Chapter 3
Chapter Three
SKYE
Gabe stares at me as I finish telling the whole story again—more calmly this time—then stands and heads for the kitchenette area of his little cottage.
“Anyone want coffee?” he asks, opening the cabinet above the coffee maker and pulling out… a half-empty bottle of whiskey. I glance at Connor, but he doesn’t seem to think anything’s abnormal.
“That doesn’t look like coffee,” I venture.
“It’s flavoring. Like those fancy syrups baristas use.
” He starts the coffee maker and grabs some cups while I wonder if the man who is our first defense against all the demons of the otherworld is a drunk.
My thoughts must show on my face, because he laughs.
“Relax. This is my emergency stash for when things are dire. I haven’t opened this bottle since I got here. ”
Phew. I make an apologetic face. “Sorry about that, I was— Wait, this is dire?” Well, fuck. I knew it wasn’t good—hence the headlong dash from town—but I didn’t think we were quite at the stage of dire yet.
They both stare at me. “Skye,” Connor says slowly, “how often do you think spirits sneak through gateways we can’t find to give us warnings and someone literally destroys them to prevent it?”
Well, when he puts it like that… “Maybe once a year?” There’s a distinctly hopeful edge to my voice. Once a year would be good. That would mean there’s a process, a procedure, a fucking plan to deal with this. Not just us flying by the seat of our pants.
In unison, they shake their heads.
“Give me that bottle.” I hold out my hand.
Gabe chuckles. “No. This is not for getting drunk. You get one slug in your coffee to help soften the edges while we deal with this.”
“I just had coffee,” I protest. Though, really, I could have some more. I live on the stuff.
“Have more,” Connor orders. “We’re going to be working on this for a while, and you’re the only conduit here.”
I pause halfway to accepting a mug from Gabe. “Why’s that important?”
Con shrugs. “Gabe and I can’t see or talk to spirits, and someone has to try to find one nearby that we can ask questions.”
And that someone is going to be me. I grab the mug and take a healthy gulp, wishing the coffee-to-whiskey ratio was weighted more in the other direction.
“It’s going to be fine,” Gabe says, though his tone doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. He hands Connor a mug and sits in the recliner. “Let’s go over it again. Are you sure it said ‘the hidden gateway’?”
I cling hard to my patience. Seriously, though, what else could the spirit have said that would sound like “the hidden gateway”?
Although…
“It might have said ‘gate’ instead of ‘gateway,’” I concede.
“But the ‘hidden’ part was for sure, because at first I was relieved it couldn’t have been ours, but now I wonder if by ‘hidden,’ it actually just meant that Gabe was guarding it?
I was freaking out over that possibility when it started dissolving.
” I frown. “Although it didn’t really dissolve.
That makes me think of liquid, you know?
It kind of…” “Melted” isn’t right either.
“Let’s come back to that,” Gabe interrupts. “It’ll probably be relevant to the other conduits, but for me and Con, it’s useless information.”
I absorb that, really not liking the fact that apparently I’m the subject matter expert in this room and I know nothing about the subject matter.
Then I remember something. “Hey, you said before that you can’t see or talk to spirits, but when I was possessed by the body hopper, you saw and spoke to it just fine.
” I narrow my eyes at Connor. I’m happy to help out in dire situations, but I don’t like being manipulated into it.
He shakes his head. “That’s because it was possessing you.
If it had been outside your body, I would have been able to sense its presence, maybe identify what type of spirit it was, but that’s it.
” He hesitates. “I didn’t want to tell you this at the time, but it’s lucky the body hopper possessed you. ”
I roll my eyes. “Because if it hadn’t, I would have gone my whole life not knowing I was a conduit. And we wouldn’t have called you, and the gateway would still be unguarded. Yeah, yeah.”
“No. Well, yeah. All that. But I was thinking more specifically of the fact that Josh and the ghosts wouldn’t have been able to see or communicate with it either. Just sense it.”
Yikes. “So they would have been wandering around the estate, looking for it but never being able to find it, but knowing it was there somewhere?”
“Yep.”
“The stress would have killed Kieran,” Gabe adds, and I snort.
“Speaking of Kieran, no matter how calmly Daniel told him or how much he downplayed it, the suspense will be driving him nuts, and he’s eventually going to come down here. So let’s have something to tell him when he does.” Connor looks at Gabe. “There’s no way it came through our gateway?”
Gabe shakes his head. “Nope. Nothing’s come through since I got here. And anyway, it couldn’t. A summoned demon might be able to pass through a guarded gateway, but I’ve never heard of a spirit being able to.”
“Okay. It came through ‘the hidden gate’ and searched for someone to warn. Does that sound right?” Connor raises a brow at me, and I nod.
“It put a lot of emphasis on searching for so long and not being able to find anyone. That’s when I was sidetracked by the whole California thing.”
“It wasn’t more specific about how long it had searched?
” Gabe asks intently. “The gateway we’re looking for is within about fifty miles of here.
Unless it went in the other direction, it should…
” He trails off and grimaces. “I was about to say it should have sensed you, but I can’t be sure of that.
