The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (6 page)

The waitress came back and took our orders, Eggs Sardou with spinach and shrimp for Timber, and Eggs Jennifer, which was essentially the same thing minus the shrimp, for me. “As to that, I have an alternative to your busses. But we can do as you think best.”

The same, strange deference he had shown me after the session. What was up with that? I allowed myself to gaze at him over the rim of my coffee cup, using my Sight as well as my eyes. His energy felt odd, almost low behind the overflowing masculinity. His face seemed pale, and his blue eyes were shadowed.

“Are you all right?” I heard myself ask. “You don’t look very well.”

“So speaks the witch. Aye, I’m well. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I walked a bit. This is a fine town for walking.”

“Did you walk the creek path?”

“No, just the streets.” His eyelids flickered, as if the words recalled something to mind he didn’t much like. He had very long lashes. “What’s the creek path?”

“Just what it sounds like. A walking and biking trail that runs along Boulder Creek from downtown to Fifty-Fifth Street. You should check it out while you’re in town.”

“Perhaps I shall. When I feel the need to walk again.”

He fell silent, drinking his coffee and gazing at me. I wished he would stop. It made me feel as though he expected something from me, and I had no idea what. A couple of times, I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out; I hated making small talk. Both times, I covered by gulping my own coffee. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say, at breakfast with a virtual stranger, whom I had been thinking about taking to bed? Oh, gods.

To my relief, our food came after not too long a wait. Timber tore into his with ravenous hunger, his teeth strong and white. I ate more slowly, wishing I had remembered to ask for a half-order; Lucile’s served up enormous portions. When Timber had finished, I waved the waitress down and requested a box and the bill. My companion made to snatch the latter out of my hand.

“Let me get that.”

“No.” I fished in my fanny pack for some cash. “In fact, I will,” I added, just to irritate him.

He frowned. “I can pay for my own meal.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I wouldn’t think that journeyman shamans are exactly rolling in dough.”

The frown deepened to a scowl. Evidently, financial matters touched Timber’s manly pride.

“Oh, come on. It won’t kill you to let me buy you breakfast.”

His lips twitched as he stood up. “I’m astounded you’d want to. But very well; as long as you let me buy you a meal some time.”

I gave him a suspicious glance out of the corner of my eye. Was he asking me for a date? His face revealed nothing, and I shrugged.

“Fair enough. Let’s get this show on the road, then.”

I led the way off the porch, but when I would have started toward Spruce Street, Timber cleared his throat.

“I said I had an alternative to your busses, aye?” He jerked his head in the direction of the curb. Parked in front of the restaurant was a car so horrible I wondered that I hadn’t noticed it before: a ’78 Pacer done up like a pair of Levi’s blue jeans. Doubtless I had blocked the sight from my memory before it could register.

“Good gods. Please tell me you didn’t rent that thing.”

Timber snorted, with mirth or disgust, I couldn’t tell. “Aye, well. Journeyman shamans aren’t exactly rolling in dough.” My horror must have shown on my face, for he burst into outright laughter. “Of course not. I borrowed it.”

“Who from?” I hoped Timber’s idea of borrowing didn’t involve crossing certain wires under the dashboard.

“My sister. Get in.”

I did so, taking care with the genuine copper rivets in the denim upholstery. “You have a sister?”

“Aye.” He managed somehow to fold his big frame into the seat and started the engine. “Four, in fact. But only the one in town. I’m staying with her.”

“Convenient.”

“Aye.” He backed the car out of its spot without a glance over his shoulder, veered across Fourteenth Street and around the corner onto Spruce. “It may be a reason Mitch, my teacher, sent me. Though he had others.”

His face closed off all of a sudden; he hadn’t meant to share so much. I had no intention of letting him remain silent, however.

“So he did tell you something. About what Stonefeather’s done.”

He hesitated, then sighed. “Not much. Just that I’d find it particularly educational.”

And I couldn’t get any more out of him until we got back to the shop.

Once inside, Timber followed me back into the kitchen, where I stowed my breakfast leftovers in the fridge and hunted up a phone book.

“This shouldn’t be too hard.” I unhooked the kitchen phone from the wall and dragged it over to the table. “There’s only the two hospitals, Foothills and Community.”

