Death Omen Read online

  Leon stood. “I’m not doing anything you say. I don’t believe Sierra chose you. You’re lying about Magda. You could be lying about Sierra. What did you do to them?”

  “Me? Do something to Sierra?”

  “To Sierra, to Magda. You could have poisoned her, for all I know. I’m going to—I’m going to—I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’ll find out.” He tried to exit from the square of benches and lost control of the turn, smacking his shin and cursing in pain, then walked off with small, careful steps that began to pitch into a kind of shuffling run.

  Worried that he could fall, Jamie followed. Fatigued though he was, he caught up with Leon easily and put a hand on his shoulder, breaking his momentum. “You all right, mate?”

  “I need to know what happened to Sierra.” Leon faced him and gripped both of Jamie’s arms. “We need her. Have you ever met a spiritual teacher like her? She’s the center of gravity of our soul group. It’s not like her to leave us.”

  Jamie eased out of Leon’s grasp, troubled by the intensity of his faith as well as the bruising pressure of his fingers. “Think you should ice your leg first. That had to hurt. I’ll ask around about her.”

  “Don’t just ask around. Find out. We need her. Do you know what this group could become?”

  A bunch of idiots? Jamie ran a hand through his tangled hair, trying to come up with a good lie. “Um, the renaissance of Mu?”

  Leon’s eyes lit up, and he whispered, “Yes. You understand. The renaissance of Mu.” He grabbed Jamie’s hand in both of his, squeezed hard, and went into his suite.

  *****

  Mae stared at Derek. “No way. Sierra? She wouldn’t want me to heal her.”

  “You know her?”

  “She was at that workshop I went to with Fiona McCloud and Mary Kay Dieffenbacher. Sierra argued with their ethics. She wanted to blame people for being sick and to send them energy whether they wanted it or not, and she didn’t like me. I ran into her the other night and she wasn’t happy to see me.”

  “I promised her an appointment with you. I hope you’re not turning her down. She sounds like she needs healing.”

  “She does. It would be nice if that was what she wanted.” But I kinda doubt it.

  In the energy room, Mae turned on the salt crystal and selenite lamps and closed the door. Before her healing sessions, she usually spent a few minutes alone, meditating. As she attempted to do it now, though, her racing thoughts wouldn’t stop. Could she use this session to learn Sierra’s secrets? Would that be wrong, or would it be one of those wrongs that was right? What if Sierra wanted to harm her in some way, sending negative energy? Or harass her for being—what a bizarre idea—the mother of demons?

  Mae didn’t always use music for meditation or healing, but today she needed it and turned to her collection of healing music, looking for Jamie’s early albums, Sound Bath and Sound Bath II. She’d been moved by the gentle power of that music before she’d ever met him, listening to it on her way West after separating from Hubert. It had kept her going when she thought her heart would break.

  Hearing a firm knock, Mae set her crystals on the side table, put Sound Bath II on, and opened the door. The low, pulsing drone of Jamie’s didgeridoo began, accompanied by an ethereal thread of melody on the shakuhachi. In a way, it was like having him with her, having his help and support.

  Sierra, carrying a small flat paper bag, looked around before coming in, even peering under the table. Was she checking if the little demons were there? Apparently satisfied, she entered, sat on the table and opened her bag, taking out a card. “First, I need you to sign this. A get well card for Magda.”

  “But I don’t know Magda.”

  “Of course you do. Everyone knows who she is.”

  “Some of my friends read her books, but I don’t. It’d be weird, me sending her a card.”

  “Don’t you want her to get well?” Sierra’s cool blue eyes grew rounder.

  “This is really strange. Of course I want her to get well. I want anyone who’s sick to get well.”

  Sierra’s small pale hand, her pearly-pink nails chipped, clasped Mae’s hand and pressed it against the card. “Then join your intentions with mine.”

  “You shouldn’t try to force me do to anything. Don’t you remember our training? Fiona said that any unwanted touch is assault.”

  “I never heard that.” Sierra let go slowly. “We need to share our touch to send healing to Magda.”

