War-N-Wit, Inc. – Resurrection (4 page)

Chapter Six

We went to bed, but not to sleep. Until a bit later. And I
dreamed. Dreaming’s nothing unusual, of course. But these dreams were
different. Reality superimposed on a fantasy backdrop. Or maybe they were
fantasy superimposed on a backdrop of reality. Technicolor visions of a woman,
me but not me. Of a man who was Chad,
but not Chad.
Of a place that was Rome, but not Rome.

In my dream, the woman swam naked in an outside pool, moving
away from the man. But not in fright. She raised up on her arms and lifted
herself out of the pool, laughing down at the man who swam after her. He
grabbed her waist and pulled her back down into the water, into his arms. And
then the scene shifted to a banquet hall full of people and someone was talking
to the man, someone of authority, giving commands. The woman stood to the side,
ears straining to hear. I felt sharp spikes of fear, buzzing like bees, flying
at light speed inside her. The vision moved into a big arena, full of sand, a
crowd screaming, full of anticipation. Like an American crowd at the Super
Bowl. Charioteers surged out into the big track. I felt panic gathering in my
chest, a scream building in my lungs. And then I woke up. Shaking violently,
pouring sweat, and gasping for breath.

“Ariel!” Chad
had me, gathered up against his chest, stroking my hair. I was still shaking.
“What? What is it?”

“Dream.” I shuddered against him, beginning to quieten.
“Just a dream. But it was so—and nothing really happened, it wasn’t like a
nightmare, I didn’t
see
anything to
make me panic, it’s more like something was coming.”

“You’re awake. And you’re here. And you’re with me.
Nothing’s ever going to hurt you when you’re with me. You know that, right?”

I nodded my head against him. I knew that. Nothing was going
to hurt
me
. But what would stop
something from hurting
him
? Nope, not
going to bring that up. Not tonight. I settled against his side and went back
to sleep.

* * *

The next morning I woke to winter sunlight streaming through
the big plate-glass windows of the bedroom. I heard Chad’s voice from the Great Room.
What time was it, anyway? I glanced over at the clock. Nine-thirty.
Nine-thirty?!
I hadn’t slept that late
in I couldn’t remember when. I got up, grabbed my robe, and followed the smell
of coffee out the door.

Chad
was over at his desk unit, on the land line. I waved as I followed the coffee
trail and he waved back.

“…love the way you always wait till the Statute’s bout to
run, Jimmy. You ever gonna learn?”

Ah. The life of a process server. He had an SOS call from an
attorney who needed to get a complaint served yesterday because the two-year
Statute of Limitations was about to catch him. Who’d driven his secretary nuts
getting the complaint and service package pulled together when he’d probably
had the case sitting in his office for at least a year. Either that, or he’d
filed the complaint and depended on the county Sheriff’s
Department to serve it, which was fine if the person being served was an ordinary
citizen with a real address where they actually lived. Not so much if the
person being served wasn’t a particularly upstanding citizen and moved around a
lot.

I poured my coffee. I knew this story, even if I was hearing
only one side of it.

“Jimmy. One more time. If you got two addresses and both of
‘em are six months old, and I go out there and neither one of ‘em’s any good,
you get charged for
both
addresses
and then I have to come back here and do a skip trace anyway. If you let me do
the skip trace, then I run ‘em till I find ‘em and you don’t pay anything if I
don’t find them.” Okay, that meant the attorney on the other end of the phone
didn’t even know where the dude he needed served actually was.

“But if the skip trace shows ‘em five hundred miles from
either address you got, you’ve saved a lot of money by just letting me find ‘em
in the first place…Jimmy! Those damn locator programs you have access to run
six months behind and you know it! Mine don’t. That’s why people call me.” And
that meant the attorney on the other end of the phone didn’t want an irate
client when he had to tell them
ooopps,
guess what, folks? You uh, sorta, kinda, can’t sue ‘em now ‘cause we waited too
late to file the complaint.
No way was he going to admit
he’d
waited too long. Probably he’d say
his secretary calendared it wrong. But he sure as heck didn’t want to spend any
money on it because clients whose claims had lapsed under the Statute of
Limitations due to an attorney’s error weren’t too keen on paying that attorney’s
expenses.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Attorneys were the same
everywhere. They all wanted the job done before they even knew they needed it
but they never believed anybody else’s expertise in getting that job done was
worth paying for.

