Chet shook his head. “The crew scanned as much as they could, but much of it was lost to dust and time.”
“What kind of container? Where was it found? This artifact should be preserved and displayed for the public, not buried down here in the bowels of your weird bureaucratic whatever-this-is.”
Chet glanced at the door, frowning. “I shouldn't have brought you here.”
He was getting jumpy, regretting giving me what I wanted. I had to cool it with the demands and keep him calm.
I held one finger up. “Hang on.” I took a deep breath and mimed removing a hat.
He whipped out his pen-shaped multi-pulse click generator. “No more spells,” he warned.
“I'm just taking off my librarian hat,” I said. “It's a metaphor. See?” I did it again, swooshing the imaginary hat from my head. “Now that my librarian hat is off, I can stop advocating for public access to your secret ancient knowledge.”
“Put your witch hat on,” he said, the smallest twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
“Good idea.” I mimed finding a pointed hat on the desk and putting it on. The whole pretend-hat operation felt silly, but I committed fully, and moving my arms around helped break up the tension in my shoulder muscles.
I turned back to the computer screen and hit a series of keystrokes, presumably guided again by Chessa's spirit, because I didn't know what I was typing.
A new layer of information appeared on the screen. English text floated above the ancient lettering—a decoded partial translation.
“Chessa was working on this before her accident,” I said, more statement than question.
“She's been working on it most of her life. She's the one who found it, in a shipwreck, when she was a child.”
I could almost see the shipwreck, feel it around me as I floated through, moving easily in the water. I felt the joy of discovery at finding the sealed box within a pile of debris. Chessa was sharing her memory with me, so that I would know Chet was speaking the truth.
“And it inspired her to become a code breaker,” I said. “A cryptographer. Or, specifically, a cryptanalyst.” I felt the knowledge in my gut before it bubbled from my mouth. “With a specialty in ancient languages.”
Chet didn't respond, except to suck air in between his clenched teeth. Once again, we were getting warmer. He was still sitting on the white desk, right next to me. His body language was contradictory, slumped yet tense. I sensed he was excited about my connection with Chessa's spirit, yet worried about the same.
I caught a memory of him, grabbing my arm, demanding to know where I was going. “What's wrong with you?” I was sobbing, running out the door, needing some space, somewhere quiet to think. I had to put the puzzle together. I had to prove—
The memory popped, like a soap bubble bursting. It was gone.
“What's happening?” Chet grabbed my arm. “What's wrong?”
I gasped and yanked my arm from his grip.
He stared at me, dumbfounded. “Chessa?”
“Still me.” I rubbed my temples. “Ouch. I think a bunch of knowledge about matrix algebra just obliterated some pop music lyrics.”
He reached for the computer monitor's power switch again. “Let's not get overloaded. We still have to go down—”
I swatted his hand away again, this time with a forceful karate chop.
A force was guiding me back to the text on the monitor. My gaze was riveted to the screen. He'd have to fight me to get the monitor shut off now, because I'd just spotted, in the midst of the partially translated text, something that made my whole body pulse with energy.
Written in English over the chunky letters was my daughter's full name: Zolanda Daizy Cazzaundra Riddle.
“That's Zoey,” I said, pointing. “Chet, you'd better start talking right now, or I'll hit you with so many of my witch spells, that clicker pen of yours is going to explode.”
He held up both hands in a don't-shoot gesture. “It's complicated, and it's classified, but you could try reading the text next to her name.”
I leaned in and read the text. “It says... Soul Catcher. What does this mean? Is this supposed to be Zoey's witchcraft specialty?” I turned toward Chet and pointed a finger at his ribs. “And don't tell me it's classified, or I'll poke you. This is my daughter we're talking about. I want the truth.”
