oak tree man” to
druidh
: a Druid, an Enchanter.

“I didn’t know Erzulie spoke the Gaelic,” I said at the same time as Timber said,

“I’m not a Druid.”

“Who knows what language the loa speak at home?” Sage said to me. She turned to Timber. “And you may not call yourself a Druid, but you are one, just the same. Now, am I going to get a proper introduction or do I have to turn on the charm again?”

“Gods forefend,” I muttered. I did
not
want Timber to experience another sample of Sage’s—or Erzulie’s—charm. “Sage Randall, this is Timber MacDuff. Timber, Sage Randall.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” Sage held out her hand, which Timber took and dropped again as if he had received an electric shock. Sage leered. “And what might your business in Boulder be, Big Man?”

“I’m looking for a man named Stonefeather.” Timber’s voice came out in a faintly higher register than the smooth baritone I had become used to.

Sage’s eyes narrowed, and I remembered all at once that Erzulie appeared as a warrior as well as a goddess of love. “And what might you want with Stonefeather?”

I left it to Timber to explain himself. I kept an eye on Sage. Her face relaxed a bit as she heard him out, but the suspicious look didn’t leave her eyes. When he had finished his story, she turned to me.

“And how did you happen to get involved in this, Caitlin?”

“Timber came to me for help,” I admitted reluctantly.

Sage snorted. “I might have known. How did that happen, I wonder? Did he just chance upon the one real witch in Boulder? The one bound to aid him? No, don’t tell me. I know what you are,” she said to Timber. “I’m sure chance had nothing to do with it. Well, children, I can’t help you. I don’t know where Stonefeather was before he came here, who he saw or what he was up to.”

“So the trail ends here,” Timber said, looking crestfallen.

“Not exactly. I can tell you where he lives. He’s not in the phone book, like some people.” Sage gave me a reproving look and recited an address in the Chautauqua area. “I don’t know if you’ll find it useful or not. But maybe one of his neighbors has seen him or knows where he is. Hell, maybe he has pets that need sitting. Maybe he’s even there.”

“I doubt it. A shaman’s dwelling has an aura around it, especially when he’s at home. If I couldn’t find him…” Timber began.

“Honey, don’t
tell
me you were expecting him to be in the psychic phone book.” Sage gave a deep belly laugh. “John’s a drunk but he’s not stupid.” Again, a reproving glance in my direction. “Now run along on your quest, Babies. Mama Sage has her own work to do.”

Timber complied, leaving the dance studio a little too quickly. When he had gone through the door, Sage caught my elbow.

“Child, I want a word with you.”

I refrained from rolling my eyes. “What? I’ve seen you looking at me this whole time, you know.”

“I expected you would. What are you doing? You met this guy what—last night? And now you’re helping him look for Stonefeather? After what I told you?”

“I thought you didn’t take John seriously.”

“Well, I didn’t. But he claimed some dark being was hunting him. Then a dark, handsome stranger arrives on your doorstep? That’s a little too much coincidence for me.”

I shivered. “Did you get anything off of him?”

“Oh, I got what you might expect when Erzulie’s around. But I’ll tell you something. He’s blocking.”

“Blocking?”

“You didn’t pick it up? You have to be more careful, Sugar. You can’t just go around taking everyone who asks for your help at his word, how many times have I told you? Yeah, he’s blocking something. Could be good could be bad, I don’t know. But I do know one other thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked, not at all sure I wanted to hear.

“He looks at you like you’re a big bowl of ice cream and he’s a little boy with a spoon.”

I rejoined Timber outside the dance studio with Sage’s last words on my mind. I peered at him out of the corner of my eye, trying to see something of the look she had mentioned, but all I saw was his handsome face, this time marked by a quizzical smile. Boyish yes. But eat-you-up boyish? I didn’t want to believe it.

“So what was that about?” he asked me as we hiked back down Pearl Street towards the bus depot.

I glanced at him again. To tell or not to tell? And if I told, would it lead to a confrontation for which I was not ready? I heard Sage warning me to be careful and pressed my lips together. Better to play along until I found out what Timber was really up to and what his boyish smile hid.

“Oh nothing,” I said with the blandest smile I could manage. “Nothing at all.”

Chapter Four

T
imber and I took the Baseline bus up to the stop at Chautauqua, Timber complaining all the way about the round-about route the bus took, and comparing Boulder’s public transit system to Portland, Oregon’s, and saying we could make much better time on foot. It half convinced me he was no more than he seemed, a journeyman shaman eager to complete his final test before his teacher released him into the world. After all, what creature of darkness could have so much to say about Boulder’s mass transit system? But it didn’t make me like him any better. At last I told him if he wanted to hike up hills starting a mile from sea level and see how it affected his ability to draw breath for more complaints, he was welcome to; I, however, would stay on the bus. He shut up, whether due to the threat in my voice or the simple fact that he didn’t know where we were bound, I neither knew nor cared.

