I brought a cigar
along tonight because I knew Alan would want to light it...and if I
did nothing else, I was going to make it his final act.
The
last time I visited old Linton's Food & Mercantile in my hometown
of Richmond, Texas, was a week ago, and the resident ghost tried to
light me up with some pretty interesting pyrotechnics. Damn near
brought the place down. I thought everything was pretty well settled,
until I heard Renn Komenski's voice on the phone at one a.m. -
"Deirdre Maddox, you're in deep shit..." - then I knew it
was my last chance to get any kind of control over the troublemaker.
I hadn't said anything about that last visit to Renn. You
see, I'm an archaeology instructor at the local junior college with a
pretty decent reputation in the community. I'm not exactly someone
who should be poking around crime scenes or forbidden property.
Having said that, my bud, Renn, is the fire marshal for the area and
sometimes he employs me for a particular skill I possess. We've known
each other since high school and I get the skinny on all sorts of
things; but he'd haul me off to jail if he knew I was in the habit of
visiting this particular site without permission. That's why I rushed
down to Linton's like a bat out of hell this wee hour of the morning.
Guilt's a good motivator that way. So's losing my cell phone in
Linton's. If Renn found it in the debris, it was over, friendship and
everything.
Irregardless, asking me to meet him at this
moment, at that location, definitely had to do with Alan
Zehnder...and this time, I was going in prepared.
So here's
the problem: Alan is a ghost. An intriguing, intelligent, all too
realistic ghost...but a ghost nonetheless. You'd think he'd be easy
for me to brush off, since I've moonlighted with the dead for many
years now. This spook...well, he's different...and it bugs the hell
out of me. He has a tenacious hold on this realm and he knows it. I
realize I should be focused on unshackling him from his ties here,
but the truth is, I'm fascinated. He's not a demon of any sort that
I'm able to tell, but he does love fire. And flirting. God, what a
flirt!
Oh, I know what you're thinking, and you can just get
your mind out of whatever gutter you like to rollin. I do not make a
habit of becoming some lost soul's girlfriend just because he blows
ectoplasm up my skirt. This ain't my first paranormal rodeo, you
know.
I just wish Alan wasn't so hell bent on making it my
last.
"About time you showed up, Red," said Renn as
I clambered out of my range rover. It was parked in front of the
Quail Hollow Restaurant two blocks away and one block over from
Linton's. In the sodium lights that lined the main street, the
Victorian era buildings were more sinister than sleepy in humid
washes of sepia. Linton's own yellow brick seemed to absorb the tone
and reflect it back, a silent testimony to family tragedy.
The
mercantile, a turn of the century edifice in the dead center of
downtown, had been a bustling force of economic good in the 1930s -
until Jay Linton's luck with the law ran out. After that, the store
was boarded up, investments hustled to other parts, and the task of
management passed to none-too-grateful children, all of whom did
whatever they could to forget their family. While upscale cafes,
clothing boutiques, lawyer offices, and art galleries ushered in
revival efforts, the Linton family boarded up the store's bay
windows, painted the transom glass, and resolutely refused to join
the 21st century. Only when an alarm went off did anyone see the
decaying inside, and then it was a fireman or police...or, in my
recent case, a shovel bum playing ghost-buster.
I couldn't
help but check Renn out as I got out of my car. He looked disheveled,
with a sooty face and t-shirt, fire-retardant trousers, and
fire-fighting boots with their broad band of light-reflective tape.
Renn is a solid young man, my age of twenty six years. His oval face
encompasses pleasant, regular features crowned with thick brown hair.
He has the most winsome brown eyes I'd ever seen on a guy, and a
mild, unflappable temperament that makes him popular with everyone,
especially women. Not me, though; I'm immune to his charms. Honestly,
I am! He reminds me too much of my two older brothers, who'd been
firemen themselves before they signed up with the military. I think
he's a sweetheart, just not the kind that makes my heart burn.
"I
was beginning to think you'd fallen in a ditch somewhere," Renn
added, as I pulled out a small backpack and closed my vehicle
door.
"That's your thing, Ever Ready, " I replied, a
nickname Renn had earned in his rookie days when his zealous response
to a call landed one of the old fire department rigs in a deep ditch
in the middle of a severe thunderstorm.
"It's your thing
tonight," he replied, gruffly.
I studied Renn for a
moment, tried to gauge his level of displeasure. I could see he was
upset.
"What's wrong?" I asked as anxiety spiked in
my chest. If Renn was disturbed, something was genuinely bad.
"You
have your stick?" he asked.
I held up the one instrument
of my extracurricular pastime, something that distinguished me from
the myriad of paranormal trackers out there: a slender foot-long wand
carved of fossil stone. It was a gift, one I received as a child when
I got lost in the woods in Alabama during a family outing. I
discovered early on that it allows me to talk to other-worldly
entities and some-such. This wand is the reason why Renn contacts me
from time to time, but always on the hush-hush. Secrecy doesn't
bother me in the slightest, either. Just the opposite, in fact. The
last thing that I, an archaeologist, want to be known for was 'mumbo
jumbo' or weird New Age crap that claims all sorts of things about
the Beyond. You've no idea how that would hurt my chances for
advancement in the field of science.
"What is it this
time?" I asked as I returned the wand to its specially designed
pouch slung on the belt loop of my jeans.
"We found a
body," he said. "Actually, it was a burnt skeleton, and
yeah, I want you to do your voodoo thing, but over where we found it.
Thing's already in storage at the local funeral home." As I
protested, he brushed me off, "so if you want to wave your
exorcism wand over that, it'll have to be later."
That
wasn't exactly how my 'exorcisms' went, but explaining for the
umpteenth time would be a waste of breath with Renn, so I asked "then
why...?"
"I'm getting to it," Renn interjected,
ready for me. "If it was a murder, it was a very old one. I have
to call the owner come morning and I don't know how quickly they'll
come running when I do. This was my one chance to get you in there
before things get really hectic. State fire marshal's going to be
coming, too, and I don't think the owners will blow it off as easily
since a possible death is involved."
He paused. Something
in his expression said he was fixing to lower the boom. My brain
swirled with the new information and all its implications. My heart
stopped and started several times. I could only think of the cell
phone.
"What's wrong?" I asked in nonchalant
concern.
"Your name, Deirdre," he blurted, his voice
slightly rough with anger. "It's all over the place in
there."
"What?" I asked, leaning against my
vehicle to steady myself. "You think it had something to do with
my...I mean, the ghost?"
"Your boyfriend," Renn
replied, with disgust.
"He's not my boyfriend," I
countered, defensive.
"Your boyfriend," he repeated
with irritation, "must have used a chalk of some kind, or wrote
with the soot. Don't roll your eyes! You and I both know it was him.
I don't need to be a ghost-hunter to figure that out."
Renn
can't see or sense ghosts like I can, but he'd been with me on enough
cases to be a believer; and while he didn't know I'd been breaking
and entering Linton's on my own, he'd encountered Alan once or twice
himself.
