Shaman Read online

  “She wasn’t?”

  “No. I triggered by myself, off of something at the museum where I worked.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Something was cursed or haunted or marked or vested. Any number of ways. Spend enough time around something like that, and you’ll trigger, if you’re going to. I went through all of it by myself. Then when Sam did find me, she brought me to Carter for help. Told him all of the best warriors in history were paired with a powerful psychic, which isn’t strictly true, but Carter has never been much for doing unnecessary research. And they could both tell I was going to be powerful. So he marked me, and then he trained me, which, believe me on this, is worse than going through it by yourself.”

  She ran her finger around the rim of the tea cup, eliciting a sharp note from it, then folded her fingers across her knee.

  “Sam, you will never, ever be as powerful as me, because Sam will never push you hard enough to get here. Be grateful for that. Never, ever take her for granted.”

  Jason cleared his throat.

  “Can I use your restroom?” he asked. She pointed.

  “I liked her explanation about the walnuts,” she said. “Carter told me that Satan was drilling a hole into my skull so that he could stick a funnel into my brain, and that I just needed to sit still and let it happen.” She got an odd look on her face, then she smiled wistfully. “I’m still not sure who is more accurate, but she genuinely cares about making this as easy as possible for you.”

  “Did you ever figure out what triggered you, at the museum?” Sam asked. She shook her head.

  “No. Carter didn’t care, so when Sam started doing research on the artifacts, he forbade it. Called it a waste of time.”

  “And that worked?”

  “She was twenty years old, Sam. She isn’t who she was back then. None of us are, actually.”

  “So… You know everything that happens to her?” he asked. She picked her tea cup back up and blew on it.

  “I watch her frequently. I know most of what happens to her, though I try to be discrete. If she wouldn’t want me there in person, I try not to watch.”

  “She talks to you.”

  Abby smiled again.

  “Yes, she does. We’ve maintained a friendship across great distance, that way.”

  “Do you answer her?”

  Her eyes unfocused for a moment, as she remembered something that made her happy, then she looked at him again.

  “When Carter was still training me, before she died, she used to try to help me focus on her by talking to me. She would have half of a conversation, and I would write down the whole thing, what she said and my responses. I’d give it to her the next day. We got to the point that she had a good sense of what I was going to say, most of the time.” She smiled distantly again. “Jason doesn’t need to tell you what he thinks, when he thinks you’re wrong, does he?”

  “Not that that stops him.”

  She smiled into her teacup.

  “No.”

  Jason returned.

  “What did I miss? Psychic school?”

  “You have a very strange enjoyment of making faces in mirrors that is not unlike Sam’s,” Abby said. Jason looked at Sam. “My Sam,” Abby clarified. Jason startled.

  “You watch me in the bathroom?” he asked. “That’s just sick.”

  “You watched him now?” Sam asked. She nodded.

  “And I’m watching Sam, as well. She’s forgotten how to keep Carter from getting under her skin,” Abby said.

  “You can do that?” Jason asked. “Sam gets these… zzzzzzz moments,” he said, holding his arms out in front of him and jerking them around, “when he has visions.”

  Abby put her empty tea cup on the table.

  “Very young,” she said. “We should go. They’ll be ready soon.”

  <><><>

  Samantha was in her old room, basically an oversized closet off of the main area of Carter’s huge loft apartment. Three walls were covered in clothes, and she was going through them, trying to figure out which of her normal shopping clothes still worked.

  “That’s not going to fit,” Carter called from the next room as she tried on a pair of pants. She kicked them off and re-hung them, picking another pair. “Those either,” he said. The fact that he couldn’t see her made the whole thing much, much more infuriating. “Amazing how soft you’ve gotten, without me.”

  “You’re a prick,” she called back.

  “And she trots out her strong language,” he said. She tossed aside another pair of pants, finding ones that had barely stayed up, when she was living with Carter. They fit smoothly, now. She had gained weight, on the road.

  “I assume you’re back to your jeans-and-whatever lifestyle full time, now?” Carter called. She didn’t answer. She could practically hear him smile his twisted smile. “I can’t wait to see what they think of you, like this.”

  She picked up the remote to her stereo and turned it on, turning up the music until she couldn’t hear him laugh. Her hair was brushed out and sprayed in place and she had painted her nails and face. The high-heeled quasi-military boots she would wear were sitting at the foot of her bed - oh, how she had missed massive heels - and she knew without looking what shirt she wanted. It was now just a question of picking pants. She heard Abby open the front door.

  “I guess this means these are it,” she said, as much to Abby as to herself, pulling on the shirt. She had a stab of adrenaline as she looked at herself in the mirror, but she shook herself hard and quickly laced up the boots.

  <><><>

  “She’s just about ready,” Carter said. Jason shrugged his jacket forward over his shoulders and glared at Carter. The man had a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile that he mistrusted completely, but it was the clothes that really put him off. He was wearing the same black suit, white shirt, black tie combination that he had worn every other time Jason had seen him, and the fact that he wore it like it was normal was grating.

