by Su Williams
“Hey,” Nick said, peering into my eyes.
“Hey back.” My voice was breathy and weightless.
“You all right?” he asked, concern twisting his voice.
“Sure, sure.” I stretched languorously. “That was—um—ya know, amazing just doesn’t really describe that.”
Nick smiled, honest and true. “You need a break?”
“Heck no. What’s step two?”
Nick spent the next two hours teaching me the right and wrong way to phase. He looked worn out when we finished, like his reticence in teaching me this had worn him down. But the more I phased the better I liked it. It was—intoxicating. Just like the banger high I got during Sabre’s weave.
We trudged through the muddy yard back out to the garage where Sabre continued to work. His work bench was now covered with odd-looking paraphernalia; small, olive-green orbs that looked frighteningly like grenades, the familiar garrote had found a mate, sleek black throwing daggers and Tasers were all lined up and ready on the table. Next to the table sat four metal drums, two with their lids slightly askew. Nick examined some of the weapons. He hefted the daggers, checked their balance, fingered the taser trigger until it zapped a rattling charge that set my synapses ablaze.
“So, what is all of this?” I asked when it became apparent neither of them was going to be forthcoming with information.
Sabre picked up one of the orbs and showed it to me. “Lye grenade,” he said. “It can cause a lot of irreparable damage, but we only want to use them as a last resort.” Sabre showed me the pin. “We’ll teach you how to use them.”
“No, we will not,” argued Nick. “She needs to stay as far out of this as possible.”
“Look, Mr. Serve and Protect, you were the one who brought her into this in the first place. The least you could do is teach her how to defend herself. And she will need to defend herself.”
Nick scowled but said no more.
“This is a garrote. I believe you’ve witnessed the finer points of its use already,” Sabre continued.
“I can’t use that.” The thought of slicing someone’s head off curdled my stomach. Besides, I didn’t have the strength—physical or mental—to behead someone.
“Nick and I will handle the garrote. But I do want you to learn the basics, just in case.” Nick breathed a snort through his nose and aimed a pointed glare at Sabre—which Sabre ignored. “I believe you are extremely familiar with this weapon.” Sabre lifted a Taser off the table. “Ten million volts ought to fritz their wiring, at least temporarily. Your demonstration with Nickolas was very eye opening.
“Any of our own weapons could be turned on us, and the lye grenades are absolutely, positively last resort. They can be unpredictable and we could potentially get caught by friendly fire.”
“So, what about the barrels?” I asked when Sabre didn’t move to explain.
“These two,” Sabre indicated the sealed barrels, “are lye—for body disposal. These two,” he tapped one of the skewed lids, “are also for disposal. Just in case we run out of lye.”
“This is getting more and more like hunting vampires,” I said as Nick and Sabre continued to handle the weapons. “Lye is like holy water. The only thing you’re missing is a stake for the heart.”
Sabre glanced up at Nick. “Ya know, that’s not a half bad idea.”
“Again with vampires,” Nick teased, but his anxiety dampened his humor. He grimaced when I picked up one of the Tasers, but he kept his mouth shut.
“I would rather use Pinky,” I told them. Both boys turned and looked at me puzzled. “Pinky? My stun gun? She’s pink? She fits so perfectly in my hand. I’d just feel better with at least one weapon I’m reasonably familiar with.”
Sabre puckered his lips in thought. “I suppose you’re right. But I still want to teach you how to use the garrote solo. And I’ve rigged some practice grenades so we can all get a feel of how they work, before we go into live combat.”
“Okay. I’ll just run home to get it real quick and we can train after,” I told Sabre. I dug in my pockets for my keys. “Damn it! I left my keys inside.”
“Um, Emari, why don’t you just phase?” Sabre questioned.
“Huh. Guess I didn’t think of it. All of this Dream Weaver stuff is new to me.” Despite Nick’s lesson on phasing, my human mind hadn’t yet wrapped itself around my Caphar abilities. Natural instincts and common behaviors remained automatic to me.
