The Astral Traveler's Daughter

by K. C. Archer

  Jillian reared back. “A minute ago, you agreed it wasn’t fair that we were separated. Now what? It’s okay as long as I don’t act on it? You’re such a hypocrite.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s always the same with you. You’re the one who’s allowed to break the rules. But as soon as someone else wants to step out of line, they’re in the wrong. Don’t tell me that sneaking off with Pyro at all hours isn’t rule breaking, because you know it is, we all signed the code of ethics.”

  Teddy was struck by two things. First, that Jillian had noticed Teddy and Pyro were back together. Well, not together together, but something. She’d thought she and Pyro had been discreet about it. Apparently not. And if Jillian knew, then Dara did, too, and how many other people? The revelation was distressing on several levels. So she focused on the second part of Jillian’s attack, which was essentially that Teddy was a selfish jerk who cared only about herself. Definitely easier to tackle.

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  Jillian’s lip began to quiver again. “It’s just”—she took a shaky breath—“it’s not fair.”

  “Look, this won’t last forever. Your probation ends soon. And then you can see him whenever you want.”

  “He hasn’t written back. I don’t even know if he’s getting my messages. Burt—”

  Yeah, Teddy knew all about Burt.

  “—so can you go see him for me, Teddy? Please?”

  Wait a second.

  “Me? What good would that do?”

  “Take this note. And since I can’t go to him, ask him to come here.”

  “Eli isn’t allowed on campus. You know that.”

  Jillian chewed her lip. “It’s almost Halloween. He could come to the Cantina! Then I’ll just happen to wander down, and Eli will just happen to be there—in costume, so nobody will even know it’s him—voilà! Problem solved!”

  If even a modicum of this planning had gone into their Hyle break-in . . .

  But Jillian was looking at her, her face so full of hope and longing that Teddy didn’t have the heart to say no. Even if she knew this was the worst plan ever.

  “What do you think Eli is going to be for Halloween?” Teddy asked.

  Boy, was she going to regret this.

  * * *

  After dinner, she found herself sneaking on the ferry, risking getting into trouble herself, in order to see a guy she didn’t like so she could deliver a message she didn’t approve of.

  Friendship. Guess you have to suck it up sometimes.

  As a second-year, Teddy could go off campus after hours, but she’d hoped that her first trip off-island to San Francisco would be for something fun—a concert, a drag show, a hamburger. Instead, she was on her way to the Mission District to track down Jillian’s boyfriend.

  Eli lived in a walk-up on one of the last ungentrified streets in the area. The front door to his building was unlocked; she figured the landlord wasn’t too concerned with security risks. Or safety. The stoop was cracked, and the right-side hand railing seemed to be held on with a single screw and a half-assed prayer.

  As someone who had dropped out of college and moved into the apartment above her parents’ garage, Teddy didn’t think she was one to judge anyone’s lifestyle. But she did. She judged him. She loved judging Eli Nevin. He was one judgeable little son of a bitch. There was just something about him that set all of her hairs on end. Gut feeling or not, he wasn’t right for Jillian.

  Nevertheless, she jogged up the stairs to his apartment, eager to deliver Jillian’s message and head back to campus.

  She reached for the knob on Eli’s door only to have it swing open at her touch. The apartment was dark, no noise from within. No music or TV. No dogs barking, which seemed unusual, considering. Eli must have taken the dogs out for a walk and hadn’t bothered to lock the doors behind him. Which seemed either completely careless or ridiculously trusting. Both explanations pissed Teddy off.

  But in case she was wrong: “Hey, Eli,” she called, as she let herself in. “It’s me, Teddy. I’ve got a message from Jillian. You around?”

  No answer. Teddy reached for the light switch by the door and flicked it on. Tried it again. Tried a third time. Nothing. Which led her to concoct a totally different scenario: a fuse had blown in his crappy apartment, which meant Eli had probably gone to find the building super, which meant Teddy would be forced to wait in the dark for him to return.

