Camp NaNoWriMo April 2013 Silver Wolf Enterprises
CHAPTER FIVE: SHIFT TRAGEDY
I awoke to silence.
My dreams had been filled with strange wonderful images. Riding a horse with complete abandon across a great expanse of green with the wind blowing through my hair as I laughed. Jumping off what I guess was a ship into cold salty water, feeling so alive. Hearing the first cry of a child I knew I had fathered.
The silence was oppressive.
Focusing my supposed better hearing, some sounds did come to me but not from our suite. As I threw the covers off, I wondered where Fran was. I wanted to share my dreams with him. Ask him what they meant.
I wandered out to the sitting room. It was way too quiet so I flipped on the tv.
The first image I saw was a bloody floor. Horrific image in and of itself but this made my head spin. I recognized that floor because of the weird pattern in one of the boards. My good friend Syn had always joked that she had the image of Jolly Old St Nicholas embedded in her floor.
Santa, smeared with blood was staring up at me.
Numb, I turned up the sound, feeling sick.
Twenty two year old woman did not show up for work. Friends grow concerned. Landlord opens apartment for police. No woman. Signs of struggle. Too much blood loss to have survived. More at eleven.
For God’s sake, how could there be more when everything is lost?
I turned the tv off and stared at the black screen.
None of this could be true. The obvious explanation was that my good and pure dreams had turned into some horror of a nightmare where my worst fears would be realized. Left alone. Bloody friend’s apartment.
“Wake up!” I screamed at my reflection in the tv.
Nothing changed.
That’s when I knew I was never going to wake up from this.
~~~~~~~
Fran suddenly went alert, head tilted to the side and up, throat stretched. He ripped the sound suppressing ear plugs out of his ears, his eyes narrowing.
“What is it?” Tania asked him, knowing something was wrong.
She got no reply as he stood so abruptly, his chair at the bar fell over. He was gone from the room before it hit the floor. Throwing some money on the bar, she followed him. By the time she got to the elevator bank, he was already gone.
It had to have been something happening to Chris but she couldn’t sense anything having happened. There was no air of violence. Even the evil she had earlier sensed right at these elevators was no longer tainting the air.
After what seemed like hours, she finally arrived at the suite, opening the door to the sight of Fran physically restraining Chris who was screaming at him to do something. Use his abilities to do something.
Gathering stillness from the corridor, she used it to soundproof the room. The last thing they needed was complaints of a man screaming.
Fran grasped Chris’s head between his hands. “Look at me! Look at me, Chris!”
Staring into Fran’s eyes seemed to have calmed him somewhat and Chris gasped great gulps of air.
Fran dropped his hands to Chris’s shoulders to steady him. “You have to explain. Tell me what happened.”
“My friend’s apartment. Covered with blood. Too much to live.”
Someone in the bar had been talking about a missing girl in Chris’s town but she wasn’t sure even Fran could have heard that conversation from the suite. Of course someone walking by in the hall would have been perfectly audible.
“You were asleep. A nightmare?”
“No, I turned the tv on.”
I got out my phone and looked it up as Fran guided Chris to sit on the couch, one arm still protectively around him.
What he had said was nothing but the facts. The girl was missing and the medical examiner had concluded that with that much blood loss, there was no chance of survival. It wasn’t proven to have been her blood but tests were being done and she was the one who was missing. No one had seen nor heard anything suspicious. The girl had no enemies. Friends and neighbors were stunned.
Then the really bad part.
The police were seeking one of her friends who had unexpectedly disappeared for two weeks only to have gotten in touch with her and their mutual friends the day of the probable murder. The friend, Chris Kelley, had told them he had been violently attacked but was all right although he had not disclosed where he was.
Theories were pretty much all anyone had. Chris might have been involved in drugs or organized crime and the violence had spilled over to the girl when he had come to her for help. This one gave people the hope that she might be alive since some of the blood could have been his, making it divided by two so not fatal to one. Or Chris had killed her.
She caught Fran’s attention. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
Without questioning, he hauled Chris up from the couch. “Go in your room and gather your things. Do it quickly.”
Once Chris had gone into his room Fran turned to her, handing her his keys. “Take the car and meet us three blocks away behind that yogurt shop.”
“What about checking out?”
He grinned, brief and grim. “I’m not concerned. I bought the place last night.”
“Want me to glamour you both?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.” Gently he touched her face. “Thank you.”
Neither of them had any more to say. She could tell them what she knew once they all met up once again.
~~~~~~
The Harbinger couldn’t believe what the message on his phone was telling him. Their boy was now a murder suspect. There was no way they could walk into the local police department and explain that the kid had been dead for a couple of weeks and then Fran Lovell, international businessman dug him up when he had been brought back to life. He couldn’t have killed the girl last night because he had been drinking with another dead guy and a fairy.