  “Through the card? I haven’t trained in distant healing. If you need me to help you personally, though, I’ll do whatever I can.”

  Sierra exhaled harshly and tried to slide the card into its envelope, but there was something in the way that she had to move to make the card fit. She tucked it back in the bag and frowned at the CD player. The song had grown more complex, with layers of vocals, Jamie harmonizing with himself in wordless chants. It appeared to have no effect on Sierra, but Mae felt it as a flood of sweet warmth, like firelight.

  “I don’t need to be healed,” Sierra said. “I’ve worked on myself for years.”

  Denial? Delusion? Remembering her vision of Sierra as a child, Mae wanted to help her. At the same time, she wanted to stop her in her tracks. Then the two goals snapped into place as one. Healing would stop her. The only problem was she didn’t want to be healed. Could she change her mind?

  Mae said, “You’ve done some amazing work on yourself. I’m impressed. Your mama had rheumatoid arthritis real bad and you healed yourself from it completely.”

  Sierra’s eyes flashed. “How do you know about my mother?”

  “The same way you knew about Jamie’s past life.”

  “You couldn’t. We don’t carry our co-souls in our auras.”

  Co-souls? What are those? Mae resisted the distraction. “I just meant that I’m psychic. I saw your daddy, too. I’m sorry you lost him. How did he die? Was it melanoma?”

  “So they said.” Sierra’s face hardened and she turned away. “But his doctors killed him. Cutting and poisoning. How could he get well with all those assaults on his body? And he let them do it.”

  “You’re saying he could have recovered on his own if he hadn’t let them?”

  “Yes. And he still can.” Sierra took her phone out and thumbed the screen. “Through me.”

  “You can heal the dead?”

  “Parallel lives. You don’t know anything, do you?”

  Mae caught herself getting lost in the maze of Sierra’s beliefs and corrected course. “I’m sure you know things I don’t. But I can still help you with whatever you came for.”

  “Good.” Sierra tapped out a message. “I need to get the healing chain started for Magda.”

  A new doubt seized Mae. At the workshop, Sierra had asked how to send uninvited forces to people in her support group. Had she learned how? Mae had met people in the past who could steal a healer’s energy and misuse it. If Sierra was after Magda’s money, she might want to harm her, not heal her. “I can’t participate in a chain. I don’t have Magda’s permission.”

  “You don’t need it. I have it. My whole group has it.” Sierra put her phone away and lay on the table, holding the bag with the card in it over her heart. “Send the healing through me.”

  Another layer of instruments, Native flute, drums, and rain sticks, flowed into the music. The effect was mellow, grounding, and steady, but Sierra lay rigid.

  “Well?” Her eyes flew open.

  Mae pretended confidence. “Relax.” She had to do something. But what?

  Fiona had advised her to do less, to start a process and let it evolve on its own. Could she put out a kind of buffet of vibrations and hope Sierra would help herself? “I’m going to do a ceremony.”

  “Good.” Sierra closed her eyes, but her face stayed tense. “I’m ready.”

  Instead of touching her or placing crystals on her body, Mae laid a grid of crystals around her. Aventurine for spiritual protection. Snow quartz for removing negative energi
es. Unakite for freedom from self-imposed obstacles. Dalmatian stone, also for healing negativity, and a small geode with little round puff-crystals of okenite, for healing denial and hate. She surrounded these with clear quartz points, set an open intention for the best possible outcome, and sent it into the energy web of the crystals, rather than into Sierra. Then she let go, mentally stepping back, and waited.

  For several minutes, Sierra remained stiff and still. Then she squeezed her eyelids tighter as tears escaped from under them, and her hands became fists pressed to the card. Her lips moved. Praying?

  Sierra began to chant out loud. “Mu. Mu. Mu.”

  Unable to erase the image of Brook and Stream making faces and mooing, Mae had to bite her tongue to keep from giggling, though she knew the situation wasn’t funny. Sierra seemed further off the deep end than ever. She hadn’t helped herself to any healing energy. Mae’s experimental ceremony had failed.

  Abruptly, Sierra sat up and swept the crystals off the table, wild eyed and furious. “How dare you do that to me?”

