Veil of Time: A Paranormal-ESP Thriller (The Wizards Series Book 4)

by Jack L Knapp

  Her bubble formed with a bare pop, the slight reddish flash lost in the sun’s glare. A moment later, Libby vanished.

  No one saw it happen.

  #

  Half an hour later, Veronica glanced around. “Sherry, did you see where Libby went?”

  “No ma’am, I was listening to you and mom. Want me to look for her? She’s probably over by the swimsuit section. She said she needed a new suit, now that she’s outgrown the one she had last year.”

  “Would you, Sherry? We’ll wait here.”

  Sherry returned ten minutes later. “She’s not in the swimwear section. I looked in sportswear too but she’s not there. I asked the saleslady and she hasn’t seen her.”

  “Spread out, then. We’ll look through the store. I need to speak to the manager or someone from security.”

  Veronica found a department manager, who notified the store manager who called in the store’s security team. The security manager spotted Libby walking out the open door. The store manager notified mall security, who initiated a search. But they found no trace of Libby.

  A cursory search of the parking lot’s video surveillance spotted a young girl wearing the same color and style clothing that Libby had worn. The video didn’t show the girl’s face. she had headed into the parking lot, alone, then vanished utterly.

  Police were notified and an Amber Alert issued, to no avail. For all the good the searching did, Libby might as well have vanished into thin air.

  Attempts to contact Joe were fruitless. He’d been working out of town and was on a plane to Las Vegas. He had switched off his cell phone during the flight.

  He got Veronica’s text message as soon as he landed. He called her back a few minutes later.

  “What do you mean Libby’s gone?”

  “Joe, we reported it to the mall and they called the police. We saw her on video, walking out the mall entrance. The security people didn’t get a look at her face, but I know that was Libby. She was alone and no one paid her any attention as she walked into the parking lot. We don’t know where she was going. She said nothing to me, Sherry said she didn’t speak to her either. One minute she was there, the next she’d walked away. I swear, when she gets back I’m going to ground her until she’s fifty!”

  “First we’ve got to find her, Veronica. Maybe she left me a message on my home phone. I’ll check as soon as I get there and call you back.”

  Joe called Veronica thirty minutes later. “Libby left a message. My father’s had a heart attack and he’s in a hospital in Reno. She didn’t mention leaving you or where she was going. You need to come home as soon as you find her. I’ll catch a flight to Reno so I can be with Shorty.”

  “But Joe, what if she’s in trouble?”

  “Okay, stay there for a few days in case she shows up. She’s pretty resourceful and she’ll probably find you at the hotel. She knows where the two of you were staying, right?”

  “Right, she’s got one of the two key cards. The name is on the card if she forgets.”

  “All right. Call me when she shows up. I’ll probably stay overnight in Reno. If my dad’s okay, I’ll head for home tomorrow. I don’t think I want to mention this to him, but he’s got friends that seem able to get things done. I’ll give them a call. Maybe they can help find Libby.”

  “You see about your father, but call me as soon as you know something.”

  “I will. You call me as soon as you find Libby.”

  #

  There was no answer.

 

  There was atill no answer, and the sensation he’d felt from her mind had vanished.

 

 

  T waited. Moments later, Shezzie’s comm came through.

 

 

 

 

  T sat, brooding as he waited. Ray walked in ten minutes later and Shezze arrived after half an hour.

  “Libby’s gone. Best guess, she tried to teleport. She was worried about Shorty and insisted on coming back here.”

  “Why didn’t she tell her mother and catch a plane to Reno?”

  “She would have had to explain how she knew that Shorty was sick. I doubt that her father even knows; has anyone called Joe?”

  Ray and Shezzie looked at each other.

  “I haven’t. I’ve been with Shorty the whole time, except for when he was in the cath lab. Maybe the hospital called him? He’s Shorty’s next of kin, and they’d have that information from when he checked in.”

  “Easy enough to find out.”

  T took out his cell phone and punched the numbers.

  “Joe, this is T. I’m a friend of Shorty’s.”

  “I remember, T. Dad’s not here though, he’s in a hospital in Reno.”

  “I know. Your father’s sick, he had a heart attack. Somebody called you?”

  “Libby sent me a message. Is Shorty all right?”

  “He’s going to be. He’s in the hospital, in recovery. We’re here in Reno, and Doctor Schmidt talked to him after the catheterization. The cardiologist thinks he’ll make a complete recovery, but it will take time. He performed an angioplasty and opened up the coronary artery, so Shorty’s doing a lot better. We followed him to the hospital and one of us will stay here until he’s released.”

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can, T. I was going to call you anyway; Libby has disappeared. One minute she was with her mother, then she took off. I wonder if dad listed Libby’s phone number as the person to call?”

  “It’s possible. Maybe that’s what happened, they called her and she messaged you. If we hear anything, Joe, we’ll call.

  #

  Libby found herself standing, still in her bubble, in a scrubby woodland. Collapsing the bubble, she landed and looked around. The fresh smell of the forest was everywhere.

