by Krysta Scott
Garrett took out his phone and snapped a picture, then sent the picture of Songe and the name Summer to his mother. Between her and Mark, they’d be able to locate the connection between Songe and Nikki.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, Nikki pulled her car into the Juvenile Center parking lot, events of last evening still rattling around in her head. She wasn’t sure what to think of everything she had heard. It was all too surreal. Discovering she was a descendant from an ancient line of dream casters? Talk about a weird family history.
Every family had some strange story buried beneath the depths of a normal façade. But every fact about her own life she thought she could rely on had now vanished, along with the knowledge that she was part of preternatural happenings. Insane. She pulled in a deep breath. There was no denying her abnormal abilities. She’d been given a taste of them, and inexplicably, a part of her was itching to try them.
She grabbed her purse from the passenger seat and removed the amulet. Should she keep it hidden? Everything changed the moment she acknowledged receipt of this strange object. Part of her wanted to shove it deep into a dark crevasse and forget she’d ever seen it. Maybe then life would right itself and let her go on as before.
No. No matter how much she wished for it, life would never be the same. If she was honest, life wasn’t so great before gaining possession of the amulet. What good would hiding the damn thing do now? Besides, hiding wasn’t in the repertoire of her natural behavior. She’d always faced things head on.
She lifted the lid of the small box. The jewel sparkled in the sunlight, a little harbinger of her life in transition. Stay away from them Nikki.
“I can’t, Dad,” she whispered aloud. Her opposing counsel was one of them. Like it or not, she was part of Guild society.
Nikki removed the necklace from the box and clasped it around her neck. The weight was new, but comfortable, as if it belonged there. She clutched the amulet, drawing confidence from it. Maybe it did hold power. Its impression seemed to fill an empty space she hadn’t realized existed until now.
Now I am truly one of you. The thought came unbidden.
A minute later she marched into the Juvenile Center filled with a new sense of purpose.
Marilyn slid open the glass window. “Boy, you’re here a lot lately.”
“You would be too if you were part of the ‘case that will never go away’.” She leaned against the counter anxious to speak to her ward.
“What can I help you with?”
“I need to see Lori Hanover.”
“I’ll have her brought to the room.” Marilyn swiveled to her phone and dialed. A few beats later, she said, “Yes, Nikki is here to see Lori. Right.” She hung up the phone. “You’re in luck, Lori has no scheduled activities for the moment. She will be in room five shortly. I believe you know the way.”
“You bet I do. Thank you.” Nikki turned down the hallway but was stopped by the receptionist’s next comment.
“Hey, is that necklace new?”
“Kind of.” She fingered the amulet. “It’s an old family heirloom.”
Marilyn leaned closer, like she was examining a rare exhibit in a museum. The sense that she was on display didn’t sit well. Naked in public.
“Sweet. Are those real?”
“I have no idea.” More to the point, she didn’t care. The amulet was pretty in its own way. Marilyn was a jewelry junkie judging from the huge gold hoops in her ears and mass of bracelets around her wrist.
“Well, it looks nice on you.”
“Thanks.” Nikki continued down the hall to the kids’ room.
The interior was brighter than the last time she was there. The sun shone through somewhat grimy windows in spite of dust wind-tossed across the panes. The view outside revealed a barren lawn, bordering a black top with a solitary basketball hoop. The netting long since disintegrated, but a few kids were tossing around a ball, dunking it through the steel rim. It never ceased to amaze her how resilient children were. All smiles and good-natured jabbing, in the most desolate place on Earth.
The door opened, and Lori walked in.
“Hi, Lori.”
Wide eyes signaled surprise, marred with a little trepidation as she made her way to the table. “Is something wrong?” She sat slowly, stopping short of actually taking her seat when her gaze spotted the amulet. “Nice necklace.”
A common enough statement, but the intensity in the girl’s eyes indicated much more beneath the surface. Although Nikki had doubts, Lori’s reaction indicated a recognition of what necklace represented. It was in the way she slowly descended into her chair, sat, back straight, addressing Nikki head on. Waiting. Expectant.
