A Song of Forgiveness Read online

  “Really?” Digby asked. “When? It’s not second nature to you.”

  “No, but I can play the character.” I shot a smug look his way. I’d played connivers and bitches on stage. All I had to do was go into character.

  “So far as dealing with the hecklers, we can work on some prearranged responses to almost anything we think someone will say. I have an answering machine full of them... Oh, wait. I don’t. I had the phone taken out today. But I can remember a lot of them.”

  “You removed your house phone?” Digby asked. His smile was more of a smirk. He’d been teasing me about having that phone line, along with the expense of it, for a long time.

  “Shut up! Let me play this new song for you.” I moved to my keyboard, ready to get down to practicing now.

  THE NEXT DAY, I CALLED Gayle Trumbull and told her I’d decided to do the interview. She balked a little at providing the questions in advance, but I stood firm.

  “If you want me to do it, then send me the questions. I don’t want to look like a dumb chick who can’t string two words together on your show, so give me the opportunity to think about the responses.”

  “We can edit out any flubs or long pauses,” she responded. “It won’t be live.”

  “You know, I just don’t trust the way you might edit it, so just send me the questions. And I have the option to not answer any that I consider too personal or out of line.”

  Trumbull grumbled a little more but ultimately agreed. I gave her my email address and told her I’d expect them by Saturday morning. Since we’d set the interview up for the following Monday afternoon, that would give me time to go over them with Ferris and Digby to make sure my responses weren’t revealing anything.

  As I hung up, I realized I still hadn’t heard back from Janna. That really wasn’t like her. I sent her a text asking her to get in touch as soon as she could.

  When my phone vibrated almost right after, I figured it was Janna sending a message, but it was Gavin letting me know his plane had just landed and could I meet him later? I had the meeting at four-thirty with Madame Astrid, but I figured I could get with him by about six.

  Bring Chinese, he texted back.

  I glanced at the clock, figured I had barely enough time to check the house, and give Nygard a hug, then hurried out the door to work.

  SEVEN DOGS AND A MINIATURE pony later, I finished up at work. About the pony, both Heeni and I had tried to explain that we didn’t groom horses, but the owner was desperate and in tears. Neither of us was a match for a bawling man. The pony had gotten into something sticky and her mane and tail were a mess. I ended up having to cut both of them pretty short, but the girl turned out to be pretty mellow so long as I used scissors and not the electric clippers. It netted me a nice tip on top of a fee that was nearly double the dog fee. Heeni’s revenge for bringing a horse into the shop.

  Now, here I was back at Madame Astrid’s home office, settled on the chair at the side of the window. I started by filling her in on everything that had happened when I’d sung for Saffi Alden’s funeral. As I related the incidents that led up to my encounter with the two shades, that I believed to be True Shades, her eyes grew bigger and bigger and her mouth tightened into a thin line. Then, I told her how Nygard had appeared in the transitional cemetery as a fierce, huge cat and attacked the shade that was about to kill me.

  Her expression looked grim with her eyebrows tugging down toward her nose. “That’s not good,” she muttered.

  “No, it wasn’t,” I agreed. “It nearly killed my cat in reality.”

  I told her the rest of the story and waited as she thumped her fingers on the end table and seemed to be communing with Elias, her spirit guide.

  Finally, she blinked and cleared her throat. “It sounds as if the shades are increasing their activity. Possibly they’re building up to something on that plane or are planning to try to transition to this plane.”

  “Transition? They’re already here. I spotted another one at my house a couple of days ago. Gavin’s been seeing them for the past few years.” I’d sat forward on the chair, waving my hands as I spoke.

  “Yes, that’s true, my dear. They have made forays into our plane. But this sounds more serious. I am not sure I have answers for you, Gillian.” She looked worried and rubbed her hands against her arms as if she was chilled.

  “Can Elias help?”

  Her head weaved from side to side as she seemed to concentrate, then said, “He doesn’t know. There is turmoil on his side as well. He said he will try to find out more. I’ve never seen him so muddled.”

