The Strange Path

by D. Jordan Redhawk

  Questing like this seemed different somehow, almost as if she wasn’t only using her ears in the process, but a part of her mind. She couldn’t exactly “see,” but she began to create a mental picture in her head. Here someone sat at a desk in a small room—she knew the size because the paper sounded different here than that in the waiting area, more muted. A file cabinet closed, and steps led away, an office chair gently whooshed when sat upon, a steady heartbeat. A bigger office, with more space. A copy machine hummed and clicked as it worked, another heartbeat and flipping papers indicating the operator remained there to go over the print job.

  Hearing a small refrigerator open, Whiskey pulled back her attention to focus on the sound. She heard the slight hiss of carbonated air escaping a bottle. Grinning, her nose delivered the fresh smell of root beer. There he is! Amused with the game, she continued to scan his office with her senses, comparing her newfound abilities with what she knew from firsthand account. She remained riveted upon Castillo, feeling something ethereal grow between them. What the hell? The more she concentrated, the more it grew. Somehow she sensed him, not just the sounds or smells he created. He felt like warm dark chocolate, not overly sweet, the edge of aged cocoa bitterness counteracting the saccharin. She explored this sensation with avid curiosity. Maybe this is what changed this time. I wonder if everyone feels like that.

  She pulled away from the priest to find someone else with whom to experiment. Before she located anyone, the sensation she equated with Castillo intensified, seeming to surround her. It held a questioning essence, though she couldn’t register how she knew. Confused, uncertain what to do, she stood there agape. Is he doing this? How did he know she spied upon him? After a moment, Whiskey zeroed in on his office with her hearing again. He’d left it, though the chocolate perception remained strong. A door opened, and Whiskey’s eyelids flew up.

  Castillo stood at the fire exit door, staring at her. “Whiskey?” Incredulity colored his voice.

  Nervous, Whiskey picked up her pack, preparing to run. “Padre.”

  He held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Can we talk?”

  She glanced at the building, suddenly feeling more trapped than safe. “I guess.”

  “Not here.” He looked up, and down the busy street. “I’ll buy you dinner at the Mitchell Café, okay?”

  Nodding, Whiskey nibbled her lower lip. It’s the padre, for Christ’s sake, idiot! He’s safe enough. “Okay.”

  He took a step toward the still open fire exit, and paused. “You’ll wait for me here?”

  A faint smile crossed her lips. At least he’s not the only one freaked out here. “I’ll wait.”

  “Promise me.”

  She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “You know me too damned well.” When he didn’t respond, she threw up her hands. “I promise! I’ll wait here for you.”

  Satisfied, he gave her a nod, and slipped back inside.

  Whiskey sighed, adjusting her pack strap. The padre hadn’t acted weirded out about the sensation, but about her presence. Are there Sanguire hunters? The sudden thought disconcerted her. Castillo was a priest, and the Church always fought vampires in the movies and books. Would he want to kill her? She knew better than to rely on popular media for the answers. This had to be just as ridiculous. Daniel would say so. I could call Reynhard and ask. Before she got the cell phone from her pocket, Castillo came around the corner from the front of the building. Still uneasy, she joined him.

  The café enjoyed a lull as neighborhood workers fled the area for their homes, and students headed for their dorms to drop books and assignments. Castillo chose an outdoor table, causing Whiskey to smile. He does know me well. They didn’t conduct much small talk, preferring to study the menus and order dinner.

  Once the waitress left them to their table with their drinks, Whiskey braced herself. She knew what she’d felt, but still didn’t know how he knew what had happened. He would have to start the ball rolling before she’d volunteer anything. She leaned casually back in her chair. “Thanks for this. I didn’t realize the time. I was hoping to pick up some vouchers or a leftover boxed lunch.”

  His elbows on the table, he rested his chin on clasped hands, and studied her.

  Whiskey swallowed at the intent gaze, but didn’t react until the dark chocolate essence of Castillo washed over her. Heart pumping, she felt a flush crawl up her face, unable to stop its progress. She almost lifted her chin in defiance, but remembered Fiona’s capitulation. Instead, she lowered her head, and stared back at him.