  Most of the trees, none nearly so tall as the ones she’d seen around Houston, were evergreens. She recognized junipers, similar in appearance to the ones she’d seen when she traveled around Nevada with Grandpa Shorty.

  There were none of the smells she associated with people, no woodsmoke, no smell of car exhaust, no food cooking, just the fresh scent of evergreen trees. A gentle breeze sighed, barely noticeable. The ground around her showed no sign of human tracks.

  Alarmed, Libby wondered where she was. This couldn’t be Little Dry Creek; for that matter, it looked like nowhere she’d ever been.

  Well: one way to find out. Libby looked at the sky but saw no airplane contrails. Levitating, she drifted up, floating until she was far above the treetops.

  Chapter Six

  “What do we tell Shorty, T? What do we tell Joe? This is our fault. We should never have melded with a child!”

  “Ray, she already had psionic abilities. We heard her telepathically, it’s how we knew she’d been kidnapped. And she also burned that guy using pyrokinetics.”

  “Yeah, but she couldn’t use the bubble or teleport! She couldn’t even levitate!”

  T was silent for a moment.

  “Ray, quit beating yourself up. If she hadn’t picked up at least rudimentary abilities from Shorty, she’d likely have been killed by that kidnapper. He was holding a gun on her when she fried him.”

  “I know, I know. My head says you’re right, but my gut won’t accept that. What if she ended up inside a mountain or under water? You told me the bubble wouldn’t protect her against that!”

  “It won’t. You can suffocate inside the bubble, I told you that. It’s not perfect. It protects you from some dangers, but it’s not
magic.”

  “T, I’m going to have a hard time living with myself if she killed herself trying something she shouldn’t have.”

  “Ray, I told her repeatedly that there was nothing she could do here. I told her not to try it.”

  “Yeah. It doesn’t help much. T, I’m going after her. She left from Houston, right? I’m going there and see if I can retrace where she might have gone.”

  “All right, I guess we owe her that. You’re right, it’s not going to be easy to explain this to Shorty or Joe.”

  “It’s worse for me, T. I’m the one that worked with her while she got control over her bubble and learned to levitate.”

  “I’ll join you in a few minutes. I’ll talk to Shezzie and see if they’ll let me see Shorty for a few minutes. Don’t worry, I won’t tell him about Libby. I’ll just tell him I haven’t commed her in a while.”

  “You know he’s going to try to comm her himself. He’ll start worrying if he doesn’t hear from her.”

  “I know.”

  #

  Libby found herself tumbling, still in her bubble. She bounced off a scrubby evergreen and collapsed the bubble as soon as she was upright. Breathing hard, she looked around.

  She was surrounded by trees. There was no sign of humans, just the green of the trees and a few smaller bushes. Glancing uphill behind her, she saw a rocky outcrop. Had the bubble kept her from teleporting herself within the rock? The breeze stirred the hairs on her neck, now standing upright from the sudden fright.

  Where was she? This didn’t look like any of the places she’d been. What to do? Should she try to go on, or see where she was? What would her grandpa do? What would T or Ray do if they were in this predicament?

  She remembered that T had tried to tell her not to jump. But still, what else could she have done? Could she sit by and wait while Grandpa Shorty was...no, she couldn’t do that. Not without trying to get home.

  So...what to do? Was there a town just over that next ridge? Maybe a phone book or a newspaper? Maybe a restaurant where she could get lunch?

  She could levitate, she’d practiced that with Ray, and she wouldn’t run into another rock outcrop or a tree if she was up higher. Suiting action to words, Libby drifted up, past the treetop, then higher still. Slowly she rotated, scanning the country around here. No cities, not even any towns. Just woods.

  She had almost finished her third rotation when she spotted movement under some trees. Whatever it was, it appeared to be at least a mile away.

  #

  Ray left the hospital grounds and walked a few blocks west, looking for someplace he wouldn’t be observed. Three blocks later he found a large tree in an area between the sidewalk and a building. The tree was surrounded by bushes, part of a bygone effort to beautify the area. He followed a path through the bushes and looked around.

  The area had been used by others. The ground was littered with the kinds of trash that seems to collect in odd corners in every city. Soft drink cups, ragged remnants of wrappers that once had held fast food, a glint of something that might have been a needle, two used condoms...where had they found room to employ those?

  So: Houston was almost due east from here, more than a thousand miles. There was a lot of traffic between the two points, including aircraft. The bubble would be necessary, and teleporting that far might be dangerous. No, better to break the journey down into manageable parts. Albuquerque had a lot of traffic too, but there was that canyon behind T’s cabin, the one that had been destroyed during the earthquake. The area was familiar, and if he kept to an altitude that would prevent materializing inside a mountain, it should be safe enough.

  The bubble formed with its usual soft pop and faint reddish flash. Ray caught his balance, then looked straight up. The tree’s branches were off to the side, a house covered the other side, so probably no one would see him. And if they did, no one would believe their story anyway.

  Ray arrowed straight up. Below him, the city spread out, most of it to the northwest. The hospital was southeast of where he floated in the air. Far away he saw the glint of wings, airliners following the traffic pattern while waiting for permission to land.

