AIR Series Box Set

by Amanda Booloodian

  Ethan didn't look convinced.

  Looking around, I tried to grasp a hold of a new subject and seeing the plastic bag in his hands, I figured the safest thing to discuss was the case. "Are there already pictures of this in the file?"

  "It seems odd for so much focus to be on a thing this small." Ethan held up the bag to look through the plastic. "They haven't added pictures to the file yet, though. Do you want to take another look?"

  I took the bag by the seal, but it was difficult to feign more interest when I couldn't pull up the Path.

  Ethan cleared his throat. "Will I see you around the station?"

  "It's hard to say for sure, but I doubt it. Someone else might come back to look this over." I indicated the necklace by rattling the bag around. "But unless something new turns up, we'll be out of your hair."

  "Do you want me to stop by tonight?" Ethan asked.

  I hadn't been expecting the question, and after Zander, I was thrown off guard. "I'm pretty sure, after the day ahead, I'll be horrible company."

  Ethan looked skeptical and I was at a loss on how to make the conversation go any better. Gripping the bag in both hands, I could feel the sharp lines of the contents dig into my hand.

  The florescent lights buzzed and one popped out. A charge of energy leaped from the necklace and I went rigid while it wrapped itself around me.

  Dense emotion circled through me. Trying to get rid of it was like trying to move smoke.

  Ethan looked down. "Tonight probably is bad timing. Sorry about that."

  "No." Splitting my concentration wasn't working. "I mean yes. Tomorrow night?"

  Ethan agreed but looked apprehensive.

  The intensity of the sensation died down. A long thread of living Path stretched and then coiled into me until I felt it condense and settle into my core.

  "Sorry, it's been a long day. I need to go." Shaking, I turned and walked away.

  "Cassie?" Ethan called.

  Inside my mind, I wasn't alone. There was a strong feeling of myself, but someone else had joined the fun.

  "Yes?" Trying to keep my features impassive, I turned back to him.

  "The necklace?"

  Should I hand it back? The foreign entity flexed. Breathing became difficult and I broke out into a cold sweat.

  "Ready to go?" Logan asked.

  I jumped and turned to his voice. Ethan was a civilian, at least when it came to the Lost and the weirdness we faced day to day.

  "Cassie?" Logan reached out to me, concern written across his face, but I stepped away. With my back to Ethan, and as low as I could manage, I whispered to Logan. "Something jumped out of the necklace."

  Logan's features locked and he glanced at Ethan. "Is it empty now?"

  Gripping the necklace hard in my hand, I tried to sense anything else. "I think it's empty. Did you touch it through the bag?"

  "Several times," Logan said.

  "Nothing odd?" I asked.

  "Nothing." Logan reached out and took the bag. He cupped the necklace in his hand and squeezed it.

  The conversation was too much of a distraction. Like a virus, I felt the intruder settle further. It was power and energy, but that was a thin veil that attempted to mask rage.

  Internally, there was a struggle, as I tried anything I could to dislodge the new energy, but I was at a loss as to what to do.

  Logan spoke to Ethan, but I didn't let myself be distracted.

  The newness of the invading force began to fade as it became more established. I tried to rein my own power in and separate myself from the other. The new flow of energy slowed, allowing me to gain some ground.

  Rider was next to me. I'm pretty sure he was talking, but I was concentrating too hard on my struggle.

  "I have to get out of here." It's all I could manage.

  I'm not sure what type of excuses Logan and Rider used, but we were out the door quickly. Rider opened the door to the truck to let me in, but I stalled as the film of energy masking the presence inside me shivered.

  "Back," I said.

  "You want to go back into the station?" Rider asked.

  Logan was already in the driver's seat, starting the vehicle.

  I gritted my teeth. "Back of the truck."

  Why doesn't he listen to me, and why am I letting it bother me so much? Rider's slowness and lack of understanding led to aggravation, and the veil between the infestation and me slipped and rage spilled through. Closing my eyes, I tried to meditate, to put things back under my own control. The new power had found a crack, and it worked to pry that crack open.