It depends on what kind of spirit it was. ”
Suddenly, I wish I’d maybe gone to San Diego for a weekend crash course in spirits from another conduit. Connor’s been trying to teach me when he can, but once I mastered my shields, I wasn’t that interested… and this isn’t his area of expertise, anyway.
“How do we identify it? I could try drawing it.”
Gabe’s face lights up. “Are you good at drawing?”
“I mean, I’m not an artist, but you can mostly recognize what I’m drawing.” Sometimes.
They exchange glances. “Let’s keep that on the back burner. Describe it for us again.” Gabe gets up and grabs his laptop from the desk against the wall.
I picture the spirit in my mind’s eye. “It was about as tall as me, but it didn’t have a human shape.
I could see through it—it was made of, like…
wispy clouds. They were constantly moving, like steam or smoke.
But the whole thing stayed in a roughly rectangular shape?
There were no bits floating away or anything.
And mixed in with all the wisps were these tiny golden lights.
” I shrug. “That’s about it. It spoke to me but didn’t have a mouth that I could see.
And it was all in English. Is that normal? ”
Gabe’s typing away, so Connor’s the one who says, “It wasn’t English. Not exactly. It was communicating with you mind-to-mind, and your brain translated it to English. That’s another conduit-only skill.”
Alarm surges. “It was in my head? But I was shielding!” Wasn’t I? I changed them so I could communicate with it, but I didn’t take them down.
“Not in your head,” Con corrects. “I don’t fully understand it, but some conduits a few hundred years back did some research and wrote a report. It’s more like… soundwaves only conduits can hear. Only not sound. Spirit waves.”
The sound of typing stops, and Gabe looks up. “Spirit waves?” he asks incredulously.
Connor shrugs. “Well, what would you call it?”
“If I remember right, the report actually gave them a name!”
I look back and forth between them as they bicker.
“And do you remember it? No? Me either. So spirit waves will have to do.”
Gabe shakes his head and looks over at me. “I’ll get you a copy of the report.”
“Uh, thanks.” Yesterday I would have told him not to bother, but now I want to know everything.
Still shaking his head, he types something else, hits a key, and then turns the laptop to face me. “Does this look like it?”
I study the image on the screen. It’s a drawing, much better than anything I could have managed, and yeah, it looks a lot like the spirit I met today.
“Yeah, that’s it. What is it?”
Gabe looks grave, and he turns the computer back so he can read the screen. “It’s an adiut.”
“I’ve never heard of them.” Connor’s frowning.
“That’s because they rarely come to Earth—or rarely make contact if they do. They’re a higher-intelligence spirit, from what it says here, and we don’t know much about them.” He takes a deep breath. “There’s a note that says they tend to work with higher demons.”
Connor shudders hard, and I look between them again… but this time, I’m not entertained. “What does that mean?”
The door bursts open, and I scream, scrambling off the couch and throwing my mug in that direction. Coffee—and whiskey, dammit—arc through the air in a tail as Kieran makes a startled sound and ducks. The mug thunks against the door and drops to the floor in two neat pieces.
Before I can get my head around what just happened, there’s a yell from outside, and Daniel barrels through the door, pushing Kieran to the side, fists raised. He looks wildly around, then turns in a circle. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” I ask dazedly. Connor’s grinning, and Gabe’s taking in the mess I made of his cottage.
“Whatever made you scream.” Dan’s gaze skims the room again, then he lowers his fists.
I point at Kieran, who’s rubbing his shoulder. It’s probably sore from colliding with the wall. “He scared the shit out of me.”
That earns me a disgusted glare from Daniel. “Really? You screamed like you were being murdered because you saw Kieran?”
My jaw drops. “First off, I didn’t scream like I was being murdered. I made a sound of mild startlement. And it wasn’t because I saw Kieran. What a mean thing to say. It was because Kieran came barging into a very tense conversation.”
Daniel rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I bet this is your cup, isn’t it?
” He bends to pick up the pieces, giving me a second while he’s not looking at me to take a fortifying breath.
Why does he have to be so good-looking and masterful?
I mean, he heard me scream, thought it was a demon or something, and came racing in to rescue me…
with only his fists to defend himself. He’s like a fairy-tale prince come to life.
My gaze drops to his muddy boots.
Well… a fairy-tale farmer. And honestly, I prefer that. All those handsome princes are probably a waste of space in the real world, and I wouldn’t know what to talk to them about anyway.
Not that I know all that much about farming. Though Dan and I always seem to find plenty to talk about.
“Skye?”
I drag my gaze back up the solid, muscled length of him to his stupid handsome smirk.
“Your mug?”
“So what if it is?” I bluster. “A boy’s gotta defend himself.”
“Against Kieran?”
“As fun as this is,” Kieran interrupts, stepping forward, “I didn’t come to listen to you two bickering.”
“Then why’d you bring him?” I retort, unable to help myself. The level look Kieran gives me has my cheeks getting hot. Dammit, why does Daniel always turn me into such a mess?
Don’t answer that. I know why.