(Blue Fire 05) Heartless [A]

by Scott Prussing

  33. ULTIMATUM

  The xenorians waited only one day before acting. When they had not heard from Leesa or her mother by sunset the day after their visit to the Nyland apartment, they decided it was time to change their approach. Once again, Smith drove them to the apartment, parking right out front. He and Jones had half smiles on their faces as Jones knocked on the door, while Rome looked stoic as usual.

  Judy did not appear very happy to see them, but they did not care. Despite the wary look on her face, she politely invited them inside. After closing the door behind them, she remained standing. The three agents did likewise.

  “We were in the area,” Smith said, “so we thought we’d stop by to see if you had heard from Leesa. Have you?”

  Judy shook her head. “No, I haven’t. I’m sure she’s probably too busy having fun. She told me she doesn’t have phone reception where she is, so maybe she doesn’t check her messages every day.”

  Rome edged forward and laid her hand lightly on Judy’s forearm.

  “Don’t you worry about her?” she asked, pretending to be concerned. “With her being out of touch like that, I mean?” In reality, Rome was touching Judy to see if she could detect any new magic. She sensed none.

  “A little,” Judy admitted. “A mother always worries. Do you have children?”

  Rome had to fight to conceal the grimace that the thought of having children threatened to bring to her face.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “I haven’t been blessed.”

  “I missed a lot of my kids’ childhoods,” Judy said, “because of my condition. So I guess it’s natural for me to worry a bit about them now.”

  “Well, you’re in luck then,” Smith said. “We’re here to see what we can do to get Leesa to come home.”

  A look of confusion clouded Judy’s face. “Huh, I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t worry,” Smith said. “You’ll understand soon enough. Is Bradley home?”

  Judy glanced toward the bedroom door. “He’s in his room, studying.”

  Smith turned to Jones. “Go get him.”

  Jones strode to the door and opened it without knocking. A moment later he emerged, leading Bradley out by the elbow. His grip on Bradley’s arm was firm.

  “What’s going on?” Bradley asked, clearly annoyed to be dragged out of his room like this.

  “Sit down and shut up,” Jones said, pushing Bradley roughly down onto the couch.

  Bradley started to get up, but something in Jones’ eyes told him he had better stay put.

  The xenorians saw no need to act nice any longer. They had tried being nice and it hadn’t worked, so now it was time to try a different approach, something a little more forceful.

  “We really need to see your daughter,” Smith said to Judy. “So we’re going to give her a little incentive to come home.”

  Rome handed Judy her purse. “Call your daughter,” she said.

  Judy’s eyes flashed back and forth between Smith and Rome. “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Smith said. “Just make the call.”

  Judy hesitated, not happy at all with the agents’ new attitude and tone. Jones pulled a small, scary-looking black device from his pocket and showed it to her. The narrow end bore two half-inch long chrome prongs, spaced an inch or so apart.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  Judy shook her head. She looked like she wanted to speak, but no words came out.

  “Well,” Jones said, “it’s not important that you know exactly what it is or how it works. This is kind of like a taser gun. All you really need to know is that it’s capable of causing a great deal of pain.” He held the chrome prongs against Bradley’s bicep. “If you don’t make that call right now, your son will show you how much pain it can cause.”

  Judy’s eyes grew wide as she stared down at the device being pressed against Bradley’s arm. Rome opened Judy’s purse for her.

  “Your phone,” Rome prodded.

  Judy reached woodenly into her bag and pulled out her cell. She held it in front of her face and stared at it blankly.

  “Your daughter,” Rome reminded her. “Call your daughter.”

  Judy didn’t know what else to do, so she punched Leesa’s programmed number. The phone rang a few times and then went to voice mail.

  “It’s her voice mail again,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

  Smith reached down and snatched the phone. “Give me that.”