Nikki decided to play the simple statement angle. “Thanks.”
“How come you weren’t wearing it the last couple of times I saw you?” Accusation threaded her question. A ‘why didn’t you let me in on the secret?’ insinuation. Or at the very lease not hold back critical information. Heat rose from neck to cheek. Yes, Lori knew.
“I only just received it.” Nikki covered the pendant with her hand, unable to meet Lori’s eyes.
What the hell? Nikki felt chastised by this skinny eight-year-old. It wasn’t as if she’d known about the Guild when she’d first met Lori. Surely, Lori’s odd behavior at their initial interview could be attributed to a child’s fishing expedition. Had Lori been asking if Nikki was one of them? Even if that were the case, Nikki hadn’t known enough then to answer in the affirmative. But she did now.
Lori’s expression morphed into something shrewd beyond her years. “How old are you?”
Taken aback by the question, Nikki pretended to write on her notepad considering her answer. This girl’s forward manner made Nikki ill at ease. She bit back a small grin. Wanting to help Lori warred with the instinct to teach her some manners. She held back, however. There was no need to snap at a young girl just because she hadn’t been taught the natural boundaries surrounding polite conversation. After all, Lori had only asked about her necklace. Something the receptionist had done. And asking Nikki’s age was impertinent, yes, but not out of the ordinary for a young child. The problem was Lori had an uncanny knack of digging around in her emotional well and picking the one thing that would set her on edge. Nikki just had to assume that Lori wasn’t doing it on purpose.
Nikki rubbed her neck allowing the tension to ease around her shoulder muscles. “I’m twenty-eight.” What was the harm if Lori knew her age? It was one step closer to getting on a personal level with Lori. An area Nikki had successfully avoided to date with the other children she represented. Allowing a child to form an attachment, or act like a friend when all she was going to do in the end was walk out of her life was out of the question. Nikki refused to be responsible for another loss.
“You should have gotten the amulet way before now,” Lori told her matter-of-factly. “How come it took so long?”
Nikki stifled the urge to drop her head on the table in frustration. From Lori’s perspective she hadn’t asked a personal question. She was just trying to figure out why Nikki hadn’t been given her necklace like everyone else. That was fair.
Now it was time to turn the tables on this small girl. She was the one who should be asking the questions not an eight-year-old. At least her interest in this small piece of jewelry, gave her a place to start. “What do you know about this necklace?”
Lori leaned in close as if she was disclosing national secrets. “I know it means you’re one of us. You’re supposed to wear it all the time so that everyone knows you’re a member. And you’re supposed to get it at sixteen.”
“How do you know all this?” Nikki strived for casual, but she was sure Lori could hear the loud drumming beating inside her chest.
“Duh.” Lori rolled her eyes, head following the motion. “My family belongs to the Guild.”
Nikki tapped her pen against her notepad, digesting this information. If she had her facts straight, everyone involved in the Hano
ver case was a member. But not everyone was marked with the Guild’s signature. “How come your grandparents don’t wear one?”
“They’re not active members. They’re on like super-secret probation or something.”
“How come?”
She put her shoulder up in a half shrug. “Mommy knows more—” She choked off as tears formed in her eyes. Her head dropped.
“What about your dad?”
Her head shot up. The eye contact was fast, fierce, and angry. “He’s not part of us. He was ex…com…” A sigh. “Shunned.”
“Why?”
Her gaze didn’t waver. Lori wanted this topic covered. “Mommy says that Grandma and Grandpa did this to him.”
“Did what?”
“Made him an iso…” she frowned. “He can’t do anything anymore.”
“An isolate?’
Lori nodded.
“I don’t understand.”
“They were scared.” Lori shrunk down, but her eyes remained wide and earnest. How did a parent become frightened of their own child? Nikki had seen parents file charges of assault and battery against their recalcitrant teenager. It never mattered that the child was defending himself from a lifetime of abusive behavior. Each and every time the parent claimed they were threatened by their adolescent. An adolescent of their own making. A sign the parent hadn’t gotten their bluff in early enough. Not so unusual. Maybe that’s what happened to the Hanovers.