"I think he's got it in for you and he's getting
brazen. You've got to take care of this once and for all, hon,
otherwise, someone...namely me...will have to summon you for far
different reasons."
Not trusting myself to reply, I
pressed the button of my automatic key to set the car alarm to break
the tension. It blurted sharply in the night air. Both he and I
glanced nervously down the main street to the far end where the
Richmond fire station sat brilliantly lit. At one o'clock in the
morning it was a superfluous act, as there were no other souls on the
street; but considering our intentions, neither one of us was keen on
taking chances with nocturnal witnesses. Fortunately, everything in
every dark corner kept to itself.
"You have this one
chance, Dee," Renn concluded, when our eyes met again. I knew he
was serious when he used my preferred nick-name. Considering I have
flaming auburn hair past my shoulders and freckles, I'd suffered
several lifetimes of hearing the usual slurs against my kind. "Red,"
"bonfire," "carrot top." Worse yet are the
nicknames that point out the generous dusting of freckles on my face
and body. Renn is the only one who can call me Red and get away with
it.
"You have until dawn to straighten this out," he
said. "And don't do anything to the writing, okay? Pictures have
already been taken. At best, it can be one of those mysteries that
everyone will pretend they don't understand. But if you don't get him
in your grips now, I can't shield for you later. Understand?"
"I'll
take care of him," I told him, grimly.
"I have to
tell you this as well," he added as the two of us walked around
the corner to the back door. "It's strange enough the blaze was
localized in the main room. The whole place should have gone up like
tinder a long time ago, but it's always...well, the really weird part
is where we found the remains."
The shadows in the alley
were completely black and I could scarcely see anything at all. I
waited for him to tell me as he carefully unlocked the door for
me.
"It was in front of an altar, Dee," he whispered
as I stepped through. "In the manager's office... no sign of
burning in there, and right in front of this weird-ass altar. Stinks
to high heaven, too. You know the history of the place. You know how
thorough I've been in my investigations. There's never been anything
in that room before."
He took hold of my arm before I
immersed myself completely. "I'm not going to go in with you
this time. I'd have to explain myself in a report I already filed
and...well, be extremely careful. That thing scared the hell out of
me, more so than your dick of a ghost ever did."
~ @~ @~
@ ~
Once I got through the little storage area, apparently
also untouched and as full of cobwebs and dust as it had ever been, I
entered the main grocer's gallery and waited for my eyes to adjust to
the dimness of the room. I took my flashlight from my backpack and
flicked the light to scan the floor for solid places to step. The
place smelled of old musty burned wood, dusty rotted wood, and
waterlogged wood, layered over with chemicals used to squelch fire. I
made my cautious way into the middle - enough floor remained there
for me to move toward the last place I had seen my phone. Some of the
glass cases were smashed. Memory came to me of dropping my phone near
one of them before dashing for the back door. They'd been whole the
last time.
I stood staring at the ruins in dismay. I'd be here
all night.
Shoving aside my bitterness for the moment, I
returned to scanning the area with my flashlight. A slow reveal of
the walls showed the handiwork Renn warned me about - my name in
clear letters in various positions, as if a finger had been drawn
across the soot or a stick used to etch my name in highly visible
spots. I wanted to cry.
That's when I heard it: an
exhalation...relief, tinged with desire.
Deirdre...
Okay.
Here he comes.
When he chooses to appear, Alan flaunts a
cigarette, a finely tailored suit, and a fedora cocked in that
slanted tilt that only men in the 40s knew how to make. Anyone could
see that when living, he had sported the rakish good looks of a
golden era movie star - square jaw, uncompromising mouth, eyes
shadowed with hardship. He often spoke with soft, flat tones, even
when I lost my temper, the epitome of Joe Cool in the face of
rebellion. It was always a shock to see how handsome he was. The
ghosts that I usually encountered were often contorted or incomplete.
Not Alan. He looks every bit the whole man when he manifests. It's
probably why I keep forgetting to dispel him. I'm certain that in his
day, he killed them with charm...not much different from the present,
I suppose.
"What are you trying to do to me, Alan?"
I called out. Even if Renn hadn't given me an ultimatum, I was
prepared to duke things out to the last breath. I had reached
containment level.
Out of the mild sauna of the smoldering
room came a jet rush of air, flowing down and around me just strong
enough to imply hands curling around my neck, my face, and running
down my back and waist, lingering at the wand. It was just enough
sensation to tell me it was no mere breeze. It was an echo of what he
had tried on me the last time: full contact and more than enough
seduction.
"Stop that!" I cried, shuddering hard.
"Gah! Do all our sessions have to start with copping a
feel?"
Tall shelves lined the far wall to my left, all
empty but for limp webs. The air in front of them took on a hard,
knotted quality. Darkness pooled to form a solid mass and out of that
drifted the steady white shade of Alan Zehnder. He leant against the
skeleton edge of one counter as though at a bar, one hand holding his
perennially lit cigarette, the other tucking back the fedora on his
head.
"In my day," he grinned, after taking a draw,
"we called it pitching woo." The ghostly smoke escaped his
mouth and curled sensuously around his face.
"Well, this
is the 21st century...my day...and you'll get decked and arrested for
doing that," I retorted.
"You should have stuck
around last visit, then," Alan, straightened, and slipped his
hand into his breast pocket. He pulled out a lighter and held it up
significantly. "By now, you'd be in the perfect position to slap
me around all you like."
"Would it have worked?
Seems like you can't even finish a fire. Doesn't exactly give a girl
any confidence," I countered.
He laughed. Score one for
me.
"Is that a stogie in your pocket or are you just here
to take your phone away?" he asked, pointing to the fallen beam
beside me. I turned and saw in the beam of my flashlight the
perfectly safe and unmarred cellular phone, as if I had just laid it
there by mistake.
"My phone!" I snatched it up and
glared at Alan, knowing there could be only one explanation.
"Those
cats couldn't find a hairball in a hailstorm," Alan grumbled,
looking pleased with himself. "So I saved it for you."
"You
mean you hid it," I surmised.
He shrugged and took
another draw, an enigmatic expression on his outlined face.
Well,
that was one crisis resolved. I had to proceed carefully now. I
pulled out the hidden cigar and tried not to think about how he
sensed it.
"I came to see if I could indulge another bad
habit of yours," I offered, hoping to sound as cool as a
cucumber.
Alan appeared unimpressed, but he drifted closer to
the temptation, close enough for me to spot the two bullet holes that
appeared in the left panel of his jacket, a detail I had never
noticed before.
"Habits do have a way of ruining your
life," he remarked.
"Kinda like you, huh?" I
snipped. A slow smile was my reward. "Are you going to behave
this time or shall I just proceed straight to the fire department
phone call?" I asked as another shiver snaked through me. Those
smiles of his conveyed warmth and danger in ways that weren't human.
I couldn't decide if I liked it or not.
"Why don't you
light it up?" he suggested.
"And deny you yet
another pyrotechnic opportunity? Alan," I remonstrated, "you
disappoint me."
