by Jaid Black
Or desperate ones, depending upon one’s vantage point.
At least this group of crazies was a safe, peaceable one, she told herself in the way of consolation. All of them needed to be locked up some place where they’d get regular injections of thorazine to be sure, but otherwise they were relatively harmless. A celibate cult, she knew she wouldn’t have to fend off unwanted advances like she had from the leader of the last sect she’d traveled to. That leader had promised he could find Kyra, but had insisted the gods would only speak to him while having sex with Geris.
Uh huh. Yeah right.
“Speak to—nayyyyy!—speak to me—nayyyy!—Mistress of the Light!”
Cluck cluck cluck. Hee-haw hee-haw hee-haw. Nayyyyyy…
Geris shook her head and sighed, grimly wondering if her life could become any more pathetic. For three years she had scoured the globe, looking high and low for a woman she was beginning to fear had met a bad end…
No.
Kyra was still alive. She knew she was still alive. She just needed to think logically, needed to put the puzzle pieces together in a coherent fashion by herself, rather than relying on bizarre mediums and their mentally unstable followers to find Kyra. Think girl, she silently commanded herself. Think…
But she had tried the logical route for the entire first year of Kyra’s disappearance, a nagging voice in her head reminded her. She had traveled to all of the Nordic countries where males were bred tall and broad, thinking it was a logical place to start looking since the men who had kidnapped her best friend were built so massively. But she had found nothing. She’d developed a taste for Scandinavian food and could speak broken Norwegian and Swedish, but that was the only thing that had resulted from her excursions into the northlands.
Think, girl. Think…
“Las Vegas.”
Geris blinked. She hadn’t realized Disciple Magda had come back down from the alleged spiritual realm. “Huh?”
“You’ll find the answers your heart seeks in Las Vegas,” Magda said cheerfully. Her bald head crinkled in tune with the corners of her eyes. “The spirit of the Sacred Horse showed me thusly.”
“Oh.” Geris didn’t know what to say to that. She cleared her throat discreetly. “Did, uh, did this horse—”
“Sacred Horse,” Magda interrupted in a worshipful tone.
Geris sighed. “…Sacred horse mention where exactly in Las Vegas I’d find Kyra?” Arrg! As if this horse guy is real, Geris!
Magda’s bald head crinkled in thought. Geris watched her hesitantly, silently hoping the woman wouldn’t start neighing again. There was only so much neighing a person could take in a day.
“As a matter of fact, the Excellent Spirit did tell me that.” Magda’s eyes had a faraway, dreamy, I-smoke-a-lot-of-dope quality to them. “The Sacred Horse is all-knowing in His Wisdom after all.”
“Huh.”
“Go to Caesar’s Palace,” Magda continued in a reverent tone that brought to mind Moses decreeing God’s Will to the Israelites. “Within it you shall find the needs of your heart. The Excellent Spirit has declared it and so it is.”
“Hmm.” Well isn’t that a little too damn easy! I’ve been searching for Kyra for three years and now some horse is gonna hand her over just like that! “Interesting.”
“A skeptical heart,” Magda said with her good-natured cheer undaunted, “is like an onion falling apart at the petals of desire.”
Geris blinked. She could only assume that statement would have made sense if she was flying as high as Magda appeared to be. “Huh.” Remembering her manners, as well as the fact that Magda and her followers had been nothing but hospitable to her since she’d found them a week ago, Geris smiled as she stood up. “I’d like to thank you for all of your help.” Not that I believe a word of it! She nodded. “I’ll be on the next flight to Las Vegas.” Yeah right!
Magda’s hand whipped out in a lightning-fast motion. She gripped one of Geris’s hands in a show of strength that was a tad frightening. The baldheaded, robe-clad woman stared deeply into her eyes and in that moment Geris recognized an intelligence she hadn’t seen there before. A cunning, a knowing…
She swallowed roughly, but made no move to pull away from the medium.
“The fair-haired giant has returned to this realm,” Magda murmured. “If you wish to see your friend again, do not be a fool. Do as the Excellent Spirit has decreed.”
