by Krysta Scott
Full of new found purpose Nikki sought out the source of the thought. The need to squelch the slimy little toad that owned the thought overwhelmed her. She pushed her way through multifaceted interlocking sticks. Each intermittent spark of energy sent a twinge through her as she neared the well of consciousness. She stepped into a circle of pulsating awareness. She found the source of the thoughts.
Parker Hanover.
His mind was getting stranger and darker. She caught each thought as it slinked through the air. Kill the Bitch. Punish her. How dare she do this to me? She isn’t worthy. Trample her to the ground. Take her child. There was no agony only retribution and hostility.
Nikki waved her hand over the source of the outpouring. Stumble, she thought.
“Stop this!”
She looked over her shoulder. Garrett. No longer calm. No longer speaking in soft whispers of desperation. Brown eyes glittered fury at her in their brilliance. She glared back.
She faced him drawing up to her full height. Even at her highest elevation she only met his chin. She tilted her head further to meet his eyes. “This isn’t your place…”
“This isn’t your place either. You’re dabbling with things you don’t understand.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told you I couldn’t allow you to ignore the dictates of the Guild.”
“And I told you before, I am not a member of the Guild.” She took off for the pulsating light in the distance prepared to escape behind it. Garrett stayed on her tail. His breath touched her neck even in the shadow realm. His feet thundered after her. She reached the light and shot through it.
“Nikki, you have to stop. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Was that terror in his voice? Maybe she was making better progress than she thought. Parker, take me to where it began. Instinct propelled her on. The ground beneath her feet quaked and hurtled her forward. Then she was flying toward a door she hadn’t seen before. Garrett still trailed her, but she was creating a gap between them. She landed in front of the door. She stood and placed a hand on the knob.
Garrett had caught up. He tried to grab her.
“Don’t follow me through this door,” she snapped.
“What door?” His eyes froze wide.
“This one.” She opened it and stepped through.
Chapter Seventeen
Garrett walked around the area Nikki had vacated. It pulsated with dispersed energy, but no solid object occupied the space. A subtle silver haze shimmered around an oval void. The faint odor of sulfur permeated the air. But there was no door. An uneasy edge cut along his insides. A snap of electrical energy lingered. Where was the mental conduit? He waved his arms through the emptiness but the only thing his limbs met was thin air. No sign of an opening. No portal. No Nikki.
She evaporated, leaving no residual trail to follow. He clenched his fingers into fists, his hearing muted by the thunder of pounding blood. He shook in frustration. “Where are you, damn it?”
But he already knew. The pieces of the puzzle assembled into an abrupt moment of clarity. She was still here, deeper inside the timeline of Parker’s psyche. Right where she shouldn’t be. Where she couldn’t be.
Somehow she found a way to crash the time barrier. A trickle of fear pricked the back of his neck. That was crazy. No one could do that. He sucked in a deep breath. Garrett could no longer ignore the evidence. Nikki had done the impossible. She’d bridged the gap between the present past and the far distant past. The hair stood on the nape of his neck. Cold uncertainty snaked deep in his gullet.
A caster that could jump through endless threads of time could alter more than small changes within the individual mind. With the right tweaks and modifications their actions could be devastating. Whole families wiped out. A tyrant revived wielding destruction. Historical events from the last hundred years changed.
Impossible, he reasoned. No one had that much power. But hadn’t he been warned? Was Nikki capable of such horror? He’d refused to see her for what she truly was—an unindoctrinated caster with the power to destroy them all.
Dear God. He clenched his jaw. He had to stop her before it was too late. Before another Enforcer was sent after her to wipe her mind or even worse kill her. If he couldn’t trace her in Parker’s mind, perhaps he could reach her through hers. He clutched Nikki’s card so tightly it crumpled. With a quick jerk, he swept the card and crossed into her mind.
Twelve doors were still there. He grabbed the knob of the closest. Locked. Just to make sure no one was in residence, he went from door to door, rattling each one loudly. Waiting for her to appear. Demanding she stop. Only silence greeted his efforts.
