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by M. L. Ryan

  We ordered another round, which I paid for, and then switched to non-alcoholic choices—ice tea for me, sparkling water for him. He had a relaxed way about him that belied his obvious intellect and he shifted effortlessly between topics ranging from popular culture to global economies.

  Too bad he doesn’t live around here, I lamented. It figured that I meet a guy that I might actually like, and he’s only here for two weeks. No sense letting this go much further, I reasoned. I certainly wasn’t up for a one-nighter, or even, best-case scenario, a fourteen-nighter.

  It was getting late, it had been a long day, and I wanted to drive home soon—before I risked falling asleep at the wheel. I rooted in my bag and found some bills to leave on the bar for Wyatt’s well-deserved tip. Then I downed the last of my tea and turned to look at Alex.

  “This has been fun,” I began, “but I really should be getting home. Hope your training goes well. Maybe we’ll run into each other again at the River Park.”

  As I started to get off the bar stool, a peculiar sensation coursed through me, as if I was suddenly exerting a great deal of energy. My expression must have communicated the discomfort, because Alex frowned and asked if I was okay. When I didn’t immediately respond, he reached over and took my hands in his, concern etched across his handsome face.

  Suddenly, I felt an electrical zap—similar to what I had encountered days before—when first synching the Kindle. I might have been able to rationalize it as some hackneyed romantic sign had the next two events not occurred in rapid succession. First, I inexplicably uttered one long, unrecognizable sound…then I heard the voice.

  I always wondered how Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams managed to stay relatively calm when he first heard “If you build it, he will come” whispered in his cornfield. That was a movie, after all. When, in my head, a man uttered, “I need his help” repeatedly, I panicked. I tore myself from Alex’s grip and ran through the crowded dance floor, shoving unsuspecting patrons out of my way as I quickly escaped out the emergency exit.

  I sprinted to my car and managed to fish my keys out of my purse, despite the fact I was shaking from head to toe. Thankfully, the repetitive pleading of my auditory hallucination had ceased by then. I’m not really sure how I got home. I know I drove, but beyond that, I had no recollection of the journey. When I reached the safety of my house, I rushed inside and collapsed on the living room floor.

  I had a cousin who heard voices. Well, actually she thought her stuffed animals were talking to her. By the time she was sixteen or so, she was no longer capable of coherent thought and was hospitalized for almost a year.

  When she was discharged, the medications she was given stopped the banter in her mind, but she always seemed a little… muted. It was like she couldn’t experience any extreme emotions anymore—good or bad. My family was not in the habit of talking about such uncomfortable topics, so her “ailment” was never discussed, except for an occasional whisper, and especially not with us kids. Which, I suppose, made the whole idea even scarier than if it was dealt with openly.

  With my arms wrapped around my knees and tears streaming down my cheeks, I rocked back and forth in anguish, trying to convince myself that the same thing wasn’t happening to me.

  Not long after, the front door creaked slowly open. I didn’t want to lift my head from its protective perch on my knees, but apparently, even insanity couldn’t hinder my curiosity. It was Alex, the doorknob in one hand and my cell phone in the other, peering at me from the partially opened door.

  “You ran out so fast that you forgot your phone,” he said quietly. “You drove off before I could catch up to you, and I was worried, so I followed you.”

  He set the phone on a small table and proceeded to cross the short distance between us to crouch beside me. I turned my head away as he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  “Hailey, what happened back there?”

  I wiped away some of the tears using my sleeve and contemplated the pros and cons of admitting to an almost complete stranger that I was probably crazy. Considering the likelihood that Alex already thought I was nuts, I decided I had nothing to lose by confiding in him.

  “I don’t know,” I finally squeaked out. “I… I’m hearing voices or something. I think I’m going crazy.”

  “What kind of voices?” he calmly inquired.

  Wow. He was really taking this well. You’d think his response would be more along the lines of running screaming out of my house, thankful that we hadn’t had the chance to exchange numbers. Or bodily fluids.

  “Well, not voices. A voice. A man’s voice said, ‘I need his help’.”

  Alex was silent for a moment, as if he was trying to find the right words. When he finally spoke, he said, “Hailey, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, I looked up. Alex gently placed his hands on either side of my face, forcing me to gaze into those mesmerizing eyes. His lips curved into a small, reassuring smile and he stated resolutely, “You are not crazy.”

  I wanted to believe him. He sounded so sure of himself. “And you know this based on your experience with insurance adjustment,” I joked feebly, trying to lighten the mood as much as possible, considering the circumstances.

  “No, I know that based on my experience with spiritual convergence.”

  ~5~

  I wasn’t certain that I had heard him correctly, because whatever he just said didn’t make any sense to me. Of course, I could be a raving lunatic, which could also explain my lack of comprehension.

  “Spiritual what?” I asked.

  Alex stood and then helped me to my feet. “Maybe we should get more comfortable,” he said as he directed me towards the couch. “This could take a while.”

  I tucked myself into the throw cushions at one corner of the sofa and Alex moved one of the kitchen chairs so that he was sitting directly in front of me. He let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his already tousled hair.