  Jillian had damn well better appreciate what I’m doing, because—

  Something caught Teddy’s attention. She froze, trying to identify it. Not a noise, precisely. Not a movement. Something else. Something there in the darkness, just beyond her grasp.

  She focused hard and caught it. A buzz of energy, hovering on the edge of her perception.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Someone else was in the apartment. Goose bumps shot up her spine. She focused hard, reaching out her consciousness through the small rooms and narrow hallway to find out who.

  Before she could discern more, two figures emerged from the hallway. Too dark to make out any distinguishing characteristics. Teddy could identify only that one of them was large. As in almost twice her size. And then the mountain of a man started rushing toward her.

  Teddy didn’t think. Didn’t make a conscious decision. Just allowed Boyd’s training to take over and operated on muscle memory. She ducked low and pivoted, using her opponent’s oncoming force against him. Simultaneously making herself a smaller target and driving her shoulder upward into his solar plexus. A deep grunt of pain told her she’d succeeded on that front, at least temporarily.

  Next she launched herself toward the smaller of the pair. Aimed her elbow at what she hoped was the man’s throat. She missed. A glancing blow. But Teddy recovered in time to grab a fistful of surprisingly longish hair and jerk the assailant backward. She was rewarded with a sharp cry of distress. The lights flickered on. Teddy blinked. The blond hair she’d grabbed belonged to a woman.

  The second of shocked inaction cost her. The man, back on his feet, slammed Teddy hard enough to cause her to release her grip on the woman. He sent Teddy crashing into Eli’s coffee table. Her head whipped back against the hard mahogany, so hard that the edges of her vision began to blur. The man loomed over her, fist raised.

  “Enough!” the woman yelled.

  Teddy blinked and shook her head, fighting to stay conscious as her assailants rushed out the door.

  How many times can a psychic get hit in the head before she incurs irrevocable damage?

  * * *

  After what felt like hours later, a tongue in Teddy’s ear roused her. It wasn’t the good kind of tongue-in-ear action. Because the tongue belonged to a giant horse masquerading as a dog.

  From down the hall, Teddy heard Eli’s voice call out: “Mitzy! Where did you go? You’re not supposed to take off without me!” That was followed by the sound of heavy footfalls, frantic yaps, and tiny claws scratching hardwood. Eli, returning home. With a groan, Teddy rolled over onto her knees and attempted to stand but wasn’t fast enough to avoid Mitzy’s tongue and another wet kiss.

  “I see you’ve met Mitzy,” Eli said. The giant black pack animal’s name was Mitzy. Figured. “And this is Percival. Percy, for short.” Eli gestured to a tiny brown-and-white Chihuahua by his feet. He looked around the room and frowned. “Teddy? What the hell did you do to my apartment?”

  “What did I do?” Teddy rose, swayed slightly, and looked around. Mayhem. And not just boy-man-in-his-twenties apartment mayhem. Now that the lights were back on, she could see. Drawers overturned, cushions ripped apart, cabinet contents waterfalling onto the floor. If Pyro had been there, he would have used his cop lingo and said the place had been tossed.

  “You think I did this?”

  Eli tilted his head. Considered that. “Oh. You mean there was another break-in?”

  “And I walked right in the middle of—Wait a minut
e. What the hell do you mean, another break-in? How often does this happen?”

  Eli shrugged. He unhooked the dogs’ leashes, slipped off his jacket, hung the gear by the front door. “This isn’t the first time.”

  “Are you kidding me? You put up with this on a routine basis?”

  “No, not routine. Of course not. But it’s happened before. Never like this, though.” He gazed around the room, shook his head. Then he went into the kitchen, lit a flame under the kettle, and rooted through the mess for a packet of tea. She followed on his heels. He wore a faded gray Save the Rhinos T-shirt and a pair of low-slung jeans, which would have been normal if they hadn’t been bright yellow.

  “Eli, did it ever occur to you to move somewhere else?”

  “It’s an economically disadvantaged neighborhood, Teddy. People get desperate, you know? I try not to judge.” Eli reached in the cabinet for a mug. It cracked in half when he touched it. As though someone had gone through the compartment with a stick, intent on reducing the crockery to shards. He stared at the broken handle. “My favorite mug,” he said. “I got it in Colombia when I took part in a protest to demand higher wages for laborers harvesting coffee beans.”