Geris’s eyes widened. She was too dumbstruck to speak. Magda knew about that…that…man? But how could she? How could she unless…
Sweet Jesus in heaven. This was getting weird.
“Okay,” Geris breathed out, her heart beating rapidly. “I’ll go.”
And why shouldn’t she? Geris asked herself. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t looked everywhere else on God’s green earth for Kyra. What could a short plane hop to Vegas hurt?
“Very good,” Magda said, releasing the grip she had on Geris’s hand. Her eyes resumed their normal dazed state as if the eerie glimmer of knowing she’d shown but moments prior had never been. Her bald head crinkled good-naturedly. “Godspeed.”
“Godspeed,” Geris muttered. Good lord she needed a drink. “Thanks, uh, thanks for everything.” She swallowed over the lump in her throat.
Magda nodded, appeased. “Remember, child, that upon every silver cloud a wily bird migrates.”
Geris frowned. She didn’t know what to say to that. But then, most people probably wouldn’t know what to say to that. “Take care, Disciple Magda,” she said sincerely. She hesitated, then smiled slightly as she flashed the medium the nanu-nanu sign from Mork & Mindy that the Disciples of the Mistress of the Light seemed partial to. They lived in a funky kind of time-warp. “And thanks again.”
“Godspeed,” Magda said a final time as Geris walked from the desert tent. “May your spiritual leaves fly high before the Spirit of the Bird shits upon them.”
Geris nodded without turning back. At least that one she’d kind of understood. “Godspeed, Disciple Magda.”
By the time Geris left the tent and reached the jeep she’d rented for this desert excursion, her legs were wobbly and shaking. “Good lord,” she muttered to herself, her heartbeat racing. “How could that woman have known—”
The fair-haired giant has returned to this realm.
Geris’s eyes widened. The fair-haired giant…
She gulped. She’d done her best not to think about him over the years because she knew in her heart it was the black-haired man who’d stolen Kyra, and therefore it went without saying that it was the black-haired man she needed to concentrate her energies on finding. But inevitably, perversely, her thoughts would always stray back to the blonde giant—the one who had studied her so possessively…
Geris rubbed her temples and sighed. Sweet Jesus, she needed a drink.
Chapter 3
“Well, here I am, Sacred Horse,” Geris muttered to herself. “Now where the hell is Kyra?”
Geris handed the taxicab driver his fare and tip. She absently watched as a bellhop collected her bags, then paid neither the cabbie nor the overly cheerful bellhop any more attention as she walked up the steps leading to the white statuesque building known as Caesar’s Palace. The elegant resort hotel was lit up festively tonight in preparation for tomorrow’s heavyweight championship boxing bout, the lively décor promising patrons a taste of regality and decadence. Geris, however, was too consumed with her own thoughts to give it all more than a passing glance.
After checking in at the front desk, she walked briskly toward her suite, the cheerful bellhop in tow. “What are you in town for, ma’am?” the bellboy asked. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen, she thought. “For the boxing bout?”
“Huh? Oh. Um—yes. For the boxing match.”
“I wish I wasn’t working tomorrow night so I could see it,” he lamented. He even managed to complain cheerfully, she thought on a frown. “No such luck. I just hope they broadcast it on the wide screen TV in the lobby.”
He glanced at the keycard. “Fourteen.”
She nodded as they continued walking.
En route to the elevators, they steered passed a bunch of men dressed in hideously outdated wigs and clothing. Geris rightly assumed that an Elvis convention was in attendance at Caesar’s Palace as well. Heavyweight champion boxers and fifty Elvises at the same hotel—only in Vegas, she thought with a small grin.
The men in costume were practicing their Elvis gyrations, a small group of women apparently lacking in taste packed around the throng and flirting their bleach-blonde heads off while the males crooned and patted their big hair. She shook her head and sighed, idly wondering how any female could aspire to becoming a groupie to men dressed like that. She would have been embarrassed to be seen with them.
