Double Threat

by F. Paul Wilson

  “But you allowed him to see the secret texts?”

  “Of course not.”

  “He’s over thirty.”

  “But he’s not going to head the clan—that’s the last job he would want. There are passages in the Scrolls he must never read. And when you take my place, you must protect him from those secrets.”

  “‘Protect him’?”

  “You’ll understand once you’re privy to the texts.” He slapped his hand on the desk. “We keep drifting from the subject! The Duad—Cadoc found it in the last Scroll—the end of the last Scroll.”

  “Isn’t that typical? Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Good news or bad?”

  “Both. The Duad is bad news—it carries the threat of discord.”

  The Duad of Discord, Rhys thought. Sounds like a bad rap duet.

  “What do we do about it?”

  Dad shrugged. “The Scrolls give no clue as to how to identify it, so we’re forced into a reactive position. Stellar conjunctions might give us a clue as to when we should act.”

  Try as he might—and he didn’t try terribly hard—Rhys couldn’t dredge up much concern.

  “And the good news?”

  His father’s eyes lit. “The Pairing, the advent of the Duad, it’s a sign that alignments are imminent for a return of the Visitors.”

  Rhys fought an eye roll. “Oh.”

  He always had to bite his tongue about this bullshit. His father was the leader of the clan and that meant he was leader of the cult that worshipped these supernatural or interdimensional or whatever beings—the Visitors. Also known as the Rymwyr, but “Visitors” was easier on the tongue. Also known as the Lords of Creation. As if. The mythology had it that they’d visited Earth millions and millions of years ago and populated various wet areas, back when the Salton Trough outside was an inland sea connected to the Pacific. But five million years ago, for some unknown reason, they packed up and left. After that the trough was blocked from the Pacific and began to dry up, evolving to its current desert state.

  According to the Scrolls, when certain celestial conjunctions occurred, the Visitors could return. But to a desert? No conceivable way was the Salton Trough going to fill up with water again, so the return of the Visitors remained the ultimate long shot.

  “I know you’re a skeptic, Rhys, but there’s so much you don’t know yet.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me.”

  “I believe we just had this discussion. But if it becomes clear that the Visitors’ return is imminent, I may have to accelerate your education. If that becomes the case, I’ll do more than tell you, I’ll show you. Just as I’ve been showing you my investment secret. When I first told you about that, you were your usual skeptical self. But now?”

  Rhys had to admit that the wacky idea of guiding your investments by the stars had totally put him off at first, but …

  “Can’t argue with your results, Dad.”

  Never hurt to give the Old Man a stroke or two, right?

  “And you won’t be able to argue with the revealed truths about the Visitors as the Lords of Creation once your eyes are opened.”

  Oh, I don’t know about that, Rhys thought.

  “When do you think that will be?”

  “It could be soon, Rhys. Very soon. Even sooner should the Duad dare to show up in Nespodee Springs. But on to more mundane matters: Don’t make any plans for Sunday. You’re scheduled for the Nofio watch.”

  Rhys groaned. “It’s been three months already?”

  “Quite,” he said with a slightly bitter smile. “Time accelerates as you age.”

  “I’m not thirty yet—as you keep reminding me.”

  “The Nofio is only an hour of your time.”

  But a long hour—the goddamnedest longest hour imaginable.

  4

  Daley drove straight to the ER at St. Joseph’s in Burbank which, lucky for her, wasn’t all that busy. She filled out the forms and then a medical assistant in scrubs with a Sofia name tag led her to a curtained cubicle. She did the vital signs thing and wrote down Daley’s reasons for coming to the ER.

  She’d just reclined on the gurney when a young Hispanic guy in a white coat, tablet in hand, and looking like he’d be more at home playing soccer for North Hollywood High than doctoring in an ER, slipped through the curtain. With Sofia standing by—probably hospital rules to have a female present—he introduced himself as Dr. Gomes.

  “So, Ms. Daley, you’re seeing things?”