“Okay, I’m waiting on it. Send me what you got…No, Jimmy. I
don’t
think
I can serve the damn
complaint. I
know
I can. So do you,
or you wouldn’t have called me.”

He hung up and held his arms out to me. I laughed and came
and sat in his lap, holding my cup carefully.

“Watch it! This coffee’s hot, we don’t need to scald
ourselves.”

“Not as hot as you are, baby girl.”

“Beginnin’ to wonder if you still thought so. You didn’t
wake me up. Why’d you let me keep sleeping?”

“You needed it. Been an eventful week, what with Vegas and
weddings in the Tunnel of Love Drive-Thru, and bringing in bounties, and
bringing down serial killers. And besides, you were real restless last night
after that dream of yours woke you up. Wanta tell me about it?”

“Wouldn’t know what to tell. Just dreams of people who were
us. But not us. In places I knew but didn’t know. So. An attorney with a
deadline. Depending on somebody else to beat it for him.”

“You know, I’d have loved you just as much no matter what
you did for a living. But it is real handy, you being able to follow
conversations like that and know exactly what’s going on on the other end of
it.”

“He gonna let you skip trace the guy?”

“Oh, yeah. He can’t afford the time for me to backtrack if
those two addresses he’s got from six months ago aren’t right. I’d make more
money if I just took their addresses and ran with ‘em, but then whoever I’m
looking for would be really hard to find. ‘Cause every friend and relative I
hit trying to get to ‘em would be dialing their cell number before we got out
of the driveway. You going to settle in today, unpack? Set up your desk?”

“That’ll take me two minutes. All I’ve got is what’s with
me. We didn’t exactly plan on all this excitement, I’d sorta thought I’d have a
chance to get some more of my things.” Not that that was a problem, my sister
was taking over my apartment lease. “And I hate to mention this, but we really
do need to see about getting my car down here.”

“Like hell. Your car’s a twelve year old Civic, honey. Tell
Antsypants to sell it. We’ll go car shopping in a day or two.”

I laughed. Antsypants had been my name for my sister, whose
given name was Anastasia, since the day my parents had brought her home from
the hospital. Already he used the nickname as freely as I did. But my frugal
nature, honed by years on a secretary’s salary, couldn’t let the car issue
pass.

“There’s nothing wrong with my car!”

“So let’s get you a new one while there’s nothing wrong with
the old one and you can get some money out of it.”

“I’m still goin’ to need my clothes, you know.”

“We can go clothes shopping, too, whatever you need till we
run back to Macon.”

“You don’t like my clothes either?”

“I love your clothes. But you’re not in a law office
anymore. I’m thinking you’re going to be mostly in blue jeans. Like me, you didn’t
notice? You’ve always bought mostly for the office. All secretaries do. Now you
need to buy for comfort and a different type of style. For the house, for the
road. Part of this job is blending in with everybody else. Unless we’ve got a
job where we need to look like deadbeats. Or sometimes, high-rollers. Depends
on the job. ”

I eyed him cautiously.

“Or drug-dealers. Or bikers.”

“Well—yeah.”

What absolute
freedom
I had now! I could live every fantasy I ever thought about.

“You gonna let me be bait? Like in a bar?”

“
If
you want to
and the occasion arises. And if I’m sure it’s a situation I can handle. ‘Cause
actually, that’d be pretty damn handy on occasions. These tough-guy types,
they’ll sure cozy up to you a lot better’n they’ll cozy up to me. You could
slap a service on one of ‘em before I could even strike up a conversation to
verify the name. But don’t worry, they sure as hell won’t be getting cozy
enough to scare you or hurt you. ”

I laughed. “You mean there’re actually situations you
don’t
think you can handle?”

“When it comes to you, all bets are off. I’ll keep pushing
buttons on a smart-ass trying to refuse service if I’m sure the worst thing’ll
happen is me and the other guy’ll both end up in the Emergency Room. Not if
you’re in the mix, though.”

