“Is that all?” he prodded. She told her story as though reciting history facts, almost mechanically, which worried him. But it needed to be told. The experience was like an infection that needed to be lanced. It would hurt for a long time but she’d feel better for the telling.
“After I hit the first man it was like I’d flicked some kind of switch. The rage was gone. He sat on the ground sniveling. He seemed more scared and confused than anything else. I don’t even think he knew how his nose got broken.”
Makes perfect sense if he was demon-ridden. “He didn’t know what had happened, as though he wasn’t involved.”
“What are you getting at?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “You think he’s crazy? Well so do I. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t responsible for what he did.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” No way is she going to believe me without proof, especially if I piss her off. Maybe another angle. “Do you believe in hypnosis?”
“Huh?”
Ryuu leaned back and concentrated on being as nonthreatening as possible. Calm and peaceful, project only serenity. “I’m a practitioner. It helps to clear the mind and focus, that’s all. I’m not talking hokey parlor tricks. Perhaps you might remember something helpful, something about the one who took Ishi, if you had a chance to quiet your mind and focus. Would you be willing to try?”
Come on, agree with me. Sounds harmless. It’ll be easier this way.
Janice dropped her hands from her arms and braced her elbows on the table, propping her chin in the palms of her hands. She probed at his emotions so hard he could feel his aura reacting to the pressure.
“I guess. If you think it will help. As long as you don’t make me cluck like a chicken every time I hear a bell ring.”
“No chicken clucking, I promise.” Ryuu crossed his heart. She smiled in return and he noticed that she wasn’t holding herself quite as rigidly as before.
He stood and walked to a glass display cabinet at the other side of the room. He pulled out the crystal orb that Katashi had found for him when he first started coming into his powers. The extra focus point would help him bring Janice into his vision, connect to her life-thread and see her recent past. Seeing was believing and with so little time there was no other way to convince her of what was happening.
Janice smirked as she eyed the orb placed neatly on its meticulously carved wooden pedestal in front of her. “Okay, not expecting a crystal ball. Should I ask the spirits to rap three times? Do we have to hold hands and chant?”
Ryuu curled one side of his lips and wiggled his eyebrows as he took his seat again. “Well you can hold my hand if you want. I certainly don’t mind. But chanting is optional. The crystal gives you a visual point to focus on as opposed to just closing your eyes. It helps clear your mind. Now I want you to stare into the ball. Think of it as trying to see the exact center. Concentrate on that and let everything else go.”
She shrugged but took him at his word. She stared so hard that he wondered that it didn’t melt under the intensity. It took several minutes but he knew the moment her mind opened to him. His powers surged as a connection was made. Maybe it was the fact that Eric, his Catalyst, was near that made it easier for his Visionary power to hook into her Empathy and clarify her own memories. Her expression went slack as her mind fell into the web of life-threads He gently guided her travel until her breathing evened out. “Janice, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she replied in a monotone whisper.
“I want to you think about what you saw this afternoon, about what happened to you and Ishi. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
Now to see what she noticed and pray it isn’t as bad as I suspect. “I want you to take a moment and concentrate not on what you could see but on your other senses. Let’s start with smell.”
She closed her eyes, her nose wrinkling as she concentrated. “Dust from the buildings. The quake knocked it loose.” She paused, sniffing. “And smoke, I smelled smoke on the man behind me, bitter smelling.”
“Cigarette, cigar, incense?” he asked, already certain of the answer. Brimstone, not that she would know it.
She breathed slowly through her nose, as though trying to pull out the sensation. “Not sure. I didn’t recognize it and it was very faint.”
Damn, demon for sure. But where did they stash her? “Did you hear anything unusual?”
“No,” she replied without pause. “There was the noise of people on the street, still chattering about the quake. Cars started up and drove by again. I heard the cartilage in the man’s nose popping when I broke it. It sounded like when I pulled the wishbone on our Thanksgiving turkey when I was little.”
“Nothing else?” Ryuu asked again.
This time she tilted her head and took a moment to consider. “Swish,” she whispered, almost to herself.
“Huh?”
“I think I heard a swishing sound underneath my scream.” She scrunched her eyes tight and tilted her head more, straining her ears for a hint of the elusive sound. “Like an ocean wave. But Chinatown’s pretty far from the bay so I’m not sure what it was.”
A shiver raced down his spine. The tear. That could be the sound of it moving. But it couldn’t be that large yet. Not large enough for physical transport. Fear and denial clawed at his chest. Please, don’t let Ishi have been taken through the tear. She’d be lost forever if they took her there. Ryuu struggled to even out his emotions. He didn’t want to disturb Janice’s trance yet. Not when his next step was so risky. “All right, we’re going to try something else. I want you to open your eyes and look into the crystal again.”
Once her eyes opened Ryuu pushed a bit of his power into the crystal, threading her golden line through the orb to the past point it crossed with Ishi’s. It wasn’t as easy to control or as clear as it would’ve been if Eric were there but the crystal still reacted. It shimmered beneath the surge as he reached out for strands of time past. Janice started, her eyelids fluttering.
