“No!”
“Sorry?”
“Stop apologizing. And if you are apologizing, don’t phrase it as a question.”
“Um, sorry?”
“Ugh. Just look over there.” She pointed at the dancing man whose dress twirled like a light blue disk under his raised arm and his fez.
“Wild. I’m getting dizzy just looking at him.”
“See how he looks straight ahead half the time and straight behind half the time. That’s how he keeps his bearings.”
“I guess you’d know.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t all girls learn how to dance?”
She tried to sound sarcastic. “Yeah, and we play with dolls and paint our nails.”
“But you do paint your nails. I’ve seen them.”
“Ugh! Men. This is why I’m glad I don’t have time to date.”
“Well, they’re pretty.”
Inspecting her fingers, she noticed the multi-colored pattern’s progression away from her quicks. Natural growth and trimming had trashed half the design, and she’d split a nail during her knife-throwing lessons. She aimed the busted one at him, which happened to be on her middle finger. “Really? You think this is pretty.”
As if aggravating her had become sport, he smiled. “Um, sorry?”
She smirked and threw a chunk of flatbread at his face, but with her poor dexterity, she pelted the shoulder of a woman seated at the table behind him.
The woman glanced over her shoulder and looked to Dianne.
The empath shrugged and blushed. “Sorry!”
Liam shook his head. “Has a doctor ever checked you for a neurological disorder? I think some of your motor control nerves were cross-wired at birth.”
“Shut up!” She hoped he was flirting, but it was hard to tell with his vow of chastity. At least the attention was nice.
The next morning after a continental breakfast, she read a book on her phone in the hotel lounge.
In the cloth chair beside her, the hunter glared at his laptop screen. He grunted.
“Did you find something?”
“I’m not finding a bloody thing. The English translations of Istanbul’s real estate archives are horrible. I’m afraid very few of the sites are available in English. Whatever’s going on, I’m not finding much.”
“It figures. You don’t speak Turkish?”
“I can muddle through the basics, but I can’t read it. But even looking at the pictures, it’s obvious that very few listings end up on the Internet. A city of this size should have twenty times as many listings. I think it’s all controlled by word of mouth among real estate pros and their clients.”
Dianne returned her eyes to her book.
“Are you sure you didn’t see anything that could identify the building?”
The sickening existence within the wraith replayed in her mind. It had been a tunnel vision view. “It was a concrete floor with indoor lighting. If I magically conjure up a new memory with better detail like a license plate or the guy’s Facebook account, I’ll let you know.”
“I had to ask.”
“No, you didn’t. That’s the problem. I’m giving you good information that isn’t exactly a pleasure to acquire, and you don’t appreciate it.”
Before the abashed hunter could annoy her with another apology, the impressive figure of his father walked into the lobby.
Though in his mid-seventies, Connor moved with the ease and vigor of a man half his age. With obvious attention to his posture, he stood straight. “Good morning everyone.”
Liam lowered his computer to his chair, walked to the elder hunter, and embraced him.
In contrast to Connor, Nana lumbered into the hotel laboring against decades of injuries, surgeries, and stressful aging. Instead of moving with an easy grace like the hunter, she powered through her physical limits with an iron will.
Walking behind her, Josh read from his tablet.
Dianne squealed with joy and pranced to her family. Hugging them felt like being home.
Imposing his presence as the elder, Connor addressed the team. “Shall we get our bags into our room and head out for coffee? I’m sure we have much to discuss.”
CHAPTER 18
Nestled between Nana and Josh in the back seat of the 500X, Dianne watched people strolling along the footpaths between manicured hedges and decorated trees in the Sultanahmet Meydani public square.
Driving, Connor pointed out the passenger window. “You can see the spires of the Blue Mosque’s towers that way. If I’m not mistaken, there are six of them, and they are indeed blue at the very tops. Formally, it’s known as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.”
She looked, and as the land dipped towards the water, the structure’s towers rose into the sky. “Cool.”
“Cool, indeed, young lady. It will definitely be on our vacationing agenda. I also insist that we see the Hagia Sophia.”
“What’s that?”
As Connor guided the Fiat around the street’s corner, he pointed through the windshield. “That’s an excellent question. The simple answer is that it’s that huge old building over yonder that resembles a cathedral, which it was long ago. It’s a museum now.”
From the passenger seat, Liam uttered a clarification while keeping his face aimed at his laptop. “It was actually a Catholic church for a while, too.”
“Indeed, it was, lad, during the crusades, the fourth, if I’m not mistaken.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Father, since you were there.”
Connor launched a playful but quick punch into his son’s shoulder. “Anyway, Mehmed the Conqueror overtook Istanbul, which was called Constantinople at the time, and claimed the city for the Ottoman Empire. It then became a mosque for approximately five hundred years. They destroyed or plastered over most of the Christian images and mosaics, but we’ll see some remnants when we visit. It’s quite worth seeing.”