  “This is going to sound like a weird question,” he began finally. “But have you purchased any electronic devices lately? A new cell phone or a computer?”

  He was right, that was an odd question, given the circumstances, but I figured I was in no position to judge. Nothing came immediately to mind. I started to shake my head but then I caught a glimpse of the Kindle.

  “I bought this,” I confessed as I grabbed it from a nearby side table and held it aloft. He took it from me and turned it over a couple of times to examine it carefully. “I thought maybe it wasn’t working right; I got a pretty big shock when I first synched it.”

  “Like the jolt you felt in the bar tonight?”

  I was momentarily speechless, and believe me, that doesn’t happen often. “You could feel that?” I murmured incredulously.

  “Oh yes.” He smiled ruefully as he answered. “Hailey, I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier. I’m not an insurance adjuster. I’m… sort of a private investigator.”

  “I knew you were too good looking to be in insurance,” I remarked flippantly and he shot me a reproachful glare. “Hey, when I get nervous, the smart-ass just comes cascading out of my mouth,” I shrugged. “It’s a character flaw. Get over it.” I hadn’t meant to be so snippy, so I added, “Sorry I interrupted, please continue.”

  He raised one eyebrow and then chuckled softly. “A few days ago, I received a series of calls from an unknown number with this area code. Each time, the caller disconnected before I could answer. I assumed it was some kid crank calling but it became rather bothersome. So using call return, I called the number back in an attempt to end the irritation.”

  My eyes grew wide with recognition. “You’re the assho—uh, guy from the phone?” I quickly corrected.

  “Yes. I’m the asshole.”

  This was awkward. “Look, Alex, I swear I wasn’t calling you.”

  “Oh, it was you, you just didn’t realize it.” I’m sure he could tell from my blank expression that I had no idea what he was talking about, so he pres
sed on.

  “During the final call, you said the name, ‘Sebastian’.” I started to correct him yet again, but he held up his hand to silence me. “Six months ago, my friend and mentor Sebastian Kess went missing. He was assigned to apprehend an extremely dangerous criminal and had tracked him to Shenzhen, an industrial city in China. In his last communication, he requested additional personnel to aid in the arrest and was planning to hole up in a hotel until they arrived. He hasn’t been heard from or seen since and everyone accepted the grim reality that he was likely dead. Your peculiar calls, coupled with the mention of his name, piqued my curiosity. Using your cell number, I determined your name and address and I came to Tucson to check it out.”

  My head was practically bursting with all the questions his confession brought to mind. “Wait, so it’s not a coincidence that you were in the bar? Have you been stalking me?”

  He smiled sheepishly before answering. “Not exactly, but I have been keeping an eye on you the past few days. Who you hang out with, where you work, that kind of thing.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of stalking,” I countered, starting to feel uncomfortable about this new piece of information.

  “Maybe it seems extreme, but I was concerned that you knew something about Sebastian. Or, at the very least, were trying to get help for him, but were prevented from openly asking for it. I couldn’t judge the extent of your involvement in his disappearance, so I had to employ stealth to find out as much as I could. I certainly haven’t been watching you for some nefarious purpose, and I believe that is an integral component of the definition of a stalker. And it soon became apparent that you were an unlikely conspirator.”

  He seemed genuinely sincere, and if he had wanted to harm me, he certainly had ample opportunity in the last half hour or so. Besides, only in poorly written fiction did the bad guys reveal their evil intentions before carrying them out.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “I don’t think you’re a stalker. But what did you mean by I didn’t know that I was calling you? That doesn’t make any sense. And how did you know that I had bought the Kindle?”

  He looked at me with a thoughtful expression, as if he was trying to come up with the right words in answer to my questions. Finally, he said, “There’s really no simple way to tell you what I need to tell you…”

  “Sure there is,” I interrupted. “Just blurt it out.”

  “It’s very complicated and will require you to change the entire way you view your world. I can’t just blurt it out.”

  I couldn’t imagine what he might tell me that would be so transformational. “Look, I’m hearing voices and I freaked out in front of, essentially, a complete stranger. This has been one of the worst days of my life and I’m not in the mood for this. Stop being so damn dramatic, Alex, and just give me the short version.”

  “Sebastian is a powerful, magical being from another dimension whose essence was transferred to you through your Kindle.”

  The nice thing about thinking that you are losing it is that you can just chalk up things like what Alex just blurted out to your insanity. I decided that, at least for the time being, I would accede to my wacked-out psyche and play along.

  “I changed my mind,” I replied finally. “I want the long version instead.”

  Alex’s mouth curved into a small smile. “The world you know is not the only world that exists. Sebastian and I come from another plane, if you will, where the people have what you would consider magical abilities.”

  “Uh-huh,” I murmured, not bothering to mask my skepticism. “Can you make something disappear?”

  As soon as the words left my lips, the chair upon which Alex was sitting was gone. Even more remarkable, perhaps, was that he was still in exactly the same position as before the de-materialization occurred. Okay then. Then the chair reappeared. Alex hadn’t moved a muscle.

