by LeAnn Mason
“So, it turns out I don’t need the money, so I’ll take my ring back,” I cajoled toward the weasely shop owner. “I’ll give you... three grand for it.” Pulling out the wads I’d divided between several pockets, I laid the bills on the glass case the greasy attendant stood behind.
“Excuse me, lady. I need to get paid first,” the affronted customer barked. Irritated at my intrusion, both men attempted to intimidate me with glaring looks and clenched jaws.
If they only knew just how little I care about their thoughts and feelings…
“By all means, please settle on a minuscule amount for some—” I peeked around the burly, bikeresque customer to the black handgun sitting on the case between them. “—unregistered weapon most likely used in the commitment of a crime first.” I may have taken the act a little far with an exaggerated shrug but a snigger from behind indicated that Torgny — who had apparently followed, silent and unseen — was amused, so I considered it a win.
After gathering up my wads of money, I leaned an elbow on the glass case, about a foot from the transaction, and proceeded to wait my turn. Gunhilde and Torgny contented themselves with inspecting the random items littering the shelves and cases. With hushed tones and many a furtive glance, the transaction was completed, and the customer left the shop sans implicatory evidence.
“Now, what’s this about buying a ring?” the attendant drawled, drumming his fingers lazily atop the display case I’d used to prop myself up.
“Cut the shit. I’ve decided I don’t need the money, so I’ll just give you this…” I pulled the cash out of my pockets again, slapping the wads on the case, again. “And take back the ring.”
A smarmy grin unfurled across the greaseball’s craggy face. “Oh, okay. That’s easy enough. Ten grand, and it’s yours.”
“No… three, and it’s mine,” I growled through clenched teeth. Both hands pressed so hard against the glass top to keep from punching the asshat that heat fogged up the surface beneath my palms.
“No… you sold the ring. You no longer have any rights to the object. It’s mine now, and I decide how much I’m willing to part with it for. So, ten thousand dollars, and this exquisite, one-of-a-kind, platinum-and-diamond beauty can be yours.”
“Listen here, ratface—” I snarled, lunging for a grip on some piece of the slimeball.
A loud crash drew our attention toward the back of the space. Another shrill clatter greeted our ears as I watched Torgny grab some gaudy-looking vase littered with large floofy flowers and thrust it violently to the floor. Shards skittered to reach my booted feet several yards away.
“What was that? What did you do?” the shopkeeper accused with narrowed eyes aimed at me. His formerly shrewd gaze now appeared disconcerted.
You have to be quick on your feet. Work with what you are handed.
That was a Sekeism I could work with.
I’d forgotten until that moment that my compatriots were cloaked from human sight and that the clerk thought I’d returned alone. “I’ve been right here. You think I have some kind of superpower or something?” Scoffing loudly, I stared at him.
He flinched behind the counter when the case to the left shattered, raining shards of razor-sharp glass in a halo around the stand.
“Seems like something unseen doesn’t like you. Got any cursed antiques?”
Torgny leaped over the counter like he wasn’t at least two-hundred pounds of muscle, landing lightly on the backside of the divide with the douchebag-pawn-guy and prowled the nearest wall.
Gunhilde watched on, an amused tilt to her lips.
Torgny lifted a frame from the wall and truly smiled for the first time since I’d laid eyes on him. The signed print and record sealed behind the frame was flung casually over his shoulder to land with a tinkling crunch, more glass littering the ugly blue-gray industrial carpeting.
“Have you ever wronged a customer?” I asked, inspecting my nails. “Based on the last guy, your clientele probably isn’t very peaceable. Maybe you pissed someone off who’s… no longer with us. Tell me, do you believe in ghosts?”
“That was fun,” Gunhilde laughed, breezing back into the motel room in my wake with Torgny bringing up the rear and nudging the door closed.
After a few more launched items, one of which happened to be a knife aimed toward Mr. Sleeze’s head, the pawn guy had finally conceded. The realization that he would keep losing sellable items of worth until he gave in was pretty convincing. Of course, the thought of a vengeful ghost greased his palms as well, especially once he realized it wasn’t me… and surveillance tapes wouldn’t help him to say it was.
I’d thought about keeping the money, mostly for the trouble he gave me, but decided against it when I realized I’d be on the hook for theft and readily seen on the aforementioned surveillance. Better to not give the cops any ammunition against me.
Hell, who was I kidding? Without the help of the supernatural world hiding me, I’d be locked up again in no time.
Once you’re caught, you’re screwed. You’re in the system, and it will screw you.
I’d already broken my parent’s all-important rule of “never get caught” several months ago when I’d been arrested at a murder scene. They were all over my pasty ass even after Seke arranged my release. My fingerprints and face were marked. And the proof was in my latest little visit, once again requiring Seke to come to my rescue.
“Shit. I really can’t go back to being normal, can I?” I mumbled, falling backward to sit atop the closest bed. “Coming here was a waste.”
“How’s that?” Gunhilde hopped onto the desk to scrutinize me.
“Well, if I hadn’t been looking for a druid, I wouldn’t have been arrested again. I’d still have a shot to slip into the night. To be human.”