  A lump of fear rose in my chest. Something that rattled a spirit guide? That wasn’t reassuring. How the heck did I end up in this mess? I coughed, clearing my throat. “Actually, I came here to talk about my cat.”

  “Your cat?” Astrid seemed startled that I would want to discuss Nygard.

  “I nearly lost him because of this attack on the other side. How can I stop him from coming to me?”

  She peered at me, an intense look in her eyes as if she might see through mine. “Tell me again, how is he connected to you?”

  “We seem to have energy flowing between us. I was petting him one night and I could see golden strands of energy coming from him to me. I thought it was my imagination at first, but then it continued. Somehow, he is linked with me.” I knew it sounded bizarre, but this whole spirit thing was weird. If anyone could understand, it would be Astrid.

  She blinked and sat back. “Where did you get Nygard?”

  A small smile tweaked my lips. “A customer gave him to me about four years ago. She often came into the grooming shop with her Maltese and one day she asked if I had a dog at home. I told her I didn’t. I figured a dog wouldn’t work with my lifestyle, working during the day, performing at night, and sometimes being out of town on the weekends for gigs. Dogs needed more attention than I could give one.

  “About a week later, she came back into the shop with this little, adorable Himalayan kitten and said he would be the perfect companion for me. I fell in love with him at first sight.”

  “Uh hmmm,” Astrid murmured. “And did this customer come back often?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Now that you ask, no, she didn’t. She came back a couple of more times, I think, then quit coming in. I thought she might have moved out of the area. Why?”

  Astrid picked up her deck of cards, reached into the middle, and pulled out one. She studied it for a few moments. She flipped it around, holding it up—the Jack of Cups, the same card she’d shuffled to the top of the deck when she’d done my reading a month or so ago. “You recall I said that you had a helper indicated by this card. Since I pulled it again, I believe that your cat is that helper.”

  My lower lip dropped open as I stared at the card, then her face. “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it?” She tilted her head to my right and arched an eyebrow, waving the card across my vision. “Your cat. Your spirit animal? The fact that he crossed to the next plane and transformed certainly indicates that he’s more than just a cat.”

  “Soooo, what are you saying?”

  “Witches have familiars, which are spirit animals with extra powers. Myths about cats having nine lives aren’t as crazy as they sound, nor are some of the other tales credited to them. They’re a very powerful animal. They can see this plane and another plane. Particularly, those that are gifted.”

  I gawked at her. “Because he was a gift, I have a super cat?” Alright, I was being obtuse on purpose.

  She sighed. “Not that kind of gifted. I mean having extra powers. Nygard– Did you chose that name or did he?”

  “He did. It popped into my head a couple of days after I got him, so I figured it came from him.”

  A little smile crinkled her lips. “Did you look it up?”

  “In what? A cat naming book?”

  “Check it out just for fun. There may be a clue in the name he’s chosen. Anyway, he is obviously attached to you for a reas
on. He’s a helper, Gillian.”

  I let out an exasperated breath and gazed out the window as I tried to collect my thoughts. This was crazy— Like an almost six-foot-long version of Nygard wasn’t? I corralled my thoughts and said, spacing my words out, “I don’t want him to be a helper. It’s dangerous.”

  “My dear, this whole situation is dangerous. A war is brewing. There’s more at risk than you and your cat. He’s here to help you. Use him.”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s not an option.”

  Astrid gazed at me for what felt like a long time, her eyes boring into my eyes, my soul. “I can see the love you have for him. You’ve grown very attached. Tell you what, bring Nygard in to see me and I will tell you if what I have divined is true. If he is here to help, then you may need to train him how to fight with you.”

  “You can’t be serious. I don’t even know how to fight them!”

  “You had better learn soon. Their advance grows daily.”

  I closed my eyes as I heard her words like I could shut out the reality of it. I was not the person to save the world from demonic soul eaters. Someone else had to be more suited for it.

