Cassie’s face felt warm, and she bit her lip and looked away. Every day she had been in the hospital, Alice had made the drive from Hudson’s Hope. So had Ginny and Lee. Even Vicky had visited once to cry profusely and thank her over and over for saving her life. Elizabeth had not had a single visitor, and Fort St. John was her home. Where were her family and friends?
“So, tell me again about this EEG test,” Cassie said.
“Electroencephalography. It measures electrical activity, brain waves, along the scalp. The nodes on the skull cap you’re wearing record the brain’s spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time.”
“And again, Doc, how is this interesting?”
“Usually, an EEG helps recognize and diagnose epileptic activity or confirm a coma, which is what we originally thought was going on with you.”
“I’m not in a coma, Doc.”
Dr. Ireland raised an eyebrow and cocked her pixie-like head. “Yes, Cassie. We figured that much out when you started talking to us.” She turned her attention back to the monitor and then jotted something down in her notebook. “At any rate, an EEG can be a useful tool, particularly if you don’t have access to an MRI or a CT scanner, which we don’t. For that, we’ll have to get you to Vancouver.”
“Vancouver? I just came from Vancouver. I’m in no hurry to go back. Not just yet.”
Dr. Ireland’s face showed her puzzlement, but she continued her explanation. “Anyway, the brain’s electrical charge is caused by billions of neurons exchanging ions across their membranes. Once enough of these neurons are pushing on each other, it creates a wave—a brain wave—of activity that the EEG can pick up on and measure.”
“And this is useful and interesting how exactly? I know I’m not in a coma or having an epileptic episode.”
“Actually, we don’t really know that at all.”
“Wouldn’t I be like shaking and convulsing and shit if I was epileptic?”
“Not necessarily, but I don’t think this is epilepsy. That just doesn’t seem to make sense.”
“Make sense? Are you kidding me? How much of this makes any kind of sense?”
Dr. Ireland shook her head. “Trust me, we’ll figure this all out and get the answers. There’s always an answer. There are some very clever people working really hard to help you—not just here in Fort St. John but in Vancouver as well. We’ve asked the province for help.”
Cassie bit her lower lip. “Could it have been a terrorist attack of some kind? A biological or chemical thing.”
“No, Cassie. That’s not it. There weren’t any symptoms of that.”
“So why aren’t I normal?”
“It’s not that your brain activity isn’t normal. It’s just that your rhythmic activity is way beyond what it should be.”
“You’re not making me feel any better,” Cassie said.
“The brain’s rhythmic activity is normally divided into bands of frequency—delta, theta, alpha, mu, and gamma. The highest frequency we should be able to measure is the gamma band, which measures your somatosensory cortex.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“The EEG will pick up on gamma activity in your brain and many other types as well, but the gamma band is activated when your brain uses cross-modal sensory processing—that is, when your brain tries to combine two different senses, like sound and sight. When that happens, we get a measurement that should top out at about one hundred hertz. If it shows a decrease, however, it may indicate an association with cognitive decline.”
“Does it?” Alarmed, Cassie started to sit up.
Dr. Ireland reached out. Placing her hand on Cassie’s shoulder, she guided her back onto the mattress. “No, of course not, honey.”
“So, what is it, then?”
“The problem is—and it’s the same with Elizabeth—your gamma measurements are off the charts. They’re so high we can’t even measure them. It’s like your brain is processing far more than just differences between sight and sound. Something is really firing up those neurons. And it’s not just the gamma band. The mu band is also way too high, as is the delta and beta. I think that you and Elizabeth have become… sensitive to something that the rest of us aren’t.”
“Something like what?”
Dr. Ireland sighed and shook her head. “This is new, but we’re doing the best we can.”
“Can it be ESP?”
Dr. Ireland opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. Cassie was about to repeat her question when the other woman finally answered. “I don’t know what happened up there with that Bible. I’ve never seen anything like that, ever. But from a medical point of view, there’s just no such thing as psychic powers.”
