Girl of Nightmares

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“You just drag him off halfway around the world?” Carmel says, her toe tapping with indignation. “Where he has no contacts or advantages? Into who the hell knows what?” She narrows her eyes. “You said you’d take care of him.”

“Actually, Carmel, I said—”

“Oh, I don’t care what you said!”

“How did you find us, anyway?” I ask, and she finally inhales. She crashed into the house, a disaster in knee-high boots, and brought everything to a skidding stop. Upstairs, I hear the shower abruptly shut off. I hope Thomas doesn’t slip and crack his head open in his rush to get down here. And I hope he remembers to put on a towel.

“Morfran told me,” Carmel says. “Your mother told me.” The heat is suspended in her voice, neither rising nor cooling. Her eyes linger on my hands, studying my rolled-up sleeves and the clinging patches of soap bubbles that drip onto the floor. It must make for a quaint, domestic little scene. Nothing like the torrent of danger she expected. I wipe the suds off against the sides of my jeans.

Jestine slides through from behind, careful to keep from turning her back on Carmel, someone she doesn’t know. There’s tautness to her movements too, like she’s ready to spring. Whoever it was who taught her, taught her well. She moves like me and she’s twice as suspicious. I catch her eye and shake my head. Carmel doesn’t need to be welcomed the same way we were, with Jestine chanting curses and sucking the air from her lungs.

“She said she knew you,” she says. “I guess she was telling the truth.”

“Of course I was,” Carmel says, giving Jestine the once-over as she stands beside me. She extends her hand. “I’m Carmel Jones. I’m Thomas and Cas’s friend.” When they shake hands, my stomach relaxes. Jestine’s only curious and Carmel’s hostility is aimed at me. It’s strange, but my instincts told me they’d get along pretty much like a snake and a mongoose.

“Can I take your bag?” Jestine asks, gesturing to Carmel’s oversized duffel, some white designer thing with blinged-out zipper clasps.

“Sure,” Carmel says, and hands it off. “Thanks.”

We stare at each other with restraint until Jestine is upstairs and safely out of earshot. It’s really hard to maintain a serious expression. Carmel’s got on her best angry-frustrated face, but she really wants to hug me, I can tell. Instead, she shoves me so hard I stumble and catch myself against the arm of the sofa.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over here?” she asks.

“I was sort of under the impression that you didn’t want to know.”

Her face scrunches. “I didn’t want to know.”

“So what are you doing here?”

We both look up. Thomas is standing in the middle of the stairs. He was so quiet, coming down. I expected a bunch of stomping. I half expected him to fall and wind up at our feet, shampoo in his hair and naked as a jaybird. I watch Carmel’s expression carefully when she sees him. It’s as happy as someone can possibly look when they know they have no right to be so happy.

“Can we talk?” she asks. The pulse in her neck speeds up when he purses his lips, but we both know Thomas. He wouldn’t let her come across an ocean just to be turned away.

“Outside,” he says, and pushes through us to the door. Carmel follows, and I crane my neck around to different windows, following their progress as they walk around the side of the house.

“Something complicated there,” Jestine says into my ear, and I jump. This place lets people creep too easily. “Will she be coming with us?”

“I think so. I hope so.”

“Then I hope they get everything sorted. The last thing we need is drama and angst and people making stupid decisions.” She crosses her arms and walks back into the kitchen to finish cleaning the remains of breakfast.

I should probably ask Jestine why that is, what we’re going up against, but Thomas and Carmel have disappeared from view. Carmel being here is spinning my head around. She’s almost surreal, an unexpected piece of Thunder Bay pasted into the picture. After what she said to me that day in my room, I thought she was gone for good. She’d made a choice, to have the life Thomas and I weren’t going to get. I was happy for her. But as I follow Jestine back to the kitchen, there’s a big ball of relief in my chest, and gladness too, that this thing I can’t get away from isn’t that easy to walk away from either.

Checking the windows, I can catch a glimpse of them through the westernmost one that looks into the back garden if I lean far enough to the left. The scene is pretty intense; all direct eye contact and open hands. But damn it. I can’t read lips.

“You’re like an old woman,” Jestine quips. “Wipe your nose print off the glass and help with the dishes.” She puts the sponge in my hand. “You wash. I’ll dry.”

We scrub in silence for a minute and the smirk grows deeper around her mouth. I suppose she thinks I’m trying to listen to what they’re saying.

“We should leave in the morning,” Jestine says. “It’s a long train ride and a long hike on foot. It’ll take two solid days of traveling.”

“Traveling to where, exactly?”

She holds her hand out for a plate. “There is no exactly. The Order doesn’t keep a dot on a map. It’s somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. The western Highlands, north of Loch Etive.”

