Chapter Ten
Millie was sitting in her chair facing the door as if waiting for them when they walked in. She smiled at Thane like she knew exactly who he was. “Hello, Thane. Hello, Reya.”
Thane gave Reya a quizzical look. “How are you feeling today, Mom?”
“Wonderful,” she said, glowing. “How are you?”
It was like night and day. He didn’t quite know what to say. First off, he wanted to know if she’d been sitting like this all day. “Fine. Did you know we were coming?”
“Yes,” she said. “They told me.”
Reya moved up next to him. “Who told you, Millie?”
“The voices,” she said. “They told me not to be afraid. They would protect me.”
Most people inherited balding or heart disease from their gene pool. Thane had inherited the power to hear the dead. He decided to test her. “Are the voices talking now?”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you hear them?”
“No,” he said carefully.
“Then they aren’t here.” She smiled. “But it’s begun.”
A chill ran through him. “What’s begun?”
“The battle for souls, of course.” She said it so seriously and so genuinely that he realized she wasn’t getting better. In fact, she was slipping deeper. Into where, he didn’t know.
“Did the voices tell you that, too?” Reya asked.
“Oh yes, and much more,” Millie replied.
“I wouldn’t believe everything they tell you,” Thane warned her. “They might not be working for God.”
Millie laughed and waved a hand dismissively at him. “I know the difference. I’ve been listening to them a lot longer than you have.”
And look where she was now. “Do they ever mention a man named Surt?”
She blinked in thought. “No.”
“You’ve never heard that name before?” Reya added.
“No. Should I know him?”
Relieved, Thane said, “No. And if he ever comes here, you call me right away.”
“He’s a dark one,” she said, as if understanding perfectly. “They’re the ones starting the battle, you know.”
“Why are they starting it?” Reya asked, kneeling in front of Millie. “What do they want?”
“They want what they came for almost thirty years ago,” she said. “They want the power.”
“What power?” Reya asked softly.
Millie blinked at her. “You know. You’ve seen it.”
Thane eyed Reya. Had she been holding out on him? What was he thinking? Of course she was holding out on him. God only knew what she knew and wasn’t giving up.
But Reya stayed very still and intent on Millie. “What does it look like?”
“Pointed at both ends,” Millie said. “Clear. Stone.”
“A crystal,” Reya said.
Millie smiled.
In all his life, he’d never once heard his mother mention a crystal. “And what can this crystal do?”
“I don’t know,” Millie said, looking up at him. “That’s your job to find out.”
Reya glanced over her shoulder at him. There was genuine confusion in her eyes. Then she unfolded the drawings and showed them to Millie. “Do you know what these are?”
Millie inhaled sharply. “Oh my.”
Thane knelt down next to Reya to get closer and whispered, “What is it?”
She pressed her fingers to her lips as she stared at the paper. “This top one. I know this.”
Thane leaned closer. “It has something to do with the Earth’s energy grid.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that with a straight face.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve seen this.” Then she looked him in the eye. “You have, too.”
His pulled back and shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”
“It was thirty years ago, Thane,” she said, her voice barely audible. “You saw it once. And then it was buried forever.”
Jesus, she picked a great time to lose her grip on reality. “I don’t remember.”
“You have to, because I can’t tell you,” she said, and glanced up at the open door with a frown. Thane looked over and saw shadows moving outside the door. Where they good shadows or bad shadows?
Millie pulled him close and whispered, “You already know.”
* * *
“Is she going to be safe?” Thane asked the minute they left the building.
“She’s well protected,” Reya said. “Those were angels. She has some powerful allies.”
That was good to know. “I saw them.”
Reya nodded. “Welcome to my world.”
He wasn’t so sure he wanted to get into her world any more than he already was. “I have no idea what my mother is talking about.” It was dark, past the newly mandated curfew, and the moon was hazy behind a wispy layer of clouds.
“She seemed pretty adamant that you do,” Reya said. “It must be something the two of you knew about. She didn’t want to say it out loud.”
The night was colder than usual, colder than summer should be. He pulled his jacket around his neck. “I think she’s confused.”
“Let’s say she isn’t,” Reya pressed. “What happened thirty years ago?”
“My father was killed by Surt,” he offered. They passed boarded up and burned out shops. Trash was piling up on the sidewalks and blowing around on the streets. His city was a mess.
She breezed over the whole Surt as murderer part and asked, “Did you see that symbol when you were under hypnosis?”
“No,” he said. “I remembered everything, the color of the floor, the smell of sawdust, the feel of my jeans. I would have remembered seeing a symbol.”
They turned into the park. It was a shortcut to his place, and he knew it well. Tonight it was eerily empty. Leaves scurried by as the wind picked up.