He pointed to the ponytail that bound my
auburn hair. "Go ahead, doll. I'll smoke with you...and while
you're at it, let down your hair. Life is short. It may end sooner
than you think."
"I intend to keep mine for as long
as I can, thank you," I replied. "I know you're wanting to
spark something, so here's your chance."
"I always
was a sucker for redheads," he said ruefully, and with an
elegant flip of his hand, presented a ghost-flame to the end of my
cigar. The tip lit up, red coal brilliant against the cold color of
Alan's form. I noticed how long his fingers were, and how deft he was
at making them unobtrusive. What really caught my attention, though,
was the brief flutter of emotion on his face. It wasn't the usual
seduction or amusement. There was genuine wincing pain.
"Alan,
why are you trying to get me into trouble?" I asked, after my
first long draw. I don't often smoke these things, but when I do, I
like a little luxury in the flavor, so I brought one infused with
berry and cognac. It was French perfume next to the rancid pall of
the burned wood. "What point is it to hide my phone from the
nice firemen when you scrawl my name all over the place? Did you
think no one would figure it out?"
"I was counting
on it," Alan said. "That contraption would have been hard
evidence of your malfeasance. This way your boyfriend, Renn, can only
chalk it up to freak circumstance. Am I right? Unless you told him,"
he added. "Besides...I couldn't figure out how to call you on
that ridiculous thing. I needed to get your attention
somehow."
"Maybe that's a sign," I shot back,
angered once more by the 'b' word. "You couldn't reach me
because you're dead. Time for you to cross over to a place where it's
not possible to be such a nuisance. You do want to cross over, don't
you?"
He studied me for several long seconds, flicked his
ghostly stub away, then lit another one. I wondered if he ever ran
out.
"Alan...this has gone on long enough. It's the 21st
century. You're from my great-grandpa's time. Whoever it is you're
looking for has long gone," I went on in a pleading voice, even
though this is exactly how the fight started last time. Hey, I said I
was an archaeologist, not a ghost therapist. "They're probably
over there, on some sandy beach, sipping margaritas, going 'hey,
Roscoe, where's that two-bit gangster, Alan? Ain't he gonna get
wise?'"
"The guys and I have been wagging our
chins," he declared, as if I'd said nothing about booting him
across the Spiritual Divide. "We want you to use that wand of
yours."
"Wand? What wand?" I feigned
ignorance.
It was Alan's turn to remonstrate. "Kitten..."
I
yanked out the incriminating artifact, wishing I could just zap him -
and I can - but I rarely used it like that. When I did, there were
consequences. All I ever really used it for was to take readings on a
ghost, like a geologist would a seismic anomaly or a doctor of a
patient. If I was lucky, the readings I got led me to a gravesite,
or clues that the police needed to solve a case. The ghost itself, if
it was still around, and if it was seeking a way to leave, would gain
some kind of pulse, a burst of power it needed to move on to that
Great Beyond. A lot of the times, ghosts were grateful for the
chance. Some preferred to stay and I preferred to let it be, unless
they were just too difficult for the living. They certainly never
gave me as much trouble as Alan. He just wouldn't take 'boo' for an
answer.
Still, I had a real affection for him. He had spirit
for a spirit. If there was such a thing as Karma in the afterlife, I
wanted as many ghosts like him on my side when I got there.
"I
think this is a chance to prove yourself," Alan added. "You
bragged about it during your last visit. Now we want to see it in
action."
"Who's this 'we'?" I pursued. The
nerve of this guy! Prove myself?
"We. Us. Them. The
others who got sucked into this place against their will," Alan
groused. "I'm not even supposed to be here."
I
rolled my eyes. Duh!
"Are you going to help us or not?"
There was a tinge of desperation in his voice.
"With
what, Alan?" I was not about to be bullied. "If you're not
willing to go on your own, there's nothing I can do."
"We'll
deal with me later, doll," Alan replied, looking even more
unhappy. "It's the others that need your help."
"Fiiiine."
My drawl gets stronger when I'm frustrated. "I'll come back when
you're more in the mood."
Alan swept in front of me and I
felt, rather than saw, a wall of fire spring up behind me.
"We
don't got a lot of time, sweetheart," he insisted.
"No,
no no! Not this again!" I stormed. "I'm not going through
this again!"
To my surprise, the wall dropped.
"You're
going to have to trust me," Alan said, and it must have been the
pleading in his voice that got to me. This was different! "We
need you."
"You want me to do readings for
everyone?" I asked, incredulous. "So why haven't they..."
I stopped then, suddenly on my guard. Something was...off.
Most
haunted places rarely have just one spirit hanging about, and not
every ghost is looking for a way out. Linton's was not any different,
not whenever I came to visit. At any given moment, one or two of them
would float by, out of curiosity, out of fear, out of some desperate
need of their own. But now...the place was an empty shell...and it
felt awful, like a compression chamber. In fact, the atmosphere was
growing more awful by the second.
Not one of the resident
specters had made an appearance by this time.
"Wait a
sec...this place is usually teeming," I observed. "Where is
everyone?"
"Ah. At last, she crabs it," Alan
snipped, sticking his hands in his pockets. He looked insulted. "For
a minute there, I thought I was going to have to explain
myself."
"What have you done, Alan?"
"You're
the ghost shooter here," he said. "The witch-woman with the
wand. You tell me."
"I'm an archaeologist," I
replied, indignant. "A scientist. We only observe and study
things, not try to burn them up or spell-craft them out."
As
you can see, I get a little testy when I'm called paranormal...even
though the wand proves it.
"Dapple-face, you're a lot of
things, but observant you're not," he remarked and poked his
finger in the direction of the space behind me.
The tone of
his voice told me it would do no good to argue with his choice of
nicknames for me, poetic as it was. When I turned around to look, I
immediately knew I'd have more to worry about than Alan's incendiary
remarks.
A vortex. There was a brand new vortex in Linton's,
transecting the wall between the main grocery and the store manager's
office. How in the hell did I miss that?
I don't deal with
vortices. I chalk them up as one of those anomalies best left to the
adventuresome and foolhardy. I give them a very wide berth whenever
possible. Vortices are typical of places where someone has
deliberately tried to open the spiritual world; or, if you wanted a
really broad definition, a waypoint along ley lines where power was
more concentrated. They'll usually manifest themselves as amorphous
cold spots that travel, appearing and reappearing in no logical
method. More to the point, a vortex serves as some kind of doorway
for ghosts, the closest thing to a wormhole one could expect to run
across in this realm or on this planet. They're fairly common and I
knew of some ghosts that had shown up because of one, but I didn't
dare try to tackle the things themselves. For one thing, you just
never knew what grappling with a vortex will provoke or inflame. I've
heard it described like standing in the middle of an interstate
intersection and foolishly expecting traffic to bump into you like
pillows, while getting flooded with every emotion in the human and
spiritual spectrum, with no hope of reclaiming yourself. Not a
pleasant experience for someone sensitive to the ghost realm, and
definitely dangerous for the psyche.
