Dead to Rites (13 page)

“Well, I’ll… certainly think about that.”

“You do that.” She stood, paused a moment to squeeze my hand. “You rest up. I’ll go get the others.”

Alone for a while with nothin’ to do but think, I’d just reached the point of contemplating goin’ back to sleep when the door opened up again. Martha was first through the door, followed by “the others.” One of whom I knew, if only just. I dunno who I was expecting, if anyone, but if I’d hadda make a list, she wouldn’t even have been on it.

“Tsura?”

The Greek faux-gypsy—who I almost hadn’t recognized in normal clothes and a more human amount of makeup—seemed almost embarrassed. Or maybe just seriously uncertain.

The other fellow I didn’t know from Adam. Tall, well over six feet, and though he was pretty scrawny now, broad shoulders suggested he’d been a mountain when he was younger. Had skin darker even than Martha’s, and his beard and receding hair were somewhere between “snow” and “iron.” He wore an ash-gray suit, and while he didn’t have any sorta collar or anything, I recognized a priest when I saw one.

Sorry, guess “pastor” is the right word here. You guys got way too many denominations to keep track of.

“Glad to see you up and around, Mr. Oberon,” he boomed. Yeah, guy born with
that
voice? Pretty much
had
to become a preacher. Or else maybe a politician, but who’d wish
that
on anyone?

“Makes two of us,” I said.

He smiled, more outta politeness than amusement, and pulled up the chair Martha’d been sitting in.

“My name is Calvin Hewlett.”

“Good to meetcha. This is your church, I take it?”

“I prefer to think it belongs to God and the neighborhood, but I run it.”

“Well, long as I’m talkin’ to
someone
in the chain of command.” And hey, there was that non-smile again.

I’d actually hearda Hewlett, even though I hadn’t recognized him. Guy was bein’ modest. He spoke for a wide neighborhood, not just one house of worship, and he’d made himself heard. Oh, not the sorta changes that were gonna get him into the history books, but a few blocks of the Windy City were better off now than before he got started. He’d even run for alderman once, though he lost bad. Mostly because he wouldn’t take money or backing from the sorta scary people you don’t win without in Chicago.

“So,” I said, “don’t for one second think I ain’t grateful, but… Someone wanna explain to me what I’m doin’ here?”

“This young lady phoned me for help.”

If I’d been any more puzzled, I’da been made of about five hundred pieces with scalloped edges.

“I appreciate the assist, Tsura,” I said, hopin’ she heard the unspoken
We’re gonna discuss this later
I tacked on there, “but if you were lookin’ for someone to perform last rites, you shoulda called up a Catholic.”

“I thought almost the same thing,” the old man said while Tsura stammered. “When she first shoved you into the back of the car, I was flabbergasted you were still breathing. I argued for taking you to a hospital, but Ms. Sava insisted that you wouldn’t want the attention—and that the people who’d hurt you would be able to find you too easily.

“To be frank, Mr. Oberon, if I’d thought there was one chance in a million you’d live, I’d have insisted. But I was quite sure she, and you, were just waiting on the inevitable. It wasn’t until we’d gotten back here and Mrs. Ross insisted on redoing your bandages that I saw your injuries had already begun to improve.”

“A miracle!” Martha asserted again. And to be fair, it ain’t like she had a better explanation available to her.

Hewlett didn’t seem so sure.

“Might be. It’s hard to come up with any other explanation. We haven’t been able to feed you. Your wound shouldn’t have healed at all, let alone with the rudimentary care we can provide. But either way, you were here and clearly improving, so they convinced me to give it more time.

“You really ought to eat something, though,” he added.

“You in the habit of takin’ in random stiffs, preacher? Or almost-stiffs?”

“I very nearly didn’t. Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Oberon, I believe our role on this earth is to help others where we can. But this city is brimming with elements I would prefer that I—and certainly my parishioners—avoid where possible. And to put it plainly, without meaning offense, I find that most sorts of people who find themselves shot and then
don’t
want to seek the help of the proper authorities to fall into those categories.”

“No offense taken. It’s smart thinkin’.”

