Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Hell if I know,” she said, crossing one leg beneath her as she turned to face him. “You go through life needing to know how every little decision impacts the rest of your existence, and you’ll never do anything.”

  There she went again, implying that he was rigid and inflexible. “This is hardly a run-of-the-mill kind of decision.”

  “Granted,” she said, holding up a hand. “I’ll admit it—this is a big deal. But if you’re going to sit around here and wait to figure out all the details and plan it all out and understand it completely before you act, then you might as well decide now not to act, because there won’t be time. You learn by doing. So do this and learn more about it. Then, when you know more, make your decision.” She shrugged a shoulder, dragging her long ponytail over her shoulder to play with the ends. “It’s difficult, but it’s also very simple. You came to me to do something about this. Well, here we are. Do something. And, no offense, but chop, chop, Julian. We don’t have all day.”

  He almost laughed out loud, just at her sheer absurdity. One minute she was trying to be understanding of the heavy weight that had been placed on his shoulders without his permission. The next she was telling him that, yeah, that sucked, but get over it now and make a decision. He wondered if her life was really that simple, that she could just act first and think later. That wasn’t how his life worked. It wasn’t how his mind worked, and if that made him buttoned-up, then he was ready to be washed, pressed, and worn to work.

  “Aren’t there ever consequences to the things you do?” he asked, trying to understand her better. “Don’t you ever worry about them?”

  “I worry about what I can change,” she told him. “The rest …let’s just say that I’ve learned from some pretty impressive people that even the darkest things that happen to you can be turned into something amazing. So I act, and if bad stuff happens, I turn it into good stuff. And yeah, I might be on my own, for the most part, but my life doesn’t suck. I figure that something I’m doing must be right. Right?”

  He took a long, steadying breath as he looked at her, then squeezed his eyes shut. “Let’s pursue the vision. Just to see if Ophelia can help me see more. That’s all I’m doing right now.”

  Siobhan was on her feet before he stopped talking. “Good. Let’s go. Ophelia? He’s ready.”

  It all happened in a rush—the kind of rush he was going to have to get used to if he wanted to keep working with Siobhan. Which, to be honest, he wasn’t sure about. But he let her take over, and she convinced Ophelia to help him tap further into whatever new gift it was that he had. Together, the two women cleared the dining room space and placed candles in the center of the table, surrounding them with gem stones that Ophelia took out of a black velvet box she procured from the back of the house.

  “For channeling power,” she explained, arranging the gems carefully around the flame.

  Then they were all sitting together, and his hands were wrapped in the older woman’s bony fingers as they sat across from each other, eyes locked.

  “You must relax your mind,” Ophelia murmured, gazing at him. “You must learn to meditate. To free your mind of the cares of the world. Of your worries. Of your plans. Of your theories.”

  “My theories?” he asked, his brow knitting.

  “Shhhhh,” Ophelia reprimanded, closing her eyes. “Free yourself from them. Picture a place in your head that is beautiful. Serene. Melodic.”

  “How can a place be—?”

  “Shhhh,” Ophelia said, more sharply this time. “You overthink. Stop that.”

  Wondering how many women today were going to tell him that, Julian pressed his lips together and closed his eyes, trying to focus on what she was telling him to do. But when he closed his eyes, he saw his office. Pushing that image out of his mind, he focused instead on his laptop at home and the food article waiting to be written. That wasn’t right either, so he searched for another image, but all he came up with was driving in traffic, trying to get to work on time.

  Ophelia groaned slightly. “Your mind is cluttered. It is so crowded and tight. You are blocking so much—so much.”

  “Try to relax,” Siobhan said, from the chair next to him.

  “Thank you,” he said, peeking an eye at her. “That really helps. I hadn’t thought of relaxing yet, but now that you’ve suggested that, I’ll try it.”

  To his surprise, her lips curved slightly. “You’re welcome.”

  He rolled his eyes, then closed them again, listening to Ophelia’s soft murmuring.

