Breed

by Goingback, Owl

  “The Shiru?” Ssabra inhaled sharply. “The Shiru was in the alley, watching me?”

  “Perhaps. I do not know.”

  “But why was it watching me?”

  “Maybe it was trying to find out more about you. It may even be scared of you.”

  “Scared of me?”

  Tolomato nodded. “The Shiru might not be able to hide its true form from you. That makes you a danger to its existence here in this world.”

  “The Shiru considers me a danger? Great. Just great. It also knows who I am. At least it knows what I look like. What if it decides to eliminate the threat, and comes hunting for me?”

  “That could happen, which is why we need to find a way to destroy it.” He grinned. “But do not worry about the Shiru, I will be here to protect you. You will be safe, as long as the dark one does not attack you in your bedroom, your bathroom, or when you are on a date.”

  Tolomato’s laugher floated on the air as his figure faded from view. “It is getting late, we must go to the church.”

  She took a last look around the room to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. Grabbing her purse and car keys, she left her apartment and headed down the stairs to the parking lot. The drive to the Cathedral-Basilica wasn’t a long one, but she drove it alone. Tolomato did not speak to her on the trip, and she wondered if he had gone on ahead of her. If so, he would probably be waiting for her when she got there.

  As was the case with most days, parking places in front of the church, or around the plaza, were impossible to find. Ssabra was forced to park in a metered space behind the Casa Monica Hotel and walk back to the Cathedral-Basilica.

  Formally known as the Cathedral of St. Augustine, the Basilica was a towering structure of stone and poured concrete, complete with an impressive bell tower, and topped by a Spanish-style terra-cotta roof. The interior of the church had been gutted by a fire back in 1887, but most people would never have guessed, for the inside of the stately building was even more beautiful than the outside.

  Ssabra opened one of the massive wooden doors and entered the church, stopping to allow her eyes to adjust to the sudden change in lighting. The interior of the church was quiet and cool, a blessed relief from the afternoon heat. In front of her, rows of pews stood like solders at attention, leading down to the main altar. Above the pews arched a high ceiling, decorated with ornate wood and a Spanish seal. Hanging from the center of the ceiling was a crude wooden cross, like the kind that might have been carried by the first Spanish explorers to the New World.

  The cross may have been an original, for the stained-glass windows to her right showed a similar cross. In the paintings of colored glass, Spanish explorers and settlers knelt on the sandy shore of the New World, listening to a prayer of thanks being offered up by a priest. The stained-glass windows were quite unusual for a church, for they told the story of the discovery of America, and the founding of St. Augustine, rather than depicting scenes of Jesus, God, and the apostles.

  At first she thought the building was empty, but then she encountered an elderly custodian. The man was scarecrow thin and gray-haired, dressed in blue jeans and a tan work shirt. Ssabra asked if she could speak to one of the priests, or a church officer, and was disappointed to learn that they were all in a meeting.

  “Perhaps there is something I can do for you?” asked the custodian.

  “Perhaps there is.” She smiled warmly, hoping to put any suspicions the man might have at ease. “My name is Ssabra Onih. I’m a tour guide with First City Tours. I want to add the church to the places I visit on my afternoon tour, but I’m afraid I really don’t know a lot about its history. I pride myself on being a very knowledgeable tour guide, and I was wondering if you might have a library I could use to do a little research.”

  “Well, we have a library, but it’s only for the church officers. Perhaps you could try the public library, or the Historical Society.”

  “I’ve already been there,” she lied. “And they just don’t have anything of value. You would think that a building this important would have more things written about it, but my search so far has been terribly disappointing. If I could only have access to your library for a few minutes, I’m sure I’ll find something I could use for my tour.”

  “I’m not really supposed to let outsiders use the library. I might get into trouble. Maybe you could leave me your name and phone number, and I could speak with someone in charge.”

  Ssabra had a feeling that she was butting heads with a brick wall, but she was not going to give up without a fight. “Couldn’t you make an exception just this one time? I’ll be as quiet as a mouse, so no one will ever know. Besides, I’m Catholic, so it’s not like I’m an outsider. If I do make this one of my stops, it could mean extra revenue for the church. The people on my tours are very generous when it comes to making donations. I’m quite sure they’ll want to contribute something toward the upkeep of this magnificent building.”

  He looked around the room, nervously checking to see if anyone was watching. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you into the library for a little while--thirty minutes, and no more--but you have to be real quiet. If you can’t find what you’re looking for in that time, you’ll have to come back and talk with one of the officers.”

  “Great. Thank you.” She smiled. “I really do appreciate it.”

  The custodian led her away from the main altar, to the far left side of the church, stopping in front of a door opposite the small Altar of the Blessed Virgin. A giant wooden spear hung from the ceiling above the door, symbolic of the weapons carried by the natives that once lived in Florida. The door was opened to reveal a small room crowded with bookshelves, each shelf containing countless volumes of dusty, hardcover books. There was also a small wooden desk and chair in the room, along with a lamp for reading.