  “Nice place,” he said. He had meant it to be sarcastic, but Carter looked around at the apartment and nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  Wood panel walls, maybe twenty feet high, hardwood floors, and dropped lighting that kept the ceiling in shadow gave it the feel of a haunted barn. He looked at Sam and rolled his eyes. Music from another room shut off and Samantha walked through a doorway and into sight.

  “I’m ready,” she said. He felt his eyes bug out. She walked across the room with the gait only a woman in heels can carry and held a finger up in his face.

  “You say word one, I will cut out your tongue,” she said. His mouth hung open.

  “I’d do it just to see where you’re keeping the knife,” he said, running his tongue along the edge of his teeth. She glared, then continued past him. He looked at Sam. “Am I actually seeing this?”

  Sam looked just as stunned.

  She was wearing mesh.

  Leather pants, black bra. Mesh shirt. That was open in the front. He tilted his head as she walked away, mesmerized, but Sam slapped him in the back of the head.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “Dude,” Jason said.

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Dude,” Jason repeated.

  “Tonight is going to be fun,” Carter said.

  <><><>

  “To market,” Carter said to the driver. They sat facing each other in the back of a limousine, Jason still doing his level best not to stare. Carter leaned forward and motioned to Samantha.

  “When she was useless, I would take her out shopping with me,” he said. “If you have a pretty girl standing next to you while you negotiate price, you strike a better bargain.”

  “I was the distraction,” Samantha said. “That was what I was good for.”

  “I just can’t believe you go out like that,” Sam said. “After how you are all the time with us. I thought you were shy.”

  Carter drew his head back, and snorted.

  “It doesn’t count w
ith a demon.”

  “What does that mean?” Jason asked.

  “It’s a motto,” Samantha said. “It means that all the things that you aren’t supposed to do for ethical reasons with people, you can do with demons, and it doesn’t… count.”

  “The biggies being murder and sex,” Carter said.

  “Sex with a demon,” Jason said. “Right. Awesome.”

  Sam made an uncomfortable noise and Jason glanced at him. Oh, right.

  Carter whistled through an otherwise uncomfortably silent ride across town, where Samantha got out and produced a roll of hundred-dollar bills from… somewhere.

  “Hold,” she said to Jason, handing it to him. “You,” she said, indicating Sam. “Stay. You smell like fresh meat.”

  “Oh, you’re splitting them up?” Carter said. “How will I know which one to go with for the greatest entertainment value?”

  “Go, stay, whatever. I’m going to go get the easy stuff off my list.”

  Jason followed her through a tangled alleyway of people. The hair on the back of his neck stood up with the tension she caused. Hatred, arousal, curiosity, hunger all swirled around her as she whisked from booth to booth. She stopped at one booth where the owner evidently knew her, but the man spent the entire time she shopped watching Jason with his arms crossed. She handed him her purchases and he told her the price. Jason’s jaw dropped.

  “Three thousand dollars?” he asked. She smiled, one corner of her mouth rising coyly.

  “Even my naive associate can tell that that’s too much,” she said. “Thirteen hundred.”

  “Costs are up, Sam,” he said, eyes not leaving Jason. “Twenty-five.”

  She shrugged.

  “Fifteen, or I just go up the street. They’re commodities, Luther.”

  “Eighteen. You won’t do better.”

  “You tried to bake me, because you thought I got stupid in the last two years. I’ll give you sixteen because I used to like you, but I’m not coming back.”

  “Sixteen,” he agreed. Samantha turned to look at Jason.

  “Pay the man.”

  He counted out bills and handed them over, glancing at Samantha.

  “Sixteen hundred dollars for a bag of herbs? I hope those are a great high.”

  “Supply and demand. I could get five grand for these in New Orleans, if I were willing to deal with the end users there.”

  “Where did you get that kind of money?” he asked. She looked at him, her shoulders turning enough to draw his eyes down again.

  “I’ve been a seller here since I was nineteen,” she said, then paused. “Certified virgin.”

  He drew his head back, lowering his eyelids.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Hair, tears, saliva, sweat. I once got twenty-five grand for a sliver of my tongue.”

  “What do they do with it?”

  “I only did specific sales. The seller here would get an order and confirm use, then come to me. No dark magic. Also, they were never to know who I was, because selling that kind of stuff can be really stupid, if people can trace it back to the originator.” She looked down at her list. “I never sold blood, though. Virgin blood is too powerful. People are willing to try to cheat the system, over that. And I never actually got to sell my hair, either. Carter always made me dye it.”

  “That’s messed up,” Jason said. She stopped at another booth, carefully sorting through a pile of glass containers.

  “Welcome to the world I left.”

  She spent another six thousand dollars in the market, then they walked back down to the car.

  “I need to go to Sid’s,” she said. Carter grinned.

  “All of you are staying in the car,” she said. The drive was short, and she left and returned in the space of five minutes. Jason realized he was still holding her money.

  “How did you pay him?” he asked as she sat back in her seat. He leaned closer. “Is your lipstick smudged?”

  Carter grinned.

  “Sid is a girl.”

  “Marcus,” she said, sighing. “Then I’m done.”

  Ten minutes later, the car stopped.

  “Everybody out,” Carter said. Samantha sighed, but didn’t argue.

