CHAPTER NINE

Liana had long given up on the cat, but she told herself she'd wait a little longer in case she decided to show. She sat on the back porch in darkness except for the overhead light that buzzed yellow, a few curious insects circling it, checking it out. It was too early in the year for crickets; in fact, it was kind of eerily quiet out there. Up above, the half-moon lay shrouded in misty silver clouds that had rolled in. She froze on the steps when she heard the voices, the hairs on the back of her arms and legs standing up like soldiers, one by one. She wasn't alone.

 

You're in Ohio. You're safe.

 

It was her uncle, and he was talking to Nick. She hadn't heard her name, but she was certain they'd been discussing her mere moments before. She wondered what Nick had told her uncle, how savagely he'd indicted her for her betrayal, for her duplicity. Her face burned to think of it. Sure, she was family, but Nick, as the Black Spark, was family, too--and she had fucked him over, royally and utterly, and now that Tryg knew it, there were bound to be consequences. She wasn't looking forward to facing the music tomorrow, but she could only hope that Kirrily's sympathy would keep Tryg from judging her too harshly. If he threw her out, she'd really be up the creek.

 

She heard the front door open and close and she relaxed briefly. Tryg had gone inside. Until she heard footsteps round the corner of her house. It was Nick, of course, hands jammed into his pockets, his strong, broad shoulders hunched over into his jacket, a slight lump where the bandages were. He stopped once, briefly, as if he'd hear something, straightening up, looking over his shoulder, if he had noticed the light on the back porch, as if he knew someone might be watching him. She held her breath.

 

He looked up to the moon, to lacy clouds that veiled it and, somehow, she knew immediately what he was thinking about. Of course he was. He may have moved on, because he was man enough to do that, but what he said to her in the garage made it all too clear to her that her sin was too great to forgive. She'd ruined it. The moonlight wasn't strong enough to illuminate his features, but her imagination made up the rest, to those full, pillowy lips and earnest green-gold eyes she had once coveted so shamelessly--until her cowardice had ruined it all.

 

I'm sorry, she mouthed, as if, somehow, he could hear her, that the words would travel over the air and reach him, though they never had before. She wondered if there was anything left she could do to make them.

 

***

 

"I don't think it worked," Nick said in the bar the next day, as he dropped the crystal into Kirrily's hand. He knew Tryg must have already told her everything about what had happened with the shipment. He'd ripped off the bandages since Liana had patched him up last night, done a shitty job of trying to reapply them, them gave up. What could it hurt, anyway? Getting gangrene couldn't be any worse than what he'd already been through. He straightened up, puzzled. “What?”

 

Kirrily turned the crystal over in her hand, then raised her eyes to study Nick's face. He shifted uncomfortably; nobody ever looked that intensely at him without having an ulterior motive. "Of course it did. You're still alive.” She smiled at him and slid it back across the bar. Nick wondered what she'd be saying if she knew what his shoulder looked like under his shirt. She seemed to sense his hesitation. “Are you sure nothing else happened out there, Nick?” she said gently. “You know, there are other ways of healing.” Nick staring down at the crystal, as if he expected it to move, to speak, as it somehow held some answer he couldn't see, but Kirrily could. "It's just that, your aura...something changed since I saw you last. The space you're in—it doesn't feel healthy." She grabbed his hand, catching his eyes in that motherly way, making it impossible for him not to take her seriously. He shifted uncomfortably, as if she could see right through his clothes, to the bloody wound beneath. "Well, getting shot at and stolen from will do that.”

 

No," she said closing her eyes briefly. "It's not that. There's a different color. It's like something from your past has resurfaced. Something you tried to forget." She opened her eyes and blinked back at him, her dark eyes swirling like crystal balls. “It's Liana, isn't it?”

 

Nick tried to extricate himself. “It doesn't matter. I'll be fine. I'll stay away from her.”

 

“That's not going to work, Nick. You can't run from this. You have to use it. Now's your chance to make it right.”

 

“Nothing about me and Liana can ever be right.”

 

Kirrily leaned forward calmly, her impressive arm muscles flexing underneath her black ribbed tank top. “That's your head talking, not your soul.”

 

“Fuck my soul. What has it ever done for me?”

 

A lesser medium might have taken offense at this. But Kirrily just smiled in that knowing way she had. “More than you think.”

 

***

 

Later, outside the bar, Nick showed Tomahawk the address on the receipt he'd found in the cab of the hijacked truck.

 

The tall redhead turned it over in his hands, whistling softly to himself. "You know where this is, right?" he asked, the cloudless atmosphere of the brisk spring morning highlighting his ruddy features.

 

Nick had slipped out of the garage as early as he could that morning, looking forward to getting on the road, even if the house turned out to be a dead end. He told himself it was just because he looked forward to clearing his head. Occasionally he went to Tryg's for a cup of coffee or a piece of toast, but he knew that wasn't happening--and wouldn't as long as Liana was there.

 

"North side of Cincinnati," Nick said. "So what?"

 

"Dude, you've heard of Pill Hill, where the doctors live?"

 

Nick frowned as he opened the saddlebag and took out his driving gloves. "Yeah? So?"

 

"Well, that's nothing compared this place. This is where the HMO executives live. The kind of place with helicopters pads on the roof."

 

"Dude, nobody has a private helicopter in Cincinnati."

 

Tomahawk handed him back the piece of paper, blinking at him like a sage. "You'd be surprised."