“Dr. Yelton is runnin' more tests, but he thinks you'll be out soon.”
“Have you heard anything about Rider?”
“That young man is somthin' else. He's fine, but gettin' more tests run to make sure. Looks like he should be out tomorrow.”
“That's great to hear,” I said.
“You've had a string of co-workers come through here. I kept track of all their names for you.” She read, from the back of a deposit slip, the names of everyone that stopped by, including Barry, Kyrian, and Hank, along with other field teams.
When the doctor came by, he checked some vitals and took away the pain meds. My mind started feeling less fuzzy, which was a nice change.
“Where's Logan?” I asked Gran after the doctor left.
“He’s at home. He's been tryin’ to convince his kids to move out here to the Farm for a while,” Gran said sadly. “Jonathan flat out refuses. Susan and Gerald aren't keen on the idea either.”
“Has anything happened to them?” I asked.
“No, they're all fine. Logan just worries. We talked about it this mornin'. With what's been going on, he doesn't want his family targeted. I tried to reassure him, but it wasn't any use.”
“Have you picked anything up?” I asked.
“I can't see anything from here. This place is somethin' awful. I can't see in and can't see out.” Gran wasn't talking about seeing in the normal sense. It must be uncomfortable for her here at the Farm, not being able to see into the future. It was as much a part of her day as waking up in the morning.
“It's probably the portals. Or maybe because there are so many Lost here.” It's hard to believe that, once upon a time, Logan came to our world through a portal. Then he went back and brought his children to this side. “The portals in the basement use a lot of energy. That's probably what keeps you blocked.”
“Maybe,” Gran said.
I dozed half the day. Sometime after Logan returned, I was able to convince Gran to return home.
Staring into nothingness, I thought about the case. The murders and apparent kidnapping attempts swam through my brain. The strange creature attacking me didn’t seem to connect with the rest of the picture. When the doctor returned, he agreed to let me put on the clothes Gran brought me, and he detached me from the IV completely.
As the medicine wore off and my mind cleared, I itched to get downstairs. What was happening while I sat in bed? Where the beast that attacked me fit into the picture didn’t become any clearer. I needed to do some research. After some time spent fidgeting, I got up and poked my head out of the room. It wasn’t long before I spotted Dr. Yelton and waved him down.
He wanted me to stay in bed, but after he examined me further, he didn't put up much of a fight when I told him I wanted to go downstairs.
Rider's room was next to mine. I looked in to check on him, but he wasn't there. My back ached, but it wasn't too bad. I could feel the stitches stretching my skin closed, but I didn't dwell on it. The idea that threads were sewn into my flesh, and that's what was holding it together, freaked me out, so I put it out of my head.
When I entered the control room, Vincent was the first to spot me.
Chapter 14
Vincent stalked over as I settled into an empty desk near the door and booted up the computer.
“Did you pull off your IV again?” Vincent accused.
“Hello to you, too,” I snapped. “The doctor disconnected them earlier today. He said I could be here.” Not quite the truth, but close enough. It seemed to mollify Vincent at any rate.
“You should at least have taken a day off,” he mumbled.
“Bring me up to speed,” I said, ignoring the remark.
Vincent stared hard at me, apparently undecided. Then he grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it up across the desk from me.
“Two more Lost have gone missing. A minotaur and a pixie,” Vincent said.
“A minotaur? But they're huge!”
“Yes, this was a farmer in Northern Missouri.”
“Is a farmer,” I corrected. “Or have we found evidence that the Lost are being killed?”
“All the killings appear to be accidents,” Vincent said.
“No wonder Logan is worried about his family. If a minotaur has gone missing, none of the Lost are safe.” Vincent held up his hand, and then motioned toward Barry and Kyrian. I hadn't noticed the whispered argument going on nearby.
“—didn't authorize the removal of the agent overseeing the Sanctuary,” Barry said. He sounded pretty upset but he managed to keep his voice low.
“We needed the agent in the field, not on guard duty,” Kyrian responded, keeping her voice level.
“We're working on getting more agents, but you've overstepped your bounds. It's not your decision to make.”
“I did what was necessary. The other issue is Hank,” Kyrian said, guiding the conversation away from her mistake. “He's been spending time after work digging into records from the past few months.”
“What type of old records?” Barry asked.
“Satellite imagery, electromagnetic readings, portal activity.”
“Sounds sensible,” Barry said, “I'll talk to him about his findings. Make sure you keep me updated on all activity.” Barry started to walk away.
“There was one last thing, sir,” Kyrian dropped her voice significantly. Barry raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to talk. She hesitated for a moment. “I heard a rumor about Special Director Hadley. He might be retiring at the end of the year.”
Barry burst out laughing. He didn't bother to whisper. “That rumor floats around every three or four years. I think he floats the rumor himself to see what he can stir up. Take your mind off his job. At least for a few more years.”
Barry walked away. Kyrian looked furious for a moment, but then put on her business face and nodded at Logan as he entered.
