Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) (3 page)

“Why didn’t you call me?” He pulled back, his lips curved into a frown.

“Sheriff Lynch was questioning me, and then I had to start cleaning up, and then I got distracted. It’s been a crazy night.”

“Is it true?” His eyes swished back and forth as he searched my face for answers I didn’t have. “Was it a spirit attack?”

I hesitated a moment before answering. “It shouldn’t be possible.”

“You don’t sound so sure,” he said.

“The rules of the Borderland dictate that spirits can’t attack outside like this.” I waved at the very open beach. “But something doesn’t feel right.”

Nathan’s hands brushed my cheek as he slipped a thick strand of water-clogged hair behind my ear. His fingers were cold, but that didn’t stop a heady warmth from spreading from my cheek all the way down to the pit of my stomach. My eyes caught on his lips, and all I wanted in that moment was to be anywhere but on a public beach with a crowd of cops only ten feet away.

“I’m sure there’s some explanation, and they’ll figure it out,” he said in a soft voice, his eyes holding the same heat I felt in my chest. “Not everything bad is supernatural.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” My eyes drifted back to the spot where Megan had died. The police surrounded the area, taking photographs and making notes. “It’s scary, though, to think someone our age could just die like that. For some natural reason.”

“Megan and I were never close friends, but it’s really sad.” Nathan’s voice sounded heavy. “She’s always been around.”

“Since elementary school.”

“Megan Joseph.” He shook his head, the corners of his mouth pulled down by dumbbells, ones that matched the weights squatting on my shoulders. In the frenzy over the idea of a spirit attack, I hadn’t fully processed what tonight meant. Megan Joseph was dead. Like Nathan, I’d never been friends with the popular senior. But she’d been a constant presence for as long as I could remember, just like everyone else at our school. I might not have known her well, but it felt like a loss all the same.

Laura and George wandered over to join us by the fire, finally dismissed by the cops. They both looked as somber as I felt.

“The sheriff said we should help clean up and then go home.” Laura shoved her hands into her hoodie pockets and shivered. “He said they’ve determined it wasn’t foul play.”

Our group fell into an uneasy silence as we moved around the ghost of a party. We doused out the blazing fire with the frigid Atlantic water and stomped out the dying embers, covering them with sand. We gathered up all of the tossed cups and abandoned blankets and hauled them to my truck, along with the half-empty keg.

Once the beach was tidy, we all stood around looking at each other before I finally cleared my throat. “Well, this sucked.”

“Mind giving us a ride home, Nathan?” Laura asked. “You’re the only sober person here.”

“I’ll walk. I’m not far.” George shifted on her feet before meeting Laura’s eyes for a brief moment. “See you guys later.”

We gave George half-hearted waves as she strode down the boardwalk before climbing into Nathan’s car and leaving behind my truck to pick up in the morning. Once the heat was blasting onto our frozen skin, Laura spoke up from the back seat.

“Wasn’t that weird?” Laura asked. “How George wanted to walk home instead of getting a ride with us?”

“She’s probably freaked out,” I said with a shrug. “The first time she hangs out with us, a girl dies right at our feet. If I were her, I’d want to get far, far away ASAP.”

“Yeah, maybe. So much for dull Seaport High beach parties.” It was a joke, but none of us could muster up a laugh.

After Nathan dropped Laura off at her house, he backtracked to take me home. The tires churned on gravel when we pulled into the driveway of the familiar old farmhouse. When I’d been in charge of taking care of everything, the entire outside had faded to a dingy shade of gray despite my repeated attempts to keep it clean. The grass had morphed into stringy weeds. The roof sagged.

Now, the house didn’t look so bad. Sure, it was still tiny and nondescript, but the yard was green and clipped close. The white panels sparkled from a recent wash. And weeds no longer tore through the cracks in the gravel drive. It was a solid reminder that Mom was as healthy as she’d ever been and that life was back to normal, despite the fatal events on the beach tonight.

