Falling Light (A Game of Shadows Novel) (18 page)

Jerry looked at Jamie and jerked his chin toward the door. With a flash of disappointment in his eyes, Jamie gave her a sullen smile that was startlingly sexy and left the cabin.

“Hello,” she said to Jerry. She held out a hand, and Jerry took it in both of his. He squeezed her fingers. “I was just wondering what this doll was. What did you call it?”

“It is the figure of a Haokah, or a sacred clown. A Haokah teaches us through adversity. Sometimes the lessons are funny, like slapstick. You might slip on a banana peel and laugh, but you know you’ve learned to watch your step.” Jerry regarded the figure on the mantel with a complex, unreadable expression. “Sometimes the lessons are darker and harder, like how to live with the death of your son.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she murmured, even as Nicholas took form beside them.

The ghost put his hand on his father’s shoulder. She held her breath, waiting to see if Jerry would sense it.

He did not appear to notice, and her gaze moistened, for both father and son. She cleared her throat and turned away to focus on the doll on the mantel.

“A Haokah teaching is a big gift,” Jerry said. “It makes the soul grow. We honor our Haokah teachers but we are wary of them too, because those lessons can hurt like a son of a bitch.” He paused. “I dreamed of Nicholas. He said I owe you my life. He also said that you would kick my ass if I didn’t stop smoking.”

She glanced sidelong at Nicholas, who nodded, and she felt somewhat better for the both of them. She told Jerry, “He was right.”

Jerry’s dark eyes studied her as he grumbled, “I make no promises.”

“Then I make no promises about not kicking your ass,” she told him with a small grin. “You shouldn’t be out of bed yet.”

Jerry grunted. “I see you’re one of those doctors.”

“Who are ‘those doctors’?”

“You know, the bossy ones.” Lines deepened at the corners of his eyes as he returned her smile. He said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And I meant what I said—you need bed rest, and I want to check you over again. What are you doing up and dressed?”

“I’ll have to take a rain check on that exam. The boy is going to see me home, and I’ll rest there. We’ve been here too long, and his mother will be worried. You’ve done enough for now, and it’s past time for us to leave.” His smile faded. “You and the others, you have bigger and more dangerous concerns to face.”

She bit her lip. She had meant to do more than just check Jerry over. She had wanted to tell him how much Nicholas, even as a ghost, had come to mean to her.

She had also been tempted to tell him what they were going to try to do.

But now she rethought that impulse. If they failed—if she failed to resurrect Nicholas—Jerry would mourn his son all over again. If they succeeded, then Nicholas could tell his father in person.

“Hold on,” she said. “You’re not going to slip away from me that easily. At least let me examine you.”

He grumbled, but there was kindness in his eyes and no heat in his complaints. She made him sit at the kitchen table, while she stood behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. Then she sank her awareness into his body and studied her handiwork from earlier.

Finally she pulled out again, patted his shoulder and told him, “You’re not going to like me saying this, but you need rest and a low-fat diet. No red meat.”

He grunted. It was the most noncommittal grunt she had ever heard.

She nodded and patted him again. “When you feel up to it in a few days, start taking short walks and gradually increase those over time. Build up to at least a half an hour a day. And no more smoking.”

He reached to his shoulder and took one of her hands. “On that note, I think it’s past time I leave.”

She chuckled. “Okay.”

He stood and faced her, and to her immense surprise, he gave her a strong bear hug. It startled a smile out of her, and she hugged him back.

“Come and see me,” he said. “I’ll make deer stew, fry bread and blackberry sauce. It was Nicholas’s favorite meal.”

“I would be honored,” she told him. With any luck, Nicholas would be with her to visit, and they could turn the meal into a celebration.

Jerry nodded and turned toward the door. Nicholas joined her, and together they watched Jerry as he walked out of the cabin. He moved with care but he was steady on his feet, and he appeared to be in no pain.

I will go with them and watch over him
, Nicholas told her.
He and I have more to talk about in dreams. It is the only way he can sense me.

