by Hondo Jinx
While the manager saw to the transaction, Brawley addressed the envelope and jotted a quick note to Tammy. Here’s what I owe plus a little extra for waking you up in the middle of the night. Take care.
The manager escorted him out of the office and headed toward one of the tellers, a bearded guy in hipster glasses, to pick up the cash. Brawley shook his head, pointed toward Ms. Carbajal’s window, and gave the manager one more direction.
Brawley motioned to the girls, and they joined him at the window.
“Again, I apologize for the wait,” the bank manager said, handing them each a card. “If there’s ever anything I can do for any of you, please let me know.” The man then leaned into Ms. Carbajal’s window and spoke to her in severe whispers Brawley didn’t even attempt to overhear. The manager gave Ms. Carbajal an expectant look, tendered one last apology to Brawley and his women, and departed.
Ms. Carbajal looked like she’d swallowed a cockroach clutching a wedge of rotten lemon. But she forced a fake smile onto her face. “I apologize for not providing better service earlier.” Her eyes settled on Nina. “And I apologize if I didn’t make you feel welcome earlier, ma’am.”
“No harm, no foul, girlfriend,” Nina said, then craned her neck and pointed to a container of lollipops. “Can I get one of those?”
The teller handed her a lollipop and set to counting out fifty thousand dollars in tens and twenties.
As a Seeker, Brawley knew at a glance that his money was all there, but he let Ms. Carbajal go to the trouble of counting it out anyway. Sure, it took some time, but he never had minded waiting for something worthwhile, and watching this Ms. Carbajal eat a little crow after mistreating his women was sweeter than tea on a porch swing in August.
When they walked back out into the bright morning, Nina spun the dwindling lollipop on her pink tongue. “My dad calls me P Pop,” she said. “It’s nice, not having him knocking around in my head, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss him.”
Brawley, who was walking with an arm around each woman, gave Nina’s shoulder a light squeeze.
“Dad’s a huge pain in the ass, but he’s still my daddy, and I’ll always love him.”
“Family is family,” Brawley said. “We love ‘em even if they make it hard. The only thing you can’t forgive is family that won’t forgive family.”
Nina laughed. “Sometimes, when you talk like that, I don’t know whether you’re super wise or brain dead.”
“I might be dumber than a fence post, darlin, but it don’t take a rocket scientist to understand the important things in life. Love and death and loyalty. Family above all else. These are things so simple a child can understand. They gotta be, I reckon. Otherwise, we’d be no better than a bunch of hogs fighting over a corncob.”
Nina laughed. “See? There you go again. Hogs fighting over a corncob. Are those words of wisdom or pure foolishness?”
Brawley shrugged. “Probably a little of both. Don’t go losing any sleep over it. I know I won’t.”
They stopped at a mailbox. Brawley slipped the money order into the note and folded it and put them into the envelope. Then he sealed the envelope and dropped it in the box, which was set for collection in a couple of hours.
“You are compassionate,” Sage said, “giving Tammy extra money.”
“Figured she could use it.”
“Aw, that was sweet, babe,” Nina said. “Why don’t you bond with her?”
“Nah,” Brawley said, starting off down the street toward the RV. “I like her well enough. She’s a pistol. Gritty and pretty, my favorite combination. But no.”
“Because of the kids?” Nina asked.
He nodded. “But not like you might be thinking. If she joined us, bonded or not, I’d take care of those kids just like they were my own. I like kids, and I got a soft spot for widows and their offspring. Hell, I’m adopted myself. Never even met my real parents. But Tammy said herself she wouldn’t put those kids in danger, having them with me. And she’s right.”
“A very prudent judgment,” Sage declared.
“Suit yourself,” Nina said. She had finished the lollipop and now held the stick between her fingers like a cigarette. “But you two would make a great match, and I’d love having Tammy around. She is good people, I shit you not.”
