The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) Read Free

in if only he could stand up and say no once in a while.”
    “So you pass him off to me. Great.”
    Our food arrived then, and I tore into my chicken mole, wishing I could tear into Sage for putting me in the untenable position of being responsible for a man I scarcely knew. But as the thick cinnamon-scented sauce assuaged my first pangs of hunger, and with it my temper, I realized I couldn’t blame her. She was right. Try as I might to keep a low profile, I had a reputation in the magical community for taking in strays. Cats, dogs, teenagers whose Ouija boards had scared them senseless; it didn’t matter. When someone had a need, I had to respond.
    “I don’t think it was D.T.s,” I said at last. “He hasn’t stopped drinking. At least, he reeked of stale booze when I saw him.”
    “Then maybe the booze is making him paranoid. It can do that, you know.”
    “What did he say to you?”
    She shrugged. “Probably what he said to you.”
    “Probably,” I agreed, “But at the time I had stuff going on, and I wasn’t in the listening mode.”
    “Sugar! You not in the listening mode? Wait until that story gets around!” 
    “I’d prefer it didn’t, if it’s all the same to you.” I sipped my margarita. “So?”
    Sage placed a morsel of burrito between her tiny white teeth and chewed it with slow relish, rapture plain on her dark face.
    “Mmm-mmm. Sometimes I wish my mama were Mexican; then I wouldn’t have to go out for food like this. Well, he came in all sweat and panic, and told me he needed some heavy magical protection. I asked why, and he said he had something on his tail. That’s all, really.”
    “What kind of something?”
    “Well, that’s where his story got garbled. Sometimes it sounded like he’d stirred up some Otherworldly being better left alone. Sometimes it sounded like a human allied with the powers of darkness. Or maybe a kind of dark being in human shape. Anyway, it seemed like John’s been walking where he ought not to have walked.”
    I took a thoughtful sip of my margarita.
    “Doesn’t sound like him. Drunk or not, he’s too smart to go places better left alone. A neophyte, yes. But a full-fledged Lakota medicine man?” I shook my head. “Not in the cards.”
    “And you’d know about cards,” Sage agreed. “That’s why I decided it was nothing but paranoia and sent him over to you. I thought you could help him dry out and talk him around. Maybe use your special gifts to convince him he had nothing real to worry about.”
    “Well, I won’t get the chance. I had a client coming and he disappeared again before I finished.”
    Sage snorted through her nose. “Took off to find another bottle of comfort, if you ask me. He’ll be back.”
    I pondered what Sage had told me on my short walk home, chicken mole and caramel flan warring in my stomach. Did I want John Stonefeather to show up again? Immaterial; I had promised to help him and would be bound by the promise whether or not he did. But what could I do if he didn’t come back?
    Well, Sage had mentioned my special gifts. And I had one gift it didn’t take much effort to employ. I could consult the cards about John. He didn’t even have to be present.
    With this thought in mind, I turned off Pearl at Ninth Street, wondering what kind of question would give me the best insight into John Stonefeather’s situation. Tarot cards are touchy; the seeker needs to be precise to avoid any ambiguity in the response. I couldn’t, for example, ask if what John feared was real. To the cards and the Powers that ruled them, “real” could mean anything. I couldn’t ask straight out what I should do, because I had no idea of the nature of the problem: simply drink or something more.
    I turned up my street, still going over the possibilities. Two of the streetlights near Beljoxa’s Eye were out, but this didn’t worry me. I had grown up in Detroit, murder capital of America, and lived in New York City; the dangers Boulder had