She took a deep breath at the sudden pang she felt. Her growing affection for Nicholas was the most uncomplicated relationship she had at the moment. “I know he would appreciate that very much.”

He put a shimmering hand to her face. She felt the warmth, and the steady strength in his presence.
Like I said, call me if you have any need of me.

She reached up to his hand, wishing again that she could actually touch him. “You would hear me?”

If you direct your call to me, I will hear you.

Her lips pulled into a smile. “And we are still going to work together to bring you back, right?”

Yes
,
he told her. Darkness flashed across his features and brought with it a touch of savagery.
I have too much unfinished business in this lifetime not to try.

If she hadn’t experienced everything that she had over the last several days, she might have been much more unsettled at that flash of expression. Still, she shivered.

She said, “Then I will see you soon.”

Yes, Mary.
The ghost bent and brushed her lips with his in a light, fleeting caress.
We will see each other again soon.

Her eyes widened. As she touched her lips with her fingers, he melted away.

MARY STARED AT
the space where Nicholas had been standing.

Were there implications in that kiss?

She thought . . . there might have been implications in that kiss, which seemed kind of crazy since only one of them was alive and embodied.

Or maybe she was just still overtired and out of balance. At the moment, she was prone to reading the wrong thing into just about anything.

She scrubbed her face hard with both hands. Implications or not, she had too many other things to deal with, so she set the whole thing aside. She gave the Haokah figure one last glance and resumed her exploration of the cabin.

Most of the items decorating the cabin appeared to be from the indigenous cultures of North America. There was the occasional exotic surprise, such as a small, crudely shaped statuette of a horse that appeared to be Grecian, or an exquisite, simple marble urn. An antique spinning wheel had been tucked into one corner of the living room. It was obviously still used, the spindle and the wheel threaded with wool.

As she acquainted herself with Astra’s house, she knew she was really circling around the hot, steady flame of Michael’s presence, which emanated from one of the rooms. She did pause when she came to a metal firewall door that was locked with a thoroughly modern, electronic keypad.

The sight of the door was jarring. It seemed starkly out of place with the rest of the house. After eyeing it with a frown, she moved on.

Another door was closed, only this one looked as simple and ordinary as the rest. She could sense Michael’s presence on the other side, and she bit her lip, sorely tempted to either knock or crack the door open and peek inside. If he wasn’t asleep, perhaps they could talk.

But if he were asleep, her knock would wake him up. He needed to rest as desperately as she, and he had still been working when she had fallen into bed. It wasn’t fair to disturb him. She didn’t even want to try cracking open the door.

She moved to one of the windows to look out. Astra worked in a large vegetable garden. Her small, thin figure made a compact bundle as she knelt between rows. She pulled weeds from between young, green shoots while a light breeze stirred her white hair.

The chore looked so ordinary, yet Mary could sense a density of spirit activity swirling around the old woman. Astra was doing much more than it appeared at first glance.

Something inside of Mary relaxed. With both Michael and Astra occupied, there was nothing for her to do but rest. She stretched out on the couch and, with a sense of deep relief, let herself doze in the quiet of the afternoon.

A noise brought her awake. As she sat up, she realized that she had heard quiet movement from behind Michael’s closed door.

She rose and moved toward his room to pause just outside the door. What if he had just been tossing and turning in his sleep? She hadn’t heard any further movement, but she grew convinced that either he was awake, or he was close to it. Something about his energy had shifted and grown sharper.

If he was close to waking, he had rested enough. This time, she didn’t back away. She eased the door open a crack to peer inside.

Heavy curtains had been pulled shut at the window, but even though the room lay in deep shadow, she could still see details.

The bedroom’s furnishings were minimal. Michael sprawled facedown on the covers of a king-sized bed. He still wore the black cotton pants he had been wearing earlier. His torso and feet were bare, and his dark head was buried in a pillow.

