by Ciana Stone
At last the doctors admitted defeat and brought her out of the hypnotic state. When she first opened her eyes she felt a bit disoriented and dizzy. It was almost as if reality was the memory and the memory was what was real. It was a most peculiar and disconcerting sensation and she said so.
“It’s an aftereffect of the drug,” Ian told her, even though Dr. Kinski cut him a nasty look.
“What exactly did you give me?”
“That is not important.” Kinski didn’t give Ian a chance to respond. She made no comment and Kinski turned away to address Slater. “The blood levels will have fallen to an acceptable level within thirty-two hours. There are seven other possibilities left to us. We will make our next attempt in thirty-four hours.
“Hold on!” Senna pushed herself up. “What do you mean seven possibilities?”
“He means there are seven other drugs that may facilitate unblocking your memory,” Slater answered. “We have to try them one by one, then in combination until we come up with the right formula.”
“I don’t think so.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“You don’t think so what?” Slated pinned her with a cold stare.
“I’m not going to be some guinea pig shot full of drugs! That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Young woman, at this point you don’t have a choice,” Slater informed her. “You see, I mean to have what, if any, information you have locked up in that pretty little head of yours and I will have it regardless of what means I have to resort to in order to retrieve it. Now, you can make this hard on yourself and everyone else or you can make it easy. The choice is yours, but either way, I assure you, you will do what I say. Is that clear?”
Senna was not only intimidated by his tone of voice and his commanding manner, she was scared of the way he advanced on her with eyes as cold and hard as ice. She had no doubt that he would do exactly as he said. It was then she realized that she was trapped. There was no way she could fight the CIA and win.
“I think we’ve all had enough for one night,” Konnor intervened. “Why don’t I take Dr. Laserian home? You know where to find us.”
Slater nodded. “Make sure of that. In thirty-four hours we try again.”
Konnor nodded and took Senna’s arm. Neither of them spoke until they got on the elevator then she looked up at him. “Do you realize what’s going on here? Do you really understand what they’re planning on doing, or doesn’t it matter? Am I just part of the job to you, Konnor?”
“What else would you be?” he asked without looking at her.
That was enough to make tears spring into her eyes. Jerking her arm away from him, she put as much distance between them as the narrow confines of the elevator would allow. When the doors open she didn’t budge. He stepped outside and kept his hand on the door to prevent it from closing but she refused to look at him or move. After what seemed a long time, he stepped back inside the elevator to take her arm.
She tried to pull away but his grip was like a vise. “Let’s go.” His voice was harsh and hard.
They walked to the car and he opened the door for her. Without a word she got in. He closed the door and rounded the car to get in behind the wheel. They drove several blocks then he suddenly made a sharp right turn and accelerated. Senna had no idea what was going on and the hard set of his jaw deterred her intention to demand an explanation.
For the next ten minutes they literally raced around the city. She could see no pattern or reason to the route they took. It seemed as if they doubled back as much as they went in a new direction. At last the car slowed and Konnor looked over at her. She opened her mouth to speak and he put his index finger to his lips in a silencing gesture.
A few minutes later he drove behind an old warehouse on the north side of town and stopped the car. She sat perfectly still, looking around the mean area suspiciously as he got out of the car and raised the hood. She saw him go into the trunk then get down on the ground. Finally he got back in the car, looking under the seats and the dashboard.
When he rose he had something in his hand. She looked at it with a question on her face. He smiled and tossed it out of the window. “Bug,” he said as he started the car.
“Bug? You mean…but why? You work for them!”
“First rule of the game,” he said. “Trust no one.”
Senna was perplexed. He seemed so different now than how he had been when they left Ian’s office. She didn’t know what to think. As if sensing her confusion, he turned to look at her. “It would be my guess that the building is wired. I couldn’t take any chances.”
“You mean what happened in the elevator…” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“As far as Slater is concerned, you’re nothing more than another assignment,” he said.
“And what about where you’re concerned?”
“You shouldn’t have to ask.”
“Maybe I’m not as smart as you think,” she replied, feeling ill at ease and embarrassed.
“Don’t play that game with me. If you want to know something, ask me straight out.”
She was stung by the irritation in his voice and fell silent. Neither of them spoke again until they reached her house. Senna opened the door to the gatehouse and turned on the lights as she walked in.
The place looked like a cyclone had blown through it. The furniture was overturned, cushions and pads torn apart, bookcases emptied and turned over, and pictures ripped from the walls.
“Oh, my god.” She looked around in dismay.
Konnor’s face was set in a hard mask. “Call and make sure your aunt is okay then gather up your things.”
Senna didn’t argue but went straight to the phone. “Hi, it’s Senna. Is Min there?… Okay, thanks.”