  I couldn't do this. Why couldn't I do this?

  With the power of the Path, maybe I could burn this away. When I let my mind stretch, it ran straight into the alien energy. I staggered and someone grabbed my arm. Retaliation was the first thought that came to mind, but I stamped it down. My friends were here, and they could manage any threat. We were also in public, outside a police station. This was going bad fast.

  "Logan?" I didn't want to lose control, but it was happening. "Logan. Tranq me. Lock me down. It's about to get through."

  The internal frenzy searched for a target. Thoughts of Zander loomed up and my foothold loosened. Fury mounted, and it felt good. I could completely abandon reason and let go. The anger and rage could take over. The thought left me giddy, and I felt myself lose more ground. Leaning against the truck, I closed my eyes and tried to steady myself.

  "Logan?" I'm not sure if the words came out or if they stuck in my throat, shielded by the wrath. The last salvages of myself slipped away, and I was alone in the darkness.

  Like a fever dream, shadows, shapes, and colors formed in the emptiness, only to fall away again.

  ***

  When I woke up, it was to see a dimly lit room, and I was strapped down on a hospital bed. Exhilaration and thrill of reckless abandonment were evaporating, leaving a numb fatigue in its wake. I wanted to grab hold of that stimulation and explore it, keep it wrapped around me. The idea felt wrong and fragile, so I contemplated the reaction while staring at the ceiling. As the sensations ebbed away, memories of the police station trickled into my thoughts.

  That power that jumped into me. What had it done?

  More importantly, what had I done to my partners?

  I licked my lips and kept my voice low, afraid of any response. "Logan? Rider?"

  Doctor Yelton came into view. "They're downstairs." He shined a tiny bright light into my eyes.

  I tried to cover my face, but again registered that I was strapped down. Last remnants of temper tried to spring forward, but it was swiftly swept aside by my own stability returning. Doctor Yelton took a step back but kept the light swinging back and forth in front of my eyes.

  "They'll be staying downstairs until I'm sure you're stable."

  "I'm feeling okay. A little tired maybe."

  Doctor Yelton flipped off his light. "That's why your pupils turned into giant saucers. Because you're doing so well."

  "I didn't know doctors were allowed sarcasm."

  "Your friends have been harassing me."

  "If you let them come up, they would stop harassing you."

  He took a deep breath, getting ready to say something, and then the air rushed back out. I grinned at him.

  "They were worse than useless," he said. "They can't restrain someone and treat them like glass at the same time."

  I narrowed my eyes. The doctor raised an eyebrow at me until I dropped the glare and settled my features.

  "I'm not glass." I wanted to add that I hated to be treated like glass, but the doctor was treating me like any other patient.

  "I'm going to run a few more tests. If all goes well, Rider and Logan can join us."

  He checked my pulse, blood pressure, drew blood, stared at my eyes, ears, nose, and throat.

  "You're stupid and you suck at your job," he said.

  "What the hell?" I yelled. That came out of nowhere. "Look, I'm not sure what happened, but you need to—"

>   "Good response," he said, shining the light in my face.

  "What?" I said.

  "Normal response to negativity. Maybe a little more aggressive than I would expect from you, but not bad. Sorry, it was another test."

  My glower returned, but he finished his tests and looked at me expectantly. "If you keep glaring, I'm going to keep on the restraints."

  Sighing, I tried to put on a calm face. "What happened?"

  He leaned over and released my arms. "You and your partners will have to work that out. I treated you for incoherent mania, but you appear lucid now. We need to take care of your wrists."

  Large purple bruises covered my arms. Treated like glass?

  The doctor wrapped some sort of cool gel cast around each arm. They were ridged, but only a few centimeters thick.

  "We took x-rays, and there are no breaks. These will help with inflammation. You seem to be bouncing back pretty well."

  I swung my legs off the bed and sat up.

  "But," Dr. Yelton put up his hand, halting me, "you're staying here tonight. For further observation."