Excited about the onslaught of culture, Dianne forgot her horrific visions. Her family’s presence and the calming effect of the elder hunter ratchetted down the tension between herself and Liam. Sometimes she wondered if he pushed her too hard and if he did so to avoid addressing the feelings developing between them. “I can’t wait to see it. What do you think, Josh?”
Beside her, her autistic brother read text on his laptop. “About what?”
“About seeing the Hagia Sophia.”
“Sounds great.”
“Do you even know what it is?”
“Connor just told you. He’s right. It says so right here on Wikipedia.”
When he paid attention, he was in tune with the people around him, she recalled. “What about you, Liam. What are you studying there?”
The young hunter kept his face aimed at the screen on his lap. “I’m looking for a way capitalize upon your new ability to see historic visions.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you looking for a machine that can probe my head and replay my visions for you?”
“That would be nice, but I’m pretty sure they don’t exist. I’m checking the specifications of the highest-flying drones, but nothing can maintain a good altitude or flying time to spy on a city the size of Istanbul.”
“Spy on the city for what?”
“For the van you saw in your flashback through the wraith’s eyes.”
She groaned. “Do you really expect me to watch videos of a huge city’s traffic to find a van I only saw pieces of?”
“Unless you have a better idea, I don’t see what our next move is other than waiting for the next tributes to die.”
“I don’t have a better idea, but that doesn’t mean we have to try something crazy.”
Liam ignored her rebuttal. “Father, if we saw the wraith through video, would we see his true evil essence?”
“You mean if a camera saw him walking on the street?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll check with the order. They should know, but my sense is that he’d l
ook like a normal human.”
“What if one of us were watching through a lens?”
“Then, yes, I imagine, just as if we wore glasses or contact lenses. But at this point, you’re bending my understanding of the natural world and the supernatural. However, I would still say that any stored media that was replayed would render him as normal.”
The question piqued Dianne’s interest. “He looks abnormal to you?”
“According to Father’s answer, it’s only to our naked eyes or through a lens in real time.”
“What does that mean? What does he look like?”
“I saw your victim in Michigan. Twice. It was like looking at Satan himself. A beast. Wretched, hairy, leathery, decaying, putrid… I can’t think of the words to describe something so ugly.”
Having seen the true essence of the savage in Michigan while she’d held her dagger, she agreed. Words failed to describe such ugliness.
Ten minutes later, Dianne tipped back the thick, mud-like fluid of her Turkish coffee. It tasted like bitter, flavorful sand. She placed the cup onto the table, placed its saucer atop it, and then flipped them over.
Liam, a biscotti in his face, chewed and mumbled. “What’s that all about?”
“This? It’s fortune-telling. The grounds form patterns and shapes. Then people who are skilled at reading them can tell the future.”
“Is it a skill, or is it a gift, like you have?”
“A little of both, I guess.”
The young hunter gulped from his large cup, clanked it back to the saucer, and wiped his lips. “Are you sure you want to do that? Isn’t it better to make our own destinies?”
The empath appreciated his boldness and coerced herself against her curiosity to push her inverted cup away. “Sure. We’ll make our own destinies.”
Lowering the espresso pinched between his thumb and index finger, Connor scoped out his approach to the investigative effort. “Liam’s briefed me on what you’ve learned. It’s quite helpful, but we can’t act upon it yet until we get at least one breakthrough.”
If he intended to ask her to relive the nightmarish scenes through the wraith’s body one more time, she’d scream. “What sort of breakthrough?”
The elder hunter always seemed wise, his demeanor calming. “You’ve discovered several clues that outline a pattern. If we can identify one point in that pattern, we can start there and tighten our tracking. For example, if we can find the supplier of his trafficked women, we’ll be able to find his van when he arrives to purchase more victims. If we find his van, we can track him to his lair.”
The younger hunter gulped again and lowered his cup. “Maybe. Since Dianne was seeing the past, it’s possible that everything she saw may change, but we’ll make some educated assumptions. In Father’s example, we assume that he goes to the same supplier for his women and is still driving the same van. Those assumptions may be wrong, but we have to act upon them anyway.”
The approach sounded unreliable to her. “So, we need to find a way to track down something I saw in my visions, but even then, it’s hit or miss after that?”
Connor’s eyes tightened. “Our work is never certain. We work with what we know and forge ahead to save those we can.”
The empath received intuitive signals revealing a better but more dangerous way. “It’s not going to work.”
The elder hunter angled his head in doubt. “How can you know? You sound certain. Please don’t let Liam’s frustration skew your perspective. He’s young and often frustrated.”
The young hunter shot his father a sideways glance.
Dianne doubted Liam had that much of an effect upon her. She was an empath. She had to know. “I just know. We have to do something else.”
“Very well, young lady. I’m open to ideas. What do you have in mind?”
Fear rose within her as she shared her idea, but it issued from her throat as destiny. “You’ll get me on the inside. You’ll get me in front of the wraith and use me as bait.”