“We’ll see,” Brawley said. “I got a feeling things ain’t gonna settle down at least until we reach Texas, and we got a long row to hoe between here and there.”
Nina frowned. “There is no way in hell I’m making my probation meeting in two weeks, is there? On top of everything else, they’ll put out a warrant for my arrest.”
“Don’t worry, sister-wife,” Sage said. “I will take care of that problem for you.” A second later, the slim blonde doubled back to talk with a woman who stood beside the entrance to a store, talking on a cell phone.
That done, they returned to the hotel parking lot and drove the RV across town, away from the beauty and color and excitement of downtown Miami into the faded, tropical squalor of the rough neighborhood where they had discovered Nightshade Lane.
They pulled through the main gates, parked in the front lot, and walked rather than driving the RV over the narrow lanes.
The cemetery didn’t look like a scene out of a horror movie the way it had the previous night beneath the purple sky. Instead, it looked like what it was, an overcrowded city graveyard in bad need of maintenance, a dead forest of litter-strewn tombs, the fading stones canted with age and neglect, no longer pointing toward heaven but simply yonder.
It seemed a sad thing to Brawley. Dead was dead, he supposed, but someone ought to at least keep the place in shape. He reckoned that a degree of respect for the dead was due even after family quit visiting however many years on. It wasn’t the sort of thing to make a law about. If people quit respecting the dead, they already had one foot in the grave themselves.
Reaching Nightshade Lane, they turned left. Brawley didn’t even have to think about it, and Sage didn’t protest.
A short distance later, Brawley said, “There it is,” and pointed out a path of buckling stone pavers that led to a squat building fronted with vine-wrapped columns and flanked by a copse of ragged palms. Chiseled over the door of the ancient mausoleum was the name Wiles.
None of that had drawn his attention. In fact, he barely registered the building’s appearance save for one aspect: the glowing red psi script burning brightly as a neon sign upon the mausoleum doors.
WELCOME, SON.
18
The girls were confused. After a short exchange, Brawley realized they couldn’t see the glowing red words.
“Personalized psi script,” Sage explained as they approached the mausoleum. “Its inscription requires actions from a Cosmic and a Seeker.”
“Or a power mage,” Nina pointed out. She tried the metal door, but it was unsurprisingly locked. “Want me to blow it open?”
“I should be able to open the lock,” Sage said, drawing a pin from the side pocket of her little, black carry purse. “We Seekers are the best lockpicks in the world. We can feel the pin arrangement.”
But after a minute of failed attempts, the blond Seeker stepped back with a puzzled look on her pretty face. “That’s never happened before. There appears to be a psionic ward placed upon the lock.”
“Step aside, girlfriend,” Nina said, cracking her knuckles. “I’ll blow it to pieces, ward and all.”
“Hold on,” Brawley said, stepping past her. “I got a hunch.” Reaching out, he tried the knob, and the door swung open just as easy as soft spring breeze.
“Fascinating,” Sage said. “Someone who knew your psi signature created quite a powerful ward. This door could only be opened by you. Now that the ward is broken, I sense that it stood for many years, and that others have tried unsuccessfully to open it in the past.”
Brawley only half heard Sage. His curiosity thudded like a heart now, proposing a question with each pulse.
Had his parents don
e all this? Were they buried inside? Was his true name Wiles?
But he wouldn’t race in there like an idiot. He might could be walking straight into a trap.
So he drew his XDS and stepped cautiously into the mausoleum.
Inside, a stone sarcophagus dominated the small chamber. Within that cold tomb lay whatever Brawley was meant to find here. He was sure of it.
He touched his fingertips to the cool stone and reeled backward, lifting the .45 as a ghostly pair appeared beside the sarcophagus. They looked three dimensional yet wavered like Grandma Hayes’s old television had whenever the antenna went on the fritz.
“What is it?” Nina said, one arm outstretched, ready to fight.
“I see nothing,” Sage added, pulling the Glock from her purse.
