The Seer's Lover (The Seven Archangels Series) (2 page)

Calise took a deep breath. Somewhere deep inside of her, she knew this man spoke the truth. She had so many more questions to ask him.
“
Where is your cousin Carmen? Maybe she can help
me
.”

He returned to the counter and shook his head. “No! Listen to me.”

She started to interrupt. He held up his hand.

“You have to believe me. If he thinks you see him, he’d kill you.
El demonio te matára.
The demon will kill you,” he translated.

Calise’s stomach tightened into a knot and a lump formed in her throat. “What?”

The phone rang. She turned toward the phone. A strange, warm wind caressed her face. She spun around, but the old man had disappeared with the wind
.

She rushed to lock the pharmacy then hurried out back to her car with her keys poking out between her fingers in case she needed a weapon. The dim parking lot did little to ease her anxiety. Demons? That was crazy!

Some people were inherently good and others bad, but to push the spectrum and say angels and demons were what she’d been sensing all her life…well, that was just—

Next to her car, a body writhed on the ground.

Calise rushed forward. Mr. Torres! He choked and coughed, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

“Shit.” She dropped her purse and tried to clear his airway. “Mr. Torres.”

“He…knows. Find Carmen in…Mal…Pais…” He coughed. A green pill fell out of his mouth. “You aren’t safe now.”

Calise looked around her. Bushes rustled behind the parking lot. A pair of red eyes watched her then disappeared.

More tablets spilled from Mr. Torres’ mouth.

A wave of fury trembled through her.

Mr. Torres stopped moving, and Calise dialed 911.

****

Ferry in Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Calise exited her cab and stepped onto a bustling street. The thick, hot air smelled like a mixture of sewage and gasoline. People lounged against their cars waiting for the next ferry. A long caravan of vehicles lined the street, each primed to load on the next vessel leaving port.

Who knew just
getting
to Mal Pais would be such a hassle?

Calise’s older brother, Dean and some friends had spent a college spring break in Costa Rica and one of them never came home: Ron, the hippie die-hard surfer, who fell for a Brazilian beauty. He’d married her, and they opened a resort in—of all places—Mal Pais. Dean had arranged for her to stay in one of his jungle bungalows. Ron had even promised to pick her up from the ferry in Paquera and drive her the rest of the way back to his resort so she wouldn’t have to take a bus.

Calise’s parents and brother had gobbled up the nonsense she’d come up with about wanting a vacation after witnessing a patient overdose and death outside the pharmacy. She’d even booked a surf lesson to make it more convincing because she knew what they would say if she told them the truth.

Now, waiting for a ferry to get her to Mal Pais, all Calise could do was sweat. She couldn’t remember being so hot in her entire life. The late afternoon Costa Rican sun scalded the pavement. The temperature hovered in the high nineties with no shade or breeze to speak of. The stagnant air smelled rancid, and she was producing and expelling sweat from places she hadn’t known possessed that capability. She bought a hat and lukewarm water from a street peddler.

Her final destination, Mal Pais meant “bad country.” The dusty surfer town was located in the Nicoya Peninsula that jutted into the Pacific at the southern end of the country. To get there, she had first arranged a ride from the San Jose airport to where she was now, Puntarenas. The final leg of the journey was a sixty-five minute boat ride to Paquera where she’d meet Ron who’d drive her to his resort.

One week. If she couldn’t find the right Carmen and get some answers, she promised herself she’d see a shrink and start antipsychotics or antidepressants. Or whatever would make her
normal
. But she had to at least check to see if what she felt was true. For Mr. Torres, if nothing else. She couldn’t help but think he’d died because of her. Saving her. And she owed him.

She closed her eyes and sipped the tepid water. On the plane ride down, she’d amused herself with a different picture of her arrival. Wearing a swooshy, flower-patterned dress with spaghetti straps and heels, she’d visualized herself descending the stairs of the plane in her bikini-ready body. A warm, tropical breeze would meet her. The old Journey song “Any Way You Want It” would blare in the air behind her. A surfing instructor would greet her by holding up a big sign with her name on it and whisk her from the airport to begin her Costa Rican adventure. His nametag would say “Raul” and he’d introduce himself, taking the time to roll the “R” in his name. He’d be super badass Latin hot.

Then she’d find Carmen who’d show her Raul’s recessed horns and hooves hidden by boots. She’d catch a glimpse of his red eyes whereupon she could race home and…

Calise opened her eyes.