When we climbed out of Nathan’s car, I noted that the house was devoid of all light and Mom’s new car was in the driveway. A shiny black Honda Civic, courtesy of who knows what. She must have returned from training and gone straight to bed, assuming I was doing a normal teenage activity that didn’t involve death. I motioned for Nathan to follow me around to the side of the house, so Mom wouldn’t hear me sneaking back inside.

Maybe she’d never find out about tonight. That would definitely make life a lot easier.

When we reached my window, Nathan caught my elbow in his hand. He gazed down at me, eyes glittering with something both familiar and strange. A smile played at his lips, and he tugged on a strand of my hair. Sighing, I leaned into him. If only I could invite him inside. If only I could spend the rest of the night curled up against his chest.

“Soon,” he whispered, as if reading my mind. “Once the Expo is over next week, I’m all yours.”

Smiling, I turned to the window. He helped me push it up against the rattling frame before giving me a leg up. His hands found my waist as he lifted me inside, and it took all my willpower not to fall back into his arms.

Nathan leaned his head through the window, his lips brushing mine. My eyelids fluttered shut as my whole body turned to flames. Everything inside of me begged for more.

A throat cleared. “Holly Bennett.”

Heat engulfed my cheeks as I whipped around to see Mom hovering in my bedroom doorway. Her silhouette was backlit by the blazing hallway lamp I hadn’t noticed when I’d clamored through the window, too focused on Nathan’s easy smile.

“Hi, Mom.” I shifted on my feet and bit the insides of my cheeks. “Have a nice training session tonight? Surprised you’re still awake.”

She stepped into the room, and the light spilled onto her face to reveal eyebrows as high as a Gotham skyscraper. “The sheriff called me a few minutes ago. He said you were involved in some sort of accident on the beach.”

I continued to stare at her in silence, not quite sure what to say. Mom had been commanding me to act like a normal teenager for weeks, but I wasn’t entirely sure she included underage drinking and dead bodies on that wish-list.

“Party, beer, swimming dares. All of which led to a girl dying?” Her lips pressed into a white slash. “Any of this ring a bell?”

I shifted on my feet, and my sneakers squished from the ocean water clogged in my socks.

“Um, I’ll take that as my cue to leave. Nice to see you, Mrs. Bennett,” Nathan said through the window in a strained voice. “Sleep well, Holly.”

He disappeared into the night, and I couldn’t have said I blamed him. And now that he was gone, all the imaginary warmth I’d held inside my body went up in a puff of smoke. I hugged my arms to my chest, hair frozen to my scalp. Taking a dunk in the ocean during December seemed like an even worse idea now that I was shivering in my bedroom and watching invisible steam coming out of my mother’s ears.

She crossed her arms. “Well? Say something Holly. You have me worried sick.”

“Laura and I went to a party down at the beach.” I grabbed the terry cloth robe from the hook on the back of my bedroom door and wrapped it around my trembling body. “There was an accident, but it had nothing to do with me.”

“You were drinking and swimming in the ocean, and a girl died. You’re telling me these things weren’t related?”

My chest tightened as I tried to gather my thoughts into something coherent, but since I didn’t totally understand the events at the beach myself, my words came out a mess. “Megan wasn’t even swimming. Something happened. I don’t know. Just before she died, she said it was a spirit.”

Mom twisted a strand of her hair, now devoid of split ends after finally taking a trip to the salon. “A spirit? Was she indoors when this happened?”

My eyelids fluttered shut, remembering the way Megan’s arms and legs twitched like a dying spider against the sandy beach. “No, she was outside. We all were.”

The worry lines on Mom’s forehead disappeared. “It can’t have been a spirit then, Holly. You know that.”

“I know, but…” Sinking down on my bed, I pushed aside a pile of graphic novels and pulled my knees to my chest. “It seemed like a spirit attack. What if things are different now after what happened with Anthony? All those spirits he trapped, let loose on the world. His magic made them rabid. Maybe that wasn’t the only thing it did.”

