Plague Cult Read online

  “Renovating a kitchen is a big job.” Helen was dubious. Her gaze went up and down Shawn.

  “Better than living with the kitchen I have now,” Ruth said briskly. She put a hand on Shawn’s arm, urging him to move out. “We should get those cleaning supplies and some food. Milk, bread, apples.”

  Shawn looked thoughtfully to where Mason had swiveled his wheelchair to face back towards them, and not so incidentally, to command a view of the entire dining space. For an instant Shawn’s muscles bunched under Ruth’s hand. Then he relaxed, putting a hand lightly to her waist and ushering her out of the diner in front of him.

  Ruth had to hold her breath to stop it rushing out in relief. With Shawn behind her, it felt as if he blocked Mason’s angry vibes. For the first time in a long time, she felt safe in the diner. The fine tension that usually threaded along her spine unwound. It wouldn’t be easy to return for dinner knowing Mason waited for them, but it would be easier than it had been when she’d previously returned to town alone.

  The diner’s door closed behind them. It was motion-sensor triggered, something installed years ago so that Mason could enter and leave unaided.

  “We should be able to get everything in the supermarket.” Ruth didn’t have to point out the supermarket’s location. It was across the road, opposite the diner on Main Street. “The hardware store is back down the highway, but we—or you—can go there, tomorrow, for any other supplies.” They crossed the road. “The men will probably talk to you more if I’m not around.” And they needed to learn about the latest happenings in Bideer; about the Moonlit Hearts Club mostly, but also if any other strange events had occurred.

  “They probably will.” Shawn accepted the misogynistic tendencies of his sex.

  Ruth waited for him to question the tensions in the diner among her family, but perhaps he figured that the small supermarket wasn’t the place.

  At the entrance, he asked, “Cart or basket?”

  She hesitated. If she bought too much food, they wouldn’t have a reason to eat at the diner through the next few days, and the diner would plug them into the local gossip. On the other hand, cleaning supplies were bulky. “Cart.”

  Shawn pushed it.

  Ruth picked up apples and bananas, consulted him and added pears. It was strange to share the everyday task of shopping with him. They got an instant coffee and tea bags, skipped sugar since neither took it, and added cookies and snack foods. People greeted her, and she introduced Shawn to a couple of them who lingered, obviously curious as to his presence beside her.

  She didn’t waste time, though. This was intelligence gathering portion of their mission. This evening was about establishing their place in town. Tomorrow, word would have gone out. She belonged, and Shawn would be accepted as a man readjusting to civilian life. Then they could start guiding the conversation to the Moonlit Hearts Club and any odd happenings around town.

  Shawn insisted on carrying their shopping back across the road to the diner, but let her carry a lighter bag of cleaning rags and paper towels. She shook her head at him, and he grinned. “You can get the door.”

  “It’s an automatic opener—”

  His grin widened. He knew that.

  Reluctantly, she smiled back at him. Her smile faded as they walked into the diner and Peggy looked up sharply.

  “You can put your shopping out back,” Peggy said.

  Ruth nodded. They walked into the kitchen and to the left, where a storage room would let them stow things out of the way. The dinner crowd was picking up, so they said hi to Kevin, who was helping Ruth’s mom, and retreated back to claim a table. Ruth picked one midway along the room, near the window, but in the other waitress’s zone, not Peggy’s, and far enough away that Mason couldn’t talk to them.

  He was eating a burger in the corner. Another guy had joined him at the table, a friend from his high school years. Both looked at Ruth, who stared back.

  Shawn pulled out a chair for her.

  She blinked at him, then sat.

  He seated himself opposite. Like the combat mage he was, and the marine he’d been, his back was to the wall and his view of the door was unobstructed. “Brisket, you said?” He didn’t bother opening the menu.

  The waitress, a woman Ruth didn’t know, took their order briskly. She was about thirty, a blonde with brown roots showing through about two inches. It looked as if she was trying to grow out a bad bleach job. “Erica,” her name tag read.

  The brisket was every bit as good as Ruth remembered.