  He held the phone up to his mouth. “Hello, Leesa. My name is Smith. I’m with your mother and brother and a couple of my friends. We very much want to talk to you, but you seem to be avoiding us for some reason. We’ve grown tired of waiting, so listen closely. We will give you two days to get home from wherever you are. Meet us at the east end of Brennan Field one hour before sunset on Saturday. If you choose not to come, it will not go well for your mother and brother.”

  Jones looked at him expectantly, ready to use his weapon on Bradley, but Smith shook his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a device identical to the one Jones was holding against Bradley’s arm. He pressed the device against the skin of Judy’s neck.

  “I think this will be much more effective.”

  Smith pushed a button with his thumb, and Judy howled in pain as an electrical charge shot into her body. Bradley started to get up, but Jones held him down, looking meaningfully at his own device. Bradley remained seated, his face twisted with anger.

  Rome caught Judy before she could collapse and lowered her onto the couch beside her son.

  Smith continued speaking into the phone. “That’s just a mild sample of what will happen to your family if you don’t show up, Leesa. I’m sure you don’t want that, so I trust we’ll see you on Saturday afternoon. Until then, your mother and brother will our guests. You have my word no further harm will come to them…unless you fail to show up.”

  He punched off the phone and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

  “We’ll give Ms. Nyland a few minutes to recover and then we’ll bring them with us.” Smith turned to Bradley. “I hope you’re not going to need a sample to insure your cooperation.”

  Bradley shook his head. He could not believe this was happening, but he didn’t see anything he could do about it at the moment.

  “I’ll cooperate,” he said. “For now.”

  Smith smiled. “That’s all we ask.”

  34. DOMINIC’S PLAN

  Dominic smiled proudly down at Leesa from his perch up on a rock ledge four feet above the ground, where she had deposited him with her telekinesis just a moment before. Although he had used his levitation spell to lighten his weight by half to increase her chances of succeeding, he was still pleased by Leesa’s performance. His objective had been for her to gain an image of herself lifting a person with her thoughts and then putting him down in a place of her choosing. Leesa’s smile was proof that she had done just that.

  “Well done,” Dominic said.

  Leesa’s smile widened. “Thanks. One of these days I’m going to lift you without you having to lighten yourself.” She turned and looked at Rave, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, watching her practice. “You hear that, mister? Once I master that little trick, you’re going to have to behave yourself, or I’ll be moving you around with just a look.”

  Rave laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He sprang to his feet. In little more than a blink of an eye, he raced fifty feet away.

  “Of course, you’ll have to catch me first,” he called. In a flash, he stood behind Leesa and gave her a quick kiss on the back of her neck. He had moved so quickly, she didn’t even have time to turn around.

  “Point taken,” she said, grinning.

  “Let’s have you do one more thing,” Dominic said from up on the ledge, “and then we’ll call this session to an end.”

  Leesa turned back to the wizard and saw him glance up at the sun, which had moved more than halfway acr
oss a cloudless blue sky. Noon had come and gone some time ago.

  “You’ve been practicing almost three hours,” Dominic said. “I think that’s definitely enough for now.”

  Leesa nodded. In truth, she was pretty tired, which made her even more proud of her success in lifting Dominic up onto his present position.

  “Okay by me,” she said. “What would you like me to do for my grand finale?”

  Dominic smiled. “Nothing too dramatic. How about bringing me down from here?”

  Leesa grinned. “Okay. No problem.” She focused her gaze on Dominic and pictured him floating down to the ground, which is exactly what happened. He landed with a bit more of thud than she intended, but no harm was done.

  “You are progressing remarkably well,” Dominic said. “Far better than I might have expected, especially since your magic was diminished for several weeks.”

  Leesa basked under her mentor’s praise. “I have a good teacher,” she said modestly, “and an excellent textbook, too.”

  Finally giving in to her fatigue, she slid her back down along the rock wall beside the cavern entrance until she was sitting on the ground. Closing her eyes, she stretched her legs out in front of her and let the warm sunlight caress her face.