She covered the mouthpiece to speak to Konnor. “What should I tell her—about this, I mean?”
“Nothing. Just say that you’re going to be away for a few days and will be in touch.”
“Hi,” she spoke into the phone. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be away for a few days… No, actually, I just need to get away for a bit… No, I’ll be with a friend… I don’t know. When I find out I’ll call and let you know where to reach me… Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to you soon. I love you”
She hung up the phone and turned to Konnor. “I don’t think she believed me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said brusquely. “Get your things.”
She started to argue. It did matter, at least to her. Minora was the only family she had and she didn’t like lying to her. If Minora discovered the gatehouse in the condition it was in now, she would be worried sick. “Konnor, I don’t think—”
“Senna. Listen to me!” He grabbed her by both arms. “This isn’t a game. We’re up against people who would think nothing about blowing you, your aunt, or half this city into oblivion if it got them closer to what they want. So from now on, you’re either going to have to trust me to know what’s best or…”
“Or what?” she asked when he looked away.
“Or you won’t make it,” he said in a flat tone.
“You mean I’ll die?” Her voice broke with the question.
“Yes.”
She stared up at him with tear-filled eyes. “I’m scared. Konnor, I’m terrified and I don’t know what to do. You tell me I have to trust you, but you work for them and I’m as afraid of them as I am of the unknown whoevers you all keep telling me are out there after me.”
“I’m not asking you to trust Slater or Kinski or even Ian Drake, Senna. In fact, if I was in your position, I wouldn’t. But I am asking you to trust me, and you have to decide right now if you can do that because I need your complete trust if I’m going to keep you safe and alive.”
She had no idea if she was doing the right thing or not. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for what she had been thrust into. But she had to trust someone and at the moment the most likely candidate seemed to be Konnor. “I’ll do what you s
ay,” she said.
He smiled and gave her a tight hug. “Please, get your things.”
In ten minutes they were pulling by the main house. Senna looked up at it and for a moment thought she saw a silhouette at one of the upstairs windows, but decided it must have been a trick of the light for when she tried to get a better look there was no one there.
Just as Konnor started to turn out of the drive, she touched his arm. “Wait. I have to go to the main house.”
“Why?”
She didn’t know how to tell him because she was not at all sure she understood it herself. All she knew was that she had to see the carved stone she had found in the metal box. “I…there’s something I have to get.”
Konnor frowned, but put the car in reverse and backed up. Senna jumped out and ran to the servant’s entrance. She let herself in without attracting attention and took the back stairs to the top floor. That was where she ran into her first problem. The room she needed to get into was locked and she didn’t have a key. For a split second she considered going to Minora, but quickly changed her mind. If she saw Minora she would have to try and explain why she was leaving and she wasn’t ready to do that.
An idea occurred to her and she dashed back downstairs. Konnor was waiting in the car with the engine running. He saw her and reached across to open her door. She bent down to look in at him. “I need your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I need to get into one of the upstairs room and it’s locked.”
“You want me to break into your aunt’s home?”
“No, just one room.”
He hesitated then turned off the car. “Why not just ask someone for the key?” he asked as he got out of the car.
“No one has a key but Min and I don’t…I can’t see her right now. If I do I’ll either have to tell her the truth, which will upset her, or I’ll have to lie and I don’t want to do that. So, the easiest thing is just to get what I need without her knowing.”
“You want to steal something?” he whispered as he followed her inside.
“No, what I want belongs to me.”
He didn’t ask anything more but followed her silently up the stairs. She stopped in front of the locked door. He looked both directions in the hall then knelt down in front of the door. It took only a few seconds to open it. They went inside the room and Senna closed the door behind them.
“Here,” she whispered when she’d felt her way in the dark to the trunk. “Help me move this.”
He did as she asked, moving the trunk with little effort. She pulled up the loose board and retrieved the box. After replacing the board, she had him move the trunk back into place.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“What is that?” He indicated the small box in her hands.
“I’m not sure,” she replied and when he gave her a look that she read as him thinking she was a lunatic, she added, “I’ll explain in the car.”
They encountered no one on the return trip. As soon as they were in the car and moving again he asked, “You want to explain?”
Senna ran her hands idly over the surface of the box. “When I asked Min about what my parents were working on prior to their deaths, she told me this was something my father had left specifically to me.”
“What is it?”
She opened the box, withdrew the incised stone, and placed it on the top of the box once she had closed it. Konnor looked at it and then at her. “What’s the significance?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured as she ran her fingers over the etched symbols.
“Do you know what those markings are?”
She shook her head. “I know they feel familiar but…no, that’s not true. I think it means Guardian.”
