Plague Cult (6 page)

“Su-san Granger!” Thelma’s mouth twitched in a smile. “Where did you learn that language?”

Susan smiled beatifically. “From the dating site I joined.”

Ruth and Shawn shared what they’d learned on their drive to her parents’ farm. She drove.

He rested his elbow on the open window and watched the countryside. “The men whistle at mention of Whitney Stirling, so she’s evidently easy on the eyes, but there’s a hint of unease.”

“Because they fear her husband?” Zach Stirling was the cult’s leader, if it was a cult. Ruth was curious. She hadn’t been able to get a sense of the town’s assessment of him during her time at Thelma’s shop. Or rather, she had, but she hadn’t been able to believe it.

“They like Zach,” Shawn said.

“That was what I heard, too. Do you think it’s real or a charisma charm?” People could be fooled.

“We can’t tell for sure till we meet him, but I’m inclined to think people genuinely like him. With all respect to your hometown, I thought there’d be more suspicion and mistrust of a set up like the Moonlit Hearts Club. Instead, people believe Zach is well-meaning.”

“And Whitney?”

“Could be a city wife going along unwillingly with her husband’s move to the country.”

“Or she could be the one setting the curse,” Ruth said. “Being the power behind the throne suits some people. A cult would be catnip to a manipulative personality.” She turned into the road to her parents’ farm. Now they were travelling along the edge of her family’s land. Her heart squeezed at the sense of connection she felt to it. “Thelma said the waitress who served us last night is one of the cult members.”

“Erica?”

“Yep, her.” Ruth’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She was irrationally irritated that he remembered the woman’s name.
Don’t be stupid
. After all, she’d remembered it.

“Californian accent,” he observed.

She slowed the truck and turned into her parents’ driveway. It wound up to the house, currently hidden by trees. The driveway dipped down, then back up, and there was the farmhouse. It was a solid 1950s ranch her grandparents had built after a fire destroyed the original wooden house. Beyond it were the two barns and other outbuildings. She drove around to the back of the house and parked near the pecan tree, but just out of reach of late-falling nuts.

The kitchen door opened immediately and her mom stood there. “Right on time. If you just call your dad…”

“I’m here.” Joe Warner walked out of the large barn.

“Dad.” Ruth ran across and gave him a hug. She and her family might be distant, but she loved them. She’d missed them.

Her dad was an undemonstrative man, but his hug was firm, and when she drew back to look at him, she saw he was staring at Shawn. Judging him.

And Shawn was staring back, not challengingly or offensively, but with his own assessment. His hazel eyes were narrowed, either against the midday sun or in thought.

“Helen says you’ll be helping Ruth with her house,” Joe said as he shook Shawn’s hand.

“I’ll be knocking out the kitchen.”

“Ruth, you’ll have to think what you want to do with it.” Helen pushed the door wide for them all to troop in, wiping their feet on the mat first, and with Joe ambling off to wash his hands. Her kitchen sparkled. Granite countertops and subway tile splashbacks showed that she’d gone modern in last year’s renovation.

Ruth liked the clean, modern look in the farmhouse. It suited her mom who, although she loved cooking, was more about practicality than olde worlde charm. For Rose House, though, Ruth wanted an old-fashioned kitchen. Not a modern island for more workspace, but an over-sized wooden table. Something to match wooden countertops and cupboards.

“Earth to Ruth,” Shawn said. “Your mom asked you to get the bowls out, and since I can smell how good that soup is, I don’t want any delay.” He smiled to show his teasing, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, especially when he looked in her mom’s direction.

Helen stood uncertainly by the stove, spoon poised above the soup pot, ready to go and get the bowls herself.

Ruth snapped back to attention. “Sorry, Mom. I was thinking of kitchen renovations. The soup does smell good. Is it your minestrone?”

“Yes. I thought the day was cold enough that we’d enjoy it. I made soda bread as well.”

They sat at the table, Joe said a simple grace, and the meal began.

Ruth intended to edge the conversation around to the cult.

