Spirit and Dust

24


IT WAS A big towel, but there was a lot of Carson.

I mean, he was really tall. And really well built. No wonder he’d been able to toss me over the cemetery fence, then vault it like a bump in the road.

I stood there with my mouth hanging open and, I don’t know, some sound coming out, because he made a shushing motion with the hand not holding the towel and then hurried to pull me into the room and close the door.

“Aunt Gwenda has made an assumption,” he said. “And I sort of let it stand because it’s simpler this way. I swear this was not my idea.”

He was very apologetic and earnest. In fact, he seemed rather panicked that I was going to get the wrong impression. From him wearing a towel. And nothing else. Because no one would get the wrong impression from that.

“Let me put on some clothes,” he said, when I continued to say nothing.

I decided to study the decor while he grabbed a stack of something from a chair and returned to the adjoining bathroom. That was when I noticed there was only one bed. It was a big bed, but there were two of us.

He came back quickly, wearing a pair of sleep pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. “Look, I can grab the comforter and a couple of pillows and sleep on the floor. It’s not a big deal.”

“That’s stupid.” My brain had finally started working again. “I saw your bruises.” Boy, had I. “You don’t need to sleep on the floor. We’ll put a pillow wall down the middle or something.”

“Are you sure?”

I clutched my bundle of pj’s to my chest and walked past him to the bathroom. “Carson, after the day we’ve had, if you can do anything other than sleep, you’re not just a magician, you really are Superman.”


The shower had five types of massages, and I tried them all. And not just because I was delaying going out there and facing Carson. I was thinking.

There were still holes in some of my theories, simply because I didn’t have the pieces to fit. But nothing was totally unraveling. If Alexis and Johnson were close, it made sense that they would have shared information about Oosterhouse and his secret society. Maybe they split when she realized how the magic drew its power, or how far the Brotherhood was willing to go to get the Jackal. But they still needed her knowledge, or Maguire’s resources, or whatever was on the flash drive, so they took her.

If the Brotherhood took her. I’d argued all along that they must have, but there was something weird about the way Johnson had reacted when I demanded he let her go. He’d seemed surprised. Was it simply because I’d thought the small jackal figurine he’d stolen was the Jackal?

Too many missing pieces. The password to the flash drive, the information on it, the reason the Brotherhood wanted the artifact from the St. Louis museum …

I admitted that I was going to run out of hot water before I ran out of questions. I also admitted I was stalling, and forced myself out of the shower.

Putting on the loaner pajamas, I brushed my teeth with the guest amenities, then checked my reflection in the steamy mirror. The pj’s were green silk that brought out the color of my eyes and the purple of my bruises. Fortunately, most of those were covered.

No more stalling. So the silk was clingy when I moved and it was kind of obvious I wasn’t wearing a bra. I was just going to walk out and get under the covers like it was no big deal.

I walked out to the sound of snoring. Carson sprawled facedown on half of the bed.

The middle half.

Ass.

“Move. Over.” I pushed him until he rolled to one side, then I started putting pillows down the middle of the bed. Before I got to the one at the top, I stopped and looked at him.

I was not the type to get soft, squishy feelings for a boy. I liked guys who made my heart race, not ones who made it melt. But Carson asleep and ragged and vulnerable? He did both.

Odds were, not many people got to see this. Why did he walk such a tightrope, hating Maguire, but working for him, playing his game. Adapting. Here was a guy who was clever.

Clever and powerful. Cleopatra had the right of it. Dangerous and irresistible.

“Carson,” I whispered. He made a sleepy, not-really-awake sound. Perfect. I didn’t have any scruples about questioning his subconscious. “Carson, what hold does Maguire have over you? Why do you stay with him?”

He gave a drowsy hum and muttered something. I leaned closer to hear and he whispered, “Nice try, Sunshine.”

I hit him with the pillow, but not very hard. “Ass.”

Cracking open an eyelid, he looked at me, then the pillow, then me again. “If you’re going to put that brick in the wall, you’d better do it. I can see down your top.”

I whacked him again, plenty hard, then thumped the pillow into place, completing the feather fortress. When I collapsed on the bed, I couldn’t see him at all.

Carson rolled over and turned off the bedside lamp. I stared at the dark ceiling, exhausted, but my mind was racing too fast for sleep to catch up, still trying to find the pieces to fill all the holes.

The Oosterhouse Jackal, the Black Jackal … Were they the same thing? If not, then what was the Black Jackal?

Twice through the Veil I had seen something, a lean, hound-like shadow. Was this the power of suggestion, or something real? And if so, what? And what did it want? The threshold to eternity—whatever lay beyond this world—was a one-way deal.

At least, I thought so.

On the other side of the pillow wall, Carson stirred, like he was restless, too. I had one more thing on my mind, and it wasn’t any kind of transcendental question.

“Hey,” I whispered, in case he was sleeping.

“What now?”

“Back in the garage, when I stole the cell phone … Why did you wait so long to kiss me back?”

“Because I have this weird policy against kissing girls under a magical compulsion to obey my father.” There was a loaded pause and then, “After we find Alexis, it will be a different story. Just so you know.”

Great. Now my heart was racing as fast as my brain. What would he say if I told him that I hadn’t felt coerced much at all since we hit the road?

I wasn’t going to find out what he’d say to that, because the next thing I heard from his side of the wall were his snores.

• • •

I finally slept, dreamless as the dead. But when the washed-out light of dawn edged the curtains in the unfamiliar room, I heard a voice calling me, so faint that I wasn’t sure I wasn’t still asleep.

“Wake, Daughter of the Jackal. You’ve slept too long.”

Awake or dreaming, I opened my eyes to find a spirit beside the bed.

For a second, my sleep-fogged brain Saw a canine-headed figure, but it faded, leaving a gray-haired man dressed in sweat-stained khaki, looking down at me with a benevolent smile.

“At last! Wake up, young lady. I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”