“Maybe,” Gunhilde replied dispassionately. “You were never human. Your parents never should have tried to convince you otherwise. But nothing in the past can be changed. We are here to focus on the future. On saving your mother. You still want that, yes?” The longer she spoke, the more passionate she became. Her steely eyes lit, and she leaned forward, hands gripping the desktop with such force I feared it would crumble under her fingers.
“Yes, I want that.” It was the only thing I wanted right then.
“Good,” she nodded with satisfaction. “Let’s get started.”
I sat up, ready.
“Hold the ring, and concentrate. Think about what you want to see. Your goal is going to be to pull as much information about your surroundings as possible. The more information you can gather, the easier it will be to find. Make sense?”
I hesitated. “How is it that Seke couldn’t teach me this? Seems like a fairly straightforward process.”
“It is not something you can always do. It can be hard to acquire a tether to a random death. That usually has to be done while on the job,” Gunhilde explained.
Seke had brought the ring though… Had he intended to teach me this before I told him to scram?
Gunhilde sat back against the already damaged mirror, relaxed now that we’d established that I wasn’t going to bail. “Are you ready?”
Taking a deep breath, I clenched the recovered ring within my fist so tightly my nails bit into my flesh and I felt every contour of the metal enclosed within. Closing my eyes, I prayed my “sight” would take over and show me my mother, where she was being kept, and by whom, so that I could ride in like the cavalry and rescue her like a white knight, a hero.
It was my turn.
21
I blinked a few times, but everything remained dark. Had I messed up? The directions weren’t hard: close your eyes and concentrate. This was supposed to be a vision though, and thus far, my literal sight could see nothing.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask Gunhilde what I was missing, I heard a splash to my left. I recognized the noise despite the fact that it had a far-off dreamlike quality making it sound muted and lethargic.
Whipping to my left, I stared at...
still nothing. Reaching one hand forward tentatively, I found... air. Sweeping my arm wide around me, I spun in a slow circle, and the swishing sound of water came again.
I paused. Gunhilde had said to pay attention to my surroundings. Feeling like I’d been blinded, I refocused my attention on my other senses just as I’d been taught that day in the training room. Cole had blinded me and forced me to use my ears and touch to follow Raven’s movements. Then, Seke… he’d taught with a lighter touch, his shadows blacking out my vision, his touch and smooth voice the delivery devices. That lesson had ended in our first kiss. This was unlikely to go that way, but as soon as I considered my other senses, I noticed a lot more clues to my location.
What do you know? Training is useful even outside HD missions.
A steady dripping echoed faintly along with the gentle trickle of flowing water. When I shuffled my feet a bit, spinning more, I felt water press back against my feet, ankles, and halfway up my shins, slowing my movements. It was... cold. The water was cold. And it smelled. It smelled foul. My nose wrinkled when the rank odor sharpened as I turned my attention to it, almost like I’d unlocked a new level of complexity to the vision.
I could’ve done without that little bonus.
I raised an arm to cover my nose as the consuming smell of mold and shit made me gag. I turned further, and something hit my shin, drifting in the current. I backpedaled with a muted cry that also reached my ears... and my back pressed into something solid.
Reaching my free hand to feel the surface, I almost dropped the ring that was still in my hand. As much as I was not enjoying myself, I didn’t want to lose the vision, so I slipped the ring onto a finger and spread my palm to explore the wall. It was curved, coarse, and damp.
My disgusted suspicions were confirmed. A sewer. I was in a freaking sewer.
Gross.
What happened to the old-timey corridor I’d last seen my mother in? Neither of the places I’d seen gave me geographic context though, so I needed to do some searching.
Keeping one hand against the wall of the hollow cement cylinder, I trudged my way toward where I’d heard the splash.
Maybe it would be smart to move away from something unknown in a drainage pipe, but I didn’t have that luxury. It felt like the area behind me just... wasn’t there, like the vision hadn’t loaded that part because it wasn’t relevant to the information I sought.
Trust your gut.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m going.
The pipe began to arc to the left after a few steps. And as I made the turn, a faint flickering light revealed itself ahead.
I squinted, relieved that my eyes were indeed working. My pace picked up, quads working to drag my calves through the sloshing water. The loud splashes echoed on the walls, and I prayed to whatever gods — even Seke — that only I heard it, that visions weren’t... interactive in some way.
Unfortunately, the vision was interactive enough that I found the end of the segment of the tunnel with my face when it clanged into a metal bar. No bigger than two inches in diameter, the vertical bar that stretched from the top of the pipe and into the water just managed to avoid flattening my nose. But I would have a nice shiner above my right eye.
I blinked the dizziness away and then felt the obstacle. There were several bars lined up in a row like a gate at the end of the drainage pipe. The bars were only about six inches apart. But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to squeeze through them. On the other side of the gate, I could see the flickering of what looked like a candle flame.
Irritated, I huffed out a breath.
Suddenly, I was back in the motel, staring at two faces hovering over me.
“What did you see?” Gunhilde was quick to ask, her expression eager. Torgny looked... intense as he awaited my answer, dark hair curtaining his face.
I shook my head against the bedspread — when had I laid down? “I was in a sewer, but that’s all I got. That could be anywhere.”
