by TylerRose.
Then he put it together. She was still hiding from Earnol. He didn’t know she was here. He didn’t recognize her with the red curls and green eyes. She hadn’t made contact because she couldn’t be certain where K’Tran loyalties lie in this parallel universe.
Outside of the people in the warehouse, she was effectively alone.
“Bring me a more reliable human,” he said to the young K’Tran walking a pace behind him. “I have an errand I need performed.”
Curlein sar Mankell looked over his list and made a phone call, summoning a human male. He was present to hear instructions given, saw the human given the small envelope Solomon had prepared. He struggled with the wrongness of it. Everything about everything they were doing here was wrong. None of this was what they’d signed on to do. They were supposed to be running goods, not making drugs to ruin a planet.
Curry decided he would confront the Captain of the ship when he had a good opportunity, since it was the Captain who had told him the job was legitimate.
Chapter Thirty
June 11th, 1993
Tyler watched with a casual, practiced eye that roamed the restaurant in even waves. The eye saw but the mind did the work. She listened for thought, felt emotions. A habit developed on Crecorday so long ago that she barely remembered a time when it was a conscious act. Crowds were oblivious to her, letting her fade into the background while they were intent on the many amusements Giuseppe’s offered. A group of four couples were playing darts next to three single men. Though loud and boisterous, they caused no problems.
All the pool tables were occupied but Jerome’s perpetually reserved table. Under her silent direction, Mark approached a patron and quietly asked that he not sit on the covered table. The patron apologized and moved to a tall stool, pulling his woman to stand between his knees.
The eating area was fuller than usual for a Thursday, even if it was dollar beer night. Spillover from the increased weekend attendance meant those who weren’t interested in the loud music of the band would come on other nights of the week. Having a popular band on the weekends meant more business through the week as well. Giuseppe was pleased with the side effect.
His staff worked hard as a much more cohesive team to keep up with the volume and turnover. The bar held some of those waiting for a table. An hour wait at this point unless they wanted to go to the family side of the large establishment. No line there, but kids galore to put up with. Few young people took the offer of a quick table, preferring to be where the action was.
She was covering for the weekday Cooler who had not shown up again. A habit she did not appreciate one bit. She was going to fire him and promote one of the others who actually wanted to work, and did exactly that when the idiot came to get his paycheck.
“You’re really that fucking stupid?” she scowled at him. “Gonna call off work saying you’re sick and then come in and get your god damn paycheck? You are so fucking fired. Get out! Mark, you’re the new weekday Cooler. Escort this piece of shit out and go take your dinner break. I’ll leave when you get back.”
Mark smiled to get the replacement gig and went happily to take his dinner in the quiet back room.
A few minutes later, she had to put her drink down to intervene in a near-altercation in the line, returning to slam down about half her drink and suddenly more annoyed at this waste of her time.
Buzzing with conversation but otherwise quiet, she realized she felt stoned. She’d not had nearly enough to drink to cause it. A sudden shiver left her trembling. Not tummy troubles. She’d not eaten anything yet today. Her hands were ice cold, breathing shallow and oddly labored. Her thoughts muddied, something going very wrong.
She went to the bar to use the phone, forgetting she had one in her pocket.
“Refill?” Paul asked when she put her glass on the bar top.
“No. Put it in a cup with a tight lid and gimme the phone,” she said, shaking from the inside in a way she hadn’t since…since…
The black phone in front of her and she stared at it, having forgotten why she wanted it. Call Jerome. She picked up the big receiver and started to dial. Two presses of a button and she messed up. Pushing down the white nubs, she tried again. And failed again. She couldn’t make her fingers hit the correct buttons. Wasn’t even sure what buttons were correct.
“Do you want me to dial?” Paul asked in a guarded tone as he slid the cup to her.
She dropped the receiver in frustration, pressing fingertips to her burning hot eyes. “Call Jerome,” she said, head buzzing loud in her ears.
Dizziness gave way to a slow motion effect, then the receiver was in her hand and she stared at it.
“Say hello,” Paul prompted.
She blinked at him and put the phone to her ear, remembering. Sorta. “Jerome?”
“No, it’s Gable.”
“Get Jerome.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Get Jerome,” she repeated firmly, eye closed tight as she worked hard to maintain control.
Silence, and she almost forgot why she was on the phone.
“What is it?”
Her heart leapt at the sound of his voice. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it is but it’s fuckin’ with me big time. Come get me.”
“Whoa, slow down. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know!” she growled, on the verge of tears. “Bring Star. No one else.”
“Where are you?”
“I’ll be in the office. Get me outta here before I hurt someone. If I could be scared, I would be.”
She hung up on him, grabbed the cup and started to walk. She couldn’t remember why the cup was important but knew she had to have it.
Jerome chewed the inside of his lower lip, something very wrong. She had never been concerned about hurting someone before.
“What did she want?” Roc asked from the hallway, having just come home from supper with Meechi and his mother.
“For me to bring her home,” he said in passing. “Star! We’re going for a drive.”