  “There is a hill in front of you, rolling with green grass and dotted with wildflowers. Above you, the sky is blue and clear, not a cloud in the sky. The wind pulls at you gently. It’s not overpowering as it dances along your skin and guides you toward the top of the hill. Lie down there and look at the sky, seeing nothing but blue space. It’s so blue that it seems to surround you, and before you know it, the ground beneath you seems to float away. You can’t feel anything touching your body—you’re floating, flying, drifting into the eternal blue. Nothing can bring you down. No one can find you. Nothing can disturb you. You just…are. You exist. You are conscious. You are connected, not to the world, but to yourself. To your thoughts. To the way your body feels. To—”

  Abruptly, Ophelia’s voice disappeared, followed by her house, and he was tumbling into a different world again. He was back in the warehouse that he had seen just three days ago, except this time, he wasn’t looking through the eyes of the assailant. He was stationed in the corner of the room, watching the events unfold as though it were on a television screen.

  The woman was still there, naked and chained to the pole by her feet, but she hadn’t been beaten yet. She was pleading with the man to spare her life, and he was staring down at her in disdain, his fists clenched at his sides.

  Before, Julian had not been able to see the man at all, because he had been looking out of his eyes. But now he could see that the man was short and squat, his balding head reflecting the bright fluorescent light above him. He wore a dark-blue uniform with a white band around the middle and two white stripes down each arm. It looked like the kind of uniform a warehouse worker might wear when loading or unloading boxes from a truck—perhaps boxes that carried dangerous substances. There were large glasses perched on the man’s stub nose, and from the angle that Julian had, it looked as though they were woman’s glasses with studded sides and a hint of horn-rim.

  He was caught up in memorizing every detail of the scene before him when suddenly the man reached out and struck the woman across the face.

  “Shut up, you bitch! You stupid, stupid bitch. Oh, look at you, crying for your kiddies and your husband. Crying because they’ll miss you so much. Why would anyone miss you, Melanie? Why—why would anyone ever miss someone who is such a waste of space?”

  The anger in the man’s voice shuddered through Julian, as though he was somehow tapped into the man’s emotions. But what really shocked him was the high-pitched tone that made the man sound more like a woman.

  Rage flowed through Julian that was not his own, but the assailant’s, and it churned Julian’s stomach when it mixed with the fear that was emanating from the woman—Melanie—who was shuddering by the pole, fearing for her life, uncertain of her next breath.

  It was almost impossible to look away from the sight, but Julian forced himself to look around the room, taking in every detail of the warehouse that he could. The room was largely empty, except for industrial equipment and stacks and stacks of boxes, all of which were oddly unlabeled. Fluorescent lights flickered menacingly above the assailant and victim, and the garage-style doors across the way were chained and padlocked on top of the many other locking mechanisms installed there. There was not a single window in the place, and the walls held that aluminum tint that he remembered.

  The man grabbed the woman by her hair, and Julian felt the pain move through his own body. Then his head snapped back, as though his hair was being yanked, and he was back in Ophelia’s h
ouse, sitting at the dining room table with Ophelia and Siobhan, his hand still captured between Ophelia’s.

  The room came back into focus slowly, and Julian found himself disoriented, the pain in his neck from the induced whiplash as real as it had been while he’d been standing in the warehouse. Lifting a hand up, he rubbed the muscles of his neck, finding them pliable and loose despite the fact that the pain lingered.

  “You went pretty still there,” Siobhan said quietly. “Do you remember what you saw?”

  “It was the warehouse again,” Ophelia said, while Julian continued to try to catch his breath. “I could see it too, but in shadows. His connection to the people in his visions is strong. He feels their emotions. Their pain. Their intentions.”

  Julian cleared his throat and spoke for himself. “Her name is Melanie. He said her name. He knows her, and he hates her. He hates her personally—this is not a randomly chosen victim. And…” he paused, shaking his head. “I think…I think he was speaking in a woman’s voice. And maybe wearing women’s glasses.”