  I should have been able to come up with something witty in response to his demonstration. Or, at the very least, some comment loaded with my usual snark. But all that came to mind was, “Whoa.”

  “As I was saying,” he pressed on. “For millennia our worlds remained separated, except for a few isolated fissures that allowed passage from our world to yours. It required a huge output of magical energy to do so and even more to return. Only the most aged and powerful were capable of accomplishing these journeys; it was very uncommon. These gaps were used primarily as a means for banishing criminals. Those convicted of heinous acts were given a choice of death or permanent exile.”

  “Sort of like Australia in the eighteenth century,” I interjected.

  “Well, except that my ancestors thought that your world was devoid of any civilizations.”

  “Yeah, it’s not like the British considered the Aboriginal people to be civilized,” I argued.

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, but the practice was halted when it was discovered that beings similar to us, albeit non-magical, inhabited this world. It is considered a terrible dark mark in our history and we are still, to this day, deeply ashamed of our actions. Anyway, after industrialization, pollution began to erode the barrier. For all intents and purposes, now there is no separation between the worlds. All Coursodon can move freely back and forth, regardless of magical aptitude.”

  “Coursodon?”

  “That is what we call ourselves. It’s the equivalent of human in our world.”

  He stood up and went toward the kitchen. He opened a couple of cabinets and rooted around before he turned back to me with a bottle of tequila in one hand and two small glasses in the other. By way of asking permission, he gestured with them and I gladly nodded in approval. Yep, this was definitely the sort of conversation that could only be improved with liquor.

  Alex set the glasses on the side table and poured a generous amount into each one. He handed one to me, which I drained before he had taken the other for himself. He laughed softly and downed his in similar fashion.

  “Thanks. Go on,” I encouraged.

  “As you can imagine, beings with supernatural abilities can cause tremendous problems to those that lack these skills. The truth of our existence is known to only a very few humans. Now that virtually any Coursodon can come and go as they please, we must ensure that travelers without the best intentions do not impose upon your world. We have specially trained Xyzok, what you might call enforcers, that hunt and apprehend those who break your laws.”

  “So Sebastian was one of these Xyzok?”

  “Yes, one of the best.”

  “And it’s his voice I heard?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know this because…?”

  “In the bar tonight, when you looked so stricken, I could feel Sebastian when I took your hands in mine. I could feel his power, his magical signature. And then you called me by my Coursodon name. There is no way you would have randomly come up with that on your own.”

  I thought back to the moments before the voice and I vaguely remembered uttering something. “That was your name? It didn’t even sound like a word.”

  “Our real names are very difficult for humans to pronounce. That’s why we choose a human name to use while we are in this world.”

  I reached over to the tequila and poured myself another. Thank god it was almost full, because there was no telling how much of the stuff I might need before this conversation ended. Steeling myself, I took a deep breath and asked the million-dollar question.

  “Okay, so how, exactly, did Sebastian get inside me?”

  “When humans die, their essence exists in some other plane while the body dies. When Coursodon cease to be, their essence, their essential self, dies, but the body still exists.

  “That sounds like a waste of a lot of perfectly good bodies.”

  He nodded. “Sebastian thought exactly the same thing. Anyway, Sebastian has been studying what he called ‘spiritual convergence’ for many, many years. He believed that if one’s essence was contained somehow, after it left the body, it coul
d be preserved. Sort of like formaldehyde for the soul.”

  “So what do you do with all the bodies?” I asked.

  His expression conveyed confusion.

  “If the bodies don’t die, don’t they start to pile up?” I offered in clarification.

  Now his expression conveyed understanding. “The bodies are buried, though technically, I suppose they don’t have to be. Occasionally, someone with separation issues keeps the body of a loved one around because they can’t seem to part with it.” When he saw the look of revulsion on my face, he quickly added, “But that’s very rare and it is considered extremely bizarre behavior.”

  “So the bodies are sort of like plastic soda containers; once the drink is consumed, the empty container can last in a landfill forever.”

  Alex frowned and stared at me. I was immediately sorry for the comparison; for all I knew, what I just said was considered blasphemy in his world. I was surprised, however, when his expression brightened and he said, “I suppose that’s exactly what it is like.”

  I felt better not having insulted him. But while all this metaphysical mumbo jumbo was interesting, I still needed to know what the hell was going on.

  “Right,” I drew out. “So back to Sebastian…”

  “When we came in physical contact at O’Reilly’s, Sebastian managed to transmit bits of what happened. If you would allow me to do so again, I believe I can extract the entire explanation. Now that I have an idea of what is going on, I should be able to modulate the power surge so it won’t be so uncomfortable for you.”

  Why not? So far, my evening was off the chart weird already. I leaned forward and extended my hands toward his, and then he placed his palms lightly over mine and closed his eyes. Where our hands met, I felt only a tingling sensation, rather than the concussion of electricity from before. I could see movement behind his lids, sort of like when you are in deep sleep and having a dream.