The Protectors

by Dowell, Trey

  I carried Lyla and a couple of blankets down to Mrs. Barstow’s beaten-up Jaguar and tried to make her as comfortable as possible in the backseat. Then I settled in for the long drive north to Scotland.

  CHAPTER 13

  Dawn and the M1 highway both arrived clean: no clouds and little traffic to slow us down. Running away might not be a heroic endeavor but in this case it was the right tactical and strategic move. As I wound the Jaguar over rolling hills toward Edinburgh and my worries of MI5 lessened, I started to question what I was running to. More important, every furtive look into the backseat at Lyla’s snoring body made me wonder something just as important—the condition of who I was running with. No matter what choices presented themselves over the next few hours, how many of the decisions to be made were still going to be mine? Bottom line: Lyla could wake at any moment, and I could be a lovesick minion five seconds after the fact. With every stolen glance into the backseat, I half expected to see golden swirling eyes peering back at me.

  Her eyes never opened, though, and after six hours on the road I rolled through the center of the capital of Scotland with my faculties intact and under my own control. First order of business was to find someplace safe for Lyla, where she could sleep undisturbed for as long as needed. I drove away from Edinburgh proper, with its massive stone fortress atop the sheer cliff face rising out of the town center, and searched for an area beyond the crowded bustle of the main drag, Princes Street.

  The outer ring of the city had plenty of bed-and-breakfasts, and before long I rolled up to the Lairg Bed & Breakfast, a gray-stonework three-story that looked quiet and comfy, and, most important, sat on a street offering multiple directions for a quick escape.

  I parked on the street and took a moment to crack open the heel compartment of my left boot, silently thanking my own laziness at not cleaning it out when I threw all my gear into the leather trunk five years ago. An emergency bundle of cash, crinkled and curved into a permanent wad, lay waiting. I squeezed the majority of the bills through the neck of my empty soda bottle and stuffed it under the front seat for Mrs. Barstow. When the car was eventually towed, the plate would get linked back to her.

  There was enough money left over for lodging, and the man at the desk was so happy to be paid up front, in cash, he didn’t even ask to see my ID when I gave him the wad. Yeah, the daily rate was probably a lot less and he pocketed the difference, but hey—can’t put a price on privacy. He was even gracious enough to enjoy a ten-minute catnap slumped over the front counter, which meant no one saw Lyla being hefted through the front door and up the steps to our room.

  Again, it does not entirely suck to be me.

  After tucking her into bed, the fatigue of the past forty-eight hours pounced on my back like a heavy jungle cat—I hadn’t had any sleep since the plane ride from the States, and only when movement stopped completely did I realize how much I felt like cooked-over ass. Just then, the proverbial lightbulb went off in my head and I bolted from the room down to the front desk. I shook my helpful money-skimming desk clerk awake and asked him about the nearest Internet café.

  Within minutes, I trotted through the front door of Cleopatra, a local coffee shop/computer workstation nirvana, less than a mile from the Lairg. To be honest, I was a little shocked Internet cafés still existed—clearly I’d been prejudiced by the American drive to have broadband access in every home—yet here one was, the rich aroma of coffee counterbalanced by the sharp tang of copy paper from an industrial Xerox machine in the middle of the space. In my excitement I had to ask for a workstation twice—at first I thought the kid at the counter couldn’t understand my accent, but realized later it was simply because I was speaking too fast.

  I logged on to both WebMD and Wikipedia and read all I could about sleep deprivation. Some I knew already, other pieces I suspected. Quite a bit of the information was worse than I thought: governments employing deprivation as a quasilegal way to soften and interrogate prisoners, idiots pushing the boundaries of human endurance resulting in psychosis, and even extreme examples resulting in fatalities. I knew how shitty I felt from a whopping two days without sleep—but what about Lyla? Three months and never getting more than an hour’s worth each night? My God, that was tantamount to torture.