  She snatched her purse and barged out the door, clutching the card.

  Kneeling to gather her stones, Mae felt like she was crawling around after her good intentions, scattered to the corners of the room. What had happened to Sierra? What did she think Mae had done to her?

  Chapter Thirty

  Jamie stumbled over Ezra’s suitcase in his rush to answer the door. Hands were striking low on the frame, four hands playing the door like a drum. His visitors had to be the twins. And Mae. He’d been dreaming about Bouquet imitating his phone’s message signal. Now he realized why, but the new message would have to wait. He righted himself from his fall into the sofa.

  “Bloody hell.”

  Why had Ezra left his bag open on the floor? The kid was normally neat.

  As Jamie opened the door, Brook looked up at him and held out her palm. “I heard that.”

  Jamie gave her all the coins from the heap of pocket contents he’d dumped on the table by the door. “Owe you for a few.”

  Afraid his suite might smell like Gasser, he joined Mae and her girls outdoors and sat on the blue bench.

  Brook perched beside him, swinging her legs. “Your hair’s messy.”

  “Ya think?” He hated undoing the braids himself. His thick hair had a crinkly texture that clung in knots, and the longer he procrastinated combing it, the worse it got. His preferred option was asking Mae to brush his hair, an awkward request at this point in time, though he still was tempted to make it. “Don’t you like the rumpled, casual look?”

  Steam snuggled next to Jamie on his other side. “Nope. It makes you look like you just got up.”

  “I did. Sort of.” He met Mae’s eyes, offering her a handful of his hair. She shook her head. Yeah, bad idea. He would probably cry if she groomed him. Maybe he could just let his tangles turn into dreadlocks and then fall out. No, with his luck, he’d do that and then be the person who kept his hair through chemo.

  “Did you get my message?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He would have to check the new one in a minute. “Forgot to ask Ezra about the letter, though. I was buggered. I did look for something of Magda’s, though, in her room, but it’s all gone. Her daughter came and got everything.”

  Brook pointed at something in the gravel beyond the green sidewalk. “Look.” An enormous dead beetle lay on its back, being consumed by ants. Jamie cringed, but Stream let out an ooh of fascination and the twins jumped from the bench to crouch at the edge of the pavement, studying the insects.

  “I wish you’d let me know,” Mae said, and briefly described Sierra’s appointment with her. Jamie heard Mae’s frustration and urgency and wanted to reassure her, but he had nothing to offer. She asked, “Did anyone here talk to her this morning?”

  “Nah. She wasn’t here. But Kate went to tell her fortune at Passion Pie. ’Round eight thirty or so.” This reminded Jamie to tell Mae about Yeshi’s conference with Chuck and Daphne and his talk with Rex.

  “That helps, but we still don’t know what they’re up to.” Mae sat on the multicolored bench, her heels tapping. Jamie was painfully aware that she didn’t take a spot beside him. “I wish I could get at more information from another point of view. One of her soul group.”

  “Ezra and Refugio might have taken the letter.” That would explain the suitcase open on the floor. “Heard ’em come back for a minute like they’d forgotten something, but I couldn’t hear what they said. They were doing that trying-to-be quiet thing people do when they think you’re asleep.”

  “They didn’t bring it to me. And Refugio didn’t call.”

  “Think they went for a run first.”

  “As important as Magda is to them?”

  Jamie shrugged. “Dunno.” The fact that he’d been too worn out to ask the boys a simple question embarrassed him.

  “What about that other believer, Leon? Could I use something of his?”

  “Mmm.” Jamie began to pick at the tiny coated rubber band on the end of one braid. Discovering hair wound up in it, he stopped. “He’s pissed off, especially at Posey. Expects me to find Sierra for him. He’ll be even more pissed that I didn’t. Doubt you could get hold of his stuff. But he talked to Kate before he got so mad. We could see if she’s back. She can tell us Sierra’s fortune, too.”

  Mae summoned the girls, and the four of them walked up the alley to the pink-and-purple back entrance of the Red Pelican. If they were going to pretend to be a couple, Jamie should have been beside her, his arm around her waist, or holding her hand. It struck him that they weren’t so much fooling the children as postponing the pain. Like he was postponing the truth about his health.