  Siobhan was already on her feet, grabbing her bag and fishing out her phone. She dialed and spoke, but Julian only picked up on part of her conversation, still emerging from the experience he’d just had.

  “Yeah, cross reference with the name Melanie. Thanks, Moira. Wait—any word on Ronan?” She listened for another moment, then cursed under her breath. “Okay, thanks.”

  She joined them back at the table, staring intently at Julian. “You okay in there?”

  “Fine,” he said, nodding tightly. “Who’s Ronan?”

  “My friend. And my boss. I have a friend at the agency cross referencing the name Melanie with the other information I entered into the missing person’s database. She’ll let us know if anything hits. But it’s a long shot, given the probable timing. The woman probably—hopefully—hasn’t been taken yet, and even if she has, for adults, there’s a forty-eight-hour window where they’re not considered to be missing. But we still have to check.”

  Ophelia held up a hand for Siobhan to slow down, then squeezed Julian’s hand with her own, making him look at her. “Have you ever controlled a vision before?”

  He shook his head. “No. And I don’t think I was in control of that one. I was helpless. Totally helpless. And I felt his anger like it was mine. I felt like I wanted to murder that woman, but at the same time…I wanted to save her life.”

  “It’s an exhausting experience, having a vision,” Ophelia agreed, patting his hand sympathetically and letting go. “That you one you had because I opened your mind to it, and I let my power flow through you. Right now, you have very little influence over your own gift.”

  “Is it a gift then?”

  “Or a curse,” she acknowledged. “It can be either. Or both at the same time. Your mind is rigid and somewhat closed off. You need to practice opening it. If you want to tap into your gift further, you need to practice meditation. Find safe spaces for your mind to let go within. Search the unknown for things that you recognize. Follow the paths in your mind until you reach a new place.”

  Julian just stared at the woman. He understood her words, but the message of what she was trying to tell him felt fuzzy and insubstantial. He was supposed to follow the paths in his mind? He was supposed to search for the unknown?

  His life centered on things he could see, touch, and taste. His day job revolved around facts and figures, and his free time was spent researching how food worked, how flavors melded, and how the senses experienced eating. He could wrap his hands and his mind around all of it, and now it seemed as though his normal, tidy life had been taken over by visions of horrors and life and death decisions that he wasn’t ready to make.

  Was this his new reality forever? He wouldn’t—couldn’t—let it be. This was not his life.

  Chapter Nine

  Siobhan

  “Nobody named Melanie has shown up missing,” Siobhan said, checking the database for an update, then clicking back to the other screen that she was working on. “But I think I have the warehouse pegged. Look at this. It matches the things we wrote on the list.”

  Moira glanced up from her own laptop that was resting on her outstretched legs as she sat in one of the spare chairs in Siobhan’s office. “Oh yeah, check out those doors. Exactly like what’s-his-name described. Who does that one belong to?”

  “Harrison Chemicals.”

  “Boxes that look like they might hold dangerous substances—check.” Moira set her computer aside and moved to look over Siobhan’s shoulder, peering so closely that her wild red curls brushed against Siobhan’s cheek, tickling her.

  Siobhan brushed Moira’s hair away, shivering. “Geez, keep that stuff under control, would you?”

  Moira shook her curls in Siobhan’s face. “Anyway, mark this down on the list of possibilities. Near the top. Whenever what’s-his-name gets back.”

  “His name is Julian.”

  “What’s he like, by the way? Any chance he’s your guy…?”

  Siobhan let out a laugh. “God. No. I mean, I considered it—don’t get me wrong. He’s drop-dead gorgeous, actually. And Italian. That has to be hot. But no. We are not a match at all. At all, at all, at all.”

  Moira sat on the edge of the desk, interested. “That’s a very definitive answer. You know, Grady and I didn’t get on well at first. I thought he was a spoiled rich boy.”