What I had not seen
because of my determination to face off with Alan was the truly
heinous creature that now sat by the doorway of the store manager's
office, watching the two of us, silent and seething. It was frog-like
in appearance. At least, it squatted like one. It's color matched
that of slimy mud. Short front legs, bulging back legs, large bulbous
eyes all congealed to form a fat-lipped, flat-headed lump of pure
throat muscle. No human expression could match the malevolence that
glowed from its eyes. It blinked at us as if it had been waiting for
a chance to laugh at our horror. I had the distinct impression it had
been eating.
"Well, well, aren't we behind the eight
ball?" I asked, forcibly slowing my breath to keep calm. For the
first time since meeting him, I wished Alan was actually corporeal.
At least then I could hide behind him.
Alan only gave me
another one of his looks.
"What the hell is that?" I
asked.
"Powers of deduction escape you, don't they?"
"At
this particular moment, yes! Please tell me this has nothing to do
with you!" Panic was starting to form a tight knot in my chest.
I pointed the wand at the frog, but found I was trembling. I wouldn't
know what to do if that thing attacked me.
"It has
everything to do with me. But I didn't summon it, if that's what you
want to know."
I looked back at him, and even with all of
my suspicion and anger at the situation, I could see that he was
earnest.
"What is it?" I asked again.
"A
shiv...a knife, a thug...someone who does the dirty work to tighten
the screws. There's two of them. Second one's in the office. They
were sent to eliminate the others." He came to stand next to me.
He brightened, like a lamp when the rotator switch is turned, when he
came close to the wand. "They won't be able to hurt you. It's me
they're after."
"Can't you make it go away?"
"I
need you to use that wand," he said. "I've tried my own
methods. They didn't work." He motioned to the scorched hollow
of the store around us.
"But that's not what the wand is
for..." I protested. "I mean, I can help you get across the
Divide, Alan, but its not for blasting little beasties away. You
don't have to stay here. You can escape."
"Listen, I
know more about that wand than you think." Alan snapped,
impatient. He flickered as if the light in him were losing power.
"And it's not for the shivs or that vortex. It's for that altar
in there. Just walk past the shivs. They're the least of your
problems."
"I came in here to get my phone and get
rid of you!" I shot back, my temper frayed. "That's
all!"
"You have your phone and if you don't do
something, the shivs'll do the honors!" Alan's voice rose in
tandem with mine.
I broke. I couldn't take anymore. What he
was saying didn't making sense at all and the growing lack of control
I felt in the presence of that creature, as well as the vortex, began
to close in on me. I can be brave most of the time, foolhardy even;
but when I sense that things will end badly, I have no qualms about
ducking out. As much as Alan intrigued me, and as much as it would
cost me to let him continue causing trouble, it was becoming
enormously clear that I was getting railroaded into a situation that
would not have a happy ending.
"I told you, I don't use
the wand to make things disappear!" I cried. "I only use it
to gather information. If the ghosts are already gone, then so am I!
Good-bye, Alan. Have a nice...death. When you're ready to face facts
and leave this place, don't call me. Don't write my name, either. I
won't come!"
I turned to make my way back through the
store.
"Guess I'll just have to keep trying to burn this
place down, then," I heard him say with a finality I did not
like. I turned to find he had pulled out his lighter again and held
it to a nearby piece of wood. His eyes were closed and he was fading,
as if he was willing himself into oblivion. A single flame snapped
into existence at his fingers. It burned blue and leapt onto the wood
like a little imp, running and multiplying in tongues along the board
towards more fertile fuel. Uh oh.
Then I heard the sound of
the back door where I had entered slam loudly, as if to emphasize his
next words:
"This time," he growled, "I'm
taking you with me."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I
shouted in horror. "I'll do it! I'll do what you ask!"
Alan
hesitated, his handsome face dark with anger.
"I promise.
I'll do what you want," I gasped, horrified by the realization
that Alan had complete control of the situation.
He snapped
his fingers and the blue flames disappeared. He nearly faded to a
mere wisp and I realized he was getting drained. I'm ashamed to say
that it crossed my mind to hold out until he was drained altogether,
but Alan had made a clear imprint upon me. I would probably lose
before that ever happened.
"If I do this, then will you
leave me the hell alone?" I tried to negotiate. "If I do
this...whatever it is you want me to do, will you not set fire to the
place anymore...or write my name everywhere? Just...go to the Light?
Go home?"
Alan considered me for some very long tense
moments. I could see every nuance of expression as if he were real,
which made the brief passage of hurt across his face even more
disturbing. I knew that a ghost could and would attach itself to the
living to maintain energy and connection, but it surprised me that
Alan, my dapper 40s stranger out of supernatural nowhere, was
reacting as if I had just asked for a divorce. This was not a good
sign.
"Sure, doll," he relented, the tone in his
voice hard and unemotional. "If that's what you want."
"What
am I supposed to do now?"
"Get past the shiv...avoid
the vortex..." he explained. "It's just a simple drawing on
the far wall. That's all you have to deal with...but listen to me,
Deirdre. You must draw a square around it using that wand. Just a
simple square in a single unbroken line...got that?"
I
stared at him, almost disappointed with his instructions. Was he
crazy? Was I?
"I can't do the magic, hon," Alan
said, desperation showing in his eyes. "I won't lie: he'll throw
every bit of nastiness at you, but you've got to stay with it. Just a
square, no breaks. Once you do that, I can leave."
"So...I
ignore the shivs, and the vortex, and go draw a line on a picture on
the wall. Is that what you're telling me?" I asked. Incredulity
made my voice break.
"Just that," he replied.
"Just
what is it that I'm dealing with, Alan?" He had to understand: I
wasn't going to go in unless armored with something more than a
thumbnail full of faith.
"A sorcerer," was his short
reply.
Somehow this made perfect sense.
Not.
"And
you think my wand has the ability to wreck his world?" I
challenged him.
"Honey, that thing's a powerhouse."
I
frowned at him.
"The wand was once used to protect
something of great power, an artifact you will find in that altar.
You do this for me, dollface, I'll tell you anything you want to know
about it."
I didn't know what to say. How many fairy
tales ended badly because someone retrieved an item at the request of
some desperate being?
The shiv in the doorway burped.
"It's
what'll help me pass over, Daps," Alan said, pleading once more.
Damn it, I just couldn't resist him! "I need it to go
home."
"Well, then," I hedged. I saw out of the
corner of my eye the shiv inch closer to us. I shuddered, tried to
find some secure spot of reason to land my sense of balance. None of
what I came in to do was going according to plan. "That's what
it's all about, then, isn't it?"
"Hurry," Alan
urged.
~ @~ @~ @ ~
It was no comfort at all to remember
the shiv wasn't interested in me, because taking those steps past him
was a discovery of horror that I had never before encountered, namely
in the form of a second beast, same as the first, positioned beside
the vortex inside the office. By all appearances it sat with the same
indifference as the other, except it had been eating the ghosts that
made their haunting here.
Eating.