Race home and tell her doctor demons walked among us. That would go over swimmingly. They’d lock her up and throw away the key.

This was perhaps the most ridiculous plan she’d ever come up with.

Giddy up. Am I there yet?

****

The five o’clock ferry pulled into port. The vessel’s crew sandwiched cars into every crevice and nook on the boat with expert orchestration. Calise leaned on the railing and took in the day’s last rays kissing the sandy beaches and lush forests on the Nicoya Peninsula. She listened to the hum of the ship’s engine. Waves slapped against the sides of the vessel. The movement to the peninsula became significant to her. Although standing still, Calise moved forward.
Finally.

For years, patronizing comfort and lack of clues kept her lifting her legs to walk, but Calise had kept putting her feet down in the same spot. How much of her life had she walked in place, searching for answers and always finding herself in the same location?

“I’m sure they’re nothing,” her mother had said of her feelings. “Just ignore them.”

This journey from the city to the jungle acted as a catalyst to fuel her heavy determination to find answers. Either Carmen existed or she didn’t; either she could help Calise understand the life pulse she sensed around people, or tell her Juan Torres had been clinically insane. More afraid of never knowing the truth than facing it, she worried anti-anxiety medication wouldn’t tame her particular ailment.

Alone and heading into the unknown, she shoved aside the fear which threatened to press in around her. Even if the trip proved a fool’s errand, for the first time in her life, she allowed herself to feel fully alive.

The sun dipped in the horizon by the time the ferry moored in Paquera. Happy she’d packed light, she wrapped her fingers around the handle of her suitcase and gazed at a deserted landscape speckled with swaying palm trees. She tugged the small carryon which contained a few swimsuits, her wetsuit, light clothes and sandals, and one cute dress in case the surf instructor of her dreams—or nightmares—morphed into reality.

Squawking birds searched for dinner. The sun tucked itself behind the horizon. The saltwater breeze mixed with the scent of the jungle, giving her unique adventure a sense of beginning.

Ron Jones sat waiting perched on an old Jeep. He looked just like Dean had described him—the sandy, shoulder-length blond hair of a California surfer, swim trunks, and multiple hemp necklaces. She watched him take a deep drag from his hand-rolled cigarette and wondered whether he would begin all his sentences with, “Duuuude.” She’d have to tell her brother that time hadn’t aged his hippiness, only amplified it.

Calise rolled her bag along the sidewalk. “Ron?” She extended her hand.

He nodded.

“Hi, I’m Calise. Dean’s sister. Thanks so much for picking me up.”

He stamped out his smoke on a rock, tossed it aside, and reached for her hand. His sturdy handshake reminded her of a man accustomed to conducting business one day and doing manual labor the next. She liked him immediately.

Ron put a brotherly arm around her. “My resort down in Mal Pais is perfect for you. You’ll have a bungalow all to yourself. We’re near the beach, and I’ve hooked you up with surf lessons for the day after tomorrow like you asked.” He tossed her luggage in the back of the Jeep. “How’s Dean doing anyway?”

“His wife left him.”

Ron’s head snapped around.

She shrugged. “He and Max are better off. She was a monster.”

“What?”

Calise sighed. “I don’t mean it literally, but Liza was…” she hesitated. “I couldn’t stand how she treated my brother, like she was the mother ship her family had to orbit around. She worked seventy hour weeks to keep scum
out
of jail.” She stopped. “I shouldn’t bad-mouth her. But I’m glad they woke up one day and she was gone. She didn’t even leave a note. But Dean and Max are better off without her.” She sighed. “So tell me about Mal Pais. You came here with Dean, right?” she asked.

“We came here together on spring break our junior year of college. We were both starting to think about law school. But I met my beautiful wife, Anna, on the trip.” Ron’s eyes glazed over just a bit. “She was on vacation from Brazil. My father loaned me the money to buy this resort, and we’ve been here ever since. I even offer guided horseback riding trips through the jungle if you’re interested.” He pointed in the direction of a guy carrying two large burlap sacks on each shoulder. “Here comes my guide now. Lucas, this is Calise.”

For one long moment, the guide’s eyes raked over Calise from head to toe. His coffee-brown eyes twinkled ever so slightly.

“Hi.” He started to give her a shy smile, and she caught sight of a dimple when he visibly shook off what Calise read as desire. After heaving the sacks into the back of the truck, he ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair and averted his gaze altogether before he left to retrieve more grain.