“What’s so scary about your dad?”
A shrug. “They say he did bad things. But Daddy says he was robbed—they shouldn’t have done that to him.”
Nikki studied her small charge. Lori was speaking in riddles. It was impossible to discern exactly what had been done to Mr. Hanover, but whatever it was, he was pissed off. “What do you think?”
Lori regarded her with what could only be termed wonderment. The expression of a child who’d never been asked their opinion. Nikki shuddered at how often she had witnessed this expression. Parents just didn’t seem to get they were raising a little person instead of a lump of clay.
“I dunno. He’s scary, I guess. He needs help.”
“What makes you think that?”
She sank down further in her chair and rolled a red crayon back and forth with her palm on the tabletop. “That’s what mommy says.”
“I see.” There was way too much talking about adult matters in front of this child. Another thing Nikki saw too much of. This situation felt different though. She had the strong impression that Lori was talking about Guild business and not just what happened to the Hanover family. “What help does she think he needs?”
“He needs to be cleansed.”
It occurred to Nikki she had a lifetime of learning to accumulate in a short amount of time. “What?”
“It’s something the Guild does to make someone better.”
Somehow, she doubted anyone would feel better after a cleansing. It had the connotation of purging and sanitizing. Like brain washing. “What was it your grandparents did?”
“Not that.”
Perhaps this matter would be better taken up with an adult. But that would be an exercise in futility. Their members were tight lipped as it was, and Nikki was new to the organization. An outsider, and if her grandfather had his way, she would remain one. At this point she wasn’t sure how she felt about either faction of the dispute. Before she could form another question, Lori reached for her arm.
“Did the Guild train you?”
“I’m kind of self-taught.”
A broad grin spread across Lori’s face. “Me, too! My mom and dad used to fight about it but Daddy always won. ’Cept he couldn’t get into my mind, and Mommy kept Daddy’s family away, too.”
Apparently, just like Nikki, Lori wasn’t completely a part of the Guild’s exclusive membership. Lori, however, understood more about the society and had more contact with them. What must it be like for Lori to simultaneously belong and not belong? At least Nikki hadn’t grown up outside looking into this small community. Nikki shuddered. She should be thankful. The room suddenly felt cold.
“Would you like to be formally trained by the Guild?” Even to Nikki’s ears, it sounded like a stupid question. She hadn’t intended on taking this conversation so off topic but she wanted to know what childhood was like for Lori from all sides. At least that’s what she told herself.
“No.” Lori tilted her head. “I like being trained by Mommy.”
Nikki nodded her understanding, but Lori’s eyes glazed over, and sadness tinged her expression. If only they could talk about her situation without bringing her mother up. Nikki promised herself she would steer as clear of Lori’s mom as possible. Lori examined the ends of her hair like she was trying to count how many strands she had.
“You have to make my dad stop.” Her eyes stayed on her hair, a pleading tone in her voice.
Nikki flinched. She didn’t have to ask Lori what she wanted her dad to stop doing.
“You’re safe, you know. He’s in jail.” Nikki hoped the words were reassuring. “He can’t hurt you.”
“What if he gets out?” Tears trailed down her cheek. “You have to make him stop.”
“I’m not sure how I can do that.”
“It’s easy.” In spite of her tears, she looked up at Nikki then. “All you need is something of his to get into his mind. Then you go in and change it.”
Nikki didn’t take the time to consider the ethical complications of what Lori suggested. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone would ever find out. Even if Garrett shouted to the roof tops, who would believe him? The Guild was private about their business.
Most likely, things of that nature were handled internally. A small fact that caused Nikki concern. Maybe what they did to Lori’s father was how they punished people who stepped over the line.
She tapped her pen against the tabletop, thinking. She had to do something and her last instructions were to start small. Was this small enough? “What do I do?”
“Do you have anything of his?”
“No.”