I punched up the number for Boulder Community Hospital first, as it was the larger of the two and I figured my chances were better there. As I waited for an answer, I surreptitiously turned my face away from my companion’s intent gaze, not wanting him to see how uncomfortable this whole process made me. I hated making phone calls to people I didn’t know, but I felt a perverse need to prove myself.

“Boulder Community Hospital.” The nasal voice in my ear made me jump.

“Ummm.” I twisted the phone cord around my fingers. “I’m trying to find out if someone has been admitted in the last few days. An older man. Native American.”

“Are you a relative?”

“Ummm, no. A friend. But I need to know…”

“I’m sorry. We can’t give out any information except to family members.”

“It’s just that he’s…”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry. Hospital policy. Ask his family to call.”

“But he doesn’t…”

The line went dead, and I raised my eyes to see Timber’s grimace. I felt myself go red.

“You’re not very good at this, are you?” he observed.

“I’m a terrible liar.”

“Aye, I can see as much. Give that here.” He grabbed the phone from me and hit “redial.” I watched his energy shift as he waited for the receptionist to pick up. His handsome face shaped itself into friendlier, more open lines, and his whole body seemed to radiate even more confidence, if such a thing was possible. Turning on the charm again.

“I didn’t think that would work over the phone,” I muttered.

“Whist.” He flipped the fingers of his free hand at me, not taking his attention from what he was doing. “Good morning. I hope you can help me. I’ve just heard my uncle’s been in an accident.” A pause. “Aye, well. It might have been a day or two ago. My father’s the next of kin, but he’s in…Florida. And I’ve been…rock climbing. For the weekend. And Da was upset, ken, and not too clear on the details. And we don’t exactly know which hospital my uncle is in.” Another pause, while I watched Timber feed energy down the phone line.
What a crock of shit,
I thought.
She can’t possibly buy it.

But it appeared that she did, for Timber’s mouth curved in a broad, self-satisfied smile.

“Well, it would be very kind of you. The name is Stonefeather. John Stonefeather. A Native gentleman. No? Ah, it must be Foothills, then. Thank you so much. I’ll try to do just that.”

He plunked the receiver down in the cradle and smirked at me. “He’s not there.”

“I gathered. So you have a Native uncle, now?”

“It’s not so far from the truth. Mitch has been like a father to me, and one might consider Stonefeather his brother. Of a kind. So…” He shrugged and pulled the phone book closer, to look up the Foothills hospital number. “To lie really well, you have to be able to believe what you’re saying, ken. That’s the only way you can make the mark believe it as well.”

“Mark?” Oh great. Timber MacDuff appeared to be a con artist as well as a shaman. Of course, some people would have considered the two one and the same.

“Hush.”

He rang up Foothills and repeated the entire performance, with the same results, alas. Neither hospital knew anything about John Stonefeather.

“They might not have made him, though,” Timber remarked as he hung up for the second time.

“Maybe not. Though I assume he carries some form of I.D.” I considered. “I suppose we can try the police station.”

“I dinna think that will be necessary,” Timber said almost at once, the burr in his voice broadening. Interesting how it came and went. Almost as if the accent or lack of it indicated his emotional state. A kind of barometer. I wondered why Timber might be wary of bringing in the forces of the law and decided I really did not want to know.

We left the shop and piled into the car again, Timber glancing at me for directions.

“Hang a right on Eighth and another on Pine, then a left on Broadway,” I instructed. “Then keep going. It’s a few miles.”

Timber gave a grunt of acknowledgment and pulled away from the curb. For a time we drove in silence. Then, as we passed Community Hospital and got into the less densely-populated part of town, he said,

“Have you lived here long, then?”

“Five years. No. Six, now. I came for college and just never left. Happens to a lot of people.”

“Aye, I expect Spruce will be the same.”

“Spruce?”

“My sister.”

The one he was staying with, I remembered. “She’s at CU?” He nodded, not taking his eyes off the road. “What’s she’s studying?”

But he didn’t want to talk about his sister. “So you like it here?”

I shrugged. “Well enough. It’s interesting. There’s room for what I do. I have a place, of a sort.”

“Always a good thing,” he said, his voice even. But his face got its strange, shuttered look again, and he fell silent once more.

Up past Iris and the county health buildings, into North Boulder. I knew this area pretty well, as I had lived in a trailer park north of Violet in my student days. Then, people had still kept sheep and chickens in their backyards; you could hear them at night, when the usual daylight sounds died down. It was getting more built up now. I spied a coffee shop that hadn’t been there before, and the new foundations of what looked like a mini-mall. Half a mile later, we came to the strip club, strange and out of place in all the new construction. Up ahead, a service road led off to the left.

