by Quinn, Fiona
Today, had been too much for me. Thinking about my team and how frantic they must be to get me back. Homesickness thrummed in my veins. Right now I needed to sleep, but tonight I would try to use the Veil to visit home…if I could at all manage it.
Thirty-Seven
Eight o’clock, the church bells clanged from south of the prison. The sunset painted the sky fire-opal, and a flock of birds chirruped to each other as they flew toward the tree line to roost for the night. It must be ten o’clock in Washington. I worked on reasoning out a strategy for my attempted Veil walk – the best route to successfully make contact with my team.
In my imagination, they had someone in place at my house in case anything interesting happened in my neighborhood. If positions were reversed and I had drawn up the plans, I’d have chosen Gater for the assignment. Striker would want to be at Command, and Gater had already established a presence in my neighborhood – the neighbors all knew him; he’d cared for their children. Yes, they’d feel most comfortable going to Gater if they had anything at all to share. I tapped thoughtful fingers on the sleeping shelf where I sat cross-legged in my holey jeans and bare feet. Yup, Gater would make the most sense – the person I’d probably find at my house. I’d bet I could find him at my kitchen table.
I lay down on my cot and breathed deeply, conjuring a picture of Gater. Focusing hard, I willed myself to go behind the Veil. There. . .Oh, I felt the pull…it was easier than I expected. Strangely simple. Unnerving. I was actually frightened by how effortlessly my consciousness separated from my body, how tenuous my hold was to this plane.
Gater and I sat at my kitchen table, chewing pizza. I could taste the hot cheese and grease. Oh yum. Flavor. Texture. We swigged a bottle of beer. The yeasty liquid bubbled, cold and relaxing, down his throat.
Gater hung warm, familiar, and huge on my small frame as I wore him like my father’s winter coat when I ran downstairs for the mail as a child. Gater also weighed heavily in spirit. It was hard to support him in my weakened state. He was deep down-tired, as if he had gone for a long time with endless days and nights. Unbearable guilt consumed him.
A phone vibrated against his hip. “Gater here.”
I heard a sugar-sweet wheedling voice. “Hey, baby, where are you?” Must be Amy.
“Lexi’s house.” Our answer was monotone, numb.
“Any word?”
“Yeah.” Gater cleared his throat.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “What’s happening?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Not good?”
“Classified.” They must have gotten the video already.
“Oh. Okay. Do you want me to come over and take your mind off her for a little while?” She purred her invitation. Sex? Was she offering to come over and screw around with Gater? What? That was a scenario I had never envisaged. Imagine going behind the Veil to find…Oh. No, no, no. Say no, Gater; I can’t be around for that.
“Amy, look. I’m just…I’m not gonna be able to do this right now, I’m sorry.”
“Do what, Gater?” Her voice hitched. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I gotta hang up. I’ll call you when things get better.”
As he was talking, Beetle and Bella had trotted in to the room and stared hard at us – unnerving Gater. Beetle whined and sniffed the air, and Bella followed. I knew they could sense me, but they couldn’t see me or smell me. Poor girls. But they gave me an idea.
Using the same mind techniques I’d practiced with the guard dogs, I commanded Bella to go into the living room and get the picture of me and Angel that sat on my side table. She brought it back and laid it in Gater’s lap, and then sat and whined again, stomping her paw emphatically.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m here. I’m here.”
Gater froze. We focused first on the dogs and then on the photo. He held his breath. Muscles taut. Nerves strained. He moved only his eyes as we looked slowly around.
“I’m here, Gater. I’m here.”
Gater stilled his search. Not even blinking. His scalp prickled. His heart raced, making his blood drum in his ears. He pulled out his phone and pressed two on his speed dial for Striker.
“Hey, man, get over here. Now,” he said, pressing end before Striker responded.
The dogs whined and tapped at the floor insistently, jacking up Gater’s tension.
“You feel her, too, don’t you? She’s here, ain’t she? This is damned creepy.”
Gater and I breathed and waited.
