Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Siobhan was rifling through the papers as he talked, nodding to show that she was listening. “Non-conclusive. But possible. You’re suggesting that your visions are predictions. Glimpses of the future.”

  “I’m saying that it’s possible …” Julian met her eyes, putting aside their personal lack of compatibility. “And if that’s true, then the woman who I saw murdered three days ago may still be alive …and may not have very much time to stay that way.”

  Chapter Five

  iobhan

  “Okay, let’s start with you telling me everything you can remember about your vision,” Siobhan said, getting a white board out from the closet in her office and setting it up on the nearby easel. She was a tactile, visual person, and she needed to write down what Julian told her and have it in front of her the whole time she was working.

  “So you’re going to help me?” Julian asked. “We haven’t discussed any of the paperwork. I’d like to know what the pricing is like, and what your service entails before we commit to anything.”

  She looked over her shoulder, pinning the gorgeous man with a hard stare. “Are you serious right now?”

  “Yes?”

  “You just told me that you think it’s possible that the woman you saw brutally murdered a few days ago could still be alive, but about to be taken by her murderer. And you want to talk paperwork.”

  He flushed slightly. “Obviously when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous. But that’s mostly because of the tone you’re using. It’s not unreasonable for me to want to understand what kind of agreement I’m entering into, and I would think you would want some guarantee of payment…”

  Siobhan continued to stare at him for a moment. “Not really.” She turned back to her whiteboard, holding her marker poised. “Start with a description of the woman herself. Every detail is important.”

  “Except the details of our business arrangement.”

  “Julian…” She forced patience into her tone. “All of that will get worked out, okay? If what you’re telling me is right, then this woman may not have long, and I don’t know how long it will take us to find her. So let’s get started, okay? I’m sure you’ll pay me, and if you don’t, that’s my boss’s problem. Not mine. So—what does she look like?”

  There was a slight sigh, but then Julian—thankfully—began to talk. “She was blonde. Not like you. Yours is a golden bright shiny blonde. Her hair was duller. More of a dirty blonde. Shoulder-length hair, I think. And she was middle-aged. Maybe in her forties. Brown eyes. Small. Almond-shaped, I guess. Not exaggeratively almond-shaped, but not round either. More like—”

  “Dirty blonde hair, middle-aged, brown eyes,” Siobhan interjected, interrupting him. “Keep going.”

  “She was…naked,” Julian said, clearing his throat. “Not slim, but not overweight. Very average. Soft—not an athlete. She looked like a typical middle-aged mom. Like she would have teenagers that caused those lines around her eyes and mouth.” He was quiet for a moment. “Fear. It emanated from every part of her. From her head to her toes …oh, her toes. They were painted in a design. A floral design, I think.”

  Siobhan was writing it all down in a list as he spoke, her handwriting legible only to her. “Okay, that’s a good start with her. Anything else identifying about her? A tattoo? A birthmark?”

  “There was a scar,” Julian said, his eyes closed now as he thought. “Across her midsection. Hip to hip.”

  “Like a C-section?” Siobhan asked, writing it down.

  Julian frowned, peeking an eye at her. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a C-section scar.”

  “It sounds like a C-section scar,” Siobhan concluded. “Tell me about her surroundings. Where was she?”

  “It looked like a warehouse,” he told her, closing his eyes again. “The walls were metal. Like they were made out of tin—except it wouldn’t be tin, would it? They don’t make buildings out of tin.”

  “I know what you’re talking about though.”

  “There were no windows that I could see, but my vision was limited. It’s like I was seeing through the eyes of the person abusing her, and he wasn’t looking around. Well, I guess it could have been a she…with manlier hands.”

  Siobhan capped the marker in her hand and turned back toward him. “You saw the person’s hands?”

  “Yes,” Julian said. “Like they were mine. Except they were large. No hair. And there was a ring. A ring on the third finger of his left hand, like he was married. Except it was gaudy—huge, ornate, with a bright-green stone in the center. When he hit her, it drew blood.”

  For the first time, Siobhan stopped to consider that the things Julian had seen were horrific for him. She softened herself slightly, perching on the desk again. “You can still see it, can’t you? In your head?”

  He nodded. “It’s like they’re my experiences. I feel them, see them, exist in them. But they’re not mine.”

  She nodded too, and for a moment, they sat there somberly. Then Siobhan was ready for action again. “Did either of them say anything?”

  “Nothing…significant,” Julian said, shaking his head. “She screamed, pleaded for him to stop…” his head jerked up and his words halted. “Wait, I just remembered. I remember, when the vision first started—she was begging the person to stop, and she said she had children and a husband. Sickly parents. She said she had sickly parents.”

  Siobhan got up, writing it all down. It was a substantial list of information, but Siobhan knew exactly how little it would help them. There were plenty of blonde, average-looking women, who were wives and mothers with sickly parents living in Boston. They all got floral designs on their toes and all too many of them had C-sections. There was nothing on the board in front of her that would help definitively lead her to the woman who might be in danger.