  Shawn gave a happy moan after the first bite. “How big’s your dad?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Big guy? Tough?”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “About average size. Hard-working. Why?”

  “I’m wondering if I can steal your mom from him. Man, she can cook.”

  Erica, refilling their water glasses, giggled.

  Shawn paused in shoveling in the food. “Unless you’ve been holding out on me, Ruth. Can you cook like this, too?”

  Ridiculously, a blush rose in her face. She wasn’t accustomed to teasing that was a lot like flirting. She had to clear her throat to answer. “I can cook.”

  Laughter danced in his hazel eyes. “Maybe I’ll put off demolishing the kitchen at Rose House till you’ve cooked me a meal.”

  She fought down her blush. “You’ll have more chance of getting that meal in a new kitchen. The existing one is hideous.”

  “Motivation for the job. You’ll be surprised how fast I can work.”

  They discussed the kitchen while finishing the meal, including blueberry caramel pie for Shawn and apple pie for her, but not lingering over their coffee. It was innocuous conversation, suited to all the people eavesdropping, not least Peggy who lingered nearby. Then they split the bill, both leaving a generous tip.

  Collecting their shopping from the storage room, Shawn was equally generous with his praise of Helen’s cooking; generous enough that he won a second slice of pie packed to go.

  Ruth shook her head, half laughing, as they walked back to the truck. “No one told me you were a silver-tongued devil.”

  “Honest praise, every bit of it.” He opened the passenger door for her, then stowed the groceries on the back seat.

  The truck was massive, a true Texas statement of machismo. The Collegium mage who’d chosen it for them, for this mission, had been smart. A couple of years wear on it made it unremarkable. Driving it, Shawn blended in with the good ole boys. And Ruth felt comfortable riding beside him. If she hadn’t been born with a healer’s magic, this would likely have been her life: she’d have lived in town or near it, married a hard-working man who owned a truck like this, and they’d have had kids, or been planning to.

  She turned her face to the side window and watched the familiar landscape slide past.

  The night was dark and the breeze cool as they left the lights of town behind them. Clouds hid the moon, turning glimpses of the river into a dark ribbon. Rose House was equally dark since Ruth hadn’t thought to leave a light on.

  Shawn drove around to the back and parked the truck beneath an almond tree by the porch. He also shed the casual persona he wore for the world. “Did you sense anything in town? Any evil? Anything different?”

  “No. Maybe. Not evil.” She wasn’t certain. Her own feelings might have colored her perception. She’d felt unsettled.

  Tomorrow would be better, she promised herself. Tomorrow she wouldn’t be distracted by family, but would concentrate on the mission.

  She got out of the truck and rubbed at her arms as he reached back for the shopping bags. “Loneliness,” she said. “I felt it like the echo of a howl. If I’d been concentrating, maybe I could have tracked it.”

  “What do you mean by loneliness?”

  They climbed the back steps. Turning to look at him, she saw the dark river beyond. “It’s something healers can sense, a sickness of the soul. Loneliness isn’t the same as being alone. It’s not even the same as a passin
g sense of loneliness. That sounds idiotic.” She unlocked the back door and held it open for him to enter carrying the shopping. “I mean, loneliness where a person feels their soul is locked in solitary confinement. It’s a wound of the spirit.”

  “And you felt that in town?” He put the shopping bags on the kitchen table.

  Its sturdy pine construction made it one of the few things she wanted to keep in the outdated room. “Wisps of it. I couldn’t work out who it came from. It was present in the diner and supermarket, and a hint of it was fading on the street.”

  “Hmm.” He stood to one side as she put things away.

  “I guess I should have expected it if the Moonlit Hearts Club is a collection of lonely hearts. People with lonely aching hearts…they’re vulnerable.” She ducked her head, concentrating on putting the food in the fridge that was humming and already felt cool. Everything else went into the large pantry that held some cleaning gear like mops and buckets, brooms and such like from earlier visits to the house.

  Shawn waited till she was back in the kitchen, its overhead light starkly revealing the worn out cupboards, sink and ancient cooktop, as well as his serious expression. “I don’t want to ask, Ruth, but I think you’d better tell me what the situation is with your family.”