Striker must have broken the speed of sound getting to my house; that, or he was already close by. It wasn’t long until we heard a knock at the front door, the key in the lock, and heavy foot-steps moving toward the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” Striker asked, walking in on the strange scene.
Gater turned his head and…Striker. Oh. He was so beautiful. I wanted to fling myself into his arms. Feel him against me.
“Striker, man, she’s here. She’s here in the room with us.”
“Lexi?” Striker looked wildly around at nothing.
“Yeah.” We swallowed; Gater’s spit caught on the lump in his throat.
“Can you tell me how you know?” Striker stood in the middle of my kitchen hands on hips, legs wide, eyes narrowed, looking too big for such a small space.
“Well, I sat here on the phone, when Beetle and Bella started looking at me that there way.” We pointed a finger at the girls. “Bella, she run out of the room, and brought me this here photo and slipped it in my lap, and now they’re crying.”
“And you think she’s made contact with you?”
“I thought I heard her. Well, no. I didn’t hear her. You know how she says ‘I had a knowing?’ If I could describe it, that there’s the way I’d say it. I have a knowing that she’s here.” Sparks of anticipation lit Gater’s nerves.
“Okay, okay, let’s think this through for a minute. If she is here, and she walked behind the Veil, then she gets snatches of information and puts them together, she said it’s like tiles on a mosaic. She reads the thoughts and sensations of the person she’s connected to… Have you ever heard her say anything about passing information to someone from her side?”
Gater shook his head and worked his jaw.
“We have to communicate with her. I don’t know how she gets information best, so let’s try some different ways.” Striker pinched at his lower lip – a sure sign that his mind was working on over-drive. “We need Laugherty,” he announced.
Striker got on his phone and told someone to bring Miriam Laugherty to my house now. He didn’t care if she needed to be hogtied and brought in at gunpoint.
Striker looked right into Gater’s eyes. He embodied everything that was good and right in this world… in my world.
Gater said out loud, “Lynx, we’re looking for you. Your phone pinged from southern Florida. A contact down there says word is you were taken out of the country by a drug mule. Can you tell us anything about how or where they took you?”
I breathed in and asked for help sending information to Gater. I pictured an airplane, and as I spoke the word, I willed Gater to understand. But he didn’t. He got nothing but a stress headache. Then Striker repeated Gater’s words. Then Gater said them in his head – all right, he screamed them in his head. Yow!
They got nothing from me.
Striker looked directly into Gater’s eyes and spoke clearly. “Lexi, Iniquus has told us that finding you is a priority. We have every resource to find you, and we’re using them, believe me. Gater said that you had pulled out some of the files from Spyder’s storage area – that you had made a link to one of the men in Sylanos’s network. We can’t find that file, so we don’t know what connection you made.” Striker scrubbed an exasperated hand over his face. “We don’t have any way to contact Spyder. He was taken off-grid by our client. They’re refusing to let us contact him or show us the Sylanos information. Only you and Spyder know what’s going on with this Marcos S
ylanos guy.” Striker squatted in front of Gater and looked deeply into our eyes. “And, Lexi, I don’t think this has anything to do with Sylanos. Two weeks before your kidnapping, he was shot and killed accidentally by one of his men.” Striker cleared his throat and shifted to a chair. I could tell this was awkward for him – like he was acting in a play… or I was playing with his paradigms.
“We got a video of you today.” Striker stopped. Violent emotions stormed behind his eyes. God, this was painful to watch – for Gater and for me.
“You looked like you’re holding up as best you can,” he finally said, his voice was raw. “There was little we could get from it…just you in an empty room with a newspaper. A Mexican paper. If they’re smart — and they have been acting smart up until now — then they brought in the paper to throw off our search. My guess is you’re not in Mexico.” Striker stopped and gave me time to try to convey…something.
I tried. I tried to say it, to picture it, to visualize a traffic signal with red and green lights…
Gater felt me struggle to communicate. He was overrun with the feeling of powerlessness – flashes of the time I was tortured as Anyushka crossed his memory. Guilt for not being able to help me then, guilt for not stopping the kidnapping, guilt for not helping me now, guilt upon guilt until he could hardly stand it – he dammed his emotions behind a stoic face. Jeezus. I’m so sorry to do this to you, Gater.