  Presuming, of course, that there was a woman in danger and this whole situation wasn’t just living in Julian’s mind.

  For now, she had to assume that he was right, because if she didn’t and someone was killed who didn’t have to be—that would be on her. Besides, she was fairly confident that he was right. It was more common than most people realized for a person who made contact with the other side to come back with a unique power to see through the parts of the universe shielded from other people.

  “This isn’t good enough,” Siobhan said, condensing her whole thought process into one somewhat blunt statement. “There’s not enough information here.”

  “That’s all I saw,” Julian said, somewhat defensively. “Trust me, I’m not holding anything back.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” Siobhan told him, turning back to face him. “I’m just saying that we can’t find this woman based strictly on this. Have you tried going back into your vision?”

  “What?”

  “Returning to the vision,” she said again, moving to sit on the edge of the desk closest to him. “It’s still so real to you that you can feel it. Then close your eyes and imagine it again…see if you can go deeper into the vision and tell me more.”

  Julian stared at her with wide eyes. “You want me to watch her be killed again?”

  “Yeah…” Siobhan said, not understanding why he was confused. “If that’s what we need to do.”

  “No, of course,” Julian said quickly. “I just…I hadn’t thought of…I try to keep from thinking about the things I see.”

  “Well, that won’t get us very far,” Siobhan pointed out, getting more comfortable on the desk and motioning for him to close his eyes. “Okay, go ahead.”

  He closed his eyes, as directed, but then peeked one open at her. “Okay, you can’t just sit there and watch me do this. You’re distracting me.”

  “I’m not saying anything!”

  “No, but you’re…” he gestured to her. “Sitting there.”

  “Oh God,” Siobhan said, getting up and walking over to look out her window. “Okay, try now.”

  As she stared out the window, she listened closely to the
silence behind her, and when she had given him a minute, she turned and stole a glance, seeing him sitting with total concentration in his chair. She waited a minute, then another, then even one more before she interrupted him.

  “What did you see?”

  “You’re a very impatient woman.”

  Siobhan walked back over to the white board, flashing a winning smile. “Yes, I am. What did you see?”

  “Nothing,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “But maybe that’s because you interrupted me. I was getting there.”

  “Were you really?”

  “No. But I could have. Maybe.”

  Siobhan rolled her eyes at him. “I might be impatient, but you’re very particular.” She walked back over to her computer, pulled up the database that everyone at the agency shared, and typed in a search for all people reported missing in the last seventy-two hours. She scanned through the list, glancing at the list of descriptions she had written down. “I don’t see anyone who matches a blonde, middle-aged woman with brown eyes. Are you sure her eyes couldn’t have been green? Hazel, maybe? Lighting can play a role.” She turned the computer toward him, tapping the screen, which displayed a woman in her thirties with faded blonde hair and green eyes. “Is that her?”

  Julian peered closely at it, studying it for a good long moment before shaking his head. “No. I’m sure it’s not her. And I’m sure the eyes were brown. I was watching her eyes the whole time—staring into them. I couldn’t look away. I would know her face anywhere.”

  Chewing on her lip, Siobhan leaned back in her chair, trying to figure out what they were going to do next. Her gut instinct told her that there was something to Julian’s visions, and that the woman he had seen was either already in danger or about to be. The file he had presented her showed enough correlation between his visions and real events that she didn’t doubt that. The problem was that she didn’t know how much time they had or even where to begin looking.

  “You know, these people you see may not always be in the Boston area,” she pointed out, steepling her fingers beneath her chin as she worked through the situation in her head.

  “So far, all of the ones that I’ve marked as possible matches with real events have been in Boston,” he said, picking up the manila folder again. “In fact, they’ve all been in a relatively small area. The center of Boston.”

  She sat up, taking the folder from him and opening it again to scan through the contents. “Yes, but over the past six months, you’ve had ten visions, and you’ve only matched up six of them with real events. Maybe that’s because the other four weren’t in this one little area where you looked for news stories.”

  “Or maybe it’s because they weren’t reported,” he suggested. “Not every accident or instance of abuse, or even every murder, is immediately discovered, you know.”

  Siobhan was already onto her next thought though, staring down at the list of visions. “For now, let’s assume you’re right about this. Your visions are predictions of the near-future. Let’s just not question it, because with this woman’s life on the line, we can’t afford to. Agreed?”

  “Agre—”

  “Good,” she said, not realizing that she hadn’t waited for him to answer. “In that case, I think that we should take a step that you might not be quite ready for.”

  “I doubt my not being ready would stop you.”

  “I have a friend who has psychic ability,” she told him, looking up to meet his gaze and noting once more—briefly, under the circumstances—how devastatingly handsome he was. Every time she looked away and then looked back, it was like having to take it all in again. He definitely was not meant for her, and given any length of time spent together, they would undoubtedly kill each other. But she still found herself wondering what he might be like in bed. A man like that had to have plenty of experience. He would know just what to do. Just how to touch her. All the right things to say to make her completely fall apart.