Nikki was either too far away to notice or she was past caring. Why should she? He couldn’t gain access to her mind. Couldn’t change anything. He sank to the floor. Every door mocking his unsuccessful efforts.
“Nikki, you don’t know what you’re doing. You have to stop, darling,” he said so softly, the words were barely audible. Nikki was what the Guild feared. They wanted her taken care of.
And he was the one elected to destroy her. It couldn’t end that way. Nikki was a good person. A little misguided by her bleeding heart and way too powerful. But her intentions were pure. That had to count for something. If Parker was any indication, eradicating a mind sent a person into a dark place. No one to trust. No one to count on for support.
Nikki deserved better than that. There had to be a way to reach her. If he couldn’t invite her presence here, he’d locate her in Parker’s mind. Dogging her wherever she went. And if she knocked him out. He’d go right back in. Because he had to stop her before it was too late.
****
Nikki waded through the thick dark muck of Parker’s mind. Green black globs of goo dripped from overhead, oozing into distorted webbing. The stench of garbage in the hot afternoon sun permeated the atmosphere.
She covered her nose with the edge of her shirt, but even that failed to prevent the odor of decay. Parker’s parents hadn’t cleansed his mind. They had prevented any healthy growth. The consequences seemed to have turned it into a twisted malformed destruction. Why would any parent do that to their child? It was barbaric.
Filled with a need to help the man, she fought her way through the sludge, searching for the critical memory. Sorrowful moans greeted her followed by sharp snaps. She swung her head in the direction of the tortured anguish. An image of a young boy around twelve years old enveloped her. He sat at the dining room table bent over homework covering his eyes with his hands, weeping into his sleeve. Parker’s mother, then a stocky woman hovered over him, slapping a plastic ruler against the table top. Each time it whistled by, the boy’s ear, he flinched.
“Concentrate!” she snapped.
“I’m trying,” he wailed.
“Try harder.” She slammed down the ruler again. This time it nicked his ear. He rubbed the edge and sniffled. “Pay attention.” She raised the ruler again.
What you’ve had to endure, Parker. No wonder Lori didn’t want to live with her grandparents. No child should be exposed to this kind of terror. Nikki’s stomach flipped with sympathy. Her hand flew to her mouth and she blinked back tears. She rushed past the sight assaulted with another image. This one a few years earlier.
This time a tall, rail thin man chased Parker down the hallway, unbuckling his belt. “Come back here!” The man was too scrawny to be terrifying. Unless you were a seven-year-old boy. “What were you doing in my office, boy?”
The small figure flew down the hall not stopping until he reached a large oak chest. He slipped inside, peeking through a sliver of space. With each step the man took, large thumps clamored throughout the room.
Nikki didn’t think it was possible that a man of such slight build could create so much noise. Yet the sound of his thundering feet, ricocheted inside her, leaving tremors of aftershock. She sucked in her breath. Her hand flew to her throat. She gasped for air. It’s not real—not any longer. She forced her breath
ing to ease. The suffocating terror of a young Parker as he waited for his father to give up was mesmerizing. The scene unfolded in excruciating detail. The man approached the chest, stood with feet shoulder length apart. “Come out of there and face your consequences like a man.”
The boy didn’t move. Sweat dripped down Nikki’s neck.
Parker’s father reached down and opened the lid so slowly Nikki counted fifty heart beats. Parker’s wide-eyed terror tore through her watching him look up at his father, sliding further into the corner.
I have to stop this. Nikki raced into the man, obliterating the scene into mists of smoke. The horrible image dissipated. She wiped away a stray tear.
She was only able to take one gulp of soothing air before a pulsating wave crashed into her feet, thrusting her further into Parker’s mind. Memories coursed around her. They flashed by too quickly for her to comprehend their contents but this man had been through a horrifying childhood. She focused on one of the memories. It emerged into living color.