Cassie closed her eyes and imagined the electrical energy coursing through her brain. So, what was she sensitive to?
“What does all that mean?” Cassie asked, her eyes still closed.
“I don’t know yet, honey, but we’re not going to give up on you.”
* * *
Two days later, Cassie sat alone in the hospital’s cafeteria, sipping her tea. It was early afternoon, and she had a break scheduled before the hospital ran its next test. Not wanting to be around Elizabeth anymore, Cassie had grabbed a paperback novel and headed down to the cafeteria. She was tired of being a patient; she was tired of the tests; she was tired of just about everything. There had been some talk of releasing her and Elizabeth and having them come back as outpatients for more testing. That would be nice, Cassie had to admit.
Mostly, Cassie felt the same as she always had, although—and she refused to admit this to anyone—something was different. It was impossible to describe, but the bizarre sensation she had first felt the night of the lightning storm was still present, almost as if there was a new quality to the air around her. It was like swimming in water that evaporated the moment she touched it yet still retained that essence of… heaviness, of invisible mass.
Dr. Ireland thought she was sensitive to something, but what? Elizabeth thought it was the power of God, believing she had been chosen, a new twenty-first-century saint. But Cassie didn’t believe in God, not since her parents had died. Whatever had changed the night of the electrical storm, it wasn’t because of God; it was something else—something that could be explained… maybe.
Unable to focus, she placed her paperback down. She had read the same paragraph eight times in a row.
Elizabeth had moved the pages of her Bible without touching it. Was it ESP? Why wasn’t the hospital testing them for that? Dr. Ireland said ESP didn’t exist, but Cassie couldn’t think of another way to explain what she had seen. Weren’t the Americans, the CIA, always working to develop those sorts of psychic abilities?
What was to stop her from trying it herself? Cassie held her cup of tea in both hands, felt the warmth of the liquid through the porcelain, and stared at it. Use your mind, she told herself, and push the liquid.
A ripple of movement disturbed the surface of the tea. She almost dropped the cup, putting it back down on the table, reacting as if it had burned her.
Okay, that was all in my head. I scared myself—that’s all.
She grasped her hands together beneath the table and glared at the tea in front of her.
I did not make that tea move. I do not have telekinesis.
The back of her neck became warm. The conversations of others around her in the cafeteria had become muted as if she were hearing them from underwater. Again, the air around her seemed to have some new quality she could almost reach out and touch… if only she willed it. Her skin felt energized. The little hairs on her forearm were standing up as if she were standing near an electrical current, yet even that didn’t fully describe what she was feeling. Without thinking about it any further, without consciously meaning to, she opened herself up and drew the unseen energy into the very core of her being. Instantly, a nebulous vitality filled her. It was cold and hot, insubstantial yet somehow malleable—and all at the same tim
e. It felt wondrous!
The porcelain teacup flew off the table, sailed across the cafeteria, and smashed against a wall. Her tea ran down the cement wall in rivulets.
Cassie gasped for air, as if she had been holding her breath for minutes. She jumped to her feet, knocking her chair onto the floor. Everyone was staring at her. She staggered away from the table, turned, and bolted from the cafeteria, almost running into her sister, who had just come in.
“Cassie, what—”
She kept running.
Chapter 10
When Buck drove the van around a bend in the road, Alex, sitting beside him in the enclosed cab, saw the farmhouse and the RCMP cruiser parked in front of it. “Shit,” Alex muttered.
Buck stepped on the brakes and pulled to a stop next to the police car. He leaned forward and held his hand up, silently telling Alex to wait. Then he bobbed his large head and grimaced. “All right. This isn’t that big a deal. We cope. This is what we get paid for.”
A middle-aged man in coveralls walked out from behind the rear of the farmhouse, accompanied by a uniformed RCMP officer. Alex noted a woman watching them from the window of the farmhouse. It was ten thirty in the morning on a weekday, so there probably wouldn’t be any school-age children present. When the RCMP officer saw the van, he paused, staring at them. The van was a blue, windowless medical-transport vehicle. The paneling on the side simply read Government of Canada Medical Transport.