  Although I could only guess at the long-term effects of such an extended period, excitement swelled in my chest with every word I read. The symptoms of severe deprivation read like a shopping list of Lyla’s behaviors: depression, irritability, paranoia, anger, delusional thoughts. All of them pointed to a singular cause for her mental break, and even better, gave me hope.

  If her anger and despondence were no more than symptoms of sleep deprivation, it meant two things: one, she might fundamentally still be the woman I remembered, and two, it wasn’t too late. She could be cured . . . she didn’t need to be a danger to herself, me, or the world. But my brief surge of optimism depended on the answer to one simple question: what would Lyla be like after getting the sleep her body so desperately craved? The future of the planet literally depended on that one unknown.

  I didn’t walk back to the bed-and-breakfast. I ran.

  CHAPTER 14

  Took until nine o’clock the next morning for me to get the answer.

  I’d spent the previous night in the overstuffed bedside chair, splitting time between watching Lyla and trying to keep my own brain from succumbing to fatigue—mostly in vain on both counts. By the time my chair was bathed in uncomfortably warm sunshine, I gave up the vigil and staggered into the bathroom to shave and brush my teeth. The toothbrush froze in my paste-coated mouth when I saw Lyla’s reflection glide past me in the mirror. I spun in surprise, caught my toothbrush on the doorjamb, and nearly gagged myself to death in what would have been the most pathetic superhero demise of all time.

  I half expected Lyla to still be tucked away when I turned to the bed. It was empty, though. I hadn’t imagined it. She was making her way, wrapped in the bedsheet, to the French doors that opened onto a small balcony overlooking the cobblestone approach to the Lairg.

  “Lyla? Are you . . .”

  Just the sight of her made the question die in my throat. She stood at the open doors, peering at row houses across the street. The white sheet entwined her tanned body, falling across her torso like a toga, leaving one shoulder gleaming in the bright sunlight. She was frozen in place like a statue, the folds in the sheet as crisp as chiseled marble. Lyla couldn’t have looked more like her namesake unless Cupid himself burst through the doors to hover around her with a bow and arrow.

  I’m not sure how long I stood there, but let’s be honest, any amount of openmouthed, toothpaste-encrusted gaping is too much. Finally, the spell broke when the statue moved; Lyla’s head rotated to one side enough for me to see half her face. The skin, brilliant. The dark circles gone. And the eyes I’d been so afraid of ? No rotation, no angry glare. One corner of her mouth curled in a grin. My hopes rose as she turned fully in my direction; in a word, she looked . . . tranquil.

  “How do you feel?” I asked, voice quieter than I expected.

  “I-I don’t know,” she stammered.

  “Is that a bad I-don’t-know, or a good one?”

  The smile spread across her features and long, dark lashes batted over hypnotic eyes. “I am well. So well, I’m having trouble putting the feeling into words.”

  I blew out a hard exhale. That’s a good sign. “You had me worried. In fact, worried might be too weak. Scared shitless is a little closer to the mark.”

  Lyla turned back to the balcony, surveying the street. “Where are we?”

  “Scotland.”

  “More precisely?”

  “Edinburgh.”

  “For how long did you put me down?”

  “You’ve been unconscious for more than twenty-four hours, but I didn’t keep you down. You slept the entire time.”

  “But you dropped me, yes?”
The question drifted over her turned shoulders.

  “Yes.” I dragged a forearm across my foamy mouth and found a seat on the bed. “How much do you remember?”

  She turned back and sat in the chair near the doors, the one I’d spent all night on. She clutched arms around her chest as her eyes wandered the unfamiliar surroundings. Wasn’t surprising, given what I’d done to her. Sometimes I forget how invasive the act of shutting someone down really is. Having no control over one’s own consciousness . . . the essence of vulnerability. You feel helpless when you know it’s coming. And after? Well, I guess violated is an accurate word. Awful, but accurate.