  She folded an empty shopping bag scrupulously, only to put it aside on the table and watch it unfold itself. The plastic rustled. “Not here.” She cast an unhappy look around the dismal kitchen. “Would you mind walking down to the river?” Outside, and not having to look at him, her confession would be easier. She wouldn’t have to see his reaction to the story of her failure.

  “Suits me. I’d like to stretch my legs.”

  She winced. It was just a saying, but it reminded her of all Mason had lost.

  The path down to the river was a faint trail through the overgrown garden. Roses that had survived decades of neglect stretched out brambly arms in the darkness. Along the back fence, fruit trees twisted in fantastic shapes, their gnarled old branches silvered with lichen in daylight, but now seeming black. The back gate had been propped open years ago, and honeysuckle grew through it, anchoring it in place. The sweet scent of the last of summer floated on the air as they passed. The land sloped gently down to the river bank, rough and uneven underfoot.

  A person in a wheelchair could never take this path.

  “You met Mason at the diner.” Ruth plucked a dried seed head from the tall grass and shredded it, plucked another. “He’s my cousin, Aunt Peggy’s son. His father died when Mason was six. I don’t remember Uncle Louis. He was my dad’s brother. Mom and Aunt Peggy opened the diner about then. Mom took some breaks. My two brothers are younger than me. But the diner and Mason are Aunt Peggy’s whole life.”

  Shawn abandoned the faint trace of the path and simply walked beside her, ducking under an occasional pine branch.

  Ruth watched the country and her footing rather than look at him. “Mason is three years older than me. When he was seventeen he was driving Aunt Peggy’s car and crashed. It was a strange night. A haunted night. We’d had Halloween a couple of weeks before and my friend’s dad, a farmer like my dad, had set up a hay bale maze in one of his fields. Then he’d gotten distracted and the maze was still there. We think Mason decided to drive out to it.” She paused. “He’d been drinking. Mom left a bottle of whisky in the diner. She intended to soak dried fruit overnight to make Christmas cakes, but then, she forgot to buy currants. She decided to wait till the next day, when the supermarket opened, and soak all the fruit at once. Mason saw her put the bottle on a shelf.”

  “He stole it,” Shawn guessed, and put his guess bluntly.

  “He wanted to impress his friends,” she defended her cousin, who’d been young.

  “Was anyone in the car with him when he crashed.”

  “No, thank God. He hit the oak at the edge of Penny’s farm. I was sleeping over that night. We were in pajamas, talking. Somehow, I knew I was needed. I was only just coming into my magic.”

  “You were fourteen? Puberty’s when magical ability strengthens.”

  Ruth paused at the riverbank. She dusted her fingers together and the seed heads she’d been tearing at drifted away. The water glimmered, merely a shallow stream. It needed the winter rains to raise it. “I’d always been able to sense sickness or broken bones, but from thirteen, I started to be able to heal. It was all instinct, raw and untrained. No one in Bideer has any real magic. What I have came from Dad’s line of faded magic workers.”

  “Difficult for you.”

  She shrugged. “I was a teenage girl. I could have embraced my magic, liking that it made me different. Instead, I tried to ignore it. I wanted to be like my friends. Ordinary. Which meant that when Mason tore himself open in the crash, I had no idea what to do. My magic was there, going crazy, built up like a frenzy.” She shook her head. “Penny and her parents thought I was hysterical. They’re mundanes. They have no idea of magic. Still don’t. But they left me there, my hands pressing on the gash across Mason’s stomach and willing him to heal.”

  Ruth plunged down the bank and walked along the river’s edge. The dirt crumbled a bit under her feet. “The blood gushing out of him stopped. Looking back, without me being there, he’d have died. His liver…” She looked at her hands, but they were clean. Only in memory were they dark with blood. Hot blood. Life blood. “His back was broken, too. If I’d known what to do, or if I’d pushed my magic a bit more—if I hadn’t panicked—Mason wouldn’t be in a wheelchair. He’d be walking.”

  “Without you, he’d be dead.” Shawn stared down at her, his face shadowed.

