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Usually, being in a room filled with tattooed men of intimidating build elicits some apprehension from people, especially when said person is a delicate woman. However, Victoria is either oblivious to her surroundings or a better poker player than most. She wears a blank expression on her face as she focuses on smoothing out an invisible crease on her yellow ankle-length skirt.
“Miss Cromwell?”
She raises her head and calmly meets my gaze. “Please, call me Tory,” placing her hands atop each other on her lap.
“Okay,” I drawl hesitantly. “I should….”
Tory stands up abruptly, effectively cutting off my train of thought. I watch with a mixture of amusement and puzzlement as she walks over to the table by the large fireplace, where Abby had arranged picture frames of the memories captured in the clubhouse over the years since we married. Like my men, I had cared little for having my picture taken and displayed around the house, but as time passed, we got used to the arrangement. A picture frame here, a flower pot there, Abigail had added a warm and homey ambiance to what used to be a stark bachelor’s pad. Victoria points at a picture with everyone in it. It was one we took last year at Christmas by the ugly Christmas tree we’d all decorated together at Evanesce and Abigail’s insistence.
Tory’s long, manicured finger repeatedly taps on Seer’s smiling face. She turns around to look at me with a curious frown. “This is him, right? I knew it. He was in terrible shape the last time.”
I’m finding Tory hard to handle. Usually, there’s a certain way strangers treat me like they’re trying to make sure the situation doesn’t escalate. It helps to get things done and keep new people on the back foot. But Tory is different and isn’t particularly interested in helping me keep up with her way of doing things.
“Sorry, Tory. Why are you here?”
Tory returns to her seat. She takes time to arrange her skirt around her legs and place her hands on each other before raising her eyes to mine. Is it me, or has her expression grown reproachful?
“If you’re the leader around here, shouldn’t you know when one of your men is suffering?”
“What are you talking about?” This time, I can’t keep the exasperation out of my voice. Bones and Hex have the same vexed expressions on their faces. The others look like they’ve stopped paying attention to the conversation while my wife watches on with avid interest from her favorite seat by the window.
“The man with the long dreadlocks,” Tory replies, looking straight into my eyes. “I ran into him at a pharmacy, and he looked about ready to die. I took his pain on myself, and it took everything in me not to double over with its intensity. His eyes… they hurt like hell.”
Everything in me seems frozen over with shock as my brain scrambles to piece her words together.
“What the fuck are you going on about?” Hex snaps, glaring at Tory with uncharacteristic anger. “You come in acting all strange and rambling about God knows what. Who the fuck are you, Miss Goody Two Shoes?”
Hex might as well have kept his mouth shut, because Tory didn’t even spare him a glance. “I tried to help him,” she said, maintaining her off-putting serenity. “But he left in a rush.”
“When was this?” I ask quietly, but I know the answer even before she replies.
“The twenty-fifth day of this month at precisely 6:46 pm.”
That was about the same time that Seer had deserted his post on the mission.How the fuck did I miss all of this?
“He’s a seer, isn’t he?” Tory asks quietly.
“Yes, he is.”
She nods as if I’ve only confirmed something she already knew. “Someone is blocking his visions, draining his soul of its energy. That’s why Mama sent me here to help him.”
“How do we know that anything you say is true?” Hex asks. “For all we know, you could be some swindler. Or worse, some witch.”
“That’s all right, Hex,” I say to him with a cautioning glance before returning my attention to Victoria Cromwell. “I’ll need to confirm what you say is true. To start, let’s speak to Mama.”
“You can’t,” Tory interjects calmly. “Mama is on a trip to Tanzania for the annual meeting of the Houngans worldwide. It is taking place in Africa this year and they permit no outside communication during this time. She sensed Seer’s distress in a dream and came to me as a phantom. She wants me to heal him at all costs.”
Heal him? “Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she replies, meeting my gaze levelly.
I instantly make my decision right there and then. If Tory can somehow bring Seer back, there’s no fucking way I’m going to waste time. I’ll keep an eye on her while I verify her identity with Mama. “Let’s go see Seer.”
She nods curtly and graciously rises to her feet. “Which way?”
* * *
“Not now, Cassandra.”