  Castillo blinked.

  The warm sensation faded a little, stuttered. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Padre?”

  “Do you know what’s happening to you?”

  Whiskey stared in surprise. He spoke the question as if he knew, and she didn’t. She looked away from him, watching the cars pulling up to the streetlight. “You’re buying me dinner. You wanted to talk.”

  “Who gave you the Book?”

  Her gaze shot back to him. No longer nonchalant, she sputtered. She almost heard the leather-bound volume in her backpack thump with her mirrored heartbeat, fast and thready in shock. “What...what’re you talking about?”

  He relaxed his shoulders, and sat back, dropping his hands to his lap. “I’m talking about the Ñíri Kurám. Your feet have been placed upon the Strange Path by someone, you’re becoming an adult.”

  “How do you know these things?”

  Castillo rubbed his forehead with one hand. “I’ve been Baruñal to one or two younglings in the past. I know the symptoms.”

  “You’ve been—you’re Sanguire?” Was that the difference in her? She could now sense other Sanguire around her?

  “Yes. I’m James Castillo. I was born in the year 1629.”

  Whiskey’s mind buzzed from the information, drowning out other considerations. He’s almost four hundred years old? Shaking her head, she tried to concentrate on his voice, for he’d continued speaking.

  “Who is your Baruñal? I can’t believe he or she would just let you roam around the city in this state. Whoever it is needs to be reported to the Agrun Nam, at the very least the Maskim Sañar.”

  The Sanguire words sparked a surge of irrational hatred. They were alien to her ears, yet she knew to the core of her being that the Agrun Nam couldn’t be trusted, that Dorst had approached her outside of their influence, and that Castillo must work with whoever they were. Acting on instinct rather than knowledge, she slapped the table to regain his attention. “Why are you here? Have you told the Agrun Nam about me?”

  Castillo’s ranting ceased, and he stared at her. After a long pause, he said, “Yes and no.”

  Whiskey’s eyes narrowed. “You’d better clarify that, Padre.”

  He sighed, his fingers restless as they traced the woodgrain of the table. “When I first met you, I had my suspicions that you were Sanguire. You weren’t very forthcoming with your personal information, so I couldn’t conduct a genealogical search to find your family. I notified the Agrun Nam at that time.”

  “What did they tell you to do?”

  “To watch and listen, to see if I could get more information to locate your family.”

  Biting betrayal turned her blood and anger to ice. She couldn’t ignore the unreasonable depth of emotion. “You bastard.” She’d spent years skirting the Human social services system, and now the European Sanguire had her name and birth date.

  “Whiskey—”

  “You fucking bastard. You knew what I was, and you never told me. Instead you went running to the Agrun Nam, spilling your guts all the way.” She thumped the table with her fist, their drinks wobbling. “I gave you my name!”

  A passing pedestrian gave them a startled glance. Three patrons at a nearby table looked warily in their direction, then returned to their conversation with muted voices.

  Castillo kept his head bowed, looking properly chastised. When she didn’t continue to harangue him, he met her gaze. “The Agrun Nam doesn’t have your name, W
hiskey. I never gave it to them, and I don’t plan to without your consent.”

  Her cold fury faltered. “Why not? Don’t you work for them?”

  “Work for them?” He chuckled. “No. I’m one of thousands of expatriates scattered across the globe, living our lives as we see fit.”

  She frowned at him. “Then why did you bring me to their attention in the first place?”

  He appeared apologetic as his fingers returned to tracing woodgrain patterns. “You have to understand that finding a Sanguire child alone is unthinkable to us. Our people do not have children often, so each is precious and cherished. For one to be living on the streets of a city with no support, no family?” He shook his head, raising his eyes to hers. “First, we had no record of a family losing a child in the last two decades, nor were there any deaths of which we were aware. You presented a mystery.”

  Whiskey considered his words, conceding the logic of them. “So you contacted them to see if they had records of these things? To try and find my parents?”