Star came in from straightening up the game room. “What is it?”
“We will pick up Tyler,” Roc said.
“Just me and Star are going,” Jerome said.
“She may need me.”
“She didn’t ask for you, Roc.” He took the Challenger’s keys off the wall.
“I will go all the same.”
“No, Roc!” he barked a little too harshly, and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. Something is very not right with her. She wanted me and Star and that’s who is going. Stay here and be ready in case we call and need something.”
Roc nodded slightly. “Take the Torino.”
Jerome eyed her a few seconds. She’d not told him before to take one vehicle over the other before. Except the night the Indigenous ran away from home. He took the Torino keys instead, jogging down the steps.
Tyler was lost in a sea of noisy, distorted faces and psychedelic, living colors. Her trek across the restaurant seemed to take forever with so many things in her way. She walked through the kitchen in a thickening daze, fighting hard not to pass out. Fighting harder to contain the energies ready to fly off in all directions. She did not see Mark sitting at the break table finishing up his meal, nor hear him call to her.
The office was in her line of sight, door closed. Eyes locked onto it, she made getting there her whole world. So far…She blinked and was inside the office. The lights flickered on. Too bright, but at least the cacophony of sound was dulled to a low hum from the lights themselves and the occasional sound in the kitchen.
Weak and shaking, she sat in the chair and faced the door. Unable to clear her head, visions came in rapid succession. Disjointed images flashing from the past and the present and then the future. Her face was warm and damp and she wiped it with the back of her hand. She saw a smear of purple and rubbed again. Her skin was purple and it was coming off!
“Tyler!”
Strong hands roughly gr
asped her forearms to stop her digging fingers before she could harm herself. Her head snapped up and she yelped with the surprise and instant, paralyzing physical panic of her body.
“My skin is coming off,” she said, showing him.
“It’s your eye shadow, babe. What did you take?”
Her eyes hardened to stone cold lucidity. “Don’t let me go. Whatever happens, don’t let me go.”
“I won’t,” he said, deciding agreeing would get him farther. “Let’s go home.”
Pulling her to her feet sent the unseen cup falling to the floor with a slosh.
“Drink,” Tyler croaked, reaching for it. Her legs gave way, Jerome holding her up with one arm.
Star picked up the cup. “If she was drugged, it would likely be in her drink, wouldn’t it?”
“Shit!” Jerome hissed, and scooped up her legs to carry her through the kitchen to the side emergency exit.
The Torino was there, rumbling in idle. He put her in the middle of the bench seat while Star rushed around to get in on the other side. Soon as the doors were closed, he floored it out the side drive exit and raced the back roads home. There were only stop signs out here, easy to see other cars coming on the car’s external tracking system. Star just said “Clear!” if there were no cars coming and he ran through the stop sign without slowing.
“Cop car at the light,” she said, and he slowed to the legal speed limit and obeyed the light.
“Communications mode,” Jerome said. “Call Chen.”
“Yes, Jerome?” came the answer after two rings.
“We have a serious emergency. Tyler’s been given a drug. I think it’s the Rovan. Not sure how bad yet. Got any herbs that will help?”
“I might. You are at the warehouse?”
“En route and will be there in two minutes.”
“I will be there as soon as possible.”
In the garage, he pulled her out from the passenger side and ran up the steps rather than wait for the elevator.
“Take the cup to Landra,” he said, heading for the stairs to the bedrooms.
Star met Landra Ahr at the Command Center door and handed it over. “We think it’s Rovan,” she said.
He took it to the counter top. “Get a blood sample for me.”
She got the sealed syringe and an antiseptic wipe and went upstairs.
Tyler was lying on the bed, shoes off and worried faces all around. Star got the blood sample quick as she could and left without a word. There was nothing to say. This was going to be a death watch and they all knew it. No one survived an overdose and there was nothing any of them could do about it. It was just a matter of time and how messy it would be.
Together Roc and Jerome worked to get the blue jeans off and a pair of soft stretch pants onto her. Star returned after they’d finished and were opening a blanket over her.
“She ingested five doses.”
“Five?!” Roc blurted. “Two is enough to kill a human.”
“Fortunately, she’s not human,” Star replied. “There’s another six doses worth in the drink.”
Jerome carried an easy chair to the bedside and flopped into it. He was going to watch the love of his life die tonight. A long, slow death of inches he had to watch and could do nothing about.
“How long until it kills her?” he asked.
“Unknown.”
Roc adjusted the fold of the blanket. At once Tyler was awake and gave a double shove that knocked Roc backwards five feet to her butt on the floor. Jerome leapt onto the bed behind her, capturing her upper arms in a tight bear hug.
“Get away!” she snarled, struggling against him and bending her arms to gouge viciously with her sharp nails.
Gable knelt in front of her, grasping her palms to pull her hands away and speaking her name firmly. She couldn’t hear him, her mind consumed with hallucinations. Then she went too still, staring at a spot over his shoulder.
“They’re coming. He’s here already.”
“Who is here?” Gable asked.