  “This is different,” Siobhan promised her. “Before we got to Ophelia’s house, we literally agreed not to speak to each other anymore than necessary and to assign him to a new agent as soon as we got back to the office. We’ve gone at each other. And he’s just…he’s very proper. He’s always correcting me. Telling me I’m impatient.”

  “You are impatient.”

  “Yeah, but why should he get to say it, three hours after knowing me?”

  Moira chuckled slightly. “It only takes five minutes of knowing you to know that you’re impatient, Siobhan.”

  Siobhan gave her friend a look. “Trust me. He’s definitely not the one for me. He can’t even handle having visions—how is he going to handle me? He’s not my mate, and if he is, I’m opting out hard. Now.”

  “Wow, you really feel strongly about this.”

  “He’s the opposite of everything I would want in a guy. Let’s put it that way.”

  Julian cleared his throat, standing in the doorway suddenly. From the look on his face, it was clear that he had, at the very least, heard the last thing she’d said, and that was more than enough to do the damage. Guilt hit her harder than she would have expected, and she found herself at a loss for words while Moira busied herself across the room, helpfully avoiding all eye contact.

  Lifting the bag of food in his hand, Julian met Siobhan’s eyes as he spoke. “Food.”

  “Thank you,” Siobhan said, shoving her hands into the pockets of her shorts, then taking them back out again as she sat down for lack of anything better to do with her body. “Come in. We were just…working.”

  Julian didn’t break eye contact with her, as he walked in and set the bag of takeout on the desk and took a seat in the chair that Moira had just been sitting in. Silence hung between them for a long moment, and then Siobhan decided that there was nothing to do but just push past the awkwardness and pretend hard enough that nothing had happened so that everyone else had to go along.

  She reached for the bag and pulled out the first container of fried rice, setting it aside and pulling out the General Tso’s chicken next. “Smells good. Moira, come get some before it gets cold. Julian, this is Moira’s favorite.”

  “Actually…” Moira turned away from the papers she was shuffling. “I’m going to go home and eat dinner with Grady. He’s been waiting, and it looks to me like there’s nothing much more I can do here tonight. But you call me if you come up with something, okay?”

  Before Siobhan could stop her, Moira had her bag in her hand, and she was hugging Siobhan goodbye. She and Julian exchanged polite goodbyes, nodding to each o
ther, and then it was just Siobhan and Julian in her office together, that uncomfortable silence still lingering.

  “Here,” Siobhan said, pushing a container of rice toward him. “Dig in.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I can’t eat alone…”

  Julian tilted his head, studying her. “No? I would think you had plenty of practice at it, given how often you push people away.”

  Clearly they weren’t going to be able to avoid the tension between them, so Siobhan put down her food and leaned back in her chair, flashing back to that afternoon when they had first met, sitting in these same positions. “Look, Julian, we’ve clearly gotten off on the wrong foot. I’ll claim partial responsibility for that. But if we’re going to work together, then we have to just keep it professional. We don’t have to like each other.”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Julian said, after allowing her to finish. “I’ve done my due diligence, right? I’ve told you everything that I’ve seen. I’ve gone to a psychic and let her channel her power through me so I can see more. I’ve relived this scene over and over again, all day long. There’s nothing else that I know. So I’m not sure you really need me anymore. If you want to track down this woman, then you can do that.”

  Siobhan blinked at him in surprise. “You’re bailing?”

  “I’m not an investigator. I’m an accountant. And a food writer. And I have a lot of things that I have to do with my time, and none of them include tracking down a woman who may or may not be already missing or dead with a woman who has so little regard for me that she doesn’t even check to see if I’m standing there before she declares that I’m the opposite of everything that she finds desirable.” He stood up, smoothing down his shirt and looking up at her. “Since we’re sharing, although you are, frankly, a stunningly beautiful woman to look at, every time you open your mouth, you give me another reason to ignore my physical reaction to you and stay as far away from you as possible.”