I moved to get up. “Well, let me go get dressed and I’ll set
up my laptop. That other desk looks mighty lonely. Tell me when you want some
breakfast.” One thing we’d discovered early on. Neither of us were big
breakfast eaters until we’d been up a while. Breakfast tasted best about two
hours after being fully mobile.

“Been getting breakfast by myself for a while now, don’t
expect you to turn into a cook-on-demand, you know. Or maid on-demand.”

I kissed his cheek. “I know. That’s why it’s so much fun to spoil
you a little. Because you don’t expect it.” Magic Man was the only person I’d
ever known, except Antsypants, who didn’t assume my sole purpose in life was
their continued health and well-being, translated as my doing exactly what they
wanted whenever they wanted me to do it. Lord knows, that had certainly applied
to Scott, who’d been my fiancé at the time Chad had burst into my world. I
smiled. My Knight in Shining Armor. Well, my Knight in blue jeans and a silver
Equinox.

The little yellow envelope on the computer screen signaled
the arrival of a new email. “Bet that’s the info for today’s skip trace. You’re
going to teach me how it’s done, aren’t you?”

“Yes ma’am, I surely am.”

Chapter Seven

I went to dress, which in my case translated into washing my
hair and blowing it dry. I wasn’t functional till I washed my hair in the
morning. My make-up routine was fine-tuned from years of office life and
accomplished in five minutes. And I dressed in blue jeans and a cotton sweater,
reveling in the novelty of blue jeans on a week day. Oh, yeah, I could get used
to this real quick.

Chad
was in front of the computer, staring at the
screen.

“Want breakfast
yet?”

No answer. I walked
up behind him and looked at the screen. It was full of variations of the same
names with different social security numbers and addresses.

“Chad?”

No answer. He didn’t
hear me. He wasn’t, in fact, even here, I didn’t think. He’d told me once that
every good profiler was a psychic and every good lawman was a profiler. I knew
exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t thinking, exactly, he was absorbing. And
when he’d finished absorbing, he’d process it and then he’d either know where
this skip was or where to start looking for him. Right now, I was superfluous.

I started back
towards the kitchen and paused, looking at my laptop. I’d set it down next to
the desk and it was still in its carry case. I refilled my coffee cup and then
came back to the desk. Two minutes later, my laptop was plugged in and up and
running. I hadn’t written in a good while. I’d just finished a novel when Chad popped
into my world and turned it upside down, and I hadn’t started another one.
Ideas had to “brew” in my brain for a while. And when they’d brewed enough, one
character or another got up and started walking and talking. When that
happened, it was time to start writing. And I was living with a walking,
talking character.

I sat down and
started typing.

“No lightning bolt
streaked from the sky the day my life as I knew it began to end...”

* * *

I didn’t come out of
the world I was creating—well, in this instance, re-creating might be a better
description—until a cup of fresh coffee passed under my nose. I started and
looked at the time in the corner of my computer screen. Almost one o’clock.
Little late for breakfast or even brunch, but there was a tantalizing aroma of
bacon in the air.

I took the cup from Chad’s hand,
pushed the chair back and stood to stretch.

“So how long did you
stay in your trance?” I asked. “’Cause you were certainly in one when I came out
from washing my hair. Is that bacon I smell?”

“Couple of hours,
maybe. I thought BLTs for lunch would be good and you’d probably be hungry. I
always am when I’ve been concentrating that hard, and you could give me lessons
on the trance thing.”

“You’ve never seen
me in the writing zone before. So, you know where your guy is?”

“Not exactly, but I
know where to start looking. Wanta go on the hunt tonight?”

“Sure. Did you check
on our Mr. Oliver Hedgepath while you were in that trance, too?”

“With the Guardians,
you mean?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I called, they
haven’t called back yet.”

“You mean you leave
the Guardians a voice mail and they just—get back with you? By phone?”

“They got day jobs,
darlin’. Everybody’s got to eat. How’d you think anybody talked to ‘em if not on
the phone?”

“Oh, I don’t know.
Telepathically, maybe.”

“I’m good, baby
girl, I ain’t that good.”

