Sleeper

by Katherine Rhodes

  These had happened to me when I was a kid. Very young, maybe six, seven years old. I didn’t tell anyone for a few years, thinking that everyone had that happen.

  They didn’t. And it wasn’t the sign of a healthy person, to my parents’ way of thinking. They took me to a therapist, they had Father Tomlinson come over every Wednesday and lead me in prayer for God to heal my mind.

  The visions didn’t stop. Nothing stopped them. They weren’t predictable, I couldn’t call them up. It could be a smell, a time, a gust of wind, the brush of a stranger against me, or that I hadn’t slept well the night before.

  My own brain was the catalyst for my career. I didn’t understand what had happened as a kid, and I wasn’t really closer to understanding it now.

  Father Tomlinson asked me to visit him in the rectory when I was fourteen. People had already started talking about the pedophiles in the Church and I was nervous as hell about being in a room alone with this man.

  But, Tomlinson wasn’t one of those. He was an honest, intelligent man who had come from an excellent pedigree and had a faith in God that was unshakable. He was patient, but my parents had exhausted that in him.

  “Fischer. Are these visions still plaguing you?”

  “I never thought they were a plague, Father. Not ever. I just thought they were something that everyone had.”

  “Indeed they are not.” He nodded. “Once upon a time, in many cultures, you would be a shaman, or priest. A wise man. Not everyone is granted such vision of the future, or the past, or the lives we’ve lived before. It could be that if you live this life right, you might finally achieve Nirvana. I am not one to say.”

  I was shocked. “You...don’t believe in...”

  “God is my rock and foundation, son, but that does not mean our Christianity is the only way to Him.”

  My jaw dropped. “That’s heretical.”

  “That’s education, Fischer.” He leaned forward. “I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with you, or with your brain. I think that these visions are just part of you. Whether or not you make something of them is up to you. But they aren’t interrupting your life...”

  “They aren’t, Father.”

  He tapped a finger on his desk. “Your parents are good people. They wanted nothing more than to have a child, and you were the best thing that ever came into their lives. They are good Christians. The right kind of Christians—but they don’t understand the mind. There’s nothing wrong with yours, It’s just not like theirs, and that’s natural for adoption.”

  I didn’t react to that—I hadn’t officially been told that I was, but I had long suspected it. It was just a confirmation of the obvious. I was dark where they were light, I was tall where they were short.

  “I don’t want you to lie to them,” Father said, not realizing that he’d finally spilled truth. “But our weekly prayer time could be used for other things for you. You’re a smart, smart young man, Fischer. I want to see you be the best you can be, and that’s not in service to the Lord the way your parents are hoping. I also don’t want to keep dragging out their hope that you’ll join the seminary.”

  “Father—”

  “I know. You’re not a priest, not for this Church. So, over the next few weeks, what I want us to do is start to have discussions with them about how you are no longer haunted by the visions, they don’t threaten you anymore. The same thing with the therapist. Twice a week for this is excessive.”

  “Not haunted,” I mumbled. “That’s not a lie. I was never haunted by them.”

  He grinned. “Technicalities are the best kind of dodge.”

  I laughed at the memory. Father Tomlinson had retired years ago, but we had stayed friends for years. And he had helped me escape the therapist and the prayer sessions with the most respect I could.

  It took my parents another two years to finally tell me that I was adopted, and by that time I had worked through all the bullshit it entailed in my head. They were happy that I wasn’t upset with them, and gave me all the information on my adoption.

  I was a fire station baby. Left in a basket with a birth certificate that had no mother and no father listed. I hadn’t even known that was possible, but there it was. There was never a hope that I could find my parents, and strangely, I was fine with that. As much as I had walked away from my parents’ religion, I loved them just the same. Tomlinson was right. I was everything they had ever wanted.

  I glanced at the picture of them on my desk. They were still young. They’d gotten married young and adopted me as soon as they could, just twenty-five years old. My father hadn’t even started talking about retirement yet. He was just sixty.

  That all reminded me, I was due for a visit. I hadn’t been to see them in a few weeks.

  “Doctor Skillman?”

  I found Laxmi standing in the doorway. “Yes, Doctor Rana?”

  “Do you have a few minutes?”

  Nodding, I motioned her in. She pulled the door closed and sat in the chair. She really looked like the cat that swallowed the canary, and I had the feeling I knew what was eating at her.

  “Doctor, I have a bit of a confession to make to you, and in doing so I’m hoping we can avoid an ethics violation or an ethics board.” She folded her hands in her lap.

  I motioned for her to continue. This was exactly what I thought it was.

  “Last week, when you had to run to CHOP for the neuro consult and surgery, I met with Doctor Warner, Wren Warner. We connected on a less than professional level and…we wound up going on a date.”

  “And this has been bothering you all this weekend?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir. She got called away so nothing did end up coming of it, but it’s still a violation of ethics and—”

  I held up my hand. “Stop. Laxmi, we’re fine. I’m not going to report you. Nothing happened in the office?”

  “Nothing but the plans for the date.”

  The smirk crawled across my face, and I leaned back in the chair, folding my arms. “You’re fine, Laxi. Are you going to see here again?”