The holographic couple smiled, looking down with twinkling eyes as if studying a baby in a crib. They stood with their arms around each other’s waists and looked no older than Brawley himself, maybe even a couple years younger.
The man was tall and lean with a crooked nose and thatch of unruly hair the same brown as Brawley’s.
The woman was pretty, despite her obvious fatigue and tear-streaked face. Her blue eyes shone with intelligence, strength, and devotion.
“My parents,” Brawley told his women.
“Hello, Son,” the man said, his voice deep like Brawley’s own and thick with emotion.
“Son,” the woman gasped, and for a second, Brawley thought she was going to start crying. But she steadied herself visibly and said, “We are so sorry to have sent you away. I wish we had the time to explain everything, but—”
Behind the staticky figures, a loud banging started up, and Brawley heard voices shouting faintly from that direction.
“Our time is short,” the man said. “If you are seeing this, you now know that you are a power mage. And that means the Order will do everything in their power to kill you.”
Behind the spectral couple, the banging and shouting grew louder.
“Open the sarcophagus,” the woman said. “Inside, you will find three items crucial to your survival. To set things right, you must—”
An explosion cut off her words.
“They’re here,” the man—my father, Brawley thought, now gripped by the terror of his parents’ situation—said. “Send it. Send the message now!”
“We love you so much, Son,” Brawley’s mother said, and flashed him a sad smile before squeezing her eyes shut.
Beside her, Brawley’s father turned and raised his fists, which burst into balls of bright flame.
And from beyond his parents came a terrible sound, the booming roar of a gigantic predator.
The ghostly clip sheared off, leaving Brawley covered with goosebumps and a lump in his throat.
“You okay?” Nina asked, cuddling up to him.
“Yeah,” Brawley said, feeling Sage press up against his other side.
He told them both what he’d seen.
“They must have worked in coordination with whoever set up this mausoleum,” Sage said, “and beamed him the message.” She frowned. “I’m not exactly sure how that would work. Perhaps a few people helped them. A telepath to receive the message. A truth mage to archive the memory. An arcane mage to attach the memory to this sarcophagus. But I still wonder—”
“We have the whole ride to Texas to wonder,” Nina said. “Let’s open this thing.”
“Better let me,” Brawley said. “Might be booby-trapped for anybody else.”
Brawley strained against the heavy stone lid, which ground slowly aside and crashed to the floor. Inside the empty tomb lay an ancient-looking book.
He reached inside and pulled out the strange, little tome.
An eye stared from the dark, hide-bound cover. The eye was a luminescent gemstone that shifted through the colors of the seven orders, passing from yellow to blue, green to red, pink to purple, and then to silver before brightening to yellow all over again. The gleaming eye sat at the center of a seven-pointed star. A smaller gemstone tipped each point.
Seven points, seven stones, seven colors.
“What is it?” Nina asked.
“It appears to be a book,” Sage said.
“Thanks,” Nina said. “Hope you didn’t burn too much Seeker juice figuring that out.”
Brawley flipped the book open at random, revealing yellowed parchment crawling with spidery, handwritten script.
Literally crawling.
The text, which was written in a language Brawley had never even seen before, twisted like so many dying insects before solidifying once more into an illegible arrangement of weird symbols that immediately started once more to writhe in silent agony.
“Arcane inscriptions,” Sage said. “This book is written for Cosmics. It must contain potent knowledge if they went to so much trouble safeguarding it. And yet I detect no psionic aura whatsoever.”
“Someone didn’t want this falling into the wrong hands,” Nina said.
Brawley shut the book and investigated the sarcophagus again. Still empty.
“My mother said there were three items inside,” Brawley said. “Three things crucial to my survival.”
“Well, that’s a bummer,” Nina said, slapping the edge of the tomb. “Maybe whoever helped your parents fumbled the ball and lost the other two items.”
“Perhaps the missing items are hidden,” Sage said, reaching into the sarcophagus and sweeping her hand back and forth.
