02 Seekers

by Lynnie Purcell

  The architecture of the landscape subtly shifted and moved with the passing hours, lending itself to long arcs of forever flat that was familiar, yet foreign after being in the mountains for so long.

  I found myself missing the variation of height and width as we trekked ever south. Something else, beyond the oddness of the flat, permeated the very air the further from home we got. It was a feeling of history, of gentle unending time that swept forever in both directions. It was the feeling I got whenever I was in the deep south. The change had an obvious effect on the others.

  Daniel’s eyes became lost in a thousand memories as we passed city after city. Margaret and Jackson were silent – not unusual for Margaret – but I could feel an awareness that wasn’t there in the mountains. It was as if a part of their history was found in the history of the place we were in. It was a past I could only ever know secondhand.

  The city of New Orleans did not tremble and fall to the ground at our approach. In fact, our entrance into the city of soul, voodoo, and blues was unremarkable. I perked up from my book as the city appeared and watched as the buildings passed by.

  Margaret knew the city well, so we were spared the bickering of lost tourists without a map. She drove us to the French Quarter, an area I only remembered vaguely, and let the van idle on the corner of a fancy hotel. We unpacked our stuff in front of elegant, black ironwork of the hotel then she drove off again to ditch the van and find another way back. We had all thought we would be less noticeable without the thing lingering on the corner.

  As she pulled away, I settled my bag over my shoulder and breathed in the moisture of the

  summer air. Droplets of rain clung to the narrow streets, and I knew we had just missed a

  rainstorm. Darkness had covered the city with the night, but the smell of the storm was

  invigorating and renewing. Something in the pit of my stomach responded to the flow of the city, and I, more than ever, agreed with my previous statement. A place could have power. This place was certainly working powerful magic on me.

  Daniel gestured with his head for me to follow him inside the hotel. I remembered our mission, and the fact that nowhere was safe, with the gesture. In that one gesture I saw tension and a cool alertness to the fact that nowhere was really private.

  The interior of the hotel was elegant, yet simple, as if the designer had known elegance wasn’t about cheap baubles meant to distract to beholder. Gold walls and a thick staircase dominated the lobby. Carefully done flower arrangements accentuated the color scheme. People moved around the lobby area, some headed to a late dinner, other the arts scene nearby. Wrapped up in their destinations, no one looked at us twice.

  A man wearing the pressed uniform of the staff perked up when he saw us and quickly stopped texting on his phone. “Can I help you?” he asked, his voice thick with a southern dialect even King’s Cross couldn’t manage.

  Daniel smiled, and his whole face shifted into a look I hated. It was the look that meant he was about to get his own way. It took him a while, the clerk being particularly stubborn, but a hefty tip, and many smiles later, Daniel managed to get us a room paid in cash up front, no questions asked. The man’s eyes raked over our faces carefully, cataloguing details to spread to the rest of the staff later. I just hoped it wasn’t the sort of details that got us noticed by the wrong sorts of people. I assumed it would remain fodder for the bored staff until the next big mystery came along.

  Key cards finally in hand, we went to our rooms to get settled in. As Daniel shut the door to our room with his foot, checking his phone with one hand and carrying his bag with the other, I said in a low voice, “You think this place is low key? If snobby from downstairs doesn’t inform the whole French Quarter about us by the morning I’ll be shocked.”

  Daniel looked up and shut his phone again with a shrug. “They have cable here…and wireless internet.”

  “Most hotels do…” I said.

  “Serenity suggested it,” he said reluctantly. “This area is where our kind with lots of cash stay.

  Watchers with cash always have bodyguards. Starting something here is extremely foolish, so it’s safe.”

  He moved past me and sat down on the large bed. I kept my place in the center of the room. “I knew you’d find a way to be all protective despite being away…” I hesitated. “It seems like we’re putting a lot of trust in this Serenity. Are Jackson and her really that good of friends?”

  “Not really,” he admitted.

  “Okay…” I crossed my arms. “Then why do you trust her?”

  “Because we have no other choice,” he replied. His face told me he didn’t like the idea any more than I did.

  “Uh-huh.” I started pacing. “When do you have to go?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow morning I meet Serenity then she’s going to arrange a meeting with her contact. She has to make it look like she’s not involved, though. They know her down here.”

  “It sounds so Jason Bourne-ish,” I said.

  I looked at the alarm clock by the bed and realized that ‘tomorrow’ wasn’t that far off. Then, I would be stuck with only Margaret and Jackson for company. I wasn’t looking forward to it. For multiple reasons.

  “It’s much more confusing than any movie,” Daniel said. “And a lot less certain the heroes are going to live.”

  That was a great thing to mention on the eve of his departure…I stopped pacing and stared him down, his words scaring me. “You’re going to be careful.”

  He stood and took my hands. His eyes bored into mine. “I am going to be more than careful.

  Careful is going to be jealous about how cautious I will be. It’s going to look at me and go, ‘Man I wish I was that safe about things!’”

