Bone Dry_ A Soul Shamans Novel - Cady Vance Page 0,17

I wanted to think I was badass, Laura and I weren’t a threat to those guys. And even if I could have held my own, I doubted they would have thought so themselves.

But then again…

For Kylie’s sake, I hoped they wouldn’t show again, but another part of me wished they would.

CHAPTER 7

I was up before the sun peeked over the hazy morning clouds. My socked feet shuffled down the short hall from my room to Mom’s. On the peeling wallpaper hung framed photos of Mom from Before. Through the dusty glass, she smiled from the bottom of the Spanish Steps and from the top of the Empire State Building.

I knocked and opened her door. It creaked from where the hinges long ago needed oil. “Time to get up, Mom.”

I helped her out of bed, into the jeans and sweater she insisted on wearing and held her hand as she hobbled past the photos holding ghosts of her past. A photo of the two of us in Disneyworld, the only time she’d let me go with her on a case. Me giving the camera a dimpled smile, my pale skin almost florescent under the Floridian sun. Mom laughing at the Mickey Mouse hovering nearby. She’d banished spirits from Space Mountain. It had taken a long time for anyone to realize that spirits were there in the first place—screams of fright being the definition of normal on a scary theme park ride.

She paused at the Chilean beads, closed her eyes and listened to the foreign wind. These days, they were the only way she could get a taste of the world outside this house.

After breakfast, I wiped down the kitchen counters and got the dishwasher humming, occasionally glancing at my schoolbooks tossed on the kitchen table. Mom sat in the living room staring out the window while she clicked her knitting needles together. Astral weaved through her legs, tail up, body humming. I slid my folder for mom’s attack out from under my history book.

After tearing a paper out of my notebook, I scribbled down the new information Mom had accidentally spilled.

Note on September 22 (NEW info!)

- Political struggle

- Mom was in the middle

- What kind of politics exist in the shaman world?

- ??????????

I tapped my pencil against the paper before shuffling through the rest of the file. I didn’t know why I still read it all, but I felt like it helped. The most important things, I thought, included Boston and summoning runes. Right after the accident, I’d been able to get a few things out of her, other than what I already knew.

She had contacts in Boston. She’d never told me who they were. I’d even taken a couple of trips after the attack, hoping to stumble across something, but Boston is big, and I had nowhere to go once I was there, so I’d come up empty.

I’d known she was on a trip to Boston that weekend. Someone named John No-Last-Name she’d worked with before had called her in for a consultation. The next thing I knew, she was stumbling into our house, eyes blurry and forehead lined in wrinkles…

I shook my head, blinked and pulled my history book back over the file. Ten minutes later, I realized I hadn’t read a word, and I needed to leave for school or I’d be late. On my way out the door, I found a letter that had been shoved underneath the door.

I picked it up and tore open the envelope, eyebrows furrowed. It was a notice from the mortgage company, saying if we didn’t pay within thirty days our home would go into foreclosure. My hand tightened into a fist around the letter. Shit.

Even with the cash I’d gotten from Kylie, we didn’t have enough money.

I stuffed the letter into my backpack, grabbed my bike and pedaled my way to school, trying not to focus on the fact that my world was falling even more apart.

***

Nathan plopped down across the lunch table and grinned, his orange tray piled high with hamburgers and cheese fries. I fought the urge to roll my eyes at how his green polo shirt matched the color of his canvas belt.

“Don’t tell me you bought a Robin costume,” I said between bites of my sandwich, eyeing his cold can of Coke with envy. I’d brought a reused plastic bottle of water with me, and it was lukewarm at best.

“Would you be happy if I did?”

I choked on my sandwich when my cheeks burned, and I pretended