*****
Chapter 24
It took us four hours to get home from Cousin Canyon instead of the two hours it had taken to get there. Briar drove like a maniac on meth, but he stuck to back roads and gave new meaning to taking the long way around. Not that we cared. All that mattered was he got us back without being waylaid by all the heat drawn by the blast in the canyon. Heat was one thing we had no time for, not with Aggie and Cousin and Owen's killer still at large.
When we barged through the door of Cruel World, we saw just how much heat we'd ducked. Duke had the news on the TV, and the blast was front and center. According to the announcer, Cousin Canyon was now swarming with FBI, CIA, NTSB, FEMA, NASA, Homeland Security, and more.
"Earth Angel!" Duke jumped out of his chair and rushed over to hug me. "Thank God!"
All I wanted to do was slump into a puddle on the floor. "Bad day, Duke."
"Really bad," said Briar as he brushed past on his way to the bathroom.
"I'll say." Duke leaned back. "It's been all over the news."
I dropped my voice. "We lost Owen."
Duke looked past me at Laurel with grave concern. "That's too bad."
"Could you please get us some coffee?" As soon as Duke let go of me, I collapsed in a chair.
Duke went straight for Laurel. "Have a seat, dear." He took her by the elbow and guided her to a chair of her own. "Hot coffee's on the way."
I stared blankly at the TV as a reporter phoned in live from Cousin Canyon. Lots of talk about a plane crash and terrorists. The National Guard had the area on lockdown. We'd been damn lucky to get out.
"I can't watch this." Laurel got up from her chair and went to stare out a window.
I grabbed the remote from the desk and turned off the TV. "Me, too."
"I wish we'd never gone up there," said Laurel. "I wish I'd never come to you for help."
"I know." I leaned back in the chair and gazed up at the ceiling.
Briar emerged from the bathroom. "I hate to do this, but I have to get to the office. I'll catch up with you later."
I rolled my head over the back of the chair and nodded up at him. "Do what you have to do. We'll either be here or at my place."
"Call me on the cell if you need me." Briar gave me one last lingering look of concern—maybe more than concern—and then he was gone. Stomped out the door jingling his keys, "Caravan" playing on the ring tone in his wake.
Laurel folded her arms across her chest and leaned her shoulder against the window. "It was all for nothing, wasn't it? We're no further ahead than we were before."
"Not exactly." I tapped my temple. "I picked up some kind of map from that thing before it took off."
"A map leading where?" said Laurel.
I shrugged. "Wherever the thing was headed. I still haven't made sense of it."
Laurel sighed and looked back out the window. It was starting to rain out there. "I didn't expect that, you know. I didn't think it would be so dangerous."
"I know." I believed her.
"Owen knew," said Laurel. "He had a bad feeling about the place. He said some of the poison might still be down there."
"He didn't know there'd be a trap," I said. "He didn't know we'd run up against the killer or his guard dog or whatever that was."
"I wouldn't have sent you in alone if I'd known," said Laurel. "I wouldn't have let anyone go underground."
"Then we wouldn't have the map." I smelled Duke's coffee brewing at the back of the office, and my mouth watered. I couldn't help it. "We wouldn't have anything."
She shot me a cold look. "We'd still have Owen."
It was then I knew for a fact there'd been something between them. It was clear from the tears in her eyes and the catch in her voice. Maybe it had happened a long time ago, maybe more recently, but it had happened. She was mourning for more than a friend.
"I'm going to get right to work on this map." I leaned forward and reached for a pen and a piece of paper. "We'll find out who did this to him. To all of them."
"Before I'm dead too, I wonder?" Laurel rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, then held them pinched across the bridge of her nose. Her shoulders shook up and down with the rhythm of quiet sobs.
Just then, Duke came through with mugs of steaming coffee. "Here, dear." He held one out to her. "This'll help."
Laurel raked her fingers down her face and held them over her mouth. Stared like she'd never seen a cup of coffee before. Then shook her head. "I have to go."