  I smiled. “That was the lamest assuring I have ever heard.” I slipped his arms around my waist.

  “But I accept, provided you mean it.”

  “I do.”

  “Good, cause I’ll find you if you don’t,” I promised.

  He smiled and bent forward to kiss me. Just as our lips met, the door linking our room with the central room of the suite burst open. Standing in the middle of the doorway was an extremely irritated Margaret. And beside her, looking for all the world as if we had never parted, was a grinning, smug, Alex.

  Chapter 5

  “Alex?” I asked more shocked to see my best friend than I had ever thought I could be.

  “This place is fraking awesome. I thought you guys would be holed up in a sleazy hotel peering out the blinds or something. This is totally opposite of that. Way cool,” she said. She threw her bag on the bed and smiled at the room, approving of the décor.

  Margaret was less inclined to smile, but that was just Margaret. “She could have been followed,”

  Margaret told Daniel as if he were the only one in the room.

  “If she was followed, we were followed,” Daniel said. “You should probably check.”

  Margaret nodded and, with an extra glare at Alex, left the room.

  “I’m more concerned about how Alex got here then if she were followed,” I said. “What the

  heck?” I asked her.

  Alex shrugged as if finding me was nothing. “I rode the bus.”

  “I mean how you found us here in this hotel,” I said.

  “I came to New Orleans then I just sort of…” She pointed to her belly. “Followed my gut…and there you were. I was starting to get a little worried, because of the dark. Oh! Cable TV! Yay.”

  I snatched the remote out of her hand before she could turn the TV on. Daniel and I both crossed our arms and stared at her. She got the message.

  “I wasn’t going to stay behind and let you guys do all the world saving. The fact that you didn’t even offer me the chance to come along was very hurtful, by the way. I mean, really!” She

  paused thoughtfully. “I made a choice. I’m not going to sit idly by and let my best friends risk their necks. Not when I could do something.”

  “‘Som
ething’? You mean run away and follow us down here?” I asked, figuring she hadn’t asked Sam for permission to come.

  “The same ‘something’ you’re doing,” she pointed out. “I have as much a right to hunt down bad Watchers as you do.” Her blue eyes blazed with determination. I knew the look, and I knew there was no reasoning with that look.

  I turned to Daniel for his opinion. His face was thoughtful, but, when he caught my eye, he held up his hands. “This is yours,” he said, opting to not get involved.

  “Great. Thanks,” I said.

  I put my hands on my hips and turned to Alex again. I tried to think about the consequences of her being down here and her possible reasons for coming. I knew one thing for sure: Alex was looking for answers…just like I was. She was searching for answers to her condition and what that condition meant for her future. That she couldn’t even date a boy because of it, was proof she felt the change more than she was letting on. She was also trying to be loyal to her friend, something I had neglected by not offering her the chance to come with me. The fact that she had to sneak after me was proof I had been a bad friend to the only other person who really

  understood how being between two worlds felt.

  “Don’t ever do this again,” I said, willing to let her stay, but unhappy she had done something so dangerous.

  “Only if you promise to not run off on me again,” she said.

  I pulled her into my arms and hugged her tight. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Because I can help in your mission?” she asked hopefully.

  “No, because Margaret is a horrible conversationalist and Jackson thinks he’s funny.”

  “I’m always funny,” Jackson said coming into the room.

  “…Looking,” I added.

  “Do you have a phone you don’t mind throwing away?” Daniel asked him.

  “Yeah…why?”

  “Give it to Alex, so she can call her dad.” He turned to Alex. “Keep the call short, but let him know you’re okay. Don’t mention where we are exactly, or that you’re here with us. Get rid of the phone when you’re done.”

  Alex took the phone Jackson offered her with a slow hand. “Okay…” she said, obviously

  unhappy about calling Sam. She walked out of the room, already dialing the number.

  “She said she just walked until she found us…” Jackson said thoughtfully. “How is that even possible?”

  Daniel pointed at me. “They have a connection. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend some time with Clare.” He pointed for Jackson to leave.

  “What if I do mind?” Jackson asked.

  Daniel pushed Jackson to get him walking, not being very gentle about the shove. “All right, I’ll go, but only because I was going to scout the area anyway.”

  When Jackson was out, Daniel shut the door with a firm snap. He shook his head and grinned at me. “Friends! Can’t live with them…can’t shoot ‘em!”

  “Why is that when I want to come down here it’s WWIII, but when Alex shows up unannounced

  it’s everything as normal?” I asked him.

  “Because life is unfair,” Daniel replied.

  “Ah. Thanks,” I said.

  He smiled and took my hands again. “Where did we leave off?”

  I smirked and leaned toward him to claim my kiss.

  Daniel left at precisely 8:57 the next morning. The night had faded to a swift, hot, dawn as draining as only the hottest places on earth could be. The parting was very difficult, though I didn’t let him see my fear.