  “Yes.”

  She tucked her chin, glaring at him. “But why did you think I was Sanguire to begin with? How are Sanguire kids different enough from Human ones to tip you off?”

  Castillo sighed. “They aren’t. You happen to bear a striking resemblance to...someone of historical significance.”

  Dorst’s last language lesson came to mind. “It’s been several hundred years since anyone has had reason to speak that particular phrase.” She murmured his translation. “A monster of composite power.”

  The waitress interrupted Castillo’s response. Several long minutes went by as she completed her task. When she left the table, he whispered, “Ninsumgal Elisibet Vasilla.”

  She felt her world slide away for a brief moment. Elisibet? The name she knew from the nightmare. Which means...what? Margaurethe O’Toole existed? A sudden rush of longing coupled with the shock of Castillo’s news made her feel faint. Can she still be alive? She was no older than I am now.

  “Whiskey.” He gripped her forearm. She felt his warm, chocolate essence envelope her. If she didn’t know he’d already sold her out to the Agrun Nam, however inadvertently, she would have welcomed the comfort. Instead, she fought it, her anger returning as she pushed him away, both physically and mentally.

  He pulled his hand away as if burned.

  “Don’t touch me,” she growled.

  “I won’t.” He held both hands up in surrender, raising his chin. “May I continue?”

  Whiskey considered demanding a to-go container for the food. Ravenous and needing to refuel, she elected to stay. She wanted to hear what he had to say. Sanguire or not, Castillo had never struck her as a violent man. The information she received here might give her the edge she needed against Fiona’s manipulations. “Yeah, go ahead.” She began working on the french fries.

  “I have a copy of your birth certificate in my office. Your parents were Gareth and Nahimana Davis. You were born in Dixon, North Carolina, near Jacksonville.”

  The fries clogged her dry mouth. She took a long drink of water to get them down. She tasted their names with her mind, committing them to memory, greedy in her mental caresses. “Nahimana?”

  “I think she may have been American Indian, which would make you of dual nationality.” Castillo smiled. “I have no connections to the We Wacipi Wakan, their elder council, so I don’t know if I’ll find her family. I have a friend in Europe who’s looking for your father now. I’ll have something more concrete in another day or two.”

  North Carolina. It fit with her rudimentary knowledge and the first vision she’d had—a warm spring night, jasmine on the air, her father’s drawl when he spoke, her mother’s eyes and hair black as night. Which means if the first vision was true, the second might be, too. She had so many questions. It made her angrier with Castillo’s connection to the Agrun Nam. He would have been a more trustworthy source of information than Fiona if it hadn’t been for that.

  “These people you’ve been hanging with,” Castillo ventured. “They’re Sanguire?”

  Whiskey applied herself to her dinner. “Yeah. They saved my ass from a beating a few nights ago, and sort of adopted me.”

  “Don’t trust them.”

  She snorted. “I’m supposed to trust you instead?”

  He took his heavy crucifix in his hand. “As God is my witness, Whiskey, I will always tell you the truth.”

  The earnest expression on his face unnerved her more than thoughts of the Agrun Nam. Take more than you can give, she reminded herself. Doesn’t mean he’ll keep information from the Agrun Nam, whoever they are. “You say you’ve been a Baruñal to others? Tell me what happens during a meditation.”

  Castillo frowned. “You mean yours hasn’t said? Of all the irresponsible—” He trailed off his rant, visibly collecting himself. “Over the course of thirty or forty years, a Sanguire youngling’s brain chemistry alters. This forges different pathways, and activates other areas of the brain that Humans do not use with any regularity. The chemical ‘imbalance’ changes the body’s physical makeup.” He leaned his elbows on the table, in full lecture mode. “There are organs in the body that Humans consider vestigial, throwbacks from their time as proto-humans. The appendix is one, as are a number of the glands. To Humans they are a mystery. To us they are essential for survival. As the brain chemistry evolves, signals are sent to those organs, increasing their capacity and...waking them.”

