Windburn(25)

“Someone wants to kill . . . her? The Tracker is a woman?”

Giselle blinked up at me. “Yes, that’s what I see when I look at this card. The monster is after a woman with long dark hair.”

Well, goose shit, that was something of a surprise. “In London?”

“That is my best suggestion. I’m sorry I can’t be more sure.”

I stood. “Time to go, then.”

The kid scrambled to her feet, then reached a hand out to me. “There is something else.”

We stopped and I looked at her. She swallowed hard. “I don’t understand it, but when I look at you . . . there is so much swirling around your aura. I have to speak it.”

“Then do it,” I said, not unkindly.

“I’m sorry.” She paused, swallowed again, and then went on. “The world will balance in your hands not once, but twice before your life’s journey is through.”

Peta gripped my vest hard. “All nine of my lives are going to be used up on you, Lark. Why am I not surprised?”

Giselle glanced up at her. “You will save her, time and again. And in the end, she will save you.”

Peta shook her head rather violently. “No, it doesn’t work that way.”

Giselle gave her a tiny smile. “You don’t have a say in it, former bad luck cat.”

I had to give it to Giselle, she was good at what she did. There was no way she could have known Peta’s former moniker.

My cat’s claws dug in until the leather creaked under her grasp. I reached up and ran a hand down her back but directed my words to the Reader. “Thank you.”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t think I could have broken free on my own. I hope what was dispelled does no harm to anyone else.”

I didn’t want to burst her bubble. What I knew of dark spirits was not a lot, but a simple rule of thumb was they were never truly destroyed until they realized the error of their own ways. So in other words, the only thing we’d done was spread it out.

Giselle lifted her hand in a forlorn wave. “I wish you could stay a while. With Talan gone, I don’t have anyone to talk to.”

Loneliness rolled off her in a wave so strong I couldn’t have missed it even if I didn’t have Spirit pumping through my blood. I looked at Peta, knowing how much comfort she brought me in the dark hours of my life even in the short time she’d been with me.

I wasn’t sure I could find Giselle her own Peta. But maybe something close. “Wait here a moment.” I touched Giselle on the shoulder and headed to the door that led to the backyard. Cactus lifted an eyebrow and I motioned for him to wait too. Peta butted my head with her nose. “What are you thinking?”

“She’s lonely. What can we do to soften our leaving?”

“I’m not staying with her,” Peta said.

“No. But . . . you know the human world better than I do. Is there something we can do? A form of comfort we can leave with her?” The last thing I wanted was for Giselle to struggle after we were gone. She had a hard enough path ahead of her as it was.

Peta leapt from my shoulder and landed with a thud on the grass. “Maybe. Wait here.”

She took off, a streak of gray and white, bounding across the lawn and then up and over the wooden fence. She didn’t make me wait long. A few minutes later Peta leapt over the wooden fence once more, though this time in her snow leopard form. In her mouth was a dead dog. Its head flopped at a bad angle and its legs swayed with every step she took.

“Peta!” I couldn’t believe what she’d done.

She spat the dog out at my feet. “Pick it up, Lark.”

With a grimace I did as she asked, and realized it wasn’t a dead dog. Though it looked like it. The fur was silky soft, and the eyes were made of a black material that was not natural.

“The humans use them as fill-ins for real companions,” Peta said.

I touched her on the head, gently. “Thank you.”

We hurried back into the house. Cactus was having his palm read.

“ . . . broken over and over. That is all I can see,” Giselle said, putting his hand down.

I held the soft, stuffed dog out to Giselle. “For the dark nights. It isn’t the same as staying, but it—”

Her eyes lit up, and a smile curved her lips. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Peta shifted and leapt to my shoulder. “Of course it is, I picked it out.”

Giselle smiled even wider but it slipped as she looked to me.

I touched her cheek. “I’m sorry, we have to go now.”

Her eyes welled up and a tear trickled down as she clutched the stuffed dog. “This path you are on won’t end well. You should stay here with me.”