Our Lady of the Various Sorrows (Voices of the Dead Book 2) Read online

  When she had gone for a walk the first day she was there, the low thrum of the unquiet dead had followed her along the trail. The area had been the site of bloody, frozen campaigns, and those who hadn’t crossed into the Next still lingered. Jackie’s ongoing instruction in controlling and developing her ability as a Vox de Mortuis, a Voice of the Dead, included a way to ward herself. She had knitted a tam with the items necessary to hide her light. When she wore it, the hat blocked the silver beacon that shot into the sky from the top of her aura and signaled to the dead, and to all who could see auras, what she was. Jackie said the ward was to be used with caution because it prevented even her spirit guide from reaching her if there was danger. Jo figured out fairly quickly she could still connect to a single shade if she wanted. Like many aspects of her late-blooming ability, this appeared to be unique to her.

  The other Wiley women had been Voices since birth, but Jo’s gift had landed on her suddenly and without warning the night of Helena’s murder, when Jo was well into adulthood. Jo took her outlier status as permission to be contrary in other ways, like using the exclusion ward against her own guide.

  She also refused to think about marrying a steward. Her father, when he had appeared to her, told her it was a bane for Voices to marry a man to provide for them. He had not said it was a bane against madness, even when Jo had pointed out marrying for protection was sexist and antiquated. It was possible he didn’t know. His marriage to her mother had not saved Mary from madness, and his early death had hastened her descent. Aunt Jackie took the traditional wisdom with a grain of salt, being unmarried herself. But she also treated the whole Voice thing like an elaborate parlor game, except when the Observers were mentioned.

  Gustaf Lichtenberg, Jo’s Observer, bent the rules in his own way. They had been neighbors for almost eleven years, both living above the teahouse she owned with her best friends. He was only supposed to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn’t abuse her power, but he’d taken it upon himself to educate her in the history and lore the Vox de Mortuis families had lost as their numbers dwindled. She, her mother, and Jackie were the only ones left. Perhaps that’s why he’d taken such a keen, if rebellious, interest in her.

  She stirred the coffee in the ibrik on the griddle plate and waited for it to come to a boil before stirring it down again. Her teahouse — aptly named Renegade Tea — would be fine in her absence. They might even be better off, if Helena’s assessment of her behavior over the past few months was correct. She winced to think she had caused more pain to those she loved. She couldn’t change her ability — Jackie had made it clear there was no “off” button — but she didn’t have to compound their injuries with her shitty attitude.

  That was why she was holed up in the mountains. Alone, she could gnash her teeth and wail instead of doing her poor imitation of a Stoic. Alone, she hoped, she could crack open the shell she’d crawled into and mourn the dead, even the one she could still talk to.

  She hadn’t meant to threaten her own life in her conversation with Helena, but the comfort she’d found in the thought scared her. There had been too many days when the weight of this pointless “gift,” of everything that had happened, and of everything that could happen pressed down so hard on her that she would have happily walked through the first door into the Next that opened for her. It was appealing, except for the thought of what it would do to the people who cared for her. Her ability naturally turned her toward the dead and the past. She had to focus on the living and the present to survive, or at least to not follow her mother into the darkness.

  Jo scrolled through her iPod playlists while she took the coffee off the eye to let the grounds settle. It felt like a Leonard Cohen kind of morning, but he might also help her dig a deeper hole to stew in. She tapped the Quiet Mornings playlist Gregor had made for her, and Cloud Cult’s “Breakfast with My Shadow” spilled out into the room. Gregor could be a bit on the nose sometimes, but she appreciated his attempt at continuing the mix-tape communication of their early friendship.

  Other than the constant companion of her dark thoughts, she’d gotten her wish about being physically alone. She should have been more careful about what she wished for, or at least more specific about what she needed. There was no one she could talk to who knew what she was, who wasn’t also directly involved. And she didn’t need a fixer; she needed a sounding board. Where was a therapist specializing in demon dreams and woo-woo fallout when she needed one?

  The coffee grounds settled, and she poured her drug of choice into a mug she had brought from her flat. It was good to have the familiar with her, even a small connection to the reality beyond the thick walls of the farmhouse and the mounting snow. Where she was now wasn’t her reality. Her reality was never this quiet.

  Chapter 2

  Faron sat on a chair near the window sill. Two dead flies lay legs-up on the wood. He chose the less mangled of the two and touched its crunchy wing with the tip of his finger. An unseen current passed between them, and the fly fluttered and buzzed off the window sill, dazed but alive.

  Ivanka touched him on the shoulder. “Come to bed.”

  He continued to stare at the other fly. Its wings were broken and a leg was missing. He had learned enough to know it would come back to life only to struggle and die again because it was mangled. He stood and turned to Ivanka. Her eyes were soft with compassion as she looked up into his face, but he could see the worry, too. She had reason to be afraid of things beyond her understanding. She had reason to be afraid of him.

  “Maybe it only works on small things, things without souls.” She took his hand.