  FOUR

  I still felt rattled when I pulled the Jeep up in front of Gavin’s house. Beside me, a couple of bags held the Chinese food I’d barely remembered to pick up. I kept hearing Astrid’s final words and fearing that she was telling the truth. How could I deny it when I’d seen the monsters at my door?

  I’d barely tapped the bell before Gavin opened the door. Casually dressed in jeans and a navy tee shirt, his bare feet slapped against the wooden floor as he scrubbed his damp hair with a towel. “Hey, chica. Good timing.”

  He wrapped the towel around his neck and took the food bags out of my hands, pivoted, and took them to the kitchen. I followed him in, slipping my coat off as I walked.

  “Did you just get up?”

  Setting the bags down, he began removing the cartons, setting them on his kitchen counter.

  “Yep. Catching up a little on my sleep. It was a bumpy flight back so I used the time to do a little research.” He paused to look me over, pulled me into a hug, then stepped back as he reached for a couple of paper plates. No fancy dinnerware tonight.

  “You look tense. What’s wrong?”

  “Just worried about a few things, you know,” I answered, trying to lighten my voice. “I have hecklers at my performances, shades on the rooftop, and I seem to be woefully unprepared for any of it.”

  “Shades bothering you?” His head jerked toward me in alarm. “How many? When?”

  “Only one, a couple of days ago. I scared it away, but Nygard howled up a storm.” I leaned against the counter and plucked a fried noodle from a carton.

  He bit his lip. “Well, that’s not a good thing. They’re getting too ambitious now. They know where you are and what you can do. Or at least, they think they do. But since we don’t know how strong your power is, I don’t think they do either.”

  “They almost defeated me,” I pointed out.

  “But they didn’t.” He winked at me. Whether that was to give me encouragement or if he had some trick up his sleeve, I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t bolster my confidence any.

  “Gavin, I’ve got to figure out how this power works and learn to use it properly. So far, I’ve been guessing and I’m lucky it’s even hitting them.”

  “I know. Let’s talk about this after we eat, okay? I’m starving.”

  I rolled my eyes. It seemed like he was always hungry.

  After we’d eaten, we shifted into the living room to talk more and attempt to formulate a plan. While not every person he’d talked to had information for him, at least a few did. His colleagues, as he called them, had run across quite a few odd occurrences in their adventures and at least three of them had encountered something similar to the shades. The fact that they saw them made me wonder if they all had some sort of paranormal ability such as Gavin had. He could see the shades briefly, but they usually appeared in human form shortly after making the shift. I speculated that they might be borrowing humans, but Gavin disagreed.

  At any rate, he had some notes on what those three people had observed about them. For the most part, they hadn’t been aggressive, although one of them did say the shade seemed to be unusually interested in him and he decided to go before the creature got too close.

  “It sounds like they were all observing,” I pointed out. “They weren’t chasing anyone like they were with you. Kind of odd, isn’t it?”

  He glanced up from his notes, his expression looking a little sheepish. “Maybe I pushed the ones I spotted the last time just a little too far. I had just taken the ring a couple of days before this and it seemed to be something that irritated them. I don’t know why. I tried to figure it out, but I didn’t see anything that would relate to them.”

  “You’re talking about the ring you got on your dig last spring?”

  He bobbed his head, “Yep. You got a read on it, didn’t you? Did you see anything?”

  I thought back to the visions that I’d glimpsed when I’d picked up the ancient ring, but most had been of places—a garden, old towns, cities—until I’d come to the one of him fleeing through the marketplace. “No, nothing I could connect with something they might be interested in. Maybe there’s more that I didn’t see. I could try again.”

  He caught my hand and pressed my fingers against the ring on his pinky finger as he thought. I tried to stretch my senses to it, not sure how well I could connect with it still on his hand.

  He slid his hand back. “Not tonight. You still seem unsettled and I think we have more to discuss. Now, about your training... The truth is I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know any more about your power than you do. I think we need to find a secluded canyon, maybe out toward Red Rock, and just see what you can do. Try a few different ways to cast it to determine how the wrist movement and finger positions might change the form.”

