Dark Rising

by Monica McGurk

  The man shifted uncomfortably. He looked up briefly, just enough for Mona to see the panic in his eyes before he returned his gaze fixedly to his polished dress shoes.

  Bless his heart, Mona thought to herself as she took in the peachy youth of his cheeks. He is probably scared, she thought with sympathy, this is likely his first real emergency as an officer.

  “I’m … I’m glad to hear that, ma’am. Some of your neighbors have had power interruptions, but other than that, it seems all of you have remained safe overnight.”

  She beamed, hoping this would reassure him.

  He lifted his face. His eyes were full of anguish. Desperately, he looked back over his shoulder to the waiting squad car.

  The door to the car opened. A man in a dark suit—not a uniformed officer—emerged and began walking toward her front steps. He nodded at the officer, who turned back to Mona.

  The officer shuffled awkwardly, and reached up to remove his hat. He looked at his hands, as if unsure what to do, and began shifting his hat from one hand to another.

  She watched his hands, discomfited by his nervousness. Why is he still here? She wondered.

  Only then did she notice that the other man had joined the officer, waiting at the foot of the steps for her to acknowledge him.

  It was Special Agent Hale, his face somber.

  Her mind reeled.

  An officer. In dress blues, his shoes shined to a polish. Taking off his hat, looking down at the steps again, as if he didn’t know what to say.

  She’d seen this look before. It was the same look the police had when they came to her office to tell her that four-year-old Hope was missing.

  A spasm of fear ran up her spine.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the young man began, sounding as if he were going to cry himself. Mona backed farther away until she was pressed against her closed door, refusing to hear the news he had come, heavy-hearted, to deliver.

  “No,” she gasped, struggling for air.

  “Mona,” Hale began, climbing up the steps toward her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No!” She screamed the word, forgetting about her bathrobe and disheveled hair, not caring if her neighbors heard or saw, not caring about the crowd of reporters that was slowly beginning to gather, their video cameras trained on her face, their flashes popping in the dim light of early morning.

  Hale was stretching out his arm now, trying to comfort her.

  She flew at him in a rage, her fists pummeling him.

  “No! No! She can’t be dead! She can’t be!”

  He absorbed her blows, gently reigning in her flailing arms until she collapsed in his embrace.

  She was barely aware of the pale policeman, watching her, helpless, or the gathering crowd of reporters and neighbors pressing closer to her front steps, shouting questions.

  “Let’s get you inside. You there—” he shouted to someone she couldn’t see. “You’re a neighbor? Call her lawyer. And get the press out of here, if you can.”

  Numbly, she let herself be hustled inside the house, her mind refusing to accept what was happening. She could not understand what they were saying to her, was only aware of the murmur of voices, a concerned hum that wrapped her in its cocoon, sheltering her mind from the horrible reality of her daughter’s death.

  She was seated, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, when someone pressed a cup of coffee into her hands.

  She looked up, startled to see her neighbor, Mrs. Bibeau. The woman, at a loss for words, simply squeezed Mona’s shoulder.

  Mona looked around. The police officer and Hale were waiting, sitting awkwardly on her settee.

  She peered at the black coffee and took a sip, steeling herself.

  “How?” she croaked, knowing she had to hear the details for her to accept it, for it to be real. She pressed her lips into a grim line and willed herself to look at the two men who’d been sent to confirm her loss.

  “Mona, you don’t understand,” Hale said, a note of gentleness in his voice.

  She looked at him harshly. “What’s there to understand? You came to tell me you found my daughter, and she’s dead. That’s the only reason an officer in blues would come to the door. Anything else and it would have been a phone call.”

  Hale closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “That’s not it. We have no further breaks in your daughter’s disappearance. That’s not why I’m here.”

  Her eyes darted back and forth between them, confused.

  “Then what is it? I don’t understand.”

  The young officer swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny throat. She stared at him, demanding he divulge his reasons for being here, but he simply looked away.

  “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this,” Hale began. “If you’d taken us up on our offer of protection, we might have been able to prevent it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mona demanded, uncomprehending.

  “I’m not here about Hope,” he continued. “I’m here about Don.”

  “Don?” She repeated, still confused.

  The young officer cleared his throat. She looked at him and only then noticed that the insignia on his uniform indicated he was from Alabama. Not Georgia.

  “I’m very sorry to tell you, ma’am, that last night at about 9:30 p.m., Don Carmichael was shot dead at his workplace, the apparent victim of a drive-by shooting.”

  “Or a hit, ordered by Triad,” Hale added softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  Mona felt the coffee cup sliding out of her hands. She watched as its contents seeped into the Berber carpet, the stain spreading like the dark emptiness that threatened to overtake her.

  “He was holding a picture of your daughter in his hand at the time of his death,” the officer added, as if somehow this would help.

  This little detail, this tiny fact, made it real.

  A keening wail rose around her. She couldn’t tell it was coming from her own lips.

  Then, mercifully, she slumped forward in her chair, giving in to the nothingness as she collapsed in a faint.

  thirteen

  FRANCE

  The metal door clanged as it swung open behind me.