“So maybe it was later,” Reya said. “What happened after that night?”
“We buried my father,” Thane said, and then stopped dead as a terrible thought surfaced. “No.”
Reya turned to face him. “What do you remember?”
A faint memory surfaced reluctantly. It was one he didn’t want to recall and had shoved deep into his subconscious. It was almost within his grasp, but he couldn’t quite grab it before it drifted away.
“It was something about the funeral,” he told her. “I just can’t—”
“Do we need another hypnosis session?”
That was last thing he wanted. “I’m sure you’d enjoy that.”
She smiled. “Only a little.”
He bet. The moon caught her smile and illuminated it. There was an angelic glow around her, like a halo. Just another reminder that she was off-limits on a whole different level. It was too bad, really. Despite everything, he was starting to like having her close. He began walking again. “I have a much better idea.”
“Can we do it tonight?”
“No, tomorrow,” he said. “Tonight you’re buying me dinner.”
She huffed. “I knew there was a reason you agreed to work with me.”
His turn to grin. “Free cab rides and food? You’re my best friend.”
* * *
Reya hated funeral homes, and it wasn’t because of the newly deceased. She dealt with dead people all the time. It wasn’t the long line of sad faces and sniffling relatives standing between her and the answers she needed. They were here for another reason. It wasn’t even the bad decor. It was the revoltingly overwhelming smell of flowers. It was enough to wake the dead. Maybe that was why they called it a wake.
That made her laugh out loud. Thane gave her a stern look and turned back to the funeral director, who was short and balding and wearing a crisp dark suit and tie. He was apologizing. “I’m sorry, but our last funeral director, Mr. Houghs, retired several years ago. He moved to Florida.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” she muttered and ignored Thane’s glare.
“Do you know where he can be reached?” Thane asked.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” he said, looking a little uncomfortable about the whole topic. “I’m not sure there’s anything I can help you with.”
Thane persisted. “Do you still have the records of my father’s funeral?”
Reya eyed him. He was good.
“Yes, we probably do. We didn’t have computers back then,” he explained. “So we keep all our old records in storage. Can you give me a few minutes?”
“Certainly,” Thane said. The man disappeared through a doorway.
“More dead people,” she said with a sigh.
“Seems like your kind of place,” he said.
Reya smirked. “Yours, too.”
His expression tightened. “You’ve been at it longer than I have.”
They watched mourners file by, looking more bored than grief-stricken. Funerals were for the living. All that was here was the shell. The soul, the most important part, was already gone.
Thane leaned in. “I’m not hearing anything…unusual. Is the deceased here?”
“You think I have some kind of death radar?” she asked aloud. A few people glanced her way.
He cleared his throat and gave them a nod. “I’m never bringing you to a wake again.”
“Thank God for that,” she said.
Then the director showed up with a file. “Sorry, I had to make copies. These are yours to keep.”
Thane took them and shook the man’s hand. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Reya waved halfheartedly and made a dash for the door. Thane caught up with her outside. “In a hurry to get out?”
“I need some fresh air,” she said. “I have a crushing flower arrangement headache.”
“I still don’t get how you can have human responses, and yet make yourself thin as air,” he said as he looked through the file.
“It’s a gift,” she said. “At least that’s what they keep telling me. I’m beginning to not believe them. Really, if they wanted to give me a gift, I can think of a lot better things. Like balls of fire on demand or sonic sneezes or something useful.”
Then she realized that Thane wasn’t next to her. She turned around to find him standing and staring at something in the file. Reya walked back to him and peered over the edge of the file. It was a picture of a casket. And the symbol from their photo was painted in gold across the end of it.
“Is that your father’s casket?” she asked.
His voice was tense and his face drawn. “Yes.”
She hated to push him but this was important. “Was the symbol part of the package?”
“No. Special request.”
She was following the line of thought and wasn’t liking where it was heading. “By who?”
“My mother,” he said, then slapped the file closed and looked at her. “We are not exhuming my father.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to do either, but that’s where the clues led.
“It’s in there, you know it is,” she said slowly.
He walked past her. “No.”
She stepped alongside him. “If we don’t get it, we can’t stop the attacks.”
“No,” he said again, more firmly this time.
“And we’ll never get to Surt,” she said. “Because I can guarantee that is the ‘something’ he wants.”
His pace slowed just enough for her to know she was making sense. She latched on to his thirst for revenge for all it was worth. “And we won’t have any ammo against him. No way to find him—”
“Stop right there,” he said sounding defeated, and she knew she had him. “Can this get any worse?”
She wanted to tell him it wouldn’t but that would be lying. At least he wouldn’t be alone. “You shovel. I’ll open the casket.”