Shawn, however, took the conversation in a different direction. “How much do you know about Ruth’s work?” he asked her parents.

She stared at him.

He ignored her and looked at Helen and Joe.

“Ruth’s a paramedic,” Helen began.

Ruth broke in. “Shawn works for the Collegium, too. He knows my cover story and the truth.” Which was why he ought to have known better than to bring it up.

“You are a paramedic, though.” Helen glanced at Shawn. “She graduated top of her class.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.” He ate some soup. “And this tastes as good as it smells.”

Helen smiled a little. “There’s plenty more in the pot. I made extra to freeze.”

“Why do you ask if we know about Ruth’s work?” Joe asked.

“It’s her work that brings us here.”

Ruth sat back in her chair and frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

“We want the inside knowledge of Bideer. Your parents are among the few that know magic is real. I’m going to ask for their help.”

Joe put down his spoon. “What’s wrong?”

“Dad, it’s—” She stopped. She could hardly say that a potential plague was “nothing”.

“Someone’s cursing people in Bideer. It could have serious consequences beyond the immediate victims.” Shawn walked the narrow line between honesty and freaking out her parents with mention of a plague.

“Victims?” Helen put a hand to her throat.

“No one we know, Mom,” Ruth said hurriedly. “A man travelling through died a few days ago.”

“The one that had a heart attack in the bank?” Helen asked.

“It probably looked like a heart attack,” Ruth conceded, spooning up some soup, trying to look casual.

“What does that mean?” Her dad frowned at her.

She went with a literal answer. “His heart ruptured.”

Helen shuddered. “From a curse? But who in town would…those new people! The ones at the river camp.”

Ruth wasn’t sure if her mom had a touch of second sight or had surrendered to a natural tendency to blame outsiders. “It could be. We’d like to know more about them.”

“Erica, she’s a waitress at the diner, came to town to join them. Or maybe she was already a member.” Abstracted, Helen ate some soup.

Ruth nodded. “Thelma told me a bit about Erica. Thelma also mentioned that Jared Hill was involved with the club.”

“Yes. He comes in and talks with Erica sometimes. He always sits where he knows she’ll serve him. I thought it was cute.” Helen looked upset. “Both of them jilted, lonely, but finding each other. I’d hoped they’d get together.”

“Maybe they will,” Shawn said, quite gently. “The club mightn’t be the problem, and even if it is, there’s no saying that Erica or Jared are part of the evil.”

“A curse is evil.” Joe spread butter on a second slice of soda bread. “We don’t have any magic to speak of, but my dad did. It was he who knew to put Ruth in contact with the Collegium. They could give her the help and guidance to control her healing magic. He always took talk of cursing seriously. Ill-wishing, he said, could slide a soul right down to hell.”

Ruth glanced at Shawn, the hollerider.

Shawn watched her dad.

Joe bit into his bread, chewed and swallowed. “You’re asking us if we’ve felt that evil in town.”

“Maybe not true evil,” Shawn said. “But malice, malevolence. A person or a place that you’ve taken to avoiding because it feels wrong.”

“I haven’t had any feeling like that from Erica or the group she and Jared belong to,” Helen said. “I don’t like Whitney, but then, why would I? That woman makes the rest of us look dowdy. But I did hear Erica and Jared talking yesterday…”

“Mom?”

But Helen was looking at Shawn. “What is your magic? Are you a healer like our Ruth?”

“No, ma’am. I’m trained in combat magic. Ruth is here to detect and heal any trouble connected with the curse, and because this is her home. I’m along as muscle.”

Helen nodded. “Well, then, I’ll tell you. I don’t want Ruth going along, but you look capable enough.” Shawn grinned. “Erica and Jared were talking about a meeting at the river camp, tonight. Healing Hearts Ranch they call it. Eleven o’clock, which seemed late for a meeting to me.”

But which was timely if the curse caster wanted to use the power of midnight. The nape of Ruth’s neck tingled. “Thanks, Mom.”