“There,” I said, touching Timber’s arm. It seemed to me he stiffened, and I hastily took my hand away. The memory of his warm skin and the muscle beneath it lingered in my fingers.

A hundred yards up the service road, a driveway led to the storage units, a horseshoe of corrugated steel buildings set in pitted asphalt. A chain link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the area, but the gate stood open. Timber pulled over and parked.

“24-31, wasn’t it?” He glanced around a mere moment before striding off unerringly to the right side of the horseshoe. I thought he must be exceptionally long-sighted; I couldn’t make out the unit numbers at all. It didn’t occur to me to question him, however. My stomach had started churning as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, and the closer we got to where Timber was heading, the worse I felt.

He halted in front of a unit a little bigger than a single-car garage. The door, of course, was pulled down to the ground and secured with a padlock. I thought that might pose a problem. I had reckoned without my companion.

“Back in a minute,” he said, turning for the car. But when he caught sight of my face, he hesitated, frowning with concern.

“Are you all right?”

I swallowed bile. “It’s bad.”

“Do you want to wait in the car?”

“I want to go home. But I’ll see it out.”

He nodded and jogged back to where we had left the Pacer, returning in short order, a small roll of denim tied with a thong clutched in one hand. This, when opened, proved to contain an assortment of metal implements resembling a dental hygienist’s tools. I knew they weren’t, though.

“I thought we might need these.” Timber squatted down to inspect the lock before selecting a couple of the picks.

“You could have brought bolt cutters.” Swallowing another surge of nausea, I glanced over my shoulder to be sure we weren’t being observed.

“Too obvious.” The lock gave a click that seemed as loud as a gunshot to my rattled senses. “Aye, that’s got it.”

Looping the lock over the hasp, he stood and opened the door. And cursed.

“Stay back.”

Timber thrust me behind him. Tension rolled off of him as if he expected an attack, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would protect me with his life, if necessary.

No attack came. Only a miasma of frustration, terror, pain, and uncontained rage rolled out of the open door, washing over me like a foul smell. I gagged and my knees buckled.

“Steady.” Timber caught me by the shirt and hauled me to my feet. Then he turned back to the open door.

“There’s nothing here now, I think. But something was.”

He stood aside to let me see, and I pulled in a sharp breath.

The studio had been trashed.

Chapter Six

I
had some experience of the natural clutter of a working artist’s studio. This wasn’t it. The place looked like a battlefield after a recent war. Just from the doorway, I could see how racks of tools had been ripped off the walls and thrown about. Drum frames lay shattered and broken everywhere. Strips of torn rawhide festooned every surface, sprinkled with bits of ornament—beads and feathers and shiny metal charms—that seemed to have spilled from an overturned chest. Near the door, several one-gallon paint buckets had been virtually torn apart, splattering pigment everywhere.

“Gods,” Timber breathed. “I’ve seen some bad things, but this…”

His voice trailed off into an uneasy silence. I thought it might have been the first time he had got a clear idea of what his teacher had sent him into.

Side by side, we took a few wary steps into the studio, keeping to the shaft of light from the open door. There were a few narrow windows ranged along the back wall, but, as Kevin had said, they were covered by heavy shades. I had an almost overpowering sense of hidden things looming over us from the shadowed corners of the space. My gorge rose, and I swallowed convulsively.

“All right?” Timber asked again.

I shook my head. “No. You?”

“I’ll do. Let’s see what there is to be seen, aye?”

Pain, rage, frustration, terror. Innumerable nameless emotions battered me, washing me in darkness. I groped for a shield, then remembered Timber needed me to feel what I felt, and let it go.

“What are you picking up?” he asked, on cue.

“Lots of emotions.” I shivered. “Dark ones. Lots of intensity. Violence for the sake of violence.”

“Anywhere in particular?”

I wandered farther into the room, avoiding a puddle of paint. A long work table took up most of the center of the space. A series of deep gouges marred its top. I would have thought them the marks of chisels, save for the tarry psychic sludge oozing out of them. What could have done that? Talons?

“Here.” Against my will, though all my instincts screamed at me to turn and run, I walked deeper into darkness. I found a nearly completed drum, the head punched through, the frame twisted and smashed. I wondered if it was Kevin’s.