He let out a resigned sigh. “The truth is we don't know everything. We've had this for almost seventeen years, and we've barely decoded ten percent of what we scanned before the paper disintegrated. The truth is...” He slid off the desk and paced the area between the desk and the door. “The truth is this document isn't a top priority for the DWM. Chessa was working on it in her free time, and only because she had a personal interest in it.” He paused and looked pointedly at the office's closed door. “People around here are more concerned with present-day politics and power, not ancient forecasts about the movement of souls.”
The movement of souls? But what could possibly be more important than that? I shook my head, unsure if the scorn I felt was my own or Chessa's.
“Chet, what does Soul Catcher mean?”
He leaned back against the door. His gaze flitted around the room, his dark-green eyes like those of a wild dog trapped in a kennel.
“Chessa had a theory about souls, how there were a finite number of Original Souls, that moved from person to person over multiple lifetimes. There are divine powers that move along with the soul.” He glanced at the computer screen and hunched his shoulders in a defensive gesture. “We don't know what it means to be a Soul Catcher. Hell, we're not even sure if that's the right translation. In that ancient language, the word Catcher is very similar to the word Destroyer. And with the way that line is smudged, it could be either one.”
I snorted. “You've met Zoey. She's a straight-A student and a terrific kid. She's no Destroyer.”
He straightened up and cracked his neck left and right. “You're her mother. You'd defend her to the end of days.”
He was right about that. I read the name on the screen again. This was my daughter, all right, because there was no other person on the planet named Zolanda Daizy Cazzaundra Riddle.
“What if I'd named her something else? Or what if, as soon as we get out of here, I apply to change the spelling of her middle names to Daisy Cassandra? She wouldn't even notice.”
“We don't know how it works.” He flipped a hand helplessly in the direction of the screen. “It's possible that when we opened up the vessel all those years ago, the simple act of looking at the prophecy altered it.”
“The prophecy?” I rolled the white chair away from the monitor. “Now, that's a word with a lot of weight to it.”
“Chessa was the one who started calling it a prophecy.”
I pointed my thumb at the screen without looking. “Is there anything in here with my name? Am I in here? Or you?”
“Not on any of the pages we scanned.” He opened the door a crack and peered down the hallway. He closed the door softly and looked me straight in the eyes. “Zara, the artifact holding this information was discovered by Chessa not quite seventeen years ago. Have a look at the date in the header and tell me if it means anything to you.”
I turned back to the screen, hit a few keystrokes, and examined the document's header.
The tension in my shoulder muscles turned sharp, like a knife in my spine.
Yes, the date meant something. I knew that date very well. It was kind of a big deal.
“There was a big storm that day,” I said.
“Anything else?”
Damn him. He already knew, but he wanted me to say it. “That's the day I conceived Zoey.”
He didn't look at all surprised. “When she was born, how did you decide on her name?”
“It just came to me.” I looked at the screen again. “Obviously this can't be a coincidence. Did the prophecy make me give her that name?”
“I wish I could tell you more, but—”
“It's class
ified.”
“No,” he said slowly. “The truth is, now you know as much as we do. Chessa felt she was close to a discovery, and she was putting in long hours before her accident, but she must have been working on it in her head, or on notes we can't find.”
I put the puzzle pieces together. “So, if this prophecy has something to do with my daughter, I need to get Chessa back and find out what this means.”
“Sure,” he said. “I just want her back because...”
“Because you love her.”
He clenched his jaw and turned the door handle. “Shall we?”
Chapter 16
Chet led the way, and we stepped into the elevator. My thoughts were still back in Chessa's office with the ancient prophecy, and I stumbled briefly over my own foot.
He caught me by the elbow. “Zara, we can take a few minutes if you're not feeling up to it. We have a cafeteria on the premises, and the food is surprisingly good.”
“Cherry cheesecake?”
His green eyes brightened. “That was Chessa's favorite,” he said.
“Warmer and warmer.” I touched the bracelet on my wrist. “Our connection is getting stronger.”
Chet stared at me, his pupils getting bigger and bigger. “Much stronger,” he said softly.
“My connection with Chessa,” I said. “Not with you.”
