Necromancing the Stone (27 page)

“That’s an enlightened way to look at it.”

James looked at me, silver eyes blinking in the dim light. “I suppose so, yes.”

*   *   *

It was dark when we finally got home, and, despite the nap, I was still tired. There was a tranquility to the house, with everyone ensconced in individual activities. I headed to my room with a wave to James. I needed some quiet time to think.

Which was totally not going to happen, because I found Brid curled up asleep in the middle of my bed. It hadn’t been long since James had ordered my new bed, but every time I walked into my room, I was hoping it would be there. Especially now. Brid shouldn’t be curled up on a mattress and a box spring on the floor. Even with the hurt of what was going on, I wanted something better for her than that. She looked pale, and there were bruised patches under her eyes, probably because she wasn’t sleeping, which wasn’t too surprising. People handled grief one of two ways; they either cocooned themselves in blankets and slept too much, or sat hollow-eyed in their living rooms, sleeping too little. I’d learned that when Haden died.

I slid slowly onto the mattress, doing my best not to wake her. Of course, what I should have done was tiptoe out and shut the door so that she could grab some of that much-needed sleep, but I couldn’t quite get over my own selfish need to hold her. Especially since I knew there might not be a next time.

My fingers snagged on the belt loops of her jeans as I slipped an arm around her waist. I curled up closer to her, resting my head behind hers. Her hair tickled my nose, but it was nice to be next to her. She smelled of sweat and the outside, a hint of her orange and sandalwood shampoo under that. There’s something about being close to Brid that makes everything inside me go quiet. It’s a restless feeling I don’t notice until it stops, until I’m with her. She’s my peaceful place.

“You are quite possibly the least smooth guy I know,” she mumbled. “You can’t even put your arm around me without tripping up.”

“Isn’t it amazing how adorable awkwardness can be? I’m actually very suave, but I do these things just to please you.”

She squeezed my arm closer to her in response. We stayed like that for a while, pulling quiet and comfort from each other, knowing full well that it wouldn’t last.

She rolled over and kissed my chin. “What’s that smell?”

I looked down at her as she settled against my chest. “What is it with you and telling me I smell funny?” Some of her first words to me when we met were about how strange I smelled.

“You pick up some very odd aromas sometimes, and they cover up the
you
smell, which I happen to like. So what have you been up to this time?”

“What you’re smelling,” I said, “is the scent of the outdoors. Of rugged manliness. That is the stench of Bigfoot.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Was he sick? Because you also smell like rotting things.”

“Oh, right. What I meant to say was that’s the smell of rugged manliness and Douglas’s putrefying corpse.”

“Gross.”

“Indeed.”

“You realize you’re getting dirt all over your sheets, right?” She plucked at my shirt with her fingers.

“It’s my bed,” I said defensively.

“Just making sure you’re aware. Your sheets, your call.”

I rolled off the bed with a heavy sigh. I’d left my shoes at the door so that I didn’t violate James’s house rule about no shoes past the entryway, but my socks were stiff with sweat and dirt, and the rest of me wasn’t much better. I threw my socks in the hamper, followed by my shirt. Brid catcalled me when I took off my shorts. I threw them at her in response before grabbing a pair of clean jeans to slip into. She tossed them back. I made a show of adding them to the hamper before I jumped back into bed. She giggled, and it was a good sound to hear. I just wished it had lasted longer.

“I’ve missed you,” I said when she’d stopped giggling.

“I know.” She crawled back into my arms. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Me either,” I said. “I feel like I’ve been chasing my tail. Tracking down each little clue or lead. How the hell do detectives do this? It feels like I’ve made zero progress.” I buried my fingers in her hair, pulling it gently until the curls wound over the backs of my nails.

“My dad made everything look so easy.”

I pressed my lips to the top of her head, turning only slightly when I needed to talk. “Yeah, he did. But he’d also been at it a long time.”

“What if I screw up?” It hurt to hear her sound so scared and broken. The Brid I knew was brash and fierce. This side didn’t pop up too often. As I tried to think of a properly reassuring thing to say, I realized that Brid probably didn’t get to let this part of her out on a regular basis. You had to look confident and assured, or people started to lose faith in you.