She glanced from his broad, muscular back to the bedside table. It held a lamp, along with the first clock that she had seen in the house, and a gun. The clock’s luminous digital face read 2:23
P.M.

She regarded the gun wryly and with a pang of sadness. He wouldn’t or couldn’t fully relax even here.

She had expected him to roll for his gun as the door opened, or at the very least sit up, but he did neither of those things. Some deep, buried part of him must realize that she wasn’t a threat. She wanted to believe that he knew she was present, and that he welcomed her, but cold reason said that more likely his defenses weren’t quite as heightened on the island because he knew they were relatively safe for the time being.

She inched across the room to squat by the bed. He was still in a light sleep. He had showered, although he hadn’t bothered to shave. She caught the faint, familiar scent of Astra’s soap.

In spite of the shadow of beard that darkened his jaw, he seemed younger in repose, his harsh features softened. She felt guilty about studying him without his knowledge and almost turned to go, but then she stopped.

By his own admission, he was a pragmatic man. Astra struck her the same way. Ruthlessness was one of the traits they shared. Mary had a gut feeling that when he got up, she might find herself at the mercy of his and Astra’s agendas.

That was okay. She respected it. Michael and Astra had been preparing for a long time for the danger they faced. They were much more knowledgeable than she, and they had been preparing for a confrontation that had been building over centuries.

But she had her own agenda. If she didn’t manage ruthlessness, she certainly achieved stubbornness. Remembering how Michael had connected with her when she had been locked inside her own mind, she laid a hand on his arm and sank her awareness into him. This time she focused on his presence, the ephemeral part of him rather than his physical body.

She had been prepared to fumble her way through something she hadn’t yet attempted in this lifetime, but in a fast, catlike swipe, Michael’s presence connected with hers.

She lost her physical point of reference, except for a distant awareness of her hand as it rested on his muscled bicep.

What do you need, Mary?

Sorry to wake you.

I’m not awake yet,
he said.
My body is still resting.

That was a neat trick, and something else for her to learn.

She floated in nothingness, with no sight or sound other than his disembodied, measured voice. His telepathic voice sounded controlled and self-contained, like an impersonal voice on an answering machine. Mr. Enigmatic had survived the trip and was doing just fine.

I don’t like this,
she said.
I feel like I’m floating in an isolation tank. When you connected with me in my head, we had a cave and a floor and light so that we could see each other. How did you do that?

She could almost hear him sigh.
I’ll teach you later,
he said.
You did most of the work. You were trapped in your memories, and the image of the cave was yours. I simply entered the scene. What do you need?

She said,
I heard you stirring, and I wanted to talk to you in private.

What did you want to talk about?

The guarded neutrality in his mental voice hurt more than she had expected.

In a flash of intuition, she knew that his disembodied voice was a deliberate ploy to keep their conversation at a distance. She almost told him,
Never mind, I’m sorry
. She almost broke the connection, but then she didn’t.

She had been following her gut instinct all her life. When she did, for the most part things had turned out. Whenever she tried to make decisions based on more rational criteria, the results were less than successful. Witness her foolish fiasco of a marriage to Justin. She had parsed that decision down to a cold-blooded nicety, when her gut had known better.

And as Astra had asked earlier, why do things always have to make sense or operate on human logic?

So she followed her gut. She said,
I had a dream. I wanted to show you an image so you could help me identify it. Do you mind?

A long, undefined moment passed, and a sick feeling began to bloom in the pit of her stomach. He wouldn’t reject her. Not her, of all people. Not after looking for her all this time. He wouldn’t stay closed off. Would he?

He said,
Reconstruct the image and put yourself in it. Visualize all the details around you like it was in your dream. Do you remember it well enough?

Yes.

She did as he said. It was remarkably easy. Within a few moments, the complete image settled around her like a tent. She looked around with satisfaction at the old ruins of the chapel. Everything was as clear and immediate, and as rich with sensual detail as it had been the first time.

She told him,
Okay, I’m ready.