  Rotating, he looked eastward. A little more south, maybe just a bit higher to be sure he cleared the mountains...

 

  Ray thought of how he’d accomplished the short teleport when he’d been with T and Bobby, practicing. The bubble, with Ray inside, vanished.

  T’s attempt to contact Ray came too late.

  #

  Libby drifted above the treetops, watching for that distant movement. She had not formed her bubble; she had no need of it, not here. There was nothing around but air, and no witness except for a solitary raven flying just above the trees.

  Moments later, she saw a child, apparently a girl. She wore a knee-length dress, brownish in color and with fringe at the bottom instead of a hem. Could this be the family of the old silversmith who came to Max’s store in Little Dry Creek? The child had the same dark skin. Had Libby reached the mountains near the small settlement?

  She eased silently to the ground, then walked toward where she’d seen the girl. The child had been doing something, some sort of play or work, just beyond a grove of piñon trees. Libby threaded her way between brush, avoiding the low-hanging limbs.

  The child had vanished. She should have been here; was this not the tree Libby had been watching? Perplexed, she looked around. Glancing down, she saw that the ground had been disturbed. Perhaps the child’s mother was somewhere about? Libby walked past the tree.

  Four women slipped into view. They were dressed in buckskins similar to what the child had worn, simple dresses that extended below their knees. Three of the women held baskets, wide flat affairs. The fourth woman held a spear. The black, shiny tip glittered in the sun.

  A small head peeked from behind one of the women. Was this the same child, or another one? The spear looked menacing.

  “Can you help me? How much further is Reno? I don’t want to disturb you, I’m just going to visit my grandfather. If you can tell me how far Reno is, I’ll be on my way.”

  The woman with a child looked at Libby, clearly puzzled.

  “Do you speak English? I only want directions to Reno. Please, can you help me?”

  The woman holding the spear turned slightly and called. Her voice was not loud, but the words were strange. Libby had never heard anything like them.

  Three other women walked around a tree, all carrying baskets similar to what the other women had. Two small children walked behind them. One woman wore what appeared to be a backpack. Libby looked closely at it; a small brown face looked placidly out at the forest. The baby was wrapped in buckskin, similar to what the others wore. The woman carrying the infant looked at Libby, open mouthed, then pointed at her.

  Libby looked down. What was so astonishing about how she was dressed? T shirt advertising the Houston Texans, blue jeans, sneakers; compared to some, Libby was formally dressed! But the woman might never have seen jeans or sneakers, to judge by her expression!

  A woman stepped forward from the rest. “I have some English. I do not know you. Have you come from California?”

  “No, I came from...” Libby paused, thinking. There was no way she could explain how she’d gotten here. But if this was part of the old silversmith’s family or tribe, maybe she could convince them she’d come from LDC.

  “I am from Little Dry Creek. I think I have met your father or grandfather. He makes articles of silver, right?”

  The woman looked puzzled. “My father is Captain Winnemucca and he is the first among equals. He does not work with metal. My grandfather is Captain Truckee, chief of our people. He knows many people like you. He calls them his white brothers. Perhaps you speak of my grandfather, but he does not make things of silver.

  “I am Elma. I do not know this Reno you speak of. What is the little dry creek? There are many dry creeks and some are not large.”r />
  “Is there someone who can tell me where Reno is? Or perhaps Las Vegas? Surely you know of Las Vegas? My father lives there.”

  “I do not know this place. It may be that Thoc-me-tony knows. She has spoken to many of the white brothers. She speaks the English and also the Spanish. Would you make talk with Thoc-me-tony?”

  “If she can help, yes. Which one of you is...”

  The woman shook her head. “She is not here. She has been sick from a long journey, but she will soon be well. We must go to my family’s village to find her. It is not far.”

  “Well, if you think she can help, I’ll go. Do you think I can get something to eat there, a coke and a burger maybe?”

  The woman looked back at her. “Even for a white, you do not speak English well. I know not of those things. But come, you shall speak with my sister. We call her Thoc-me-tony, but she has taken the name of a woman who befriended us. Whites call her Sarah Winnemucca.”

  The woman led off downhill, following a faint track worn into the grassy earth. Libby fell in behind her, and the other women followed. Two children slipped closer and looked at her in unabashed curiosity. Really, you’d think they had never seen a white girl before!

  Perhaps T or Ray could help. Libby concentrated, letting her mind roam, waiting for the familiar tingle of contact.

  But no one answered her call.

  #

  Ray popped into existence well above the mountains. He was too far up; the air was thin and cold. Ray accelerated his bubble toward the ground. Moments later he found himself hovering perhaps a mile away from a camp that sprawled beside a small river. Two roughly-dressed men walked down the center of the dirt street, heading away from what appeared to be a saloon. A solitary animal, a burro or possibly a small horse, switched at flies where it stood hipshot, tied to a rail outside the saloon.

  Not Albuquerque, then; where were the cars, the people? Ray neared the ground, his bubble floating behind a rude building that might be a barn. He collapsed the bubble and walked around the barn, heading for where he’d seen the two men. The burro paid him no mind as he passed, concentrating on the flies that hovered around his rear.