by Potter, Ryan
She laughs so loudly that I figure it’s only a matter of time before a nearby employee or resident comes back here.
“Help?” she says, stifling her laughter. “I’m beyond help, special girl.” She removes her hand from the Dumpster and manages to stand under her own power, although she’s swaying badly.
“From what I’m told, you’ve been missing for two years,” I say. “Isn’t there somebody you can call? There must be people who care about you and want to know you’re alive.”
“Shh, shh, shh,” she says, shaking her head and raising an index finger in front of her mouth. “Some people prefer not to be found. You know what I mean? Besides, everybody’s dead to me, special girl. Everybody except Face. Face takes care of me.” She glances at her toothpick-like arms. “He gives me what I need.”
“My name’s Alix,” I say. “Alix Keener.”
“Well, then shut up and listen, Alix Keener.” Giggle. “Face has a message for you. Stop now and you’ll live. Continue digging and you’ll die.” She smiles, revealing a set of yellowed and blackened chipped teeth. “They know where you live, Alix. You live in Willis’s old room. The room he died in.”
The white light explodes in my head as soon as she mentions his bedroom. My bedroom. I see a vision that upsets me, but it occurs to me that this is a vision of the past, not the future. I see that William and Aruna had a history. I see them together in his bed, a thin, white sheet covering their sweaty bodies, the two of them lying on their backs beside each other, smiling and staring at the ceiling, Aruna’s glazed eyes looking like red spider webs. It’s obvious what they just finished doing—something I’ve never come close to doing—but I find it odd that William has his backwards baseball cap and sunglasses on. I glimpse his tattoos for the first time. William has an ornate, green, blue, orange, purple, and red Japanese dragon running down the length of each arm. Each dragon has its open mouth just above his wrist. The dragons are beautiful, and I wonder how he paid for such quality work.
“Now, tell me something,” Aruna says, leaning her left arm on the Dumpster again and ending my vision in the process. She does something different this time though. I watch closely as her left hand reaches behind the Dumpster and out of view. “Face says you can talk to the spirits. He says you’ve been talking to Willis. Is that correct?”
“Aruna, if you don’t want my help, then I think we’re done here. Would you like me to tell anybody you’re alive?” I say. “Barely.”
“Oh my,” she says, laughing loudly again. “The bitch has a sense of humor. I’ll be sure to let Face know. He’ll like that.” She pauses and somehow manages to hold my gaze, Aruna not looking as stoned now. “Thing is I know exactly what you’re thinking, Alix. We all do. You’re thinking you’re safe because of who your daddy is. You’re thinking if things get too scary, you can just run to Clint Keener the lawman and turn everything over to him. Truth is you’re nothing but a bored little virgin schoolgirl who thinks a few visions have made her invincible and ready for an adventure on the wild side.” She emits a soft grunt and spits onto the asphalt. “You’re hoping the water doesn’t get too hot, but honey, let me tell you something: you’re one step away from feeling the boil. Alix Keener, you will crash and burn to your death if you try to expose, weaken, or disrupt Perennial in any way.” She brushes a matted clump of sweaty hair away from her eyes. “And girl, you better believe me when I tell you there isn’t a damn thing your daddy will be able to do to keep you safe.”
“As I said, Aruna, it looks like we’re done here.”
I tighten my fists, sensing she’s about to try something desperate, something stupid. She’s right, though: part of me does wish either the police or my dad would show up right now to take her away, but I know that isn’t going to happen. I’m terrified at the thought of violence, but I’m well aware the road I’m embarking upon is loaded with it. Right now I’m thankful to Dad for all those years of self-defense lessons.
“Just one last thing,” Aruna says, lowering her head and looking sad and exhausted now, her left hand still hidden as I walk a wide arc to my left to get around her and onto the path. “Face wants you to have this.”