“Did you see anything?” Vincent asked, tapping his forehead. It seemed strange to see him referring to my gifts the same way as Logan.
“I didn't try,” I admitted. Shifting around on my chair, I clicked the mouse a few times to make sure the computer was waking up. “There's too much electricity and vibration here. Reading the Path here is difficult to begin with. I’m not even going to try.”
Glancing up, I saw Logan in conversation with Kyrian.
Vincent frowned. “We really need to work faster fixing what I've done.”
“I wasn't aware we had started working on the issue.” I didn't look at Vincent.
“I've been quietly reaching out to other people. No one has ever heard of putting a soul back into someone once they've started to remove it. I've started checking old records as well. It’s been an all or nothing thing in the past.”
“And it usually kills the person?” I asked.
Vincent flinched at the accusation. “It kills the person. Sometimes not immediately, but it doesn't take long.”
“Maybe if I understood things better, about what you do, I mean.” There was some small comfort knowing that Vincent was working on putting me right again. I couldn't live this way forever.
He looked unsettled. “The agency collects information on all the Lost and all the gifts they discover. Walkers don’t make it a habit of adding to the agencies collection of knowledge.”
I blinked at this information. “Do we really keep that much information on people?”
“As much as they can dig up.”
“I've never really looked anyone up. Not even information on Readers. I'm sure there are others.” I had Gran to talk to about my gifts, but what would it be like to talk to other others who share the same aptitude? “Why do you work for AIR if you don't want information to get out?”
Vincent shrugged. “Others that work here are the same way. Our talents are put to good use, but it's an agency that compiles information. The more we share, the more control the agency can exert. Logan is the same way.”
Realization struck me. Logan was cagey when I brought u
p something he did. Even though we were close, I was an AIR agent first, his friend second. He must have been afraid that I would give the information up.
There was a catch as I let out a deep breath. “I never really thought about it that way,” I said. “I've never monitored or censored anything I've said around here.” Damn, was I naive? Or were they overly paranoid? I decided it wouldn't hurt to be cautious from here on out.
“You already know enough about what I do. Every soul I take is from dangerous things that shouldn't be here. But they are things that others can't easily get rid of.”
“That sounds like it could be difficult to deal with.”
“It gets easier with time.”
“Is that because you keep a part of each soul you take?” I asked.
Vincent narrowed his eyes at me. “We don't—”
“Kyrian said Rider's applying to be a field agent,” Logan said. Startled, I pulled away from Vincent and went back to pressing buttons on the mouse.
“So that's why he wasn’t upstairs,” I said. Pulling up an incident report related to our attack, I started adding detailed notes.
“I guess he had a good time rough housing and wants to continue,” Logan said.
“I'd prefer a little less action,” I said.
“You have this much excitement on the coast?” Logan asked Vincent.
“It's usually pretty active. We have more people, which causes more issues, but fewer Lost. It's more active here than I was led to believe,” Vincent said.
“It's been more active around here, that's for sure,” I said.
“We've run into some powerful Lost. Have we had any clues about where they came from?” Vincent asked.
“Kyrian was asking the same question,” Logan said. “So, my guess is no one's discovered anything yet. We should talk to Hank to see if he's found anything in the past month or so.”
“I think Barry is going to have him closeted up for a while,” I said. We filled Logan in on the overheard conversation.
“Kyrian is keeping a sharp eye out,” Logan mused.
“I think everyone is,” I said. “If Hank found anything for us, he'd let us know. It's frustrating to sit still, though. We have to start helping.”
“Do you have anything in mind?” Vincent asked.
“Do the same thing we do for any other Lost that slips through,” I said. “Weed through the news to find stories or rumors that match up.”
“You all don't stand there and wait when they slip through at a portal?” Vincent asked.
“There are lines of natural energy in the land here like we said before. Sometimes we can tell early when one is about to open, but old power boils up at times,” Logan said. “We don't always get a lot of warning. We usually find those that slip through portals soon enough, though.”
“If that’s the case, wouldn’t you know if you may have missed something?” Vincent asked.
I shook my head. “Some things get pushed here, or have been here a while.”
“What Cassie is referring to is the old ones,” Logan said.
“The old ones?” Vincent prompted Logan.
“Been portals here for longer than anyone knows. The human race wiped out most of those Lost that slipped through when they pushed west. Some of the Lost are good at hiding, and let's face it most humans aren't good at looking. They see what they expect and nothing more. The old ones are the Lost that came through before all the electronics and gadgets could notice them.”
“I don't think we have much of that problem on the West Coast,” Vincent said.
“It's a population difference,” I said. “The West Coast is more densely populated, as is the East Coast. We tend to sprawl here in the Midwest. Old ones have had a chance to breed and adapt to us. Every now and again, we hear rumors of something, or odd news stories and we find a Lost that we've never seen before.”
“Essy's family is like that,” Logan said. “Her family was here before we were.”
I tried to hold back my surprise, but I failed. Essy's family had been here that long? Not Essy herself of course, fairies had a shorter life span than humans did. But I had met with them repeatedly. It was my job to watch over them. Why had I never looked up the history of the tribe? Am I just along for the ride on this job? Am I letting myself be used without jumping in and learning more?
