Soul Whisperer (6 page)

“That's right. I see and hear only what has already occurred but it is usually enough to discover supernatural interference with mankind and identify simple murderers.”

She glanced about the busy room and then back to him. “Can you witness an animal's death?”

He was about to ask to what purpose, when he remembered the mountain lion shifter and nodded.

“That's interesting. And you said you are a Truth Seeker. I have heard of that. How does it work exactly?”

“I can tell if someone is lying by touching them.” Except her, apparently. He kept that bit of information back, for it was foolish to tell an enemy your weaknesses.

“You can read minds?” she asked.

“That's not exactly how it works. I have to ask a question.”

“Show me.”

He really should have expected that. He pushed back the strong urge to touch her. Her silly ultimatum had now trapped him. Cesar stared out at her from the corner he had backed himself into. He'd have to use some stranger as illustration or she'd discover herself immune to his Truth Seeking gift. And so there would be no taking of her hands, no asking her everything he wanted to know and no satisfaction in learning all her secrets. He had read every woman he'd ever met for more than a century.

But not Bess.

She was the exception to his rule and that fact both annoyed and fascinated.

B
efore he could get himself into further trouble, the waiter turned up carrying a tray laden with sweets, capturing Bess's attention. He decided the wisest way to demonstrate his Truth Seeking was to do so on a human. That way he wouldn't have to reveal that he could not read the answers to questions he posed to her.

“Have we saved room for dessert?” asked the waiter.

Cesar sat bemused as Bess leaned in to inhale.

“They all smell delicious,” said Bess as if she hadn't eaten in days.

“Which do you recommend?” said Cesar, lightly brushing the back of the man's hand.

Bess went silent as she witnessed the gesture and her eyes flashed from one to the other.

“Oh, the chocolate lava cake is our bestseller.”

“And you recommend it because it is the most expensive and you are out of the crème brûlée.”

The waiter flushed. “The cherry cobbler is also excellent.”

“I'll try the cobbler,” she said without taking her attention from Cesar.

“Coffee, black,” he said.

The waiter smiled weakly and retreated.

“So you just ask a question and then touch them for the answer?” she asked.

“That's it.”

“Try me.” She offered her hand, palm up.

He already knew he couldn't read her, because he had tried and failed on several occasions. It was one thing to know he couldn't tell if she was lying, quite another to let her know. So he stalled.

“That would be rude.”

“I insist.” Her eyes held a challenge.

“Bess, we both know what will happen when I touch you. It's why we're here.”

She extended her hand to him.

“How do you stay so slim?” he asked, and clasped her hand in his.

“I work out two hours a day on a treadmill.” Her words trailed off and she stilled as her soft mouth parted.

But he barely heard her answer, because the brush of his palm on hers sent tendrils of excitement all the way to his heart, which began galloping as if he'd just been given a shot of adrenaline. He saw the sheen of moisture appear on her face and the lovely blossoming of pink creep up her neck and into her cheeks. She pulled back, but he tightened his grip instinctively, unwilling to let her go. His mind engaged a moment later and he opened his hand, releasing her.

“Wow,” he said.

“Did you get an answer?”

“All I know is that I don't want to wait for dessert.”

She made a sound in her throat and then wiped her hands on her napkin as if trying to remove all evidence of his touch. But her breathing gave her away. The woman was like heroin. Each time he touched her, he wanted more. He reached and she dropped her hands from the table to her lap, protecting herself from him.

“Does that happen when you touch anyone?”

He shook his head.

“Just me?”

He inclined his chin.

She pursed her lips as if giving a silent whistle. “What's happening between us?”

“I'm not sure. But I can't read you, Bess.”

There. He'd said it.

Her expression still looked grave. “I'm glad you told me.”

“That's not all. I have one more power.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Three. Isn't that unusual?”

He nodded. “I was born a Truth Seeker and my parents were pleased. My father had the same gift. I developed the other two after…” He'd almost said after his brother's death. But he stopped himself just in time. “I didn't discover I was a Soul Whisperer until after I went through puberty.”

Bess held his gaze in a speculative sort of way that made him think she had noticed his blunder. But she let it go.