Calise found she was holding her breath. He was the most beautiful, sexy man she’d ever seen. Hotter than any Raul of her fantasies, Calise watched his tan body, rippling with hard worked muscles, flex with each step he took away from her.

She tried to stay out of the way while Ron helped his guide load several more bags of grain. The guide didn’t look her way again.

“All right, let’s get going. It’s getting dark. Calise, you can sit up front with me. Lucas is fine in the back.”

She hopped into the Jeep, shut the door, and never looked back. They set out for the Howler Monkey Resort on roads she likened to driving on a plowed field.

Calise didn’t have any of her “feelings” about Ron or Lucas. There were none of the waves of nausea she’d felt around her sister-in-law or the drug addict from the pharmacy. Nor was there the old perfect, drug-like calm she’d had with her ex-boyfriend in college, Shane. But even Shane seemed to have a power over her she couldn’t control. Something she’d never liked. Lucas seemed different than anyone she’d met.

“Do either of you know a lady named Carmen who lives in Mal Pais?”

The men both laughed.

“Sure we know Carmen. She’s famous in Mal Pais. Want me to introduce you?” Ron asked.

Could it be this easy?

“Yeah, I met a friend of hers who told me to come see her.”

“Who’s that?” Ron said as the Jeep lurched over another dip in the road, much to the chagrin of Calise’s rear end.

The guide propped his elbows between Ron and Calise as if to listen.

“Juan Torres. Do you know him?”

Ron shrugged. “He probably remembered how good her pizzas are.”

“I’m sorry. Pizza?”

“Carmen’s restaurant is a hot spot. Best food in Mal Pais. See Lucas, you should tell her, her reputation precedes her.”

The pizza lady couldn’t be the Carmen that Mr. Torres had spoken of, could she? Calise looked back at the guide a few times. Each time, she caught him staring at her. Sadness filled his expression before he looked away.

Maybe she
was
crazy and antipsychotic meds would fix everything when she got home. Demons couldn’t possibly exist and the only famous Carmen in town…made pizza.

****

The resort sat perched atop an impossibly steep dirt road on the outskirts of Mal Pais. Smack in the middle of thick jungle, was Ron and Anna’s place—marked with a sign hammered to a short, wooden post that read, “The Howler Monkey Resort.” When they reached the summit, Ron jumped out and came around to open her door. She climbed out of the Jeep with the last snatches of daylight waning. She was rewarded with a view of the overlook to the ocean’s multilayered sunset of crimson, ginger, and delicate pinks. She couldn’t wait to catch the breathtaking view it promised the next morning.

“There’s my house, and the stables are over there.” Ron pointed. “The guest pool is by the kitchen and behind that, is a path leading to the guest bungalows. I’ll get your bags while you have a look around.”

Lucas dropped his eyes when she spied him once again watching her.

“Hey Lucas, can you close the gate on your way out?” Ron asked.

He nodded, gave Calise one more long look, and disappeared into the night. She heard the gate groan when Lucas pushed it shut.

She wandered up to the kidney-shaped guest pool, the centerpiece of this Eden. A lit three-tiered waterfall cascaded down a natural rock outcropping on one side, where dozens of sweet-smelling, showy orchids dipped their petals into the cool water. Loose petals floated on the surface. Teak lounge chairs with fluffy blue pads lined the periphery of the pool.

“I’ll put your bag in your room. Sit down by the kitchen and relax. I’ll fix you a drink.”

“Thanks, Ron. A drink would be heavenly.” She ducked into the open-air kitchen. The space boasted a full refrigerator, grill, and a twelve-by-six foot cut stone counter. Baskets of fruit hung from the overhang above and spices waited on the counter, as if begging use. She sat at a small table and inhaled the moist evening scent of the jungle around her, heavy with the pungent fragrance of unfamiliar flowers. The late night drone of insects filled her head.

And in an instant, her Eden was ruined. The temperature suddenly dropped and a cool shiver of fear radiated down her spine, crawling out to her arms as goose bumps marred her skin as though she’d gone outside in winter without a coat. A stunning woman appeared before her with an iguana in her arms and a monkey perched on her shoulder. A crimson skirt and cream tank top wrapped snugly around her enviable thirty-something body. Long dark hair cascaded down her back like a black river, her green eyes and tan skin somehow blending serenely into the surroundings. Calise’s all too familiar “feelings” flooded her senses.