Geris’s forehead crinkled as her gaze strayed toward one of the Elvis impersonators, the one who was commanding the most female attention. Wearing an obscenely ugly white jumpsuit with flared bottoms and rhinestones plastered over every available inch of material, he stood taller than the other males around him by a solid foot and a half. The man’s back was to her, but even without being able to see his face there was still something a bit too familiar about him…
She frowned. Sacred Horse indeed. She was well and truly losing it.
“Something wrong?” the bellhop asked.
“What? Oh... No,” she said on a smile, turning her attention to the eighteen-year-old. “Nothing’s wrong.”
The bellboy shrugged, apparently unconvinced but not about to ask twice and sound like a nag. He had a tip to think of after all. “Elevator’s here,” he cheerfully announced.
She nodded, ignoring the burning sensation of déjà vu she was experiencing, ignoring too the feeling that someone or something was staring her down. As if. This entire trip was ludicrous. She would never find Kyra at Caesar’s Palace. Never. If Kyra had made it this close to home, her tenacious best friend would have found a way to inform the police.
She had been an idiot to come here, Geris morosely conceded as she alighted into the elevator and turned around on her heel to face front. If anyone found out that she’d made a trip to Las Vegas based upon the delirious visions of a woman who had clearly dropped one hit of acid too many, she would look like an utter fool. A complete and utter fool.
The bizarre feeling of déjà vu grew…and worsened. Her eyes narrowed speculatively when the most intense and inexplicable feeling of being hunted swamped her senses. She felt the gaze of…something—or someone—penetrating her entire being. A possessive, almost primal gaze.
Geris glanced up just as the elevator doors began to close. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest and her eyes widened to the size of full moons as her gaze clashed with one Elvis impersonator in particular—
Her breathing hitched.
A giant of a man who was stalking towards her, his gaze piercing hers, making her feel funny inside. A giant of a man who threw off his black wig as he raced to beat the elevator doors, revealing long golden hair plaited at the temples.
A giant of a man with possessive, piercing, glowing blue eyes.
Oh. My. God.
Geris gasped as the gargantuan male came charging toward her. “What the hell?” she heard the bellboy mutter. Perspiration broke out onto her forehead as she willed the doors to close before the giant could reach her. Oh god oh god oh god oh god…
The doors hissed closed and the elevator lurched upwards. She whimpered in relief.
A spine-numbing roar of momentary defeat echoed up from the other side of the steel contraption. She could hear it from a floor up. In that moment she knew—knew—that he had come here for her. How he had known that she would be in this place defied logic and reason, but she was as certain of that fact as she was her own name.
“Who the hell was that?” the bellhop asked, gaping. “Should I call security on that guy?”
“Um…” She was so shocked she could barely think, let alone form a battle plan. “Yes,” she breathed out, sanity returning. She needed him captured and questioned. She needed to get Kyra back. Oh god—Kyra!
Geris turned haunted almond eyes up to the bellboy. “That man is responsible for the disappearance of my best friend,” she rasped out. Her heart was beating so rapidly she felt dizzy. “Call the police.”
* * * * *
“Don’t worry, Ms. Jackson, we’ll find him. He couldn’t have gone too far.”
Geris half listened and half ignored the police officer on the other end of the phone’s line as she briskly paced the floor of her suite. Las Vegas was a bustling city. Finding the giant could be mission impossible. Then again, he was large enough to warrant anyone’s notice if he was lurking around out there. “Please let me know the second you hear anything. I’m staying at the hotel until he’s located.”
“Will do.”
They said their goodbyes and she hung up the phone. With a sigh, she resumed her pacing. Think, Geris. Think…
The giant had come here for her. That much she was certain of. But why? Why would he want her to begin with? Did he know that she’d spent the last three years hunting him and his friend down? Did he mean to permanently silence her so no more questions would be asked? Was she getting that close to discovering the truth of where Kyra had been taken?
Her eyes widened as she swallowed past the lump in her throat. It was very possible that he’d come here to kill her. Very possible indeed.
