Buried Memory (Harbinger P.I. Book 2)

by Adam J. Wright

  “In the morning, I’ll be somewhere else, Alec. I can’t stay here.”

  “But you don’t have any leads.”

  “Something will turn up.”

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving. I thought you were going to stay around for a while.”

  “So did I. But things between us were getting too intimate, Alec. It was going to swing one way or the other and I was happy enough to stick around and see which way it played out. But I can’t do that now. What if we decide we want to be together? I only have a year left. I can’t ask you to love me, knowing that I’ll be leaving you so soon.”

  “We can make it work,” I said.

  She shook her head. “No, I have to find Mister Scary. I’m sorry, Alec, but I have to go. I’ll get my things.”

  She went upstairs and I heard her gathering her things from the bedroom and bathroom. When she came down, she had a sports bag slung over one shoulder. In her hand was the enchanted dagger I’d given her, the one she’d plunged into the heart of the sorceress. “I guess I should give you this back.” She held out the glowing dagger.

  “No, you keep it. You might need it,” I said.

  “Okay, thanks.” She sheathed the dagger and said, “I’ll give it back to you someday.”

  I didn’t like the tone of finality in her voice. “You know you can call me anytime,” I said.

  “I know, and maybe I will. Maybe I’ll need help kicking some paranormal butt. Anyway, you call me when you find a cure for this curse, okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I’ll do that.” We both knew this was nothing more than bravado. Ancient Egyptian curses cast by powerful sorcerers weren’t exactly reversible. But we went through the motions anyway. It was going to make this goodbye much easier.

  She went to the front door and opened it. “Wow, looks like a storm.” The rain hissed down over the street, the Land Rover, and Mallory’s Jeep. She turned to me and kissed me briefly on the lips. “Goodbye, Alec.” She turned and ran through the downpour to her orange Jeep and got in quickly, starting the engine as soon as she was inside. Her headlights illuminated the falling raindrops.

  I walked out onto the driveway, ignoring the cold rain that pelted down on me. It soaked through my clothing and chilled my skin as I walked to the end of the driveway and then onto the sidewalk in front of the house, watching the tail lights of Mallory’s Jeep as it disappeared down the street. She made a left turn toward town, and then she was gone.

  Turning back toward my driveway, I felt a sudden weakness in my body, as if I’d been drained of all my energy. I’d only felt this weak once before in my life, when I was bed-bound with glandular fever as a child. But even then, the feeling of weakness hadn’t come on so suddenly.

  I reached out for the Land Rover to support myself but I missed it and stumbled away onto the front lawn. My legs gave way and I collapsed to the cold, wet grass. I couldn’t move. Even breathing seemed like an effort. I lay looking at the square of light beyond my open front door, knowing that although it was only a few feet away, it might as well be a thousand miles.

  Whatever it was that I’d done to DuMont earlier in the cemetery, I was now paying the price for it.

  All I could do was lie here and wait until my strength returned.

  The smell of the rain on the grass brought back a memory, a memory that had been locked behind the magical door but was now clicking into place in the fragmented part of my mind. I remembered that when I was young, maybe nine-years-old, I’d been attacked by Tommy Lyle, a bully at my school in Oregon. Tommy had been much older than me and for some reason had taken a strong dislike to me. While I was walking home from school one rainy afternoon, Tommy and a group of his friends had come out of the Seven Eleven and seen me walking next to the railroad tracks that led in the direction of home.

  The group of boys, and two girls, had intercepted me by the tracks and Tommy had started pushing me around. Even at the age of nine, I’d instinctively known that if I gave in to Tommy now, and let him beat me without a fight, I’d never be free of him. He would always see me as an easy target. So, I’d fought back. Tommy and I had exchanged punches in the rain by the tracks and at one point, the much-larger boy had knocked me down. I’d landed face down in the wet grass and the anger I’d felt at these bullies grew into a ball of fury that couldn’t control.

  I remembered getting back up, tears of rage burning my eyes. I remembered Tommy and his friends laughing at me. I remembered bright blue energy that crackled from my hands. Timmy’s eyes went wide when I hurled the energy at him. The force of the blast threw him across the railroad tracks, where his friends ran over to him and helped him to his feet before running away. Tommy was dazed and his friends looked frightened. As they fled, they shouted back words like, “Freak!” and “Weirdo!”

  Then my memory moved forward to the cave and the witches and the chalk circle, the time when the magical door was being put in my mind. And I knew who the figure in the shadows, the figure watching the proceedings, was. Just before I fell into the enchanted sleep the witches put on me, I looked across the cave and for a moment, the flickering light reached the features of the man standing in the shadows. It was my father.

  The memory played itself out as I lay on the lawn and then receded as I returned to the present. I felt so cold and magically drained that if I didn’t get inside soon, I was going to perish out here. Wouldn’t that be ironic? Alec Harbinger, preternatural investigator, dies on his own front lawn in the rain.

  I heard a car coming up the street. Maybe it was one of the neighbors, or maybe even Mallory returning. Whoever it was, I had to do something to attract their attention. But I still couldn’t move and the car stopped before it reached me. I heard the engine idling. Then a car door opened and closed and the vehicle turned around and headed back the way it had come.

  I could hear high heels picking rapidly on the driveway next door, then a worried voice. “Alec?” The heels came across the lawn toward me and then I felt a pair of warm arms around my neck.

  I managed to turn my head and look up to see a familiar face. Her dark eyes were hidden by the rain on her glasses, but even in my current state, I recognized her instantly.

  “Felicity.”

  She tried to help me to my feet but I was still too weak to move.

  “Felicity,” I said again. My mouth seemed to be the only part of me that was working.

  “At least you know who I am,” she said, an edge of concern in her voice.

  I managed to get to my knees with her help. We stumbled together across the wet grass toward the open front door and the light and warmth beyond.

  Of course I knew who Felicity was.

  But with all the memories flooding back to me, memories of some kind of magical power that had been inside me all of my life, I wasn’t sure I knew who I was anymore.

  Afterword

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