by D. C. Gomez
“Not at first,” he answered, a little somber. “My sister and I are able to communicate telepathically, a rare gift even for our kind. Over the centuries we have develop a security system to make sure each one is okay. I hadn’t heard from her, but she also hadn’t sent me any alarms. I figured she was with Arthur. It was rather normal for her to be gone with him for days.” Iason draped a button-down shirt over his back and began buttoning it.
“What made you change your mind?” I asked him.
“You.” He met my eyes.
I looked away, finding Katrina’s eyes on the ocean. So much for moral support. And, Iason wasn’t saying any more. I guessed he was going to make me drag it out of him. “Please explain.”
There. Easy, peasy, I thought.
“Your idea that she could possibly be missing was outrageous,” Iason told me, but he wasn’t smiling. “Then, when the vampires agreed to allow you to search for her, I knew something was wrong. I tried reaching Genevieve and she didn’t answer. That’s when I realized my error.” Iason ran a hand through his hair as he watched the waves crash against the shore.
“You hadn’t contacted her until yesterday!” I shouted without meaning to. This was madness. “What were you thinking?”
“The connection between my sister and I is deeper than you can imagine,” Iason said, his tone like velvet. “Not only can we communicate telepathically, we can also feel what the other is experiencing. This was not the first time Genevieve went missing. After walking in on her mind when she was busy with Arthur, it discouraged me to ever do that again. We can also block each other if we need to. I figured she was busy again.” Iason’s cheeks turned a rosy red, and I almost chuckled at the very human reaction. Although, I understood. I would probably die if I ever walked in on Bartholomew while he entertained someone. Yuck!
“I understand, but what did you find this time?” Impatience brought out the irritation in my voice, but it wasn’t my fault. The sun had gotten much warmer, and my leather pants had sweat pouring down my legs. Iason needed to get to the point and fast.
“Nothing. That’s the problem.” He started pacing. “I searched for her mind and there was nothing, so I tried to use our bond to make contact. Nothing again. It’s like she disappeared from this planet.” He stopped and frowned.
“Do you think she is…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
He knew what I meant, but he didn’t answer. Instead, Iason turned away from me.
“He would know if she was dead,” Katrina said, now facing us. “Their bond is so strong that if one dies, so does the other.” She pressed her lips together and offered Iason a gentle glance. “At least, that is the rumor.”
“Oh God. This just keeps getting better,” I told them both. “Basically, you both could be in danger. Great.”
“Didn’t you hear what she said. It’s only a rumor,” he said, amusement clear from the smirk lighting up his eyes. The thing was, none of this was anywhere near funny.
“Fabulous. I really don’t want to test it now,” I said. “Let’s get to the business at hand. Does your sister have any enemies?” I wasn’t sure why I asked. I was sure he was going to say no like everyone else.
“Everyone loves her,” Iason said.
Of course they did. This was getting old.
I took a deep breath. “Got it.” After a few more deep breaths, I gained a bit of control back. “Do any of her loving fans act weird to you, possessive maybe?”
His forehead scrunched, and he gave me a blank look—a deer in headlights kind of gaze.
“Isis wants to know if any of Genevieve’s friends or followers have been acting strange lately?” Katrina asked Iason.
Her question was worded a bit different, but it was still the same thing I’d just asked. For some reason, this time, he widened his eyes in understanding. Go figure.
“Maybe, but it’s crazy,” Iason said, waving one hand in the air. “He is a half-breed. The boy is harmless.” I looked at Katrina and then back at Iason.
My gaze went to Katrina, then back to Iason. “What boy?” I asked a little quieter, hoping he would continue talking and not shut down.
“Noah. This boy that follows my sister around like he’s her shadow,” Iason said. “Genevieve has a tendency to collect strays and befriend all the outcasts.” He angled his head up towards the sky. “I guess Noah has been acting more odd than usual lately, following Genevieve everywhere. But he is mostly human. What could he possibly do?”
My lips parted in wonder. Pestilence had described the accountant much the same way. Like the girl was less than culpable because she didn’t fit the norm of the place.
A horrible feeling swam in the pit of my stomach. “Do you know where we could find Noah?” The words came out rushed. I really didn’t know how much time we might have if he had her.
“I don’t, but Aeneas can send it to you.” He pointed at his bodyguard. “I’m already late and need to get back before someone misses me. Aeneas can text you the info in about an hour. Please Reaper, find my sister.” Iason moved towards his bodyguard, and they both disappeared.
“He never asked for my number, how is he going to send it me?” I asked Katrina, running a hand through my dirty hair.
“Reapers Incorporated information is public knowledge to include the Intern’s number,” Katrina told me with a wicked grin. “People might not be able to trace your new phone, but they can find you.” Katrina stepped towards the car.
“Nobody has ever called me,” I told her as I jogged to catch up.
“Who would be crazy enough to call Death?” Katrina answered.
“Touché.” I couldn’t argue with her logic. “Now what?” That hadn’t been the most helpful meeting, but at least we had a place to start. In an hour, give or take.
“Let’s go find your safe house now,” Katrina told me as we reached the car. “I’m ready for a shower.”