  She sat up to face him. “Not things—a guy. A blond-haired guy who isn’t there.”

  He looked around. “Do you see him now? Is he here?”

  “No.”

  (“Yes, I am. I’m always here.”)

  Daley stiffened at the words.

  “Something wrong?” Gomes said.

  “He just spoke to me in my head.”

  His eyebrows rose and he scribbled on his tablet with a stylus. “So … auditory as well as visual. When did this start?”

  “Around nine o’clock last night.”

  He stared at her. “Please answer me honestly, Ms. Daley: You have no medications listed. Do you take any meds or drugs, legal or otherwise, not listed here?”

  She’d experimented with pot and speed and ’shrooms as part of her teenage rites of passage, but nothing in the past five or six years. Pot might be legal but it never did much for her, and in her line of work she had to be on top of her game at all times.

  “I had two margaritas with some wings last night. Other than that, I’m clean. Any drug screen you want to do will back that up.”

  He nodded like a drug screen was definitely on his list. “Any headaches, blurred vision—?”

  “No, but something happened yesterday that might be important. I was … exploring a cave in the Santa Rosas when something attached itself to the top of my head.”

  He looked dubious. “What sort of something?”

  “I don’t know. Flat and oblong, maybe five or six inches long. Ugly thing.”

  (“I beg your pardon!”)

  Gomes was staring at her hair. “Where exactly did it attach to you?”

  “Right here,” she said, patting the top of her head … where she felt loose hair. She came away with a handful.

  “Aw, no.”

  Gomes stepped closer and probed her scalp. After coming away with his own handful of hair, he made a “hmmmm” sound and starting scribbling and tapping on his tablet.

  (“You seem upset. It’s only temporary. The hair follicles aren’t dead, just shocked. Your hair will grow back, I promise.”)

  She found the words It damn well better! forming on her tongue but bit them back. If she started talking to the air she’d end up on a psych ward.

  “All right,” Gomes said. “I’m ordering labs and an MR to see if anything shows up. I’ll be back when we have results.”

  He and Sofia slipped out, leaving Daley alone.

  The naked surfer dude appeared again, standing at the foot of the gurney. (“They won’t find anything, Daley.”)

  “We’ll see about that.” She shook her head and gazed up at the ceiling. “Listen to me—talking to someone who isn’t here.”

  She hopped off the gurney, walked over to him—it—whatever—and waved her arm through his neck. If it had been a sword and if he were flesh and blood, he’d be headless now.

  “Jesus! You’re like air!”

  “Excuse me,” said a voice behind her. A young black woman holding a tray of needles and glass tubes had parted the curtains. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

  “I was,” Daley said, waving her arm back and forth through the apparition’s bare chest. “Can’t you see him?”

  The tech backed out slowly. “I … I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Daley returned to the gurney. “But even if all this is true—and I refuse to believe it really is—how did you get into my brain—my mind?”

  (“I’m not exactly sure of that myself. I know the pat
h I followed to penetrate your skull and I could describe it if you had the anatomical vocabulary, but my vocabulary is your vocabulary and yours is, not surprisingly, very limited in that area.”)

  “Well, here’s some vocabulary for you: Go away and leave me alone.”

  (“I’m afraid I can do neither … Daley. But I can vanish again, if you wish.”)

  “I wish.”

  (“No problem. You inhabit a most fascinating organism and I have much exploring to do before I become fully acquainted with it. So … so long for now. It’s nice knowing you.”)

  Wish I could say the same, she thought. Wish I could say Out of sight, out of mind.

  A voice in her head said, (“You can say it all you want but it won’t work.”)

  “Shut up!”

  “Please stay calm,” Sofia said as she entered with the tech behind her. “You’re scaring our phlebotomist.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Daley flopped back supine on the gurney and stuck out her arm. “Do your worst—I mean best.”

  An awful thought struck her. What if these hallucinations were from a brain tumor?”

  (“You don’t have a brain tumor. You’ve got me.”)