  “Who knows what has a soul and what doesn’t?” He pulled away and walked toward the bedroom.

  “Where are you going?” She tried not to sound accusatory, but the edge was there. He ignored it.

  “To bed. Like you said.”

  She followed him and walked to the wine crate she used to corral her clothes in the room she shared with him in his Uncle Rok’s old apartment.

  He watched her undress and neatly fold her T-shirt and leggings before placing them in the crate. She slid her underwear down her legs and tucked them into the laundry bag.

  He stopped her on the way to the bed, which was a futon mattress on the worn wooden floor, and pulled her into a hug. “I don’t mean to be such an asshole.”

  “I know.” She leaned away from him and looked up into his face. The worry was still there. “You should talk to someone. What about that priest guy your mom talks to?”

  “Brother Leo? No.” It came out harsher than he’d intended.

  “Okay. Then let’s find someone else. I can’t help you.”

  She was right. It was unfair for her to be the only other person who knew and be the one person he had tried to help and failed. Saving her father hadn’t been an option; there wasn’t enough of him in one piece to try to resurrect. Her mother had been whole, but she hadn’t come back when he touched her.

  Leo would know what he was, he was sure of that. He also saw the way Leo looked at his mother. Whatever he told him would go straight to her, and Faron wasn’t ready to talk to her about this. She had enough on her plate.

  “I’ll find someone. Maybe Lichtenberg.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  No more than he trusted anyone else, but Lichtenberg’s loyalty seemed to be only to himself and his order of watcher weirdos. He was also a pro at keeping secrets, and he probably already knew what Faron was — whatever that was. “No, but I don’t think I’ve got many other options.” He hugged her to him. “I don’t really trust anyone but you. And Mom, but …”

  She pulled away and smiled up at him. Her smile was a rare thing since the night her parents had been killed.

  “But she’s got her own stuff to deal with?”

  He nodded.

  “I still think you should tell her. She promised not to keep secrets from you a
gain. You aren’t returning the favor.”

  He knew that, too, but his mom had been through enough. She tried to hold it together, but he’d seen her on the mornings she was at the shop alone for hours before anyone else came in. She looked tired and sad all the time. Everyone had kept secrets from her, and she’d buried friends — partly because of those secrets.

  And still he was keeping things from her.

  “You’re right. I should tell her.” He ran his hand down Ivanka’s dark hair to where it fanned out over her bare shoulder. “When she gets back.” He stepped back and pulled his shirt over his head. He threw it over the chair he used for a nightstand and followed it with his jeans. “Let’s get some sleep. You’ve got to be up early to make bread.”

  He walked Ivanka to work before heading to the library and class. When they got to the teahouse, the door was unlocked. Fred must have come in early. Faron followed her in, to be sure. He tried not to be overprotective, but it was hard now that they both knew that the monsters under the bed were real.

  Fred came out of the kitchen drying his hands on his apron. “Good morning.” His greeting lacked its usual enthusiasm.

  A man sat at a table in the darkened, far corner under the mural of a clipper ship surrounded by burning crates of tea. He set his teacup down on the saucer soundlessly and looked at Faron with interest.

  “Ivanka, let’s get started. I think this needs to be a private conversation.” Fred motioned her into the kitchen. He walked by the shop iPod on his way and tapped on the music. Tom Waits, something Faron’s mother liked.

  Ivanka looked at Faron with an “are you sure?” expression. He nodded.

  He’d never met his father, but he’d seen him on television and on magazine covers at kiosks.

  Dušan Črnigad stood and extended his hand. “It is good to see you, Faron. You look well.”

  Faron didn’t take his hand but nodded as a greeting.

  “Would you like to talk here or go for a walk?”

  “Let’s walk.”

  His father collected his teacup and saucer and took them back to the kitchen. Faron could hear every other word of Fred introducing Ivanka and Dušan over Waits’ mourning about a grapefruit or something. He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He didn’t want Dušan to see them shaking, whether they shook from fear or anger. Nothing good could come of a visit from his father.

  Dušan returned, and the two of them walked together into the courtyard. Faron waved at Goran, who was watering the evergreen topiaries in front of his antique store opposite the teahouse. A thought flitted across Goran’s face, but it didn’t linger long enough for Faron to figure out what it meant.

  “Where to?” Dušan extended his arm toward the entrance.

  “I guess down the embankment. There are a few places to get coffee.”

  Dušan nodded. His hair shifted slightly. It was long, past his collar, and still dark, like Faron’s, except at the left temple where it had gone completely white. Faron was taller than he was, but just. They were built the same, long and lanky with broad shoulders that made them both seem taller than they were. He was dressed in a slim-fitting black suit, like the ones he always wore in pictures, with a stiff, white shirt, open at the collar.

  Faron led the way out onto Zajčeva and down to Breg, where he turned left toward the Three Bridges.

  “Is the woman your girlfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  “She is quite beautiful and very protective of you. She was giving me daggers when Frédéric introduced us.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I see I will be doing most of the talking this morning.”