“Right.” He jerked his head back and straightened up. He reached for the elevator's buttons. “We could stop at the cafeteria, and you could eat some cheesecake, if you think it will help. She's been like this for a year now. Another twenty minutes won't matter.”
I grinned. “You think I need a full twenty minutes? You haven't seen me destroy cheesecake.”
His hand hovered over the control keypad for the elevator. “Cafeteria?” His words were saying we could delay, but his eyes said otherwise. His eyes begged me to help him connect with his lost love, as soon as possible.
“Straight to the coma ward,” I said. “Once we bring Chessa back, we can all celebrate with a round of cheesecake.”
He nodded and punched in an access code, then leaned forward and held still for another retina scan.
As the elevator progressed down, I asked, “Why didn't we do this yesterday?”
“The doctor wouldn't sign off to give you access. I had to throw my weight around.” He smirked. “He must have gotten the strange idea that you're a trouble maker.” He looked down my body. “A trouble maker straight out of a musical production of Grease.”
“Good eye for musicals,” I said. “How many doctors do you have around here? Was this the same one I saw with Charlize when I was getting patched up?”
Chet shook his head. “You weren't supposed to see anyone. Were you conscious for long?”
“All of about three minutes, but it was memorable. Your buddy Charlize tried to give me a heart attack. She told me I'd been out for twenty-five years, and people had flying cars now.”
Chet grinned. “Charlize is funny. You two should hang out sometime, if you don't mind the competition.”
I gave him a sidelong look. “Competition?”
“Yeah. For being the funny girl.”
“Right. Because she's soooooo funny.”
The elevator dinged and opened, and two guys joined us, one a towering mountain and the other short by comparison.
It was Rob and Knox. Fear shot through me, and my reflexes kicked in with a vengeance.
I jumped back, raised my hands, and jolted both of them with blue lightning.
They went down.
The air around me went murky, as though the elevator were filling with smoke. Nobody else seemed to notice the smoke, and on some level I knew it wasn't real. Just a memory. Chessa's memory, of cold water and darkness and death.
My eyes refused to focus. I could hear the two men on the floor groaning. The elevator doors were trying to close, making a loud dinging noise, and then a more aggressive alarm. Chet was pushing me, shoving me backward, putting me in the elevator's corner. He blocked me into the corner with his body.
The world was slow motion and loud, then quiet.
My head got hazy, and I felt someone else pushing into my mind. I was still there, just behind a smoky curtain.
I heard myself speak, but the voice was not my own. “Chet, I was attacked. By a bird.”
My vision was still a black haze, but I felt his body rotate. He turned toward me, grabbed my wrists, and pressed my palms together. His face was a blur of light in the darkness, in the deep waters.
“I know, Zara. I was there with you in the forest that day,” he said. “But you've got to believe me, it wasn't Knox or Rob. They would never hurt you.”
“Chet, it's me,” the spirit whispered with my voice.
I knew who it was before she said her name.
“I'm Chessa.”
“Zara, this is no time for your jokes.”
“Chet, the cuts on my wrists are from talons. From a bird. I didn't try to kill myself. I was attacked.”
“By who?”
“A bird. I told you. You can't trust them.”
“But you were depressed. Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself?” He was shaking me by the shoulders, his face still blurry. “Chessa, you were erratic, paranoid. I should have noticed something was wrong.”
The veil inside my mind shifted, like a gauzy curtain in the breeze. My voice raspy, the spirit said, “Talk to my sister. Talk to Chloe. She knows why.”
The elevator's door-open alarm stopped. With a cheery ding, the doors closed, and the elevator began to move.
Inside my mind, the curtain fell away. The elevator interior came into crisp focus.
Chet still had me boxed into the corner. Behind him, both Knox and Rob were conscious, seated on the black mat of the floor and watching me warily.
Chessa was gone, outside of my body, but Chet didn't know. He pulled me in close and kissed me. His mouth was exactly as tender and strong as I expected. It was as though I'd kissed him a thousand times. The rasp of stubble on his upper lip stung in a familiar way. I leaned into the kiss.