She moved to her altar and sat on it cross-legged. The noon sun poured down like fiery gold rain. Earthy, dark power welled from the altar, and the light and dark energies met again inside of her.

This time she wasn’t taken by surprise and knocked out of the image. She found that she could hold her position, although the intensity of the power made the construct of her body shimmer like the mirage that it was.

Michael appeared in the chapel. He was dressed in a black T-shirt, black combat pants and boots.

They were clothes made for fighting. Even now he shielded himself. The realization caused another pang.

He spun on one heel as he cast a swift glance around. Then he looked at her. His expression was grim, unreadable, and his eyes sword sharp.

She kept her voice soft and easy. “What do you think of it?”

His gaze narrowed. “How can you be here and not know what this place is?”

He could have said, How could you be in this place and not know yourself?

“I know what this place is.” She ran her fingers along the cool, uneven surface of the altar. “I wanted you to see it.”

Astra had said she had needed to connect with some place inside of her. Understanding had blossomed only after she had awakened from her dream.

The chapel didn’t exist anywhere in physical form. Although her mind had chosen the scenery, the details of the image didn’t matter. They were cosmetic. They provided definition to the eye, symbols of that which was invisible.

This was a place past guards and barriers, cynicism and shortcomings, a place of pure spirit. It was purely private, purely Mary. She would have to be quite broken before she would fail to recognize her own heart. And she was no longer broken.

He jerked away and strode to the opposite side of the chapel, pacing like a caged animal. Unlike a caged beast, he was free to leave whenever he wanted. She was relieved that he did not, at least not yet.

“I don’t understand,” he said in a clipped voice.

He kept pacing, back and forth, and the force of emotion that emanated from him was blistering.

“What don’t you understand?” she asked. She still spoke as gently as she could, for she realized that they had reached this point in other lives. Sometimes they had failed to resolve the fundamental differences in their natures. Those lives had been filled with great hurt.

“You looked at me with such horror this morning,” he said between his teeth. His pain was palpable, and it echoed back through time. Back and back, to their beginning.

“You misunderstood me earlier. I didn’t look at you in horror,” Mary told him. “I think you’re beautiful.”

Michael stopped pacing but he still stood poised for action. The doubt in his expression said more than any words could.

She kept a stern grip on her own emotions and reached for patience. “This morning I had a flashback. I looked down the guns of those two men who shot me, and then I shot at two people. I could have killed two men who were innocent of the Deceiver’s crimes. They might have had families and friends, and they thought they were only doing their job—”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “You’re torturing yourself over them?”

Her back stiffened. “I’m disturbed by what happened, yes.”

The first sharp edge of his pain had eased, but he still felt volatile, unpredictable. “Let me put your mind forever to rest,” he told her. “You didn’t shoot those men. You might have managed to hit the boats once or twice, but that’s about all. I shot those men while I was running to get to you.”

She paused. “That’s not the point.”

He tilted his head and prowled close. “You just said it was.”

“No.” She put up both hands. “Please listen to me. The actual fact that I did not shoot those men is not the point. What I experienced—what I believed—is that I shot those men. That’s the point. I picked up a gun, something that I said I would never do, and I pointed it at two human beings. I pulled the trigger, and not once. I didn’t stop shooting until the gun was empty.”

He spun away. “Now we’re back to where we started.”

She slid off the altar and walked over to him. “You know as well as I do how much has happened over the last few days. The dragon healed me, but I have still sometimes felt like I’ve lost my center. This experience was one of those times, and it was wrapped up in the memory of the bullets hitting my body. I was so scared, and I was so sure that I was going to die.”

He looked over his shoulder at her, and the lines of his face had tightened again.

She put a hand on his back. “This morning had nothing to do with you. It had everything to do with me. Then Astra gave me this dream, and I went on a journey. I reached my center again, and I know who I am. I’m not talking about discovering new memories.” She gestured at the scene around them. “I’m talking about this. That’s what this place is all about, and that’s what I wanted to show you.”