“People screw up,” I said. “Just try your hardest and fix mistakes as best you can when they happen.”

“Most people would have simply replied ‘you’ll do fine.’”

“I’m not most people.” I hugged her tight and then pulled back so I could look into her eyes. “And you will do fine, but you know that deep down, I’m sure. You’ve had a bad shock, and you’re hurt, and that would shake anyone’s faith. But your dad picked you, Brid. If you can’t dig up faith for yourself, at least trust in his abilities. He knew you could do it.”

She cried then, and I held her while she sobbed. I knew that hurt, and it’s a terrible thing to lose someone who is such a fixture in your life. I’d been having a shit year, but Brid’s was worse. She’d had all my bad days pushed into a few months. The loss of her father, the sudden thrust into a position of power she wasn’t expecting, being kidnapped and tortured by a psycho. It was a lot to take, even for someone as strong as her.

I held her tight to my chest. “I know it’s hard,” I said. “In fact, if there’s anyone who knows, it’s me. That kind of loss and then, right after it, before you can even take a breath, you get sucker punched with your new position.”

Brid shifted so she could look me in the eyes. Hers were puffy, and her face was red and splotchy. I brushed her hair out of her face, running my thumb along her chin. “All those people watching you, waiting for you to screw up. Not helping, just judging and piling more things on you while they do.” I felt my own frustration well up. “But you know, as much as I’d like to complain, I look at you and think, ‘Well, shit, Brid’s had all that at an accelerated pace and she’s not bitching and moaning, is she?’”

“I am a little,” she said with a sniff.

I gave her a bit of a grin. “You’re not wallowing, though. And you know what? Screw those other people. I think you’re doing great.”

“And you’re all that matters?” A hint of a smile played on her lips.

“Why, yes, I think I am.” I put her in a headlock and kissed her forehead again.

“I’m so tired of crying,” she said.

“I know.” I wiped an errant tear away. “If you need a break, I can cry for you for a bit. We can take turns.”

She smiled a little and nudged me. “I just bet you would, sissy.”

“Hey,” I said, pretending to be insulted. “That is one of the advantages of dating a sensitive Beta male. We cry for you, we remember anniversaries, and we might even hold your hair while you vomit. Classy with a capital
C
.”

“I’ve never vomited around you, but I seem to remember helping you while
you
puked.”

I gave her a quick kiss. “Hey, why you got to bring up old shit all the time?”

She laughed and kissed me back. “Thanks, Sam,” she said. Then she kissed me again. This time she didn’t pull back as fast. When she got up to lock my door, I didn’t stop her.

*   *   *

Brid dozed in my arms. I traced aimless patterns on her bare back while I thought. Though I felt pretty worn out myself, I was kind of afraid to go to sleep again. More nightmares were not what I needed right now. In fact, I felt like I had exactly what I did need at the moment, and I wanted to enjoy that.

My window was open, and the warm evening air blew in, bringing the smells of sea and summer with it. I could hear the gnomes yelling something in the distance, and I grinned.

Brid adjusted her position with a grumble and threw an arm over my chest. Her forearm sat awkwardly on my medicine pouch and I had to yank it out from under her, the lump of the egg I’d stashed in there was digging painfully into my chest. Slowly, I reached around the sleeping girl so I could use both hands to pull the jade egg out.

I tossed the medicine bag onto my nightstand and held the egg up so I could see it better. The carving really was exquisite, and even though it had been sitting in the pouch, close to my skin, it was still cold. That was weird, but it made some sense after Ashley saying it had some sort of death magic mixed up in it. I held it in my hand for a minute, fingers tightly closed. The chill remained. Was everything in this house weird? Maybe I was starting to get paranoid. Pretty soon I might accuse the coffeemaker of talking to me or think that the old recliner was the reincarnation of Winston Churchill.

But the house did have some strange things in it. I mean, wasn’t that why I had to take the property in the first place? My lawyer had said something about how normal people couldn’t move in because who knew what Douglas had left behind.