  “Mason wished he was.” She looked at the moon as the clouds parted momentarily. “In hospital, that’s what he said to me.” She swallowed convulsively, swallowing old tears and grief as jagged pain. “He was family. He knew that I had healing magic. He said that if I wasn’t going to do the job right, I should have let him die.”

  Shawn caught her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Mason was seventeen, scared and angry. He shouldn’t have lashed out at you. You were only a kid. But it’s understandable. What I don’t get is the strain with your family now.”

  She stared at him, unsure what he was asking. “I just explained it. I failed Mason.”

  “You’re kidding.” The moonlight showed his expression: blank, stunned. “Your parents can’t possibly have let you go on believing…” His voice trailed off. “That’s rubbish. The only person to blame in this whole sorry mess is a teenage boy’s bad decision and worse luck.”

  No. She didn’t get absolution for her failure. She pulled to be free of his hold. “Mason can’t walk because of me.”

  Shawn swore under his breath and released her arm.

  She had to hurry to catch up with him as he strode away. “If you’d prefer a different partner on this mission I can leave and the Collegium will send in someone else. I’ve introduced you and established your cover story. You could take it from there.”

  “I don’t want anyone else.” He stopped so abruptly that she had to catch her balance with a hand against his arm.

  She stared up at him. Clouds again covered the moon and hid his face. She resisted the temptation to slip into mage sight and read his aura. Knowing her story, was he truly not rejecting her?

  He touched her face gently. “I’ll see you in the morning.” And he was gone.

  She blinked into mage sight to see him through the obscuring spell he’d suddenly wrapped around himself.

  He ran along the river till he reached the ford. One, two, three leaps and he was across the stepping stones and on the far bank, running up it and lost to view among the trees.

  “Good night.” Her quiet words were swallowed by the gurgle of the water, the frog and insect noises, and the wind in the trees and swaying the grass. She was grateful and relieved. Despite what she’d said to Shawn, she couldn’t have left Bideer with her hometown facing even an infinitesimal threat of plague. She’d have stepped aside so as not
to interfere with the official Collegium mission, but she’d have kept watch.

  Except, she didn’t have to step aside.

  Shawn was willing to work with her. He’d sounded angry for her, not at her. She didn’t think she needed or deserved defending, but…his response warmed her.

  She turned back to the house, and her heart jolted. On coming home, neither she nor Shawn had gone upstairs to turn on a light, but there was a light now in her bedroom window, in the turret section. “Shawn?” But he couldn’t have turned on the light. He’d run the opposite way, across the river, away from the house. “Shawn!” There was no way he could hear her. A shiver ghosted over her skin.

  Rose House was warded. Only a strong magic user could break the perimeter spell to enter. If one had, then the sensible action was to phone Shawn who was the physical and magical muscle of this mission.

  She looked back at the house, and the light was gone. “Don’t tell me I’m imagining things now.” It had been a stressful day. She rubbed her forehead. The thought of just how stressful made her hesitate to call Shawn. She really could be imagining things. “And wouldn’t that be wonderful? He’d definitely request a new partner.” Phone in hand, and stretching her senses and magic to scout for any intruders, Ruth walked warily back to the house.

  Chapter 4

  Shawn ran. He’d felt—and indeed, tested—the strength of the ward around Rose House and knew Ruth would be safe within its boundary. True, she was currently outside it, but not by much, and given her sadness, left alone, she’d return inside. She was tired and upset and would want to hide. Meantime, his combat-trained instincts were tingling.

  The wind carried a whiff of decay. Death magic held that stench. But it was such a thin thread of magic, that he couldn’t quite snare it. Couldn’t quite see it to commit its maker’s signature to memory. Death magic could set a powerful curse.

  So he needed to be closer. He ran roughly east. He’d studied the map that morning, and knew what lay just a few miles in that direction: the headquarters of the Moonlit Hearts Club. Club or cult? The briefing he’d read suggested a cult. It met so many of the criteria: its leader was charismatic; the group had established itself just outside a small town; and members’ families complained that members had cut contact, claiming they needed to “free themselves of their old lives”.