  When they entered the courtyard, Kate, Bernadette, Chuck, Daphne, Don, and Rex were gathered on the benches around the big rock. The door to the Loft was open and Barb’s electric cart was parked near it. Her husky voice wafted from within, belting a country song. Rex began to sing with her. As soon as Mae and Jamie reached the group, the girls wanted to know if Lobo could play. Kate released him from his harness and made them promise not to leave the courtyard. With a mixture of hope and sadness, Jamie sat beside Mae. So hard to be inches away and not touching. Cross the line, love. Please. It’s up to you.

  She seemed focused on the Sierra problem, though, asking for an update. In response, Chuck said, “Here’s what we know so far. Or what we guess. The short version. Sierra and Yeshi have some differences when it comes to the retreat center. She was trying to buy some land nearby, but he told her not to bid on it. Then Kate saw her with a local realtor. I told Yeshi he needs a proper financial advisor as well as a lawyer, and—”

  Jamie cut in. “C’mon, mate. The short version?”

  “That was it,” Daphne said. “Chuck just likes to hear himself talk.”

  Chuck slid closer and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “And so do you. Music to your ears.”

  Jamie was struck with envy and loss. Jeezus. Why can’t we be like them?

  Kate summarized her encounter with Sierra.

  Mae said, “She came to see me at The Charles, and I found out she actually believes in Mu. I used to think she was making it all up.”

  “She could believe in Mu and the rest is bullshit,” Kate suggested.

  “Yeah. Probably bullshit.” Jamie toyed with undoing a braid again and stopped. Hair pain did something to his nerves. “She seem at all real to any of you? I mean, she’s got what—like two facial expressions?”

  “That could be because she’s such a mess,” Mae said. “I think she’s really troubled.”

  Jeezus. Leave it to Mae to feel sorry for Sierra.

  “But not necessarily out of touch with reality,” Don said, “I’ve been in practice in Santa Fe for a long time, and I’ve heard a lot of peculiar ideas from reasonably functional people.”

  Bernadette nodded. “Religious beliefs can sound crazy if you take them out of context.”

  “Isn’t that what Sierra does?” Jamie a
sked.

  “But she does it plausibly,” Rex countered. “She has a good pitch, to the right mark.”

  They broke off their discussion as Sierra entered the courtyard through the front gate, ran to Leon’s room and pounded on the door. He let her in and closed the door behind her.

  The group exchanged looks. Bernadette observed, “I’m sure we’d all like to know what that was about.”

  No fucking kidding.

  “I should go ask her,” Kate said. “Not that she’d tell me, but at least I’d get my card back. She stole my three of swords. I like that deck, and I’ll have to buy a whole new one to replace a single card.”

  Mae frowned. “I wonder if that was what she put in Magda’s get well card. There was something else in the envelope.”

  “That would be mean,” Kate said. “More like a don’t-get-well card.”

  Sierra came tearing out of Leon’s room. He followed at his slow pace, pleading, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to let you down.”

  “Well, you did,” she shouted, on the edge of screaming. “You failed me. You failed all of us.”

  On both the red and the purple sides of the courtyard, turquoise doors and green doors opened and curtains parted. Posey peeked out of her room like a frightened child, and Yeshi appeared in the doorway of the conference room, making a shushing gesture. “I have a patient, Sierra. People came here for healing, please, not yelling.”

  “Healing? You call your work healing?” Her voice cracked. “You’ll never heal anyone without me.”

  She strode across the courtyard toward the Loft. Yeshi glanced back into the conference room, then at Sierra. Posey whimpered, “Don’t let her leave us.”

  “It is up to her.” Yeshi stepped back inside and closed his door.

  “No!” Posey ran after Sierra.

  “Jeezus.” Jamie held up his hands. This was what they needed. Sierra quitting. “Don’t stop her.”

  “Is this a good show or what?” Daphne turned to watch the two women disappearing into the Loft. “I feel bad for the real customers, though. They’ll want a refund.”