Screaming, I struggled to get away.
My eyes opened.
The shadows in the darkness were gone. The room was dim, but the normal kind, caused by the lack of light. I was still on the couch in the living room even though I felt as though I had been running. My heart was beating rapidly, but the Path was gone, and I was alive.
Even more importantly, when I peeked at the floor, there were no animals scurrying around.
"How are you feeling?" The concern and admonishment curled together in a way that only Vincent could manage.
Across from me in the chair, Vincent looked no more stressed or angry than he normally did, which put me more at ease.
"I've had better days." I stretched and tried to seem casual when I looked back down at the ground.
"They put it in the other room."
"It's still in the house?" I sat up, but curled my legs under me, too afraid to put my feet down.
"We're not sure what we're dealing with yet."
The dim room momentarily flashed with bright light from the windows.
"The living dead?" I suggested. "Is everyone else fine?" I asked.
Vincent shrugged as distant thunder grumbled like an old man. "From what I understand, nothing happened."
I frowned and crossed my arms.
He held up a hand to stop the flow of comments that were forming in my head. "I mean besides the rabbit. They're still puzzled as to how it reached the kitchen and why no one saw it get there, but it didn't attack anyone. And it's...you know... a rabbit."
"It is a dead rabbit." I stated each word slowly and clearly. Emphasizing the dead part shouldn't have been necessary.
"Which is disconcerting."
"Huh," I scoffed, "I guess disconcerting is one way to put it. What's it doing in the other room?"
"Logan and Taylor built it a cage of sorts. They put it back in its box, but it ate through the cardboard."
"How can you be so calm about this?"
Lightning flashed illuminating the room once again.
"With Einar out there, the rabbit doesn't rate very high," Vincent said.
"It is a dead rabbit." I repeated it slower this time in case he was missing some part of the concept. "A dead rabbit that moves."
Vincent shrugged again. "It's little."
"What if it bites someone and spreads some sort of zombie disease? What if it tries to kill me in my sleep?"
"You've been watching too many movies. Dr. Taylor doesn't seem to think it will be an issue. It's locked up. That should keep it from biting, or smothering you in your sleep.”
It was frustrating how calm he was about this. "Whoever sent this isn't exactly thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about me."
When Vincent tensed, I knew I hit a sore spot. The rain began to fall outside, hard and fast. I listened for a few moments.
"It couldn't be linked to Einar, could it?" I asked.
"Logan doesn't seem to think so. I think he may be right. This seems more like someone...like someone messing with you. Like Logan said the other day, a twisted way to introduce themselves."
"It's perverse. An early morning surprise and a lovely new pet."
Vincent froze and I watched the darkness swirl out, filling his eyes.
"What?" The cold feeling of his anger made me twist in my seat.
His voice was flat. "Those are things you might do for someone you are dating."
Lighting flashed. The thunder wasn't far behind.
My stomach churned. "That's sick. Someone you're in a relationship with doesn't do these things."
"That could depend on the person. Ethan gave you the package?"
"Ethan signed for the package. Normal. Human. Ethan."
Vincent seemed to think that over and I watched some of the whites of his eyes return. "There are some sick minds in this world, both from here and that have arrived here. It may be someone you don't yet know."
I wanted to stand and yell, but I wasn't quite ready to put my feet on the floor. "You were going to try to blame Ethan!"
Vincent had the decency to look slightly abashed, although that may have been wishful thinking on my part. "We don't know who, or what, can use magic."
I glared at Vincent. The rain sounded harder. Heavier. Vincent went to the window next to the front door and looked out. I twisted around to watch him over the back of the couch.
"It's hailing," Vincent said.
I liked seeing the little balls of ice bouncing off the ground. After taking the time to look around on the floor, making sure the coast was clear, I put my feet down. I padded over to the window on the other side of the door and watched the hail leaping off the sidewalk in the light of the porch.
We watched the little pea-sized chunks of ice falling and rebounding off the concrete. Every now and again, I'd check the ground around my feet to be sure the floor was clear of bouncing white balls of fur.
"Where is everyone?" I asked as the hail started to subside.
Vincent didn't say anything right away. He looked lost in thought while watching the storm.
"It doesn't storm like this much on the west coast. Even then, I don't remember feeling the urge to watch."
"Things have changed a bit in the past year," I said. I thought about the piece of my soul curled around his own and wondered how much that had changed him.
Vincent shook his head and walked away from the window. "Do you want some coffee?" His voice was more stiff than necessary.
"Sure, um, where is everyone?" I asked, following him into the kitchen where my eyes were immediately drawn to the cage by the back door.
Vincent avoided looking at me. "Taylor took some samples back to his lab. Logan and Rider left not long before you woke up. Hank sent them somewhere."
"This seems unhygienic." I stared at the cage next to the back door. The ball of white fur floundered around the enclosure.
A cabinet door slammed shut and I jumped. Vincent still wasn't looking at me.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"It's fine. I'll move the cage back into the laundry room later." His voice was steady and level, but even without the Path, I could feel tension building around him.