The best they could hope for would be padded cells.
That would all leave quite a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.
He was about to approach them in the hotel when he saw Chrystania Petal casually stroll to the parking garage. Moments later, Lovell’s car, with her at the wheel, rolled up the ramp to the street.
Good, they knew.
He waited.
Not long after the car rolled out, two men who looked nothing like Fran or Chris walked right out of the hotel lobby one at a time and headed in the same direction the car had just gone.
Now that was in hand, he had things he needed to do, people he had to inform, and instructions as to what to do next to receive. This had all gone to hell rather quickly. What were the odds a related murder would take place to complicate the entire thing?
~~~~~~
Temple Grey was amazed to see the photo on the news report. Chris Kelley wanted for questioning in the disappearance of an acquaintance Synecdoche Hearne.
That was the kid.
Damn.
This might be the first instance he knew of where an awakened Bounty Hunter had gone off the rails and murdered someone he knew. And it had happened under Francis Lovell’s mentorship.
Temple could not believe his good fortune in being assigned something that might turn out to be one of the most famous cases of all time. This was going to be great!
He dialed his contact to let them know what was happening but they already knew. Embarrassed that he had just found out and was the proverbial last to know, Temple grew even more outraged at Lovell.
Meekly, he waited for instructions and found himself sounding like a sniveling coward accepting his new mission. He had to salvage this and the best way to do that was to bring down that bastard Lovell.
Then Temple Grey would be the legendary one.
~~~~~~
Tania parked the car where she was told and wondered if she should get out or not. She was certain the glamour worked and the two men would be safe walking down the street as long as they stayed separated. It was unlikely anyone was following them yet but over the years they had learned that it was best to take precautions. After Chris’s photo had been flashed everywhere on newscasts and on the internet, there would be people noticing him wherever he went. With his auburn hair and distinctive face, he was unique enough that he would be easily recognized.
As she waited, she saw The Harbinger ride by on his cycle. She wasn’t sure where they would meet up and she had to get in touch with Sara to let her know their plans had all been changed. When she called, Sara picked up right away.
“I saw the news,” she said.
“It’s bad and he is freaking out. They were very close friends and he feels he is somehow responsible.”
“Could someone have actually targeted her because of him?” Sara sounded very skeptical.
“We don’t know and that is the problem.”
“I’m sure Fran has safe places you can all meet. When you know, give me a call. It looks like we’re just going to have to speed up his learning curve.”
“Sara, I think he’s going to want to do something about this. I can’t see any scenario where he would let this go.”
“Who? Fran or Chris?”
“Chris. I know he’s really distraught now but I think he’s getting some of his former memories back and that might make a difference.”
“What do you mean? What memories would he be getting back and why would that change anything?”
Suddenly, she realized this was something it might not be a good idea to discuss over the phone. “I’ll have to tell you later, my friend. For now, just sit tight until we can find a place and secure it. I just saw the Harbinger go by.”
“If people have seen Chris with Fran, he’s going to have to ditch that car.”
“I agree.”
“Later, then, my friend.”
She hung up just as Chris reached the car and wordlessly got into the back seat. He didn’t or wouldn’t meet her gaze and she had no idea what to say to him. They both waited for Fran to come and get into the driver’s seat. He didn’t say anything either, just drove.
Tania had a feeling it was going to be a very, very long night.
~~~~~~~
I felt like I couldn’t catch a breath. Everything was so muddled and off kilter that I could barely process anything. Now I was riding along in a car and I didn’t even look like myself. That was all right since I didn’t feel like myself either.
It’s like I’ve always heard. There is a certain surreal unbelievability to it all. It really is like you’re outside yourself and seeing your own life but you just can’t seem to make it all focus. If I admitted that Syn must have been killed then I would have to process all that would mean and I didn’t want to face that. I watched the scenery fly by but I didn’t even register it. It was difficult to care about anything because then I would have to care about everything.
We hadn’t gone all that far when Fran slowed and turned down a road, pulling over to the side. He made a phone call during which he spoke that other language I didn’t know, not the Naserac one which I did know now.
Looking concerned, Tania turned to me. “You going to be okay, Chris?”
“We have to do something.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” she admitted.
I had to give her points for honesty. I didn’t know what we could do, just knew I had to do something. I couldn’t sit around not helping but I knew there was no way I could go in even just “for questioning”. All I could do was shake my head.
That was when I realized I had left my phone at the hotel. It had been on the bedside table when I had awakened and after seeing the report on tv, the only time I went back into my room was when I gathered my stuff up. Not once did I think to pick up the phone.