“Let me try,” Brawley said. “Might be set up so only I can find them.”
But after a few minutes of patting around inside the coffin, he found nothing. Then he crawled in. Nothing.
To set things right, his mother had said, you must—
But then the explosion had cut off her words.
And that was all she wrote. Brawley felt a pang of loss, followed by a twinge of pride at the memory of his father turning bravely to make his stand.
The terrible roar echoed in Brawley’s mind.
He lay there in the sarcophagus for several seconds, surprised by the raw emotion in his aching heart. He would always love his folks, Grady and Emilia Hayes, and they would always be Mom and Dad to him, but he wished he could have known his real mother and father.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, Grandma Hayes would’ve said, and Grandma would, as always, have been right.
His biological parents had been dead for decades. What he had seen in the holographic clip had been a psionic recording of their final moments. And they had spent those moments trying to help him.
You’ll never meet them, he thought. Never know them.
But maybe he could avenge them.
He sat up.
What next? Where were the other two items? What had his mother been trying to tell him? Was there perhaps some special process here, some specific set of predetermined steps he needed to take in order to reveal the missing items?
All at once, stomping hooves filled his mind. He was down again, down on the churned-up ground of the arena and hurting bad, hurting worse than you could put into words, and the ground was shaking as Aftermath came back around, looking to finish him.
Brawley shot to his feet and saw that Sage, too, had been rocked by a sense of impending danger.
“What is it?” Nina said, following their eyes to the open door of the mausoleum.
“Someone’s coming,” Brawley said. He went to the door, looked out, and saw a nondescript minivan, white in color, with a dented fender, bumping this way over Nightshade Lane.
“Time to blow this hot dog stand,” he said, and they ran out of the mausoleum.
Behind them, the van accelerated.
Brawley raced around the back of the mausoleum and was angling away through the cemetery when a prickling warmth crawled over his mind, and a cheerful female voice asked, Where are you going, friend?
Friend? Brawley thought, and his emotions answered with warm waves of goodwill. He slowed, confused, and glanced back to where the white van had
skidded to a stop, and a gray-haired woman was waving to him from the driver’s seat.
My friend, he thought.
But something nagged at him, calling his own emotions into question. Something about the man coming out of the passenger seat. The fat, red-faced man raising his hand, stretching his arm across the stubby hood of the van, reminding Brawley of the way the FPI agent had leveled the shotgun across—
Brawley grunted, hit from the side, and fell to the ground, surprised to find that he’d been tackled.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” Nina asked.
Above them, the top of the monument behind which they had fallen exploded, raining down stony debris.
Brawley’s head cleared. These were psi mages, trying to kill them. A force mage and a—
Why are you hiding? The woman’s voice asked with just a hint of amusement. Davis was only playing around. I told him to knock it off. Now come back out. I miss seeing you. And you miss seeing me.
He did. He really did miss seeing her. He couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Couldn’t really remember anything about her, actually, but he missed her. Deeply.
That’s it, she coaxed. Come on out, and we’ll have a great time.
Brawley rose to a seated position, put one hand on top of the blasted monument, and started to haul himself up again.
Nina punched him hard in the chest, and the pain that spread across his cracked ribs stole his breath and slashed through his thoughts.
Then Sage was holding his face in her soft hands, and her blue eyes were staring into his. “Husband, a telepath is attacking your thoughts. Nina and I love you. Everyone else here, no matter what they say or what you feel, is your enemy. That is the truth.”
The veracity of Sage’s words hit him like a slap to the face and brought his own Seeker senses alive again, and for an instant everything was a panic of stamping hooves and lashing bull snot, the world shaking beneath him.
These fuckers had hacked his brain. That woman was trying to make him stand up so her friend could blow his head off. The pair was from the Order. The Miami branch. They had detected the strange tomb long ago and tried unsuccessfully to unseal it many times, finally placing sensors that would notify them should anyone ever succeed in opening the tomb.