  Damn it, Siobhan—you’re supposed to be looking for this woman.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Siobhan blinked at Julian, not understanding the question. He couldn’t know what was going on in her head…Oh God, or could he? “What do you mean?”

  “You said you had a psychic friend, and then you just stopped talking and your face had a strange expression.” He seemed genuinely concerned. “Are you feeling all right?”

  Yes, I’m feeling all right. I’m just strangely attracted to you, to the point that I’m thinking about sleeping with you instead of doing my job.

  “Fine,” she said quickly, hoping with all of her might that he didn’t somehow develop the ability to read her mind. “Totally fine. My friend. I have a friend whom we should see. Maybe she can tap into your visions and give us something to go on. Or maybe she can teach you to be better at having visions.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “To be better at them? Are you implying that I’m bad at having visions I don’t understand and didn’t ask for?”

  “Well, you’re definitely not good at them,” she pointed out, standing up and grabbing her bag. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Six

  Julian

  Working with Siobhan was like being caught in a whirlwind. Julian didn’t consider himself to be a buttoned-up kind of man—though she had made it clear that she certainly did—but being around her somehow brought out the side of him that liked things just so. She was constantly moving from one thing to the next, bouncing from thought to thought and never waiting around to make sure that everyone else was on board before acting. He kept wanting to correct her, slow her down, or somehow make her understand that the things she said might be accurate representations of her thoughts but weren’t always the best way to express herself.

  He had known her for all of an hour, and yet they were bickering back and forth like they had known each other for years. It seemed impossible to do anything else with her though, especially when she was halfway to her car, ready to go introduce him to her friend, while he was still sitting in her office, not sure how he had gone from daring, for the first time, to let someone know how terrifying his brain had become, to embarking on a mission to understand his new prophetic abilities and save a woman’s life.

  “Where are you going?” Julian demanded, hurrying out of the building after her. “Did you even look to see if I was behind you?”

  “Where else would you be?” she asked, pulling her keys out of her bag and unlocking her car. “I’ll drive.”

  “You’ll—of course you’ll drive,” he said, flabbergasted. “It’s your car, and I have no idea where we’re going.”

  “Then it wouldn’t make sense for you to drive,” she said, as though he had suggested otherwise. “Come on, get in.”

  For some reason, he followed her instructions, getting into the car and immediately putting his seatbelt on. “You’re not buckled up,” he pointed out, as Siobhan pulled out onto the main road. “If we get pulled over, you’ll get a ticket.

  She glanced over at him, seemingly amused. “Why would I get pulled over?”

  “Because…people get pulled over sometimes,” he said, not understanding the question. “You could speed, or your brake light could be out, or you could miss a stop sign, or a cop could just be having a bad day and make something up.”

  “Something tells me that even before you began having these visions, you were all too well aware of life’s dangers,” Siobhan said, reaching across herself and pulling the seatbelt into place, locking it in with a click. “There you go.”

  “Great,” he muttered, looking out the window. She was so convinced that she understood him, and somehow he kept playing right into her hand, showing himself to be exactly who she thought he was. Why it mattered so much what she thought of him, he didn’t know, but it bothered him that she was so convinced that she had him pegged.

  They drove in silence for a minute, then Siobhan spoke again. “So, it’s a little bit of a drive out to my friend�
��s house. You might as well tell me more about yourself.”

  “Oh, I might?”

  “Sure, unless you want me to guess.”

  He looked over at her, arching an eyebrow skeptically. “Sure. Guess.”

  “Okay,” Siobhan agreed, flipping on her blinker as she merged onto the highway. “Well, I know you’re an accountant and a food writer, so I’ll start there, I guess. I assume that you went to college at eighteen years old and graduated at exactly twenty-two, having put in your four years very effectively. I suspect a 4.0 GPA, or maybe just under. The occasional B, perhaps—likely in some sort of theater class you were forced to take. You got a job basically right out of college, with an accounting firm, but even for you, that’s a bit stodgy and boring at times. So writing about food on the side is a nice way to let out your creative side. You probably like really upscale food, although you write about more than just the high-end stuff. Your house—because it’s definitely a house and not an apartment—is clean, well put together, professionally decorated, and could probably be shown by a realtor at almost any time. You only have one or two friends who you can really be yourself with. Everyone else stays in that acquaintance area, where you’re always making sure to be on your best behavior. You’re Italian, so family is very important to you. I would guess that your family is in the States somewhere, but that you’re an only child and your parents don’t live all that close by. But you probably keep in touch with them a lot, because you’re very conscientious and dutiful.”

  Julian didn’t interrupt her once while she made her long speech. He sat there, amazed as she hit all the highlights of his life with unnerving accuracy. “You’re wrong,” he said, when it was clear she was done. “My parents do live close by.”