  “Remember what you promised me?” he questioned as we hovered next to our door; a door

  which had not been opened since Daniel had forced Jackson out.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He put a hand on my neck. “I’ll try and contact you if I can. But if I can’t…don’t be worried.”

  Yeah…right.

  “If you have to contact us, but can’t overtly do so, we should have a code word or something,” I replied choosing to ignore the stupidity of his statement. Worry would be my best friend until he was back.

  “What would you recommend?” he asked, keeping his eyes glued to mine as if he thought he

  could take a picture.

  “The Shadow?” I questioned.

  “That’s two words,” he said.

  “Code phrase, then,” I replied.

  “I like it.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I asked.

  He smiled briefly. “Other people. Clare….” he hesitated.

  My heart stuttered and butterflies appeared in my stomach. He didn’t have to say the words forming on his lips. I could see it in his eyes. “I know,” I told him.

  He nodded and kissed me goodbye. His hand rested on the door’s handle for a long moment, and I wondered how hard this was for him – as hard as watching him leave? I saw him fighting

  against the impulse to simply stay and forget the mission. A part of me hoped he would. Instead, he turned the elegant handle and stepped out of the room. He didn’t look back, though I knew he wanted to. I heard him call goodbyes to the others and then, like a soft breeze in summer, he was gone.

  I ran to the window to watch him leave, but my view was of a small fenced in area with round tables and beautiful flowers. I scowled at the pretty flowers, hating them for their unhelpfulness, and abandoned the window. I flopped down on the bed and put my arm over my eyes, counting

  the seconds until he was really gone. The bed creaked slightly as Alex sat on the opposite side.

  She lay back so that her body paralleled mine. We were silent for a long moment then she rolled over and put her head on my shoulder. “Thanks for letting me stay,” she said.

  “Thanks for loving me enough to ride the bus down here,” I replied.

  “What else are best friends for?” she asked.

  “How did Sam take the news?” I asked.

  “He yelled a lot then promised me I would be grounded forever and tried to guilt me into coming home. He even cut me off from my bank…like I didn’t think he would. I pulled all 305.02 out of my account before I came.”

  “That’s smart thinking…”

  “Yep.” She took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Daniel will be fine,” she promised.

  “Yeah…”

  “Clare…can I confess something to you?” Alex asked.

  “Anything,” I said.

  “I’m starving. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse, its saddle, and the grass it was munching on.

  Then, I would probably even eye the owner hungrily.”

  “Cannibal.”

  “Do you think we could get Jackson and Margaret to pay for room service?” she asked.

  “Order it and find out,” I suggested.

  She laughed. “I’m not that stupid.”

  I pulled her to her feet and headed for the door. “Let’s see if we can convince them to feed us, then.”

  Jackson was in the common area, Daniel’s laptop propped on his knees. His long hair was pulled back, and he was wearing clothes similar to the ones Daniel had been wearing. From the slightly shabby, but not too shabby appearance, I understood them to be camouflage. He wouldn’t be out of place in a lot of places. He kept his eyes glued to the screen as he spoke. “I ordered food.”

  “Hey, thanks,” Alex said happily.

  I pointed at the laptop. “So, what now? How can I help?”

  “How can we help?” Alex corrected.

  “What she said,” I said.

  “We could always use more information. And we could use someone to sort all this data. Danny designed this thing for disappearances, but it doesn’t account for people running away and your normal human murders. It’s a lot of data to sort through,” he told us.

  “Data sorters?” I asked in distaste.

  “I’ll do it,” Alex said. “I like lists.”

  “All right.” Jackson gestured her over and showed her the logistics of the program.

 
They were just getting into ways to track everything when there was a knock on the door.

  Jackson got up at the sound – his head tilted so he could listen – and peered through the

  peephole. He opened the door slightly when he was convinced the person on the other side

  wasn’t an axe murderer. He talked to the person on the other end for a moment then handed

  whoever it was a bill. He waited until the person was gone then opened the door the rest of the way. A cart full of food was on the other side.

  “Yummy!” Alex said.

  Jackson wheeled the cart in, and Alex started picking pieces of food off the platters. “I forgot to mention…” he said slowly. “Don’t open the door unless Margaret or myself is here. If its

  housekeeping, tell them to come back.”

  “Are you actually making a rule?” I asked in mock surprise.

  “Yes. This is different world down here. Caution is key. You never know who is lurking about.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  “This is heavenly…Clare, eat a Danish,” Alex said.

  I made a face of disgust and joined her at the cart. I stayed away from the Danish side and picked a muffin instead. “Did you guys learn anything last night?” I asked Jackson.

  He shrugged. “You don’t learn much from one night roaming the streets.”

  “But you still learn a little,” I said.

  His grin was lopsided. “We know there have been more than your usual amount of

  disappearances, but it’s all homeless people, and people who don’t have any families to claim them.”

  “So…no bad guys lurking menacingly in the shadows?” I asked.

  “Plenty of bad guys, but your normal bad guys. Not much I can do about them,” he said.

  “There’s loads you could do!” I argued.