“Indeed. And while Ms. Sava has been quite friendly to the parish children when we’ve visited her carnival, she and I aren’t especially well acquainted. Frankly, the only reason you’re here is that I’d been speaking with a few of my people when Ms. Sava called, and Mrs. Ross overheard your name. She convinced me you were worth helping, that if you were mixed up in something shady, it was as victim, not perpetrator—and I’ve seen enough of my own congregants in that position. For that, of course I would help,
if
it were accurate.

“She said you’re a good man. Are you a good man, Mr. Oberon?”

I scooted my shoulders against the sofa arm until I was sitting upright. Neither Martha nor Tsura seemed real happy with me movin’ around that much, but nobody said anything.

“That’s a more complicated question than it sounds, uh… Preacher? Reverend? Pastor?”

“Preacher Hewlett will do fine. Or just ‘Preacher.’ And yes. Yes, it is.”

“Heh. All right, Preacher. I dunno if I’m a good man. Frankly, I dunno if I trust anyone who can easily answer that question. Let’s say I been trying my hardest to do what seems the right thing at the time.”

For eleven seconds—I can say that exactly, ’cause of the clock tickin’—he chewed that one over.

Then, “I believe you.” He rose, the chair scraping softly over old carpet. “I don’t know precisely what you
are
caught up in, Mr. Oberon. And I don’t know how you’re recovering so quickly, or at all. Perhaps it
is
a miracle, at that, or maybe it’s something else. I wouldn’t presume to say. But you’re welcome to the sofa, and I won’t tell anyone that you’ve been here.

“Come, Mrs. Ross. I believe Mr. Oberon and Ms. Sava have their own conversation ahead of them.”

Martha smiled, turned to follow him, and they’d both reached the door when I said, “Preacher, thanks. I owe you one.”

This time his smile felt a lot more genuine.

“You didn’t ask for my help, so I’m going to let you take that back if you want.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I have a lot of people who depend on me, Mr. Oberon. If you insist that you owe me, I
will
take you up on it someday.”

“I’ll consider myself warned. But I pay my debts.”

Oh, if you only knew how important that was, and why…

He watched me a few more seconds (five, if you care), nodded and left. Martha pulled the door to behind her on her way out, but I noticed she left a gap of a couple inches.

Well, they
were
good church-goin’ folk, and Tsura was a young unmarried dame… I hadda swallow the laugh, hard. They meant well, and I had more important topics to talk about. Besides, hysterics’d probably hurt right now, anyway.

“All right, sister. Spill.”

Tsura took the chair with a sight and a tight smile.

“Where am I starting?”

“How long I been snoozing?”

“Um…” She glanced at the clock. “Day and a half? A little longer.”

Fuck.
Then again, considerin’ the slug’d passed through my skull, I was damn lucky it’d only been
that
long. If it’d gone through the center, rather than just clippin’ the side the way it did, it probably woulda been three or four times that before I woke up. Guess even my current luck couldn’t be awful
all
the time.

I know nobody makes bullets outta iron, but I still couldn’t help shuddering just thinkin’ about it. I’da been dead, pure and simple. And for good. I ain’t come that close in a while.

To say nothin’ of the people in the crowd I coulda hurt, bad, if I’d had time to get desperate enough.

Ramona. Damn, but that broad had a few things to answer for.

“I’m sorry if this is awkward for you.” I guess Tsura decided not to wait for me to prod her with another startin’ point. “I’ve met Preacher Hewlett a few times. He’s brought some of the church kids to the carnival the last two or three times we’ve been in Chicago. He knows my fortune-telling’s all in good fun, and the children seem to enjoy it…”

Yeah, he’d basically just told me alla that. In fewer words. But I swallowed my impatient interruption to go keep that laugh company, and let her finish.

“Anyway, I… It’s not exactly the basis for a deep friendship or anything, but I don’t actually know a lot of people in the city, and most of the others I
do
know aren’t in any kinda position to help, so…” She shrugged, scuffed her feet in the carpet, and seemed real nervous about meetin’ my gaze.

A lot younger, I realized, than she’d looked in her performance getup. Figure maybe mid-twenties. Somethin’ about her, though… Somethin’ inside of her was a lot older than her flesh and blood.

“That why you took the run-out soon as I told you my name? To go call Hewlett?”

“Well, and gather some bandages. And some of the staff to help get you out to the parking lot.”