  I knew the answer.

  “No. I’m not. After she got called in, her roommate offered to drive me home, since we were in her car. We didn’t…” She shook her head. “Not important.”

  “Never made it home, eh?”

  Laxmi sighed. “Fisch, I didn’t make it to the door. I feel really, really bad about ditching her. But Miriam and I just hit it off like no one I’ve ever met before.”

  “Like you were being pulled into orbit around each other. There was no way to keep your hands off her, and she felt the same. You were connected without words, and each touch was seared into you.”

  Laxmi cocked her head and stared at me. “That…sounds like experience.”

  “You weren’t the only one to fall for the very attractive Wren Warner, Laxmi.” Folding my hands on the desk in front of me, I smiled at her.

  The confusion on her face slowly slid from realization, and then into shock, and finally, a filthy little grin.

  “Doctor. You didn’t?”

  “Not in the office, no. She caught up with me at the bar,” I answered. “Laxi, as long as neither of us let’s this happen in the office, or on the clock, there are no ethics violations. Lots of doctors fall for patients.”

  Shaking her head, she finally managed to sit back in the chair she had been only using the edge of. “I don’t think it’s going to happen again, Doc. Miriam and I can’t seem to get away from each other, and don’t want to. I was going to spend the week feeling bad that I’d basically installed myself in the house.”

  I snickered. “You don’t have to feel bad for that at all.” Tapping a pen on my desk, I consider the woman across from me. “What about your parents?”

  “They are either going to accept me or not.” She shook her head. “Last week I was terrified of telling them, but now that I found Miriam…”

  “Worth losing them forever?”

  Her fingers twitched, and she picked a fi
ngernail. “I want to be authentically me. I’ve always wanted that. I just didn’t want to give up what my family is to me for something that wasn’t a sure thing—as in, I was scared to be utterly alone. She won’t let me be.”

  “I won’t either, Laxmi.” Pulling open one of the drawers of my desk, I lifted out the file I had there. “I meant to show you this on Friday, but the surgery kept me away from the office.”

  She took the file from me and flipped it open. Her eyes grew wide and she looked at me, then back at the paper. Several times. I relaxed into the chair while she read over the file.

  “What is this, Fisch?” she managed to breathe the words eventually.

  “What does it look like?”

  “Pa…partnership documents…”

  “All legal and ready for your signature.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Doctor Rana, you are one of the best doctors I’ve ever met. You’ve been nothing but excellent in this practice and you have taken on everything I have tossed at you. You being the main office consulting doctor will help me worry less, be able to get to the hospital more often and give you the leg up on being one of the best sleep doctors on the East Coast. I want to give you that chance, because you deserve it.”

  She had tears in her eyes, and her lip was quivering. “You’re absolutely sure about this?”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “God, no! I mean yes! Yes, I want it. This is everything I’ve worked towards since I was a little girl.” Glancing around the desk, her eyes landed on the pen. “Give me that. I’m signing this before you come to your senses.”

  Laughing, I happily handed it over. I watched as she signed her name at all the Xs marked on the paper with quite the flourish.

  “I’ll have all the signage changed in the next few weeks,” I said, and I grabbed her hand as she passed the pen back. “This is your office now, too, Laxi. We’ll work everything out and you’re not going to be left alone if your parents won’t accept who you are.”

  The tears in her eyes fell and she grinned. “I know. I realize that now. Thank you.”

  “Quite welcome.”

  She snagged a tissue, and swiped at her eyes. She sniffled and her grin was infectious. Tipping her head to consider me, she laughed.

  “So, you and Doctor Warner?”

  I nodded. “Me and Wren.”

  “She seems to be a really good person, Doc. I like her. I mean more than I wanted to get naked with her like, too.” Laxmi giggled.

  “We, uh…didn’t talk much. We’re planning a date tonight so that we actually hold a conversation and not just a naked wrestling match.”

  I let out a deep sigh, but when my eyes met with Wren’s we both laughed.

  “Whose is it?” She smiled.

  “Bet?”

  She leaned across the table. “Oral, before we have to go.”

  “You are so filthy.” I grinned. “I’ll take the bet. It’s mine.”

  “Ooh, I was going to say mine at St. Chris.”

  We both flipped our phones over, and found messages on the front of them. Both for CHOP, and both for immediate response.

  “What the…” I grumbled. Wasn’t I still on Gutierrez’s shit list?

  Wren already had the phone dialing and on her ear before I could even swipe open to read the whole message.

  CHOP-ER: Call immediately. Emergent situation. Do not speak to press.

  Press? What the hell?

  “Doctor Warner,” Wren snapped into the phone. She listened quietly and her eyes darted to mine, holding them and widening in horror. “Got it. I’m on the way. So is Doctor Skillman.”

  Stabbing the phone, she reached into her purse and threw some money on the table. “We’ll talk in the car. No media.”

  She was all doctor, and I was all turned on, but at the same I knew this was deadly serious. She glanced down the street, toward the hospital as I shoved the ticket and a twenty into the valet’s hand.