“That's the way it is for Skinwalkers. We turn and our mentor arrives to take us from our families. If the Inanoka who sired us is a part of the family, they might choose to act as mentor and take their son or daughter
away for training. I knew what I was since birth, so my change was less traumatic than some.”

She scrunched up her mouth and her eyes grew glassy before she dropped her chin. Her hair fell like a dark curtain, shielding her face from his scrutiny. Her father had been killed by his people after the war. So her father could not have been her mentor.

She lifted her chin and forced a smile. “So what's giftie number three?”

“I can make people forget they ever met me.”

She laughed. But when he did not join in she fell silent, studying him once more.

“How is that possible?

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“So why don't you make all of your people forget that you are a Soul Whisperer?”

“Doesn't work like that. I can only remove one memory at a time and only if I touch them.”

“Does it work on Skinwalkers?”

“I'm not sure. I never tried.”

She drew her chair back several inches and did not ask him to demonstrate this gift. The vibration of her aura showed apprehension.

“It's called Memory Walking.”

“Have you used it on your kind?”

“It's against the law to do so without the permission of the District Council.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“No.”

She shifted in her seat, uneasy now. “You'd make an excellent thief.”

“I suppose, if I lacked a moral compass. I'm an FBI special agent, remember?”

She didn't smile. “And you'd make a fine rapist.”

Cesar couldn't let that accusation slide off his back so easily. “I don't use my powers to take advantage of women. I use them to help find bad guys.”

She held his gaze for a good long while and he glared back, waiting for her to call him a liar. It was a deal breaker. He didn't need her or anyone else badly enough to have them call him that.

“All right then, Soul Whisperer, Truth Seeker and the invisible man.”

“Memory Walker.”

“Cesar?” She stared earnestly at him and he wondered what else she could possibly want to know. “Before, when you mentioned not learning you were a Soul Whisperer until after you hit puberty?”

He knew he was sitting across from her, but he also saw ahead to what she was about to say and at the same time, back to the day he learned what he was. He didn't want her to go there, to finish what she started, but he sat there in mute silence waiting for her to ask, fearing for her to ask, knowing she would ask.

“What where you about to say, before you stopped yourself?”

He paused, feeling the familiar clamping down in his gut as he lowered his shields against such invasions.

Cesar exhaled through his nose as if trying to remove a dreadful stink from his nostrils.

Her voice was a low whisper. “I think you must have touched a dead body. Am I right?”

He lifted his water glass, all that was left to him by the overzealous waitstaff, and took another swallow, but was unable to dislodge the lump in his throat. Most days he only thought of Carlos a time or two. But some days were worse.

He read sympathy in her encouraging smile.

“Who was it, Cesar?”

He fiddled with his tie clip for a moment, trying to decide. It would be good to say it out loud to one who understood some of the issues faced by Halflings. He gave himself permission to tell her part of it.

“We were living among the humans in Illinois. Just three families, Dream Walkers, Truth Seekers and a few Peacemakers. My dad was a Truth Seeker and my mother a Dream Walker. He was elected to the state judiciary and she worked in a hospital. They supposed that we would have one of their gifts.”

If she wondered who “we” included, she did not ask, just sat still as he went on. He drew his napkin through his hands, strangling it beneath the snowy white cloth, trying to pretend she wasn't listening.

“That's usually the way. I manifested the Truth Seeker gift very early. Niyanoka are born with our gifts, but my brother, Carlos, did not seem to have one.”

There, he'd said his name aloud. He glanced at her. Bess kept her steady dark eyes fixed upon him, but did not interrupt or try to fill the long silence.

“It troubled my parents greatly. My father used his ability to ask Carlos if he had any powers and my mother walked in his dreams, but his capabilities remained a mystery. I tried once, but I got such a headache I had to quit.”

“Strange,” she said. “Our second form comes only after we are grown.”

“Spirit Children occasionally develop late. It is not unheard-of, but it caused a strain. We moved a lot. There is a ten-year maximum per locality for Niyanoka with children, twenty if you don't. Keeps folks from noticing that we don't age.”

