The Graves of Plague Canyon (The Downwinders Book 3) (19 page)

“And Lizzy?” Warren asked.

“I helped Samaria bury her in the desert,” Deem said.

“What if she comes back, as a ghost or something?” Warren
asked. Deem could see that he was concerned and bothered by the whole story. It
made her wonder if she should have told him.

“Ghosts don’t usually like to wander too far from their
corpse,” Carma said, “barring extraordinary circumstances. So burying them in
the desert is almost as good at keeping them quiet as burying them in an
encasement substrate. You haven’t touched your pie, Warren.”

“The grisly details of blood spurting in the bathtub might be
why,” Winn offered, digging into his own.

“Well, I’m just concerned that perhaps he doesn’t like it, or
that he doesn’t care for the flavor,” Carma replied to Winn. “I have other
pies, you know, with other ingredients.”

“No, the pie is delicious, thank you,” Warren said, returning
to his plate and forming a forkful. “I just got wrapped up in the story. You
gotta admit, it’s pretty horrific.” He looked around the table to see if people
agreed with him. Winn and David were busy shoving more savory pie into their
mouths.

“Yes, dear,” Carma said, patting Warren’s hand on the table.
“Very frightening and dramatic.”

“The fire and the stone,” Deem said. “I’m still not sure
about all that.”

“I have been forming a theory,” Carma said, waving a knife
through the air the way she would normally wave a lit cigarette. “David, you
said your parents told you that giraffe would protect you?”

David looked up from his plate. “That’s what they always
said. It had been in my room since I was little.”

“Well, it’s not uncommon for gifted parents to place a good
luck charm in their children’s rooms,” Carma said, “such as a necklace that’s
been made from a mineral in the River, or a sachet of River ash, or something
like that. They do offer some small measure of protection from the random ghost
here and there. Your parents may very well have placed some type of protection
in that giraffe, David. I don’t suppose you noticed anything when you opened
it?”

“I didn’t,” he replied. “But I wasn’t looking for anything
either. I just removed enough stuffing to allow the camera to fit.”

“And this stone,” Carma continued, turning it over in her
other hand, “appears to me to be a talisman. They don’t normally heat up like
this one did.”

“I’ll have a scar for the rest of my life,” Deem said,
reaching down to the bandages on her side.

“The camera you put in the giraffe, David, was it powerful?”
Carma asked. “I mean, it must have operated from a battery, correct?”

“Yeah, a battery,” he replied. “And it was wireless, transmitting
to my laptop without any cords.”

“I’m beginning to think there was a confluence of events,”
Carma said. “The protective elements inside the giraffe were activated when
Lizzy attacked you, but they were amplified by the electronics somehow, and the
interaction of the two protective elements, amplified in a strange way, made
the talisman more powerful, like a reflective talisman. That would mean that
when Lizzy attacked you, she was attacking herself, which is how a reflective
talisman works. The giraffe and the talisman both overheated from the reaction,
the giraffe bursting into flames, and the talisman burning a hole into you,
Deem. And when Lizzy pushed on the syringe, she thought she was injecting you,
but she was really injecting herself. Which is, apparently, what happened.”

Carma held up the stone for everyone to see. “Had this not
been in your pocket, and had David not given you that amped up giraffe, we
might not be enjoying your presence around the table tonight, Deem.”

Deem shuddered. David was sitting next to her, and she
grabbed his hand. “If you’d like to give me another stuffed animal from your
collection at home, I’d be happy to take one off your hands!” she said.

“I have a hippo you might enjoy,” David replied.

“Well, it scares the piss out of me,” Warren said. He was
sitting across from Deem, next to Winn, and Deem could see the look of worry on
his face. “You could have been killed.”

“It’s not the first time,” Winn said nonchalantly. “Deem
isn’t afraid to take on some bad ass shit.”

“I wasn’t able to kill her, though,” Deem said. “When Samaria
told me to do it, I was looking for every reason under the sun to avoid it.”

“That’s natural,” Carma replied. “That’s human. That’s why
we’re the good guys. Lizzy killed others by command, filled with
self-righteousness, without any second-guessing. You’re not like that. You
question things, look for other solutions.”

“I guess our trap for her was a bust,” Winn said, eating more
pie. “She saw right through it.”

“These operatives are becoming more and more sophisticated,”
Carma said. “It’s not like the old days, when you could peek through the cracks
in a log cabin. We’re going to have to up our game if we’re going to stay on
top of these zealots.”

Deem watched Warren’s face as he resumed eating. He looked
troubled. Deem wasn’t about to dig into his concerns here at the table, in
front of everyone. She’d wait for later.

▪ ▪ ▪

It was still twilight, but the temperature had dropped to a
comfortable seventy-five degrees, and Winn and David were on the back lawn,
tossing a football and talking between themselves, laughing. Winn was still
limping, but he was able to keep up with David. Carma had gone back inside for
a moment to retrieve more iced teas, leaving Deem and Warren in the large
lounge chairs.

“You looked worried at dinner,” Deem said.

“That was quite a story,” Warren replied. “It was a little
more intense than I’m used to.”

“My world is much stranger than most, I admit,” Deem said.

“All this River stuff is really weird and bizarre,” Warren
said. “It’s cool in a way, but kind of freaky. I mean, ghosts? Seeing dead
people? That would blow my mind. But then you top it off with President Dayton
and this whole underground world that uses religion to try and manipulate
things in the River, and people who are gifted, and the barbarity of what
they’re willing to do — yeah, it freaks me out a little.”

“I can’t change who I am,” Deem said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to change,” Warren said. “I just
have to figure out how to handle it. I hate the idea of you being in danger.”