Buck sat back in his seat for a moment, staring at the police officer. Then he reached over and picked up a secure cell phone sitting on the dashboard. “All right, Newf. This is why you’re here. Go talk to him. Be friendly. I’ll call it in.”
Alex frowned at the other man before opening the door and climbing out. He forced a smile onto his face as he walked over. Alex wore blue jeans, a long-sleeved buttoned shirt, and a vest. He carried a clipboard in one hand, knowing from experience it set people’s mind at ease. He extended his hand in greeting. “Hey, how you doing, officer?”
The police officer shook Alex’s hand, but his face still showed his suspicion. “What can I do for you?”
Alex reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a plastic ID card that identified him as Alex Bennett, an Environment Canada Enforcement officer. The police officer examined it carefully then jotted Alex’s name in his notebook before handing it back.
“I don’t know you,” he said. “Where’s Miller? Where’s your uniform?”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know Miller. Is he provincial?”
The officer’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a Fed?”
Alex nodded. “Sure am.”
“Why are you here? What’s the federal angle in a dead cow?” The plastic name tag on the officer’s bulletproof vest identified him as Constable Groulx. He spoke with a very pronounced French-Canadian accent.
“Thing is, officer, we’ve had an incident at a holding pen up at the airport in Fort St. John. We were moving some animals and… somebody screwed up. An animal got loose.”
“No kidding. Have you seen that thing back there? What the hell is it? It looks like the biggest damned dog I ever saw.”
“It’s still here?” Alex asked in alarm, looking past the man.
“Dead,” said the farmer, speaking for the first time. “Goddamned thing burned one of my cows, so I shot it.”
Constable Groulx frowned at the farmer. “I don’t really know what’s going on, exactly, but Mr. Granger here did shoot a large predator. The carcass is in the field behind the house. Exactly what were you people moving?”
Alex smiled sheepishly. “Wasn’t us. We were called in to help clean up the mess, but it’s an Armenian wolfhound. Big bastards, or so I’m told. I’ve never actually seen one alive before.”
“You’re not gonna see one alive now neither,” said the farmer.
Alex glanced at the field behind the man’s shoulder. “Mind if I take a look?”
“Sure,” Constable Groulx said.
Together, the three men walked out into the field. A wooden fence had been built around a large pasture where a small herd of dairy cows were all clustered in the far corner, clearly staying as far away as they could from the still-smoking carcass of a cow and the remains of a massive doglike creature. The stench of burnt meat and blood was thick in the air. Flies buzzed angrily over the remains.
“Killed my cow,” the farmer said. “Set her on fire. Who’s paying for that?”
“We’ll pay for your animal,” Alex said. “I’ll write you a government check before we leave.”
“Really?” Constable Groulx asked. “That fast?”
“We want to help.” Alex stood over the smoking remains of the cow. “This is clearly our animal, clearly our fault.”
The farmer sniffed, nodding his head.
Constable Groulx frowned. “How is it your fault a cow got hit by lightning?”
“Wasn’t lightning,” Granger snapped. “That damned dog did it. I saw it.”
Alex raised his hand, hoping to stop the conversation from going any further. “Can I ask you two to keep back a bit?”
The farmer and constable stopped where they were, and Alex moved closer and squatted in place, examining the carcasses. The dairy cow was partially charred as though someone had aimed a flamethrower at it. Long tendrils of smoke rose from its steaming remains. It had also been disemboweled, and something had clearly been at the entrails; they were partially devoured. The grass around the cow’s carcass was stamped down and covered in blood. The stench was unimaginable—a mingling of barbecued beef, blood, and feces. Alex wished he had thought to bring a mask. A real Environment Canada officer would have brought a mask.