Geris came to a stop, her pacing abruptly halted. She had two choices, she silently conceded. She could either sit back and wait for the police to catch this guy, which could be never, or she could go out and find him herself. Unfortunately, she thought grimly, both choices were potentially stupid.
If she waited on the police, he might never be found. If she, by some miracle, was able to locate his whereabouts herself, however, he might kill her before she could alert the police and have him apprehended.
Geris closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had come close—so damn close…
Her eyes flew open and her nostrils flared.
There was no way in the hell she was backing down now.
Chapter 4
She felt like an idiot.
Dressed in jeans, a tee-shirt, a trench coat and black sunglasses, she supposed her attempt at looking inconspicuously undercover was probably about as effective as a tissue mopping up Tammy Faye Baker’s face after a crying binge. “You look like a damn Nancy Drew wannabe,” she muttered as she threaded through the crowds of downtown Las Vegas and back toward Caesar’s Palace. “If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll meet up with one of the Hardy Boys.”
One thing was for certain—she sure hadn’t met up with the object of her obsession. She had looked for the giant in casinos, wedding chapels, stripper clubs, bars—even in churches. She’d searched in bakeries, delis, and two homeless shelters. Nothing. It was as if he’d once again managed to disappear off the face of the earth.
Geris’s heart sank as it occurred to her that she might have lost her one and only chance at finding Kyra when she’d run off from the giant yesterday. If she’d not allowed those elevator doors to whistle shut in his face, she’d have her answers. She might be dead, but she’d have her answers.
Geris sighed when the entrance to Caesar’s Palace loomed visibly in the distance. She was tired, so damned tired. Her feet were sore and her body ached. Every muscle she possessed was begging for rest. Knowing that there was a whirlpool tub to soak in when she finally reached her suite was the only thing keeping her moving at this point.
For the past eight hours she had hunted high and low, praying she’d find him just around the next corner. She never had. She was beginning to suspect she never would. At least not until he was ready to be found, if indeed that auspicious moment ever came to pass.
He was smart, she thought on a frown. Far too smart. Anybody that tall and broad who could manage to stay unseen while being hunt
ed down by en entire police department was far too intelligent for comfort.
Geris’s jaw clenched as she forced her weary body to keep moving. Just another few minutes and she could relax in the bathtub. The thought was akin to following a mirage in the desert—somewhat comforting, but seemingly too far out of reach.
Her thoughts turned to her best friend, to the one and only person she had always been able to count on in life. Remembering Kyra gave her strength, just like always. “I’ll find you, sweetheart,” she whispered to the wind. “Don’t give up on me yet. I’m down but I’m not out.”
Tomorrow, she silently vowed. Tonight she’d eat and rest up, but tomorrow she would find that giant if it was the last thing she ever did.
* * * * *
Geris groaned as she shakily stood up in the tub and reached for a towel. Her muscles felt like overcooked spaghetti noodles. She’d been relaxing in the hot waters of the lulling whirlpool for over an hour—probably not the smartest move she’d ever made considering that a whirlpool could make her sleepy on a normal day. Today was definitely not a normal day. Her overworked muscles had been put to the test, pushed to their limits. Relaxing them for over an hour in the bath had almost put her to sleep several times.
She climbed out of the tub and began patting her body dry. She was getting sleepier and sleepier as the seconds ticked by, but she knew that she needed to eat before she allowed herself to get some rest. She ran the towel over her breasts, over her long legs…
An eerie feeling of being watched, hunted, caused the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck to stand up. She stilled, the bizarre feeling as familiar as it was shocking. The sensation was, just as it always was, a stunning one. Very similar to the way a deer must feel when faced with unexpected headlights.
She was afraid to look up. So damn afraid…
“Ma’jiqo a feré, nee’ka.”
The voice was deep—very, very deep—and strange. It sounded as though the man murmuring to her was speaking through a musical synthesizer. She swallowed—roughly—then slowly raised her head to look upon what she knew would be the giant.