Bone Dry_ A Soul Shamans Novel - Cady Vance Page 0,11
started drawing the summoning symbol and stopped halfway through. I glanced around the rest of the room but didn’t see another one like it, and I wasn’t about to go moving piles of clothing around.
I wasn’t sure what it meant. Maybe the shaman had been interrupted. Maybe he’d decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. Maybe the funny smell had driven him away.
Then, I noticed something behind the open bathroom door. I tiptoed my way through the mess and pulled the door away from the wall. A classic black safe. An open safe. I squatted and eyed the black hole, reached inside and felt around. My fingers grazed the cool walls of the safe but nothing else. Everything was gone. My arm hair curled around chill bumps. Summoning runes, a trashed bedroom and an open, empty safe. This spelled bad news no matter which way I looked at it.
Through the binding, I felt Laura tug at me, wanting me to come outside. I was pretty much done here, although I felt like I had some sort of obligation to help Kylie even more. But there was nothing else I could do. I’d banished the spirit from the house and cancelled out the rune. Whoever had done this was probably long gone with whatever had been in the safe, and I certainly didn’t need to go head-to-head with a shaman who was, without a doubt, tons more powerful than I was.
Something felt off as I stepped outside, but I decided to ignore it. For now.
CHAPTER 5
That was freaking scary.” Laura stood from where she’d been waiting for me on the front steps.
“At least it wasn’t the Green Goblin,” I said, ignoring the fact that my hands shook a little. They’d been steady as I’d given Kylie the healing tea, but now that my adrenaline was wearing off, I didn’t feel so great.
“Well, I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. I think your mom would be, too.”
“No,” I said. “She would have been pissed at me. She didn’t want me doing stuff like this. At least not until I was older…” I trailed off, realizing I was talking about my mom in the past tense.
“She’d get over it.”
We walked down the long drive, and I realized I needed to get home soon to make dinner. The sun was still out, but fingers of pink were beginning to creep up the horizon.
“So, this wasn’t a regular spirit attack,” I said, kicking a pebble with my toe.
“You don’t say?” Laura snorted. “What was the deal, anyway?”
Even though we were bound, we weren’t able to sense everything the other was experiencing. I’d known what Laura was doing outside, felt her emotions, but I wasn’t able to see through her eyes or know what she was thinking. So, while Laura knew some crazy stuff had gone down in Kylie’s room, she didn’t know the details.
“Another shaman.” I glanced over to watch her face. She swallowed hard. “There was a summoning rune carved into Kylie’s floor.”
“Shit,” she whispered as we turned out of the driveway. She glanced around, eyeing the few cars parked along the street. “I don’t even know what to think about that.”
I heard the cranking of an engine coming to life, and I glanced behind me. It was just a neighbor’s SUV. Laughing at myself, I shook my head. This whole experience had left me seriously edgy.
“Me either.” I pulled my tangled hair away from my face and into a ponytail. “I feel like it’s none of my business, but the whole thing makes me really uncomfortable. I mean, a shaman summoned a really powerful spirit into a girl’s room, and she could have easily died.”
“Died?” Laura asked. “What are you talking about?”
I’d forgotten she hadn’t seen how close to death Kylie had gotten.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to block out the image of Kylie’s life fading before my eyes. “The spirit was acting like it was…a crazed animal or something. It almost killed her.”
“Oh my god,” Laura said in a low whisper. “I didn’t think they could kill someone that fast. I thought it took like months or something.”
“Me either, and even though she’s protected by our bone magic, I guess I feel weird about leaving her alone in that house,” I said. “And why do I feel like we’re being watched?”
Laura kept her face forward, but I could tell she’d been thinking the same thing by the way she twirled her nose ring. “Don’t look back. It’s the SUV.”