  Within two minutes, I was sliding into the driver’s seat and Wren slammed the door. She pulled the seat belt on and looked over at me.

  “The cops busted a child sex worker ring. There are dozens of children and they are calling in everyone they can, while trying to keep this quiet.”

  “Fuck,” I hissed. “Anything else?”

  “They’ll brief us when we get there.” Her fingers were flying over the keyboard. “Would Laxmi want to help?”

  “Yes,” I answered instantly.

  Nodding, she hunched over the phone, and flicked through the screens. “Miriam will help too.”

  “What does Miriam do?”

  “She runs a healthcare charity that works with all the pediatric patients in a dozen or more hospitals.”

  I nodded and wove my way through the streets, trying to avoid getting on the Vine until the last minute. I could see it was backed up as usual, but managed to pull some terrible driver maneuvers and get into University City pretty easily. The parking garage gate for doctors and staff opened with a swipe of my card and I found a visiting physician spot.

  Wren and I were practically running for the building. There were dozens of cops around, but thankfully no press. Slipping our IDs over our heads we swung past the police, and found Gutierrez standing in a doorway. He motioned us over, and clicked the door closed behind us. There were a half dozen other doctors with visiting badges and we found two chairs in the middle of them.

  “This stays here. This is for your information only,” Gutierrez said. “Detective?”

  The woman at the front of the room stood up. She was tall with long black hair in a low bun at the back of her neck. Her pants suit was nothing but business and she was exactly the kind of woman I would have been interested in a week ago. I took a glance at the woman next to me, and realized I was done looking.

  “I’m detective Lily Haden. Thank you all for coming in. I’ll be working out of this room for the next few hours, trying to coordinate our efforts on this. After nearly two years of working with several confidential informants, IT professionals, and some unprofessionals, and several dozen undercover agents, we finally broke a dangerous and complex child sex worker ring.” She made a face. “That’s the wrong term for it, even. They weren’t workers, they were slaves. They didn’t have a choice.

  “We’ve gotten twenty-six children out of the network tonight and we have eighteen more that will be coming in—either here or St. Chris’ or UPenn. They agreed that so many were too much for just CHOP and St. Chris. UPenn will take the older ones. You all get the really young ones.”

  “Really young?” someone muttered.

  She slumped and leaned against the desk there. Her eyes were defeated and tired and disgusted all at once. “We found them as young as four, and they are all kinds of fucked up, you guys. Physically, mentally…some of them look like the walking dead. I don’t know if there’s a way to save some of them. We have to try, but…”

  No one said anything as she searched for the word. She glanced around the room and her eyes landed on me and Wren, and something shifted in the universe. Wren felt it too, because she grabbed my hand and held on tight. Detective Haden straightened a bit, and ground the words out.

  “The devil himself would never condone this.”

  …“That is not my job!” The man with dark hair and eyes exactly like Wren’s stared at this interloper. “I was cast down because I was—still am!—defiant! My job is not to turn men to evil, or unbalance the sins! It is to make sure that they are punished when they find their way there on their own!”

  The bright man who stood in front of them snarled. Actually curled his lip. “This is not what El wants!”

  Fischer held Wren’s hand tighter, pulling her close as he felt the presence of more protective bodies behind them.

  The dark man walked down the steps in front of them, walking right up to the bright man’s face. “You think you know what El wants? Really? That is how I wound up here! I don’t want you here with me. Straigh
ten up, fly right, Malachai. And stay the hell away from my charges.”

  “It’s not just me, Lucifer. It’s not just me that knows this is wrong!”

  A light and dark flash went through the room, and a moment later, a white figure with a black blade and black figure with a white blade stood on either side of Malachai. They turned and pointed swords at Malachai’s neck.

  Fischer spoke, “Leave, Malachai. Leave us all alone. Do you think that there would be Guardians here if El had a problem with us?”

  “Your perversions will not go unpunished.”

  Lucifer’s hand shot out and grabbed the man by the neck. “Perversions? There is nothing there but love, you deranged maniac. Do you know what’s a perversion? The hate and disease you allow to rain down on your own charges. Do not ever tell me that love is a perversion.”

  Wren was as surprised at that one as I was. There was a lot of information there, and I grabbed my notepad to scribble down what I could remember and the names that were bantered back and forth.

  As well as the fact that Detective Lily Haden seemed to have triggered it.

  “We need all the help we can get in dealing with the kids. The police department has to focus on getting these dealers, pimps and owners taken down. We need someone to take over for the kids. They need to be around people who are careful and kind and won’t lose their shit. My officers on this case are strung taut because of what they’re finding. And I need to keep them away from the kids.”

  A tired hand traced down her face. “I need them angry. And I can’t put angry cops near these children.”

  “For the love of all that’s holy, people,” Gutierrez sighed, “Do not leak this. Detective Haden is handling everything, and she will speak to the press when she’s ready. Nurse Hamadani is going to be coordinating our efforts. She’ll have tracking sheets, and Doctor Warner, I know that you’re at St. Chris’. We may have to ask you to shuttle back and forth to help with the tougher cases.”

  “Whatever you need,” Wren said, squeezing my hand.