“I don’t understand,” he said after a moment of silence. “Why was it so important to get this if you don’t know what it is or what it means?”
“I don’t know, “she admitted, hesitantly placing her hand over the stone. “I just had to have it.”
She wanted to hold it, but was afraid after what happened the first time. But she told herself that it was illogical to think that a stone could have caused the experience. It was only an inanimate object with no means of affecting her. And yet, she was still afraid of it.
The remainder of the trip to Konnor’s house she spent trying to convince herself that the stone held no special power and that she was being foolish to be scared of it. When they arrived at Konnor’s she picked up the box with the stone still on top and carried it inside where she gingerly set it on the hearth and stepped back from it.
She turned to Konnor and he had his finger to his lips. This time she didn’t question. She sat down in front of the fireplace and stared at the stone atop the box as he swept the house for surveillance equipment.
When he returned to the den and sat down beside her, she turned to look at him. “You act like you’re afraid it’s going to bite you,” he remarked.
“Or send me into a parallel universe,” she said, only half joking.
“You want to run that by me again?”
She gave the stone another look. “It… This is going to sound insane, but the first time I held it, something happened to me.”
“What?”
“It was like…” She closed her eyes, trying to form coherent sentences to describe what she’d felt. “Like suddenly the world—this world—just vanished and I was being pulled through a dark vortex where images I couldn’t recognize or even identify swirled around me. It was almost like the energy was pulling me somewhere I didn’t want to go and it terrified me. All I could think of was escaping and the next thing I knew I was back again and my heart was pounding and I was sweating and…and hearing myself say it aloud, I realize that it makes no sense.”
Konnor regarded her in thoughtful silence for a time. “And you wanted it tonight because…” He left the question unfinished.
“That’s just it,” she said anxiously. “I don’t know. It’s like when we passed by the house I could…feel it, and I had to have it.”
“So why won’t you hold it?”
“I’m scared.”
“That the same thing will happen to you?”
She nodded and looked down at her hands in her lap. She was ashamed of her own fear and how impossible her story sounded.
“Your aunt told you that your father left this only for you?” he asked.
She nodded without looking up.
“The dossier I was given indicated that until his death, you and your father were virtually inseparable, that you were the most important thing in his life.”
“That’s how he made me feel,” she whispered.
“And knowing that, do you think for one moment that your father would leave something for you that he thought would harm you?”
“No, of course not!” She looked up, eyes flashing. “He loved me!”
“Then you should have no reason to be afraid, should you?”
Konnor made a good point, and one she had not considered. Her father would never have left her something that would bring her harm. And if he had considered it important enough to bequeath specifically to her, then she owed it to him to discover the meaning behind the gift.
“Why don’t you give it another try,” Konnor suggested. “For your father.”
With thoughts of her father foremost in her mind, she cautiously reached out and picked up the stone. As soon as her hand closed around it, the sights and sound of Konnor’s home vanished. She blinked in confusion then realized she was in Iraq, in the house she had lived in with her parents before they died.
“Dad!” Her heart leapt as her father appeared before her.
“Mouse, listen to me.” His tone was urgent. “I need you to pay close attention. This is very important.”
A frown crossed her face. She and her mother were getting ready to leave for the airport. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. But what troubled her was that she didn’t remember seeing her f
ather before she and her mother left. Why was he here now and what did he want to tell her?
“The Gate must be guarded.” He looked into her eyes as he spoke. “Do you understand, Senna? Only the Guardian can control the Gate and the Guardian can never allow control of the Gate to fall into the wrong hands. It must be protected at all cost.”
Something pulled at her mind, like a forgotten memory. “What are you talking about, Dad?”
“Just listen to me.” He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and pressed it into her hands. “When the top is opened on this lighter, you will think about the flame. Think about it being as big as a building, as big as a cloud. Think of how beautiful the flame is and how pure. The flame is like a shield. It will protect us all from harm. As long as the flame appears no one will hurt us and the Gate will be safe. All you have to do is will the flame to appear, to spread out like a cloud in the wind. Do you understand?”
She didn’t understand at all, but didn’t know how to tell him. He was so serious and it all seemed so vital to him. She couldn’t do anything but nod.
“Good.” His smile appeared forced. “When you get in the car I want you to wait until you pass the house where the man who sold us the rug lives. Do you remember him?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. When you pass his house, I want you to do as I’ve told you. Think only of the flame and how it will make us safe and I promise you that everything will be all right.”
“And if I do this, you’ll come home? Soon?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
She had no idea why he would ask something so odd of her. It made no sense. But before she could ask she was suddenly in the backseat of a car, sitting beside her mother. She looked out of the window and saw the rug merchant’s house on her right. Without thinking about what she was doing she pulled the lighter from her pocket.