  They were in a dark court with a single streetlight, and Samantha walked across the pool of light to a man at the center of a crowd of buyers and sellers.

  “We stay over here,” Carter said as Jason started to follow. Carter and Abby were leaning against the car. Sam looked torn over following or not.

  “I need cherub root,” Jason heard Samantha say.

  “You know I won’t sell to you,” the man answered. She took a step back, opening her stance and holding her arms out.

  “How about a wager, then?” she asked.

  “You think you can beat me?” he asked. She grinned, taking another step back into the light and holding her arms out at shoulder height, now.

  “I’d like to see you prove me wrong,” she said.

  “What is she doing?” Jason hissed. “That guy is a demon, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Carter said.

  “Marcus won’t sell to her because of ecumenical differences,” Abby said.

  “What?” Jason asked in disbelief.

  “He doesn’t think women should fight demons,” Abby continued.

  “She’s going to fight him? A full-fledged demon? Barehanded? In heels?” Jason asked. She was continuing to back up, centering the fight under the street lamp, and the group of demons slowly followed, creating a semi-circle around Marcus. Marcus lowered into a crouch and Sam started to approach Samantha. She flung out an arm toward him, and Sam stumbled backwards into the limo. Abby stood up sharply.

  “I wanna do that,” she said, looking at Sam.

  “You guys are just going to stand and watch this happen?” Jason asked. Carter leaned his hips against the limo and shrugged. Jason turned his head as Marcus sprang.

  Samantha held up her hand and spoke two loud, clear words, and Marcus deflected off to one side as though he had hit a wall.

  “Ohhh,” Carter said softly. “Thanks for playing.”

  She followed up with a smooth-woven string of words, phrases, and Marcus screamed, charging at her again. This time he reached her, but when he put his shoulder into her waist, she simply put a foot back and tossed him off.

  “What is she doing?” Jason asked.

  “Blessings. Angelic blessings,” Carter answered. “They’re pretty much the best curses money can buy against demons.”

  Marcus took another run at her, and she stepped nimbly to the side, grabbing the collar of his jacket as he reached her and tossing him down and sideways. Her language changed dramatically.

  Sharp, angry, alternating between hissing and barking noises, she chased Marcus down, hitting him in the face when he tried to rise, kicking him when he didn’t.

  “That’s more like it,” Carter said. “That’s the girl I trained.”

  “What is that?” Jason asked, resisting the urge to cover his ears as her voice grew louder.

  “Hellspeak. Curses,” Carter said. He smiled, closing his eyes to listen as though sampling something of extreme quality. “Old ones, too. Classics.”

  She had Marcus pinned against a wall now, and she stepped back, her voice at a full-throated yell.

  “Why didn’t she tell us?” Sam asked.

  “What do you think she’s doing now?” Carter answered.

  Marcus melted to his knees, then his side, and Samantha took another step back, taking a breath, then speaking the same two words that she had opened with, softly. She turned back to the crowd and bowed. There was applause, and Marcus slowly made his way to his feet.

  “Watch out,” Jason called. Abby put a hand on his elbow.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “They’re old friends.”

  Samantha turned and helped him up, getting his arm across her shoulders. She said something to him and he laughed. She walked him across the court and h
e pulled his arm down to wrap it around her waist, pulling her tight against him, like Jason would have with Kara.

  “Marcus, these are my friends, Sam and Jason. Guys, this is Marcus.”

  “I’d shake your hand, but…” Jason said.

  “They have a demon thing,” Samantha said. Marcus shrugged.

  “Not going to say they’re wrong,” he said. “Let me go get you your cherub root.”

  He jogged over to the group and came back, handing her a vial.

  “You know I wouldn’t do this if I could buy it anywhere else,” she said. He shrugged.

  “Glad you came by. Good to see you.” He nodded at Sam and then Jason. “And nice to meet you. Friend of Sam’s is a friend of mine. I’m happy to sell to you, if you wanted.”

  Samantha opened her mouth and he laughed, holding up a hand.

  “But I know you would never be so deceitful as to send them to buy for you. Not you.”

  She grinned and hugged him.

  “Miss you,” she said.

  “Yeah. Back at you, girl.” He held her arm for a moment and indicated Sam. “You know he’s covered in demon spit, right?”

  “I’ve been informed.”

  Jason held his arm out as she walked by to go get back in the car, looking for an opportunity to say something confidentially to her, but she skittered away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  <><><>

  She went and changed into her loosest, most comfortable pajamas as soon as they got back to Carter’s apartment. The bigger market would be tomorrow night; she had gotten everything she was going to be able to get tonight, and she just wanted to go back to the self that she had been since she had left Carter. She liked that self.

  “Well, that was fun,” Carter said. “Everyone get out.”

  “Come on, Sam,” Jason said to her. She looked at the floor.

  “She’s staying here. This is where she stays,” Carter said. “Buh bye.”

  She looked up again. Sam was watching her, sad, but resigned. He pressed his lips and nodded to her.

  “Good night,” he said softly.

  “Sam can stay,” she said.

  “What?” Jason asked.

  “No,” Carter said, at the same time. She smiled, feeling her painted fingernails and her dark lips and looked from one to the other of them.