by PM Drummond
“Cool,” I said.
“What?” Zamora scanned the area, then himself, attempting to see what I was talking about. The color of his auras moved with him.
“Shh. Be still,” I said. To my amazement, he did what I told him, although his “she’s losing it” expression deepened.
There were definite dark masses swirling around his torso—hazy blacks, browns, and grays. His head was a different story, as if it belonged to another person. Shining yellows and golds swirled around his head with little sparks of orange flashing intermittently like tiny lightening bolts from his scalp. All of his auras were encased in the shimmering silver outer glow that he’d been suffused in the day I met him. I had no idea what those colors meant.
Gold of truth and orange of worry. To my shock, the voice came from the moth, which still sat on Zamora’s head.
Awesome. The bugs are talking to me now. I shouldn’t be surprised.
Vampires, werewolves, psychic bikers, and chatty bugs. My life seriously resembled an episode of The Twilight Zone. But on a weird level, I trusted the moth. I got good vibes from him, sort of the Jiminy Cricket of the moth world. I almost smiled, but thought that would probably put the cap on my “losing it” facade. Besides, it wasn’t really funny. It was just my stress-induced smart-ass seeping to the surface.
Zamora looked at the overhang above us, trying to figure out what I was looking at.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Sure. Great. Why?”
Worry crept into his eyes, pulling his brows down a fraction. Time to change the subject.
“You won’t hurt Rune if I agree?” I asked.
“No.”
“Your men won’t either?”
“No.”
“And you’re not just tricking me into going with you so you can take me to Sarkis?”
“No.”
His face remained calm and unreadable. Not even a twitch. I unfocused a little, and his aura popped right into view this time. The gold and yellow still glowed around his head. The moth open and closed its wings a few times but didn’t say anything, which was just fine with me.
“Do you have a secure, as in nontraceable, phone?” I asked.
“No.”
A blast of pent-up breath I hadn’t realized I was holding escaped my lungs. The moth launched from Zamora’s head and fluttered around a pillar and out of sight.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go with you, but I need twenty minutes or so to gather my stuff and make a few calls.” And torture myself over my decision.
He checked his watch. “Twenty minutes and my men and I assume you’re in trouble and come in to get you.”
No changing my mind now, although I might have never had a choice to begin with. What if I’d said no? No use thinking about it. I’d already opened my mouth.
Back in Rune’s apartment, I gathered my clothes, backpack, and after a debate with myself, two more of the outfits and some undergarments from the bed.
I found a pen and notepad in the kitchen drawer and scratched out a short message for Rune, which consisted of “I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back for the clothes and the breakage when I can.” If I lived long enough.
After a five-minute search, I found the phone right where I’d left it on the edge of the tub and dialed my cell phone’s voicemail again. To my surprise, I had a message.
When the caller announced his name, surprise gave way to terror.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALCATRAZ
“This is Doctor Vincent Sarkis. I have gone to great pains to meet with you to no avail, but I believe that will change. Your mother has come to visit me, and she will not be able to return home until you also come to visit. I will have a car waiting for you at the front entrance of the Block of Orange at noon today. Come alone. Do not be late. I’d hate for you to miss your mother.”
My hand shook so badly that I had to put the phone on the kitchen counter to press the disconnect button. At first, I couldn’t remember my parent’s phone number even though it had also been my phone number for twenty-six years. After a few panicked moments, I stabbed the number into the phone, then dropped the phone twice before I got it to my ear. My father answered.
“Hi, Dad—”
“Where’s your mother?” he shouted. His anger exploded through the connection, and I flinched and pulled the phone away from my ear. He continued shouting, but his ranting turned to static in the background of my racing thoughts. My mother never went anywhere without my father’s knowledge. They only had one car. She had to ask him for the keys and give a detailed schedule of where she would be, why she needed to go, and how long she’d be there. If my father didn’t know where she was, Sarkis had her.