  “Remember, thirty minutes and keep it quiet.”

  “I’ll remember,” Ssabra replied. “Thank you.”

  She waited for the custodian to walk away, then turned her attention to the shelves. A frown unfolded on her face as she realized there must have been thousands of books in the room. There was no way she was going to find the journal she was looking for in only thirty minutes.

  Peeking out to make sure the custodian was nowhere close, she whispered, “Tolomato, are you here?”

  “I’m here.”

  Even though she heard the voice inside her head, she knew the Indian was behind her. Turning, she saw him sitting on the small desk. He was smiling at her, and making a clapping gesture with his hands.

  “You did very well; I am proud of you. You are a great liar.”

  “Thanks.” She turned and studied the bookcases. “How are we ever going to find the journal with so many books to look through?”

  “That is easy. The journal we want is not here.”

  “Not here? What do you mean it’s not here? Lily said it was in the church library.”

  “Yes, but it is not here.”

  “You mean I went through all this trouble for nothing? If the journal isn’t here, then where is it?”

  Tolomato pointed to her left, at a small door set in the wall between two of the bookcases. “What we seek is there, in another room.”

  “Then why didn’t you just say so?” Ssabra crossed the room, and tried the door. “Great. It’s locked. Now what are we going to do?”

  “We? I am afraid that I cannot be of much help. I can walk through doors, but I cannot open them. You will have to open the door yourself.”

  “With what?”

  “With your imagination, and a little luck,” he replied. “But first I suggest closing the other door so the guard does not see what you are doing.”

  She crossed the room and closed the library’s outer door, then turned back to face her ghostly companion. “Now, how am I supposed to get this other door open?”

  The door is old, and the lock weak. Use one of the metal things in your hair to open it.”

  “My bobby pin? Yo
u think I can open a lock with a bobby pin? I don’t think so. Maybe a professional thief could do it, but not me.”

  “You worry too much. Give it a try; I will help to guide you. In the past, I have watched slaves open the locks of the Spanish with tiny pieces of metal. And I can now see into places where you can’t.”

  Ssabra reluctantly removed one of the bobby pins for her hair and approached the door. She glanced back over her shoulder to the desk, but Tolomato had again disappeared. “You better not have abandoned me.”

  “Fear not, I am still here,” he replied.

  “I wish you would quit doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Here one moment, gone the next. You’re starting to get on my nerves. A few more disappearances and I will be on Prozac.”

  “Prozac? What is Prozac?”

  She shook her head. “Never mind. It’s a long story, and I’ve only got thirty minutes to pick this lock.”

  The chief instructed her to straighten the bobby pin and insert it into the lock. He told her which way to turn as she jiggled the pin back and forth. A few moments of frantic fumbling was rewarded with a soft click. Straightening up, she tried the door. It was unlocked.

  “Tolomato, you’re a genius,” she whispered.

  “I know.”

  She opened the door and entered the room she had just unlocked. It was a very small room, no windows, containing several glass-front cases filled with antique books and moldering journals.

  Locating a light switch, she closed the door behind her, fearful that the custodian might come to check on her. He might get mad if he found her in the second room, especially if he knew the door had been locked. If he didn’t see her in the main library, then he might just assume she had already left.

  “Which one is it?” she asked, keeping her voice a low whisper. She was searching through the books in the cases, looking for the journal Lily had described. The ghostly maid had said the journal of Father Diaz had a green cover, but there were quite a few books with green covers.

  “Wait a minute, I am still looking,” Tolomato answered, his voice as loud as ever. Ssabra started to shush him, but remembered that only she could hear his words.

  “Ah, there it is. This one.”

  “Where?” She turned around, trying to determine which book he was talking about.

  “To your right,” he answered. “No, left. Damnit, woman. Hold still a minute.”

  Ssabra froze in place.

  “That is better. The book is behind you, in the smaller case. Top shelf on the left.”

  She turned and looked at the bookshelf behind her. There was a narrow book with a green covering sitting on the top shelf. She stepped forward and tried the glass doors, happy to find that the case was unlocked.

  “This one?” she asked, opening the doors and removing the book from the top shelf.

  “That is the one,” Tolomato assured her. “The journal of Father Sebastian Diaz.”

  The book was quite old and smelled a little of mildew, and the pages were yellow and brittle, appearing to be made out of some kind of parchment, rather than paper. The words were handwritten in faded black ink, probably scripted by a quill. They were also written in Spanish, and difficult for her to read. She could speak a little Spanish, could even read a word or two, but word usage and language had changed quite a bit since the sixteenth century. The journal might not be easy to read for someone fluent in the language.

  “Take the other book too. The white one, next to the book you just took.”

  She turned back to the book case, picking up the book to the right of where the journal had been. It was a modern book, with typed words. She opened the second book and read the introduction, discovering that it was an English translation of Father Diaz’s journal.

  “It’s a translation of the journal,” she said, surprised at the find. “Perfect. We won’t need the original if we have this.”

