by Lucas Alpay
Natasha suddenly stood up. There was something in her hand, something Erik hadn’t seen for a very long time. It was in the color of silver, rounded and had these intricate designs created by its silversmith.
Natasha started, “This is a veritas, it is made not for dreams but for dreamers—”
“I know what it is. What’s your point, Natasha?”
She opened it, and showed him that the compass’ hand was moving in a circular, and most unstable motion.
“So?” Erik said, “That’s me, it’s reacting to me.”
“Sir,” Fritz said, “Don’t sound upset, we just want to know.”
Erik didn’t reply, not because it was his choice, but because he didn’t know what to respond. He’d been stalling.
“The compass isn’t pointing towards you alone,” this was Natasha. “It’s moving in both directions because of what we brought here… and it’s not human.”
“Is an elect can be that strong that he or she can create something with a soul?” Fritz asked. “If that’s true then—”
“That dream can also dream… another dream…” Erik finished, “endless loop,” and looked at Fritz with such anger. “Have you able to describe the suspect to a forensic illustrator?”
“From the last office we’ve visited, yes…”
He started towards the stairs. “Come and show me.” Fritz and Natasha followed. “Not you, Natasha, stay here and try to use the fantasia on the dream.”
Natasha was taken aback, and for the very first time, her charm didn’t sweep him off his feet.
“The illustration is in my room,” Fritz said when they were halfway on the stairs.
Chapter 19
Erik finally saw it. It was the face of a man plucked out straight from a Renaissance painting. His features were perfect, his eyes, as the illustrator created it, were intense, as if they were looking past through you and into a truth only spoken by secrets of the heavens themselves. He had a chiseled jaw, and the nose created exactly for the shape of his face, a square face just like his. Kudos to whomever did this, because he or she had captured a face Erik had forgotten, the face of uncertainty.
He stood there, his hands were shaking as he held that piece of paper with that godly face. And for the very first time in ages, he felt scared.
“Do you know the man?” asked Fritz as he watched Erik grab a chair.
He nodded, his mouth open, his eyes starting to get red. “This boy went to me years ago and told me he is my son.” He put a hand over his mouth.
Fritz grabbed a chair for himself, placed it near Erik, sat there and wore his imaginary investigator’s hat. He hastened for his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He clicked, and he swiped through the applications in it and chose the recording application.
“And what did you do?”
“I told him I couldn’t have a son, especially someone in his age. I’m very particular with the woman I sleep with.”
You want them young, Fritz thought.
“Why do you think that?”
“It just can’t be. Women are easy to me, they want my money, and whoever that could mother my true child, or thinks they mothered my child, would knock immediately at my door with dreams of instant riches and goddamn support. You don’t know how many times that happened here, how many girls with a child beside them shouted at that gate, demanding my presence.”
“So you have sons and daughters out—”
“I haven’t. I’ve ordered DNA tests to each one of those bastards and none was proven. I have no child, that’s because I’m careful. If the woman is on the pill, then that is the only time I fuck her, and even she’s on that shit I still use a condom!”
He was tearing up now, and they were tears of anger, of desperation.
“When did he visit you? Do you remember?”
Erick looked outside, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Roughly fifteen years ago.”
“And his name?”
“His name… his name is Rowan Wood.”
She had Cynthia and Jack behind her when she went to see Penny in their basement. On her hand was the fantasia. The small compass on its hilt was producing this hushed bell-like sounds. Natasha thought to herself if she could do it, if she could stab this thing to another dream. She suddenly felt like a sandman even though she knew that the dagger didn’t require a dream’s life to track its creator, it only needed blood—fresh one in particular.
“Penny,” she called, “I need your blood.”
The assassin sat straight and looked at the fantasia, “That is a one of a kind artifact…” he said, his voice still calm, almost sounding like a learned man instead of a killer. “I share some of my creator’s knowledge, you know, just as any dream. That is a dagger fantasia, am I right?”
“Good, Pen… and you know what it can do.”
“That’s a very good version,” he continued, “made from India as explained by the hilt. If you look closely, it has a Hindu god subtly carved on the silver. It’s actually rare, this kind.”
“Penny, do you allow me to have your blood, or do we take it from you forcefully?”
Penny lowered his head and then looked up. “Of course you can have a drop, even five if you want.” He removed his glove and offered her his gray hand. Natasha then wondered what his blood’s color would be.
Reluctantly, Natasha went closer even with the strong disagreement from both Cynthia and Jack. “Just ready your weapons in case he attacks.” They did prepare their arsenal, for Jack it would be two long swords while for Cynthia were two long nuzzled guns.
“I mean no harm,” Penny said, stretching his hand farther. “Especially to you, Ms. Natasha.”
When she was finally in front of him, she sat down next to him and held his hand. The assassin was as steady as a silent lake. She suddenly asked herself if there were angry waves below the surface.
She held up the fantasia low and pointed the blade just above Penney’s finger. She looked at him first, a look that was asking for permission. Penny nodded, and she placed the sharp tip and drew blood, but instead of the drop of blood beading out of the skin, it was absorbed by the blade itself.