“I left my phone there.”
Fran turned to look at me now. “At the hotel?”
“Yes.”
Fran and Tania exchanged a look, then Tania took out her own phone.
“Sara? Need a favor, dear. We left a phone in the room which could possibly be incriminating. If you could arrange for us to have it returned to us?” She gave a musical little laugh. “Of course, I’ll owe you one. Ciao!”
I wished she could make a phone call and find Syn for us.
“That’s being taken care of.” She reached back and squeezed my shoulder consolingly.
A few minutes later, a car pulled up and parked in front of us.
“And here’s another thing that’s been taken care of,” Fran said as he opened his door, then got out. “Our new wheels have arrived.”
The trunk of the new car opened and Fran took our things and placed them into the new car’s trunk. A woman in black pants, a white shirt, and a tie got out of the new car and, without a word, got into Fran’s custom car and drove off.
Even in my confused state, I was impressed. But it didn’t change anything in my world. I was still trying to make sense of all that blood on the floor of Syn’s apartment. At this point, I wasn’t sure that would ever be possible to make sense of anything ever again.
~~~~~~~
Sara del Sol had been between jobs when she had been assigned to keep an eye on Fran Lovell by joining his mentoring team. She didn’t mind, especially when she found out that one of the members of the team was Chrystania Petal.
Arriving at the hotel, she strolled in and went right up to the room Francis Lovell had taken. A fake door keycard with a little push of glamour tricked the door into unlocking and opening for her. It only took a couple of seconds for her to locate the right room and then the phone.
She was closing the door behind her when a voice said, “Stop right there, ma’am.”
She turned to see a man in a security uniform.
“Oh, sorry.” She laid on the thickest Hispanic accent she could pull up on a second’s notice. “I thought I left something in the room when I was cleaning.”
He looked her up and down as if trying to verify her statement by her looks.
She held up Chris Kelley’s phone. “I had left my phone in there but please don’t tell on me. I already got in trouble last week for texting when I was supposed to be doing the room.”
That seemed to seal the deal with him. She wasn’t surprised that he believed her because she was a Latina saying she had been cleaning rooms in a hotel. Sad but a fact of life, she had found.
“You should stay out of trouble. It’s not fair to the people who hired you for you to be screwing around and not doing what you’ve been paid to do.”
“Oh, I won’t be bad again.” She winked at him and laughed when he turned red.
As she walked down the hall, she could fell him looking at her ass. It made her want to come back and punch him in the balls.
She admirably restrained herself.
~~~~~
Temple Grey didn’t understand why there was a chick coming out of Lovell’s room. He pretended to be reading a map in front of another room’s door, pretending to be a tourist and hoping she and the security guard who were now talking wouldn’t expect him to actually go into the room or the current occupant would come out and wonder what he was doing loitering there.
She held up a phone, then, outrageously flirting, she flounced off. So she must be the maid.
That probably meant that there was no one in the room. Had he missed his chance to follow them? That was not going to go over well with headquarters. How could he have let them slip through? If they had already left, it would be hard to pick up the signal from the bug he’d put on Lovell’s car.
To check, he pulled out his phone and brought up the monitoring app. There was a faint signal so he ran to the elevators. Impatiently, he traveled down to the parking garage and got his car out. The parking fee was outrageous but at least he wasn’t paying for it. He used the card they had given him, sweating until it was accepted by the parking booth.
As he pulled out into the street, the app started showing that, instead of getting fainter, it was getting stronger. But that didn’t make any sense. Why would they drive one direction and then head right back into the original direction?
Granted, he had never used this technology before so it could be that the “bug” was full of bugs but it had come so highly recommended he was surprised it wasn’t working right.
He pulled over just past the hotel and waited. Francis Lovell’s car passed him but there was no Francis Lovell in it. There was just a woman with no expression and very dark sunglasses who pulled right back into the hotel parking lot.
Damn it! He pounded the steering wheel. That bastard had taken off and had someone else bring the car right back to where it had started from.
Nothing was fair!
~~~~~~
The Watcher was not pleased.
When he had gotten home from work, he saw a report on tv about the slut he’d put in her car’s trunk. It would make it very messy for him to get back to that car and drive it away to his special spot when there would be BOLO’s and shit for the car. He did not want anyone, let alone cops, to be on the lookout for him. If they pulled him over in her car with her in the trunk, that right there would be the end of his fun. Who knew the bitch actually had anyone who would miss her so quickly and have the balls to have someone open her door so they could check up on them. It had been a mistake to pick someone like her.
Well, there was nothing to be done about it now.
