Air of Darkness

by Rose O'Brien

  “Thanks, Ellie,” Alayna said.

  Lu chimed in that she was organizing remote video surveillance for some of Medina’s businesses. Burdock remained silent.

  “So,” Alex said. “We’re lacking witnesses to these murders and any substantial physical evidence. All we’ve got to go on is the word of a low-life lackey that one of the richest guys in the city left Revelations covered in blood the night Blanca died. Do I have that about right?”

  Alayna nodded.

  Alex got up and crossed to the taped up pictures. His fingers absently touched the photo of a smiling Blanca.

  “How much do we know about the victims?” he asked, looking over the photos of decomposed bodies.

  Next to nothing, it turned out.

  “Follow the victims,” Alex said. “When you know more about them, you’ll know more about who killed them. If you can trace their steps, you might find out what happened to them.”

  He turned back to the board.

  “This might sound stupid, but is there anything in the hocus pocus department that might help us out here? Can you conjure up a vision, talk to a ghost or something?” Alex asked.

  Dumeril snorted and Ellie laughed out loud.

  Alayna shot them a look and said matter-of-factly, “Visions don’t work like that. They’re uncontrollable and unreliable even on the best of days and no one here is practiced at scrying. As for ghosts, a spirit with enough of a consciousness left to answer questions is rarer than a two-headed rattlesnake.”

  Most “ghosts” were just emotional echoes of an event, like a piece of recording stuck on a loop.

  “Even if you could find a ghost, you’d need a Seer to see and communicate with the spirit. The Mage Corps lost its last Seer about a hundred years ago.”

  Seers were sapiens that were born with or developed the ability to see and speak with the dead. They were about as rare as a lìthseach and were highly sought after.

  “Ellie, stay on hacking Medina’s network. See if you can get into his cell phone. Lu, stay on the video surveillance. Dumeril and Burdock, you’re researching our victims. Track down contacts for next of kin, friends, enemies. We’ll arrange for interviews later. Start establishing timelines for each of them,” Alayna said. “Alex, you’re with me. I’ve thought of a possible witness we need to talk with.”

  ***

  Alayna pulled her jacket collar tighter against the chilly February air as she and Alex left the Mustang in a parking lot near the hike and bike trail that ran along the shore of Lady Bird Lake. At this time of night, the dirt trail was deserted, with only faint blue emergency lights at foot level illuminating the trail.

  Though it was right in the heart of downtown, with the glittering skyscrapers towering over them, it was heavily wooded and secluded.

  They made their way down the trail for about a quarter of a mile until they came to a low spot near the bank where the water lapped, inky black in the darkness.

  “What are we doing exactly?” Alex whispered.

  “Questioning a possible witness,” Alayna said. “Who just happens to be a river spirit.”

  “Oh, good. Something easy, at least,” he said, the sarcasm clear in his voice.

  “Actually, yeah,” Alayna said, tossing a smile over her shoulder as she moved to the water’s edge.

  She bent down and scooped her hand through the water, sending an arc splashing across the surface.

  “Llorona! Alayna Blackwell, Mage of the Council, summons you,” she shouted across the still water. “Now, get your soggy ass out here. I need to ask you some questions.”

  The ring of her voice died in the air, and silence descended around them again. A minute ticked by with only the sound of frogs and crickets in the distance. Llorona loved to keep people waiting.

  Suddenly, several large air bubbles broke the surface of the dark water. Slowly, a shape appeared about ten feet from shore, a black dome gently rising above the surface of the water.

  Gradually, the apparition rose, revealing a creature with long, waterlogged black hair hanging over fish-belly white skin. Her hands dripped black river mud as did the toes that protruded beneath a ruined and tattered off-white dress—toes that hovered several inches above the lake’s surface.

  She felt Alex tense beside her and suck in a breath. His eyes had widened slightly, but that was the only outward sign of his fear.

  The creature’s face was mostly hidden by its dripping hair, but Alayna could see black empty eye sockets in a bloated face covered in dark veins. Her mouth was a dark hole with blue, swollen lips pulled back over green teeth.

  The Weeping Woman, or La Llorona as the Spanish and Mexican settlers of the area had named her, had answered her summons.

  Legends about Llorona were everywhere. Some said she was the spirit of a woman who had drowned her children. The reason for the drowning was always different depending on who was telling it, from revenge on a cheating husband to just plain madness.

  Others said she was a witch who had been drowned in the river by angry townspeople. Parents used the story of La Llorona to keep children away from rivers and lakes by telling them that the weeping woman would snatch them and drown them if they got too close to the water’s edge.

  The legends, it turned out, were right on that point and wrong on most of the others. The spirit of the rivers of Texas was much older than the legends about her. She was as old as the rivers themselves, possibly older.

  The ancient spirit could appear in many forms, like a beautiful woman, an elderly man, but her favorite was the terrifying river corpse look.

  “What do you want, airwalker?” Llorona’s voice was little more than a hiss.

  “A few weeks ago, someone dumped a dead body, a young woman, under the bridge north of here. Did you see anything?” Alayna asked.

  The creature’s voice hissed, “I see everything that touches my water.”

