Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [34]
I opened my mouth, and closed it. “I prayed.”
“What I’m getting is that you usually only pray when you’re out of other options that you like. It might be nice if you prayed as something other than a last resort.” She said it so matter-of-factly. Nothing big, you prayed, God can’t talk to you, so he left a message on your machine. Great.
I licked my suddenly dry lips, and said, “It doesn’t bother you that you just took a message from God for me?”
“Well, it wasn’t from him directly. He just sent it.” Again, utterly matter-of-fact, no big deal.
“Marianne.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes you creep me out.”
She laughed. “You raise the dead and slay the undead, and I frighten you.”
Put that way, it sounded silly, but it was still true. “Let’s just say that I’m glad you have your have psychic powers, and I have mine. I feel guilty enough without knowing the future.”
“Don’t feel guilty, Anita, follow your heart. No, it was the Queen of Rods, not of Cups. So follow your power, let it take you where you need to go. Trust yourself, and trust those around you.”
“You know I don’t trust anybody.”
“You trust me.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Stop poking at it, Anita. Your heart is not a wound to be poked at to see if the scab is ready to come off. You can be healed of that very old pain, if you’ll just let it happen.”
“So everybody keeps telling me.”
“If all your friends are saying one thing, and your heart is saying the same thing, and only your fear is arguing, then stop fighting.”
“I’m not good at giving up.”
“No, I’d say that is the thing you are worst at. Giving up something that no longer serves a purpose, or protects you, or helps you, isn’t giving up at all, it’s growing up.”
I sighed. “I hate it when you make this much sense.”
“You hate it, and you count on it.”
“Yeah.”
“Go inside, Anita, go inside, and make your choice. I’ve said all I have to say, now it’s up to you.”
“And I hate that most of all,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“That you don’t try and influence me, not really, you just report, tell me my choices, and let me go.”
“I offer guidance, nothing more.”
“I know.”
“I’m hanging up now, and you’re going inside. Because you can’t sleep out in the car.” The phone went dead before I could whine at her anymore. Marianne was right, like usual. I hated that she just gave me information and helped me think, but wouldn’t tell me what to do. Of course, if she’d tried to boss me around, I wouldn’t have tolerated it. I made my own choices, and when someone pushed me, it just made me more determined to ignore them, so Marianne never pushed. Here’s your information, here are your choices, now go be a grown-up and make them.
I got out of the Jeep and hoped I was grown-up enough for this particuliar choice.
11
THE LIVING ROOM was dark as I entered the house. The only light was from the kitchen. One or both of them had walked through the pitch-dark living room and only hit a light switch when they went to the kitchen to check messages on the machine, which was on the kitchen counter. Leopards’ eyes are better in the dark than a human’s, and Micah’s eyes were permently stuck in kitty-cat mode. He often walked through the entire house with no lights, just drifting from room to room, avoiding every obstacle, gliding through the dark with the same confidence I used in bright light.
There was enough light from the kitchen, so I, too, left the living room dark. The white couch seemed to give off its own glow, though I knew that was illusion, made up of the reflective quality of the white, white cloth. I was pretty sure the men had both gone to change for the night. Most lycanthropes, whatever the flavor, preferred fewer clothes, and Micah didn’t like dressing up. I walked into the empty kitchen not because I needed to, but because I wasn’t ready to go to the bedroom. I still didn’t know what I was going to do.
The kitchen held a large dining room table now. The breakfast nook on its little raised platform