  Faron clenched his fists in his pockets. “You’ve done very little over the years. Seems fair.”

  Dušan laughed. “You are very much like your mother. I am glad of it.”

  That was not the reaction Faron had expected.

  They walked through Prešeren Square, where an accordion player was murdering a Beatles song across from a violinist banging out a folk tune. A few people glanced at his father, their faces shifting to surprised looks of recognition, but no one spoke to him.

  They crossed the main bridge, and Dušan steered them toward a gate with steps leading down to a bar that faced the river below street level. It had been the old fish market, and it was empty save for the two of them and the bartender. His father nodded at the man. “Dva, prosim.”

  They sat at a table and stared at each other for a few minutes before the bartender returned with two skinny glasses of water and two cappuccinos on a steel tray. He placed the water and coffees on the table with a small box of sugar straws and disappeared into the back.

  “I know your mother trades in tea, but I prefer the stronger stuff.” Dušan ripped the tops off three packets of sugar and dumped them into his coffee.

  Faron sipped his cappuccino.

  “I can imagine what you are thinking.”

  Faron looked up at him over the rim of his cup. “I doubt it.”

  His father laughed. “You have every right to be angry.”

  “I hadn’t planned on asking your permission about how I should feel.”

  “Nor should you. I do realize I have been distant and unavailable.”

  It was Faron’s turn to laugh. “Distant and unavailable? That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Perhaps. I would not have had much to offer you had I stayed. Your mother has clearly done an admirable job.”

  “Is that your idea of an apology?”

  “No. I have no intention of apologizing for my actions. I am sorry if you were hurt by them, but there was nothing to be done about it.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Yes. Why I am here. You are very much like her. Direct and to the point. I have always admired that about Jo.”

  “She’s too good for you.”

  “I will not argue that. The reason I am here is I suspect you will have questions for me now your mother’s talents have emerged. If you are indeed like her, I suspect you have not mentioned yours to her.”

  Faron almost dropped his cup into its saucer. “How can you–”

  “I knew what your mother’s family was, even if she did not. I expected you to have some mixture of our abilities.”

  Faron continued to stare at his father.

  “Unlike your mother, I cannot speak with the dead, I can only raise an army of them to do my bidding. It is not very useful in this modern world. Can you speak with them, like her?”

  Before Faron realized he should have lied, the truth tumbled out. “I can bring things back to life.”

  It was Dušan’s turn to be speechless. He regained his composure quickly. “What kind of things?”

  “Fallen leaves, insects, mice. If they aren’t too broken.” He wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

  “Since when?”

  “Just within the last year.”

  “Have you reanimated anything larger than a mouse?” Dušan looked at him as if he expected a particular answer.

  “No.”

  “But you have tried.”

  “Yes, Ivanka’s mother. But it didn’t work.” Faron stared down into his coffee cup. He had given his father what felt like a weapon.

  Dušan shook his head. “It would not have, but I am impressed you tried.”

  Faron pushed the cup away.

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  “Only Ivanka.”

  Dušan nodded. “Good.” He pulled a phone in an expensive-looking leather case from his pocket and tapped out a number. “Gustaf. Perhaps you would like to join us? You were quite wrong.”

  His father had decided the rest of their conversation required something stronger than coffee. He ordered three neat glasses of single-malt scotch when Gustaf Lichtenberg arrived. Faron had never had anything to drink th
at cost more per ounce than he made in an hour, and definitely not before lunch. It burned in a satisfying way as it went down and steeled him for whatever was coming next.

  “And you have not told your mother?” Gustaf looked at him like a skin cell under a microscope.

  “She’s been through–”

  His father cut him off. “Do not underestimate your mother. She is made of stronger stuff than you can possibly know. Still, I am glad you have not told her yet.”

  None of this made sense to Faron. How could his father know he would have some ability? And what kind of scary asshole could raise an army of the dead?

  “It’s not unexpected your son would have some semblance of your ability, Dušan. Though I assumed without knowledge of it or any training there was nothing of concern. Necromancers require more pomp and circumstance than Voices.” Gustaf turned to Faron. “And you did not think this was worth mentioning to your mother?”

  “It seemed too crazy for anyone to believe.”

  His father nodded. “Was there anything that triggered it? Somewhere you went? Something you did?”

  “I don’t think so.” Faron wasn’t going to tell them where he had been the first time it had happened. It was too embarrassing.

  His father finished his whisky and set his glass down soundlessly on the polished table. “There had to be something. You need to remember. It is important.” He picked up Faron’s phone from the table and turned it to Faron to unlock it. “I will add my contact information. Call me as soon as you remember.”

  Faron tapped in the code and his screen, a photo of him on the top of Triglav with Rok, popped up, obscured by app icons.

  His father turned the phone around and touched in his contact information. “Does your mother still see Rok?”

  “You should ask her that.” Faron bristled. He was not going to tell him anything about her.