  Whiskey stared at him. She’d meant the strange visions of an unknown past, not this science lesson. “All that?” she blurted.

  “Yes, all that.” He gave her a rueful grin. “The meditations simply accelerate that process to a short, and more intense, format. It causes wild hallucinations of various senses, illness, vertigo, and the like, but it’s over in a week or two rather than several decades.”

  She sighed. “What about the visions themselves? What are they?”

  His expression shifted into regret, dark eyes portraying concern and sympathy. “No one knows. Each person has a different experience. Some have no comprehensive visions, while others claim to see their future or their past.”

  Damn it. That’s the same thing Reynhard said. “What did you see?”

  Castillo looked apologetic. “My parents were killed in a fire when I was very young. I was raised Human. I didn’t go through the Ñíri Kurám. I didn’t know I was Sanguire until I was thirty-seven years old.”

  Whiskey slouched back in her seat.

  “Perhaps you can tell me what you’ve experienced?” he asked, tentative. “I can compare it to what I know of others’ meditations.”

  She felt a strong temptation to share. The raw and unfamiliar emotions resulting from the chants confused her. She could really use the guidance of someone she’d known longer than a few days. But he had contact with the Agrun Nam. She suspected that if the European Sanguire knew she had visions of their “monster of composite power” her life would become much more complicated. If Castillo would tell them of her existence because of her resemblance, which way would he jump if he knew she may have Elisibet’s memories?

  She couldn’t even ask the padre about the woman in her dreams, or more information of this Elisibet Vasilla without tipping her hand. If she looked enough like the woman to cause Castillo to take notice, what would happen if anybody heard about her visions? “No.”

  He raised his chin in deference. “I didn’t think you’d concede, but I had to ask.”

  Whiskey’s lips twitched in a grin. “You don’t know everything about me.”

  “Whiskey, I know who you are, what you’ve dealt with. I understand why you don’t trust me, though I swear to you that I’m not a threat.” He leaned forward, putting his hand on the table, not quite touching hers. “These other Sanguire you’ve found, don’t trust them any more than me. I don’t know how they found you, or what their plans are, but it can’t be good.”

  “Because of who I look like?”

  He nodded. “Exactly.�
�

  She bit her lower lip, wavering. “How much do I look like her?”

  “She died before I was born, but I’ve seen official portraits. The only difference I see is the color of your eyes. Hers were such a light blue, they were almost white, and yours are pitch black.”

  She felt excitement as the needed piece of the puzzle fit into place. Fiona had seduced Whiskey with the sex and toys for this reason. Once Whiskey became an adult Sanguire, Fiona could compel her to remain in the pack, using her to gain power. Trotting out their dragon-lady monster on cue could be a hell of an advantage. “Thank you, Padre.” She closed the distance between them, patting his hand before pulling away. She pushed her chair away from the table.

  He stood along with her, reaching into his pocket. “Here’s my card. I know you already have it, but this one has my home number on the back. If you have any problems whatsoever, call me. Day or night.”

  She took the business card, glancing at the information before sliding it into her pocket. “Okay.”

  “I mean it, Whiskey. Call me. At the very least I can give you a safe haven to conduct the Ñíri Kurám.”

  “I said okay.” She didn’t know if she should be steamed with his adamant tone, or amused. Right now she had too much to process.

  Castillo stuffed some bills in her hand. “There. That should get you through the next day or two.”

  A lump developed in her throat as she pocketed the money. “Thanks, Padre.” She hefted her pack, using the action to regain some control over her emotions. When she knew she wouldn’t start crying, she looked at him. The waitress approached with their ticket. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around.”

  “Take care. Jenna.”

  Warm chocolate surrounded her rather than the hug she knew he wanted to give. She sniffed and nodded, pushing away from the table, and into the flow of pedestrian traffic.

  Chapter Twenty

  Whiskey walked several blocks, mind whirling, before she found a piece of sidewalk upon which to loiter. She chose the back door of a recycled clothing store to drop her pack, knowing they probably wouldn’t be coming through the security gate until closing. She needed a little time to figure out her next step.