  “I remember enough. The alley. The argument . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “You weren’t yourself. I think sleep deprivation had a lot to do with it.”

  Doubt crawled over her expression. “You think or you hope?”

  It was about 25 percent think and 75 percent hope, but her expression told me Lyla’s mental footing was shaky enough as it was. No need to let honesty chip away more of the foundation.

  Keep her calm and relaxed.

  “Both, but one thing I know for sure—going months without any REM sleep can gum up the works pretty badly.”

  It was worth thirty seconds of blinding pain to find out just how much. Reaching out to her mind felt like plunging a long needle into the soft skin between my eyebrows; a shocking jolt when I moved past the threshold, followed by an angry burn, one which transitioned from Ben-Gay to welding-torch intensity in a frightening hurry. The longer I stayed in Lyla’s mind, the deeper that needle was gonna slide into my skull, but I had to know just how much of her breakdown was due to her physical state, and how much was mental. Physical I could help with, especially since I knew an extra-hard push could put her to sleep. If Lyla’s issues were mental, on the other hand, we were one bad conversation away from being right back in that hallway.

  As I moved through the gate into the sea of consciousness beyond, my uncertainty gave way to wonder, then overwhelming relief. The maelstrom of turgid thought was simply . . . gone. The surface of her mind was placid and calm. Not everything was clear—her cognitive patterns were still clouded with uncertainty and a little fear—but fishing below the glassy surface of her thought stream was simple compared to the experience in Mrs. Barstow’s hallway. Then, all I could hear were whispers. Now her mental words sounded like they were coming through loudspeakers.

  It’s as though an obscuring film has peeled back from the surface of my eyes. Colors, sounds, smells—everything so rich and textured now. Is this how it was before? It’s been so long, I feel like I’m experiencing everything for the first time. Like I’ve been reborn—why does Scott look like he’s in the middle of a bowel movement?

  I looked back through the gateway and saw my own body wound up in a grimace, enduring the spike piercing my forehead. And I’ll be damned if it didn’t look exactly like I was taking a king-sized shit.

  I let go of Lyla’s mind, and took a deep breath as the pain cut off. I couldn’t tell if the tears welling in my eyes were from agony or relief. Either way, I didn’t care because the sane version of Lyla was back.

  At least for now.

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you all right?” Her face showed genuine concern.

  I waved her off but couldn’t suppress a smile. “A bowel movement? Seriously?”

  She paused, uncertain—her brow scrunched up in confusion. “Bowel . . . how . . . how do you know that’s what I was thinking?”

  “Two pieces of good news. One, I think you’re going to be fine. Two, I can read minds. Surprise!” I extended my arms with a flourish and gave her my best magician’s “Ta-dah.”

  Her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. She readjusted the makeshift toga across her chest. “Then you and I have a great deal to discuss, Professor Xavier. And unless you want to leave this room in nothing but your underwear and clucking like a chicken, I want to know everything.”

  Lyla may have looked angry, but I didn’t have to read her mind to know better.

  “I’m happy to tell you anything you want to know,” I said and turned to the closet to fetch her white dress. “But over breakfast. We’ll find a place nearby. You’ve slept for more than twenty-four hours . . . you’ve gotta be starving.”

  “More thirsty, to be honest,” she said, extricating herself from the chair.

  I draped the St. Moritz dress over the bed in front of her. “Might want to change.”

  Lyla sniffed herself and groaned. “I’m repulsive. I need to shower first.” She plucked the dress from the bed and moved past to the bathroom.

  “Yes. Repulsive. First adjective that comes to mind,” I called out after she closed the door.

  She replied, but her words got lost in the patter of water.

  Probably better that way. Flirting with Lyla, even after five years, was second nature, but I had a stronger imperative, one that hadn’t vanished just because I wasn’t under imminent threat of embrace.

  Observe, assess, decide.