  Of course he did. Teddy watched as he struggled to maintain his composure. After a long beat, he said, “You know, maybe you’re right. I mean, it’s one thing to come in and take what you need. This is, like, very disrespectful. It actually pisses me off.”

  About time.

  But none of this was Eli’s fault. “What’d they take?” she said instead.

  “Good question.” Eli left the kitchen and began roaming the apartment. “Not drugs. I had a wisdom tooth pulled last week, my oxycodone prescription is still on my nightstand. My laptop’s right here, and they didn’t touch my wallet. Not that I carry much cash. But still, forty bucks is forty bucks, right?”

  Odd. Obviously the pair had been in the apartment long enough to render it a total disaster. Which meant they’d seen the drugs, the cash, the computer. But they hadn’t touched any of it. Which meant they’d been looking for something else. But what—

  “Damn, they knocked over my files.”

  “What files?”

  “All my HEAT stuff. Our protest calendar, meeting schedule, email chain, future blog entries. I spent the whole morning organizing it, and now it’s a total mess.” He bent down to straighten the paperwork. “Why are you here, anyway? Is Jillian okay?”

  “What? Oh yeah. She’s fine.” Teddy related Jillian’s message about Halloween, then turned down his offer to stick around for a cup of tea. She didn’t want to miss the last ferry back to campus. As she turned to go, she paused at the door. Examined it for signs of damage and found none. Both the lock and the doorframe were in perfect condition. “Eli, was your door locked when you left?”

  “Yeah. I always lock it. Even when I’m just going out for a minute. Habit, I guess. Why?”

  “What about the lights? You having any problem with them?”

  “No. They work fine.” He reached for the switch and demonstrated, flipping the overhead light on and off.

  “Huh.” Teddy paused. “Hey, when you and Jillian broke in to Hyle Pharmaceuticals—”

  He stiffened. “What are you talking about? We didn’t—”

  “Relax, Eli. I know all about it. I know you took that report, too.”

  “Yeah, I guess. But we only took it so we could prove that Hyle’s practices are morally and ethically corrupt, and that the company deserves to be held accountable.”

  “I don’t care, Eli. I just need to know—” Teddy stopped herself, drew in a calming breath. “I mean, I understand why you guys broke in. How concerned you were about the lab animals. I get it, really. But did you take any other documents? Lift any sample drugs, touch anything else when you were there?”

  “No. Nothing. Why?”

  Relief poured through Teddy. The intruders hadn’t been looking for stuff from Hyle. She forced what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “No reason. Just asking.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. Just . . . be careful, all right?”

  “Of course. Is everything okay, Teddy?”

  “Sure,” she lied. “Everything’s fine. Especially if you read that note from Jillian. So we’ll be seeing you soon, I guess.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TEDDY HOPPED OFF THE MUNI bus ten minutes before the day’s last ferry to Angel Island was scheduled to leave the pier. Feeling jittery, she jostled her way through crowds of tourists, wishing she had time to grab a cup of coffee. Not that coffee would help—her thoughts were racing, and she needed something to take the edge off. What she really wanted was a shot of Jack Daniel’s followed by a Jack Daniel’s chaser, but since there weren’t any bars in the family-friendly vicinity of Pier 39, coffee would have to do.

  She paid for a cup and made her way toward the boarding dock. Her midair collision with Eli’s coffee table hadn’t been great for her shoulder—or her spine or head, for that matter. Once the initial jolt of adrenaline had worn off, her body began throbbing as though she had been pummeled with a baseball bat. Or taken the brunt end of one of Boyd’s training exercises. But none of that mattered. What mattered was—

  “Theodora.”

  Teddy spun around and came face-to-face with Derek Yates.