She’s barely eight feet away and charges me with surprising speed for a strung-out druggie, Aruna raising her left arm over her shoulder, sunlight glinting off of something sharp and shiny in her hand: a knife about seven inches long and easily capable of ending my life at seventeen. Dad’s fight lessons pay off for the first time in my life. I don’t have time to think. All I can do is react. I raise my right arm and chop the outside edge of my hand directly below Aruna’s knife hand. I have a terrible vision of her future as I deliver a sharp left jab to her chin. Aruna grunts and hunches over, stunned. Next I grab her left wrist and the back of her neck and force her out away from me, twisting her knife-holding hand inward and up, which allows me to bend her left wrist back as far as I want while simultaneously landing a hard kick to her right knee. Aruna screams from the pain and drops to her knees, her grasp on the knife easily weakened enough for me to pry the weapon from her hand. She’s lucky I didn’t break her left wrist, because that would’ve been my next move if she refused to release the knife.
I back off to create some space between us, keeping the silver weapon in my right hand as Aruna breaks into tears and rolls onto her back. She’s rubbing her wounded knee with one hand and cradling her aching wrist against her chest. Her crying turns into childlike wailing. I feel bad for her, but I had to defend myself.
I hold the knife behind my back, stand over her, and say, “Aruna, you need to get away from Face. You tell Face that any man who sends a girl to do his fighting isn’t a man at all. He’s a pathetic piece of shit.”
“I’m so sorry, Alix,” she says, genuine terror on her face as her crying stops and she looks into my eyes. “I mean it. I’m so sorry. He makes me do these things. But you don’t understand. He has powers too. He does things normal people can’t. I’m so scared, Alix. I can’t get away. He’ll find me and kill me. The only way to free me is to kill Face.” She breaks into a fresh round of tears. “But I don’t think he can die. He’s too different.”
“Did Face kill William?” I say, noticing a pristine black four-door Mercedes pulling up and stopping perpendicular to the Zeppelin lot, blocking any chance I have of getting out of here in the Explorer. Full black tint covers the sedan’s windows. The vibe coming from this car is one of pure evil, so much so that I feel the hairs on my arms stiffen and rise. “Hurry, Aruna,” I say, shifting my gaze between the car and her. “Your ride is here. Did Face kill William?”
“William,” she says, tilting her head to stare at the car, which just sits there, engine humming quietly beneath the blazing sun. “God, I’m in so much trouble, Alix.” She looks at me. “I don’t know how William died, and that’s the honest-to-God truth. But he’s something, isn’t he? So bad and yet so, so good.” She forces a smile. “You know what I mean. I can tell. Could you do me a favor and tell him I said hello and that I miss him and that I’m sorry I lost it?”
“Lost what?”
The car engine revs. I’m in no position to challenge this vehicle. Whatever or whoever is behind those windows holds far more power than I do. So what I do is walk slowly backwards toward the Dumpster, eyes glued to poor Aruna as she struggles to her feet and limps slowly toward the Mercedes, where she opens the driver’s-side back door and collapses into an empty backseat. The door closes automatically, and the driver pulls quickly away, leaving behind a filthy cloud of brown dust that blankets my Explorer.
Looking behind the Dumpster, I find the silver knife’s well-worn black-leather sheath resting on a rail just beneath the Dumpster’s top hinges, so I sheathe the knife, slide it into my back pocket, and allow my shirt to fall over it as a screen.
I’m coughing from the dust cloud as I walk the narrow path leading to the front of Zeppelin Coffee.
Chapter 11
I’m holding back tears as I enter Zeppelin Coffee an
d wait in a short line, heart thumping wildly. I’m struggling with the overwhelming urge to call Dad’s emergency number.
What would I say to him?
“Dad, a girl who’s been missing for two years just tried to knife me in Beaconsfield right behind your favorite coffeehouse. Then she got into the back of a mysterious black Mercedes and drove off. By the way, I’m developing some freaky psychic abilities and am currently communicating with the ghost of the beautiful bad boy who died in my bedroom. He needs me to figure out who killed him, and … oh yeah, the girl who just tried to kill me seems to know all of this and warned me that Face has powers as well. Speaking of Face, I think he killed William and runs something called Perennial, whatever that is.”
What else? Hmm. “Oh, William is a pawn of some guy named Vagabond, who wants to see if I’m a good enough psychic to gain access into some special club of his. Also, last but not least, I’m pretty sure Oval City is the epicenter of this mystery, which of course means I have to go there. Tonight.”