  I barely shifted against the rough, pilled sheet. It didn’t matter what they asked anymore. I’d told them the little I could. Nobody would believe me if I told them the truth, anyway.

  I pulled my knees in tighter as I huddled on the cot, waiting.

  Somebody cleared his throat.

  I’d wasted a whole day, I thought dully. A whole day, locked up in the bowels of the airport, a prisoner of aviation security.

  “Miss Carmichael,” the man addressed me. He was the first one to speak to me in English. “Miss Carmichael, I’ve come to help you get home. You’d like to get home, to Georgia, wouldn’t you?”

  He had my attention, now.

  “Yes,” I answered, opening my eyes to confront the cold painted cinderblock of my cell wall.

  “Can you turn around, so I can talk to you?”

  My alternative was to keep replaying Michael’s death in my head, over and over. So I sat up on the cot and turned myself around to face my visitor.

  He was trim and official-looking in a navy suit and red tie. His hair was swept across his forehead in a neat, conservative cut. Deep smile lines were carved around his eyes and mouth.

  The man looked at me with kind eyes. “You look like hell, kiddo. Didn’t they let you clean up?”

  I looked down self-consciously. My clothing, hair, and skin were still crusty with dried blood. It was everywhere. Every movement I made released the coppery scent of blood, invading every breath and reminding me over and over of that night. I shook my head.

  “Whatever happened to you, it’s over now. You’re safe. I know the airport personnel thought you were a threat, but you have to consider what was going on at the time. And how you must have looked to them when they were already worried that the place was going to blow up. Figuratively and literally
.”

  I didn’t say anything. None of it mattered any more.

  The man continued on, coaxing me to speak. “It’s a good thing somebody thought to check Interpol, otherwise they might not have called the embassy. They almost didn’t anyway, given your passport was completely blank. Not even a photo, no identification. Don’t you think?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  There was an awkward silence. Finally, I spoke. My voice was ragged, raw from crying and disused to speaking. “Are you from the embassy?”

  He nodded. “I should have introduced myself. I’m Robert Frazier. I’m affiliated with the immigration desk. I’m actually a special attaché, assigned to deal with human trafficking issues.” He held out a hand.

  I looked at my own. They were stained brown, dried blood congealed under my fingernails. Hesitantly, I reached up to shake.

  Without even a flinch, he clasped my hand and pumped it vigorously.

  “I just want to go home, Robert,” I said, pulling out of his grip to tuck my hands under my arms.

  He touched his fingertips together, his eyebrows coming together in a look of concern. “And we’d love to get you there. But we need a statement from you, or the French officials won’t release you. You know the French,” he said ruefully, shrugging and smiling as if we were sharing some private joke.

  “I’ve told them everything I can.”

  “Yes,” he said, looking a little confused. “But I think something got lost in translation. I wanted to find out, in your own words, how you came to be here. Looking like that.”

  I shifted on the cot.

  “I was in an accident. Someone was hurt.”

  “Who? Who was hurt?”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t know.”

  He arched a brow. “So it was a stranger, then?”

  “Yes, a stranger,” I responded, grasping the easy excuse, my heart aching as I did so.

  “Where was this accident?”

  I stared down at the floor and shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you get to France?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The questions were coming faster now.

  “Were you alone when you arrived?”

  “No.”

  “Who were you with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you acknowledge you were with someone.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Michael Boyd with you at any point during your disappearance?”

  The mention of his name hit me like a blow to the stomach. It was all I could do to whisper, “No.”

  “Do you know where he is, Hope? He seems to have disappeared at about the same time you did.”

  “I haven’t seen him since the afternoon I left school,” I lied, every cell of my being protesting as I denied him. I pulled my knees up under my chin, curling myself in tighter. Robert continued peppering me with questions.

  “Whoever you were with—did they force you to come with them? Were you brought here against your will?”

  It should have been an easy question to answer. Had anything that happened been my choice? Gabrielle thought so.

  I shrugged noncommittally.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  I wiped away a tear, nodding once.

  “How did you get a passport? And how is it that it came to be like this?” He held the booklet in front of me. I took it from his hand and leafed through it. Each page was pristine. Empty. There was no record of my arrivals or departures, as if I’d never been to Turkey or Ireland or even here, in France. I flipped to the front and did a double take as I looked at the place where the photo should have been. Before, it showed a woman so disfigured by burns that it was impossible to tell her age. Now, it was empty. I looked down at my arms. Underneath the blood, they were smooth. I touched my face. No scar tissue.

  As if none of it happened.

  Everything erased from the record, swept away by Michael’s departure. I knew now that there would be no records of our time in Las Vegas, no proof of anything. The truth was safe, locked inside of me.

  I handed him back the passport.

  “I don’t know. The people who took me had a passport for me.”

  “The people who took you? Who were they, Hope? Were they traffickers? Did they take you from Atlanta? Would you recognize them if you saw them again?”