“I look at it this way,” Deem said, relaxing back in her
lounger. “Everything everyone does every day is dangerous. There’s a heart
attack or a bike accident or a stray bullet just waiting to happen, all the
time, even though people don’t think about it. The threats I face are just more
visible, that’s all. In some ways, they’re easier to deal with than someone t-boning
you in an intersection.”

“Can I ever see it?” Warren asked.

“See what?”

“The River?”

She paused. “I don’t know how. I wish I could buy you a day
pass and let you see how it looks, but I’ve never heard of such a thing. Either
you can go there, like I and Winn and David can, or you can’t.”

“And Carma,” Warren added. “Her too. I’m the lone man out.”

“That doesn’t make you any less handsome,” she replied. He
began to blush.

“You’ll need to keep spending time with Winn, I suppose?”
Warren asked. “You two are going to keep working together?”

“We will,” Deem replied. “I trust him. It’s a lot easier to
deal with the shit that pops up if you have someone like him you can rely on.”

“And David?”

“Carma’s right, someone’s got to give him some training, or
he’s going to make a lot of unnecessary mistakes. I suppose it’ll be me and
Winn, although Winn doesn’t seem too keen on the idea.”

“They seem to get along,” Warren said as they watched David
tackle Winn. The two rolled on the grass, laughing.

“I think Winn’s eased up on him,” Deem replied. “The role
David played in all this wound up saving my life, and Winn recognizes that.
We’ll have to see if Winn changes his mind about helping David out down the
road. He tends to soften up over time.”

Carma reappeared with a large tray of iced tea and lemonade.
She set it down on a nearby table and poured herself a drink. “You can make
your own Arnold Palmers,” she said. “Everyone likes the balance of iced tea and
lemonade a little different, and I don’t want to serve improperly balanced
drinks.”

Carma sat next to them in a padded chair, observing David and
Winn on the lawn. “They’d better be careful or Winn will rip that wound open.”
She took a sip and made a funny face. “Ooo,” she said, pulling the glass from
her lips. “You may notice slightly more vodka in the lemonade than I’d
intended.”

“You want a glass?” Warren asked Deem, rising from the lounge
chair and walking to the table.

“Please!” Deem replied.

“Lyman wants to see us both tonight,” Carma said to Deem.
“Will you be available?”

“Sure, what time?” Deem replied.

“Midnight or so,” Carma answered. “He’s had some disturbing
news, and wants us to look into something for him.”

“Sure,” Deem replied. “I’ve got some news for him, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Lizzy killed David’s parents, but she didn’t kill Claude,”
Deem said. “She tried to take credit for it, telling me she’d slit his throat.
Claude wasn’t killed that way. He was gutted.”

Carma sighed. “Maybe she forgot how she killed him?”

“It seemed more like she was lying,” Deem replied. “I asked
her if she did it, and it was like she was trying to take credit for something
she knew would impress me. It didn’t ring true.”

Carma sighed. “I guess we’ll need to continue the search for Claude’s
killer.”

Warren returned with Deem’s glass and handed it to her.
“Heavy on the lemonade,” he said as he sat down.

“You just want to get her drunk,” Carma said.

“You see everything, Carma,” Warren replied.

“How’s the scanning coming, Deem?” Carma asked.

“One more day and it’ll be done,” Deem replied. “I had no
idea how long and tedious it would all be. At least I can start going through
it soon. I’m hoping we can pick up some new information on Dayton from it.”

“You’ll be moving back to Mesquite after you’re done?” Carma
asked.

“I suppose so,” Deem replied. “You’ve been so kind to let me
stay here while I scan.”

“Nonsense, the pleasure’s been all mine,” Carma replied. “You
know, if you roomed here, you’d be a lot closer to Warren than way out there in
Mesquite.”

“Are you offering me a place to stay?” Deem asked, surprised.
“On a permanent basis?”

“Well, I was just thinking that you’re old enough to be out
on your own now, instead of living at home,” Carma said. “Besides, I like
having you around. I like the energy it gives the house. So long as you clean
up and do as I say, of course, and maintain appropriate levels of courtesy. I
know Lyman won’t object.”

“Do you want rent?” Deem asked.

“The occasional task will suffice,” Carma said. “We have a
lot of work that needs to get done.”

“Like finding callum for a sick niece?” Deem smiled at her.

“That paid your rent for the next year!” Carma said, smiling
back.

“I’d be delighted to stay, Carma,” Deem replied. “My mother might
be disappointed, but she spends so much time with her sister now, I don’t think
she’ll mind too much. All my River stuff wigs her out, anyway.”

“What about David?” Carma asked, looking out into the yard, where
David was preparing to pass the ball to Winn. “I can’t bear the idea of him
alone in that house in Ivins with all those reminders of his parents everywhere
he turns. Breaks my heart.”

“What did you have in mind?” Deem asked.

“Well, I was thinking it’d be a lot easier for you to train
him if he lived here too. God knows I’ve got plenty of bedrooms upstairs, and
he’d have company around who understand him. I’d have to check with Lyman on
that, of course.”

“I think it’s a great idea, if you want to do it,” Deem said.
“It’s your house, Carma. I feel like we’d be taking over.”

“How ridiculous,” Carma said. “What I like about David is how
incredibly courteous he is. You don’t see that much these days. If I were going
to offer up a room to someone, it’d be someone like him.”

“How do you think he’s handling his parent’s finances?”
Warren asked. “Has he said?”

“He hasn’t, to me,” Carma replied. “That’ll be something to
investigate and see if he’s doing things properly. What nineteen-year-old even
knows how to balance a checkbook? I don’t want anyone taking advantage of him.
You handle his River training, Deem, and I’ll look to his temporal needs.”

They sat quietly for a while, watching Winn and David run
back and forth over the large lawn, Winn limping with each step, passing the
ball to each other and chasing each other for an occasional tackle.