Nick shot Sabre a withering glare that did not go unnoticed by me. “Well, go with her then. Keep her in one piece,” Sabre offered grudgingly. Nick simply nodded, then took my arm and guided me outside.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll go with you this time.” Though it sounded like he had no intention of letting me phase alone. Ever. “That way, I can help keep you going the right direction, keep you from wandering off with distractions.”
“Does that really sound like something I’d do?” Annoyance ratcheted my voice. Nick took my hand in his and kissed my knuckles. “The world tends to become more miraculous when you’re a spirit. Colors are truer, light brighter, sounds clearer. If you’re not careful you can get distracted by any shiny thing,” Nick explained.
“Ooooo, and I do love shiny things.” I clapped my hands like an eager child.
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “I’m serious, Em. You could get lost easily.”
“Just get it done!” shouted Sabre from the garage.
Nick grabbed my arm. “Let’s just take the car.” His eyes implored me to be reasonable. But I didn’t want to be reasonable. I wanted to fly. My fingers trembled as they pressed against the firmness of Nick’s chest. “There is one thing you have repeatedly asked of me, Nick. You asked me to trust you. Now I’m asking you. Trust me.”
Nick squeezed my hand in grudging concession. “Fine. Let’s go. But stay close to me. I don’t want to lose you.”
“As you wish,” I smiled. Nick’s tension waned. A little.
“Okay. Stay right beside me.”
Nick’s body sparkled and evanesced. I closed my eyes and remembered my earlier lessons. Relax. Breathe. Imagine. My body became weightless and despite not having corporeal eyes and ears, I saw and heard everything. Crisp spring air sifted through every molecule but I wasn’t cold. Wood fire smoke plaited through me and I could smell the tangy pine, taste pungent cedar. Stars that seemed so cloaked with distance and polluted with city lights, sparked and flared; white, red and green.
Nick nudged me toward home and with a sparkling flurry, I descended to the carport.
“You could have gone right in,” Nick said as he materialized next to me.
“Yeah but someone hasn’t taught me how to go through walls, yet,” I teased. “And I didn’t want to set off the motion detectors and call in a false alarm to the security company.”
Nick conceded with a nod, and we went inside and disarmed the system. The house was so still and quiet. The air, cold and empty. I missed Eddy’s bays of welcome. Worry and sadness clamped down on my heart, but I shoved it away. This was not the time for wimps.
Nick sat on the couch, silent and contemplative, while I went in to get Pinky. When I holstered her and walked into the living room, Nick eyed me with desperation. He came to me and took my hands. His voice was whisper quiet. “Emari. Please. Don’t do this.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“I am,” he said and his eyes darted away from the confession.
“Why?”
“Sabre and I have been doing this for a long time. We’re trained. We have experience. We know what to expect.”
“And?”
“And—you don’t. Em, you could get hurt. They could kill you. They will kill you if you give them half a chance.” His eyes burned hot blue.
His chest tightened under my hand. “I have to learn sometime. You’re the one who wanted me to be this.”
“No,” he said with more force than he intended. He softened his words. “I never wanted this for you. If I had know that dea
th was the catalyst…Please, Emi. Don’t do this.”
“Sabre seems to think my learning how to combat Rephaim is a fantastic idea,” I countered.
“Yeah, and we’ve all already agreed, including Sabre, that he’s an ass.”
I rested my cheek on his solid chest and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Why can’t you trust me?”
“I trust you honey. It’s them I don’t trust.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Even if I got hurt…” I felt his muscles twitch. I pressed on. “Even if I got hurt, I could always heal. It’s part of the magic, right?”
“We don’t always heal from our wounds. And we still feel pain.”
“You know, it seems we’re at a bit of impasse.”
“So it would seem.” I could hear the hope creeping into his voice.
“I suggest a compromise,” I offered.
“Okay. You stay home and Sabre and I will handle everything.”
“That is not a compromise.”
“Sounded good to me,” he laughed without humor.
“How ‘bout this? You teach me everything I need to know to protect myself. Train me how to dispatch one of these guys, just in case. And I will do my utmost to be a willing non-participant.”