“No, keep looking,” he directed, pushing out with more force to focus the sketchy image. “I want you to concentrate on your attacker’s eyes. Think about the color, the expression. Let yourself sink into them. The image should stand in the forefront of your mind.”
The crystal pulsed slightly, a pair of raging brown eyes filling it. They grew larger as Janice’s brow wrinkled. Suddenly they blazed with an unearthly, reddish glow. A sudden, radiant flash filled the crystal as Ryuu caught hold of the demon’s thread and followed it out. Light blazed, creatures beyond a mortal’s ability to perceive danced in the shadows. The spiritual bodies of damned souls littered the sandy ground. The image of a giant demon, perhaps a Lord, flickered in and out of focus. The smaller demon’s cord abruptly severed as its life ended but not before Ryuu found and caught Ishi’s. Alive.
Good new, she was alive. But she had been dragged through the tear. She lay beyond his reach. And they were hurting her.
Ryuu caught her line, unfurling it to view all possible futures, ignoring the sounds of distress coming from Janice. What did they have planned for Ishi?
Along the strongest possible line, he saw them dumping her limp body as a warning in front of his hotel. As best he could tell, this would happen within the next day. She would be alive but would need help. Medical help, psychological help, psychic help. But if present choices remained steady, she would survive.
And her appearance would signal the beginning of the invasion. He watched as parts of the city burst into flame. Other areas collapsed as the ground gave way beneath. The bay surged. Bridges fell and piers crumbled. In the midst of all the destruction greater demons marched with a red-hued Lord at their lead. The loss of life before the tear stabilized would be on a massive scale.
If the timeline didn’t change San Francisco would cease to exist.
The crystal rocked on its wooden base as Janice leaped up and stumbled back toward the door. “What the hell was that?”
“Exactly,” Ryuu muttered, still hau
nted by the images the vision promised. No time left. How could they possibly stop it with no time left?
Janice glared down at him, hands on her hips. But her face was pale, her eyes wide and shocky. “This damn well isn’t funny. I don’t know what you’re playing at but I think it’s sick.”
“I don’t think its funny either,” Ryuu snapped, his patience at an end under the blaze of destruction. He stood, hands clenching the edge of the table, white-knuckled. Didn’t she understand that this was partially her fault? If she’d been where she was supposed to be, here with him, time wouldn’t be an issue. “I’ve been waiting and waiting and now it’s almost too late. If the two of you would just remember, everything would be fine. But no, I’m the only one. It’s not supposed to be this way. It’s never been this way before. I need your help.”
She ignored most of what he said, zeroing in on only his last sentence. “What’s that supposed to mean, you need my help?”
Ryuu’s throat clenched and his pulse raced as panic started to set in, overwhelming his growing despair. The moment of truth had arrived. From here, there would be no going back. He couldn’t lose her but he didn’t have the time to ease her into this. “If you’ll sit down again, I can show you.”
“Oh I don’t think so,” she replied, eyeing the crystal as though it were a viper preparing to strike.
“If you’d just give me a moment to explain.”
“I think it would take more than that.” She started backing out of the room. “I can’t do this. I really can’t.”
With that, she fled. And he could do nothing to stop her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Janice leaned against the inside of her door, staring forward into a freshly cleaned room as her racing heartbeat gradually slowed. Every pillow had been fluffed, every scrap of paper removed or straightened. Nothing in the perfectly ordered room matched the disorder of her mind and emotions. Damn but that conversation ranked seriously high on the weird meter. And it struck an all too familiar chord with the weird dreams she’d been having since arriving in San Francisco. She walked to the bed and pulled off her heels. Her nerves were frazzled, her shoulders and neck tight. If she were home she’d be calling Lisa to go out for drinks or at least for an evening of mindless movies, 80’s comedy style.
Who was she kidding? She’d been jumped in an alley and had a friend kidnapped. Then she’d had that whole séance freak show with Ryuu. What the hell would a drink or movie do for her? They couldn’t even provide a halfway decent distraction. If she managed to get to sleep tonight, it’d be a miracle.
The room was too quiet, trapping her with her thoughts. As peaceful as it was designed to be, the walls closed in. A part of her was afraid of what she might dream this time. So far she’d managed to shove back what had happened to her. But here, alone in an empty room, she couldn’t. All she really wanted to do was sit in the middle of the bed with her knees to her chin, wrap a blanket around herself and try to disappear.
When the phone rang she jumped, heart shooting to her throat. Her hand trembled as she reached for the receiver.
“Hello?” she asked, praying it was Eric and not Ryuu. She didn’t think she could take talking to him yet.
“Janice, are you okay?” Lisa’s concern was evident in her husky voice.
Janice gripped the receiver, the plastic creaking beneath her hold, and resisted the urge to laugh hysterically. “You have no idea how good your timing is.”
There was a pause at the other end, long enough that Janice cursed the fact that she couldn’t read someone long distance. “Actually, I just might. How are you? What’s happening?”
Words and tears spilled from Janice as the dam broke. She explained about her confused feelings toward both Ryuu and Eric. She told Lisa about the earthquake followed by the attack. And finally she told her friend about the wild light show in Ryuu’s office.
“Sounds like you’ve been busy,” her friend teased but her heart didn’t seem to be in it.