Parker at five. He lay beneath the covers of a twin bed shaped like a racing car. The bedspread sported automobiles of all shapes and sizes. This was not the bedroom of an underprivileged child. Nikki could discern no indication he wasn’t loved. Yet he wept under his blankets, howling sobs engulfing the room. His mother sat beside him patting his leg so tenderly it was hard to believe she was the same woman wielding the ruler.
“I’m sorry we have to do this but you aren’t following the rules.”
Punished? With a time out or something equally mild. Yet an aura of significance clung to the atmosphere.
“I’ll do better,” he cried, desperation evident. What could this little boy have done to cause such anger? Break a window? Steal a cookie? His blond hair curled over an unappealing cowlick. His mother smoothed the cowlick only for it to spring back up.
“You know that’s not true, Parker. We have given you more than enough time to adjust to your training but you just won’t behave. Please understand, darling. We don’t do this lightly.”
Good grief, not the ‘this hurts me more than it hurts you’ scenario. Let me see what you did. Any images Nikki could conjure were vague and opaque, like a dark fog covered Parker’s misdeeds.
Show me what happened next. A mist fell over her, then cleared for a new setting. The playground. Parker stood within a circle of other boys laughing and pointing at him. “Loser!” They jeered. “You can’t do anything right.”
Silent tears ran down Parker’s face. Nikki felt the impact of each child’s words. Each one chafed and churned inside of Parker igniting a rage he was too young to understand or handle. It seared inside even as his tears fell. Through choked sobs he spit out venomous words. “Someday you’ll be sorry.”
“Yeah right,” the others said.
Parker shifted his weight. His empty words had no effect. It no longer mattered what he said. He had no power now that his parents had annihilated his ability to dream cast. No means to turn their opinions to his favor. Amongst his people, he was the lowest form of being.
Why had Parker’s parents taken such action against their son? He didn’t seem any more dangerous than other children, yet his parents must have felt they’d chosen the best course. She looked about, searching for the last piece of the puzzle. Maybe, just maybe she could help this lost boy.
Easy, Nikki thought. Easy.
Parker stared right at her, no longer crying. Could he sense her presence inside his own trace memory? His eyes pleaded with her, sending shock waves of pity into her depths. “Help me.”
The gaggle of kids laughed, a cacophony of squawking noises.
“Who you talking to?” One voice rose above the rest. “Your imaginary playmate?”
The rest of the children roared with laughter but Parker kept his attention on her. Red-rimmed eyes and the tracks of tears were the only indication that he had wept. He wiped his nose. The aura of depression fled and another emotion took its place. Hope? Arrogance? Nikki wasn’t sure.
“Please?” His soft voice wrapped around her heart and squeezed.
She couldn’t ignore his plea for help. But she didn’t know how to erase the past. And Parker in the present was no picnic. She remembered the odor of dirt and moss filtered up her nose. The searing pain when the butt of Parker’s rifle rammed against her head. As an adult, Parker was a monster. Could she change the course of Parker’s life by altering events that had long since happened? It probably wasn’t possible but if she could gain some insight into Parker’s pain, she might be able to redirect his future for the better. “Show me what you did.”
A spark of triumph appeared in Parker’s eyes. The expression was enough to send a jolt of uncertainty up Nikki’s spine. But it was too late to pause the momentum. The images changed once more and she was tossed back into his early childhood. He wandered in another child’s head scattering the seeds of a suggestion.
Can you hear the sound of a waterfall? Parker laughed. The water is so warm. Go swimming.
Soon the child wet his bed. Parker tossed his head back and crowed. He laughed so hard, he fell to the ground. He couldn’t stop giggling. Every time he thought he had it under control it rumbled back up to tickle his nose. He snorted as another wave consumed him.
An adult male entered. “Stop, Parker. This is forbidden.”
He froze. His laughter stuck in his throat. His father stood five feet away with arms folded over his chest, mouth in a severe twist. The hard glint in his expression always meant trouble.
