A.I.R. Shattered Soul

by Amanda Booloodian

  “Barry’s reviewing with security now. Damned Walker, he could have gotten in from anywhere. It’s what they do best.”

  “What is a Walker?”

  “They’re accursed. Portals connect two dimensions by cutting through the between areas, but Walkers can slip in and out of about anywhere because they can slip between dimensions.” He paused. “Are you okay?” He momentarily lost the cowboy twang which let me know he was genuinely worried.

  “I’m doing better,” I said.

  Logan gave me a long look and nodded.

  “It never actually hurt,” I said. “I was tired, but even that was almost gone now. What exactly happened?”

  “I’m going to find out,” Logan said. “We’ve let him sit for a while.”

  “I’m going with you.” I leaned forward on the bed. My body responded, but slower than I expected.

  “We need to go over a few things first,” Dr. Yelton said.

  I shook my head and each word became more forceful than the previous. “This guy came in here and almost killed me. I’m going down to see him.”

  “You were unconscious not that long ago. That’s never a good sign.”

  “Neither is someone trying to kill you,” I said. “I need to know what happened.”

  Dr. Yelton stared at me a few moments while clicking his pen. “We don’t know what side effects might occur. And we only have Mr. Pironis’s word to take for what actually happened.” He clicked his pen a few more times and looked at the chart. “Your lab results are all normal. Even so, I’m putting you on restricted duty for three days.”

  My mouth automatically opened to argue.

  “Three days, Miss Heidrich. We have no idea what the full effects will be.”

  I kept my mouth shut in case he tried to make me stay longer. He told me to keep an eye out for anything abnormal.

  Logan impatiently shifted from foot to foot. He started walking the moment my feet hit the ground. I would never say it aloud, but I was thankful that it was a slow walk.

  “You’re not going inside the room with him,” Logan said. “You’re going to watch only.”

  “But, what if—” I started.

  Logan shook his head. “No, you’re watching only. Barry will be going into the interrogation room with me.”

  “The Director interrogating?”

  “He’s one of the best, but he wants me to take lead on this. No reading the Path either. You look like you’re about to fall over as it is, so let’s not add to it. We’ve got this guy. He’ll talk.”

  My stomach twisted with anxiety as we made our way downstairs. I went into the viewing room, and Logan and Barry went into the room where Vincent waited.

  Vincent sat at the table. His hands were cuffed and his face could have been a stone carving. He stared straight ahead, not even looking around when others came into the room.

  “I trust that she is okay?” Vincent asked. Even his voice held no emotion.

  “What makes you think that?” Logan asked.

  “You are calm,” Vincent said.

  “You exceeded my calm threshold the moment I heard you were here,” Logan said. “How did you get in here?”

  “Through the front gates,” Vincent said.

  Barry shifted in his chair, but allowed Logan to continue.

  “Now, how did you get in those gates?” Logan asked.

  “I put in my ID card and had my retinas scanned. Same as any other agent,” Vincent said.

  “You’re trying to say you’re an agent?” Logan asked.

  “From the North-Western branch,” Vincent said.

  “Why come here? Why attack another agent?” Logan asked.

  The first sign of life flitted across Vincent’s face as he minutely flinched.

  “I was told that the Mid-West branch of AIR had been infiltrated by a fiend,” Vincent said.

  “Who told you we had a demon here?” Barry asked.

  “The orders came from my supervisor at the North-Western office,” Vincent said.

  “You were told by AIR that a fiend was here in the office? Why were we not informed?” Barry asked.

  “If one fiend had entered, why not two?” Vincent asked.

  “So you were here to check things out?” Logan prompted.

  “I was sent here to dispose of a fiend.” Vincent’s voice was steady and void of feeling. “Cassandra was in my file, named as said fiend, so I started to dispose of her. First, I took her energy, and then started with her essence.” He paused and looked away. “It was then that I realized that she was not a fiend.”