  Alayna paused for a moment. One had to weigh their words carefully when dealing with ancient spirits.

  “Can you tell me anything about the people who left that body there?”

  “I can do better than that,” the creature hissed. Before she could blink, the creature had closed the distance between them and hovered inches from her. Her fetid breath stirred the tendrils of hair around Alayna’s face.

  “I can show you. For a price.”

  “What’s it going to be this time?”

  “Blood,” the creature hissed. “Just a few drops.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Alayna answered.

  “Tears, then. Yours always taste so sweet.”

  “Deal.”

  Alayna knelt by the edge of the water and pulled a small glass vial from her pocket and thought of the saddest thing she could.

  Slowly, tears welled at the corners of her eyes and she caught each of them in the vial. As she took a deep breath, there was a shuddering in her throat as she tried to suppress a sob. She thought she’d covered it until Alex put his hand on her shoulder. Shock coursed through her for a moment, a strange heat following in its wake. Comforting gestures were a foreign concept to her, and she had no idea what to do. But it felt good, so she left his hand there.

  Llorona’s icy flesh slid along Alayna’s cheek, cupping her chin in a putrescent hand, a hiss of pleasure on her dark lips.

  Alex’s hand tightened on her shoulder as he prepared to pull her away. His protectiveness was just as foreign as his comfort. Only her team had ever protected her because of who she was to them. Everyone else tried to protect her because of what she was.

  She reached up with her free hand and wrapped her fingers around his to reassure him that she was fine. The slight roughness of the calluses on his hand grounded her enough. The vial was soon full. She capped it and handed it to Llorona.

  “A treat for later,” Llorona said as the vial disappeared into the folds of her sodden dress.

  She touched Alayna’s face again, in a disgusting parody of a caress and said, “Do you still think o
f your father when I ask for tears? Does it still cause you so much pain?”

  Alayna jerked her face away and growled, “Show me what you promised.”

  “Very well.”

  Llorona floated back and images began flickering in the surface of the water, like reflections, rippling with the slight movements of the water. In the images Congress Street Bridge towered overhead. The headlights of a car were reflected off the pillars of the bridge as a vehicle was parking in a lot a few yards from the water. She could make out part of a license plate.

  Two men appeared near the bank of the lake, moving in from the direction of the headlights. Both had muscular builds. One had short dark hair, the other a sandy brown and shaggy cut. Dark Hair had a sheet wrapped bundle thrown over his shoulder. He carried it as if it weighed no more than a feather pillow. Vampires.

  Dark Hair swung the bundle off his shoulder and let it hit the ground. Sandy grabbed the edge of the sheet, and Blanca Rodriguez’s bloody corpse tumbled out of the unrolling sheet, splashing one grey-fleshed hand into the water.

  Alex’s jaw clenched hard, and his lips pulled back in a snarl as he tensed beside her. A slight tremor went through him, but it wasn’t fear. It was rage. His friend had been tossed out like garbage. Vengeance was written in those dark eyes.

  "Looks good to me," Dark Hair told Sandy. The images apparently came with sound.

  The two quickly turned and left, the images fading quickly in the black water.

  "Satisfied, airwalker?" Llorona hissed.

  "Yes," Alayna answered, her voice quiet.

  She picked herself up from the gravel shore and dusted the knees of her cargo pants.

  "Until next time, Llorona."

  "I'll be here," the spirit said, a lightness touching her voice that made Alayna think she might have been making a joke. A bubbling hiss followed them up the bank as they returned to the trail. It sounded almost like laughter.

  ***

  Alex seethed with anger as they walked in silence back to the Mustang. Watching what had happened to Blanca had set rage burning through his chest. She’d been tossed out like yesterday’s trash, that neck wound a red scream against her flesh.

  Adding to the impotent rage was the image of that creature touching Alayna. He’d had to fight every instinct not to rip her away from the thing, until his body had nearly trembled with the effort.

  Alayna's tears had dried, leaving her face a little puffy and splotchy. Alex thought it made her look adorable—and a touch vulnerable. He was pretty sure that she didn't cry very often, and definitely not in front of other people.

  They got in the Mustang and she sat for a long, silent moment, hands on the wheel, not making a move to start the car.

  "Why does it make you sad to think about your father?" he asked.

  She gave him a shocked look. He couldn't believe he'd just said that out loud.

  "Because he's dead," she said simply.

  The silence descended between them, and not the companionable silence he was beginning to enjoy with her. This was strained, but he had to know, was desperate to know more about what made this woman tick. He pressed on because he couldn't leave the tension hanging between them.

  "How did he die?"

  She shot him a look that said she was thinking about biting his head off and eating his guts for dinner.

  He wisely kept his mouth shut and waited. With a sigh, she sank back into the leather driver's seat. The long day and night had carved dark circles under her eyes.

  "Violently," she answered. "Like most mages, he died violently, far from home. I was eight."

  She still hadn't started the car. Her posture was hunched and her fingers drummed against the steering wheel as she thought. He kept his mouth shut, giving her the mental space to decide.

  “He was a fire mage, a ranger, one of the best. He went on missions all over the world, fighting the enemies of the Council. He and some other rangers were sent to eliminate a group of rogue mages. They were trying to raise something," she said. "Something from another realm. No one was very clear about what exactly."