Emptiness filled Janice to the breaking point, leaving her totally drained. How could you feel empty and be ready to explode at the same time? She tucked her knees under her chin. “I want to go home, Lisa.”
“You don’t run away from your problems,” Lisa was quick to point out. “It’s one of the things I admire most about you. You stick, no matter what.”
“Yeah. Sucks to be as pigheaded as me.” Janice wished that it wasn’t true. This time she didn’t think she could close herself off like she usually did. That was how she managed to stick, even when it hurt. “I can’t just up and leave. Even though everyone assures me it was nothing, after the quake I’m sure the airport is a mess.”
“Right, like they’re not used to a little shake-up there in quake central. And the fact that you like Ishi and want to know what happened to her has nothing to do with it,” Lisa taunted. Her friend never did let her get away with self-delusion.
“Shut up.” Janice squeezed her eyes tightly shut, pushing back tears through sheer will. She hadn’t fallen apart during the attack or at the freaking police station. She’d be damned if she’d do it now. “So you know me well. No reason to get all braggy. If that’s all you wanted to do you shouldn’t have wasted the long-distance call.”
Lisa remained silent for long enough that Janice wondered if she’d hurt her feelings. It wasn’t like Lisa to take her comments personally. If she’d been that thin-skinned, she’d never have lasted as Janice’s friend for so long.
“Okay,” she said, voice now empty of all attempts at humor. “There are some things that I think I need to tell you, things about Julian, Tim and me.”
This is more like it. Janice straightened her knees, crossing her ankles and cupping the phone between shoulder and ear. She fluffed the pillow behind her head and grinned. “Whoo hoo. Distract me with kinky sex talk. I knew there was a reason I kept you around as my best friend in the whole world. Please continue. Share all you want. Help me forget my problems.”
“I’m being serious here, Janice,” Lisa snapped. “If it weren’t for something Julian Saw tonight I wouldn’t have called at all and I certainly wouldn’t tell you any of this.”
Listening to her friend’s frustration, her grin faded. This wasn’t right. Yeah, Lisa took life more seriously than she did but she was also the one Janice depended on to shake her out of her melancholy moods. “Okay. Got my attention.”
Janice waited for Lisa to continue. It took her so long to speak that Janice wondered if Lisa was still on the line. Finally she said, “First, I need to ask you something. I know you’re very good at reading people. It’s what makes you so valuable in your job, why they keep you around even without a degree. Hell, it’s probably how you knew how to get past my own walls. But how well do you read people, really?”
“What do you mean?” Janice asked, not certain what she was getting at and less certain she wanted to answer.
But Lisa wasn’t going to let it go. “Is it that you’re so good at reading body language or can you sense how they feel and go from there?”
The question stopped Janice cold. No one had ever put that particular bit of information together. She was careful not to let anyone figure that out. Lisa had been her friend for a long time but she’d never considered that Lisa knew her that well. No way did she want to be pegged as a freak of nature but she wondered what her friend was getting at.
“Maybe,” she hedged. “Why?”
Lisa sighed, exasperated. “I was afraid of that. You know, I really wouldn’t wish all of this apocalyptic crap on anyone else, especially not my best friend. But Julian swore he saw you as a member of a Three and that you needed help understanding what was going on. Your guys seem to be screwing the pooch when it comes to explanations. Whoever your Visionary is, you should kick his ass first chance you get for being a complete idiot.”
“Okay, color me confused.”
Lisa ignored the smart-ass comment and continued matter-of-factly, “I’ll give you the basics of wh
at’s going on up there and what probably happened to your new friend. Then Tim can give you a better perspective on where you fit in. But I need you to promise you’ll just listen to me for once. No butting in. No snarky remarks. Just listen.”
Something about Lisa’s speech frightened her, reminding her of the tone in Ryuu’s voice before the crystal ball fiasco. But it kept her attention caught as well. “I’ll try but I can’t swear about the snarky remarks. I’ll try to do it under my breath so you don’t hear.”
“I’m serious here, Janice,” Lisa growled. Janice could picture her shoving her fingers through her short hair and pacing around the room. “As melodramatic as it sounds, it could mean life or death for you and I prefer you alive and sarcastic.”
“All right already.”
“Good.” Again there was a long pause before Lisa spoke, each word carefully measured. “The first thing you need to understand is that hell is real. It isn’t one place but several layers. Dante had that right. Between the real world and hell is a thin barrier. This barrier protects the world and is strengthened by positive emotions. But it’s also weakened by negativity. When negative human emotions such as pain, anger and hatred build up enough in one area, a tear in that barrier can form.”
What the fuck? Janice swallowed to force down the lump in her throat. “Lisa, I’m having some believability issues here. And when did you get all theological?”
“You promised you’d listen to the whole thing,” Lisa reminded then continued without pause. “Throughout history, there have been people with special powers who trained to fight off any creatures that came through the tear.”
“What kind of creatures?” Janice asked despite herself. This story was well-thought out and a little too much like her recent dreams. She never knew Lisa had such a vivid imagination or that she was so close to a complete mental break. Good thing a little eccentricity was in style this season.
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