  Cold tendrils wrapped around me. He pulled my essence? I had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t sound good.

  “The process of starting to pull essence and stopping again? I’ve never heard of it happening before. It shouldn’t be possible. I couldn’t tell you how relieved I was that I was able to stop, and return her essence.” He looked back at Logan.

  “What does pulling her essence mean exactly?” Logan asked.

  “Once I pulled all of her energy, I tapped into what makes her, her. Her essence. It’s referred to in different ways, psyche, soul, essence. It’s all the same.”

  “You pulled her soul out?” Logan asked. Fury swept across his face.

  “No, I pulled part of her soul out.” Vincent looked at the mirror. He looked at me. “I put it back. It’s all there.”

  “That’s it then. You pulled part of her soul out and then pushed it back in?”

  “As she’s probably experienced, there might be some side effects. It could take a while for things to resettle.” Vincent faced the mirror, looking very uncomfortable. “Her soul is all there, but it is not whole. It’s broken.”

  Broken? I wasn’t sure how to take this news.

  Logan slammed his fist on the table. Vincent went back to staring straight ahead. All signs of discomfort left and his face was an unreadable blank mask once more.

  “She’s broken now. Tell us how to fix her!” Logan yelled.

  I had felt abnormal when I woke up, but now? There was something different. I could feel something was off. I wasn’t in pain and there wasn’t a mark on me, but something wasn’t quite right.

  The smallest hint of a frown appeared then retreated from Vincent’s face. “This has never happened before. I will talk to other Walkers, but I’m not sure how to fix this.”

  “You’re not talking to anyone.” Logan leaned back in his seat. “You attacked an AIR agent. We’re tossing you into a hole somewhere.”

  Logan’s words didn’t faze Vincent. “I was sent here to dispose of a fiend, not a woman. My instructions were explicit. I was doing my job.”

  “Why did you stick around after the job?” Logan asked. “I bet you could side-step your way out of this world right now.”

  “I could at any time, but I will not leave until I’ve made this right,” Vincent said.

  Logan started to speak, but the Director broke in. “We’re going to talk to your superiors to work on confirmation. At this time, you are to remain confined.”

  Logan looked angry, but left the interrogation room. Barry followed behind. As soon as they left the room, Vincent’s face turned toward the glass. He didn’t say anything; he only watched what must have been his own reflection.

  I jumped when the door to the room opened, and Logan and Barry walked in.

  “I didn’t know the company employed Walkers,” Logan said.

  Barry raised an eyebrow at Logan. “I’ll find out what the other office knows about this incident and we’ll proceed from there. We’ll have him transferred to a cell shortly.”

  “A cell’s not going to hold him,” Logan said.

  “If he’s an agent, he’ll stick to his cell,” Barry said.

  When Barry left the room, I turned to watch Vincent again.

  “You’re looking better, but not one hundred percent,” Logan said. “Back to normal?”

  Telling Logan should have been easy, but when I went to say I fel
t a bit off, it came out as, “I think so.”

  The word broken kept coming to mind over and over again.

  “Why would anyone want to kill you? Have you ticked anyone off? I’m with you most the time, and I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Could it be I was mistaken for someone else?” I meant it as a throw away comment.

  “Mistaken for someone else? You’re the only red headed female in the office. You’re one of only a handful of women.” Logan thought for a bit, and then latched onto my train of thought. “Could be that whoever sent out the warning got the wrong person. That could be it. It’s possible that we have a fiend running round. Someone noticed or sensed the fiend and went outside our office to get it taken care of.” Logan seemed pretty happy to link those thoughts together.

  “Shouldn’t one of us have noticed a fiend?” I asked.

  “Maybe, but we’re not in the office that much.”

  “That’s true,” I said, trying to hide a yawn. “Listen, Logan, about Vincent.” I stopped, not knowing how to continue.