“Here.” Again, I forced myself to face the shadows, stepping out of the spill of light from the door and making my way to the studio’s far corner. A dark bundle lay near the wall, emanating menace. I tasted bile, sharp and bitter. Beside the bundle, something white and broken. A smell rose up of dead things and dumpsters and uncleaned latrines. I squinted, trying to make out what I saw, forcing down the gibbering sense of panic in my throat. A hide. A skull. Not human: animal. A bison skull, bashed through the forehead. And yes, a bison hide. Someone…some
thing
had defecated on it, deposited a horrible pile that stank like a plague pit. The force of the contempt rising from it hit me like a punch to the gut.

“Here. Here is the worst,” I said, and choked.

“What is it?” Timber had come up behind me so silently I hadn’t noticed. Or maybe I had been too caught up in the awfulness of the place to notice.

I turned around to face him. “I’m going to puke.”

I ran for the door, didn’t make it, and fell to my knees in a puddle of something I didn’t want to think about, heaving and retching.

“Hell.” Work boots ran after me, and Timber was there, kneeling beside me and shoving something under my face: an empty five-gallon bucket. I felt his big hand on my back, steadying me as I vomited up everything I had ever eaten and then some. For a long time after I had emptied my stomach, I hung over the bucket, shaking. Timber brushed a loose strand of my hair away from my face; then, as if his action had struck him as inappropriate, hurriedly grabbed his hand away.

“Better?”

“No.” I wiped sick sweat off my forehead with the back of my wrist. “But at least there’s nothing more to come up.”

“I could…” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I could help, if you’d let me. Give you some energy.”

“Oh?”

I felt him shrug. “It’s just a thing I can do.”

“You’re full of surprises.” I considered. Puking had made me feel some better, but nowhere near well. I doubted I could stand, much less walk. “Okay.”

“I’ll have to touch you.”

“Go ahead.”

He cupped a hand on the back of my neck. That alone felt so good I sighed and relaxed, the residual cramps in my stomach easing. Then warmth began to flow from the place where he touched me. It seeped into my shoulders, unknotting the tension there, and flowed through my torso. The darkness that had oppressed me ever since we’d entered the studio receded, and with it the nausea. I breathed in deep and let it out in a gust as my shaking stopped.

“Better?” Timber withdrew his hand, more slowly than he had before.

“That’s quite some trick.” I sat back on my heels. “Yes. Not perfect, but much better. Thank you.”

He gave a grunt of acknowledgement, and his warmth at my side drew away, leaving me oddly bereft. I heard a shuffling sound as he got to his feet.

“Have a bit of a sit. I need to look about.”

I uncurled my body, crawled to a piece of dry floor, and leaned back against one of the table’s legs. Lifting my gaze, I spotted my companion squatting not very far away, examining a splotch of paint.

“It tracked through this,” he said, and twisted his body without rising, eyes still on the floor. “Whatever did this was human. Or wearing a human shape.”

I shivered. What a horrible thing to contemplate. Timber stood, brushed his hands off on his jeans, and glanced around.

“Which begs the question: how did it get in?”

He walked to the rear of the studio, eyes once again on the ground.

“Hmmm.” With the toe of his boot, he nudged something on the floor in front of him. I heard a crunch. “Broken glass.”

He found the window blind’s drawstring and drew it down. The blind lifted; noon light flooded the rear of the studio. Timber grunted again.

“Broken window.” His gaze flicked to me. “Your friend Kevin didn’t notice that.”

“Kevin doesn’t notice a lot of things.”

“Hmph.”

“Those windows are pretty far up.”

“Aye.” Timber brushed his fingertips over the window frame, then, taking care to avoid any remaining shards, placed his hands on the frame and levered himself up. He stuck his head out the hole.

“Old oil barrel out there,” he said, lowering himself again. “Not close. Could have used it and then moved it back. Unless whatever-it-is can levitate. Or is very strong. Is Stonefeather a big man?”

The sudden change of subject took me by surprise. “No, not at all. About my size, in fact. Wiry, not built.”

Timber came back to the footprints and took several paces. Measuring the stride, I guessed.

“Could have been him. Though why he’d break into his own place… D’ye happen to know what kind of shoes he wears?”

I closed my eyes and tried to call up the image of our quarry. “No. I can’t bring them to mind. Sorry.”

“No matter.”