Fear vibrated my nerves, setting them on fire. My father’s voice faded as the phone pulled away from my hand and floated to the ceiling where it joined almost everything that wasn’t fastened down in the apartment. The water in the fish tank sloshed back and forth, but thankfully the tank stayed put. The couch and bed weren’t so lucky. They hugged the ceiling as if the room had been flipped over.
I had to get out. Had to get to the Block of Orange in Orange County. Had to save my mother. I surveyed the items in the air. They would crash as soon as I left. The room would be destroyed again. I’d wrecked everything. The classroom the other night. Aunt Tibby. Rune’s life. My family’s life. My life. And now my mother was in danger because of me.
It had to end, and the only way that was going to happen was if I was out of the picture. With no chance of normalcy, I wouldn’t be losing much turning myself over to Sarkis. If he didn’t let Mom go, maybe I could save her before Sarkis incapacitated me.
The Block of Orange was over an hour away. A taxi or bus would take hours to get there. I needed a car to get there in time. How sophisticated was the panel van we rode in from Idaho? Could I drive it without shorting it out? And what about Zamora? If he knew what I planned, he would try to stop me.
I put my hand to my chest and concentrated on the small ball of Zamora’s energy—his tracking beacon. I pinched at my skin and pulled with the sizzling energy coursing through my body, working Zamora’s power from my chest wall into my fingers. I unfocused my gaze and a red glowing ball appeared in my hand. I tried to drop it, but it stuck to my fingers like gum. Attempting to smear it off on the counter didn’t work either. Plus on second thought, I didn’t want to draw Zamora and his men down here to Rune’s apartment. Maybe the tracker had to be attached to something living.
I raced up the stairs, punched in the code and made my way to the alley behind the building. The homeless woman still sat there wrapped in a blanket propped against the brick wall and dumpster. I leaned over and touched her shoulder. The red ball of energy melted into the blanket and disappeared into her. She threw off the blanket and yelled.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I thought you were someone else.”
She glared at me and grabbed the blanket. With much cussing a grunting, she stood and pushed her cart down the alley. I shoved my guilt away, secured the back door, set the alarm, and ran to the panel van. A wave of my hand unlocked the door, and I climbed up into the driver’s seat and eased the door shut. A quick search of the cab for the keys proved futile. Not that I really expected to find them. Tony was a sensible guy.
I covered the key slot to the ignition with my hand, closed my eyes, and pictured what I thought the inner mechanism would look like. I imagined the key in the slot and with a couple of twists of my hand, I turned the phantom key. The truck started, and I jumped back and yelped. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hadn’t expected it to work.
The green moth landed on the windshield in front of me.
“No, no, no, no.” I swiped at the window to shoo it away. “I really don’t have time for hallucinations right now.” A twist of the windshield wiper knob sent the creepy bug fluttering away. I snapped on my seatbelt, and then laughed at the absurdity of the act. Here I was driving to my certain doom, and I was w
orried about vehicle safety. Laughter turned to gasping hiccups as I backed out and drove away. I strongly suspected I was losing it.
Sense of direction has never been my strong suit. After several minutes of wrong turns, I finally got onto the 405 freeway. By that time, the radio had died in a shower of sparks and the dome light had flared to life then exploded within its plastic enclosure. I thought of my father as I sat in traffic to keep from disabling the van altogether. He’d sounded so panicked when he’d yelled. I always had the impression that he would be happier if my mom and I disappeared from his life forever, but the anguish in his voice had been unmistakable.
It must have just been me he didn’t want around. That made a lot of sense, considering the last few days and the devastation I’d brought to loved ones and strangers alike.
The van coughed and the gauges on the dash faded to zero then surged back to life. I thought of Grandma’s rose garden the rest of the grueling drive to the rendezvous.