  Tucker’s voice haunted me almost as much as Lyla’s potential psychosis. The CIA wasn’t known for its forgiving nature, and they had a helluva long reach. They’d demand more proof than I had right now. And until I got that proof, the best plan was to spirit Lyla away from the Agency and any other prying eyes.

  As far as the Goddess of Love went, her astonishing turnaround was more than a couple of steps in the right direction, but I had no idea if it would last. Yeah she seemed fine, but let’s be honest: five minutes after he woke up in the morning, Jeffrey Dahmer’s mind probably looked like a pastoral meadow, too.

  Best to just keep near, watch close, and see whether or not the woman I remembered was still the one running the show.

  Lyla seemed fine.

  Sitting in the bathroom to give her some privacy to get dressed, take a guess which one of those three words affected me the most.

  CHAPTER 15

  When you’re desperate to feed and water a dehydrated woman in a quiet, semiprivate locale, few places in the world are as accommodating as the United Kingdom. If blindfolded, spun in a circle, and ordered to throw a rock in Scotland, you’ve got about a 75 percent chance of hitting a pub. We found one nearby called Ryries, and settled near the back, surrounded by dark wood and the smell of char-grilled burgers. Lyla downed three glasses of water and inhaled a plate of smoked salmon before she bothered to ask any questions.

  She quizzed me about the sleep deprivation first, then the account of how we wound up in Edinburgh. She nodded in the right places, asked the expected follow-ups, but I could tell it was all preamble. What really intrigued Lyla had nothing to do with her.

  “So you can read minds?” Her bemused expression stared over the lip of her fourth glass of mineral water.

  “Yup.”

  “And this is something you felt unnecessary to discuss at St. Moritz?”

  “Before I knew you weren’t bat-shit crazy? Yeah, probably safer to keep that stuff to myself.”

  “Does the CIA know?”

  “Nope. But they were awfully interested to see if I’d ‘evolved.’ Apparently Blaster’s got them all in an uproar.”

  She leaned back and shook her head as she stirred the lemon to the bottom of her glass. I felt like I was on the wrong end of an inside joke.

  “What?”

  “Diego. He always loved the attention,” she said.

  “Can he really turn himself into energy?”

  She nodded. “He can now be an ass at the speed of light.”

  “They told me he was ‘off-world’—made him sound like some sort of galactic voyager.”

  “Hardly. He just says that so the Agency won’t bother to look for him. I doubt he’d have much use for space travel.”

  “Why?”

  “There are no preening nineteen-year-old girls
in deep space,” she said with a wry smile.

  For a moment I mistook disappointment for jealousy. “You and Diego weren’t . . .”

  “Good Lord, no. I’d sooner date the general. It’s just . . . after you left, he was the only person I could talk to. But Carsten . . . his death affected Diego even more than me. He grew cold. Arrogant.”

  I raised a single eyebrow.

  She laughed. “More arrogant.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t talk him into joining you on your CIA jailbreak. Diego never had much love for being cooped up and told what to do.”

  “True, but subtlety has never been one of Diego’s strong points, and my activities require a certain amount of discretion. Mister Sturm-und-Drang can’t sit still long enough to listen to my plans, let alone assist with them.”

  “So he still works for the Department of Defense, all by himself ?”

  “When he sees fit.”

  “I know Diego—he probably thinks you abandoned him like I did,” I said. Felt nice to have some company on Sparky’s hate list.

  Lyla shook her head. “Sorry, but only one of us at this table has Diego’s undying contempt, and it’s not me. I check in with him every week, see how he’s doing. We’re the closest thing to . . .” She paused, searching for the right word. “. . . family . . . either of us has.” Her eyes drifted, then refocused on me. “But enough about Diego. You’re stalling. Tell me how you came to read people’s thoughts.”

  I ate the last chunk of my burger and made her wait while I chewed. Exasperated, she flopped against the wooden back of the booth, motioning for me to hurry.

  “No dramatic awakening,” I said when I finished. “Wasn’t like the clouds opened and a ray of light shone down.”