Read Online River Road by Suzanne Johnson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Suzanne Johnson
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to do it the hard way. Or, more accurately, the elven way.
Alex joined Rene and Jean on the shaded foredeck and motioned for Denis to climb up. With the back of the boat to myself, I walked to the rail nearest the body and closed my eyes. My daily grounding rituals to control my empathy involved focused meditation, and I used those skills to shut out the extraneous sensations, including the weight of four pairs of eyes watching me.
First, I honed in on the sounds. The caws and croaks of the swamp birds, an occasional splash, water lapping in soft swells against the side of the boat, buzzing flies in a frantic aerial dance around the body.
Shutting those out, I took note of the smells. Fish. Muddy water. Grass. The iron-rich tang of blood.
I let it all go, except what I could feel on my skin. The warmth of the soft October sunlight, an occasional pale wisp of breeze that was gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it—and overlapping washes of energy.
Every living thing has an aura, and my empathy—an elven skill—lets me feel it. I recognized Alex’s and Jean’s distinctive signatures, and the overwhelming sensation, fluid and cold, that came from a double dose of merman. But beneath it all, as faint as that gentle puff of wind, lay another spike of power, familiar but just beyond my grasp. I couldn’t pin it down long enough to identify it.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, the sunlight bringing tears as it seared into my retinas. The exertion to isolate so many sensations had ratcheted my headache from woodpecker to jackhammer.
“Something’s there, but I can’t be sure what,” I said, joining the others. “I might be able to tell more if…” I swallowed a rising swell of nausea. “It might help if I touched him.” Touching amped up the elven magic.
Alex snorted. “Forget it. I won’t have you barfing on my crime scene.”
Oh, his crime scene, was it? Nothing raises a girl’s hackles like being treated like a girl, even if she’s acting like a girl. Besides, if I wanted the Elders to treat me like an equal partner in this job, I couldn’t wimp out. “If you can look at it, I can look at it.”
“Okay, but I’m warning you. It’s one of the ugliest I’ve seen, and there’ll be no yarking on the body.” He had obviously mistaken me for some delicate flower from his past. Alex eased over the side of the boat into the shallows. I sat gingerly on the rail and swung my legs to the outside, said a quick prayer to whatever saint kept wizards from crime-scene yarking, and jumped. I splashed like a whale but managed to land on the big white shrimp boots and remain upright.
“Try to walk in the footprints I’ve already made,” Alex said. “If we need to call the sheriff we’ll catch hell for mucking up the scene.”
My feet slid around inside Rene’s boots and my soaked jeans weighed me down as I clomped along the muddy bank like Bigfoot. I kept my eyes off the body as long as possible, but eventually it was in front of me and there was nowhere else to look. My crab cakes threatened a second appearance.
“You okay? You’re turning green.” Alex rubbed my back like a mother soothing a fractious baby but I had no doubt he’d use that same hand to jerk me away from the dead man if I even hinted at a gagging noise.
“I’m okay.” I finally looked at the body. Really looked, trying to understand it. “What happened to him?” My voice came out in a strangled whisper.
Alex squatted beside the gruesome wreckage that a few hours ago had been a man. “Has ritual killing written all over it. My guess is what actually killed him was a slashed throat.” He made a horizontal motion across the guy’s bloody neck. “And parts of him have been cut off.”
He pointed at the groin, a ragged, bloody hole where the guy’s genitals had once been, and at the face. I tried not to think of hamburger, but couldn’t help it. The tip of the man’s nose and one eyeball had taken a
Alex joined Rene and Jean on the shaded foredeck and motioned for Denis to climb up. With the back of the boat to myself, I walked to the rail nearest the body and closed my eyes. My daily grounding rituals to control my empathy involved focused meditation, and I used those skills to shut out the extraneous sensations, including the weight of four pairs of eyes watching me.
First, I honed in on the sounds. The caws and croaks of the swamp birds, an occasional splash, water lapping in soft swells against the side of the boat, buzzing flies in a frantic aerial dance around the body.
Shutting those out, I took note of the smells. Fish. Muddy water. Grass. The iron-rich tang of blood.
I let it all go, except what I could feel on my skin. The warmth of the soft October sunlight, an occasional pale wisp of breeze that was gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it—and overlapping washes of energy.
Every living thing has an aura, and my empathy—an elven skill—lets me feel it. I recognized Alex’s and Jean’s distinctive signatures, and the overwhelming sensation, fluid and cold, that came from a double dose of merman. But beneath it all, as faint as that gentle puff of wind, lay another spike of power, familiar but just beyond my grasp. I couldn’t pin it down long enough to identify it.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, the sunlight bringing tears as it seared into my retinas. The exertion to isolate so many sensations had ratcheted my headache from woodpecker to jackhammer.
“Something’s there, but I can’t be sure what,” I said, joining the others. “I might be able to tell more if…” I swallowed a rising swell of nausea. “It might help if I touched him.” Touching amped up the elven magic.
Alex snorted. “Forget it. I won’t have you barfing on my crime scene.”
Oh, his crime scene, was it? Nothing raises a girl’s hackles like being treated like a girl, even if she’s acting like a girl. Besides, if I wanted the Elders to treat me like an equal partner in this job, I couldn’t wimp out. “If you can look at it, I can look at it.”
“Okay, but I’m warning you. It’s one of the ugliest I’ve seen, and there’ll be no yarking on the body.” He had obviously mistaken me for some delicate flower from his past. Alex eased over the side of the boat into the shallows. I sat gingerly on the rail and swung my legs to the outside, said a quick prayer to whatever saint kept wizards from crime-scene yarking, and jumped. I splashed like a whale but managed to land on the big white shrimp boots and remain upright.
“Try to walk in the footprints I’ve already made,” Alex said. “If we need to call the sheriff we’ll catch hell for mucking up the scene.”
My feet slid around inside Rene’s boots and my soaked jeans weighed me down as I clomped along the muddy bank like Bigfoot. I kept my eyes off the body as long as possible, but eventually it was in front of me and there was nowhere else to look. My crab cakes threatened a second appearance.
“You okay? You’re turning green.” Alex rubbed my back like a mother soothing a fractious baby but I had no doubt he’d use that same hand to jerk me away from the dead man if I even hinted at a gagging noise.
“I’m okay.” I finally looked at the body. Really looked, trying to understand it. “What happened to him?” My voice came out in a strangled whisper.
Alex squatted beside the gruesome wreckage that a few hours ago had been a man. “Has ritual killing written all over it. My guess is what actually killed him was a slashed throat.” He made a horizontal motion across the guy’s bloody neck. “And parts of him have been cut off.”
He pointed at the groin, a ragged, bloody hole where the guy’s genitals had once been, and at the face. I tried not to think of hamburger, but couldn’t help it. The tip of the man’s nose and one eyeball had taken a
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