“We had a spook light in southern Missouri,” Logan said. “Rumors started in the 1800s about a strange light down there. It took us until the 1980s to figure out it was actually a Lost. Little guy only pops out at night because he’s sensitive to light. It likes the moisture of a foggy night but it'll pop up whenever it's curious enough. That spook light had quite the little following for a while.”
“What was it?” Vincent asked.
“Will-o-the-wisp,” Logan said, looking around the room. He was done with the subject and ready to move on. He waved and went to meet the doctor as he walked in.
Knowing it would be better if I made the decision to go back upstairs on my own, I sighed and shut down the computer.
“Will you ask Logan to grab me a laptop?” I asked Vincent as I stood.
“I'll grab it. I want to try something anyway.”
The question must have been visible on my face.
“I want us to meditate together,” Vincent added. “I don't think the doctor will object.”
Meditation had fought me since Vincent attacked my soul. It wasn't a process I enjoyed. Instead of arguing, however, I nodded and went upstairs. It was time to stop dodging the problem and start fixing it.
The doctor arrived on my heels.
“We need to do another round of tests,” he said. I frowned and sat back on my bed. “Just as a precaution since you are going home soon.” He took a blood sample and looked over my back. He declared it almost as good as new.
“How is that possible?” I asked as he started popping out stitches.
“We were lucky. Rider healed pretty quickly, despite having the poison in his system. Something in his blood counteracts the poison.”
“How does that affect me?”
“We did a blood transfusion using Rider's blood.”
My skin turned cold. “Is that safe?”
“Normally, we wouldn't try it, but Rider is part human. We received his permission and discussed the issue with your grandmother. Something in his blood also worked well with yours and increased your healing rate exponentially.”
The doctor pulled the last of the stitches out. “You can lie back now. We'll be able to send you home tonight. Rider too. I'll run a few more tests. Get comfortable, and we'll let you go as soon as we can.”
Vincent walked in as the doctor left. “What's wrong? Bad news?”
“What? No.” I had been watching the door after the doctor's retreat. Pushing back the thought of Rider's blood coursing through my system, I smiled. “I'm going home, actually.”
“Already?” Vincent asked.
“The stitches have been removed and everything. Thanks for the laptop. I'll use it at home instead of the office.”
Once we were released, Vincent drove Rider and me to my house. We kept quiet the whole way.
“I'll take Rider home,” Vincent said.
Rider curled up his nose at Vincent before turning to me. “Mind if I stop by tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Some of my tension drained away. “See you tomorrow.”
Once in my bedroom, I opened the laptop, fully intending on doing work, but my bed was too inviting to pass up.
Two flower arrangements greeted me in the kitchen the next morning. I read the card attached to a vase of vivid sunflowers and saw they were for me.
“Susan dropped those off this mornin’,” Gran said. “They’re from the whole family.”
It was nice having Logan’s family live nearby. I had assumed that Gran had picked up the other vase. Daisies, my favorite flower, filled the container. I leaned in and took a deep breath before reading the card. Vincent’s name was written nea
tly on the tag. A smile tugged at my lips.
I was consuming my second muffin of the morning and eyeing the daisies on the counter when the doorbell rang. From the other room, Gran shouted that she had the door and returned with Rider in tow.
“Nice flowers,” he commented. “Why are they in here instead of outside?”
“Logan sent these and Vincent sent the daisies on the counter. These flowers were meant to be indoors.”
Rider blinked and looked at each of the vases of flowers and back to me. He cleared his throat. “I missed some sort of social convention.”
“Don't you worry about it, Rider. You don't need flowers to let Cassie know you're happy she's home.” Gran placed a plate in front of him. “People give each other flowers for a variety of reasons here: the death of a loved one, when someone gets sick, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, to cheer someone up, or to let them know that you care. All those are reasons to give flowers.
“It's also a part of courtin’,” Gran continued. “If a man is interested in a woman, he'll give her flowers before a date, or because he wants the woman to know he's thinking of her.”
Rider looked thoughtful, but his muffin had been torn to pieces instead of consumed.
“What would you do, if you were interested in a woman?” Gran asked. If she weren't an old lady, I'd probably kick her under the table.
“Gran! Rider, you don't have to answer that,” I said.
He shrugged. “We do it differently.” He didn't elaborate.
Rider spent most of the day asking questions about AIR. Since he was one of the Lost, I felt comfortable answering most of them. I hedged a few answers, but Rider didn't lose enthusiasm. The phone rang late in the afternoon.
“Cassie, it's Hank. Logan and Vincent are on their way to pick you up. We have a portal opening south of the city, outside Brookville.”
Chapter 15
“How soon ‘til it opens?” I started to pace.
“You won't make it in time.”
“Is anyone closer?”
“No. It’s a new one too. Luckily, it's wooded, away from people. There are some quarries nearby, but they haven't been worked in years.”
A.I.R. Shattered Soul Page 13