I laughed. “I’m
actually glad to hear that. And I’m starving. Lunch and then skips? And the
Guardians? Whenever they call back?”

“My perfect day.”

* * *

After our bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich lunch, we hit
the road. Chad
didn’t have a definite address on today’s subject to be served, but he had the
family network. A big one. And leaving at three would get us over to the
general area of a little crossroad called Wixford, near the southwestern border
of Georgia,
between five and six o’clock. Chad
considered that prime hunting time. He even had a phrase for it. “After the
school buses run.”

It seems that Mr. Darrell Killman, detained while trying to
leave the scene of an accident, hadn’t seen fit to keep his insurance company
or anyone else, for that matter, advised of his whereabouts after that
accident. Further, he’d managed to keep that information to himself for almost
two full years, thus avoiding service of any lawsuit. Today, though, his luck
was about to run out.

We ran though the Georgia
backcountry, pasture land dotted with lakes and circled by trees. The phone
rang about halfway there. The caller was identified on the dash screen simply
as “G”. No great intellect needed there. The conversation came in loud and
clear over Sync.

“Yo, Magic Man! Whut
up?”

I wasn’t sure what
I’d expected but that wasn’t it. Then again, I’d never expected Spike, the big,
black-bearded bear dressed in black leather I’d met in Vegas to be a
pediatrician, either.

“Got a persistent
little gnat by the name of Oliver Hedgepath all up in the air with some story
of there being some new Seer for one of the Tears of Isis. He’s head hauncho at
some society calls itself—”

“Resurrection.
Ollie’s harmless enough. So’s Resurrection. Unless something’s changed. Why’s
he’s calling you? A new Seer?”

“You know about him
then?”

“Yeah, been around
about ten years or so. Got an old house outside some little town in your neck
of the woods, Rebecca, Georgia, I think that’s the place.”

“Gone uptown since then, G. Address he gave me is

“Not off-hand, sorta
out of my territory up here in Canada
but from that tone I’m guessing a lot?”

“Multiplied by
several times. No problem for your average millionaire, but for your average
Joe, fixer-uppers on

“Haven’t looked in
years.” G’s voice, whoever G really was, sharpened. “And you think we’d ignore
something like a membership fee, big or little, attached to a something on the
fringes of magic? Way to insult somebody, Magic Man. Of course there’s not.
There wasn’t any fee at all. You mean there is now?”

“Don’t have a figure
but I threw out some bait while I was fishing last night and from the reaction,
yeah, there is. You mean Ollie never set off any vibes with any of you when you
checked him out?”

“Not a one. But that
was a long time ago. Too much going on to keep up with everybody. And he’s damn
sure set something off with you, huh?”

“Appearing on my
deck in the form of a golem powered by astral projection while I’m in the hot
tub with my wife is not the way to endear oneself to me, no. Especially when
Thor didn’t have a clue he was there until he was like—
already there
. Know what I mean?”

“The Oliver
Hedgepath I know doesn’t have that kind of power.
You
don’t have that kind of power. Hell,
I
don’t have that kind of power! Don’t want it. It’s too close to
the edge. And I heard you’d found the Wit of War-N-Wit, congratulations.”

“Thank you. And
exactly. This Oliver Hedgepath’s short, prissy, precise. Well-dressed in a fussy
sort of way. Well, the golem was. That sound like him?”

“Yeah, but anybody
who can power a golem like that could probably sustain a glamour without any
trouble. At least when he needed to. So looking like the Ollie of record
wouldn’t be that big a problem. What’s he want from you?”

“Thinks I might be
the new Seer. Or so he says. And if I’m not, then he wants me to find him. The
new Seer. Allegedly so he can be sure the new Seer’s not on the dark side.”

“He’s using a golem
powered by astral projection and he’s worried about somebody else being on the
dark side?”

“My point exactly.
I’m thinking he might be thinking that if he can find the new Seer and
eliminate him, the Seer’s power might revert back to him. If, in fact, he ever
had it.”

“He had it. Or at
least, the Oliver Hedgepath I knew did. You definitely need to check this out.
When are you supposed to meet him?”