Remnants hung from
its fat lips, including what I recognized in a few dazed moments as a
bonnet that had graced one of the lady spirits that frequented the
place, a woman from the 1880s. Littering the floor of the chamber
were ghostly shoes, arms, parts of heads, teeth. To add to my
everlasting disgust, the second shiv drooled ectoplasm onto the
floor. It mingled with the parts in unnerving trails. My thoughts
churned as if on a tilt-a-whirl. I argued fervently against the
flight instinct. My specialty in school had been forensic
anthropology, so I had been through quite a few cases dealing with
the leftovers of a crime scene, never a pleasant thing. But they had
all been tissue and bone. This, in a very surreal way, was pure
obscenity.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to turn
toward the altar.
Everything I had ever encountered in the
ghost realm, all the dig sites I had been involved with that were
haunted by lingering spirits, all the houses I had been paid to
exorcise, none of them had presented quite the evil that emanated
from the pile of refuse clustered at the far wall. It appeared to be
a table or bureau coated in a mixture of drooping candles and
ephemera, a grotesque assortment of reeking appeasements: rotten
food, dismembered animals, used sanitary napkins, and bottles of
liquid. What really struck me was the picture plastered above it all.
It was large like a political poster and colored in the grim leavings
of time and decay. The face alone would have seemed cartoonish to the
secular eye, but my sixth sense felt malevolence pour from it in
waves, the tilted almond eyes filled with hate, a mass of stringy
hair like a river of pestilence. I realized I had been foolish to
worry about attention from the shiv: I was in the middle of the full
beam of this picture's gaze...and I feared for my life.
Instantly,
all of its will clamped down on me. It needed nothing more than an
audience, and I was caught. I could even feel a certain smugness in
its aura: the sorcerer had broken the bonds of time and space where
no one would think of it until it was too late. And, with a burst of
, it sensed the wand.
My arms felt heavy, as if blocks of lead
had landed on them, and my fingers felt blood pooling, circulation
cut off, trembling to release the wand. Despair filled me. I don't
think Alan understood what he was asking of me! I dealt only with the
lost ghosts, the ones who missed the exit and couldn't quite find the
road back. This entity was beyond my experience!
I felt a
light breath, an in spiritu movement, and an image filtered into my
mind's eye: a red square. The lead weights on my arms lightened and
my hands rose. I had something to focus on now, my original
directive. I pointed the tip to a spot in the top left corner of the
image and began to trace.
A red light trail appeared. I was so
amazed, I nearly dropped the wand.
Malice pounced, knocking me
back. A force like a multitude of leeches stuck to me like gum,
rolling over me, turning me around, grabbing at me, pinching,
punching and for a few moments all I could do was react. Get off, get
off! I turned the wand on myself and the force was kicked away. I
don't remember how I got back onto my feet, but I fastened the wand's
aim once again and this time bore down on it, pushing against the
strength of the image as if shoving against a stream of electricity.
It took eons to get to the top right corner. When I did, I pulled
down, drew the second line, then the third. Not a word, not a sound,
not a motion occurred other than my wand hand, but I knew the
presence behind the face was struggling against me.
A last
ditch effort shoved at me again and I felt hands around my throat.
The same sense of inspiration that had helped me draw the first line
told me that the unseen power was weakened, so I pushed against it
with every bit of concentration I could muster. I struggled to a half
crouch, knowing that if it succeeded in getting me prostrate, it was
over. My arm was shaking. I raised the wand and tried to connect the
dots...my palm was sweating and the fossil stone of the wand slid in
my grip...my aim wobbled, the line wobbled...I wobbled, between life
and death, air seeping away, pain, oppression...
Three
lines...almost four...
Now the frog creature took notice of
me! It scooched closer, dropped the bonnet from its mouth. Then, it
leapt.
The only pain I felt from the blow was the weight
landing on my chest, flattening me upon my back. Its rubbery mouth
opened; I strained against it, focusing all intent on the wand in my
hand. I might disappear into the maw of that thing, but I would damn
well keep that wand aimed!
Centimeters to the mark, but it
felt as if I had to cross a chasm to finish.
The shiv looked
up...a shadow crossed overhead. A hand gripped mine...
All
that foulness, all that terrible will, let out one last screech, then
the square snapped it off, and I lay on the floor, hardly able to
gasp, disbelief warring with the joy of not being dead.
Dark,
dark moments passed. I struggled with my eyesight to clear it of
residue. I saw light flare. A small gas-lamp appeared, set on the
floor. I tried to sit up and found myself too weak.
Confusion
reigned until I saw Alan kneel beside me in his quiet flowing way,
fedora hiding the shadows of his eyes. I could tell by his voice that
things were different now.
"Bet you could use some
hooch," he said to me, teeth gleaming in the dim light.
"Can
go now," I rasped, wishing for a tall glass of water. Air rushed
painfully into my lungs. I wanted to lay still and insist that
nothing else happen.
"Go where, Daps?" he asked.
I
blinked up at him like an owl. I was too weak to complain about the
nick-name.
"The Light. You're free," I
reasoned.
"Oh." He sat back on his heels, expression
unreadable.
"Had a deal!" I squeaked after several
moments of his scrutiny.
He only nodded. Long fingers lit
another cigarette. The pale glow illuminated the warm tones of a
planed face.
"Something's off," I announced and
tried to sit up. Alan grabbed my hand and pulled me straight.
I
stared bug-eyed up at him as the momentous gesture slowly sank in.
The bricklayer's line of his lips was smug. Smoke puffed from his
nostrils, and his eyes held mine. They were blue...such a pure
blue.
Then he said, "wait here," and turned swiftly
to the altar. The picture hung in tatters on the wall, its eminence
now as flat and ineffective as the paper it was printed on. Alan
shoved the debris of the altar aside and kicked its trash with his
feet until he hit against something metal. Crushing his cigarette
out, he picked up a container the size of a post box. I called out to
him, but he ignored me, fingers twisting at the lock until it bent
like aluminum foil and flung back the lid. Deft fingers cupped an
item within and held it up into the light.
Joy and rage
flushed across his features like shadows, curving the lines of his
face into an image I would not soon forget. Unless my eyes were
playing tricks on me (still), the white lump looked suspiciously like
a bone fragment. After careful examination of it, Alan slipped it
into his coat pocket. If he thought to explain himself at that
moment, he was interrupted by the startling blurt of a train whistle:
a locomotive engine barreled down the tracks one street over from
Linton's.
We both listened to it in taut silence. Then, he
took my arm and gently pulled me to a stand, his grip firm and warm.
Real flesh. The gas-lamp backlit his masculine profile with solid
concrete lines. The last iota of doubt I had was destroyed.
Alan
Zehnder wasn't a ghost. He was something else.
"You
alright?" He asked, his tone amused. He picked up the wand from
the floor and handed it to me. "No missing pieces?"
I
could only shake my head. Things had not stopped happening after
all.
"We should notify your boyfriend out there that
you're alright," he remarked, in the same tone of disdain Renn
as before. "He'll think something hinky is going on."
That
damned 'b' word again!
"No," I snapped, without
thinking. "Don't. Explain." I couldn't form full sentences.