The compass started to move.
“Thank you, Pen,” Natasha said, putting the dagger down and standing up. “Why are you so nice to me?”
“Because, I think, whatever version of you I see, you are still good. It is only appropriate to repay the quality you are showing to me.”
She could feel a real smile behind that mask. “Aren’t you afraid in betraying your maker?”
“Who said I’m betraying him?”
Now standing at the minibar in the room, Fritz watched Erik turn from a respectable man into a drunk uncle everyone hates in every reunion. He kept rambling about the stupid things he had done, the things he was regretful of. Fritz’s recorder was still running, because he knew that a good investigator would keep everything, every word of a subject of interest in an investigation, and this drunken man who was sitting in front of him, having his 7th cup of bourbon? He was at the top of his priority list.
Fritz was drinking himself, but he didn’t follow the pace of Erik, because if he did, then he would join him in this course of retelling of the past’s regrets and failures, that sad part in everyone’s life—but it was not just a part for Fritz, but a whole chronicle of seasons. And in them there would be William waiting.
“So you have no heir… no sons, daughters, nieces—”
“I’ave a daughter, young’an… can I call you young man? I’now you are far older’han me, but in the distinshun of our faces, I can’t help but t’treat you as what your age shows. A young man,” he said the ‘man’ as Anne with a big open mouth.
“You have a daughter?” Erik nodded. “Where is she?”
Somehow, from that question, Erik sobered up. He reversed his slouch on the stool and slapped his face lightly until strong.
“Yes,” he said, “I want to talk to you about her. To be honest, I jus
t want to tell you to investigate her place, but now it seems your job is more than that.” He swigged. “What do you know of institutions?”
“You know we sandmen don’t talk about that. We know our place—”
“Then I’m displacing you. Do you think I don’t know about sandmen’s knowledge? Some of you have lived for thousands of years and you still follow us elects, us mortals that will die. For you example… how old are you?”
Fritz refilled his glass and drank. “I’m not sure about my age, the earliest record of me is fifteen-hundreds, but in all of those years I only now have patches of events in my mind. The lives I’ve spent are gone, the people I love too,” he pointed at his head with the glass and made a flick, “all gone. That’s why we need mortal elects to rule us, it’s because you are all sane, and most of all you all have souls to dream more of us. With the growing population of the world, well… you know I’m right.”
“But the question now is this… what if there is an immortal elect, a dream with a soul…”
Fritz stopped and thought, because he was right. What if such creature was possible?
“Let’s go back to my daughter, all right? Let’s talk about the institutions,” he said. “Off the record, I want to know your knowledge of them.”
Fritz shrugged. “It’s where you choose elects.”
Erik hit the table and made a thumb up. “Yeah, and do you know there’s an institution in LA? It’s called Mr. Dreamt Asylum, just a few miles from here.”
“No, I don’t.” A lie. “Why are you telling me this?”
“My daughter is in it. She’s more powerful than me.”
“Isn’t that illegal? I believe elects have a rule on that.”
“We have—our children aren’t allowed to inherit our place, up to our grandchildren—”
“The next elect in your blood should be your great grandchildren,” said Fritz.
“Yes. But my daughter… she doesn’t know I’m her father.”
Fritz put his elbows on the minibar and went closer. He felt that he was slowly sobering up too. This was not an elect talking to him anymore, it was a simple man with his common complicated problems.
“It’s not in my intention to put her there. The only intention I have is for her to not know who I really am to her, to not know her parents—so I left her in an orphanage with a note that said ‘Melissa’. But she displayed talents in her early age. Those who scout for the asylum found her dreams interesting—they were all myths, but never a nightmare. The sandmen in the area were the ones who first confirmed this, she was dreaming of them every night… My girl, dreaming of safe myths.”
“Are you going to tell her…? You both can just compromise and keep your relation a secret, that’s an option.”
Erik suddenly stared at him, and Fritz knew what that stare meant. It was a question of trust.
“My lips are sealed in this,” he said, but knew that the recorder was still doing its job.
“Just make sure about it, boy.” He drank. “I visited her earlier… to see if she’s safe. There’s a fear deep inside me that Rowan might know about her, might hurt her. Call it father’s intuition, but if Rowan is really my son, then I know he knows.” He raised his glass and asked Fritz for a refill. Fritz obliged, and when the glass was full, he sipped. “I already chose her as my successor, not because of nepotism but of her talent.”
Sure… I believe that.
“And I’m going to bring her here, I want you to ask her some questions on how they are now taught lucid dreaming in the asylum. It seems Rowan have learned some official Candidate Elect studies from somewhere. He couldn’t do it in his own.”
Fritz couldn’t think of any relevance of his daughter in this investigation. This was nepotism at its finest, because Fritz knew that the only reason why he would be bringing her here is for her protection. But Fritz couldn’t blame him, too. Although if what he was asking were true, if he were serious, then this wasn’t a detective job anymore but something… elevated, something more grand. But for now he dismissed this and moved on to another question.