“What do you mean that is all you got? You didn’t see your mother?”
I frowned, irritated. “No.”
“That’s not right. You should have seen your mother. The ring would have taken you to her.” Gunhilde began pacing again.
I sat up. “I mean, it may have. But I got stuck. There was a grate at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t get past it.” I shrugged. “I guess I gave up because, the next second, I was here.”
I stared down at the ring. It was settled snugly on my middle finger where I’d slipped it in the vision. Did that mean I’d develop that shiner from impacting the metal of the grate? My hand reflexively came to prod the flesh around my possibly damaged eye.
It’s a bit tender.
“Oh. I forgot to mention that.” I looked up as Gunhilde slapped herself in the forehead softly. “I forget how little you know. Enid was so practiced when I knew her. It is your vision,” she told me. “You can control what stops you. If you think there is an obstacle, there will be an obstacle.”
“So, I just... believe that it isn’t solid, and it won’t be?” I asked, trying to understand.
Gunhilde nodded emphatically. “Because it isn’t. Not to you. It is your mind stopping you. Stop thinking you will fail.”
“Easier said than done,” I muttered.
I hadn’t consciously been thinking I’d fail, but what did I know about visions? And learning banshee abilities from a valkyrie wasn’t the surest education.
Maybe I was... afraid to see my mom. Afraid of the condition I’d see her in. The last vision, I hadn’t known who she was. Though I had felt for the abused woman, now, there was a lot more baggage on the table, and the dungeon-like start to my vision didn’t bode well.
“Go, go. Try again.” She made shooing motions with her hands.
Dutifully, I shut my eyes and curled my hand around the ring, concentrating on my mother.
I would find her. I had to.
The trickle returned, and this time, I could hear... something else. A soft wheezing almost.
“Mom?” I whispered into the dark.
I reached a hand forward and felt the columns of the gate, the swish of water against my shins. As I had the thought, the smell returned too, and then, as if blacking out in reverse, the candle flame brightened into existence.
I gripped a bar. It felt pretty solid. But I trusted my newest mentor.
It was this or never find my mom. And I wasn’t going to let anything prevent me from finding my mom. I needed her, perhaps more now than I had growing up. She was the only one who understood my powers — and knew how they’d been bound. I wasn’t going to let —
My hand drifted through the bar.
I stared in awe for half a beat. Then, before the barrier became solid again, I hurried through as though it was a closing elevator door. Breathing out once on the other side, I steeled myself and moved forward.
The passage opened into a small circular room like the base of a tower. I couldn’t see up, the candlelight not powerful enough, but the beam hit the dark surface of the water, which rippled when I swished forward. I watched the ripples undulate toward the candle itself... and detour around something erected in the center of the space.
Moving farther into the room, I stared at a pedestal on which the single thin white candle sat, propped upright in a tarnished, golden candle holder. I reached out to pick it up and bring it with me to better inspect the outer edges of the flooded room and hesitated.
What if moving it triggered a tripwire?
Never leave evidence that you were there.
Leaving the candle where it was, I willed the flame to be brighter. As I watched, it flared, the halo it cast light upon expanding. Quickly, I spun, taking in the damp, gray stone walls of the room... and the single bed pressed up against it.
It was a rudimentary old cot with a raggedy, bare mattress that leaked stuffing and springs through various holes in the surface. The simple metal frame had legs just tall enough that the mattress hovered about an inch over
the water level. There was something lumpy on the mattress — someone — who was breathing with faint rises and falls and an audible wheeze.
I squinted, moving forward, heart in my throat, the fingers of one hand twisting the ring on the other. “Mom?” I whispered.
With a clang, a door slammed open overhead, revealing a rectangle of light that pierced the inky darkness about twenty feet above the bed.
I shrank back against the opposite wall, watching the candle flame return to its normal, dull luminosity as a metal ladder dropped to the floor with a loud thump. It creaked as someone descended, and I went still, watching with wide eyes as a man skipped the last several rungs and slid to the floor with a splash.
He rounded the bed, and before I could even try to make out anything about him, he lifted a hand and slapped the form on the bed.
A faint whimper rose from the lump. I bit back a gasp of outrage.
“Up and at ‘em. We’ve got a task for you.”
The response was a faint moan.
“Come on.” He shoved the lump roughly.
It didn’t move. A faint voice slithered out of the darkness. “Need more strength. Can’t.”
“You’ve had an hour to rest. It’s time.”
“Can’t,” the woman repeated in a croak — but louder.
“You will. Or else.” The threat thundered through the room, whipping around the circular space. The man bent over and hauled the woman over his shoulder.
Long, dull, silverish hair hung down the man’s back.
Mom.
No, I couldn’t let him take her. Panicked, I surged forward. Pretending like he was Raven — or Cole, which was more his shape — I broke into a run and leaped, kicking out a foot for the back of his knee to drive him to the floor.
My foot sailed right through his leg, and I splashed to the ground.
Why hadn’t that worked? I’d believed he was solid, the reverse of what I’d done with the grate. Maybe I could only influence how I interacted with objects in visions — not people. Just enough to let me view the vision, not alter the circumstances or actions in any way.