I was too stunned. I certainly didn't want Renn and his friggin'
procedures around to complicate matters, not until I had both feet on
the ground. My monkey-brain wouldn't let go of the idea that Alan
should be dissipated by now, spirited to a Great Beyond...unless,
this was just more sorcery...
"Go on, doll. I know you
want to ask," Alan urged.
"What are you?" I
managed to say, my heart hammering hard enough to choke me.
"You
really want to know?" he asked. "I could just walk away and
let you have your life back. No more pitching woo."
I
blinked. Words I had used were being tossed back at me and that hurt,
more than expected.
"Tell me. I did what you asked,"
I challenged. "What are you?"
"Yes, you did,"
he murmured, and the look on his face spoke of his respect. He then
stepped closer, until our faces were mere inches apart. No longer was
he the amorphous ghost with which I had become familiar. No longer
cold, ethereal, liminal vapor. A gentle heat radiated from him and I
could scarcely look at him.
Tucking a finger under my chin, he
lifted my face so I would meet his gaze. I tried to protest, to
reason with him. I can't remember what I wanted to say. He just shook
his head: no. Then, he brought his mouth down on mine, sealed our
lips together in one breath.
The kiss was tender, eager. He
tasted of bourbon-laced smoke and sweet cinnamon fire. We parted
slowly.
"Rwy'n ddraig ac rydych hachub mi," he
rumbled in husky tones.
A more romantically pliable woman
would have just filled in the blanks. She'd melt into a pile of
accepting goo right then and there and not care what language had
been spoken, as long as it was in that sultry deep voice, with that
bone-softening kiss.
But I'm not romantic; at least, not in
the conventional sense. I'm definitely not pliable.
"That's
not fair," I groused, barely opening my eyes. "I don't
speak...whatever it is that you said."
He smiled a
brilliant smile I didn't think humanly possible. It sent my toes
curling. He traced a finger along my cheek, entangled it with a stray
curl of my red hair.
"It's Welsh. Are you ready to hear
what it means, Daps?" he asked, tenderly.
When I nodded,
he bent to my ear and whispered, "I'm a dragon...and you saved
me."
"What
the hell?"
That's
what I was going to ask! But for the fact that Alan's eyes were now
trained on a spot behind me, I could have sworn I said those words.
Turning, I saw Renn standing in the doorway of the office, eyes
bugged out from the wreckage of the altar and the imposing figure of
Alan. He glared at the both of us in such an expression of dismay and
betrayal that I fell against Alan to hold myself up. I knew through
lifelong familiarity that Renn's bulldog frown meant he was very,
very angry.
"You're
about to become the new suspect," he said.
Uh
oh.
"Now
wait a minute, bud..." Alan began, but I stepped in between.
"You
trusted me to do this, Renn!" I exclaimed, cheeks hot from
guilt. How long had he been standing there? "Turn me in and
it'll be the last conversation you and I ever have!"
"That's
what I came to warn you about," Renn growled. "I just heard
on the scanner that activity's been spotted here. I don't know who's
watching the place, but if you don't get the hell out of here pronto,
it's out of my control and any conversation we do have will be used
against us."
I
grabbed Alan's hand and pulled him along. I couldn't stop to wonder
at his physicality anymore, even though it felt surreal to be exiting
his ghostly home while his large, warm hand was wrapped in mine. The
night air was cool and refreshing compared to what I had been
breathing for the last hour or so. Alan seemed to be affected by it,
as well, as he gasped when he first stepped through the back door,
and stumbled along in the alley to follow us as we made our way to
some of the darker shadows of the block. One of the many hundred-year
old spreading oaks that punctuated the streets of Richmond offered
the darkest sort of cover for us and we huddled against its rough
bark, as much out of sight of his vehicle as we could manage. Renn
turned to us and gave us more instructions, his voice rough.
"Whatever
the hell you do, do not show yourselves! I have a cover story worked
out but one peep out of you and hell will break loose...and I might
join in with them." I couldn't see his face in the dark but I
knew it well enough to know he was boiling with fury. I could only
nod. Things were happening again and I was unable to find a place to
stand firm. "I'm going to go deflect their curiosity. You...get
lost." He was looking at me when he said this, but I sensed he
really meant Alan.
"Is
there a spot further away from here?" Alan asked of me in a soft
whisper, as Renn jogged back to his truck. My heart was beating in
such an odd gallop, I had difficulty finding the breath to reply.
"My
range rover," I whispered back. In spite of this new danger of
discovery, or probably because of it, I had not let go of his hand,
had pressed myself to him. The burn of the kiss still hovered around
my lips and the fact that he was real, so very real, had begun to
sink in. "It's just a couple of blocks away. We have to be
careful though."
He
seemed to know exactly how to go from shadowy spot to shadowy
passage, and swept me along so efficiently I was amazed. We had just
arrived by my vehicle when we saw three sets of red, white, and blue
lights flashing down the street. One of them headed directly towards
us!
Alan
had a solution.
"It's
a crass and over-used tactic," he told me, "but it
works...most of the time."
"What
works?" I demanded in alarm.
With
one smooth pull, he positioned me to stand between him and my car,
stepped in between my legs and pressed me to the door with his own
body, hitching me up a bit. The tactic was all too clear.
"Follow
my lead," he demanded, as I stiffened in dismay.
There
was the sound of tires on the asphalt. I threw my arms and one leg
around him. His hand yanked at my shirt until it hung out of my
jeans, then slid up inside and his other arm encircled my head so
that I could relax against it while he pressed his lips against mine.
Well,
it wasn't quite like our first kiss; but I gotta tell you, I almost
didn't hear the blurp of the siren, so enthralled was I. Alan pulled
away to turn and glare at the headlights of the police car as it
slowed to a stop just feet away, then stepped in front of me to
shield me as I tucked my shirt back in and tried to regain some
dignity.
"Step
away from her," said the driver of the car as he got out and
pointed a flashlight at Alan's face. "You all right, ma'am?"
I
nodded my head vigorously, squinting in the bright lights.
"Is
there a problem, officer?" Alan asked, tone neutral, but I could
see the glint of his blue eyes.
"Show
me your ID," the man said, hand on his pistol as he rounded the
door of his car. I panicked. Would Alan have anything like that?
The
officer stopped short.
"Is
that you, Deirdre?" he asked of me.
A
name sprang to mind: Nick. I couldn't remember his last name, but he
had conversed with Renn often enough for me to be able to pick him
out of the cadre of police that lived here. He trained his flashlight
back on Alan, but seemed intent on determining who I was.
"Guilty
as charged. Can't a girl go on a date?" I asked, defensively.
"As
long as it's that only that," Nick replied.
"She
was aggressive, you know. I didn't know how to stop her," my
erstwhile ghost friend said. Nick didn't laugh, but the tension eased
a bit.
"I'm
fine," I reassured with a smile. "Honest, I'm not hurt in
any way."
"Been
a long time since I've seen her. Guess I got carried away," Alan
added.
"We'll,
take it home then," Nick said, reluctant to let the moment pass
without a diktat. "Before you scare the horses."