  Wondering which was worse, Daley bit back a scream of frustration.

  5

  “I am Doctor Holikova,” said the short, middle-aged woman as she stepped through the cubicle’s curtain. She had a heavy accent—Polish, maybe? “Doctor Gomes told me about you.”

  Daley felt her heart rate kick up. “Oh, crap. Does this mean bad news?”

  They’d taken her blood, scanned her brain, then brought her back to this curtained cubicle where she’d spent an eternity imagining the worst.

  Dr. Holikova looked puzzled for an instant, then smiled, showing crooked teeth. “On, no. Is no worry. All tests normal.”

  (“Told you so,”) the voice singsonged.

  Daley ignored it. “You mean there’s no tumor or damage or … anything?”

  The smile held. “All perfectly normal.”

  “Then why…?”

  “Am I here? I am here because tests are normal. I am doing research on hallucinations and asked staff to alert me to any patient suffering from them.”

  “Oh, I’m suffering, all right.”

  Suddenly the surfer dude appeared, naked as always, standing behind the doctor with his arms and legs spread wide like that Da Vinci drawing.

  (“Does she mean hallucinations like this?”)

  Dr. Holikova was saying, “When was your most recent hallucination?”

  “Right now.” Daley pointed. “He’s standing right behind you. Wisecracking.”

  To her credit, she didn’t look around. “Both visual and auditory then?”

  “He won’t shut up.”

  “I find you most interesting. So many victims of hallucinations believe they are real. You know it’s not.”

  “I just want them to stop. Can you help me? Please?”

  “I will do my best. I will put you in my study. But I need further tests. Will be noninvasive and you get small payment.” She handed Daley a card. “You come to my office in late afternoon and we get started. First test is EEG—recording of brain waves. Very simple. You show up, we test. You don’t show up, we don’t test. Is all up to you.”

  “Oh, I’ll be there. Count on it.”

  With that she left Daley alone with her hallucination.

  Daley checked the card: Jana Holikova, MD, with an office in a medical arts building on Lankershim that Daley had passed many times. An easy walk from her apartment. Definitely going to follow up on this.

  (“She won’t find anything. I’m integrated into your nervous system.”)

  “Whatever,” Daley muttered as she stomped out of the enclosure.

  The hallucination accompanied her, saying, (“It will be good to get back home again.”)

  She squeezed her eyes shut to keep from screaming and collided with Juana.

  “You! Are you following me?”

  The older woman frowned. “Why would I be following you?”

  “You said it was your duty to help and guide me. Is that why you’re here? To help and guide me? Because if it is, let me just tell you I don’t—”

  “Maybe I should ask if you’re following me. Because you came to me this morning, remember? I’ll gladly help and guide you, but I’m here to see my mother.”

  Daley freely admitted she could use a lot of help and guidance right now, but figured it would more likely come from a specialist like Dr. Holikova than a native woman who lived alone out in the desert in a shell-studded trailer.

  The hallucination leaned close to Juana. (“Look at her, Daley.”)

  Daley then noticed how upset the woman looked. She’d been so wrapped up in her own dilemma …

  “Hey, you okay? Your mother … is she sick?”

  Juana looked away and said nothing.

  “Oh, hey, sorry. Is it bad?”

  A shaky shrug. “No one knows. She’s got the horrors.”

  “How awful. Is she going to be okay?”

  Another shrug. “Who can say? They can’t tell me what caused it; they don’t know how to treat her. They’ve tried all sorts of meds, now they’re talking electroshock. She just sits and shivers and shakes and stares at nothing. Lets out an awful scream once in a while but otherwise says nothing.”

  “God, that’s awful. I wish I could help.”

  “Maybe someday you will.”

  (“An odd thing to say.”)

  Daley ignored him. “Do you need anything?”

  “Besides a cure? No.”

  “Well, then, how about me? I need a cure. That alaret did something to my brain. I’m seeing things more and more.”

  Juana stared at her. “Still the naked guy?”