I snorted. “Carryin’ stiffs just part of the job for most of you, then?”

“Winston—that is, Mr. Rounser, the owner? He doesn’t exactly want a lot of police attention. Traveling outfit like ours, we’re not always too careful about who we hire or making sure all the permits are in order, you get me? I hid the worst of your injuries, told him you were only hurt—which wasn’t even really a lie, when you get down to it—and he was just happy to have you off his hands. And property.”

“Thanks. Funny thing about your story, though? You got the chapters outta order.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, while her tone, her lowered expression, the faint flush in her cheeks all screamed at me that she knew damn well what I meant.

“Well, let’s see. You knew I wouldn’t want any kinda official noses poking into my business, even though I never told you any such thing. But all right, I’ll give you that one free; it ain’t too hard to guess, in this town.

“You knew I wasn’t normal, though, and that’s a lot harder to just suss out. Ain’t any reason you shoulda called to me in the first place, or known a shot to the conk like the one I took wasn’t gonna kill me.

“But here’s the rub, doll. You ran to call for help
before
I got hurt. Before anybody had reason to
expect
me to get hurt.”

Tsura was fidgeting again, enough to make the chair squeak beneath her.

“The ‘gypsy’ part of ‘gypsy fortune-teller’ is the only part that’s bunk, ain’t it?”

Chair stopped squeaking. “You’re ready to believe that? So easily?”

“You sound incredulous.”

Not sure if the sound she made was a laugh or more of a bark, but it was bitter.

“I haven’t had much luck telling people the truth in the past. I haven’t bothered in years.”

“Yeah, well, how many of the mugs you told just got done healing overnight from being plugged in the noggin?”

“There’s that,” Tsura conceded. Then, “I don’t… tell fortunes, exactly. I get, well, flashes. Feelings. Sometimes actual images, but they’re always short or vague. Broken. Premonitions but not what you’d call full-on visions. It’s sort of like remembering pieces of a dream. I don’t always know what I’m seeing, or even why I’m doing what I’m doing, but it’s never wrong.”

Huh. Sounded like the sorta Fae hunches I get, but taken up about ten notches.

“You got any kinda control over it?”

“A little. If I really focus on something, I can sometimes bring on a premonition about it. But it’s not what I’d call reliable.”

So where’d this come from? She was human, not Fae; I’da sworn to that. If she was being square with me, and her words tasted of truth, this wasn’t comin’ from any sorta witchcraft or occult practice. I…

Wait a minute. She was Greek. That couldn’t… What where the odds of…?

“You’re an oracle?”

“Momma told me over’n over, while I was growing up, that we were descended directly from the very last Pythia. Uh, that is, Apollo’s priestess at Delphi.”

I knew what “Pythia” meant, but I let her talk.

“I was all proud of that, as a child,” she continued, “until I got old enough to read the myths and realize what a heap of horsefeathers the whole idea was. I was a bit of a brat to her about it for a while after that, honestly.”

“Lemme guess. And then you had your first premonition.”

“And then I had my first premonition, yes.”

“So that’s not just
how
you helped me,” I guessed, “but why. Just had the feeling you oughta?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s the kinda feeling I can get behind.”

After a quick courtesy chuckle, she said, “All right, your turn to sing. What
are
you?”

Y’know what? I told her. Didn’t go into a lot of depth or detail, but the basics?
Aes sidhe
, former noble of the Seelie Court, alla that? Gave it to her straight. Didn’t seem to be a whole lotta point in doing otherwise, given what she already knew.

Explained Ramona, too, so far as I could. That I didn’t know what she was, exactly, but that I knew what kinda power she could throw around, and how she’d used it to put us in our current circumstances.

I did
not
mention Adalina, or why I was involved in this steamin’ heap as deep as I was. I wasn’t anywhere close to trustin’ her
that
much. Hell, I only barely trusted
Pete
that much!

By the time I was through… Well, my mouth tasted like sandpaper and I wanted milk, but that ain’t the relevant part. Tsura’s blinkers were right on the verge of poppin’ out and bouncin’ around the room like billiard balls. I figure she musta wondered in her life,
If I got these weird abilities, what
else
is out there?
But whatever she’d imagined, obviously it hadn’t gone far enough.