"Some
lead you are," I groused to Alan as Nick drove away. We could
see other police vehicles driving to meet with Holt. "Now the
gossip's gonna run through town like wildfire."
"They'll
be talking about what a vixen you are, instead of whether or not you
were in that building," Alan replied, amused but pragmatic.
How
logical. I stared at him, realizing that at last there was a moment
where dire necessity wasn't forcing the both of us to ram our
personalities or will at each other.
"You've
got some explaining to do," I said.
"You've
got that cigar to give me. More where that came from?"
"At
my place."
Alan's
smile had the lasciviousness I had come to know and feel ambivalent
about.
"Good,"
he said. "Another chance for pitching woo."
He
was actually a perfect gentleman the whole ride home. I didn't have
far to go: over the railroad track and into the darker, older parts
of town. It was a small wood-frame house originally built by one of
the many founding fathers back when the area was still part of Old
Mexico. It was as modern as it could be inside, complete with central
air and heat and a stainless steel stove and my computer in the
living room. If the forties-era man (er, did he say dragon? That had
to have been a mistake...) was phased by any of this, he didn't let
on, simply propped his fedora on the lamp by my couch and stood
looking around as if uncertain where to go next. After I poured him a
drink - gin was all I could offer - and brought him a fresh cigar, I
reminded him of his promise to explain.
"I
was in Chicago at the time," he began, after a few appreciative
puffs, "nineteen forty-three. I was part of Pinkerton's
investigative outfit and the goons we were tailing got the drop on
us."
"Is
that how you got the bullet holes?" I pointed out the round
spots to him.
He
looked down, mildly surprised. "Oh, yeah. I forgot about those."
"But
why here?" I asked. My mind raced to pick out what bits of
knowledge I had about the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I found I
didn't know much, which just added to the confusion. Witchcraft and
America's oldest security service did not compute! "Why this
little town in Texas, of all places? We're not exactly a suburb of
Chicago."
"Is
that where I am?" It was Alan's turn for bemusement. "Well,
anyway, there was some...distress. Turned out to be a trap. A
sorcerer named Azdaja laid it for all of us. When I tried to help my
friends, I got caught in one of his little whirlwinds."
For
every sentence Alan spoke, a hundred more questions filled me. I
clutched at one of the pillows on the couch, holding myself back.
Patience was not a virtue I found easy to practice.
"The
vortex allowed other ghosts to come and go," Alan continued,
"and as long as that went on, I had some chance of keeping
solid. Took me some time to realize I had skipped a few decades.
Then, Azdaja...the sorcerer...sent the shiv, which began slicing them
all off. They weren't able to withstand it. You saw. They all got
devoured. But getting rid of them wasn't the purpose. Azdaja was
trying to get at me. Once I gave in, that was it. And the less buffer
I had, the easier it was to drain the last of me. It got so that the
only way I could stop him was to try and burn the building down. It
got so that no matter what I did, those firemen would show up and
ruin it."
He
paused here to rake me over with an all-too-familiar look of
appreciation, gave me a wink to counteract it. "Imagine my
delight when you turned up with your wand."
"Why
didn't you just say that was what you needed me there for?" I
asked in exasperation.
"I
had to be careful," he replied. "It was safer to let
everyone, including you, think I was a ghost that refused to go away,
that I was just part of the backdrop."
"But
you looked like a ghost..."
"A
sign of how weak I'd become, Daps. That was the point. I was dying
slowly, but not because of any bullets. As far as I could tell,
Azdaja wasn't aware of the wand...and every time you showed up to use
it on me, there was a chance he'd figure it out. For a while, the
wall stayed up...until it didn't..."
Something
clicked.
"The
skeleton and altar. That's why they appeared out of nowhere!"
Alan
grimaced.
"Who
was it?" I asked, the million-dollar question for any
self-respecting forensic detective.
Alan
shook his head. "Hell if I know. That's when I knew I had to up
the ante."
"Is
that why my name was spewed all over?" I asked.
"You
wouldn't believe they were passionate declarations of my devotion to
you, would you?" Alan asked with a grin of his own. I shook my
head. "Ah, well...dizzy for dames was always my jam."
Now
that we were in a more relaxed setting, I found myself taking
particular pleasure out of the antiquated hard-boil he slung into his
speech. Maybe it was all the noir I had indulged in all my life, or
the fatigue from the lack of joy in today's slang, but Alan's voice
had a bracing effect, as if he were the only one who knew how to lift
my spirits. This was vastly different than our previous encounters,
and I was enjoying it. I found myself melting into the cushions of
the couch, trusting him to unfold all that I'd been unable to crack
open.
He
sat down at last, drank his gin and finished the cigar. I admired the
square lines of his shoulders and the classic profile. He turned to
me and stared back, the smile still hovering around the lips that had
claimed me earlier. I straightened, alarmed. I was either going to
fall asleep in front of a total stranger or stare back at him for the
rest of the night like a love-struck schoolgirl.
"Why
you?" I asked before my brain clicked into gear and reminded me
that I had a dozen other questions to ask before getting more
personal. "Why didn't he just come get you himself?"
"You
might say he wanted to add me to his collection," Alan replied.
"But catching someone like me is tricky and sorcerers don't need
to be nearby to exert their power. That picture alone was enough for
him. That's why I wanted you to use the wand to seal it off."
Okay.
Maybe that explained some of his pushiness.
"But...why?"
I asked again. It all came back to the fossil wand. "What does
my wand have anything to do with a sorcerer I never met and a
pseudo-ghost who turns out....turns into you? You told me you knew
more about the wand than I did," I exclaimed, frustration
returning.
"I
did."
"And
you threatened to burn me down with the building!"
"I'm
sorry about that. I was desperate to make you do what needed to be
done."
"So
what does this have to do with that thing you got out of the altar?
What could you possibly tell me that would explain all of it?"
Alan
sighed, mulled over a thought or two and stood once more, stuck his
hand into a deep pocket and pulled out the item.
"It's
part of a skull," he informed me.
He
placed it gently in my palm. It had the heft of a fossilized ethmoid
process, the conjunction of bones that sat between the eye sockets of
an animal's head, the one barrier between someone's fist and the more
vital parts of the brain. I knew human bone better than animal, but
even I could see there was an anomaly to its interior structure: a
rounded cavity that had no apparent purpose. The calcareous substance
of the fragment glimmered with a deep ivory sheen.
"It's
a dinosaur bone," I observed, as if he were the not-so-astute
one.
"It's
dragon bone." His tone was unequivocal.
I
frowned, wondering if I was just so tired that I was imagining things
said and done. I stood up, deciding then I would have to choose
between one of two reactions: either send him out the door, now that
he was free, or go to bed and deal with it when I had my sanity back.
I returned it to him. I just couldn't process anymore.
"Prove
it," I commanded, almost as a throwaway remark.
I
shouldn't have done that, you know: challenge him. I can't say it was
the scientist in me this time, just pure unmitigated frustration.
Apparently,
he felt the same way.