“Thank God.” I climbed in and dreamed about hot, running water the whole way there.
The safe house was in Encinitas, and the drive felt like it took an eternity. After living in Texarkana for a while, I decided I enjoyed life without traffic issues. It felt like we were on the road forever. By the time we navigated the traffic, the pedestrians, and the weird directions to the safe house, Aeneas had called.
Aeneas sent us a complete file on Noah that included a photo and even a credit report. I shot a copy over to Bartholomew so he could cross reference his files with the elves. I was pretty impressed with the report. Somehow, I’d been expecting them to be beautiful, arrogant people. Instead, they were more in touch with reality than I had imagine.
While I was impressed with how detailed the file was, I wasn’t at all impressed with Noah. I understood why Iason dismissed him as a threat. According to the file, Noah was five feet six inches, one-hundred-and-twenty pounds, with red hair, green eyes, and no special abilities. His photo showed a clean-faced young man who looked to be about the same age as Bartholomew. For a twenty-year-old guy, he looked preteen. There was something sweet about his photo, almost innocent. Unfortunately, after a year on the job, I learned not to judge people by their looks. You never knew what was really going on in their heads.
When I finally hopped in the shower, I sighed in bliss. It felt amazing, and after I got out, I found the house really was stocked with any and every outfit one could imagine. I was learning that the Reapers had a very different definition of a safe house than most people. We liked our houses lavish and comfortable. This place was a hacienda style ranch, with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a huge kitchen, a three-car garage, and a huge backyard with a pool. The neighborhood was beautiful, and the grass had that manicured look most lawns had in Texas. I didn’t know how, since I’d always thought California spent most of the year in a drought. Maybe they just watered their lawns a lot.
Around eleven in the morning, we made it to Noah’s apartment. Katrina and I were dressed in bright sundresses with sandals. Katrina looked like a valle
y-girl ready for the beach. It might be her gift from War, but somehow, she always seemed to fit in. It didn’t matter where she was. Nobody would ever question whether she belonged somewhere or not. On the other hand, there was me, who looked extremely uncomfortable and self-conscious all the time.
And I wasn’t looking forward to chasing some kid around the neighborhood wearing a dress and sandals. Whoever came up with this master plan needed a demotion.
Aeneas’ report said Noah lived in an apartment complex in Normal Heights on Cherokee Avenue. Bartholomew had sent us photos of the location courtesy of Google Earth and his skills at hacking local surveillance cameras. The apartment complex was pretty nice and in a decent neighborhood. Based on the file, Noah didn’t work. He freelanced as a musician in different areas. That line of work didn’t pay enough for him to afford this type of place. Something didn’t add up. Bartholomew also reported Noah hadn’t touched his debit card or credit card in two weeks.
“Any ideas for parking?” Katrina asked me after driving up and down the street for the third time.
“According to Bartholomew’s photos, the complex has parking spaces in the back. Let’s go there,” I told Katrina as I scanned the pictures again. I had all the files printed when we were at the safe house. The office equipment at that location was better than Office Depot.
Katrina drove around the block and slowly pulled up to the complex. It was a gated area with apartments on the right and left hand side. From Aeneas’s files, Noah’s place was on the second floor. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get in. My Intern training did not include breaking and entering—probably because a cop had been one of my instructors.
“Any ideas how we get in?” I asked Katrina after she parked in front of the gate. I hoped scaling the wall was not part of our mission today.
“I got some tools.” Katrina reached in the middle console and held up a small pouch.
I blinked at her. Could we go back to the scaling walls idea? Because this one was worse. We could very well end up in jail after all was said and done.
Reluctantly, I got out of the car after I grabbed my phone and we walked towards the gate together. I kept watch while Katrina inspected the lock. Before Katrina could pull out her tools, the door opened. A young girl, maybe eight or nine, stepped out. Katrina held the door for her and smiled brightly.
“Never mind, Amy, I guess we can just wait inside for him.” Katrina inched forward, holding the door open with her back. “Our brother has not been answering the phone for weeks and we finally got tired of playing games with him,” she told the girl. I had a feeling the backstory was for my benefit as well.
“You have a brother that lives here?” It was more a question than a statement, but I didn’t blame the little girl.
“Noah, in number 26D,” Katrina told the girl. “Do you know him?”
“Yeah, I see him all the time. He lives across the patio from us,” the girl replied. “Noah never said he had sisters.”
“He is really private,” Katrina told the young girl in a low voice.
“Yes, he is,” the little girl confirmed with a nod. “I like Noah, but his new friends are weird.” She glanced back and forth down the alley, her eyes showing the nerves she held inside.
“What do you mean by weird?” I asked her in my sweetest voice.
“They always wear black suits with dark sunglasses, even at night.” The girl puffed her chest out. “Who does that? And they never talk. They give me the creeps.” Once again, she looked around. “But Noah is not here, I haven’t seen him in over a week.”
“Are you sure?” Katrina asked her.
“Of course. When Noah is in the building, you can always hear him playing his sax from eight to noon.” The little girl gave us a proud smile.
“How do you know this? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked.