CHAPTER 19
Liam coughed as coffee traveled down his trachea. “Bloody hell!” Hacking air from his lungs, he turned his head towards the floor to avoid shooting germs onto Josh, who sat beside him.
From his other side, his father tapped his back. “Breathe, lad.”
The young hunter recovered. “She can’t! Absolutely not!” He regained his posture and glanced at the faces around the table.
Connor fell into silent meditation before speaking. “I dislike the idea, too. If you remember, I protested her involvement in this mission originally, but now that she’s here, we have an obligation to listen to our empath.”
Liam refused. “No, we can use drones… other technology… our wits. Anything but risking Dianne.”
She frowned. “It’s not your decision. It’s Connor’s.”
“You’re not going to seriously consider this, are you, Father?”
Shadows covered the elder hunter’s eyes as he contemplated the idea. “I will indeed listen because she has insights we lack. She’s tapped divine powers beyond our understanding.”
Liam’s heart pounded. “That’s the problem. She’s doing crazy shit beyond our understanding. That doesn’t mean that we can take it all as the gospel truth.”
Raising his voice, the elder hunter declared his place in the hierarchy. “Watch yourself, lad. You’re becoming emotional.”
“Sorry, Father.” He noticed himself having to apologize too much.
Dianne appeared thoughtful. “I’m not exactly thrilled about being a hostage again, but I’m getting the feeling that it’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Liam’s feelings were opposed to hers. “We don’t even know if your visions are true until we test them out. What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.”
Locking eyes with the beautiful empath was harder than he expected. Until the end of last month, he’d dedicated his entire life to protecting her, a stranger. Now, despite knowing her for two weeks, he knew she was vital to his life.
“But how can you know you’re not wrong?”
Her brown irises became expanding annuluses around her dark, dilating pupils.
“Dianne?”
She’d fallen into the familiar trance.
The young hunter pushed his chair back and stood to examine her.
Her graceful arm ran down the side of her blouse and into the purse hanging on her chair’s back.
Liam grunted. “Sneaky woman. She’s got her dagger in her purse. She’s getting herself another dose of mystical visions.”
Except for Josh, who kept his face in his tablet, everyone leaned towards the empath. As her reverie ended, she blinked. “I know what to do. I saw a vision. A future vision.”
Liam sank into his chair. “Now you’re seeing the future?”
“It wasn’t really a definite future. It was more like a guide about what I should do in the future.”
There were limits to how far the young hunter would trust her. “In Michigan, you could only link to people in real time. Yesterday, you stumbled upon historical links with your new dagger. Now, all of a sudden, you can see forward?”
“If you don’t like it, you can test me.”
“How?”
“I know the place and time of what I just saw. If everything happens as I expect, you’ll know I’m right. If not, then no harm done.”
Liam found her approach intriguing but simplistic. “That would all depend on the details.”
“I saw a bunch of young Iraqi women. There were five of them, and they were scared and huddled in the back of a big truck.”
“How big?”
“I don’t know.”
He reached into the computer bag at his feet, grabbed a laptop, and placed it on the edge of the table. “I’ll help you figure it out with some pictures. While I’m looking them up, why not explain how you know they were Iraqi?”
“By the way they looked. I know my heritage.”
He’d expected more
. “You concluded their country of origin by observation. No sixth sense?”
“Yes, I had that, too, but you’re starting to doubt anything about my powers. So, I didn’t add that part. I know they were Iraqi.”
A waitress approached the table, cleared plates, and took orders for refills. Liam used the distraction to invoke a page of a transport company in Istanbul with a gallery of its fleet. “Did the truck look like any of these?” He turned the screen towards her.
“Sort of like the one next to the little one.”
“Two axles and six wheels? Roughly seven meters long, with a cabin you can stand in?”
She blushed. “Um, how big’s a meter?”
He banged out the mental math. “Three feet and change. That would make the truck about twenty-two feet long.”
“Yes. That’s what I saw. Two axles with the double wheels in the back.”
“Through whose eyes?”
Her cynical tone revealed her frustration. “I didn’t ask him his name.”
“Could it’ve been the wraith?”
She shook her head. “No way. I can feel the difference. The wraith makes me sick. The jerk I just linked to is a sleazeball who’s trafficking women for the money.”
“That doesn’t make you sick?”
“Not as bad as the wraith.”
“Do you know when this supposed future is happening?”
“June twenty-sixth. Three eighteen in the afternoon, if you want to know the time. I saw the date and time on the truck’s radio.”
Liam calculated the tight timing, seeing only three days to prepare to somehow get Dianne the truck, and then only two days of her working inside the trafficking network before the final triple-tribute homicides. Questions pelted the young hunter’s mind faster than answers. “How did you know to look for him?”
She rolled her eyes and inhaled. “I felt the urge to touch my dagger, like it had a message for me. And guess what? It did.”
He needed to back off before he infuriated her. He looked to his father. “I’m asking all the questions. I don’t mean to monopolize our time.”
The elder hunter shrugged. “You’re doing fine, lad. I’ll stop you if I dislike your demeanor.”
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