“I know.” We both turned to watch Dec and Annie staring at the timer on his phone, although we couldn’t hear their conversation. “It’s rather funny, isn’t it?” Tristan said. “That he should be looking for me after all this time. He usually acts as if I’m a nuisance.”
There was a lot of truth in his statement, but I had nothing useful to add. Dec was never going to embrace a spirit.
“I want to help,” I said.
“I’ve seen you here, you know,” Tristan said abruptly. “With Daniel. He trusts you. He’s never trusted me. I wonder why that is.”
I knew what he was saying was true. “Trust isn’t really his thing.”
Tristan stared at the glowing end of his cigarette. “I know what he wants to discuss with me, but I promised I’d never speak about it.”
That wasn’t something I was expecting to hear. “His father—” I began, but Tristan cut me off.
“Tell me what I am. I don’t think I’m a ghost,” he said, words tumbling over one another. “That’s my price. Tell me what I am and I’ll talk to Daniel.”
My pulse raced. Back in the room, Dec and Annie moved to the floor, sitting next to my body, their eyes locked over my slowly rising and falling chest. I pulled my attention back to Tristan.
I thought a moment, then asked, “So, when you aren’t here, what is it that you see?”
Tristan’s green eyes rolled to the right the way people’s do when they’re trying to grasp onto a memory. “It’s hard to sort out what’s real and what’s a dream sometimes.” Then he closed his eyes. His voice dipped to a whisper. “It’s dark. Even when I do open them. It’s been dark for a very, very long time.”
I weighed my words, sifted through specifics, and carefully asked, “Do you know what happened to you?”
“What happened to me?” Tristan’s eyes snapped open, and in them was a steeliness that hadn’t been there before. “Of course, I do. My father happened to me.”
Chapter 26
Dec
“He said he’d talk. So where the hell is he?”
Annie put a hand on my arm. “Perhaps this is difficult for him.”
I wanted to be as forgiving as Annie, but truth was, I wasn’t. I was pissed. I’d spent, no wasted, two whole days waiting for Tristan to show up to explain what Russ meant when he said that although Tristan hadn’t shared much, he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Tristan had been cursed.
“The only rules that dictate how a curse will behave is the wording of that specific curse. Maybe something in the wording of the actual curse explains why no one else can see him besides you, your father, and Annie. Maybe it explains how he can interact with some things and not others. Maybe it also explains why he doesn’t remember much.” Russ had repeated in a number of different ways.
“What could be so difficult?” I mumbled to Annie. “All Russ did was talk to him.” Then I glared at Russ. “That was all you did, right?”
Russ’s head jerked up from the floor where he’d been stacking up rune tiles in random order. “Yeah. We just talked. But after all this time, Annie can see him. And I’ve just invaded his space. He’s probably more used to solitude than he is to people giving him the third degree.”
Damn Russ for making sense all the time. “Fine,” I said. “But meanwhile, I’m still waiting. What do you suggest we do now?”
Russ gathered up the runes and looked at me as if he had all the answers, but before he could share them, Laura came flying into the room. “There’s… I mean, Dec, you need to come with me,” she insisted. “Fast.”
* * *
Whatever I expected to find in the music room, it wasn’t Alex Mackenzie holding a rusty hammer and trying to pry the back off my piano. “How did you get in here?”
He looked up at me with eyes that had the same wild, trapped look that characters had in the horrible black-and-white horror flicks my dad used to love.
“I’m feeling generous,” he said, voice quivering. “I’m going to give you a second chance. That isn’t what you want to ask. What do you really want to know?”
I hated when a Mackenzie was right. “Fine,” I said, trying again. “What the hell are you doing?”
Alex stared at the hammer as if he were seeing it for the first time. “I’m not Colin,” he said. “I’m not the smart one. And I’m not Ian. I’m nothing like Ian.”
I froze, unsure of the correct response.
He can’t see or hear me, said a voice in the corner. Tristan. I jumped slightly, and Alex swung the hammer around, missing the piano by inches.
Figures he’d show up now.
I held up my hands and took a small step forward. “Alex. Let’s talk about this.”
“Really? You just want to sit and chat like old friends? We aren’t friends. Screw that.”
That made the second time Alex had gotten it right. The third if you counted the fact that he had admitted he was nothing like his brothers, which I didn’t, because it was just so damned obvious.
“You came here,” I said warily, “for a reason.”
“I need your piano. Just part of it, actually. But this damned piece of crap isn’t working.” Alex waved the hammer around the room.
My hand wandered to the cell phone in my pocket. I wanted Russ to come downstairs. Russ would know what to do. He would solve this whole thing.
The curtains in the corner rustled as Tristan moved and Alex spun at the noise. “I need to talk to my brother. The flipping Guild has crapped out on reaching him, so I just need one freaking part of your piano.”
“Ian?” My mind spun. What the hell did Ian have to do with my piano? “Alex, look…”
“You and your friend. You both think you’re such hot shit.”
Right on cue, Russ descended the stairs. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, eyes sliding over me. Then he walked up to Alex and stuck his hand out, waiting for the hammer.
I was sure there was no way Alex was ever going to hand over the only thing that was keeping Russ from beating the crap out of him. Yet after a wordless staring contest, Alex passed the tool over to Russ, who tossed it to me before grabbing a large amount of Alex’s shirt, pulling him outside, and slamming the door.
Chapter 27
Russ
“You know what your problem is?” Alex tried to poke a finger into my chest, but when I narrowed my eyes, he wisely took his hand back.