  Her eyes were fixed on something distant, maybe something twenty years distant.

  “Everyone at the Academy had parents serving in the Corps. It wasn’t unusual for someone to be pulled out of class to learn one of their parents wasn’t coming home. We all lived with that fear. It didn’t make it any easier when my brother Xander showed up with the news. One look at his face and I knew.

  “He told me our father had died bravely. I've been living with the ghost of that ever since. We all have."

  "My dad was a cop in San Antonio," Alex said. "He was shot to death on a routine traffic stop."

  Her face softened and she said, "I'm sorry."

  "I've lived most of my life as the son of a dead hero," Alex said. "So I get it.”

  "It's like living in a shadow you can never escape."

  "And everyone is watching to see if you'll live up to what he did."

  He'd been six. Old enough to remember his father and old enough to feel the weight of everyone's expectations. He now had to live the life his father had never had the chance to experience and he had to live up to his heroic sacrifice. An impossible order, but one he'd done his best to fill. There were a lot of days when he felt like he had failed miserably.

  "Jeez, enough of this sad stuff," she said, starting the Mustang and throwing it in drive. "Let's get a drink."

  ***

  Alayna sipped her venti Italian dark roast coffee in its cheerful green and white cup, letting the heat soak into her hands.

  She’d given Ellie the partial license plate she’d seen in Llorona’s vision. While Ellie ran the plate and tried to find a match for the vehicle that had been used to dump Blanca’s body, she and Alex sat on a darkened street south of the river.

  They could have gone back to headquarters to wait, but the truth was she liked being alone with Alex, and she wasn’t ready for the night to end.

  An occasional car passed, bathing them in slowly sliding white or yellow light.

  The silence was companionable, punctuated only by the sound of their breathing and the usual sounds of the city in the early morning hours: crickets, sirens, a car alarm, and the drone of a tree frog in a nearby greenbelt.

  Alayna’s mind was not so peaceful. Internally, she cursed Llorona for dredging up the ghost of her father. His death had ripped her world apart and that was when her family had begun to fracture. Her mother had lost herself in her work as a healer, trying to save others as she had not been able to save her mate. Alayna’s brothers and sister had retreated into their own pain, shutting each other out.

  And she was going to die, just like her father, probably sooner rather than later. It was why she would never have children. Why she would never have a real relationship. She wouldn’t cause someone else the kind of pain she’d endured. Especially someone like Alex. He deserved happiness.

  “So...this Academy you mentioned, where you learned to use magick,” Alex said, his deep voice breaking her out of her maudlin thoughts. “Did it have moving staircases?”

  “Ha ha, very funny,” Alayna said, taking a sip of her coffee. She’d dumped an insane amount of sugar in it, making her teeth ache slightly. Using magick burned calories like a furnace. “It wasn’t anywhere close to Hogwarts. The Academy was patterned after the Spartan agogi. Later, they added a program similar to Navy SEAL training, just for funsies.”

  Just like the military schools of ancient Sparta, the Academy took mage children from their families at age seven to begin training. Attendance at the boarding school, which was located high in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, was mandatory.

  Early years focused on the basic education most school kids received: history, mathematics, writing. There were intense martial arts classes for several hours a day. When a student came of age and developed their powers, much of the school day was devoted to practicing techniques to control their abilities. They studied strategy, military tact
ics and learned about the non-sapien races, the ones they would potentially face in combat as full members of the Mage Corps.

  While every student learned how to fight, many would never have the talent to serve on the front lines. They learned to become healers, logicians, ritual mages who could funnel limited power into divination spells and the like. Some would go on to live very normal lives by sapien standards, infiltrating key agencies around the globe to protect the interests of the Council. They would watch, observe and manipulate in small ways, like Alex’s convenient reassignment to a special task force.

  “That still makes me very nervous,” Alex told her.

  “It shouldn’t,” she said, glad for the distraction of his conversation. “The primary objective of those mages is not to blow their cover. They watch, they report, they act in very small ways. And believe me when I say that they do everything they can to avoid conflict. They’re not like sleeper agents. In fact, they’ve managed to stop a few wars.”

  “Really?”

  "Wars cause a lot of problems, you know, besides the death and destruction," she said. "Wars bring all the bad things out of the woodwork. All that chaos makes it too easy for them to prey on battered, wounded and defenseless sapiens. At the same time, it makes it hard for mages and members of the Corps to move around safely and undetected."

  She paused for a moment, considering how much she should tell him.

  "And wars can cause...openings," she said quietly.

  Alex gave her a look that was becoming quite common between them, the one that said she was going to have to elaborate for the newbie.

  "The strife, the pain, the destruction of war, it can leave scars on a place," she said. "You're a soldier, I know you've seen it."

  He nodded. “I’ve seen places like that. I always thought it was me projecting my own feelings on the place.”

  "You weren't imagining it. Those scarred places, sometimes bad things, angry spirits mostly, can collect there. Predators that feed off pain and death are drawn to those places. Peace is always our primary objective. It just makes our jobs so much easier."