  “Walkers are an odd type. They walk between worlds, and don’t need a portal to go through, or to drag others through. No one trusts them. They can do whatever they want and slip away. I don’t like that he’s some sort of a hit man, even if he is supposed to be on our team. He’s dangerous.”

  An uneasy feeling crept over me at the thought of sending Vincent away. “Do you think there will be any side effects to what he did? Something that he could fix?”

  “I hope there’s nothing. If he broke something, maybe we should keep him around until it’s fixed.”

  “If he’s right and we have a fiend in the office, will we lead the investigation?”

  “One of his agents was nearly killed. Barry will head this one. We’ve got our hands full now. Let’s go check in with Hank again. It’s been hours. Maybe something new has come across the desk.”

  “You go ahead,” I said. “I’m going to wait here.”

  I could see Logan’s frown from the corner of my eye.

  “I’ll stay until he’s transferred to a cell,” I said.

  Logan nodded. “Don’t go in the room with him.”

  I agreed. Logan left and I went back to watching Vincent.

  What am I doing? I thought. There was something about Vincent. Something that wasn’t there when I first met him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Without thinking, I reached for the Path. My breath caught as a flood of color and light swamped my senses. I gripped the back of a chair. Blinded by the Path, I didn’t dare move.

  What the hell?

  I thought I was back to full strength, but my legs started wobbling after a few moments. I struggled against the river of information. Using what little strength I had, I pushed it back. The light faded and the dim world returned. I fell into the chair and slumped forward, breathing heavily. I wanted to believe that some outside force caused this. Maybe a portal was open. My powers often worked oddly around open portals.

  This was different though. This was new.

  I fumbled for the microphone to the interrogation room.

  “How long will the side effects last?” I stared into the room.

  Vincent paled. His mask of indifference fell away.

  “Are you okay?” Vincent asked.

  “Answer the question.” Panic filled my voice. What if I could no longer read the Path?

  Vincent must have heard the panic. “Do you need a doctor?” He came to the mirrored window as if he could peer in. He leaned against the glass with his hands cuffed behind him. “I thought things would have settled by now.”

  “Mostly they have. But…” I didn’t want to go any further. I couldn’t tell a homicidal stranger that my power was impaired.

  Somehow, though, he didn’t seem like a stranger to me.

  “Have we met before?” I asked.

  Vincent sighed and leaned away from the mirror.

  “No, we’ve never met.” He paused. “You should know, however, that I know you.”

  “That sounds creepy.” He was a stranger, a stranger who tried to kill me. When I looked at him though, there wasn’t any fear.

  “I took in your essence, Cassie, so I know a great deal about you now.”

  “That sounds creepier.”

  “That was not my intention. I’m sorry for what happened.”

  “I don’t understand. How do I fix this?”

  Vincent shook his head and returned to his chair. His emotions were stripping themselves from his face once more.

  “I will do whatever I can to make this right,” Vincent said, “but I don’t have the answers you’re looking for.”

  Chapter 5

  From the moment I left the office, my mood went downhill. It felt like I left something behind, but I couldn’t think of what it was. Maybe because I didn’t have a phone? The disquiet rose and Logan started to look worried. I let him know that I was tired and in real need of sleep. That wasn’t a lie. I felt like I could sleep for days.

  Fragmented dreams where I searched for something left me feeling worse in the morning. I was itchy in my own skin. Something was missing.

  When I dragged myself downstairs, Gran was in the kitchen. After her second husband died, I had been worried about her rattling around her house all alone. I convinced her it was worth a try living together. It took some adjustments, but after living together for five months, we were starting to get comfortable with our routines and with each other.

  “Mornin’, Sugar,” Gran said.

  “Morning, Gran.” I took in the state of the kitchen. Gran liked to cook, but with the amount of food strewn across the counters, it looked as if she was preparing for a feast. “What’s with all the food?”

  “You’re going to have a guest for dinner tonight.”

  I made a face and joined her at the counter. “It’s not Mom, is it?”