“I’m home schooled,” she answered. “I get panic attacks and my mom prefers to keep me home to avoid the germ-infested kids. I’m off to see my grandma now. Bye.” The girl skipped forward, smiling.
“There is something wrong with that kid,” Katrina told me as she headed inside the gated complex.
“Besides a helicopter mom, no there isn’t.” I had heard of the crazy phenomenon, but I had never seen it. That poor kid needed to spend some time with kids her own age to balance her out.
I followed Katrina inside. The middle of the complex was a large quad area with some palm trees. I really liked the layout, but wondered how Noah could afford this place.
Katrina moved, not making a peep as she inspected all the doors. She pointed to one on the second floor and we moved quickly up the stairs.
Katrina inspected the area, which was a good idea. I couldn’t see any of the neighbors, but that didn’t mean they weren’t looking through their mini-blinds.
“This is a really cheap door,” Katrina said. “I could kick it down and it would probably be faster.”
“Are you sure Constantine isn’t your guardian as well?” I asked Katrina.
“I wish. He is awesome.” Katrina spoke like a true Constantine fan.
“How about a plan B?” I whispered. “One that doesn’t involve making a ton of noise and destroying private property.” The last thing I wanted was Noah’s neighbors calling the cops on us, and I had a sneaky suspicion they wouldn’t be as quick as the little girl to believe our sister story.
“Fine.” Katrina rolled her eyes and pulled the pouch from her pocket. I was a bit jealous. My girly-dress did not come with pockets. So not fair.
Bending down, Katrina got to work. Only a few moments passed before she stood straight and grinned. “Got it.” Super trooper sure had a lot of skills.
As I walked inside, the smell of dirt wafted to me. Even in the dark, I could see piles of it laying around the room. A terrible feeling anchored to my gut. The last apartment I went to that was in this condition, we found a half dead zombie-like human. I prayed we wouldn’t find Noah like that, or worse.
The first room was a living room with a kitchen in the back. There was a hallway to the right that I assumed led to the bathroom. I walked towards the kitchen and Katrina headed to the bedrooms. On the fridge was a single photo of Noah and a very beautiful woman. I was pretty sure it was Genevieve because she looked so much like Iason.
“Isis, you need to come and see this,” Katrina called.
“Please, God. No dead princess or zombie Noah,” I prayed out loud.
I creeped towards the back, passing a plain-looking bedroom with a mattress on the floor. The next room was a small bathroom with no shower curtain. Strange. Shaking my head, I continued forward until I found Katrina in the last room of the apartment.
“Holy cow,” I told her. The room was straight out of a CSI or Criminal Minds episode. “What is this?” I finally asked Katrina as my brain tried to process what I was seeing.
This was probably the master bedroom since it was bigger than the first. Unfortunately, Noah had turned it into a shrine to Genevieve. He had photos of her covering every wall. Strings hung from one wall to the other, connecting photos together. He even had an altar on the wall opposite from the door with a four-foot statue of Genevieve. The room screamed stalker, maybe even serial killer.
“I hate to admit this, but you were right, Isis. I’m afraid something bad has happened to Genevieve,” Katrina told me.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the wall of photos. “This is insane. And I really don’t get it. The princess is at least six inches taller than Noah,” I said, pointing to a photo of them together. “I assume in order to make it to General in the elven Army, Genevieve had to be pretty tough. How could a scrawny kid like Noah kidnap her?” I asked. I knew people were capable of horrible things, but I had to be missing something.
“Weren’t you the one telling me not to underestimate people?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. I just loved having my words thrown back in my face.
“True, but something is not right,”
I told her.
“That’s the understatement of the year,” Katrina replied as we both gaped at the psycho wall. “You take the left wall and I’ll take the right. Maybe we’ll find something that can help us if we look a little deeper.”
Katrina moved forward and started searching the photos. With a shrug, I joined her. This was going to suck.
After searching Noah’s apartment building, I realized cop-shows are not reality TV. They make everything look so easy and fast. In every show, the good guys entered a building or a house and in the first fifteen minutes, they find every bit of evidence they needed. By the time the show ended, they had the proof, a confession, and the perp behind bars. According to the magic of TV, it took them less than a week. It took us over three hours to find anything useful in Noah’s apartment. It didn’t help that Noah was a hoarder. The boy had boxes in every closet, under the bed, in every corner and crevice. You name it, that boy had stuff packed in it.
When we were finished inspecting, his poor apartment looked like it had been searched by angry drill sergeants. I was grateful Katrina knew what she was doing and made the job a little easier. It was Katrina that found Noah’s journal, or his collection of journals to be more accurate. Katrina had flipped the mattress over and ripped apart the box spring. I wasn’t sure which was more troubling: the fact that she looked there or that a grown man actually kept a journal.
However, Noah’s journals impressed me. They were more like comic books than traditional journals. He was very visual and an extremely talented artist. Each chronicle had a different time period and length. We found the most recent journal, with his last entry being about a month ago. Based on his records, we deducted Noah was a creature of habit. He visited the same locations a lot. One of the most common in his book was Balboa Park.
“We can’t just leave the place like that,” I said as I shifted a pile of his logs to one arm and shut the door of his apartment.