Page 15 of Soothsayer

“Missing your war zones already?”

“Hey, you can only write so many op-eds on diaper choices and formula comparisons before you start to go crazy,” Andre replied. “I’ve got some free time right now. I can get you the information you need, maybe help you do a little digging once you get here. My standard rates apply, of course.”

“Of course.” The swell of relief sweeping from my chest to my knees made me glad I was sitting down. “I can do that. Thanks.”

“When are you getting in?”

“Sometime today or tomorrow, I haven’t actually booked the flight yet.” But I would. I had a pile of cash upstairs, courtesyof Roger. Hopefully it would be enough to see me through whatever happened in Chicago.

“Let me know. I’ll pick you up at the airport. We can talk about things then.”

“You don’t have to go out of your way for me,” I cautioned him. “You don’t even know me. I might be a complete jackass for all you know. I could be wasting your time.”

“Maybe.” He drew the word out like he was pulling on a thread, curious to see what would happen. “But even if you are a jackass, it’s an interesting situation, and you might have a story here worth looking at. Why else would you have called me up? I know you don’t like reporters, man. I don’t have to be psychic to get that you were basically coerced into talking to me. Why do it if you dislike the idea so much?”

“My mother made me. Don’t laugh,” I added as I heard his quick intake of air. “You try having a mother like mine and see if you ever get out of anything.” I’d wondered at the time why my mom had been so invested in getting me to do a stupid interview, and…

Suddenly the pieces fell into place. I’d needed to do something that would get me to look atModern Parapsychia, because it was probably the only publication in the world that bothered to write about what was, at best, a human interest story about a man and his land. She had known I would see it; she’d known I’d remember the name. She’d known I’d recognize Sören. She’d?holy shit.

“I’ll text my flight info when I have it,” I said and hung up the phone so I could take a moment just to breathe. Thank god I was still outside. I didn’t have to worry about what Marisol and Phin might be thinking and could just have a nice little panic attack all by myself.

How much had she known? How much had my mother known the first time around, when I got kidnapped and ultimately madea decision to destroy a young man’s life? How much could she have prevented?

It was useless to speculate, and it was even more useless to blame my mom for any of it. I’d gotten sick of that years ago and couldn’t go back to it, not now, not even with a bullet wound in my arm and an undead lover staring out of a picture on my phone. Still… I dialed her number. It rang through to voice mail.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” I might not blame her, but I couldn’t help the frustration that bled into every word, squeezed through my viselike throat. “I figured it out, okay, just the beginnings of it, and I just hope that?you know I’m not like you.”

That was both my failing and my greatest achievement, not being as far-seeing as my mother, not able to be as objective and decisive. I knew that fate couldn’t be changed, not without extreme circumstances, but my mother couldn’t see every specific of my fate either. Whatever was happening, whatever she’d planned, most of it was based on extrapolation. Psychic guesswork. “Fuck.” I hung up on her and didn’t feel any better for it.

Marisol was waiting for me in the kitchen, ready to ambush me before I could retreat upstairs. “Cillian—”

“Where’s Phin?” I asked, gaining another little moment to collect myself.

“He had to go and supervise repairs in that rathole of a club they run.” The bitter twist to her lips seemed to intimate that she’d be happier burning it than repairing it. “Cillian, what’s going on? What do you need?”

One simple sentence was enough to remind me of why I loved Marisol. She understood the forces at work well enough to know that things had gotten beyond my control?that the situation was bigger than just me. She knew I had to act. “I need to go to Chicago.”

She sighed, obviously unsurprised. “To find out more about the man who drowned?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, shit.”

I choked out a laugh. “Yeah, exactly.”

She stepped forward and put her hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently. The right one ached despite her care, but I didn’t flinch. “You better let me help you pack, otherwise it will take you hours. When do you need to leave?”

“Soon.”

“Fine.” She nodded and let go, glancing around the kitchen. “I have enough for a decent good-bye dinner, I suppose. I’ll drive you to the airport after we eat.”

“We just had breakfast,” I pointed out.

The fire that suddenly rose in her eyes was almost enough to make me take a step back. I sometimes forgot that Marisol could be a force of nature when she wanted to, as wild and dangerous as anyone I’d ever met before. “The cards don’t lie. You’re about to leap into something that will test everything you are,” she snapped. “I’m not going to let you go before I know I’ve done everything I can to help you, and that includes feeding up your skinny ass so you don’t starve on your first day in Chicago when you forget to eat.Idiota.” She turned me around and swatted me on the butt. “Go. I’ll get the chicken started and then I’ll be up.”

It would be pointless to argue, and I didn’t really want to anyway. I left, feeling the little bits of give in the stairs as I climbed, listening to the creak of old wood as I walked into my room. Tavo’s room, but my room too. This was the closest place to a home I’d ever had, and I wasn’t quite ready to let it go. I knew I had to, though.

Feeling a little ridiculous, I grabbed one of Marisol’s many tiny bronze Buddhas off the windowsill and stuck it in the side pocketof my bag. It was a tiny reminder that I had somewhere to go if all this went to hell.

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