He was fairly sure he hadn’t left any evidence tying him to anything. Nothing could be traced back to him and he had no connections whatsoever with her. It would be one of those forever mysteries people would bring up from time to time as a horror story and a precautionary tale for women to not be so sexy and wiggle their tits in windows for everyone to see and strut around in those tight yoga pants that were all the rage and showed absolutely everything.
In short, she would be forgotten in no time.
He had nothing to worry about with this one. Secure in that knowledge, he got out some stuff to make supper. It would get interesting again if someone stumbled on her one day. What a surprise for them!
~~~~~~~~
Chrystania answered her phone when she saw it was a call from Chris’s new cell phone. “Any trouble getting it?” she asked.
“Nope. And guess what else?”
“I can’t begin to even venture a guess,” laughed Chrystania.
“That little worm Temple Grey was at the hotel trying to act like he totally fit in as a good little tourist. What an unfortunate boy.”
“Oh, now Sara, he really does try, the poor thing. It’s not his fault they nearly anti-trained him. He’s doing the best he can.” She honestly did feel sorry for him. His passions were too much for him and made him very weak as an investigator which was why he always got all the shit jobs no one else wanted.
“Do we have a set meeting place yet?”
“Just waiting for Fran on that one.” She looked over at Francis. “Meeting place established yet?”
“Negative.”
Chrystania rolled her eyes. “James Bond says not as yet.”
“Ugh.” Sara laughed anyway. “Tell him I said Shalla Tuga.”
Not sure she should actually do it because she did not know Naserac, Chrystania braced herself and repeated the words to Fran.
He glared at her. “Tell her I said I would get her back for that one.”
Sara’s voice came over the phone. She was laughing. “I heard him. Can’t wait.”
Chrystania put her phone down. “She says she can’t wait.”
Fran just shook his head.
It wasn’t good to not have a plan as yet. Once it got dark, their options might be more limited. She would just have to trust Fran although it was so difficult to place herself in someone else’s hands. It must have been that way for him all those years ago when he had first awakened confused and full of grief, needing guidance he didn’t get.
With all of them working together, surely there would be a place they could all meet that would be safe. Fran seemed to be heading somewhere. She wasn’t sure whether he was headed somewhere or just marking time until he could actually come up with something.
Trust was difficult but necessary.
~~~~~~~
The words Chrystania had spoken in the Naserac language didn’t make sense to me. Oh, I understood what they meant, just didn’t know why someone had told Chrystania to say them to Fran. Not literally, it was slang that meant something like “pay up” or “repay the debt”. It worried me.
The fact that they didn’t seem to have a plan worried me too. There was nothing I wanted more than to go back home and find out what had happened to Syn. Actually, that isn’t completely true. I didn’t really want to know what exactly had happened because that was quite clear, wasn’t it? She had been murdered and there was no telling what horrors she had had to go through before the killer was done with her.
As a recent murder victim himself, he wanted justice for her more than anything.
“If we are Justice, why aren’t we going back and getting justice for my friend Syn?”
Fran glanced back at me through the rearview mirror. “It doesn’t work that way, Chris.”
“How does it work, then? You’ve never told me, Francis.”
“I never really got the time.”
“Now’s a good time, isn’t it? We have nothing but time while we ride around for no reason, right Fran?” I wasn’t sure why I was being so confrontational with him except that it seemed like this was all somehow his fault and I wasn’t about to let him skate by pretending there was some meaning to all of this if it was bogus.
His expression was grim and I wondered if I had gone too far in nearly taunting him.
“Or are we just Justice for some people and not others?”
“When I get the chance, Chris, we’ll talk about it but right now…”
“Right now is as good a time as any.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I sat back in the seat in a state of high pissed off. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t fight him on it. If he didn’t want to tell me anything and keep my in the dark, there was no way I could force him otherwise. He was in total control of my life and I resented it deeply and thoroughly.
I was pretty much alone surrounded by people.
~~~~~~~
Chrystania did not like this new tension between Chris and Fran, especially when this was the worst time of all for them to be divided. She was beginning to believe the murder of Chris’s friend just might be related to the rest. There were disturbances all around them. She could feel it but whether it had anything to do with Fran or some larger development, she didn’t know.
All she knew was that she was becoming very uneasy and there was nothing she could do about it.
~~~~~~
Sara looked at the cell phone in her hand and wondered what Fran Lovell was up to driving randomly. Someone had to have been in touch with him about something but he was holding his cards very close to the vest. It wasn’t unlike Francis Lovell to keep things to himself, especially since he was a Master Neserac, but he usually let his team know what was happening. At least he had when he used to go out in the field.
Now he was acting … different.
She didn’t really like it but she was going to assume he had his reasons.
If only they turned out to be good ones.