  “You had better keep the original,” warned the chief. “Maybe the whole journal was not translated. If something was left out, it might be the part we need to read.”

  Ssabra thought about it for a moment, then nodded. She glanced at her watch. “I’ve only got fifteen minutes left before I have to get out of here. There’s no way I can read either one of these books in that little time. And the custodian will have a fit if he finds out that I took them out of the case.”

  “He is not going to find out.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you will be gone before he returns.”

  “What about the books?”

  “You are going to take them with you.”

  “You want me to steal the books?”

  “Not steal. Borrow. You are going to borrow the books, and then you will return them when we no longer have need of them.”

  “What about the door? It was hard enough to unlock; I’m not sure if I can lock it again using a bobby pin.”

  “Close the door. Maybe it will lock by itself.”

  Ssabra turned off the light in the little room and pulled the door shut, breathing a sigh of relief when she heard the lock click back in place. She tried the door and found that it was again locked.

  “Now hurry, hide those books in your purse before the guard comes back.”

  Opening her purse, she tried to conceal the two books. But the books were too large for the tiny purse she carried, and there was no way she could fit them inside and close the zipper.

  “This isn’t going to work. My purse is too small; the books will stick out of the opening. I’ll get caught for sure.”

  The sound of a door slamming echoed from the other end of the church, followed by approaching footsteps.

  “Shit, someone is coming.”

  “It is the guard.”

  Ssabra felt a panic attack coming on. “Is he coming this way?”

  “Yes. You must hurry.”

  She grabbed the two books and tried to pull them back out of her purse, but they were stuck tight.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.” she said, struggling to get the books out of her purse.

  “You must hurry.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “The guard is coming.”

  “I know. I know. I can hear him. This stupid purse is too small and now the books are stuck. You could help, you know.”

  “Help? How?”

  “Go make some noise. I need a distraction, something to keep the custodian from coming in here.”

  “A distraction. That is a very good idea.”

  “I know it is. Now, go do it before it’s too late.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Ssabra didn’t know if Tolomato had left the room, nor did she know if the ghost could create such a distraction. She didn’t have time to think about it, because she had to get the books back out of her purse before the custodian returned to check on her. He would be none too happy to discover that she was trying to steal a rare church artifact.

  “Come on, you stupid bastard,” she whispered under her breath. “Loosen up so I can get these books out. Cheap leather. I swear, this is the last time I’m going to shop at a flea market.”

  Grabbing the purse in her left hand, she attempted to pull the books free with her right. She was trying to be careful not to damage the books, but she wasn’t having much luck removing them.

  “Come on, you stupid purse. Give them up.”

  Desperate now, she put the purse between her knees and pulled on the books with both hands. The position was awkward, and the purse kept slipping, so she decided to sit down on the chair and have a go at it. She had just sat down when she again heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

  I’m caught.

  The footsteps were no longer on the other end of the church. Instead they sounded as if they were right outside the door, and she knew that at any moment the custodian was going to step into the library to check on her. Ssabra thought about hiding the books on one of the shelves, but she would have to get them out of
her purse to do that. The two books would blend in with the others, and not look out of place to the custodian, but the purse sitting on the shelf would stick out like a sore thumb.

  Damn you, Tolomato. This is all your fault. You had better do something to help me. I don’t want to go to jail.

  The footsteps grew louder. There was no longer time to get the books out of the purse. Nor was there time to hide the purse and its contents. She didn’t even have time to slip the purse into the desk, or grab another book off the shelf in an attempt to look as if she were reading. She was caught, red-handed, with a priceless journal stuck in her handbag.

  I’m screwed.

  She looked up, knowing the custodian was about to step into the room. But just as the footsteps appeared to reach the door, there came the sound of glass breaking from the other end of the church. The footsteps stopped, then hurried off in the opposite direction to check out the noise.

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, breathing a sigh of relief. Her hands were shaking, and she was on the edge of having a nervous breakdown. But the sound of glass shattering had distracted the custodian, giving her a few more moments of freedom. With a Herculean effort, she slipped her hands down inside her purse beside the books and pulled in opposite directions to stretch the leather. She pulled until her arms strained, and something popped like a rubber band in her neck.

  “Ow.” Ssabra ignored the sudden pain that shot down her spine. Pulling her hands back out of the purse, she tried again to remove the books.

  Stretching the leather had done the trick, and this time she was able to remove both volumes. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I did it.”

  “We did it,” corrected Tolomato.

  She spun around, startled by the voice. There was no one else in the room to be seen. Tolomato was back, but he had not materialized.

  “What did you break?” Ssabra was worried about the sound she had heard.

  “Nothing important,” the Indian assured her. “but it will keep the guard busy for a few minutes. If you are done playing around, this would be a good time for you to leave.”

  “I’m way ahead of you.” Pulling up her shirt, she slipped both books into the waistband of her shorts. She pulled the shirt back down over top of the books, attempting to conceal them.