That got me out of my chair like a shot. "Stay with us, Laurel." I hurried over and planted a hand on her shoulder. "I could use your help with the map."
"I need to go for a walk." She spun away from us both and went for the door. "I need to clear my head."
"Why don't you stay, Laurel?" I grabbed for her arm, but she was already half out the door.
"Don't worry," she said on her way out into the rain. "I'll see you later."
I knew it was a bad idea to let her go, but what choice did I have? She was a grown woman...and a mountain range, to boot. I couldn't force her to stay.
"Let me give you my cell phone!" I pulled the phone out of the holster on my belt. "You can call when you want me to pick you up."
"I'll be fine." By now, it was pouring down rain. Laurel was soaked as she marched across the parking lot. "I just need to take a walk."
I went down two steps, then backed up one when the rain started to hit me. Decided I wasn't going to run after her. "Do you remember how to get to my apartment?"
She turned, walking backward as she spoke. "It's in the Allegheny Mountains, isn't it?"
She almost sounded like her old self, and I almost smiled. "Yes, it is."
"Then yes, I can find it," said Laurel. "Don't worry. And don't wait up."
With that, she spun and jogged off into the downpour. Paused at the curb, waiting for cars to swoop past, and then she was gone across the street.
*****
Chapter 25
After Laurel left, I got right to work on the map, sketching it from memory on a sheet of paper. The image of crisscrossing glowing lines was crystal clear in my mind; I knew the drawing was perfect. I'd captured it flawlessly, though I'd only been in active contact with the eyeball and the Presence for an instant. Probably thanks to my surprise power surge.
Unfortunately, the surge hadn't given me one vital piece of the map: a key. As I stared at the sketch I'd made, I had no idea of the scale and orientation of the pattern. The map wouldn't be much good if I didn't know which end of it faced east and which faced west.
Fortunately, Duke had some ideas about that. "Here." He snapped up the sketch and sat down at his computer. "I'll scan this in and convert it to a vector map." He switched on the scanner beside the computer, lifted the lid, and slid the sketch facedown onto the bed. "Then we'll do a series of overlays."
I smiled to myself, amazed as always at Duke's masterful way with the world of high tech. It was unbelievable, considering who and what and how old he really was. Maybe he just had an affinity for all kinds of keyboards, whether they were part of a piano or part of a computer. Maybe his earthen nature put him in command of the silicon in the chips that made computers tick. Or maybe it was something else all together.
Whatever the reason, he was the I.T. star of Cruel World. Had the sketch scanned, imported into graphics software, and turned into a vector image in under two minutes. Then crossed his arms and spun on his swivel chair to hike an eyebrow at me.
"Now comes the tricky part." He bobbed his head at the pattern of lines on the monitor screen. "We need to overlay this on a series of topographic maps. Figure out which features correspond with your diagram."
"How do we do that?" I felt like I should know, but my brain was sluggish. I could tell I was on the downhill run toward exhaustion and shutdown.
Duke tapped a finger on a point on the screen—one of the circles I'd drawn where lines intersected. "These nodes where the ley line channels come together.
They're probably big geographic features, right? Mountains, lakes, sinkholes? Didn't the Landkind folks tell you those kinds of features were reservoirs of power?"
I nodded. "But how will we know which end of the map faces which direction?"
"That's where the guesswork comes in." Duke snapped his fingers. "We'll use Cousin Canyon as a starting point and rotate the overlays. Turn them like pinwheels as we loop them around the canyon. Sooner or later, we'll make the right match."
"And then we can see where that thing went. Makes sense." I wheeled my chair over beside Duke's, taking my coffee mug with me. "Let's get started."
"All right then, Earth Angel." Duke opened a search engine on the computer and set to work hunting topographic maps of the region. He talked as he typed and clicked the mouse. "By the way, how are you holding up?"
