With a careless shrug, he said, “I suspected. Its life force is dark. Like a storm. Turbulent. Not a vampire, but not human. At least, I don’t think it’s human.”
“Do you think whatever it is has taken the cats?”
Once again he shrugged, then looked out to the seemingly quiet street beyond his front door. “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
He stood and held out his hand to Samantha.
“I’ll take the high road and you’ll take the low?” she teased.
“Count on it, amiga.”
Chapter 8
T heir patrols of the past two evenings had provided them little besides sleepless nights and, for him, sore feet. While Samantha had explored the rooftops, he had pounded the pavement, examining the alleyways and other hidey-holes in search of whatever had intruded into both their psyches.
Nothing. Nada, nada, nada, he thought, and slammed the book he held on to the glass display counter, which rattled from the force of the blow. It reminded him that he had to get control. Distractions diminished his abilities.
He had to focus his energies in the right direction, because later that day he had to make a house call. Sara’s mom wasn’t up to coming to the store. That she was so weak warned him that her time might come soon. He had hoped it would be otherwise.
His meditations that morning were laborious. It took him a long time to lose his fears about the intrusive presence. Besides, this wasn’t just any client who was suffering. It was Sara’s mami, and when she was in pain, Sara was in pain.
He didn’t want to fail either of them.
So he took his time, finding his center with great care, driving away any fears that clouded his abilities. Only then did he begin the process of harnessing the scattered energies. He reached out into the eddies of natural forces, diligently gathering those wandering particles into him until the power slowly built, developing into an energy he could use to heal.
The potency at his center grew greater and greater, but knowing he needed more because of how sick Evita was, he allowed his concern to override his fear of the unknown entity.
He stretched his psyche outward, envisioning the light of his aura expanding like a supernova in space. Bigger and brighter, it enveloped everything in its path to feed its own existence.
Giddy with the strength pooling within him, he lost sight of the approaching darkness that came at him like a cataclysmic black hole. Before he could pull back, he collided with it, and like a balloon that had been inflated beyond its limits, the energy burst from him, lost into the space from which he had gathered it.
“N-nooo!” The beast wailed as the brilliance exploded before his eyes. He beat the stone wall he had marked with his talons, pounded on it over and over again in frustration until the blood oozing from the cuts on his fists nearly obliterated the deep scratch.
Weak from his exertions and the despair he felt at losing the light’s benevolent touch, he dropped to his knees. Lying his forehead against the stone wall, he cried and wailed, until slobber ran from his lipless mouth onto his cold skin.
He had displeased the light by being there uninvited, he told himself. That was why it had left him so suddenly.
A gentleman didn’t rudely come unannounced. It may have been decades since he had been totally human, but some civilities still needed to be followed.
He rose, brushing off the spittle and blood from his hands and body as he did so.
He had to make amends. To show the light he was sorry for intruding.
A gift. That had always been enough to appease the ladies with whom he had kept company.
Tonight he would find a small token of affection and take it aboveground to where the light resided. To the place above the mark. That would do it, he thought, and bolted down the tunnel to begin his search for the perfect present.
Sara opened the door to the man she’d been waiting for. Ricardo had dressed up in another button-down shirt—forest-green this time—and well-pressed khaki slacks and a dark brown blazer. She tamped down the thought that he had dressed up for her, though she wore her favorite black jeans for him. Favorite because they minimized what she called the junk in her trunk.
“Hola,” she said, and motioned for him to enter the apartment.
He strolled in cautiously, with an almost hesitant hitch in his stride. “Everything okay?” she asked, disturbed by the vibes she was getting from him.
He avoided answering by asking his own question. “How’s your mami?”
“Tired.” Sara was unable to state the truth—that her mother appeared even weaker today than she had the day before or the day before that.
Ricardo trained his gaze on her. His eyes were a deep emerald today, enhanced by the color of his shirt, and filled with worry. She wasn’t surprised when he said, “There’s only so much I can do.”
She nodded and gestured to one of the two back bedrooms. Her parents had one room while she had the other. With her father semiretired and her mother sick, Sara—their only single child—hadn’t felt right leaving them to get her own place. Family was what was most important, after all.
She watched as Ricardo knocked at her parents’ bedroom door to announce himself.
“Come in,” a voice called. When Ricardo heard it, he shot a quick glance at Sara before opening the door.
Eduardo Martinez sat beside his wife, in his lap an open book he’d been reading to her. Evita lay in bed, her small body seeming even more frail than it had barely a week ago, during their last session.
Her countenance brightened as she took note of him. “Mi niño, thank you for coming.”