From the Chautauqua stop we walked a couple blocks uphill and then turned right onto a street of older, single-family frame houses set in small yards. Oaks, elms and maples towered overhead, making a dim cathedral of the street below. I heard Timber draw in an appreciative breath. I remembered how Sage had called him “oak tree man,” and wondered if he could commune with the trees as he did with animals. Another useful art for a shaman, if it were true.

“So where is this place we’re going?” he asked, half his attention still on the trees.

“If Sage has the address right, about two blocks down.”

“Is everything uphill or down in this town?”

“More or less.” I started walking without waiting for him to catch up. Soon I heard him fall into step behind me. The sound of his labored breathing satisfied something deep in my chest, as if my being used to the thin air of the mountains gave me an advantage over him. Perhaps it did. I hoped I wouldn’t need it.

On this glorious June day it seemed everyone who could be was out of doors. We passed children riding bicycles and playing in sandboxes, watched over by young mothers who sat on their front porches drinking iced tea. Several waved at us as we passed, and one small girl in a pink Disney princess costume ran shrieking from Timber. “A giant! A giant!” she cried to her amused parent. Elsewhere, older men and women busied themselves about their flowerbeds, deadheading roses or digging up spring annuals to replace them with more heat-hardy stock. I found it hard to believe that Stonefeather lived in such a peaceful neighborhood, or that something had gone horribly wrong there.

But when we approached the house Sage had told us belonged to the shaman, I knew something had. To look at it appeared no different than many of the other houses on the block: a small, blue, frame bungalow with a foundation and front porch of river rock. True, it had a deserted feel about it, as if the owner had not been in residence for some time. Several weeks’ worth of newspapers made a mound on the porch and I could see the mail slot overflowing. But that didn’t mean anything; John had been absent from Boulder for long periods before. It surprised me he hadn’t asked one of the neighbors to take in the papers and mail for him, though. It spoke to an unplanned absence.

But it was the black aura hanging over the house, visible to my Sight, that disturbed me. It reminded me of pictures I had seen of cancerous lungs, a tarry veil through which shone tiny bits of healthy tissue—or in this case the healthy blue of a normal aura—as if fighting for life. What had Stonefeather been up to, to bring this on his house?

“What is it?” Timber asked when he saw me shudder.

“Something bad happened here. I don’t know what, but the whole house is steeped in darkness….” I broke off before I could say more and rushed to retch into the straggling rosebushes surrounding Stonefeather’s front porch. I didn’t think he’d mind; from what I could tell he’d abandoned his house long before he’d come to see me.

I felt Timber’s broad hand on my back, steadying me. “Bad is it?”

I nodded, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand. “Like a cancer. I don’t think we should stay; it’s obvious John’s not here.”

“Aye, well, I didn’t expect him to be….”

“Hey, are you two looking for the Indian dude?”

The neighbor peering over the fence appeared to be in his early twenties. He wore Lycra shorts and a bright t-shirt, his dirty blond hair just restrained by a headband that looked like it had once been someone’s necktie. On his hands he wore fingerless cycling gloves, and a mountain bike was propped on the fence beside him. A college student, I guessed. I knew some of these houses were rentals.

Timber went over to him. This time, I
saw
him turn on his charm. All the threat in him vanished; he was no longer the giant who had terrified a little girl but merely a big man with a winning smile.

“Aye, we are. Can you tell us where he might be?”

“Sorry, brother. He hasn’t been around in a long time. I wondered if he’d died or something.” He said it with the cruel callousness of the young who think death can never come close to them, and I shuddered and nearly retched again. I looked at Timber and saw him finger the thong around his neck and give an almost imperceptible shake to his head. He didn’t think Stonefeather had passed on, then. Come to think of it, neither did I. I could still feel the cords of my promise binding me to him and I didn’t think they’d last past his death.

“Did you talk to him before he left?”

The neighbor shrugged. “Nope. Just noticed the papers piling up. Someone ought to take them in, you know. It’s an eyesore.”

He frowned at us, as if challenging us to take up the responsibility for cleaning up Stonefeather’s place. I glanced over the fence to the overflowing garbage bags full of Coors cans on the young man’s porch, and reflected on people’s different notions of what constitutes an eyesore.

“Aye, well,” Timber said, failing to rise to the challenge. Breaking into Stonefeather’s house might come later, but not today and certainly not in broad daylight. “Thank you for your help.”

We started down the walk, leaving the neighbor to tinker with his bicycle. Before we got to the street, though, he called after us.

“Hey!”

Timber raised a questioning eyebrow at me and I nodded. We turned back.

“You aren’t the only people looking for this guy, if that helps. Someone else stopped by here the other day. Is he in some kind of trouble or something?”

The suppressed glee in his voice made me think that to him “some kind of trouble” meant the kind around which popular T.V. shows are built, involving mob connections and lots of flashing lights. I could imagine him sharing a cold one with his friends and saying, “You know the guy next door, well he turned out to be a big time drug pusher…yeah I know all about it.” The vision made me sicker than I already felt.