Bess nodded her understanding of this. Likely she
moved around as well. “But my parents were ready to leave early. I'm not sure if it was because they were embarrassed about Carlos or because they were both ill. Our healers suggested a different climate. Carlos didn't want to leave his friends, human ones. He didn't understand yet that such friendships were temporary. We moved and Carlos was miserable. He didn't like the small town in Georgia. There was nobody his age close by. I was fourteen, was interested in girls and I didn't want him bothering us.” He pressed his hand over his mouth as the wave of grief made his stomach flip. He closed his eyes at the memories.

He'd never told anyone this much, not a human or a Spirit Child. Yet here he was about to spill his guts. He pulled back, clamping his lips tight and shaking his head. He wouldn't say it aloud. Not to her. Not to anyone.

His coffee arrived and the waiter confirmed that she did not want coffee or tea, then deposited her cobbler and vanished into the crowded room.

The steaming coffee nearly burned him as he tried to swallow it. Bess did not touch her cobbler and seemed more intent on his story.

Cesar thought about what came next and the black grief rushed in like a rising tide, swallowing him whole. Then Bess laid a hand upon his and his breathing got easier. A gentle calm rippled out from the point of contact, carrying with it the recognition that her curiosity came only from concern for him.

She released him, sitting back. One look at her and he knew she had not come away from the brief touch so well. She clamped her jaw, working the muscle there as he took in how pale she now looked.

“Finish it,” she whispered, keeping her intent gaze upon him. Her eyes told him that she already knew.

He recognized that she had experienced his grief as he had absorbed her serenity. He didn't want her to know what happened next.

It occurred to him only then that he could tell her and then afterward make her forget the conversation. He could unburden himself, release the demons he carried locked in his heart and let one person know how deeply he bled. Then he could take back the memory, reabsorb the tiny bit of energy that held those recollections, so that she did not have the power to use this information against him.

“Yes,” he said. “I'll finish. This was summer, 1893. My friends and I built a tree house way up in a big old oak behind the house. I wouldn't let Carlos up there. It was off-limits. He tried to talk me into letting him up, but I chased him off. Told him it was his fault we had to leave our old home.”

He rubbed his temples. She reached for him again, but he lifted his hand to stop her.

“Don't. I can do this without your help. Carlos left the house that night.” Cesar's voice broke. “He climbed up into that damned oak tree and shinnied out on the limb.”

“Oh, Cesar. No.” She reached again.

He pushed his chair back, evading, while needing to hurry to get this out before the tears choked him. “I heard him scream and I was the first one there. When I touched him I could see from his eyes. I thought I was falling.” Cesar pressed his hand over his eyes at the memory, still feeling that drop. “I let go then, not understanding what was happening.”

He removed the protective cover of his hand and
stared at her, needing her to understand that terrible day. The day he lost his brother and discovered what he was.

“I was touching my first corpse and I was experiencing his death. I started screaming for Mom and Dad. I told them how he fell.”

Cesar used his index finger to follow the crease in the center of the tablecloth but in his mind, it was over a hundred and twenty years ago and he was crying in the wet grass beneath the great oak with the fireflies blinking all about him.

He spoke just above a whisper, the shame choking him, but he forced his words past the clamping fingers of disgrace. “When I told them all that, my father thought I'd been there and I hadn't stopped Carlos. He attacked me, slapped me in the face while my mother screamed. I tried to tell him that I didn't know until after I'd touched him. If I had understood what would happen next I would have let him beat me, kill me. Anything would have been better than having them discover what I was.”

“You didn't know until that day you were a Soul Whisperer.”

He lowered his head. “You have to touch a body to know. My father figured it out. When he had me by the neck, he read the truth. It was as if I had suddenly become contagious. He leaped away and dragged my mother back toward the house. ‘Whisperer,' he told her, and pulled her inside. I wasn't welcome under their roof after that.”

“But you were only fourteen.”

He shrugged. “My parent's told the cops that I had pushed my brother to his death and they arrested me.”

“But you didn't.”

“I learned about my memory gift in reform school. Came in handy to erase the guard's memories.”

“What about your parents?”

“I haven't seen them since that night.” He finally lifted his head and saw her pitying expression. That ripped a new hole in him. Thank God she wouldn't remember this conversation. He couldn't stand to see that look again.

“But you did nothing wrong. I don't understand how they could abandon you.”

“It's just custom. Soul Whisperers are unclean.”