  Her first response was fury. Directed at herself. She had an entire year of Whitfield Institute training under her belt and absolutely no excuse for being caught unaware. Yes, the blow to the head had left her a little dizzy, but that didn’t matter. She’d left a crime scene and entered a crowded public space, and she’d let her attention wander? Any one of her instructors would have been all over her ass for the carelessness.

  Her second response was also fury. Directed at Yates. “What the hell kind of game are you playing?” she demanded.

  “I would hope you’d be better prepared than to allow someone to startle you in a crowd, Theodora. Particularly another psychic. And when you’re on a secret mission, playing messenger for our two little lovebirds.”

  “How did you know about Jillian and Eli?” Teddy asked. She wondered, was it possible that Yates had sent those two goons? “What were you looking for?”

  “Looking for?” His gaze hardened, and his mouth drew into a tight, pinched line. He cast a furtive glance around the open-air pier, then directed her to a secluded spot between two tourist shops carrying nearly identical merchandise: city maps, snow globes, tiny toy replicas of streetcars, Alcatraz Island T-shirts and ball caps. The shops were closed, the interior lights dimmed. Sheltering awnings offered both shadow and privacy. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  He looked better than he had the last time she’d seen him, back in Sector Three, but that wasn’t saying much. His dark eyes still had that wary, hunted look. Ready to flee or attack at the slightest provocation. The phrase Teddy once used to describe him still applied: lone wolf. And that told her everything. Yates was an escaped felon. He lived alone, traveled alone, acted alone. Always. If he’d wanted something in Eli’s apartment, he would have broken in and searched for it himself. He wouldn’t have hired anyone to do it for him.

  “Now, Theodora. We don’t have much time.”

  “No. Answer my questions first. What are you doing here?”

  “You sent me a postcard, remember? I assumed something had happened.”

  She allowed herself a brief moment of victory. Pyro had been wrong. She’d sent that card, and Derek Yates had come running. Well, more like he’d walked at a comfortable pace. She’d mailed the card a month ago. But he was here nonetheless.

  “Talk, Theodora. What’s happening?”

  “A man and a woman broke in to Eli’s apartment. Tore the place apart looking for something.”

  “You thought that I had something to do with it.”

  “Initially. But—”

  “Why?”

  For the same reason that, minutes earlier, Yates had scolded her. I would hope you’d be bet
ter prepared than to allow someone to startle you in a crowd, Theodora. Particularly another psychic. She knew exactly what he meant. The energy surrounding a psychic was different—subtle but recognizable. She’d felt it—like an electrical current hanging in the air—the moment she’d blundered into Eli’s apartment. A warning she’d disregarded completely. She said as much to Yates.

  “Psychics?” he repeated sharply. “These two were psychic. You’re certain of that?”

  Ninety, maybe ninety-five-percent certain. But Yates wasn’t a bookie looking for odds. So she gave him the best answer she could. “Yes.”

  “They weren’t with me, Theodora. I can assure you of that.”

  She believed him.

  “What were they after?” he asked.

  She told him about the lab report Jillian and Eli had lifted. “I assume it has something to do with that. One of the scientists who works at Whitfield Institute also works at Hyle. Dr. Eversley. He’s developing something called X-498, a gene therapy developed to affect psychics.”

  “I see.” A heavy pause, then, “Hyle Pharmaceuticals. You’re aware that Hollis Whitfield is a majority stockholder.”

  “Yes. We discovered it a month ago. That’s why I contacted you. But when I—”

  “The attack,” he interrupted. “What did your assailants look like? Details, Theodora.”

  The entire encounter had lasted, what? Three seconds, maybe four? Most of it entirely in the dark. A large man and a blond woman. But faces, heights, weights, ages? All a blur. She gave him impressions instead. “A large man. Really large. He moved awkwardly—quick but lumbering. And a woman, average size, white-blond hair.”

  Yates opened his mouth as though to reply, then changed his mind and shook his head, dismissing whatever he had been about to say. For the first time, she saw a flicker of fear enter his gaze.

  “Who are they?” she demanded.

  He shook off her question. “Now I understand why the situation in Jackpot has changed.”

  “Changed? What does that mean? The base isn’t guarded now?”