“You think that the Soul Taker doesn’t have as strong a hold on Wulfe as it assumes,” Adam said, because he was good at reading between the lines.
That was it. I nodded, then shook my head. “None of them do. Not the Soul Taker, not Bonarata, and not Marsilia.”
The SUV was very quiet; I realized we’d stopped at a red light. We were near the turn that led to my garage.
“Now why don’t you tell me why you aren’t looking at me?” Adam asked. “I thought maybe you had a headache, but you’re deliberately not looking at me.”
“Remember how I told you that I was tied to the Soul Taker somehow?” My voice was tight.
“Yes,” he said.
“Today, while we fought, it cut me. Tasted my blood. And now when I look into someone’s eyes, I see them. I saw Mary Jo when she was cleaning me up at Marsilia’s. I saw Kyle.”
“You saw them,” Adam said cautiously, turning onto Chemical Drive. “You don’t mean with your eyes?”
“Yes, with my eyes,” I snapped at him. “Sorry, sorry. It’s with my eyes the same way I smell magic. Only I can smell magic without my nose. With this I have to meet their eyes.”
That wasn’t quite true. I’d seen Wulfe and he didn’t have physical eyes to look into. He’d had to use a dream for that.
“Mercy?”
“Wait, I’m having a revelation.” Had Wulfe meant me to see him? Was that why he’d bitten me—blood magic—and pulled me into a dreamscape?
Even after looking into him, I wasn’t sure. I pulled my mind back to the explanation I owed Adam.
“I see”—I clutched his hand with my suddenly clammy one—“into their souls. When I remember it—it comes like a visual. But I can tell you things about them that the visual shouldn’t tell me. It feels like my senses are confused. Like I can taste music or hear colors. I looked at Wulfe and I know things about his past that looking at him shouldn’t be able to tell me.”
“As a person who tried LSD a few times,” Adam said, “I probably understand better than you might think.”
“You?” I asked, genuinely shocked. Not that people did LSD, but that Adam had.
“Vietnam,” he said shortly, as if that was an answer—and maybe it was. “But I understand how perception can get miscategorized.”
“It’s like what happened with Aubrey,” I said. “Except they aren’t dead. Mary Jo—” I hesitated. What I saw when I looked at her, at Kyle, was something I had no right to know, let alone repeat.
“Do you think it’s permanent?” Adam asked.
I slumped in the seat. “No idea.”
We drove in silence for a while, past the fairgrounds.
“Can we stop by my shop?” I asked.
We’d have to backtrack to do it now.
“Do you want to see Zee?” There was no emphasis on the “see,” but we both knew what he meant.
“No,” I told him honestly. “If I use this to look at him, I don’t think he’d ever forgive me. But I think I have to. Because if we get the Soul Taker, the only thing I can think of to do with it is give it to Zee. And I just don’t know if that’s a good idea or not.”
Adam didn’t say anything.
“The Soul Taker is really bad news,” I said in a small voice. “It scared Coyote.”
“When did—” Adam began, but broke off. “Never mind. That doesn’t matter right now. Zee is the only person you think can deal with this artifact.” He grunted. “All things considered, he’s still the only person I’d ask to deal with it, too.”
“Larry left the Soul Taker with Bonarata rather than tell Zee where it was,” I said. “And Bonarata was so ignorant that he gave Wulfe to it. I have to tell you right now that the Soul Taker riding Wulfe scares the pants off me.”
Adam still hadn’t turned around, and we were now closer to home than to the garage.
“Did you change your mind about Wulfe after you saw him?” asked Adam.
“No,” I said.
“How about Mary Jo or Kyle?”
I saw where he was going. “No.”
“You know enough about Zee to decide what to do,” Adam said, and I could breathe again because he was right.
He didn’t take me to the garage. We drove home instead. There were no other cars parked at the house, so Jesse was still out.
Adam got out first because he wasn’t stiff from sitting after a fight. I heard him laugh as I slid gingerly out of the vehicle—but I didn’t see why he was laughing until I shut the SUV’s door.