“So you’ve been there before?” I take her silence as a yes. “Fill me in. What are we in for?”

“I don’t know. A lot of pines and maybe a couple of woodpeckers.”

Now she gets dodgy? Irritation creeps up my arms, starting in the hot dishwater and ending in my clenched jaw.

“I hate doing dishes,” I say. “And I hate the idea of being pulled around Scotland by someone I barely know. They’re going to test me. You can at least tell me how.”

Her face is a blend of surprised and impressed.

“Come on,” I say. “It’s pretty clear. Why else wouldn’t we just go with Gideon? So what is it? Are you not supposed to tell me?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she says, and tosses the towel onto the countertop. “You’re so transparent.” She leans in close, scrutinizing. “The challenge excites you. And so does the confidence of knowing you’re going to pass.”

“Cut the crap, Jestine.”

“There is no crap, Theseus Cassio. I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.” She turns away. “You’re not the only one being tested. We’re alike, you and me. I knew that we would be. I just didn’t know how much.”

Thomas and Carmel come back inside after an hour and find me slumped on the sofa in Gideon’s living room, flipping between the BBC 1 and BBC 2. They shuffle in and sit, Carmel beside me and Thomas in the chair. They look awkwardly, uncomfortably reconciled, a kind of made-up that hasn’t quite stuck. Carmel looks the most wrung out, but that could just be jet lag.

“So?” I ask. “Are we all one big happy family again?” They look at me sourly. It didn’t come out how I wanted.

“I think I’m on probation,” Carmel says. I glance at Thomas. He seems happy, but guarded. And that’s just about right. His trust was shaken. In my brain too, weird phrases whirl around. I want to cross my arms and say things like, “Don’t come back if you’re not going to stay!” and “If you think that nothing’s changed, you’re wrong.” But she’s probably heard all this stuff from Thomas already. I wasn’t the boyfriend. I don’t know why I feel like I should get the chance to yell at her too.

Jesus. I have become the thing they call the third wheel.

“Cas? Something wrong?” Thomas’s brow is knit.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” I say. “To meet the Order of the Blah Blah Blah.”

“The Order of the what?” Carmel asks, and when I don’t, Thomas explains. I listen with half an ear, chuckle at his pronunciation, and supply factoids when asked.

“The journey is going to be a test,” I say “And I don’t think it’ll be the last one.” Jestine’s comment about enjoying the thrill of the challenge is still bubbling in my stomach. Enjoy it. Why would I enjoy it? Except that I do, sort of, and for exactly the reasons she described. And that’s pretty sick when you think about it.

“Listen,” I say. “Let’s take a walk.”

They get up and exchange a glance, catching the ominous vibe.

“Just make it a short walk, okay?” Carmel mumbles. “I don’t know what I was thinking flying in these boots.”

Outside, the sun is out and the sky is cloudless. We head for the cover of trees so we can talk without squinting.

“What’s going on?” Thomas asks when we stop.

“Gideon told me something before he left. Something about the Order and Jestine.” I shuffle. It still sounds so impossible. “He said they were training her to take my place.”

“I knew you shouldn’t trust her,” Thomas exclaims, and turns to Carmel. “I knew it the minute she cursed him in the alley.”

“Look, just because they groomed her for the position doesn’t mean that she’s going to try to steal it. Jestine isn’t the problem. We can trust her.” Thomas clearly thinks I’m a dope. Carmel reserves judgment. “I think we can. And you’d better hope we can. She’s taking us through the Scottish Highlands tomorrow.”

Carmel cocks her head. “You don’t have to use that accent when you say ‘Scottish Highlands.’ You know as well as we do that this isn’t a joke. Who are these people? What are we walking into?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. But don’t expect them to be happy to see me.” It’s an understatement. I keep thinking of the way Jestine spoke outside the chapel at the Tower of London, and the reverent way she looks at the athame. To these people, I’ve committed sacrilege.

“If they want Jestine to take over, what does that mean for you?” Carmel asks.

“I don’t know. I’m banking on the idea that their respect for the athame extends at least partway to the original bloodline of the warrior.” I glance at Thomas. “But when they find out what I want to do with Anna, they’re going to fight it. It wouldn’t hurt to have Morfran’s voodoo network up my sleeve.”

He nods. “I’ll tell him.”

“And after you do, you should both stay here. Wait for me here, at Gideon’s. He’ll watch my back. I don’t want you guys getting into it.”

Their faces are pale. When Carmel slides her hand into Thomas’s, I can see it shake.

“Cas,” she says gently, and looks me right in the eyes. “Shut up.”