  It was the easiest thing for them to believe, I knew, and probably my only way out of this. I nodded, avoiding his eyes.

  “Okay, honey,” he said, his voice thick. He was imagining his own daughter, or niece, or neighbor, I knew—imagining them caught up in the horrific human trade and forced to do something unspeakable. He was wondering what I’d gone through, wondering just what I’d done to manage to escape, and wondering if the blood that covered me from head to toe was no accident at all. He clasped my shoulder in his big, strong hand, leaning over me protectively.

  “I know this is tough. The good news is we’ve got you now. There were a lot of people looking for you, a lot of people worried about you. Your case was especially difficult. There are very, very few people trafficked out of the United States. It was like your entire case was backward—you had all the patterns of a typical case, being moved around to multiple countries, fake paperwork, but moving in the wrong direction. Most of these cases culminate with people coming across the border, maybe from Canada, into the US. But none of that matters now. You’re here. You’re safe. I’m sorry you’re stuck here—” he gestured about the prison-like surroundings, “—but they’re still figuring out how to handle victims as we pick them up. There are some other girls down the hall in similar circumstances, but from other places like West Africa and Eastern Europe. All of you in the same boat. We’ll get you cleaned up with some new clothes and all that. I’m going to send a doctor in to examine you, to make sure you aren’t in need of medical attention.”

  “No doctors.” I stated it emphatically, still refusing to look him in the eye.

  He paused, calculating what he could say that would convince me to go along with his bureaucratic duties. He leaned back on his heels, clasping his hands lightly in front of him. I noticed that he hadn’t brushed them off after we shook hands.

  “I understand why you might not want to see a physician,” he said quietly, “but it may help speed up your departure. I don’t want to pressure you, but I do want you to know that things will be easier for you if you go along with the local procedures.”

  I gripped the edge of the hard bed. “No doctors. I’ll only see my own doctor at home.”

  He sighed, nodding to himself. He stood up to pace around the tiny cell.

  “How about a nurse?” he asked, his voice full of hopeful compromise. “Just a quick once-over?”

  He stopped, waiting for my answer. I nodded swiftly, once.

  “Great!” he said, clapping his hands together. “I’ll take care of that right away. I’ll need to file some petitions to get you out of here, and then we’ll have you on the first plane back to Atlanta. Sound good?”

  “How soon?”

  “Probably a matter of hours, if we’re lucky, and we can get you on your way.”

  “Do my mom and dad know that I’m here?” I blurted, finally looking up to search his face. It was a nice face, earnest and kind. “Are they coming to get me?”

  He paused just a moment too long, weighing his answer.

  “We’ve been authorized to fly you home solo. I’m sure you’ll be met at the airport when you land. It’s still a little crazy out there,” he added by way of explanation. He began packing up papers, shoving them hurriedly into a well-worn leather briefcase that he’d left sitting on the floor. “Is there anything you need now? Food? Something to drink?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then I’ll see you in a little bit, okay?” He slipped out the door and turned to say goodbye. “I have to close you in, Hope, but it’s just for now, I promise. The lawyers are already workin
g on it.” He slid the door over with a firm click, locking me behind bars once again.

  I watched him walk away, his smart shoes tapping against the concrete and echoing down the hall.

  He wasn’t telling me the truth. Or at least not the whole truth. I stared after him anxiously, wondering what it was he was keeping from me.

  The cold efficiency of bureaucracy kicked in after that. I was washed, inspected, and wrapped up again like a piece of meat. The nurse limited herself to taking my temperature and blood pressure and looking me over for any obvious signs of damage. Other than my ankle, the nurse could find no injuries; even the scars from my burns had melted away. My own clothes were torn away and thrown in the trash. I was given a nondescript pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt in their stead and asked to wait in my cell, the door left open now that I had been labeled a victim instead of threat.

  After what seemed like hours, an embassy escort whisked me through the cavernous shell of the airport, taking me directly onto the runway to board my flight. I barely noticed the armed guards at the stairs and the camouflaged jeeps darting about the runways. He rushed me up the steps, darting glances over his shoulder as if he were afraid we might be ambushed. On board, my escort handed papers to the flight attendant and then settled into the seat next to me to accompany me home.

  I curled up in my seat for the entire flight, resting my head against the window to stare out at the nothingness of the sky. I was exhausted but could not sleep. If I closed my eyes, my mind would fill with images of Michael, laying in a pool of blood, his life slipping away. I’d relive the whole thing—the army of Fallen Angels materializing, the horrible moment when I realized that Enoch wasn’t really Enoch—that Lucas had been tricking us all along. I’d hear the crush of broken bones, smell the tang of blood in the air, hear Michael’s last, wheezing breath leave his lips.

  No, it was better to stay awake and focus on what was yet to come.

  “What’s going on out there?” I asked my companion absently.

  “Do you really want to know?” he demanded.

  I turned in my seat to look at him, really look at him. His skin was gray with weariness, the bags under his eyes heavy. He looked exhausted, and I’m sure accompanying a kid on an international flight wasn’t helping things.