Soul Whisperer Read Free Page B

smile never reached his slate-colored eyes. “Only to one who sees so much death.”
    â€œMy mother was also slim and dark-headed.”
    â€œAh,” he said, nodding his understanding. “My situation is just the opposite. My mother is alive and just wishes I were dead.”
    Bess’s mouth dropped open as she watched for some indication that he was making a bad joke. He gave none as he kept his attention pinned upon her.
    â€œYou shouldn’t watch.”
    Her eyes widened with interest and she leaned forward. “Why? What will happen?”
    He gave a befuddled shake of his head as if her questions made no sense. “Nothing you can see, but it’s unnecessary.”
    Bess bristled. She shouldn’t have mentioned her mother. Now he felt sorry for her. “Skinwalkers are made of sterner stuff than that, Niyanoka. I’ll wager I have looked on death as often as you.”
    He held her gaze a moment longer and she knew from the sadness in his eyes and the long intake of breath that she had been wrong. This man had stared often into the face of death, far more often than she ever would. Still he nodded and then sank to his knees, pressing a hand to the woman’s forehead. His eyes fluttered closed. The only change she could detect was inhis heartbeat and the rate of his breathing. Beyond that he was the picture of tranquility.
    As she watched, his expression grew strained as the color ebbed from his tanned face, until his skin exactly matched the grayish shade of the corpse. Bess stepped closer and noted his eyeballs moving erratically beneath his closed lids as if he were deep in dreaming. At last he broke the connection with the body and sank back to his heels, capturing a huge breath of air. Cesar blinked down at the woman and then seemed to remember Bess and turned toward her.
    â€œHow long?” he asked.
    â€œWere you…?” She pointed at the woman. “Maybe five minutes. Your color isn’t good.”
    â€œTemporary,” he said, rising to his feet and dusting off his knees.
    â€œDo you just see what she saw?”
    He broke the contact of their gaze and stared down at the deceased. “No. I can hear their thoughts, as well.”
    That would be hard enough, she realized. “But not what they feel?”
    He was studying her again. “Yes and no. I feel their emotions, fears, sorrows, the person they think of when they know they’ll die. But I don’t experience the pain of their final moments.” He glanced back at the victim. “She was killed giving birth, twins again, just like the first case.”
    â€œFirst? Are you some kind of Dream Child cop?”
    â€œI help humans investigate difficult cases. Work with the FBI.”
    â€œThey know what you are?”
    He shook his head once. “Same rules for us as for you. Human’s don’t know about us—ever.” He rubbedhis palms on his trousers. “She was also only in her first trimester.”
    â€œThat’s impossible.”
    â€œApparently not. Also the newborns can walk, run actually.” He pointed. “That way. That’s why the self-made cesarean. They were too big to be born.”
    â€œAre you sure they were not some kind of parasite?”
    â€œI’m sure. They are small, with ash-gray skin. Their teeth are long, pointy and sharp and they have bright yellow eyes, like a cat’s.”
    Yellow eyes. She stilled, wondering why this tidbit made her entire scalp tingle.
    â€œIf they’re Skinwalkers, they are like none I’ve ever seen,” Cesar continued, without noticing Bess’s rising concern.
    â€œWe are always born in human form and don’t change until we hit puberty.”
    â€œThat’s what I was taught.”
    Taught in his little racist Niyanoka schools, where they learned to hate her kind.
    Cesar seemed oblivious to her seething anger for he continued on.
    â€œWhat I’m not sure about