I loved him for asking because I knew he genuinely cared. "About how you'd expect." He was my rock and always had been. Literally. "I'm just trying to keep moving."
"Any idea who's behind this?" said Duke. "Anyone who might have a grudge against the nymphs, the goddesses, and Landkind?"
"No." I thought of the Presence I'd encountered three times now—malevolent, remorseless, and hidden. I'd never felt anything like it. Not that Laurel was much less of a mystery. "Then again, I know hardly anything about Landkind. What about you?"
Duke shrugged and popped a new map on the screen. "I might have met them before without knowing what they were. I know as much about them as you do."
"They seem to know a lot about me," I said. "At least Laurel claims to."
"She is kind of a know-it-all." Duke's voice carried a hint of irritation.
"It has me thinking." I leaned my elbow on the desk and stared into space. "What if I'm not who I think I am?"
Duke frowned. "What's Laurel been telling you?"
I hesitated, wondering if now was the best time to bring this up. Wondering if I should be trying not to distract Duke while he helped track Aggie and Owen's killer.
Realizing I had to get it off my chest. "She says I'm a dead ringer for her long-lost friend. She did a reading."
"What kind of reading?" said Duke. "What did it say?"
"It told her there's something different about me. Different from her friend." I looked at the computer screen, where Duke was positioning a translucent yellow overlay of my diagram sketch over a topographic map of some mountains. "While she was doing the reading, I had flashes."
Duke shot me a worried look. "She didn't give you anything to eat or drink? She couldn't have slipped you a Mickey?"
"No." I shook my head. "These flashes. They were like visions. I saw pyramids and Eskimos and soldiers and ships. Lions and elephants. All kinds of crazy things. Almost like memories."
"Maybe they were Laurel's," said Duke. "She could have pushed them into your mind."
I leaned back in my chair and swiveled slowly from side to side. "What if they weren't her memories?"
"You had visions when you touched the shell around Aggie," said Duke. "And her neighbor's cat. You said you thought they were memories."
"Exactly my point." I folded my hands behind my head and kept swiveling. "There must be a reason all these visions are popping into my mind right now. Don't you think?"
Duke sighed. "I don't know, Earth Angel." He clicked the mouse, and the overlay rotated to a new angle on the screen. "Do you want there to be a reason?"
I gazed up at the ceiling, remembering the vision of making love to the blonde man by the sea. "What if I'm not who I think I am? What if I've forgotten something important and just don't realize it?"
Duke stopped working and turned to me. "Have you been thinking about the past, dear?"
"There's not much to think about, is there?" I said.
"What can I say?" said Duke. "You're not like other people, Gaia. Is that a bad thing?"
"I didn't say that." I swiveled the chair from left to right, then right to left. "It's just...I've always felt like there's something wrong with me. What if there's a reason for that?"
"There's nothing wrong with you, honey." Duke leaned forward and folded his hands between his knees. "You're one of the most miraculous people I've ever known."
"But what if I was meant to be more?" I thought of the vision of myself rising from the ground, the vision that had triggered my life-saving power surge. "What if I could still be more?"
Duke reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "I'm counting on it. I know you'll be more miraculous every day."
"That's not what I'm talking about." I swiveled away from him and got up out of my chair. Paced across the office. "What if I'm not some earth nymph, some oread? What if I'm Landkind and just never knew it? Or what if I'm something else all together?"
"It's possible," said Duke. "Your being an oread was only ever a guess on my part."
"I wish Laurel would tell me everything she knows." I stood at the front door and stared out at the rainy twilight. Cars in the strip mall parking lot turned gray and fuzzy in the fading light. "She's holding back because she's afraid restoring my memory might put us in danger somehow."
"Does it matter that much to you?" said Duke. "You've gone all these years without knowing what Laurel has to say, haven't you?"
"But I didn't know she existed. Didn't know she might have answers." I turned the sign on the door from "Open" to "Closed" and locked the deadbolt. "Wouldn't you do the same thing, if you found someone who might know all these secrets about your past? Someone who could tell you who you really are and your purpose in life?"