“Who was here the other day?” Timber maintained his leading role in the conversation. “Can you describe him?”

“Yeah. A big guy—not as big as you but still big. Blond dreads.”

I roused from my stupor. “Tall with blond dreads? Beard?”

“Yeah.”

“Kevin,” I breathed.

“You know this person?” Timber asked in a shocked tone.

“I do.”

“And do you happen to know where he lives?”

“No.” I shook my head. “But I know where he’ll be tonight.”

“And where might that be?”

For just about two seconds I considered telling him. Then the Sight kicked in and I had a very strong vision of Timber haring off to confront Kevin on his own. It might have been funny, except for the broken furniture. Besides, I knew Timber hadn’t yet told me everything. Why should I cough up what information I had just because he asked? I decided I had a right to be a little mysterious, myself.

“Nope. I’ll take you with me if you promise to be good, but I’m not telling you. Meet me back at the shop at nine or so.” That gave me a few hours to get ready and have some food—I suddenly realized I hadn’t eaten anything but a few beignets all day and I was starving.

Timber seemed to pick up on this. “Let me take you out to dinner.”

“And continue trying to wheedle out of me where we’re going tonight? Nice try.” I started off towards Ninth Street, Timber following. In fact, he followed me all the way downtown before finally giving up and, with a wave and a nod, heading off to wherever he was staying.

I made my way back home, where I heated up some leftover lasagna and wolfed it down without tasting it. By then it was past seven, but I figured I had plenty of time to get cleaned up, so I ran a hot bath, looking forward to a nice long soak. I even added the last of the rose-scented bath beads Sage had given me for a Yule gift to the water, figuring it had been a hard couple of days and I deserved a treat.

I lay back in the water, reveling in the smooth feel of the bath oil on my skin. How weird was it that Kevin had been looking for John Stonefeather and that I knew exactly where to find Kevin on a Saturday night? Coincidence? I somehow didn’t think so. Something wanted to make sure I stayed on the right track. I thought the same something had sent me up to Stonefeather’s house so I could find out Kevin had been there and know to ask him about it. In the normal course of events the subject wouldn’t come up; after all I hadn’t even been aware they knew each other.

I lay in the bath until the water got cold, toweled off and walked naked to my room to get dressed. Most Saturdays I would wear my usual uniform of jeans and an interesting t-shirt, but tonight I felt I wanted something more. My wardrobe didn’t hold much in the fancy department; Beljoxa’s Eye earned me a comfortable living without frills, not enough to spend a great deal on clothes. In the end I dug out a green lace dress I had worn to a friend’s wedding the previous year.  Regarding myself in the antique full length mirror at the side of my bed, I thought it would do. The laced bodice gave my chest some semblance of a cleavage and the flowing skirt and sleeves accentuated my curves just enough. The green color brought out the red tones in my auburn hair and turned my eyes from a murky mix of green, grey and blue to almost emerald.

I was just beginning to wonder why I cared so much about my appearance this night of all nights when the doorbell rang downstairs. I thrust my feet into a pair of green Birkenstocks and ran to answer it. Timber waited on the stoop, wearing the same flannel shirt, jeans and workboots as ever. For a minute he just stared at me. I found myself staring back. Some kind of energy surged between us and, as before, I went weak in the knees. He took a step towards me. I took a step back, knowing I could not let him touch me but not knowing why. Then he breathed, and I breathed, and the moment passed, the energy broke, and we were just two virtual strangers gazing at each other from either side of an open door.

“Please come in,” I said with a strange formality, gesturing to the main room of the shop, darkened now but for a single lamp on the counter.

He did.

I cleared my throat. He shifted his weight so that he stood hip-shot, his thumbs hooked over his belt loops. We gazed at each other.

“Um. Wait here just a sec,” I mumbled at last, and ran upstairs to grab my fanny pack and gather a few other things I would need for the evening. When I came back down, Timber was still standing just inside the front door, his hands clasped in front of him, shifting from foot to foot like a schoolboy caught out in a prank.

“What?” I said.

“You look nice.” He cleared his throat. “Pretty.”

“I’m sorry to have caused you such a shock,” I replied irascibly. “I can wear something other than T-shirts and jeans once in a while.”

A dark cloud passed over his face, taking the schoolboy charm with it. “I meant it as a compliment, aye?”

I felt myself flush. It had been a compliment; why had I bitten his head off? “I’m sorry. Thank you.”

“What’s that?” He gestured to the flat oak box under my arm. “Your magic wand?”

“Of a kind,” I replied with a mysterious smile, still not wanting to let him in on the secret of where we were headed. “Come on, it’s time to go.”

He followed me out the door and waited on the stoop while I locked up and set my special protections on the place. I didn’t do this last all the time, but with whatever was going on with Stonefeather I figured better safe than sorry.

“And where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”