“You couldn’t keep me away, Evita.” Ricardo exchanged places with Eduardo, after shaking his hand.
The older man caressed his wife’s face tenderly before he walked out of the room. Sara, however, lingered by the door, clearly intending to stay with Ricardo as he cared for her mother. It wasn’t out of the ordinary. She’d often hung around, only this time he felt uncomfortable. After that morning’s meditative misadventure, he was unsure just how much energy he had to help her mother.
Unable to ask Sara to leave, he turned his attention to Evita and spoke softly to her as he always did, needing to focus his energy and his thoughts.
Holding her hands, he immediately beheld the streaks and breaks in her life force, a testament to her pain and her failing strength. His own energy tried to patch those holes. He attempted to reach within her to find those places where the bad forces causing her pain resided. He succeeded, but there were so many of them and they were so strong. Stronger than he was today, thanks to his failure to hold on to his energy that morning.
At the base of his neck, a trickle of sweat ran down, distracting him. He was too far removed from his center and what remained of his power to truly accomplish anything today.
At Sara’s call, he released the last strands of connection to her mother. Sara, too, he realized, had sensed something was wrong.
Her hazel eyes were dark with worry he saw when he glanced up, and deep lines etched her forehead and bracketed her mouth. He looked back at her mother, at a face so painfully similar to Sara’s. Evita had also recognized his powerlessness. Worse, she understood she was dying.
“Ricardo,” Sara said again, this time laying a hand on his shoulder.
A weak vibration ran between them, prompting her to pull back her hand as if burned. “Are you okay?”
“I need…” He needed more energy, more strength. But tonight, most of all, he needed to speak with her mother honestly, so that she would understand and be ready.
“Can you please give me some time alone with your mami?”
Sara looked from him to her mother, who nodded and smiled weakly. “Go make some coffee, mi’ja. It’s rude not to have something for a guest.”
With a hesitant look in his direction, Sara left as her mother had instructed, closing the door behind her.
“You’re troubled, mi’jo,” Evita said as she placed her hands over his.
“Evita, I’m sorry.” He shook his head and gripped her hands tightly.
“Because you can’t help me? Mi’jo, I understand.”
Guilt flooded him at her compassion. At her sympathy for a man who had lied to her, albeit for a good cause. “There’s something I need to tell you, but…You can’t tell Sara. I want to explain to her myself.”
“You’re not a santero.”
The shock of her revelation left him silent for a moment, but then he found his voice. “No, I’m not. How did you know?”
“Whenever you touched me, I knew you were different. I felt a power filling me. You’re a very special person,” she said, touching the side of his face with one shaky hand.
“That power…there’s limits to it, Evita.” He hung his head, almost ashamed by his admission.
“You’re not a god, mi’jo. I know that.” She took hold of his hand and gave a reassuring shake. “But God will show me the way. I have faith.”
Given all that she had suffered lately, her faith must be strong to still believe God would do right by her. That depth of faith moved him, and inspired him to keep up hope.
“My powers…” he began, and slowly explained how he obtained his ability to heal. When he was done, he said, “If you will work with me, maybe we can do something today to help you get better. To give you a little strength.”
With a nod, Evita joined hands with him, and patiently, he guided her through the routine he followed. Little by little, they experienced the joining of their energy and, in that unity, Ricardo garnered the strength to reach out. To cast a net woven with their combined energies to ensnare the loose forces that swam about them. A piece at a time, he laboriously gathered energy until something wondrous happened.
Within him a light grew, contented and at peace. It bloomed, filled with love and acceptance. When that feeling peaked and then slowly ebbed outward, filling Evita, he carefully talked her back home. Back to her center.
When her hands slipped from his, he looked at her and saw the difference in her hazel eyes, now sharp and assessing, clear and unclouded by pain. Her face, which had been pale and drawn when he had first entered, now looked composed and aglow with color.
“Evita?”
“That was amazing, mi’jo. Beautiful. Is that what waits for us?”
He shook his head vehemently, wanting her to understand. “That is what is all around us. Only most cannot open themselves enough to see it.”
She smiled and a dimple, so like her daughter’s, peeked at him from one side of that broad and engaging grin. “I feel it within me. Giving me courage.”
“I’m glad that it worked. That you know the truth now.” Although he said it, she was quick to point out what he wasn’t saying.
“If you and my daughter are becoming involved, she needs to know this. She needs to understand what you are.”
What he was? He wished he truly knew what he was. “Sara and I are…just friends.”
With that said, he couldn’t linger, but as he rose, Evita called him back. “Sara is a good girl. Stubborn, but loyal.”