He searched the space a few more minutes, examining the detritus and poking into corners.

“Is he a pipe maker? Because there’s pipestone dust all over back here.”

“I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me. He does circles.”

“Aye, well. I don’t suppose it makes a difference.” He wandered over to the bison hide with its horrible offering, bent down and picked up a scrap of something, which he sniffed.

“Sweetgrass and sage. Bison is perhaps his totem. Whatever did this,” he poked the hide with his boot, “very much doesn’t like him.”

I shuddered, my stomach threatening to revolt again. Timber came back to my side and leaned on the table, thoughtful. After a time, he frowned and sighed.

“There’s no help for it. I’m going to have to go out and see what I can see from there.”

“Is that safe?”

“I’ve no idea.” He returned to the rear of the studio and began searching through the wreckage. “If I’d known, I’d have brought my drum. But perhaps there’s something… Ah.”

He dove behind a shelf that had come halfway off its brackets and reemerged with a gourd rattle that had somehow escaped the destruction. I took a good look at it and had to restrain myself from screaming; it dripped foulness like an excrescence.

“Not that.” My voice came out strangled.

Timber dropped the rattle at once and wiped his hand on his jeans a second time. Grimacing, he surveyed the debris yet again. When his eyes lit on the bucket into which I had puked, his mouth twisted in a wry smile.

“Och, well. Needs must when the De’il drives.”

He scooped up the bucket and took it outside to dump it. I had to admire the pragmatism that let him make use of whatever tool lay to hand; I didn’t think I could have done the same under the circumstances. In a very few minutes, he reappeared, swinging the bucket by its bail.

“It could use a rinse. But it’ll do.” With no further ado, he took a seat beside me and upended the bucket between his outstretched legs. He gave it an experimental tap with his fingertips. The sound was flat and, well, plastic, but not unpleasant.

“I could wish for a beater, but…” He smacked the bucket with the flat of his hand. “I’m not going to chance using anything I can find here.”

“The bucket was here.”

Timber glanced sideways at me. “Is there anything wrong with it?”

I inspected the bucket with my Sight. “Oddly enough, no.” I gave a weak giggle. “Maybe my vomit consecrated it.”

“I’ve heard of stranger things,” he said. He hesitated. I got the impression he wanted to ask me something, but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

“Yes?”

He cleared his throat. “Can you hold the space? I’m not keen to do this without something in place, not here. I know you’re not…and I could do it myself, but I’d need…”

I held back a grin at his discomfiture at having to ask my aid and nodded. Closing my eyes, I called on the quarters, visualizing a circle of blue-violet light around us, holding the darkness at bay. It flared in my mind and settled into place.

“There you go.”

“Thank you.” Without any more discussion, he began to drum. His eyes closed and his face grew slack. He held his body utterly still, but his hand on the bucket kept up an unerring, steady rhythm. I watched him for what seemed a long time until, all at once, his face seemed to drain completely of blood. His eyes snapped open.

“
Caochan,
” he mumbled. I had no idea what it meant, but his sick expression spoke volumes. He stumbled to his feet and ran for the door, and I heard the unmistakable sound of Timber emptying his stomach into the parking lot.

Slowly, I got up and followed. I wanted to leave him enough time to recover his dignity. By the time I emerged into the sunlight, some color had returned to his face and he was wiping his mouth.

“Feck,” he said. “I dinna ken how ye stand it.”

“Practice,” I replied. “Did you get anything?”

“Other than a sudden urge to spew?” His lip twitched. “Perhaps, but not here, aye? I find myself keen to be quit of the place.”

We locked up, got back in the car and headed to the coffee shop I had spotted on our way north, where we ordered two large cups of peppermint tea. Timber added an obscene amount of honey to his, and shoved the jug across the table at me.

“I don’t take sweetening.”

“Neither do I,” he growled. “But use it anyway. It’ll help.”

Too worn out to argue, I complied, and it did help. After a few swallows the residue of blackness from the studio leached away. My head cleared, and I began to feel more myself than I had since entering that horrible place.

“It was strange,” Timber said after a time. “Confusing, and I’m not handily confused, ken. Do you know what it’s like when a shaman does what he does?”

“I have a general idea.”

“Well.” He stared into his cup, his gaze unfocused. “At the first, everything seemed routine. I called on my guides. We started off on the paths. Nothing untoward there. No indication of Stonefeather, just as before.”