by Joanne Pence
“Stop it!”
“Your own father hates you. He knows how filthy—”
“Damn you to hell!” He tried even harder to push her aside, but her hand on his chest held him down with unbelievable strength. It seemed to press hard against his heart, his lungs, stopping them from expanding, from breathing. His head felt light.
“Give me the pearl and I’ll forgive you. I’ll take you back. We’ll be together again, the way it used to be between us.”
He remembered the warning of Father Berosus: not to listen, not to think because they could read your thoughts. He needed to concentrate on something else. A solution came to him, a wonderfully ironic solution. He shut his eyes, sure this was the best way to fight her—it.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis …
“I’m Irina,” she said gently, her voice again sounding exactly like the woman he loved. “You love me. You always have.”
… santificetur Nomen Tuum …
“Bastard!” she cried, pulling herself up, away from his body.
And instead of Irina looming over him, he saw a black fox.
Chapter 27
Washington D. C.
Senator Kevin Wilson walked to the parking garage with his cell phone firmly planted against his ear. He had taken a flight that morning back to Washington D. C., but because of losing three hours traveling there from California, he was late to his own meeting, meaning he had rushed to the meeting straight from the airport, not bothering with drivers or special parking privileges. Sometimes a person just had to handle things like the common people.
Then, because of the late start, his meeting ran long.
He was exhausted. The hour was late, and the garage was all but empty. His cell phone dropped the call as he rode in the elevator.
Wilson stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor and tried his phone again. Still no service. Well, he’d reach the would-be donor eventually, and everything would be set up, fairly and honestly—for Washington. Wilson chuckled at that. He hadn’t been around such a gang of thieves since his last visit to San Quentin.
At least in Washington, everyone knew how to skirt just enough on the right side of the law to claim privilege, and they never—well, rarely ever—skirted over it. And he was one of the best. Not only had he survived every administration since Bill Clinton’s first term, but he could work with both sides of the aisle, and he did—which meant he never let politics or party get in the way of a lucrative deal, and neither did the politicians he dealt with. Any deal could be spun in any direction if one was clever enough, and Kevin Wilson was nothing if not clever. The youthful boyishness he’d somehow been blessed with was an asset to his work. Newcomers to Washington didn’t exactly take him for a kid, but few realized he’d been there long enough to know where all the bodies were buried—not only ten years ago, but thirty.
Clinton used to ask him his secret to staying young. He was forty when Clinton first took office, but the President swore he looked like a kid of about twenty-five. He didn’t think much about it, but as years went by, he noticed that he seemed to age about one year for every two of his life.
This being Washington, foes were beginning to whisper about the “picture in his closet” à la Dorian Gray. He chuckled. If the fools wanted to chalk up his success to something demonic, that only gave him that much more power over them. And in government and politics, power was money.
He needed to get back on the phone and continue his conversation. He tried calling again. At times, pockets of service exist in the strangest places.
He had just hit the “call” button on his phone when he noticed a pair of red high-heeled shoes on the pavement before him.
His gaze drifted from the shoes, to thin ankles and shapely legs that rose to a pencil thin black dress—a novelty in these days of pants suits. The woman was young and beautiful. Her eyes had a slightly Oriental tilt which was especially intriguing because the color of her eyes was green. Emerald green, in fact, bright and sparkling as the gemstone. Her platinum blonde hair was straight, chin length with bangs, making her eyes even more prominent above a small nose and cherry-red lips.
He neared. She didn’t move, but stood staring at him. There was something definitely familiar about her, but how in the world could he have forgotten anyone so stunning? No way. His mind rushed, trying to remember who she was.
Wilson flashed a megawatt smile at the woman, even as his wariness increased. A man in his position always had to be wary for set-ups, such as people wanting to get photos of him in compromising positions with hookers. But if she was a hooker, she was the classiest one he’d ever encountered. In fact, if this was a set-up, bring it on. “Hello,” he said.
“Don’t you remember me?” she asked.
Uh, oh. “Remember you? Should I?”
“Yes, definitely.”
Something niggled at the back of his mind. Something dark. Something he’d worked hard to forget. “I’m sorry, I—” He tried to walk around her. His Mercedes was just behind her.
“I’m sorry, too,” she replied. With a movement so fast he scarcely saw it happen, she ran her hand near his neck. He felt a sting, a trickle of blood.
“What are you—”
“Get up there,” she commanded, pointing at the heavy railing circling the perimeter of the garage’s seventh floor.
As he hesitated, she reached out her hand again. It seemed to stretch towards him. He felt too petrified to turn and his legs too heavy to do anything to defend himself. In terror, as if he had no control over his own body, he began to climb the railing.
When he looked down, he saw a construction zone. An extension to the lower floors was being erected and rows of rebar jutted up out of a cement slab. He stood up on the railing by holding tight to the post beside him. “What is this about?” he asked. “Please, tell me. Is it about money? I’ll pay you. Anything. Whatever is wrong, you’ve got to tell me. I can’t fix it unless you talk to me.”
“You make me laugh.”