Lori looked left and then right. “I do,” she whispered. She tugged a key attached to a dirty piece of plastic off her neck. “This opens the back door to my house. Daddy gave me his old teddy bear. It’s blond and has round legs and arms. He has big blue eyes, but no tongue because it fell off.”
Nikki squelched an urge to laugh. There was so much of Lori’s world that belonged to a normal child, it broke Nikki’s heart. And so much that was on a much larger scale. And those two parts mixed significantly.
Nikki caved into temptation, nodding sharply. “I’ll give it a try.”
Lori sat straighter, her wide grin returning. “See? You are my guardian.”
****
Garrett answered his phone on the third ring. “Did you get the photo?”
“Yes. And I’m not pleased with the outcome.” His mother’s icy tone reached through the phone.
“Do you know him?”
“I’m not certain, he looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him.” She paused. His mother rarely handled well anyone messing with Guild business. “Are you sure he is the one protecting her?”
“Pretty sure.” Why else would Nikki bend so easily to Songe’s suggestions? “If he has a connection to the Guild, someone should recognize him.”
“I’ll look into it.” Another pause. As bossy and chatty as his mother could be, she was being very tight-lipped about the whole matter. “This might be a delicate situation.”
“You mean not for my ears.” Garrett hadn’t ever been keen on heavy involvement in Guild business. Maybe that had been a mistake. The elders poured over antiquated documents outlining the ancestry of its family members. It hadn’t occurred to Garrett they were anything but a family laminate. Frankly, he thought it was kind of sick the way they felt about their bloodlines resembling canine pedigrees. Perhaps the information contained in the sealed archives transcended more than a mere family tree.
�
�Some information is the domain of the head elders and, as you have so blithely put it, you aren’t interested.” His mother huffed but didn’t even have the decency to hide the snide lilt in her tone. She was one up on him for now. “Let’s just say there was a split in the membership years ago. Some wanted more leeway in raising their clan. We didn’t allow it. If he is one of them, well…”
Guild business was beginning to sound more like the legal practice rather than some dry old men pursuing arid documents. “What happened?”
“Those who opposed us were ostracized but never stripped. The Guild kept close tabs on those families, and to our knowledge no one stepped out of line.”
“Maybe someone did. Was there some kind of check in place?”
“Yes, but we detected nothing. With no activity, we thought everyone involved in the dissent had died.”
“Well, I can assure you this man was alive enough when I left him visiting with Nikki Angelus. Maybe you should check again.” This was beyond belief. As careful as his mother was when it came to Guild business a lot of things seemed to be slipping by of late. An isolate with a gifted daughter? An old man back from the grave? For the first time Garrett wondered if he should take his rightful place with the elders. The notion sickened him. It had all but destroyed his father. All the obsessing and needling had driven him away. He didn’t want that for himself.
“Interesting. What was his business with her I wonder?” Clicking on the other end signaled his mother typing. “William Songe’s name does not appear on the list of known dissidents. This is as far as I can get here. I need to go to the archives for the rest.”
“Why?”
“We’ve kept track of our people since we landed in America.” Her voice was filled with irritation. “Only current information was transferred to the computer data base.”
Garrett didn’t like where this conversation was headed. Although Songe never admitted he was a Guild member, Garrett would lay odds that he was. The man never flinched or acted confused regarding Guild history. That meant he was familiar with its practices and, more to the point, part of it. If Songe was an ostracized Guild member, what was his interest in Nikki? Was Nikki a lost part of his family line? That might mean Nikki was the Shadow Dancer. Garrett groaned. His train of thought would not lead to positive resolution. The council would never allow Nikki to thrive. They would want Nikki eliminated. He couldn’t convince himself isolating her mind was the right thing to do. “I think I should be allowed access to the archives.” Urgency sounded in his voice. Desperation surged through his veins that if he was not an inside man on this matter, he couldn’t protect Nikki from the council’s wrath. A sentiment he didn’t want his mother to detect. Her small laugh signaled he failed to conceal one or both.