Yeah. Right.
Dad has never hit me before, but a psycho rant like that might do the trick. At the least, Clint Keener—a calm man of reason, a man of the law, a man who firmly believes that the key to a bright future is a solid education and a willingness to live according to society’s time-tested rules—would handcuff me and commit me to the nearest psychiatric facility until the doctors deemed me fit to reenter the normal world.
But not everything in the world is normal, Dad. In fact, everything I thought was normal has blown up in my face in less than forty-eight hours. I’m on my own undercover investigation now, an otherworldly investigation you would never understand.
And this is why I can’t whisper a word to you about my new world.
The young woman seated at the circular table for two off to my left catches my attention. She’s sipping a large iced coffee and playing with her phone. She’s not looking my way, but she’s the reason I’m here. Somehow I know this. She’s incredibly beautiful too, with rich, deep mocha skin, and long, layered hair. Her dark clothes are tight but stylish. She looks about my age, maybe a year or two older. There’s an aura of confidence around her, a type of positive energy she exudes that makes me want her on my side.
A flash of light explodes inside my head. Two blurred words in bold black print hover within the white cloud of light. Her name.
I leave the line and walk over to her. She knows I’m two feet away but still pretends not to notice.
“Excuse me,” I say. She looks up from her phone with big brown eyes that have surely melted more than a few men. “I’d like you to know that you have the coolest name I’ve ever heard.”
“Is that right?” she says, smiling. “And what is my name?”
“London,” I say. “London Steel.”
“Get your coffee and sit down, Alix. Vagabond says congratulations, by the way.”
“For knowing your name?”
“No,” she says, “for passing your first test back there.”
***
She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, just keeps typing away on her phone. I sit there, sipping my iced coffee, feeling the uncomfortable pressure of Aruna’s knife in my back pocket. The place is busy and loud now, adults and teenagers dropping in for late-afternoon drinks. I realize Dad could walk in any minute, meaning I should get rid of this knife as soon as possible.
“I’m sorry,” London finally says, forcing herself to pocket her phone. “I blog a lot. It’s kind of addictive.”
“No problem,” I say. “What do you blog about?”
“Good question,” she says, mulling it over. “I guess you can call me an Internet job recruiter. I’m a type of headhunter, as adults in the business world call it. Special jobs for only the most highly qualified people.”
“People like me.”
“It’s looking good so far,” she says. “What you did back there was impressive. Being an effective psychic is rare enough, but where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“My dad’s a cop.”
“Ah,” she says. “That would explain it.” London smiles.
I smile back. “Was that even Aruna back there?”
“Oh, it was definitely Aruna. Poor thing.” London shakes her head. “We knew Face had her. We just didn’t know if she was dead or alive.” She raises her eyebrows. “Now we know.”
“She’s in danger.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “I had a horrible vision when I first made physical contact with her during the fight.” I swallow hard and promise myself to hold back the tears. “She’ll die soon. It’ll be Face, and it won’t be pretty.”
London, serious now, says, “I know your abilities are new to you, Alix, as in two-days new, but is there anything you can do to save her?”
“No,” I say. “I saw her dead. I saw Face standing over her. That means he’ll kill her. Just because I can see the future doesn’t mean I can change it.”
“What else did you see that involved her?”
“I knew she was behind the Dumpster. I knew when she was about to attack.” I pause. “And I saw her in bed with William just before he died.”
“Whoa,” she says, raising her hands as if they’re stop signs. “You saw a past event too?”
“Yes,” I say. “It surprised me. Actually, everything’s surprised me lately.”
“Wow,” she says. “No wonder Vagabond’s interested in you. A brilliant young mind and a two-way psychic who can kick ass when she needs to.” She laughs. “That’s hot, girl.” She raises a hand for a high five across the table, which I gladly give her.
“When will I meet him?”
“Vagabond?” she says. “That’s up to him. Right now, though, I want you to take my hand and hold it.” She lays her strong right arm on the table. I stare at it before glancing around the coffeehouse. Nobody is watching us. “It’s okay, Alix,” she says, sensing my nervousness. “You can trust me, and you know it. Hold my hand and tell me what you see.”