  "I'll be—"

  "Fine? I know it will be. You'll be here, under my care until I say you can go. I couldn't forgive myself if I sent you home and let you accidentally hurt your grandmother."

  That shut me up. The doctor knew exactly which buttons to press. I swung my legs back onto the bed, but messed with the controls, so I was sitting up.

  "Wish I’d learned that trick last year," he muttered and walked away.

  "Logan and Rider?" I called to him.

  "Calling them."

  "My tablet?"

  "Later."

  While I waited for Logan and Rider, I inspected the plethora of bruises. My arms had quite a few, along with my midriff. I could feel others on my legs, but I wasn't going to slide out of my jeans to check. That could wait ‘til later.

  More worrying now was the feeling inside. Is it possible to have vertigo of the mind? It was like there was a residue of the experience lingering and twisting up small parts of my thoughts. My worry began to evaporate as the feeling began to fade.

  I was more myself when Logan and Rider entered the room. They were hesitant and purposefully making slow movements. The doctor stood by, watching for reactions.

  I blew out a breath. "Can you fill me in on what I missed?"

  Rider and Logan both relaxed.

  "I'm not rightly sure," Logan said.

  Rider came over and lifted my arm, twisting it around, inspecting the cast. A soft noise escaped him, like a sniff. Was he smelling me again? I thought we were over the whole smelling me stage.

  "I'll be down the hall if anyone needs me," Dr. Yelton said.

  Logan thanked the doctor and turned to me. "Why don't you tell us what you remember?"

  I couldn't tell if he was trying to 'handle' me. If he put on kid gloves, we'd have a problem.

  Casting my mind back to the station I tried to pick out what happened. "It was the necklace. Did we take it with us?"

  "It's on the way to a lab now," Logan said, "but we're keeping in touch with Ethan, and we'll have Clancy take a look once we get hold of it."

  "Ed wasn't too far off base," I said. "When I looked at the pendant, I saw that glimmer in the Path, but then it disappeared so I couldn't pinpoint what it was. Stupid mistake."

  "It is not your fault," Rider said.

  "You're not telling me it was possessed?" Logan asked.

  "Not exactly. What came out, I've felt something similar before. It's like one of the Lost." I struggled to put words to the idea. "It's like a part of one of the Lost, their power or essence. It was trapped in the necklace. When I touched it, what was there leaped out."

  "What kind of Lost?" Logan asked.

  "It was, or at least I think it was a minotaur. It was the rage of a full blood minotaur."

  "I am not sure I understand," Rider said.

  "I think I do," Logan said.

  I waited for him to continue without really wanting him to go on.

  Logan watched me closely. "It sounds like someone ripped out the soul of a minotaur and crammed it into a necklace."

  Closing my eyes, I rubbed my forehead. I knew what Logan was thinking. We've known someone who could pull out souls and release them. Vincent. Our absent partner.

  "I'm not sure it's quite the same thing." I lay on the bed, watching the two men for reactions. "It wasn't like a full soul was trapped inside. It was a small portion of power."

  "This does not sound good," Rider said.

  "You mean a piece," Logan pressed. "Like someone tore a soul apart?"

  "Vincent is gone," I snapped. "If he were back, we would know. He would have contacted us."

  "Would he?" Rider asked.

  "There are other Walkers," I said.

  "Vincent himself said no other Walker had done what he managed to do to you," Logan said.

  I glared at Logan. "He said that no one else had taken a soul out and stopped before killing the person."

  Logan looked thoughtful.

  "But his action of returning your soul is what caused it to fall to pieces," Rider said.

  "I'm not sure," I said. "He was trying to fix it, though. He wasn't going to go out and try it again."

  "If he was trying to fix you," Rider's voice was quiet, and he looked at his feet, "Vincent would not practice on you."

  I wanted to close my eyes and ignore the idea, but that wasn't the way things worked.

  My eyes met Rider's. "He's a friend."