“I’ll wait for Miriam to get here to ask you questions,” Striker said. “Your pups are doing fine. They miss you – we all do. We need you to stay strong.” He paused, then whispered, “I need you to stay strong.”
Striker told me random things about my neighbors and work – the kinds of things people would ask about if they had been away for a long time. It was nice to hear him talking to me. To see him through Gater’s eyes. He was balm for my heart.
Blaze burst through the backdoor, propelling Miriam forward with a tight grip on her arm. Miriam – dressed in her pajamas and tennis shoes – didn’t look happy.
“What in heaven’s name is going on?” Miriam demanded.
“Ms. Laugherty, I’m so sorry to meet you this way, but this is an unusual set of circumstances. I’m about to brief you on highly classified information. I need your professional word that this is all to remain in your confidence.”
“And this pertains to?” Miriam had her arms crossed tightly over her chest and tapped a ticked-off foot on the ceramic tile.
“Lexi Rueben Sobado,” Striker replied.
“Lexi?” Miriam stopped and looked around. “She’s here in the ether now, isn’t she?”
“We believe so, yes, ma’am,” Striker said.
Miriam’s face tensed, pulling her nostrils wide. “That girl’s in bad trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Striker said. He took a few minutes to lay out what had happened to me to the best of his ability. Then, Gater told her how he came to be aware of my presence.
Miriam looked right into Gater’s eyes and said, “Lexi-girl, it’s up to you. You’re going to have to try out different ways and try on different people. Start with me.” Then she sat down and waited.
I pulled away from Gater’s body.
“She’s left me,” Gater said. Beetle and Bella went over and stared at Miriam. Miriam had opened herself to me; I slid easily into her skin. I tried again to send messages. I begged for her to help me. She sat there with her eyes closed and her palms open.
Finally, she said out loud, “Lexi, I feel you tickling at the edges of my consciousness. Your dogs seem to think you’re here with me now. Like I said, I can sense you, but I can’t read you. I think you should go back into your body before you wear yourself out. I’ll do a remote recovery from my end. Here’s the plan, if you can travel at this time, we’ll be back in this kitchen tomorrow night.”
I dejectedly slipped back into my body – that had laid empty on the wooden shelf in my Honduran prison cell – and fell immediately into an exhausted sleep.
Thirty-Eight
Outside, the night shifted to dawn. I dreamed of an African fire circle. I sat in front of Grandmother Sybil as she braided my hair, humming a comforting tune.
“Grandmother, I’m trying so hard. I want to go home. I want to be with Striker. I miss him.” I whined.
“You are becoming a good hunter – following the right tracks. You must continue this path. Do you remember when you helped the young girl and her baby?” There was a rustle in the bush nearby – a form crouched. I thought I caught the glitter of leopard eyes watching me.
“Do you see that, child?” Grandmother whispered under her breath.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Remember that while you hunt, you too are being hunted. Be wise. Be careful.”
How could this get much worse? I wondered, almost thankful for the depression that muffled and muted my anxiety.
Grandmother must have heard my thoughts. “No! You will not fall prey to your emotions. You are a fighter! A warrior! Now focus. What did you discover? What gift were you given?”
“That’s a good question,” I thought as I woke up. What was the gift? I gave up my regular rituals for the day, except for sending Reiki to Grandma Oatmeal and Elicia. Instead, I sat on my shelf with my tweezers and plucked the hairs off my legs. What did I learn? I went over the Brennon/Anyushka case again, and again, trying to focus on the finer points, trying to sift through the various details searching for unintended consequences. I was surprised when Drunk showed up to take me to exercise. I had lost track of time as I often did when I puzzled a case.