"I guess maybe I would." Duke was quiet for a moment. "I didn't know it bothered you so much, Earth Angel. These questions about your life."
I shrugged. "I've always wondered. It was always in the back of my mind."
"What if Laurel doesn't tell you what you want to know?" said Duke. "What then?"
"I don't know." I watched as the lights flickered on in the parking lot, glinting off the puddles in the lumpy pavement. "Maybe I'll search elsewhere. Maybe I'll finally start looking for answers, now that I know they're out there."
"Would you hate her for keeping them from you?" said Duke.
"God, no." I left the front door and headed for the coffee pot. "Not if she was doing it for a good reason."
Duke fell silent. When I looked over, he was still leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands folded between them. Deep in thought.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and he looked up. "There's something I have to tell you, Earth Angel."
I topped off a mug of coffee and replaced the pot on the burner. "What's that?"
Duke hesitated and looked at the floor...then looked up again and nodded. "It's about you," he said. "You were..."
Just then, my cell phone rang. "Hold on, Duke." I pulled it out of its holster and read the name and number on the screen. Switched it on and raised it to my ear. "Briar?"
"Hey, Gaia!" Briar was shouting over some kind of commotion in the background. I heard voices hollering, something crashing...then glass shattering. "I need you to come out to The Tipple!"
The Tipple was ten miles out of town—one of those back road holes in the wall with a parking lot full of pickups. "Why? What's going on there, Briar?"
"I need help with a drunk and disorderly!" I heard another crash in the background, someone howling in pain.
"Since when?" I said, frowning.
"Since I can't handle a disorderly mountain range," said Briar.
Laurel. So that's where her walk had ended up. "I'll be right there."
"Could you please hur..." I heard the sound of something whipping past the phone. "Shit! That was close!" Then the sound of more glass shattering. "Could you please get your ass down..."
And with that, the call was cut off.
I holstered the phone and headed for the door. "Gotta go!" I told Duke. "Trouble with Laurel. Could you hold down the fort?"
"I'll keep working on the overlays," said Duke.
"We can talk when I get back," I
said.
"Sounds good." Duke started to say something else, but I was on my way out the door and didn't hear it.
For a second, I wondered what was on his mind...but then I let it go. Bigger fish to fry at the moment. Namely, a drunk and disorderly mountain range.
*****
Chapter 26
I drove the ten miles out of town like a bolt of lightning. The Highlander had barely stopped moving when I leaped out in the jam-packed parking lot in front of The Tipple. I didn't give a damn that I'd just blocked in five or six pickup trucks in the process. All I knew was I had to get to Laurel ASAP. Had to stop her before she hurt somebody.
When I charged into the bar, I saw I was already too late. Way too late. The place was strewn with bruised bodies, sprawled on overturned tables and chairs. There were guys dumped on the pool table and bowling machine and bar, piled up under the jukebox and wide-screen TV. Every one of them coal miners, I'd be willing to bet, so not a pushover in the bunch. I counted eighteen of them just in the main barroom.
And I was almost number nineteen. While I was standing there taking in the scene, a glass mug hurtled straight at me. I ducked in the nick of time, and it shattered against the wall behind me.
Looking in the direction of the throw, I saw the main event underway in the far corner—three guys, including Briar, wrestling someone I couldn't see. Backs turned my way, three grown men fighting to subdue one opponent.
And as I watched, the opponent threw them all off at once. She stood revealed in the murky amber light—Laurel, the Lady of the Alleghenies.
Laurel's flowing brown hair was a tangled, sweaty mess. Her white gown was torn and smeared with dirt and blood, the wildflowers missing or hanging loose. Her hands were balled into fists, her eyes bugged with rage. If I hadn't seen her that way, I never would have imagined the serene and dignified avatar of the Allegheny Mountains could ever get worked up into such a state.
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