It was best not to dwell on how much either of us had changed in the past nine months, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what Vincent was doing.
And I wasn't helping matters. "Uh, don’t worry," I said, watching Vincent carefully, "I'll move it."
Vincent only nodded as he watched the coffee pot.
The rabbit was in some sort of metal animal cage. I had no idea where it had come from. There was an extra layer of chicken coop wire on the inside, and then it was wrapped around the outside twice as well. The rabbit occasionally moved around in a small circle inside.
I looked closely at the handle and the layers of metal between where my hand would be and how close the rabbit could get to it. I thought about asking where my gun was, but I looked back at Vincent and he was focusing intently on the percolating coffee. After glancing around the room and not seeing the gun, I cringed and lifted the cage.
Holding it as far away from me as I could, I rushed to the laundry room and sat the cage in the middle of the floor. Vincent looked like he needed a minute alone, so I sat down next to the rabbit. It didn't do anything beyond attempting to bound around. It looked almost confused, or sad.
Who would do such a thing to a bunny?
I went back to the kitchen. Vincent was still studying the coffee, so I didn't say anything. It took a while of digging around the refrigerator to find some lettuce. It was rather wilted, but then, wasn't the rabbit? I tore off a few leaves and took it back to the laundry room.
Sitting back on the floor, I stared at the rabbit. It was dead. Except for the part where it was still moving, it even looked dead. Shaking my head, I folded the lettuce and shoved it through a hole, careful to keep my fingers well away. The lettuce leaf fell next to the rabbit. It made a shrill squeak and picked up the leaf with its teeth. It settled down
and appeared to be oddly contented.
I shoved the other leaves in. When I got up, Vincent was watching me at the door.
"You fed a dead rabbit," he said, shaking his head. He looked calmer at least.
"It's not his fault he's dead," I said defensively.
The smallest hint of a grin ghosted across his face. "Coffee's ready."
A part of me wanted to ask what was wrong, but I think I already knew. Vincent had changed a lot over the past year. I had changed as well, but I was good at actively ignoring difficult issues until I had no choice but to confront them. The method didn't work for everybody. It's possible that Vincent missed the person he was before.
After making sure the door was firmly shut, I followed Vincent towards the scent of coffee. Lightning flashed and the lights of the kitchen momentarily dimmed. Thunder growled through the room.
"Rider and Logan were sent to an old church," Vincent said.
I settled down with my coffee. "A church?"
"Hank dug up records of landmarks that had been around during the Civil War. The church was the first one he found. Rider and I had returned to drop off the gremlins. Hank called and asked us to check out the church."
"We have a church in town that was around during the Civil War?"
"Part of it was. I stayed and Logan went with Rider." After a few moments of silence Vincent quickly added, "I thought we should meditate tonight. You've been having trouble reaching the Path."
The rain picked up again and lashed at the windows.
"It's the other Path that causes it," I said.
"Other Path?"
"Einar's. The black Path that he creates somehow prevents me from reaching the Path, or dropping the Path once I have it."
"This happened at the Palmer's house too, though."
"Einar went to Felicity's place. I think he's the one that trashed the Palmer's house as well."
Vincent thought that over for a while. "I believe we can work with that. We can't practice the application without going somewhere Einar has been, but we can explore a few theories."
I hated to admit it, but not that long ago I was falling over from exhaustion in the kitchen. "It might not be the best idea for me to read the Path tonight." It seriously sucked having to say that out loud.
"You won't need to. In fact, it might be better if you didn't."
"I guess I’ll give it a try."
We went back into the living room where we could hear the rain starting to fade away. We had only meditated in here once, but we each gravitated back to the spots we had taken up last fall. We kept the living room lights off, but left the kitchen ones on.
Closing my eyes, I took a few deep breaths before I began to wonder if Vincent was watching me, and my eyes popped open. His eyes were closed and his attention was turned inward. His face and body began to relax while I watched. My mind wandered back to last fall. Meditating together and feeling our energies reach out to each other wanting to combine. I remembered our kiss upstairs and the feel of his hand in mine.
Chapter 23
Pushing those thoughts out of my head wasn't easy, but push I did. Closing my eyes, I mimicked Vincent and turned my thoughts inward. Life was hard enough without dwelling on what once was, or what could have been.
It had been a while since I really sat down to meditate. My mind felt cluttered and unkempt. Thoughts kept jumping out or even slipping away. Then my brain pointed out shoulder pain and back pain. My bandages were too tight and I had an itch.
Struggling to beat back my own thoughts reminded me that I needed to make this a part of my everyday routine. When my mind was more serene and under my thumb, Vincent started to talk.
His voice was calm and quiet. "Think back to last fall." It also held a soft warmth that Vincent didn’t usually let escape.
Thoughts of last fall filled my head again and I let out a sigh of regret.
"Back to our first meditation session." His voice was a bit quicker and lost some of the mellowness this time. "We concentrated on what happens right before you reach for the Path."
My brain shifted gears.
"Go there now," Vincent said, "and tell me what you see."