  A moment later, the sun’s rays seem to increase in warmth, and she knew Rave had just settled down beside her. Without opening her eyes, she turned her left hand palm up and felt Rave take it in his hand. She sighed at his touch.

  Enjoying the peaceful relaxation, Leesa almost dozed off, until a feeling of apprehension suddenly stole over her. Her body shook in a quick shiver, like sometimes happened when something bad in a dream woke her up. Rave felt her shudder.

  “What is it?” he asked concernedly.

  Leesa opened her eyes, relieved to see she was still sitting with Rave by the cavern.

  “I’m not sure. I think I dozed off, or was about to, when I suddenly felt really nervous, or scared, or something like that. I’m not sure what.”

  Rave quickly stood up and scanned their surroundings, listening closely. Dominic also searched the area with his eyes for any sign of danger. Neither of them detected anything amiss.

  “Everything seems fine,” Rave assured Leesa.

  “I know. But I can’t shake this feeling that something’s terribly wrong.” She sucked in a deep breath, thinking. “If everything’s fine here, then maybe the trouble is somewhere else.” She stood up. “Will you carry me far enough down the mountain so I can check my messages and make a call if I need to?”

  “Of course.”

  Leesa ducked into the cavern and retrieved her cell phone. She had barely stepped out of the cave when Rave scooped her up in his arms and began racing down the hillside.

  She did not wait for Rave to carry her all the way down to the park where she knew she had phone reception. Her sense of foreboding was too strong for her to wait that long. Instead, she asked him to stop and put her down about halfway to the village. Stepping away from him, she pulled her cell from her pocket and turned it on. There was still no reception, so she shut the phone off and hopped back into Rave’s arms.

  She repeated the process three-quarters of the way down the mountain. This time, she had a weak but useable signal, so she quickly accessed her voice mail.

  She had three messages. Two were from her mom and one was from Cali. Cali’s message was sandwiched between the two from her mom. Her mom’s first message had been left two nights ago. As Leesa opened the message, she cursed herself for not having come down to check for messages yesterday morning. Her expression grew grim as she listened to her mom telling her about the visit from the BSI agents. She breathed a sigh of relief when her mom said good-bye after asking Leesa to call home or to call the BSI agents directly. At least her mom didn’t sound like she was under any duress or in any trouble. Still, Leesa did not like that the xenorians had gone to her mom’s apartment. That was definitely not a good sign.

  She turned to Rave. “You heard that?”

  Rave nodded. His expression looked as grim as Leesa’s felt.

  “Are you going to call the xenorians?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk to them, but I don’t want them bothering my mom and my brother, either.” She looked back down at her phone. “I’ve got two more messages, one from Cali and another from my mom. Let me see what they say.”

  Cali’s message was nothing out of the ordinary, just telling Leesa that Cali missed her and hoped she was having “a REALLY good time” alone with Rave. Despite her unease, Leesa found herself smiling at the inflection and enthusiasm in Cali’s voice. She missed Cali, too.

  She went to the third message. Instead of her mom’s voice, Leesa was surprised to hear a man speaking to her. She looked back down at her screen and reaffirmed that the message had come from her mom’s phone. Her sense of foreboding grew even stronger than before.

  The man identified himself simply as Smith. Leesa’s heart began to beat more quickly. What was one of the xenorians doing with her mother’s phone?

  She listened closely to his message. The color slowly drained from her face as he gave her his ultimatum. When her mom suddenly screamed, Leesa almost jumped out of her skin. Her hand began to shake as she stared down helplessly at her phone.

  “Turn it off,” Rave said.

  Leesa looked at him blankly. “What?”

  “Turn off your phone,” Rave repeated. “So I can hold you.”

  Leesa nodded weakly. With fumbling fingers, she managed to shut off her phone and shove it into her pocket. Rave immediately enfolded her in his arms. She began to sob into his chest.