Cautiously, I traced the edges of the egg, looking for hidden latches or something. It seemed too small to hide anything in, but what the hell did I know? Finally, I closed my eyes to try and look at it with my mysterious magicky bits. There was probably a proper name for what I was doing like “using my sight” or my “third eye” or something, but again, what did I know? Very little, and it felt like the more I learned, the more my ignorance increased.

But whatever you wanted to call it, I looked at it and the damn egg lit up like a small moon. A blue, swirling moon. Crap. I recognized that particular nauseating swirl. Whatever kind of magic was involved, Douglas had done it, but was that really a surprise? His house, his egg, his magic. Duh. Still, he was dead. Shouldn’t the magic have deactivated or something? Of course, I had no idea.

My phone rang. I rolled Brid over and jumped out of bed. She woke with a start. “Where’s the fire?”

I ignored her while I pulled my shorts out of the hamper, digging my phone out of one of the pockets. Of course, I missed the call and had to hit a few buttons and call the number back—it wasn’t one I recognized.

“Hi,” the gruff voice said on the other end. “This Sam LaCroix?”

“That depends entirely on who is calling.”

“You realize that by saying that, you’ve basically admitted that you are?”

“No, I implied that I might be, which is not the same thing at all.”

“Fair enough. This is Gary—Murray’s cousin?”

“Oh, right, Sexy … um.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “This is Sam. What’s going on?”

“Right, I’m the sexy one.” And then he made a
rawr
noise into the phone.

Okay. I guess I’d asked for that.

“Murray told you I’ve been seeing some weird stuff out here, right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get the impression that things were urgent. Has something changed?” Brid pulled the sheet up around herself and stared at me, attempting to follow the conversation. I mouthed that I would fill her in later.

“Well, I found a scent that was pretty unnatural and started to close in and, well, I found something. I know it’s getting late, but I think you should see this now. Things being as they are, I think it’s best if I get it out of the woods and bring it to you.”

I hesitated, knowing I needed to ask, but for some reason fearing I already knew the answer. “Is it something that applies to me because I’m Council or because I’m, you know, me?”

“Both, but mostly because you’re you.”

I got up to get a clean shirt before making sure Gary had my address. “How long until you can get here?”

“I’m out toward Cougar Mountain, and I have to gather a few things … maybe forty-five minutes?”

I told him okay and hung up. I stared at my phone for a minute, thinking about what I should do. To trust or not to trust, that was the question. I dialed my mom and asked for Uncle Nick. I didn’t think he had anything to do with it, really, though I wanted to keep open to the possibility, and I figured if he was involved, including him would be the fastest way to find out. After Nick agreed to come over, I got up and finished getting dressed.

Brid pointed at my bureau, where the jeans hung haphazardly, and hopping on one foot, I tried to get them on. I filled Brid in, and about halfway through, she got up and started to get dressed as well.

I leaned in and kissed her quickly on the mouth. She smiled and pulled me in for another kiss. Then I ran for the door. I was halfway out before I remembered something else I was supposed to ask. “Does your pack have a patron saint, deity, creature, or some other thing that I don’t know about?”

Brid nodded, puzzled. “Patron goddess—Bridget. She’s the goddess of hearth, home, and, oddly enough, blacksmithing. I’m named after her—
Bridin
is a derivative of her name. All the firstborn girls in my line are. It’s tradition. Why do you ask?” She finished pulling on her shirt and made to follow me.

“Just wondering.”

After I tripped and almost fell down the stairs, I slowed down. I had no idea why I was in such a damn rush. Nick wouldn’t get here for at least twenty minutes, and Sexy Gary was going to take longer than that. Though it was getting on the later side, just about everyone was still up. I could hear them making a ruckus outside. I peeked out the window and saw Ramon tearing up our new half-pipe. Frank and Sean were seated in the grass, some very awestruck gnomes scattered around them.

James padded up on his little cat feet. He hopped up onto the windowsill. “Just making my rounds. Everything seems fine. What are you doing up?”

His tone told me that he would prefer that I be back in bed getting my sleep.

“Got a call from Murray’s cousin—he’s bringing something over for me to look at. Nick’s coming too.”

“Yes, Ramon mentioned that your uncle was back in town.”