“The soul collector. He’s here.”
“No one is here,” he said, leaning forward so she saw only him.
She broke down sobbing, going slack in Jerome’s arms. He turned with her to lie her down, taking the handkerchief from his back pocket to wipe the blood from his forearms.
“Are you okay?” Gable asked Roc, who’d taken shelter in the bathroom doorway.
She nodded. “I am unhurt. It just surprised me.”
“Go see if Landra has more results,” Jerome suggested.
She went without a fuss.
“How is she?” Landra asked, plugged into the computer for exhaustive searches of all research regarding Rovan counteragents.
“Crying. Her hallucinations are extremely vivid and powerful. And sudden. There was no warning. She was nearly unconscious and then she was awake and fighting. I have tried contacting Julian but he does not reply. What is a soul collector? She is hallucinating that there is one present.”
“Get a pitcher of ice and take it up so she can sip cold water. Dehydration is her enemy now.”
Roc went, letting her question drop. Landra Ahr checked the warehouse sensors. There indeed was that same presence he could find on scans but never see. Perched high up on the wall. It remained for ten minutes before flying through the side wall and vanishing like she did when teleporting.
Prowling, consumed,single-minded upon his return, Hades was unapproachable. His allies arrived in rapid succession, hearing her equally as well. But only he felt the tremendous pull of her need.
“She’s going to Widen,” he snarled, pacing by the pool. “I should go get her and bring her here. They won’t have a clue what to do for her.”
“You will leave her there,” Odin replied, laying a card on the discard stack. “We will not interfere unless her death is imminent.”
“There is no need for her to suffer like this,” Hades seethed sideways at him.
“Of course there is. Immaculates are not born in feather beds. They are forged in the hottest fires of deepest suffering. Tonight determines if she will fulfill her potential or be stunted as an Eminent. Tonight her reason lives or dies.”
Hades glared away, to the nearest window. His furious inner beast snarled back at him, demanding action.
“I am going and I will be there if she needs me and you cannot stop me.”
He morphed into his soul gathering form and teleported to return to his perch on the wall.
Tyler pushed the blankets down, Jerome pulled them back up. With a wide sweep of her right arm, all the blankets flew off the bed to land halfway to the windows.
“Here we go again.”
“Leave them off. Maybe she won’t get upset,” Gable said.
“What is she saying?” Roc asked.
“She smells smoke and thinks something is on fire,” Jerome replied, and took a last drag off his cigarette before crushing it out in the bedside ashtray.
Then she was off the bed and running for a door. Jerome caught up to her and caught her in a bear hug. Psionic waves crashed against his Staff Power and he created a bubble around them both to contain her. She kicked at his shins, thrashed back and forth trying to break his iron hold.
“She’s trying to teleport,” he ground out.
Tyler lifted her feet from the floor. Feeling the extra weight in his arms, he took the opportunity and dropped to his knees to trap her under him. Easing the grip on her arms just a bit, concentrating his energies in ways he’d never thought he would have to do, he lost his grip. She scrambled out with a shriek.
“No you don’t,” he growled, capturing her nearest ankle to pull her back to himself.
He sat on her calves to prevent her kicking. Why she wasn’t using her knowledge of Shaolin anymore he didn’t know and wasn’t going to question. If she did use it, they would be in a world of trouble. She was as lethal as he, but had a better way to get rid of the bodies.
“Now where you gonna go?”
Her elbow came from nowhere and rammed him solid in the jaw.
“Ow! Fuckin’ little bitch!”
She screamed fresh and compact discs rained down from the wall in a clatter and thunk of plastic. Jerome took it as a warning and extended the Staff Power around her. Psionic waves crashed around inside the sphere, crackling a visible outline of blue energy that moved around them. A shrill, desperate shriek and she collapsed unconscious. He let out an audible breath of relief as the sphere of his energy dissipated. He had not realized he’d been holding his breath through that one.
He worked his way to his feet, scooped her up less than gently and dropped her onto the bed. He fell into the chair on that side, head spinning with dizziness.
“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t think she’d ever stop.”
“She’s not wearing you out, is she?” Gable grinned at him.
“You think this is fuckin’ funny? She might die and you think it’s fuckin’ funny?”
“She’s not going to die.”
“You don’t know that,” Jerome shook his head.
“I do. She’s too obstinate to die,” Gable said, stacking the cd cases by the wall.
Jerome got a broom to clean up the sharp, jagged mess of broken pieces and sat in the second chair to wait. A time in the silence and he was dozing.
Not quite an hour later, her legs spasmed and she gave a distressed whimper. Jerome moved to the edge of the bed, feeling a need to hold her hand, hoping she’d be better this time. Hoping that last one had been the worst. Her hand was cold but her face was burning hot and sweating, eyes moving back and forth behind her lids as if she was in REM sleep. He wondered for the hundredth time where Chen and Julian were.
“Are you hearing her hallucinations?” Landra Ahr asked Roc in the kitchen.
“Some yes, but it’s oddly broken up. Like a video feed that sticks and skips.”