  Twenty minutes later, they were back at the cavern. Dominic knew something was wrong even before Rave gently placed Leesa onto her feet near the wizard and wrapped an arm around her shoulder to support her.

  “What is it?” Dominic asked. “What happened?”

  “The xenorians have my mom and my brother,” Leesa said, still visibly shaken. “One of them hurt my mom.”

  Dominic and Rave guided Leesa over to the boulder near the entrance and sat her down on it. Rave kept hold of her hand.

  “Tell me everything,” Dominic said.

  Leesa repeated the message as best she could, given how upset she still was. She hoped she hadn’t forgotten anything important.

  “They did something to my mom that made her scream.” The memory of her mom’s scream made Leesa shiver. “It was horrible. We have to go back and get her away from them. My brother, too.”

  Dominic stroked his pointy beard. He did not have even the beginnings of a plan in mind, but he knew one thing: he had to keep Leesa out of the xenorians’ hands, no matter what.

  “We have until tomorrow afternoon,” he said after a few moments. “Let’s not do anything in haste—there is much for us to consider. I do not think they will hurt your mother or your brother again, unless you fail to show up.” He turned to Rave. “How long will it take you to get Leesa home?”

  “Five hours or so. Four if I push it.”

  Dominic nodded. “That gives us plenty of time, then. You don’t have to leave until tomorrow morning.”

  Leesa stood up. “Tomorrow? I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.” Frustrated, she paced aimlessly in a small circle. “I want to get home as soon as I can.”

  “And do what?” Dominic asked gently. “You have no idea where the xenorians are holding your family.”

  “I don’t care,” Leesa said resolutely. “I have to do something. I can’t just wait up here in the mountains.”

  Dominic was pretty sure no good would come of Leesa’s returning tonight. Somehow, he had to keep her away.

  “Where would you stay if you went back tonight?” he asked. “The xenorians may be watching your dorm. You will be safer here.”

  Leesa knew Dominic was right. Still, she felt she should be doing something—and there was nothing she could do from so far away. She looked up as a solution came to her.

  “I c
an stay at Rave’s,” she said. “I’ll be as safe there as anywhere, and I’ll be much closer in case one of us comes up with a plan.”

  Dominic considered the idea. Leesa would be safe at Rave’s, he knew, but there was still something about it that struck him as the wrong thing to do. He could not put it into words, but the feeling was strong. He grabbed at the only protest he could think of.

  “If you stay in the volkaane village, you won’t be able to use your magic—not without risking disturbing the powers that sleep beneath the earth there.”

  Leesa shrugged. “So what? If I stay here, I’ll be too far away for my magic to do any good, anyhow. I may as well be closer, just in case.”

  Dominic thought hard. Leesa’s stubborn determination was one of the things he liked best about her, but it was getting in his way now. He had to come up with a reason—any reason—for her to stay here. Finally, one came to him. And best of all, his idea might actually prove useful.

  “You are wrong about that,” he said. “One of your powers might give us some help, even from up here.”

  Leesa looked at Dominic suspiciously. She didn’t see how any of her magic could be helpful from so far away. Even Dominic’s magic seemed useless across such a distance, though she had no idea of the full extent of the wizard’s powers. She thought maybe he was going to make something up just to keep her here.

  “Which power?” she asked skeptically.

  “Your dream power. I think you should try to summon a dream about this situation tonight. Perhaps you will see something useful.”

  Leesa pursed her lips, thinking. She had forgotten about her dream magic. Experiencing dreams which sometimes came true had been one of the first manifestations of her magic, appearing along with accidental telekinesis even before Dominic showed up in her life and told her that she possessed wizard magic. The first couple of magical dreams had shown her zombies, back when she thought the creatures existed only in movies and books, back before they began climbing out of graves in the Middletown area and elsewhere. Another dream had warned her about danger to Cali from a female vampire, but that vision had been vague and unclear, and she had not been able to make any use of the information. Unfortunately, problems like that happened all too often with her dreams.