The Block of Orange was a large outdoor mall in typical Southern California style. The walkways resembled small boulevards complete with billboards above the stores, palm trees, kiosk vendors, and shoppers dressed in shorts and tank tops year-round. Cut-throat drivers jockeyed for parking spaces around pedestrians too engrossed in their mobile phones to notice the danger they were in. The panel van wouldn’t fit anywhere, so I parked it in the valet turnout and let the attendants worry about it. Payment wasn’t due until the driver picked the vehicle up, so my lack of funds wasn’t an issue. Guilt plagued me over cheating them out of their fee and Rune having to retrieve his van from either the parking lot staff or an impound yard, but it couldn’t be helped. The chance of saving my mom overshadowed my dishonesty.
Sarkis’s men were nowhere to be seen, so I stood at the entrance next to a micro-brewery/restaurant named Alcatraz. Through the restaurant’s windowed facade, a mural on the back wall depicted the Golden Gate Bridge and the island prison of Alcatraz. The irony of the theme brought a sad smile to my face. By handing myself over, I was committed to captivity—probably for the rest of my life.
Two people bumped my sides.
“Turn around and walk toward the back,” the man on the right said into my ear.
It was Mr. Smith. The other man, six-foot-six and built like a city bus, I didn’t recognize. As instructed, I turned and walked toward the back of the mall, toward the large, thirty-theater complex. When we got to the theater, Mr. Bus bought three tickets to a movie I hadn’t heard of, and we made our way down the south annex, but instead of stopping at the theater we’d bought tickets for, we continued on to the exit at the end of the hall. All the while, the two men scanned our surroundings. It was all very Mission Impossible.
The crowded theater amped me up like being plugged into an electrical socket. I fought furiously to keep my telekinesis at bay, trying to squelch my mounting fear of what lay ahead and replace it with thoughts of what was going on around me. Mr. Smith blatantly avoided any further contact with me, which I found amusing and depressing at the same time. Mr. Bus was either low man on the totem pole or stupidly brave. He nudged my back with his hand when I fell a little behind, and a small burst of power escaped my chest. A loud pop followed by the hiss of spraying water and yelps of surprise echoed out of the ladies room as we passed. I hoped that wasn’t my doing, but the chances of that were slim and none. Chalk another one up to the wrecking ball. Maybe I could make that my nickname—WB.
A black Cadillac Escalade waited outside the exit. Mr. Bus ushered me inside where a driver and two other men waited. He deposited me into the middle seat next to a hard-looking blond man in black cargo pants and a black polo shirt. I was just making up a nickname for him when something clicked next to me, and a fiery trail made its way up my arm.
When the burn hit my neck, the world went black.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LABORATORY ANIMALS
Men talking . . .
Movement . . .
A car moving . . .
A moan escaped me, and someone to my left spoke.
“She’s coming to.”
“Couldn’t be. There’s enough tranq in her to bring down a three-hundred-pound man,” Mr. Smith said from behind us.
“For how long?”
“Minimum twelve hours, which gives us another four.”
“How far out are we?”
“Another hour to Happy Jack.”
Happy jack? What the heck was a happy jack? A ghostly gray jackrabbit with a waistcoat and pocket watch floated in the fuzzy landscape of my mind. The mangy creature checked his watch, shook his finger at me, and then executed an Olympic-worthy jackknife dive down a hole. Sound and sensation faded, and blackness took me again.
I woke to the Escalade pitching and the crunch of gravel like we were on a dirt road. I kept my eyes closed and my head in its current lolled forward position, which made my neck muscles scream. The spot on my chest, where Zamora’s marker had been, itched and I longed to scratch it. Something skittered across my hands which were lying on my lap. I slivered my right eye open. The moth sat on my hand, wings down with their pseudo eyes staring up at me. How could the men next to me not see it? The wingspan stretched four inches across, and the bug practically glowed neon green.
I couldn’t blame it on the drugs. I’d seen this bug without a drop of hallucinogens in my system. The telekinesis must have been frying my circuitry while it was wreaking havoc on my life. Who said it couldn’t multi-task?