Nick scowled, beaten. “Fine. I will prepare you, in case of an emergency. But you stay out of the fight.”
“Unless I’m desperately needed.” I crossed my heart and gave him the cub scout salute.
“Doesn’t count, Em. You were never a boy scout,” he chuckled.
My mind flashed back to when I had used those same words with Jesse; when I made him promise that he wouldn’t drive drunk after my Christmas party. As usual, Nick didn’t miss the racing of my heart, the sadness that sank it.
“You’ll need to find a deep, dark corner to hide that in,” he advised. “The Rephaim will use it as ammunition against you.”
My mouth pulled down in contemplative frown. We’d all seen our darkness used against us. As we headed for the door, I remembered Ari.
“Wait! I need to get Ari.” I scurried to my room, and excavated the mother of pearl box from my pajama drawer. I slid the leather lanyard around my neck. Ari lay cool and steely against my breast. Her magic surged through my chest to my toes and fingertips. We were inseparable now. Releasing the clasps on the hidden compartment, I removed a crystal phial and stuffed in my pocket, then reburied the box amongst my night clothes. Warm, fuzzy, skull jammies sounded heavenly. But there was work to do. A battle to win. Rephaim to—kill.
Chapter 25 Shoot to Thrill
Finding the Wraith was out of the question. While they possessed the stolen ability to identify Weavers in the vicinity, we weren’t capable of that task. But Sabre was certain the Rephaim would come to us. And apparently, the Wraith knew the location as well, since they’d been torturing Nick for weeks.
“Those nightmares they gave you. Is it possible the Wraith don’t know for sure where you live but that they sent them in as a Blitzkrieg rather than a targeted strike?” I asked. Both boys looked at me and then at each other. “I mean, maybe they only have a general idea of where you are, and just blanket-bombed images, rather than, like, a sniper shot.”
“How is it,” Sabre asked, “that you can come up with things that we never even considered and you’re just a baby?”
“I am not a baby!” I protested.
“Based in Caphar years, you’re damn near an embryo. But an embryo with a brain. Regardless, I am sure they are very aware of our precise location. William freed Thomas from the barrels in the garage.” Sabre reminded me.
“There is that,” I conceded.
“How is it that you know this technical military jargon?” Nick asked, his jaw hard and set, and his brow crinkled in speculation.
“I remember from when I…um…I guess I must have heard my dad use them from his tours in Nam.” Nick and Sabre continued to cast mystified glances in my direction. “Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter to me where the fight is, since I’ll be staying out of it.”
Sabre shot Nick a vicious glare. He shoved off from the counter he’d been leaning on and stepped up to Nick. Nick, who seemed slightly cowed, couldn’t quite meet Sabre’s eyes. “Get your ass out there and get her trained.”
Nick ducked around Sabre and took my hand, leading me out to the garage where all the weapons lay at the ready.
“Why do you let him talk to you like that?” I asked.
Nick stared at the ground. “I don’t know.” I scowled at his profile and shook my head. “I guess, all the other times, when he’s great, kind of outweigh the sucky parts.” He was quiet for a couple of heartbeats. “And—most of the time, he’s right.” His brow and eyes crinkled with a cringe at his confession. “And some day,” Nick raised his voice, “I’m going to learn when he’s eavesdropping!” Sabre’s laughter rumbled for inside the garage. Nick’s brow corrugated with frustation. “Come on. Let’s get you trained.”
Nick’s fingers played adeptly over the pin on the lye-grenade as he taught me how to activate the explosive. With quiet patience, he coached me on the finer points of aiming and firing the projectile taser; and schooled me on the most effective places on the body to plunge a knife—to both incapacitate and kill. He obviously avoided the garrote but I wasn’t disappointed. Just looking at the thing gave me the creeps.
We were practicing hand to hand fighting, and Nick was transferring tactics into my mind. As he taught me how to flip your opponent, our feet got tangled together and we both went down hard. Laying in a heap, we both groaned. Our breaths billowed in steamy clouds above us.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked.