  Rider didn't flinch or look away. He looked at me for the length of a few heartbeats, and then nodded.

  "Well," Logan said, "we'll get the necklace. Once the doc sets you free, you can check it out and maybe we'll know more. While we wait for the piece to return, we'll try to figure out our next move. It sounds like this case is a lot closer to one of ours than we anticipated."

  I remembered Ethan asking me if we'd be working together. Turning the idea over, I realized my answer was the same. He'd be working the homicide and we'd be working an entirely different case. Those thoughts led to vague memories of what happened at the station after I touched the necklace.

  "Um, the way we left..." I hesitated, not knowing where to go from there. Work and personal are things that don't usually mix when civilians are involved. "Did I, or we..."

  Logan gave me a knowing look. "It's sorted. Lieutenant Parker believes that your run in with the Zander had you out of sorts."

  “Did you tell him who Zander was?” I asked, trying to bite back the panic in my voice.

  “No, I only referred to him as the doctor, and that I didn’t know what happened.”

  I frowned, but I guessed it was better than Ethan thinking I had lost my mind.

  "How are your arms?" Logan asked, effectively changing the subject.

  I wanted to know more about what had happened with Ethan. In fact, I wanted every word, but I didn't want to seem overly interested. "Sore. I don't really remember what happened after we left the police station. You all want to fill me in?"

  Logan glanced at Rider and back to me. "I tranquilized you, and the two of us brought you here."

  Rider laughed. "That is what happened."

  "Did you know Jonathan and Paula are fighting?" Apparently, Logan was done with the conversation.

  Was he bored or evading?

  Since I wasn't too keen on our chat anymore, I let it drop. "I hadn't heard. It's been a while since I've seen him."

  Rider settled into a chair.

  "She doesn't like his new career move, so he has his hands full," Logan said.

  After last fall, Logan's son had switched his area of study to criminal justice with a heavy emphasis on law enforcement. "Hopefully she'll come around. Has he..." I let the question die. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to ask if a Lost had told a human what they are.

  Logan filled things in smoothly. "She doesn't know. He's struggling with what to tell her."

  Thinking of my experienc
e with Zander, I understood.

  "Susan and Gerald had dinner with Margaret," Logan said.

  "How late is it?" I asked. "I should call her so she doesn't worry."

  "I told her we'd be here at work pulling an all-nighter," Logan said.

  "She didn't say anything about today, did she?" I would hate to find out that Gran saw this and worried.

  "No, she said to go see the Palm Reader when you get the chance," Logan said.

  "She said that the other day," I said. "I don't know any Palm Readers, but Gran mentioned it's in the city."

  Logan rocked back and forth. "Sable called today. We have a message from her."

  "Sable from MyTH?" Rider asked.

  "Yeah, she wanted to touch base, and to give the gnomes some feedback."

  "I think she has everything we know right now," I said, "Well, all the facts anyway."

  "I'll give her a call in the morning," Logan said.

  "In the meantime, can you ask Hank to check out the local minotaur population? We should see if anything odd pops up." If a soul was missing, then the minotaur would be gone.

  "Yeah. If someone's missing, it's going to hit the Lost population pretty hard after last fall. I'll go talk to Hank." Logan tipped an imaginary hat and left the room.

  I relaxed into the bed. "There are too many things piling up at once. I need to get my tablet and check a few things out."

  Rider winced. "Not tonight."

  "Sooner is better than later."

  "In this case, I do not think it is. You need to rest." Rider came back over to the bed and picked up my arm, lifting the gel cast up to inspect it. "Maybe we should figure out a way to restrain you. A way that does not hurt."

  "Are you planning on needing to hold me down again?"

  "Who knows what will be necessary in the future?"

  "It sounds like you need to keep the tranquilizers close at hand."

  Rider's eyes darkened.

  "The wrist is fine, Rider." I took back my arm.

  He went back to his chair, looking like he was going to settle in there for the night.

  "Are you sticking around tonight?" I asked.

  "Yes. It will be an early morning anyway."