Jane Kindred - Waking The Serpent

Phoebe regarded him. “So that’s when they branded you an oath-breaker.”

He nodded. “The Conclave revoked my active status with the Covent and the right to practice ritual.”

“Which you evidently ignored.”

Rafe met the twinkle in her eye with one of his own. “Evidently.”

“But the Covent’s lawyer is still defending you. How’s that work if you’ve been excommunicated?”

“It’s not quite that severe. It’s more like I’m on a metaphysical ‘time out.’ At any rate, their reputation is at stake if my association with them comes up in a murder trial. And the lawyer is actually my father’s, which he thinks I’m unaware of.”

Phoebe leaned her elbow on her knee with her chin propped in her hand. “Ione didn’t think you knew.”

He shrugged as he took a sip of the lemonade. “We all do a lot of pretending, I guess, so everyone gets what they want.”

“So, after the ritual, you went to the psychic?”

Rafe nodded. “My apprentice left town without a word right after the ritual. I was worried about him and hoped she could help me find him.”

“You have an apprentice?”

“Well, had, anyway. The Covent gave him the boot for not standing against me. Matthew’s a freshman at the University of Metaphysics. He applied to the Covent as an apprentice after a summer internship. But no one there has heard from him since last week.”

She was staring at him with an odd expression. “Matthew?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I just...heard the name Matthew somewhere recently. It’s probably nothing.” The way she said it gave him a feeling of misgiving, but she didn’t elaborate.

Rafe finished his lemonade and set the glass on the coffee table. “When I went to see Barbara Fisher, she couldn’t help me with Matt, but she told me there were three souls attached to me, invoked by what I’d done at the Covent’s ritual. She was able to channel them, and the shades appealed to me for help, claiming someone was compelling them to step into unsuspecting hosts.”

“A necromancer.” It was a label he hadn’t thought to use. The idea was chilling.

“She could only channel them for short intervals. We had two more sessions, but the last was cut short. Barbara didn’t channel shades the way you do.” Rafe reached for his glass to cover the awkwardness conjured by the unspoken implication before remembering it was empty.

Phoebe jumped up. “Would you like another? There’s plenty.”

He accepted, glad of the distraction as she went to refill his glass. “Her method was fairly traditional. Tarot, and similar summoning spells to what I’ve used. So there was no direct communication, just her acting as an interpreter. She said she sensed the shades were being pursued by the man trying to control them. She was trying to get details about who he was, or where he was, but they went silent and she couldn’t raise them again. But we were so close to something. I felt it. The shades had begun to trust me.” Rafe glanced up as Phoebe brought him the lemonade. “I think we would have gotten a name that evening, before whatever spooked them. And I think that’s why someone stopped Barbara from contacting them. Permanently.”

Phoebe looked as if she was about to say something, but a loud clatter from the kitchen startled them both. A striped Siamese cat scrabbled at the window over the sink, eyes fixed on a large owl perched in the mesquite tree framed in the glass.

“Puddleglum!” She ran to the kitchen and pulled the cat away from the window, but it was the bird that caught Rafe’s attention. The yellow eyes rimmed with ivory in the dark-brown face stared in at them boldly.

Puddleglum struggled out of Phoebe’s arms and made a dash for the cat door. A moment later, the owl took off from its perch, the pale breast the only spot of color against the chocolate-brown wings as it flew away.

Phoebe examined her scored arms. “Dammit, Puddleglum.”

“Interesting name.” Rafe tried not to show his concern at the visitation by the bird. “He doesn’t look like a marshwiggle.”

Phoebe glanced up at him with a pleased smile. “You know the books.”

Rafe laughed. “I don’t live in a cave. Who hasn’t read the Chronicles of Narnia?”

“Most men, in my experience. At least, not that they’d admit to. I’m more likely to get a positive response to Bilbo Baggins. My theory is the preponderance of strong females in Narnia. Or females at all.”

Rafe blinked at her. “Wait, how did this happen? I thought we were sharing a nerd moment. Now I feel like I’ve had my feminism card revoked.”

She cocked her head, setting the ponytail bobbing. “You have a feminism card?”

“A man can’t be a feminist?”

“Of course he can.” Phoebe studied him as if she’d just found a new species of his genus. “I just don’t meet a lot of them who look like you.”

Rafe raised an eyebrow. “Like me?”

Phoebe laughed. “I think I’m the one being sexist now. Never mind.”

He couldn’t help wondering what he looked like to her. A Neanderthal? Some kind of machismo-obsessed asshole? But the symbolism of the owl nagged at him, putting his ego on the back burner.

The owl was the nagual of Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Underworld, whom Rafe had invoked only last night to such spectacular and mortifying effect. The nagual could be a spirit animal offering protection or it could be the animal form of a sorcerer. He’d never heard of a single documented case of such a transmogrification happening literally, but such myths abounded. And with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he couldn’t afford to dismiss the bird’s appearance as coincidental.

He set down the untouched lemonade and rose. “I should probably get going.”

Phoebe frowned. “I thought we were going to try to work with the shades to get some answers.”

“We?” It was Rafe’s turn to frown. “You said we’d need to set ground rules. I think one of those should be that I don’t participate in the summoning. Whatever happened, whether it was my energy or the gods I invoked for the ritual, it doesn’t seem wise for the two of us to put ourselves in that position again.”

Phoebe’s mouth set in a tight line. “Right. Because that would be horrible.”

He didn’t know what to make of that comment. Was she actually offended that he was trying to protect her from whatever had tried to use them last night? She couldn’t possibly be willing to risk being assaulted just to help him channel a few shades.

“My lawyer is coming over this afternoon, anyway. I need to get back.” Rafe went to the door and paused at the threshold, glancing over his shoulder at her. Bare arms and legs glistened with a light sheen of perspiration in the humidity. Rain was always in the offing this time of year. It made him wonder what she’d taste like with rainwater coursing over her skin.

Rafe cleared his throat. “I suspect the shades might seek you out now that they know you. If they do, let me know what you find out. I appreciate your help.” He tried to smile amiably as he pushed open the screen door. “And the lemonade.”

“Rafe.”

He took a deep breath and turned back, sure she was going to press him on participating in summoning the shades.

“I remember where I heard the name of your apprentice. At the temple yesterday, the presence that drew me there. The name I got from it was Matthew.”

Chapter 7

Rafe felt himself go pale. Hearing Matthew’s name in connection with a shade unnerved him more than he cared to admit.

“Are you sure?”

Phoebe gave him an almost apologetic nod. “I couldn’t get much else. It was like something was blocking the shade from stepping in. But that name—it was almost tangible.”