Helen’s mouth tugged down at the corners, her lips thinning. She rubbed the fingers of her left hand over the knuckles of her right in a gesture of distress. “Is this what you do, Ruth? You chase curses?”

“Rarely, Mom.” And thank goodness that was true. Ruth didn’t elaborate on how other diseases might emerge as magical anomalies, side effects of rogue or untrained mages’ activities, and how she’d go into the field to combat them. Her parents did know that she responded to natural disasters and other emergencies alongside mundane medical workers. Her healing magic significantly improved survival and recovery rates.

Joe looked at Shawn. “Is Ruth’s work dangerous?”

“Dad!”

“Sometimes,” Shawn said.

“Were you ever in the marines or was that a cover story for your presence in Bideer?” Joe asked.

Shawn finished his soup. “I was embedded with a marine unit for a year overseas.”

“And with that experience, you still call Ruth’s work dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it all.” Joe pushed back from the table.

Ruth stared at him, shocked. Her dad never swore, certainly never in front of Helen or her.

“We did our best,” Joe said to her.

She nodded, although she wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“When your magic showed, Dad recognized it.” Joe’s hands clenched and unclenched. “Healers’ magic. So gosh-darn powerful that you saved Mason’s life.”

“And left him paralyzed,” she said bitterly.

Thwack!
Joe slapped the table.

Ruth and Helen jumped. Shawn sat and watched.

“That boy is my nephew.” Joe was angry for all that he never raised his voice. A vein pulsed at his left temple. “But Mason needs to grow up. And you, Ruth, and you, Helen, need to let him. This whole darn family babies him. As if being in a wheelchair is something we all have to make up to him.”

“He’s paralyzed, Dad. He never got to join the army. He can’t join his friends in so many things. His life—”

“His life! He’s alive.” Joe, who never shouted, shouted now. “Did he ever say thank you for saving him? I was there. They phoned me to tell me about Mason’s accident and to come get you, and I was there just as fast as the ambulance. I lifted you away from Mason. Your hands were covered in his blood, and you were so white, so…gone, it was like you’d been in the accident with him.”

Joe stood and braced his hands on the table. “Your granddad recognized it. Powerful healers’ magic. You nearly died that night, Ruth. You had no training. Dad warned us.” Joe glanced at Helen. “If we didn’t get you training, you wouldn’t learn your limits. You had too much talent, too much magic, for us to understand. So we let you go.”

He sat down again. “We let you go.” He stretched out his hand to Helen, who clasped it. “And we lost you.”

“We don’t understand your magic, Ruth,” Helen said quietly. “We didn’t know how to help you with all that magic growing and stretching in you. You would heal people. I’d see it. Little things…how none of your friends had acne, how the old people would talk with you and their rheumatism would ease. I was so scared when you were young that you would wear yourself out healing the world.” Her attempt at a smile wobbled. “If I could have locked you up on the farm, safe from wanting to save everyone, I would have. And now, you’re out in the dangerous world, doing dangerous things.”

“But not alone, Mom.” Ruth didn’t know what to say. Her whole view of her adolescence shifted and tumbled. “I have a partner or a team. Shawn’s with me for this mission.”

“The Collegium gave you what we couldn’t,” Joe said heavily.

“No! No.” Ruth responded to the regret and loss in her dad’s voice and face. “No. They trained me and I work with them. I use my magic, my healer’s gift for a purpose. But they never replaced family. You.” Her breathing shuddered, becoming jagged with suppressed tears. “I knew…I thought…you blamed me for Mason’s paralysis. That’s why you withdrew. There was this barrier between us.” She looked at her parents.

They looked back, horrified and appalled.

“Darling, no,” her mom said. “Oh dear heaven. There was guilt, so much guilt after Mason’s accident. If I hadn’t brought that bottle of whisky into the diner and left it there overnight because I’d forgotten the fruit to soak for the Christmas cake, he couldn’t have stolen it.”

Joe’s shocked, dawningly angry gaze shifted from his daughter to his wife. “Both of you blamed yourselves for that idiot’s decisions?”