He glanced down once more, and then behind him. He saw no way out. And then he was surrounded by the desert, saw the Great Pyramid in the distance. In horror, he stared at her. “It can’t be.”
She laughed at him. “So, you do remember.”
Tears sprang to his eyes. “Work with me!” he cried. “We can make a deal—one that works for both of us. I’ve got a lead on the pearl. I’m sure you want it. I can get it for you—for us!”
“Do you really think I want to share?”
“No, please!” He began to sob, and through his tears, he saw a black fox lunge at him. With a scream, he felt himself knocked from the railing. Six floors down, the rebar impaled him. With his dying breath he looked up at the fox. “Daji,” he whispered.
Chapter 28
Los Angeles, California
A fox, but not a fox, with black fur, claws, and a long snout stood over Michael. It curled back its lips and snarled, baring its teeth, its green eyes fixated on him. A distant pounding filled his ears. He ignored it and wrapped his hands around the fox’s neck, trying, but failing, to find the strength to shove it away. The pounding continued. He fought the fox, its strength incredible.
“Michael!”
The fox vanished, and he froze. Where did it go?
Slowly, consciousness made him realize his eyes were shut. He forced them open, looking wildly all around. The fox was gone. Irina was gone.
Jianjun’s form came into focus, pulling a blanket over him, a worried look on his face.
Behind him stood a red-haired woman … a familiar woman …
Kira Holt.
“What happened, Michael?” Jianjun lay a cool hand on his forehead. “Do you feel sick?”
He felt nauseous; his stomach flip-flopped. Abruptly, he sat up. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”
Jianjun lifted the pillows from the floor and placed them against the headboard. “That’s what you need to explain to us. You were delirious, tossing and turning as
if fighting with some—thing. Only because Kira, I mean, Doctor Holt, has FBI credentials were we able to get rid of hotel security who wanted to call the paramedics.”
Michael eased himself back onto the pillows, his breathing fast, his mouth dry, as he tried to put together all that Jianjun was saying, and to ignore the fierce scowl Kira Holt threw his way. “How did you get here so quickly?” he asked.
“Quickly? It’s nearly six o’clock.”
“Morning or night?”
“Night. I haven’t spoken with you since you landed in L.A. yesterday morning.”
He stared in disbelief.
“You didn’t answer Kira’s calls or mine,” Jianjun explained. “I had to come and find out why.”
When Michael made no response, Jianjun added, “Also, there’s been another death. Scott Jones, owner of the Los Angeles Post. They’re calling it an accident, but we know that’s not true.”
“Another death?” Michael looked from one to the other. “And you really weren’t able to reach me for over twenty-four hours?”
Jianjun looked worried. “That’s right. What happened? Where were you?”
“I don’t know.” Memories washed over him of the coffee shop, of his happiness when he thought he had found Irina again. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt such joy. But it was all a lie. A demonic lie.
That sickened him worst of all.
But if she was a demon, why didn’t she kill him the way the men in the photo had been killed? But then he thought about her words. She hadn’t simply asked where the pearl was located, she wanted him to give it to her. That had to be significant.
Kira spoke softly to Jianjun. “I’ll order some broth and light food for him from room service. He needs to eat and drink something.”
Michael shut his eyes. He couldn’t remember what he and Irina had talked about, only that it felt as if all the time between them—the fifteen years that had passed since he last saw her—had vanished. But at the same time, something was slightly out of kilter, and then he began to suspect.
His mind went to the accusations the demon had flung at him … that he was vile, unlovable ...
Ironically, those words, those accusations, mirrored everything he had said to himself after Irina left him. Accusations he believed to this day were all too true. Don’t look at the pearl or it will look back at you, Berosus had said, and it will read your mind.
He must have blacked out again, because he woke up in the shower, standing under a jet of hot water, soap suds sliding down his chest.
He suspected Jianjun and Kira waited in the bedroom for him, and wanted some sort of explanation of what had happened, of how he had spent the time when he was out of reach. How could he explain? Should he tell them how he and “Irina” had made wild, passionate love, and then she turned into a demonic fox? Yeah, he could see that going over real well.
He wished he’d simply been drugged, that meeting Irina had been a drug-induced illusion. But more than truth serum had happened. Something had read his deepest thoughts, had looked into his soul and found one woman branded there.
A knock sounded. “You okay, boss?” Jianjun’s worry was evident.
“Yes. Be right there.” He shut off the shower, dried off, and put on clean clothes. Back in the bedroom, he saw that room service had already made its delivery. He guessed it paid to have the FBI call in an order. He went over to the table where the food tray had been placed. A straight-back chair was in front of it. Kira sat in an easy chair, and Jianjun on a corner of the bed.
Michael’s stomach churned at the thought of eating, but he needed to. First, he downed a bottle of water. Kira had been right about him being dehydrated. Then, a cup of coffee helped clear his head. The food was mercifully light—scrambled eggs, toast, chicken broth.