She wears a shiny but simple silver ring on her right ring finger. I sense there’s something special about it, so I make a point of pressing my palm against it as I wrap my right hand around hers and rest it in the center of the table. We stare at each other, London’s gaze intense now. At first I can’t get a reading, just strange warmth from the ring and incredible strength in her elegant hand. She works a lot with her hands, I realize, but I don’t know what kind of work she does.
Moments later the mental flashbulb fills my head with brilliant white light. Seconds after that, images, footage, and words about the life of London Steel overload my brain. It’s the strongest reading yet, which is exactly why she gave me her hand. The power is greater with physical contact. I experienced that with Aruna as well. I tell myself to harness the power and understand it.
Don’t run from it. Embrace it and think of yourself as a messenger of good.
The reading on London is amazing but terrifying. Sometimes I see what amount to short video clips of a past or future event, always sharp and clear, often violent, never more than a few seconds in length. Sometimes a series of vivid but bizarre battle images shoot through my mind like a high-speed slide show. Other times I see what I begin calling “word clouds,” like I did with her name and Aruna’s, the words always slightly blurry and printed in bold black against a white background.
I’m crying. I feel warm tears rolling gently down the sides of my face. What I’m seeing is a violent fantasy world of fire and light, a world of fabulous human warriors and hideous, grotesque shape-shifting demons, the two sides engaged in an epic struggle to defeat each other.
“It’s okay,” London whispers. “It’s hard. I know. Just take it all in and observe. Don’t react. Observe. It’s all real, and you’re becoming part of it.”
The vision ends, but fear keeps me holding her hand. I wipe tears away with my free hand as words begin flowing out of me almost automatically, like a
well-rehearsed script.
“London Steel is your real name,” I say, trying to regain my composure. “You’re nineteen and from Canada.” I scrunch my nose. “Canada. Eww. Sorry about that.”
“Ha!” she says. “London, Ontario, believe it or not. Anyway, nice one. Keep going.”
I squeeze harder. She does the same.
“You’re very into genealogy,” I continue. “Your family history in the US dates back to the so-called lost colony of Roanoke in what is today North Carolina. Before that, West Africa and Europe. The ugly institution of American slavery had a huge impact on your family.”
“Excellent,” she says. “What else?”
“The silver ring on your hand.”
“Damn, you are good.” She smiles. “What about my ring?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” I say, telling the truth. “It’s powerful. Other members of your family have worn it in the past, but not everybody. It’s like you have to qualify for it somehow. But it’s not always a good thing. Sometimes you hate the ring, but most of the time you can’t imagine life without it. Other families have rings too, but not many. I’ll never have one, and I’m glad.” I pause and fight off more tears. “The ring allows access to another world. You’ve done horrible things, London, but only because you’ve had to. You’re some sort of warrior,” I say, shaking my head slowly. “Nobody would ever guess it by looking at you, but you’ve killed before. Many times. There’s plenty of blood and gore in your recent past. And future, I’m afraid. But deep down you like it. You love the thrill of battle. The taste of it. The smell of it. Everything.” I pull my hand away, exhale deeply, and lean back in my chair. “That’s enough,” I say. “What the hell was all that about?”
“You just passed another test,” she says, retrieving her phone. “And with flying colors, I should add.” London leans across the table and motions me forward. I lean toward her, and in a whisper she says, “I sure hope you solve William’s murder, Alix, because you’re incredibly gifted, and I would love to work with you. You just read me like a book and got a glimpse of what my real job is.” She smiles. “You can help us in so many ways. There are sacrifices involved, but it’s Vagabond’s job to explain all that.” She places her right palm on my left cheek in an almost-motherly way. The warmth of the silver ring feels pleasant against my skin. “I wish I could help you in Oval City, but this is your test. You’re on your own. Evil isn’t just somebody who does a very bad thing. Evil is much deeper than that. You know that from what you just saw.” She lowers her ring hand and squeezes my left hand with the kind of strength guys never dreamed girls could have. “Oval City is evil, Alix. That’s why bad things happen there. Do you understand what I’m saying?”