He was certain Sara wouldn’t appreciate being described the way one might a favorite dog, but he knew what her mother was trying to say. “Sara is a beautiful woman, and, I agree, stubborn. But that makes things interesting.”
“Sí, very interesting. Just remember, though, that if you hurt her, you will have to answer to me.”
Even ill, Evita would make a worthy opponent, he knew. Before he could leave her to rest, a knock sounded at the door. When he opened it, the subject of their conversation stood at the threshold. Instead of the usual determination, worry marred her features.
To ease her fears he told her, “She’s doing better now.” Then, tossing a last look at Evita, he stepped out into the hallway where Sara’s father waited to see his wife. “Eduardo, she’s all yours.”
The older man rushed past him, and Ricardo walked out into the small living room, waiting there for Sara to join him. After a few minutes he heard Sara ask, “Care for some coffee?”
He glanced down the hallway, where he could see Eduardo sitting next to his wife, holding her hand. The scene brought a smile to his face, but it didn’t last long as concern for Evita chased it away.
“Sara, your mami—”
“Is doing better. You said so yourself.” The hope on her face clashed with the reality of the situation. He remembered Samantha’s words about needing hope, but as he had told her that day, the kind of hope Sara had was false. She was too smart a woman, too educated, to not see what was really happening.
Like the fact that you might be lying to her about what you are? asked a persistent inner voice.
He thought of what Evita had said to him about Sara needing to know what he was. This, he realized, was the time to tell her.
“I want you to know—”
But Sara would have none of it. She turned away from him, as if by doing so she could shut out the reality of what was happening. “Just go, Ricardo.”
He took hold of her hand, needing her to look at him, to hear all that he had to say. “I wish I could do more, but my power—”
She yanked free and got into his face, going up on tiptoe to match his greater height. She was nearly nose to nose with him before she spat, “Why don’t you, then? Why don’t you do more?”
Answering that question was more difficult than Sara could imagine. Telling her the truth would reveal the secret behind how he really healed. Though he might be ready for that, he suspected she was not. Fear of her reaction made him pull back from the confession he had been about to make. Instead he said, “All I can do is ask for intervention, Sara. But you know that sometimes the answer is no.”
A confused and disappointed look shot across her face before she schooled her features into a passive mask. “Sure, I understand.”
But she didn’t. Her tone said as much, as did the awkward goodbye they exchanged at the door. There was no kiss today, no explaining the attraction that still arced between them, despite the tension.
Ricardo knew the mistake he’d made by getting involved with her now, while her mother needed him, while his emotions prevented him from controlling his energy around her. Inside him, a war raged: his mind told him to explain what he was, but his heart feared she’d treat him like a freak. More than anything, he couldn’t handle that.
“I’ll try again soon. I promise.” But right now he needed to go. His emotions had taken a beating, and being with Sara any longer would just make him hurt worse. Besides, he had promised Samantha he would help her patrol again tonight. Together they would try and find the force that lingered in the neighborhood like an unwelcome smog.
Sara said nothing else, but her look of confusion and pain lingered with him long after he left.
As he walked out onto the street, her disappointment chased after him. It didn’t
make his next task any easier.
Chapter 9
I t didn’t take him long to reach the Artemis Shelter. But once there, he lingered on the steps, uncertain whether this exercise with Samantha would yield anything of value.
Ricardo suspected that whatever force had been bothering him wouldn’t be easy to locate. He got the sense from their few distant contacts that it was something old. Not as old as Samantha, but certainly longer lived than the average human. That would make finding it more difficult. One didn’t survive for that long without knowing how to avoid discovery.
The door to the shelter opened and Samantha stood there. She had obviously been waiting for him. “I felt you. Why didn’t you knock?”
When he didn’t answer, her brows furrowed together above her crystal-blue eyes. “What is it, Ricardo? What’s wrong?”
Everything, he wanted to say.
For so long he had avoided getting entangled in other people’s lives because that made him want so many things, things out of his reach because of who he was and what he could do. But now Sara had come into his life and he suddenly wanted everything he had denied himself.
He said none of that. Instead, he asked her, “Why can I sense other beings? Why do you and other creatures know that I’m different?”
Samantha stepped out onto the landing and looked around. “Let’s go inside. This discussion is best kept between the two of us.”
“Peter isn’t home?” The detective often worked late hours, thanks to his job with the homicide division.
“I’m expecting him later.” She motioned to Ricardo.
He walked down the long hallway, passing the parlor where some of the women sat with their kids, watching television, and on to the stairs that led down to the kitchen and the small courtyard beyond. Samantha followed him outside.
Devotion Calls Page 7