A storm blew green and purple to the east, swelling as it moved in. The dogs fretted nervously. As thunder shook the sky, they lunged, barking and snarling at some of the prisoners. The guards laughed. I imagined these men would think it a great sport if the dogs pulled away from them and attacked. I decided to test my relationship with the dogs that I’d diligently built day after day.
“Calm. Leave it,” I commanded in my mind. The dogs swung their heads to look at me and paced at their handlers feet, dropping their heads and panting. The handlers tried to rile them back up to no avail – even with another crash of thunder. I pushed harder. “Sit,” I thought. They sat. I turned to hide my grin, thrilled. In my mind, I praised the dogs and rewarded them with soothing energy.
Suddenly, the rain hit with such velocity that each drop stung and bruised. We prisoners stood exposed in the yard, pummeled by the onslaught while the guards relaxed under an overhang, smoking. My sopping wet clothes offered no protection; I crossed my arms over my head and screwed my eyes tightly closed. The men laughed at our misery. As the church bells chimed three o’clock, Drunk hailed me to the door. As I ran to reach him, the mud sucked at my shoes and splattering my jeans.
Up in my cell, the floor had flooded from the rain pouring through my open window. The wind wolf-howled. Stripping myself naked, I hung my clothes on the sink and dried myself on one of my sheets. Chilled to the bone, I wrapped myself, shivering violently, in the scratchy wool blanket and balled up on the far end of the shelf where the rain couldn’t reach me.
When dinner came, I didn’t budge.
Elicia looked in the window. “Saint Blanca, come and eat,” she called to me. I looked at her with feverish eyes and dropped my throbbing head back on the pillow.
“Saint Blanca, you must eat. You will not get better if you do not eat.”
I didn’t respond. My head clanged, my sore muscles felt like I had been beaten violently, fever diffused off my skin, making me broil and shiver. Elicia sighed and left. Left without the healing energy that I offered her each day, to walk back home through this horrible storm. And what would she find there for all of her work and compassion? An empty cupboard, an ailing mother, and a dying son. Life sucked.
Several days passed before my head stopped pounding. I had a deep bronchial cough, and I saved all of my healing work for myself. It was Sunday. I only knew that by the church bells calling the believers to prayer. I washed mys
elf as best I could with cold water and my ever dwindling soap. I dressed in my clothes and accepted the gray glue from Grandma Oatmeal.
My pants were enormous on me. I had to hold them up to walk. Elicia tried to give me huge amounts of rice and beans, but I was having trouble forcing any food past my lips. I was deeply depressed. I knew I needed to fight this; but my depression was sapping my energy and will.
I thought about Master Wang and his wife, Snow Bird. I always thought that Snow Bird’s mom must have sensed her baby’s spirit, before she was even born, in order to have bestowed such a perfect name on her daughter. Snow Bird Wang had been small and delicate. She had a vulnerability about her that reminded me of an unsheltered bird in a winter’s storm, perched on an icicle-laden branch, feathers puffed out to insulate against the assault. The little I knew about the Wangs’ story – what they were willing to share – made me wonder how such a vulnerable creature could possibly have survived the storms of her life. One thing I did know was that when Master Wang was by her side, Snow Bird was at peace.
Peace…I decided to go and spend the day with Striker. I needed a little peace. I would leave my body and just be with him. It might exhaust me, but it might just be the best medicine.
I found Striker in his office. It was lunch time, and Gater came in with a tray of sandwiches. He had my girls with him. They plopped down at the men’s feet and closed their eyes. The sandwiches were delicious – roasted vegetables and grilled chicken with melted cheese. The act of biting into something that needed to be chewed… So many tastes on Striker’s tongue. . . Oh, so good. He swallowed way too soon, I wanted the experience to last. Instead, he put the sandwich aside and gulped from his mug. Striker drank his coffee black – which I detested.
Gater stared at Striker and me.
Disconcerted, Striker shot Gater a warning glance. “What the hell, Gater? Cut it out.”
“Yes, sir,” Gater replied. He kept staring.
“Stop!” Striker barked. Wow. His nerves were wound tight. I didn’t like this – Peace? What was I thinking? Striker was antithetical to peace.