  “Okay,” I said, drawling the word out. “You think that different ways can change how the energy is dispersed. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Pretty much. Think about it. If you push water through a thin opening, like a small hose, it pours out in a harder, smaller stream, than if you run it through a ditch where it puts out a broader flow. I think your power might be controlled that way. Until we try a few different ways and see the difference, we won’t know.”

  I took a deep breath as I thought about it, picturing the ways I’d managed to use it. “Mostly, I’ve cast it with an open-handed pose like a stop hand movement. But the other day, I pulled my fingers into a cone to try to aim at the shade on the roof.”

  “Good. Did you notice a difference?” His eyes held an excited look as if I might validate his theory right there.

  “Maybe. I think it was more of a beam with the cone shape, while the flat palm produced a wider blast.” I wasn’t really sure if there was that much difference.

  “So, let’s try them out to see.”

  “Okay. That sounds reasonable. When can we do this?”

  “How does Sunday sound? I think I know a good spot where we won’t be observed.”

  “Okay. It’s a deal. What time?” I rose to grab my coat. It had grown late and I was ready to go home, feed my cat, and go to bed.

  “Meet me here at ten and we’ll take my truck. Bring donuts.”

  I shot a look at him. “Donuts?”

  He nodded, a cute smile bringing out the dimples at the side of his mouth. “Preferably buttermilk.”

  I pulled my phone out to plug it in to recharge when I noticed a text message from Janna. I had set it to vibrate then left it in my purse once I’d gotten to Gavin’s. Irritated that I’d missed her message, I called it up and read.

  It was brief: Been buried under with new job. Could use a break. Call me tomorrow. J.

  Happy to hear from her, I sent a text back acknowledging and plugged the phone into the charger as Nygard sauntered into the living room from the
kitchen. I scooped him into my arms and lowered us both into the armchair for some quality time. He sat on my lap rather than snuggling down, but his front paws, claws neatly retracted, kneaded on my thighs as I scratched his ears.

  “Nygard, sweetie-cat, I’ve been wondering what your name means. Did you actually communicate it to me? Otherwise, I sure don’t know where I pulled it out.”

  Astrid’s question lingered with me. I’d tried several names when I’d first gotten the kitten, but he didn’t respond to anything at that point except kitty and food. Then Nygard had popped into my head and out of my mouth almost simultaneously and he’d cast an intent gaze at me, then scurried across the floor in acknowledgment, so that became his name. I’d always felt he’d chosen it. Had he telepathed it to me?

  He settled on my lap and I half-closed my eyes, watching for the golden strands I’d seen before. Sure enough, in just a couple of minutes, the thin strings of energy rose from his body and connected with my hand. I felt a tingle sliding through my fingers and up my arm as it spread to my body. A feeling of well-being washed over me as if everything was as it should be and nothing was impossible.

  As we communed with each other, I spoke to him about my concerns as if he would understand me. “Nygard, you can’t follow me to the next plane when I have to go there. It’s too dangerous for you and I don’t want to lose you. Have you got that? Big spirit and all, I can’t see you hurt again.”

  He opened a drowsy eye, the blue iris shining in the light next to the chair, and an agreeable meow came out of his throat, then he rolled onto his back for a tummy scratch.

  Both of us had taken hard hits in that last visit I’d made to the ethereal cemetery. If Nygard hadn’t come, I might have been killed, but I couldn’t risk his life again. While he’d been in bad shape, I wasn’t totally free of the effect of the Shade’s touch. I’d suffered chills and weakness for three days afterward. Once the adrenalin keeping me pumped while I worried about Nygard’s health had burnt through my system, I’d practically collapsed. Ferris had followed me home after I’d picked up the cat from the veterinarian. Then he’d stayed here that night, refusing to leave us alone. I think it had shaken him up almost as much as it did me.