The real problem here, though, wasn’t the dead cow but the huge carcass lying beside it. There was no doubt this… thing was from Rubicon. Alex had never seen one himself, but Buck had done a pretty good job describing them. Roughly the size of a small pony, it looked like a cross between a wolf and a hyena. Its dead mouth was open, exposing long rows of wicked-sharp teeth—some still had pieces of raw cow stuck between them. A long black tongue hung from its open jaws. Alex pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and poked at its tongue. Steam puffed from the tongue when the pen touched it, actually melting the plastic.
Alex stood up and backed away.
“That your Balkan wolf dog?” the RCMP officer asked.
“Hound,” Alex replied. “Armenian wolfhound, and yeah, that’s it. How about we move back to the front of the house. This thing really stinks.”
The two men quickly agreed and followed Alex.
“Mr. Granger, right?” Alex asked the farmer.
The farmer nodded.
“So, what happened?”
“Last night, around nine o'clock, I hear howling like a pack of dogs.”
“A pack?” asked Constable Groulx, turning to stare at Alex. “How many of these things you guys lose?”
“Just the one,” he said. “But at night, it probably sounded like more, especially with the echo.” Both constable and farmer looked skeptical, and Alex didn’t blame them. He quickly moved on. “Course, we don’t always get told everything, so I’ll leave you my number.” Alex handed the farmer a scrap of paper with a cell phone number on it. “Just in case, you know what I mean? So, Mr. Granger, what happened next?”
“Well, the dogs start barking, going nuts, then running and hiding. So, I take my shotgun and a flashlight and go out to see what’s up. Then, I see the flames out back, lighting up the night like a bonfire, and the cows screaming.”
“A fire?” Constable Groulx looked skeptical. “You got any neighborhood kids who might be playing with homemade bombs?”
“Hey, you saw the carcass. Something lit it up,” said the farmer.
“Not our animal,” Alex said. He inclined his head toward the constable. “I’d say you’re probably right. Maybe some kids were screwing around with firebombs and killed the cow. The animal probably just took advantage of a dead carcass.”
“No,
no, no! That’s bullshit,” said the farmer. “When I came up on this thing feeding on my cow, it looked up at me. Its freaking eyes were glowing red, and there were still flames coming out the side of its mouth.”
“Could it have just been chewing on burning meat, maybe with some gas or something on it still giving off flames?” the constable asked.
“Possible,” said Alex. “These things are scavengers and are known to pretty much eat anything.”
“But burning meat?” asked the constable.
Alex raised his eyebrows as if to say, Who knows? “So you saw this thing chewing on your cow, and then what?”
“Then what? Then I shot the goddamned ugly thing.” The farmer glared at Alex. “There ain’t no kids around here that’d throw a firebomb at my animals. It just doesn’t happen. They’re good kids hereabouts.”
“He’s right about that,” said the constable. “We don’t really get arson around here.”
“This mean you’re not paying for the cow?” the farmer asked.
“No, no, we’re happy to pay for damages that you incurred as a result of the incident.”
The farmer seemed to settle down, and the constable was opening his mouth to say something else when Buck appeared from around the side of the farmhouse, pushing a squeaking cart up the dirt road.
“This is my partner,” Alex said, indicating Buck with a toss of his head. “Buck, this is Mr. Granger and Constable Groulx.”
“Hey, how ya doin’?” Buck asked, nodding at the two men, before turning back to Alex. “What we got?”
“It’s our Armenian wolfhound, all right,” Alex said. “Mr. Granger here killed it.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Buck, now squinting at the farmer, as if he were sizing him up. “Good on ya. These things are mean.”
“You don’t care that your escaped animal is dead?” Constable Groulx asked.
Alex glanced quickly at Buck. Buck, towering over the constable, looked down his nose at him and scowled. “Course I care. But dangerous is dangerous.” The constable looked away first, and Buck glanced toward the back of the house. “We gotta take it back with us.” He turned away and started pushing the cart toward the back of the house.
Starlight (The Dark Elf War Book 1) Page 9