He pulled away with a sudden jerk, wiping his mouth.
He eyed me with suspicion.
I waved one hand guiltily. “Me again. Just Zara.”
“She was here,” he said, scrubbing his lips with the back of his hand.
“Not anymore. And would you stop wiping your mouth like that? I'm starting to take it personally.”
He stared at me, his green eyes bright with fury and pain.
I put my hands on my hips. My confusion quickly turned to rage. That look on his face, that accusing expression, always set me off. Or her. I couldn't tell, and it didn't matter. She and I were one, commingled, and we wanted to yell at him.
I spat out, “Why are you so upset about making contact? You got to talk to her. What exactly did you think was going to happen when she possessed me?”
He wiped his mouth again. “This was a bad idea.”
I clenched my fists. “You think? How about you stop kissing people you shouldn't be kissing?”
“Chessa?”
I couldn't say yes, and I couldn't say no. I was so mixed up. I wanted to kiss him again, and I also wanted to pick him up and throw him against the wall of the elevator. Was it love, or hate? Was it Chessa, or me? I couldn't tell.
All I could do was glare at him and hope to get control of myself. He glared back. Oh, how I wanted to slap him. Or kiss him. And dig my nails into his muscles.
In the silence, there were two clicks—clicks that spoke of danger.
I leaned around Chet's body to find Rob pointing a gun-like weapon at me. Knox was doing the same.
In his deep, baritone voice, Knox spoke calmly. “Ms. Riddle, I understand you've been through serious trauma recently, but my associate and I didn't get into this elevator to harm you.”
Rob chimed in, his tone strident and offended. “Why would you just blast an unarmed man like that?”
I stammered before explaini
ng, “I'm sorry, but it was pure instinct. Just something witchy programmed into my body. And since you guys are both big shifter birds, can you blame me? My defenses got triggered, probably because of that time Chet and I were attacked by the vicious bird thing.” Not to mention Chessa's claim just now that she'd also been attacked by a bird. But she'd said so after I'd already blasted the guys, so I couldn't pin the blame on her.
Rob and Knox slowly lowered their weapons and exchanged a look.
Rob said to Chet, “Hey, man. You were attacked by a winged creature? You never told us about that.”
Chet shrugged it off. “It's Wisteria. Things happen. I'm not going to report every minor skirmish.”
The guys exchanged another knowing look.
I pointed at them. “Chet, these two know something. They know what attacked you. And maybe what attacked Chessa.” I swallowed. “Unless it was one of them.”
Chet said, “Guys?” He let out a low chuckle. “Would you put Zara's mind at ease by pinkie swearing that you didn't try to kill us, or Chessa?”
Rob shook his head. “Chet, man. That's not funny.”
Knox grabbed the silver railing inside the elevator and raised himself to his full, mountainous height. “This is the first I've heard about you being attacked.”
Rob grabbed Knox's trunk-like forearm and used it to get himself upright and standing. “You should have told us,” he said. “You should have filed a report, man.”
Chet shrugged. “It's just one of those things. And besides, I was busy making sure Zara was okay. As you can see, she's excitable and unpredictable.”
All three of them looked at me.
My cheeks grew hot. I fidgeted with my skirt. Great. Now I was feeling guilty. I was ashamed about zapping the guys, and stealing a kiss from Chet, even though both had been instinctive. How could I make this uncomfortable feeling go away? I had to say something to defuse the tension.
I pointed in Chet's direction. “He was naked,” I said. “A big bird swooped down on us in the forest, and then suddenly Chet stripped himself naked. He turned into a wolf, too. And he saved my life.” My cheeks felt hotter and hotter. Talk faster, I ordered myself. “But I have a question for you, Knox and Rob. Is it true you guys can shift with your clothes on or off, and it's just a personal choice?”
Wisteria Wonders (Witch Cozy Mystery and Paranormal Romance) (Wisteria Witches Book 3) Page 11