After several more bumpy minutes and jolting turns, the car stopped. The driver’s window rolled down, and he punched something into a keypad. Heavy metal doors scraped open, we drove forward, and the doors closed behind us. The car traveled on, the road slanting down for another few minutes. Then it stopped. All four doors opened at once, and the two men beside me got out. Musty dry air flooded the car, and I fought a sneeze. Footsteps and something on squeaking wheels approached, echoing like we were in a cavern or warehouse.
I kept pretending to be unconscious to gather more information and keep them from knowing about my partial immunity to drugs. Plus, fighting at this point would do me no good. I mean really, the guys were gorillas in human clothes.
“Load her onto the gurney and strap her down,” a new, but familiar, voice said. “We don’t want to lose our precious cargo. It’s taken too long to acquire it.”
The newcomer’s energy slid like grease across my exposed skin, the viscosity of it unlike anything I’d ever felt. It invaded the air, forcing its way into my nose and sticking to the back of my throat. I racked my memory for where I’d heard his voice before as strong hands grabbed me and hoisted me out of the car. One of the men lifted me as if I weighed nothing and placed me on the gurney. Straps locked me down, and they wheeled me away.
“Excellent,” the newcomer said.
Sarkis.
The voice belonged to Sarkis. Sweat rose on my prickling flesh, some of it rushing in small rivulets down my face and under my breasts. The moth’s feather-light presence stayed on my hand through the whole ordeal, giving an odd comfort. At least I’d have company wherever I was going—even if it was just imaginary.
They pushed the gurney across the echoing space and bumped through a door where the echoes got closer—a narrow hall, maybe. After two left turns, we entered an elevator and traveled down for several seconds. It was either a slow elevator or we were several stories underground by the time we stopped. Cool antiseptic air raised goose bumps on my skin as the gurney exited. The buzz of fluorescent fixtures joined the cadence of booted footsteps and the squik-squik of the gurney wheels. More hallways and three turns later, someone entered a code into a keypad and they wheeled me into a room and stopped.
I was unstrapped and hoisted onto a bed. Something crashed across the room and all went quiet for a few heartbeats.
“Did she awaken during the trip?” Sarkis asked.
“No,” Mr. Smith said.
“She moaned a few times,” another man said.
“Did you administer enough tranquilizer?” Sarkis said.
His greasy aura crept over me again. He lifted my hand over my head then let it go. I let it drop and hit my face without a grimace or flinch. He opened one of my eyes and peered at me. I refused to focus or move my eyes. The fuzzy image of a gray-haired man with glasses loomed over me. He released my eyelid, and after a few hushed seconds, brushed his finger lightly over my eyelashes. My eye twitched, and he stepped away. An instant later, the all-too-familiar click and burn hit my arm, and I was out.
The moth fluttered midair surrounded by blackness, its wings a lime-green blur around a pale, orange body. The pseudo eyes hovered stationary among the green, blinking at me like photo cards flipped revealing a moving picture.
“Where am I?” My voice echoed in the inky ether.
The spirit plane. The voice came from the moth and found its way to my brain, bypassing my ears altogether.
“How did I get here?”
The drugs create an alternate consciousness just as peyote did for your ancestors.
“What ancestors?”
The shaman. Your grandmother. Your aunts. Your great-grandfather. His father before him. Back as many generations as time remembers.
“No. My mother’s people were telekinetic. My grandmother wasn’t a shaman.”
There exists another lineage.
What was he talking about? Lineage? The truth seeped into my brain, dawning a slow sunrise of knowledge.
“My father’s mother?”
Yes.
My body floated weightless in the void. The diaphanous white dress I wore flowed in slow waves around me. Seven distant glowing shapes materialized behind the moth, waiting on the outskirts of my field of vision. As hallucinations went, this wasn’t all together unpleasant. Not that I had any experiences to compare it to except my recent encounters with the moth.