I knew what he was looking for here, but I took my time. The very edge of the knowledge that I had of our world. It's the only way I could explain it. Inwardly, I stared out over the vast space and looked for the telltale signs of my soul.
My mind's eye saw emptiness, but I had expected this. Moments of time ticked by with me mentally staring over an empty abyss.
A glimmer appeared. Then a patterned network of gleaming shards twinkled into life.
"I see it," I said, keeping my voice low. A sense of awe stole over me when I saw the patchwork soul stretch out before me. Then I noticed the pieces that didn't fit. "It looks different, though."
This close to the Path I could feel Vincent's anxiety slowly leak away from him.
"What do you see?" Vincent asked.
"It's like..." I struggled to find the right words. "Like sparks trying to find a place to settle down. Where my soul rolls and flares, the sparks try to find holes they can fit into."
"What do they feel like?" Vincent asked.
Tentatively, I sensed the nearest glowing wisp. A buzz started to fill my head. My body didn't want to sit still. It wanted to move. Running suddenly seemed like a good idea. My breathing increased. A small hole began to form under the flare and it started to propel its way through. Yanking myself back made me open my eyes to the world again.
Vincent was watching intently. The rush of energy began to flow away. Once I was sure I was still me, my breathing slowed to the point I could talk.
"Fragments of other souls." My heart felt heavy at the thought of all those small rays of life not being able to find their way home.
It took Vincent a while to respond. Signs of reining back his own burdensome thoughts flickered across his face.
"Did you sense anything else there?" Vincent asked.
I cleared my throat to keep my voice from cracking. "Nothing else."
Vincent nodded. "Are you... Do you want to continue?"
"We need to. I need to find a way to reach the Path when Einar is around. It's the only thing I have that might be an advantage."
"Okay," Vincent said, "this time, take a good, long look."
Already closing my eyes, I asked, "At my soul?"
"At everything. You don't need to go close, only watch, and study what you see."
It took me no time to pick out the patterns of light that tried to hide between the Path and me. "Each piece of my soul fits in smoothly with the next, but the lines move slightly. Like an ever-changing puzzle. The other balls of light glide across the surface and stop here and there to try to pry their way through."
"Without getting too close, how many of the fragments would you say there are? That aren’t yours, I mean." His voice wavered.
That was something I didn't want to tell him. Having more than one made me feel like a big enough freak.
"They're kind of fast," I hedged, "it's hard to say."
"Take a guess." Vincent's tone was more direct.
I frowned. Watching them zoom around, everything looked the same. There were no colors to distinguish one from another, so they tended to blur together as they mingled.
"Trying to estimate is hard." Which was true. I had nightmares of hundreds of shards swarming over me. I tried to stretch my mind up higher to see the full effect, but I was having difficulty. My mind was so used to the trip I could feel the urge to jump the gap and reach the Path.
"Take your time," Vincent said.
"Huh." Easy for him to say. "There seem to be...I don't know, around fifty, maybe a little more." Maybe a lot more. I kept that thought to myself. "Taking them all in like this, though, I see that some aren't moving fast. They shift at different paces. There are even a few pieces that appear to be..."
"Yes?" Vincent said after I trailed away.
"There are a few pieces tha
t aren't moving. It sounds crazy, but, it's almost as if they are waiting, or watching the other pieces moving around." I shivered at the thought. "They seem, I don't know, bigger somehow. The others don't get too close, but the odd ones appear to be at the fringes. It would make things so much easier if I could see my own Path." That thought made me cringe. They were a part of me now, even if they didn't fit.
"Let's step back some. This spot is where you make the jump to the Path, correct?" Vincent asked.
"Yeah, my mind jumps over, though. I don't look at it as I pass."
"That might become easier with practice," Vincent said, "and I think you should practice. Become more familiar with what you're seeing."
The thought didn't make me comfortable. It was a beautiful sight, but it was so hard to watch those small pieces scramble around. I knew there was no consciousness to them. No thoughts. It was only a small part of their essence left behind.
"It may be difficult at first," Vincent continued, "but in the long run, I think it's going to help."
"How so?"
"I think this is the area that Einar's Path blocks. At least from your description."
My eyes snapped open. "You think Einar's Path gets that close to my soul?"
"Not necessarily," Vincent rushed to explain. "Something about him cuts you off. Not his Path directly, but like an echo it leaves behind. Or a vibration."
Vincent's explanation didn't help my feelings of trepidation.
"It sounds like some sort of pollution," I said.
"It's only an obstacle. Something you need to jump over or move through. Once you are more familiar with what you normally pass by, I think you'll find it easier to go through barriers."
This thought rolled around my head. "I guess that makes sense."
"Want to try again?" Vincent asked.
"Uh, yeah." If Vincent was right, maybe it would help the next time I faced Einar. If we could figure out which Lost he'd be checking in on next, it might help us find him. Wild animals could be netted and brought down. Seeing Einar's victims made me think more and more that a wild animal is precisely what Einar was. And he had to be brought down.
AIR Series Box Set Page 80