With
a swiftness that took my breath, he grabbed my wrist and shoved the
rough bone into my palm, covering it with his other hand so that our
fingers were clenched around the object. All walls around me
disappeared and I was suspended in a haze of heat and earth and rain.
Bright lines ran out from me, and through me, and I saw shadows rise,
wings of acanthus leather flutter up and out, a head arching downward
to meet me. The skin of his neck and head shimmered copper and blue,
color running together like the veins of an autumn leaf, and
brilliant blue eyes locked me in their gaze. I was petrified.
As
suddenly as it had appeared, the vision melted to the square lines of
Alan before me. The corners of his mouth twitched into a small smile
- he was trying not to appear smug. The breath dissipated into a flow
of longing energy between the two of us.
"As
I said, I would have explained sooner," he rumbled. "But
there was no time."? Shaken, I sat back down upon the couch.
He joined me and took my hand, sans dragon bone; held it, as tender
as a lover. I clung to his fingers, his palms, acutely aware of how
real he was once more. I'm a woman of science: if I see, hear, taste,
experience, I am assured of its probability. So what was it that
intrigued me more: the fact that he was some non-existent mythical
creature, or hearing that the wand that I had come to know as my
moonlighting boon belonged to someone else? I wasn't too happy to
realize that the many illusions I'd created about it, and myself,
were suddenly null and void. The way his touch made my blood hum
through my veins was in direct opposition to the caution I should
have been exercising.
"It
was my great-grandfather's," Alan began, focused now on
fulfilling his promise to me. "I don't know how Azdaja got a
hold of it, but he did and he's been using it against me, against...a
lot of people. And if he had known soon enough about that wand, he'd
have found a way to trap you...through me, if possible." He took
a deep breath. "Wherever did you find it?"
"I
was a child...six years old. We...my aunt and uncle and two older
brothers...were vacationing in Alabama, and I got lost in the woods,"
I replied after a moment's thought. It was not an event in my life
that I spend a lot of my time recalling; not to mention the fact that
I grew up in a household where "don't ask, don't tell" was
the abiding policy of my Southern belle aunt, bless her heart. "All
I remember is falling asleep in a shelter of rocks and I woke up and
these little people were standing around me. They gave me the wand
and then one of them led me to a clearing where they, my brothers,
found me."
"You
didn't speak with them?"
"I
remember they made me feel safe, happy. I wasn't worried anymore, and
they seemed to know that I was lost. But..." I shook my head. "I
can't remember anything they specifically told me. They just made it
known that they didn't want the wand anymore."
Alan's
far-off look meant he was absorbing this story and filing it away. He
stood once more and I watched him pace the living room, wondering
what new revelations would rock my world.
"There
was a war," he began.
"Of
course," I sighed. I glanced at the clock on the coffee table.
The time was so close to dawn I decided it would be fruitless to try
and go to bed at this hour.
"You've
heard of the legend of Madoc?"
"Yeah...It
was one of those tales borne out of a hopeful attempt to one-up an
enemy in the race to claim sovereignty, a story of a medieval Welsh
prince who left his country in search for a more peaceful place to
live, away from the violent political contests of his clansmen, and
found the Gulf of Mexico, where he sailed upstream into the
interior...and essentially began a whole new war with the Natives
whilst also creating a whole new tribe that retained Welsh culture.
Assumptions about the many stone fortifications found in the
Appalachians concluded that the walls were too 'advanced' for people
like the Cherokee to construct - it had to have been a lost colony of
Europeans, right?
"Isn't
true," Alan said. "It wasn't humans that came over, at any
rate. It was the Fae who were traveling back and forth to the New
World...only it wasn't so new for them. They'd been doing that for
time immemorial. They weren't interested in claiming the land for
anyone, they just became a part of it. The Madoc tale borrowed from a
period when the last colony set out, before the ones who stayed
behind cut them off forever. There was a war in the New World and the
Fae who settled here called upon dragons they knew to assist them. My
great-grandfather led that war, and his bones are now deep beneath
the earth, revered by those Fae that remained. The wand itself is
meant to locate and protect them."
"Well,
that begs the question of just how your sorcerer friend even got a
hold of the bone," I interjected.
"That
it does."
"And
that brings me full circle, Alan," I added, standing up to join
him. "Why me? It's taken me a lifetime to accept it as it is,
and now this?"
"How
does the wand work for you?" He asked.
I
sighed. One these days, I guess, I'll get used to his left-field way
of answering my question with another question.
"When
I'm asked to go to a ghost job, if there's a one I can talk to, I
point and locate their bones, if there are any," I replied. "It
buzzes me...or sends me signals." I gestured what I meant by
making wiping motions over my face. "Then I know where to find
what's been hidden or missing."
"Anything
else?"
"I
see what caused their death. I'm able to find out their life story.
Then I help them let go."
"Then
I'd have to say you're descended from those Fae, Deirdre," Alan
concluded. I knew he was feeling more like himself, because the long
slender fingers picked up a second cigar and tucked into his mouth.
"You use it exactly for the purpose it was intended. There was
an agreement made between the Fae and my great grandfather, a special
guardianship created to protect the wand. When the war ended, the Fae
were decimated and the Nunnehai agreed to watch over it...until the
rightful guardian came along. Don't scoff, Daps! The 'little people,'
as you called them, don't relinquish to false people or give away
foolishly. Many have died to protect the wand. When they found you,
they knew what had to be done."
"And
all this for a dragon?"
"The
Fae were committed to the dragons." He lit the cigar and, with
one gustatory puff of smoke, got a dreamy look on his face. "Very
committed."
"Committed...as
in kamikaze committed?" I squeaked.
He
just smiled and winked at me.
I
felt shattered by the whole deal. In one night, one confrontation, my
entire perception of everything in my life was up-ended...and
replaced with more questions than I had ever encountered in an
archaeological dig.
"Face
it, doll," Alan continued, and his voice held a tone of absolute
certainty, "I'm your destiny. That wand brought me here, and
we're meant to be together."
"How
can you be so sure?"
"You
helped me," he said. "Now I can help you. You've been too
long conflicted about it."
"I
know all I want to know," I replied, but even I could tell by
the sound of my voice I was no longer willing to treat the wand as a
by-product of my fortune.
"Maybe,
but when the time comes for more, and there will be, doll...will you
be able walk away?" Alan challenged. "You can't. You
won't."
He
made his point. He knew me all too well.
"What
are you getting me into, Alan?" The last time I had asked that
question, he'd sent me into hell.
His
answer was to gingerly cup my face, a tender gesture that sent new
tingles of chemistry through me, emotions of fear, amazement,
attraction...and trust. I believed him! I reached my own hand up, not
to remove it but to hold his palm in place. Nothing I had ever
thought to expect when I went into Linton's tonight had
happened...but that was okay! Somewhere back there, when I first
began to realize he was no ordinary ghost, I must have decided to
believe him whole-heartedly, implicitly.
"We
have time now, Deirdre," he whispered. "Can you trust me?"
When
my eyes met his once again, he opened his mouth to speak, but I shook
my head: Yes.
Then,
I kissed him.
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