  Daley nodded. “And he’s talking to me.” She felt a sob building. “You’ve got to help me, Juana. It’s making me crazy!”

  “I don’t know what to do, Daley. Truly, I don’t. I don’t even know if there’s anything to do.”

  Great. Just great.

  “Well, thanks for nothing,” she said and walked off.

  (“Kind of harsh,”) the hallucination said, keeping pace as Daley continued on her way to the exit.

  Really? Correcting her manners now?

  She bit back a response. New rule: She would not respond to her hallucination.

  But yeah, she’d been harsh, and she was simply chastising herself via the hallucination for her rudeness. But damn it, she was too upset to play nice-nice with Juana.

  The naked figure stayed by her side and she found it disconcerting to see people walking right through it and not noticing a thing. More proof this was all in her mind, but she couldn’t help flinching at every pseudo-collision.

  (“As I’ve told you, what you see is just an image from your cortex, visible only to you,”) it said, as if reading her mind. (“But if it bothers you, I’ll weave around our fellow travelers.”)

  A considerate hallucination. Who would have thought?

  As they stepped out into the midday light, she rubbed her upper arms. Despite all the global-warming talk, LA winters seemed to be getting cooler and cooler. Late February was usually warmer than this.

  (“You need to accept my presence, Daley. Consider your body a small business and the two of us as partners.”)

  “Partners!” she said, forgetting the no-response rule. “This is my body!”

  (“If it will make you happier, I’ll revise my analogy: You’re the founder of the company and I’ve just bought in. How’s that sound, partner?”)

  “Lousy!”

  It didn’t seem to mind. (“As I said before, I need a name. What would you like to call me?”)

  “How about ‘Gone’?”

  (“That’s hurtful, Daley.”) It assumed a deep-thinking pose. (“Got it! Since we’re partners, you can call me ‘Pard.’”)

  “No way. No freakin’ way!”

  (“Pard … I like it.”)

  She’d be
damned if she was going to—what would you call it? Legitimize? Yeah, legitimize this apparition by letting it name itself. Especially not with such a totally stupid name.

  “I am not naming you. You’re not going to be around long enough to rate a name.”

  As she started through the parking lot she still couldn’t believe it. Pard? From what depths had her subconscious dredged up something that would name itself “Pard”? She’d had no idea her subconscious was so totally loony … or so lame.

  But whatever it was and whatever it wanted to call itself, it seemed she was going to be forced to look at it for a while. But that didn’t have to mean watching its garbages—her Irish grandmother’s name for the male accessories—swinging around all day. So she tried to imagine it fully dressed, tried to impose a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants on it, but to no avail.

  “Don’t you have any clothes?”

  (“I don’t ‘have’ anything, so to speak.”)

  “I’m trying to tell you that if I must look at you, I’d much prefer to see you clothed.”

  (“Really? I gathered that you rather liked the male form. I tried to look like your fuck buddy, Kenny.”)

  “‘Fuck buddy’? Where did you hear that?”

  (“Why, from you, of course. It’s one of your designations for him.”)

  Well, sometimes maybe it was, but not often, and she sure as hell had never said it out loud. She preferred friend with benefits.

  “Anyway, change. It’s distracting.”

  Suddenly she was looking at a shapely naked blonde, D-cup for sure.

  (“More to your liking?”)

  “No! That’s even worse and not what I meant.”

  (“Well, you said ‘change.’”)

  “I meant get dressed!”

  (“As you wish.”) Suddenly he was back to male, wearing jeans, a plaid flannel shirt, and snakeskin cowboy boots. (“Better?”)

  Much. But she refused to say so.

  (“Or would you prefer…?”)

  He flashed through a dozen outfits in as many seconds, from a tuxedo to tennis shorts to military fatigues and on and on.

  “Stop! The first was fine.”

  Back in the jeans and flannel, it said, (“I can appear as either sex but I feel more comfortable as a male—‘I identify as male’ is, I believe, the accepted phraseology.”)