“Ugh. I doubt it. I’m gonna be incapacitated before they even get here,” I protested. I could feel bruises on bruises erupting under my skin.
“Well, that’s the great thing about being Caphar. All you have to do is phase and when you phase back all your wounds will be healed.”
“Really?”
“Well, mostly. They heal much faster when you shift.” Nick and I locked wrists and he hauled me off the ground. “And as much as I hate to, I’ve got to teach you how to use this.” He picked up a garrote and showed it to me. I scowled at the thing. “It’s actually very easy. You go like this.” Nick held the garrote by the handles in front of his chest and crossed his arms at shoulder level. “Now that you have a loop, you sneak up on your prey, slip the loop over their head, like so,” Nick looped the wire around a foam block, “and draw your arms back to their regular sides.” The wire sliced deftly through the block. “And hopefully your prey will have lost their head,” he said. He retrieved the severed piece of foam from the ground and lobbed it into a waiting trash barrel.
Nick and I worked out in the open space of the garage for over an hour. I’d taken fencing in school, so some of the moves were vaguely familiar, but fighting with short swords and knives was a great deal different than thrust and parry with a fencing blade. There was no padding to protect the body, no give in the weapons. No mask to shield my eyes and face. No ref to call a foul and no buzzer to call an end to the contest. This was life and death. One of us, or all of us could die in this match.
I sat, drenched in sweat and panting, on an old dilapidated office chair. Nick barely broke a sweat. He stood with his hands on his hips staring at the ground, his eyes blackened in thought. I wanted to go to him, and wrap my arms around him, tell him it would be okay. But something in me warned me that his response to me would not be a positive one.
Glimpses at the future had been sparking in my brain more and more frequently the last week or so, since my ‘rebirth’ as a Caphar. It was never anything major, where the outcome was significant. Just minor things, like a forewarning I would knock a cup of coffee on the floor, or that someone was going to call. Most of time, I forgot the thought or images right away, and only recalled them when the event happened. But these kinds of prescient images were about to become common place in my life, and they might possibly sa
ve our lives. I constantly reminded myself to pay closer attention to these potentially paranormal apparitions.
“I’ll go get you a bottle of water,” Nick said suddenly, and walked away without another word.
“Uh. Thanks,” I said to his retreating back.
I shambled to the garage like a battle-bruised zombie. Sabre hunched over a work table under a bright lamp and tinkered with one of the lye grenades. A full face shield, like an upended motorcycle faring covered his entire face, and snug-fitting rubber gloves on his hands squeaked like tiny mice when his fingers bent.
“He’ll get over it,” he rumbled without looking up from his work.
“What?”
“He isn’t handling you being involved with this very well,” he explained. “This won’t be the first time we’ve faced more than a single Wraith together. We should be able to handle anything they throw at us.”
“‘Should’?” I asked. Adrenaline roiled in my stomach and slashed through my veins at the impending mêlée ahead of us.
Sabre glanced up, bug-eyed through a magnifying eye piece. “Should,” he said and returned to his work.
We sat in silence for several moments. The inactivity and anxiety were eating away like acid at my nerves. I walked to Sabre’s work bench and inspected the weapons that lay scattered across the top. Sabre pilfered in a drawer and brought out a wad of greasy cloth and thunked it down on the table.
“Open it,” he rumbled quietly.
I picked up the dirty cloth and unfolded the corners to find a very old small caliber pistol wrapped inside.
“Happy Birthday,” he grumped.
“Uh, thanks. But you’re a bit late. My birthday was last month.”
“Hmph. Happy late birthday,” he said with no more enthusiasm than before.
“You’re assuming I know how to use this,” I said as I inspected the weapon.
“Of course you do,” he said as though he already knew my dad took me out target practicing. We’d drive up winding, washboard roads in the mountains up north above Waitts Lake. Of course he knew. He’d spent long enough pilfering around in my brain. I smirked and shook my head, trying to wrap my head around all the changes in my life now. “But, even if you didn’t, the memories are imbedded in the gun. Just print it and you’ll know what you need.”