“Friday night. At
Resurrection Headquarters. Which is okay, I’m always up for a trip to Savannah. I want to walk

G laughed. “So I
heard. Definitely check this out thoroughly. Consider yourself on assignment
with all fringe benefits.”

“
There are no
fringe benefits. Not even expenses. And how the hell you know about Vegas?”

“Exactly. So why the hell you think we’d turn a blind eye to
a big membership fee in a paranormal based society, I don’t know. Didn’t hear
about Vegas so much as Atlanta.
You don’t think taking down a serial killer with 19 bodies in his basement
makes the headlines? And tell Wit hello for me. Sitting right there, isn’t
she?”

 
“She is.”

“Well, hello Mrs.
Magic Man. Welcome. To the world of magic!”

“Thank you,” I said. “I think.”

* * *

We rolled into Wixford and on through it, turning onto a

“First stop,” Chad said,
pulling into a driveway. It was pretty typical of rural Georgia. An
older house of red brick, fifties’ style. It could use some paint on the trim.
And some work in the yard. Some maintenance on the concrete driveway wouldn’t
be amiss, either. It sported a network of cracks. An outbuilding boasted several
sets of mounted deer skulls. “They always run home to Mama, general vicinity,
anyway, but sometimes brothers and sisters don’t like each other all that much.
Sibling rivalry, you know.” His eyes moved around the yard. Assessment mode.
“So sometimes you’ll get more out of them. Or, more likely, out of their
sibling-in-laws. This is his brother’s house. Sister-in-laws don’t usually like
family moochers. Stay here for right now.” He opened the door and started to
get out. A loud slam sounded from the side of the outbuilding and a woman
started walked towards us. Chad
paused. “And maybe I’ll stay right here, too.”

The woman stopped
about five feet away from the Equinox.

“Hep ya?” she asked.

“Hope so,” Chad responded.
“Mrs. Killman?”

“That’s me.”

“Nice to meet you,
ma’am. Chad
Garrett. This is my wife, Ariel.”

The woman nodded at
us.

“We’re trying to get
in touch with a Darrell Killman. Understand he’s your brother-in-law?”

Mrs. Killman’s mouth
puckered as though she’d bitten into a sour apple. “Well, some things we got no
control over.”

“Yes, ma’am, I
understand.”

“What’s he done
now?”

“Well, I don’t know
that he’s done anything, ma’am, it’s just that he was involved in an accident a
few years back and seems nobody can locate him. Insurance companies kinda like
to keep tabs on the folks involved until everything’s settled, you know?”

I couldn’t decide if
Mrs. Killman actually chewed tobacco and needed to spit, or if there was a wad
of chewing gum in her mouth and talking about her brother-in-law just made her
want to spit.

“Oh, hell, yeah, I
remember that. Jerk tried to run ‘fore the cops got there, like he’s always run
from everything. Almost ended up in jail. Glad somebody stopped him, he’s
caused the family enough trouble without making us bail him out of jail. My
mother-in-law, she’d do anything for that boy. Most of his problem.”

“Yes, ma’am. So do
you have any idea where we could find him now?”

Mrs. Killman
narrowed her eyes. “Well, he’s been running in and out of his mama’s house for
the past few months, but you go there, she’s gonna try to tell you she don’t
know where he is. And if he’s really not there right when you are, she’s gonna
tell him somebody’s lookin’ for him.” Oh, yeah. Mama would. This Mrs. Killman
was a smart lady. “But she’s been braggin’ he’s turned a new leaf and got a job
he’s actually workin’, but I don’t know where at. They don’t live real close,
the family’s scattered through four or five counties. Tell you what, though.
You need to talk to Grandpa. My husband’s granddaddy. Tough ole’ bird, love him
to death. Don’t like freeloaders, pissed as shit Darrell is takin’ such
advantage of his mama, pissed as shit at Arlene for lettin’ him do it. I mean,
Arlene’s 50, but she’s still that man’s little girl, you know?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m
sure. How do we get to Grandpa’s?”

“Well, thing is,
he’s up at his lake house with Grandma on a fishing trip. And it’s a couple of
hours from here on some real back country roads.”