  “Not sure who it is, but I don’t think it’s your mother.”

  “So an uninvited guest?” I asked.

  “You’ll invite them by the end of the day. I thought I’d whip you two up a meal, but I’m not sure what’s suitable.”

  Seeing the mixture of materials, it was easy to tell she wasn’t sure what to cook.

  “Maybe by the end of the day I’ll have things narrowed down,” Gran said.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about a visitor right now. We had a dead fairy and someone had tried to kill me. My hands were already full. All that was nothing compared to the feeling that a large hole was being drilled through my chest.

  Gran’s hulking gray cat swaggered into the room as I flipped on the coffee pot. He took one look at me and hissed. A guttural growl built up as his long hair started to stand on end.

  “You know, Cassie, you silly thing,” Gran said.

  The cat looked at Gran and then back to me. In one quick motion, he turned himself around, lifted his tail straight up, and then marched out of the room.

  “I thought we were getting along,” I said to the retreating back of the cat.

  “Somethin’s off today. You feelin’ all right?”

  “I feel fine.” To myself I added, unsettled and hollow, but I can move past this.

  “Okay, dear,” Gran said. She was peering at me.

  I didn’t want to talk about yesterday. In fact, I wanted to forget the entire incident with Vincent.

  “I’m going to grab my bag,” I left Gran’s protruding gaze.

  Mostly, Gran’s exactly how I wanted to be when I got older: a crazy old psychic lady who kept a cat in the house, a fairy in the garden, and spent her days baking sweets for the elves down the street. Sounded like the perfect way to spend my golden years.

  Having the same person as a roommate, especially when you wanted to hide something, wasn’t the ideal situation.

  I took my time grabbing my bag and getting the rest of the way ready for work. It took time to convince myself that I wasn’t forgetting anything and that there wasn’
t anything wrong with me. When I found myself looking through all my bedroom drawers, and not knowing what I was looking for, I knew I’d need more than a few minutes to persuade myself that all was normal.

  When I made it back to the kitchen, sun glinted through the window in the back door. Grabbing a travel tumbler, I filled it with coffee, milk, and sugar. Logan knocked on the back door and entered. He had helped Gran and I find our house. Several agency members lived in the neighborhood.

  “Morning,” Logan said. “Feeling all right?”

  “Sure,” I said taking a quick gulp of coffee.

  “She’ll feel less shaky once she gets to the office,” Gran said.

  “Nothing out of the-” Logan started.

  “It’s summer, but Halloween is around the corner,” Gran said, giving me a quick hug. If she psychically knew what had happened yesterday, she didn’t say anything. She knew I didn’t want to talk about it though.

  “Yeah,” I said, grabbing the subject, “my favorite holiday.”

  “Morgan and I are gettin’ together this Saturday,” Gran said, “to start on our costumes. He said he has some ideas.”

  Morgan Renner was one of the Lost. Even though he came to this world on purpose, as a refugee, the term Lost was still applicable. He was a troll that AIR set up with a little house in the country. He visited one day and met Gran. She wasn’t even surprised when a troll knocked on our door. She served cookies with tea and settled in to get to know Morgan, just as she would anyone else. They had been friends ever since.

  Like me, Morgan’s favorite holiday was Halloween. For him, it was the ability to walk around downtown surrounded by people, and being able to blend in seamlessly. For me, it was more about dressing up.

  “He say what any of those ideas are?” asked Logan.

  “Now, you know it’s a surprise,” Gran said shaking a finger at Logan. “How about you? What are you dressin’ up as?”

  “I’m thinking Doc Holiday this year.”

  “That’ll be great.” I knew that this would fuel his cowboy fascination.

  “Gerald has already decided to be a Roman Centurion,” Logan said.

  Logan’s youngest son was twelve years older than I was. As an elf though, he was mentally much younger. He studied art at a local college. I’m betting he studied Roman art. He was probably as wrapped up in that as Logan was with the Old West.