Kira explained how she tracked down Jianjun. She thought Jianjun would lead her to whoever was murdering the men in the photo, but instead, he led her back to Michael. “I tried to warn the four men in the photo who are still alive,” she said. “But so far, not even FBI resources can find Hank Bennett or Stu Eliot. I spoke with Senator Wilson in person, and after five tries Jonathan Vogel returned my call. Neither of them believe they’re in danger. But what worries me is that both Wilson and Vogel took what I said very calmly. The normal reaction would be to call anyone with such a tale crazy. But they didn’t. They should have had a lot of questions for me. But neither did.”
“Did they do anything at all?” Michael asked.
Her expression turned rueful. “Other than Senator Kevin Wilson calling my boss at the FBI and warning him that if anyone from the FBI bothered him again, he’d have his job, and as a result, my boss telling me I no longer had a consulting job with them since I had ‘impersonated’ a federal official, no, nothing at all.”
He reached for the carafe and poured himself more coffee. His head still felt fuzzy. “I’m not sure what’s going on here,” he said. “But one thing I am sure of is that I have no information for you, Doctor Holt. I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
She glanced at Jianjun, then back to Michael. “Someone murdered my father. Do you really expect me to walk away from this?”
Kira’s unnerving blue eyes caught and held Michael’s gaze. “On the long flight here from Vancouver, Jianjun told me a bit about some of the strange adventures the two of you have experienced. I’ll admit that at times I didn’t want to believe him. I used my education to explain the mass psychosis that must have affected you and others. It frankly bothers me that he seems surprisingly sane.”
Michael nearly choked on his coffee.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’m ready to listen.”
“You refused last time I tried,” he reminded her.
“Well, I’m ready to hear it now. Including”—she pursed her lips—“the stuff about Marco Effing Polo.”
With that, she folded her hands on her lap and waited. She looked ready to sit like that forever if need be. Jianjun looked uncomfortably from Kira to Michael.
She was good, Michael thought. She knew exactly what to say to wear away his concerns. The few psychologists he met in the past had seemed crazier than their patients and all he wanted to do was get away from them. She was different. Something told him that no matter how much he objected, in the end, he would give in.
He decided to tell them about everything he knew … everything except Irina.
“It all happened almost a week ago,” he said. “Very late at night, a stranger came to my door…”
A couple of hours later, Jianjun lay fast asleep, stretched out on the easy chair and ottoman. Michael pulled a spare blanket from a closet and covered him. Michael wasn’t in the least sleepy, and Kira seemed too keyed up to sleep, so they stepped out onto the narrow balcony overlooking Westwood.
Confusion and misery over all that had happened were etched on Kira’s face. He remembered the grief and loneliness that blanketed his days after his mother’s death, and he saw the similar distress and unwarranted guilt in Kira’s eyes.
She stared out over the city, hands against the railing. “I’d like to believe your story about the red pearl, but I find it impossible.”
“Nobody says you have to. You can always go back to the FBI and look for a serial killer.”
“I can also bang my head against a wall.”
“True,” he admitted. “I can’t help but think … for seven sailors to share an experience and then all become tops in their fields is so bizarre, I wonder if that’s what kept your father from mentioning the names of men he served with. I also wonder if all of them didn’t have a good idea of exactly what was going on.”
“A secret he carried for forty years? I don’t know.” She thought a moment, then shook her head and dropped her gaze. “Something was always a bit odd.”
He took in the lights and traffic of the city, then said, “Some things aren’t understandable, no matter how much science and education you bring to them. They just happen.”
> “That’s supposed to be comforting?”
He felt bad; he was speaking in platitudes, and they did no one any good. Especially not a psychologist. But what could he say when he saw sadness and deaths all around them? He had talked to a ghost and then screwed a demon. Great! Which way to the nearest funny farm? The worst part was that he believed it was all real. The red pearl was drawing him more forcefully into its web. He had a strong desire, even now, to hold it, to see what he could do with it. It was a philosopher’s stone, and he had studied quite a bit about alchemy since learning of the many alchemists in his family. The desire to hold it, use it, was almost a physical ache.
He was glad he had left it in Florence. He tried to shake the feeling, but knew it would come back, always stronger, the more he thought about the pearl, and the closer the demons who wanted it got to him.
He had to fight them—and fight the pearl’s allure.
“I’m going to do what the old priest asked,” he said to Kira. “Go to the Old Silk Road and look for the monastery from Marco Polo’s time.”
“Whoa! Wait a minute.” She looked at him as if he had gone over the edge. “The murders are happening here. You can’t believe bringing the pearl back to the monastery will stop them or help us find the killers.”
“Why not?”
“People aren’t dying because a pearl was stolen seven hundred years ago.”
“Then explain what happened to your father and those other men? And since we’re looking into it, how safe are we?”
She opened her mouth as if to object.
“I believe the old priest’s story,” he said.
“I can’t quite make that leap.”
“No one’s asking you to. Stay here. Maybe you, or the FBI, will find an explanation you can accept.”
She stared hard at him. “Damn! Why does talking to you make me feel that an ‘acceptable’ explanation won’t be the truth?”