“It’s just a joke, Dad.”
“No, you are punishing him.” His father closed the distance between them, put a hand on his shoulder, and squeezed. “How many times have you been warned not to cast without proper supervision?”
Even in his dream form, pain coursed through Parker. Tears pricked his eyes. “But he beat me up. He should be in trouble not me.”
“His parents have taken care of him. He won’t bother you anymore.”
“That’s not enough.” Parker ripped his shoulder from his father’s grasp. “He’s not sorry and he should be.”
His father shook his head soberly. “Parents guide their children. Not their classmates. Now get out while I discuss an appropriate punishment with your mother.”
Parker’s mouth set in an obstinate thin line. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Don’t make this harder. Leave.” His father pointed into the darkness like a compass and he stared his son down.
“Dad.” Parker took a step back.
“Go back, now. Your mother and I will deal with this tomorrow.”
Parker and his father vanished.
What was that about? Convincing a child to wet the bed was as innocuous as dipping a sleeping friend’s hand in warm water at a slumber party. Nikki and her pals had played around with that on numerous occasions just to see if it would work. How often had she snickered over the results? But there’d been no real harm. It was a silly childhood prank.
Parker seemed to have acted out of revenge, not silly foolishness. Even that didn’t justify the level of intensity his father projected. There was a more insidious meaning behind the boy’s actions. Something important was missing.
Left to her own devices with only the light-filled threads of Parker’s mind to keep her occupied, Nikki dug deeper. She stumbled upon Parker’s dream web. Maybe she could follow those memories to their true origin.
She trailed one strand. It twisted into a tangled mass, each strand interwoven into another with no indication of where one began and another ended. She ran her hand along the length of the ball surprised by the smooth texture. No ridges or gaps broke the continuity of any strand. She took hold of one and worked on unraveling it until it fell from the rest of the knots, floating freely.
She walked around the cord. It bobbed and weaved, reminding her of seaweed in the ocean. Electrical impulses zipped up and down the shaft but she couldn’t tell what memory the strand held. No matter how hard she tried she couldn�
��t see or hear or detect any memory trace. It was as if she had been transported outside of the area that assimilated Parker’s experiences, placed directly into the cerebral cortex. Why weren’t there any doors to pass through?
Nikki tore at the threads, pulling each one apart, examining them in turn. Where was the memory she had just left? If she could get to the beginning of the sequence of events she might understand why Parker had been stripped of his ability for what appeared to be a harmless prank. There was so much she didn’t know about this new society she had entered. It was so frustrating. From all appearances, Parker’s parents were a bit overbearing. If she’d been Parker’s Guardian Ad Litem, she could have saved him earlier. Now was her chance to change things. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late.
Just as Nikki was about to cave, an errant strand curled around her wrist. Suddenly she was propelled back into the school yard. Parker lay in a bloody mass on the hot asphalt. Even through his sobs, she sensed his lust for revenge. She could feel his detailed plan to punish his tormentor. Now is not the time. Go back. She whispered to the child wanting to play his prank. His head shot up and he looked around.
Help me. Make them stop.
Nikki was startled by the voice. The adult Parker was aware of her presence. She backed away, searching for the quickest exit, disconcerted her mind extraction had been discovered. She stopped short by the sudden realization that Parker asked for help. He wanted her help.
I don’t know how.
The ground quaked propelling her forward into a dark churning abyss. Her body whipped back and forth through the tides of his mind. A flash of light, and she was thrown onto solid ground. She stood and brushed the dust from her pants, surveying her new surroundings. She had no idea where she’d landed, but based on the color and formation of the doors, she was no longer in Parker’s mind.
She was in someone else’s.
****
Garrett stood behind a black gauzy barrier waiting for Nikki’s next move. Following her psychic footprints hadn’t been easy but he’d finally found her. But something about the path was unsettling. Nikki didn’t want him to locate her but someone did. And that didn’t feel right.