“I forgot to ask but… did you do a DNA test to Rowan?”
“… No.”
Chapter 20
Somebody knocked on the door that stopped their almost intimate conversation. Erik said to Fritz to open it up in a tone that indicated that they were back in business, no personal feelings were left, and if you talk about it, you’re dead. Fritz got to the door and opened it as told. It was Natasha holding the dagger fantasia, she said look and pointed at the small compass on its hilt. The hand was moving.
Fritz looked back at Erik to share this news, but Erik was already standing up, the glass of bourbon in his grasp. His eyes were droopy now, and the way he walked towards the door was unstable.
“I’m happy for the both of you,” Erik said to the both of them in a way like how a friend would say a lie to a newly married couple. And then he got out of the room without any mention of orders of what to do next.
The joy in Natasha’s face seemed to be gone once Erik was out of their sights. Her eyes were directed to the ground, and the dagger on her side as if she had done an unforgivable thing. It was ridiculous, and at the same time mysterious seeing her like this. Fritz didn’t ask what was wrong or what was going on between them. It was not his business, he had been stated here only to investigate, nothing more—he was a man who respected a contract, said or unsaid, in paper or not.
Fritz held Natasha’s shoulder and guided her inside. He did it with a smile and hope that this positive act would be contagious enough for her to cheer up. Fritz had read in an article once that a single, humble smile was contagious; he actually did not believe in any of those ‘shit’ (as he implied once), but anything for Natasha, for their irresistible girl.
They went to the minibar and Fritz fixed her a glass of appletini; it was the only drink he knew girls like, and this meek assumption came from the TV shows he had seen from the past decade. He slid it to Natasha slowly and found a generous smile towards him. He wanted to thank her for that but stopped himself before he could.
“So,” he started and held the fantasia, “you got the blood from the nice ninja. Was it hard?”
“No… He was actually willing to give his blood,” she looked confounded as she said this.
“You sound surprised.” He reached for a glass and a bottle of tequila, and with those two he poured himself a gulp of the poison. “In these last days I’m with you, I won’t be surprised if the suspect in all of this would surrender when he sees you.”
She smiled, “Don’t say that. It’s just one of the talents Erik has given me. And it’s a very complex one because it’s not physical, it’s almost close to magical, if you believe in such thing.”
“Well, we are dreams,” he said this in a factual tone, “we came from thin air, that’s enough proof of magic for me.” He took another sip. “What’s this magical talent then?”
“It’s being highly persuasive.” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it was actually a fact. “Maybe it’s the combination of my face, and my personality that makes refusal to my pleads, to my requests impossible. And I know, Mr. Fritz, the magic of this,” she presented her face with her palm, “I can see it on how you look at me and everybody else. The only one impervious to it is… You guess.”
“Erik?” Natasha nodded. “It’s because he’s your maker—”
“It’s not that. I could persuade him a long time ago, but it was suddenly gone. I think in some point he excluded himself from my talent because he doesn’t trust me with that kind of power over him.”
“I can’t see why he did that,” he said in sarcasm, which furthermore gave Natasha smiles. “My advice; don’t mind the old man, mind yourself, don’t mind what he is thinking because it doesn’t matter. He is your maker, sure, but so what? What matters is what you think in the end of the day. If you’re happy, be happy, and keep being happy even Erik destroys your mood. I’m not an expe
rt but I think it would annoy him more,” he suddenly laughed, “Crap, I sound like those phony self-help books. What’s the matter with me?”
Natasha chuckled as she played with her appletini, swaying the glass round and round, slowly. “What will happen now?” she looked at the fantasia.
“Erik said that we should start finding him tomorrow,” he lied, or maybe it was a guess because that would be the most likely next move coming from Erik. “And he also told me the name of this man,” he pulled out the drawn picture of Rowan Wood under the minibar, “which brings me to the question—do you remember him? You’re 23 years old as you told me, so I’m guessing you’ve seen him before.”
Natasha looked at the illustration carefully, dissecting her mind if she had really seen him. “There’re many faces that come and go from that gate, I can’t remember them all because at the end of the day they all look alike.”
“You mean you’ve never seen this face?” he pressed, “you can’t forget a face like that. Look at it, it’s almost as perfect as yours.” And with his statement, Fritz found out why Natasha couldn’t recall of him. She was already looking at a perfect face every morning in the mirror. Fritz held his hands up, the illustration of Rowan Wood still in his hold, “Forget I said that, I believe you.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the truth,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows in an agreement. “His name is Rowan Wood. And I don’t know if it’s real, but it’s worth having a check on the public records. What do you say?”
Natasha sipped her appletini while her eyes remained glued at Fritz, “It’s worth a try.”
They slept on Fritz’s bed. Sadly nothing happened because Fritz was too drunk for his penis to shoot bullets and cock some more. And he regretted that once he opened his eyes and found Natasha on his arm. He put a hand on his face and told himself how stupid he had been. It was a window of opportunity, but you let yourself be dead drunk while this perfect girl was drinking with you? He just hoped that their minibar sessions would continue.