“Oh, Holly.” Mom’s anger dissipated in a cloud of her perfume as she strode over to the bed and wrapped her arms around me. She spoke low into the top of my head. “You have to stop blaming yourself.”

“Because of me, all those spirits have been let loose on humanity.”

“Because of
Anthony
,” she said. “He’s the one who did what he did. No one else.”

“He trapped them, Mom.” I pulled back and looked up at her through eyes full of unshed tears. “I let them loose.”

“They never should have been trapped in the first place.” She let out a long exhale. “Everything requires balance. It’s one of the most important elements of shamanism and the spirit world, and if I’d taught you how I should have, you’d know this to be true. Anthony made a mistake in what he did, and it seems I have, too.”

I blinked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I think it’s about time I taught you everything you need to know about your heritage and about that magic running through your veins.”

My breath bottled up inside my chest as a smile spread across my face. “You serious?”

“Absolutely.” She met my grin with one of her own. “I know you taught yourself some things, but we need to make sure you understand the rules. You need to learn what you can and can’t do.”

“I hope this means you’ll teach me some spells.” Maybe I wouldn’t have to morph back into regular old Holly Bennett after all. Maybe I could be just-a-girl Holly
and
shaman Holly at the same time.

Mom’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, I’ll teach you some spells.”

“Awesome,” I said. “I can’t wait to tell Laura.”

Mom’s smile slid from her face, and her eyes went distant. “She’ll have to ask her dad about that.”

Mom and Mr. Fisher weren’t really talking these days, even though he’d spent her entire absence poking around the house and asking questions. When he’d discovered she’d been hiding such a serious illness from him, as well as our debilitating lack of money, he took it as an insult. A slap in the face. Mom tried to apologize, though she refused to offer an explanation for why she’d kept the whole situation a secret in the first place. They used to be super close—closer than I’d thought—and he knew all about our shaman powers. And yet, Mom had kept the truth shielded from him. Parents were weird.

Needless to say, Mr. Fisher probably wouldn’t be thrilled about Mom teaching Laura shaman magic, but there was no way I would go forward on this without her by my side. Laura needed to know about our crazy supernatural existence just as much as I did.

“We’ll make sure he’s fine with it,” I said. “So, when can we start? Is tomorrow okay?”

Mom’s smile returned as she laughed. “I should have known you’d be eager. I swear, I never thought you’d turn out to be as into your shaman heritage as you are.”

“It’s not that I’m into the heritage, Mom.” The lightness in my chest disappeared when my mind inevitably returned to Anthony Lombardi’s haunting smile. “It’s about being prepared when the shit hits the fan again.”

CHAPTER 3

W
hen I woke up the next morning, Mom’s red high heels were sitting by the open front door. Outside, the few brittle leaves left on the trees were rattling against the blustery wind. A gust blew into the hallway, knocking the ancient shaman drum from the entry table. I slammed the door shut and placed the drum back where it belonged, wedged between a photo of my grandmother and a glass bowl of random keys that weren’t used for anything anymore. Frowning, I eyed the shoes for several long moments before shuffling into the kitchen.

Mom didn’t notice me hovering in the doorframe as she bustled about, crumpled lists and ziplock bags and tupperware containers scattered around the room like fallen victims in a battle. Our cat, Astral, darted around the mess and shrieked when Mom almost smashed his tail with a massive bag of cat food.

“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice coming out more squeaky than I intended. “What’s with the reorganizing?”

Mom froze before spinning to face me with a too-big smile and a plate full of cookies. “Holly, we need to talk.”

Something gurgled in my stomach, even though the tangled hair plastered to my forehead was evidence I’d just rolled out of bed and hadn’t had a single bit to eat yet. This was all too achingly familiar. The manic smile on Mom’s face, the red heels by the door, the sudden appearance of cookies. Mom was leaving.