Wilder Mage (11 page)

He turned and ran, trying to stop the unmanly whimpers.

The man raked his fingers through his gray hair as he scoured through the news broadcasts of unusual events from the world and nation. The experts were paid to digest and spit out their opinions, and to be fair, it wasn’t their fault they were frequently wrong. They didn’t have all the facts.

Some calamities were natural disasters and therefore of no interest to him. Some were human-manufactured. He cared even less about those.

Some events were neither.

The firestorm in California just hitting the wire briefly caught his attention, but he quickly concluded that lightning was the probable cause. A drought in India, mild in comparison to other droughts, was of little concern. The flooding of a tributary on the Arkansas River was another matter. Six inches of rain fell in three hours after forecasters predicted a quarter inch; that was something to look into, and he had agents on a plane less than an hour after the news flash.

And the earthquake in the Midwest over six weeks ago…that was the red light special. Claxons had sounded when the quake hit, the epicenter somewhere in Iowa. “Iowa!” the experts had exclaimed. “There are no major faults in Iowa.” Especially one producing a magnitude of six point nine, nearly unheard of in the Midwest, New Madrid notwithstanding.

Not in Iowa.

He tapped his keyboard and noted another small disturbance in the wind currents of the southwest, but probably nothing more than weather, he thought.

Another news item caught his eye, the latest imploding Hollywood star, the picture showing a young woman sprawled on a sidewalk in front of a popular club, the kind visited by people of an uncommon class, above the ordinary. And the paparazzi, patiently waiting to strike, snapped the picture of the young starlet in a drunken stupor, head bowed under the weight and stress of fame. The interviews were interesting. The young woman said she hadn’t been drinking and had never used drugs. Something made her feel dizzy, she said. Later, she insisted on a multitude of tests to prove her innocence. They came back clean, no drugs, no booze, no medical reason for her to collapse on the nightclub sidewalk. The news organizations brushed the conclusions of the tests off as “yesterday’s news” and moved on to their next victim.

Still, something to look into, the gray-haired man thought. The use of Spirit could be a tricky devil to identify. He made a mental note to send someone to watch her and check it out.

Running footsteps caught his attention, and a quick rap on the door told him the gasping sound was of someone who was more than just out of breath.

Fear did that to a person, causing the respiration to increase with the human need to flee.

“Enter.”

A gasping man of middle years stepped in, holding a large envelope taped with security seals. Sweat trickled down his white face, broken only by the spots of bright red on his cheeks.

The gray-haired man stood and calmly held his hand out for the envelope.

“Phil, is it?” he asked.

The man struggled for breath and nodded with a quick jerk of his head.

“Well, thanks, Phil. Sorry you had to be the go-between, but sometimes, trusting technology”—he waved one hand at the computer and telephone—“can be…dangerous.”

Phil whirled to leave, to escape. The gray-haired man stopped him with his next words.

“Uh, Phil. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Phil stopped at the door, frozen. He turned around, his face icy-white with the look of a man condemned.

Calmly, the gray-haired man pulled a small hand-stamp from his pants pocket, twisted the top a quarter turn, and then pushed it onto the top of Phil’s extended left hand.

He inspected the mark, nodded, and said softly, “People die when protocols are not followed, when they are rushed.

“Security would not have called to confirm your story. They would have taken you, isolated you, and, well…no one would have been the wiser.”

Ah, quite a reaction now. The face that was so pale earlier became a new shade of green. The gray-haired man nodded to the door. “Just a head’s up, Phil. Never forget the hand stamp and protocol, no matter what. Bye, Phil. Have a safe trip home.”

He turned away from Phil’s stumbling exit, effectively dismissing him. He cut the tape using a special device from his pocket, an envelope opener he used to detect tampering. The contents of the envelope was a single sheet of paper, headed with the title,
DNA Identification Results
.

He laid the sheet on his desk and sat down, feeling for a moment strangely anxious. His eyes caught the acronym of his agency title, embossed on his desk nameplate. The ARTS—the American Research of Theory and Suppositions. The government funding was sparse, but that helped keep his low profile. Most of the time, he was left alone to do as he wished, without interference from nosy senators or political hacks. Dissuading those who continued to snoop was a form of people skills, he supposed, using an elemental form of influence.

The letters of the acronym made him chuckle, his own personal inside joke. The ARTS was his own invention. And he didn’t care if someone knew what his agency really did, because no one would believe it. The accusers would be in the same category as the crazies who claimed alien abduction and dismissed as so much nonsense. Then, his agency would find a way to deal with them. Quietly.

He sighed and looked down at the paper, noting with some surprise the nervous quiver in his midsection. Strange, but expected, especially with the person involved in this report.

Under the official stamp was the usual statement noting the subject, the variety of tests, and the conclusion. His lips pursed as he read the results, and this time, his hand did not shake.

Good. About time I showed some fortitude.

For several minutes, he stared across the room with unseeing eyes. Then he reached for his cell phone and hit a number he thought he’d never use again.

A stern, emotionless voice answered.

“Contact—” he looked down at the top of the report in front of him “—Madre Twelve. Patch it through to me.”

“Yes, sir,” the bland voice said.

The gray-haired man waited, tapping his fingertips on the desk, thinking of the options and complications of this revelation. Knowing it would eventually become an issue didn’t make it any easier. He forced his drumming fingers to still. And now that it was here, most of his planning over the years sailed out the window like so many daydreams. Life was like that, throwing a wrench in the works when reality opened its crazed eyes.

The anonymous voice returned. “I have the number.”

“Connect me, please.”

He heard the ringing, one, two, three; he was beginning to wonder if this would end in a one-sided conversation with an answering machine, when he heard the phone being picked up.

“Hello?” answered an aged female voice.

Chapter Nine

S
able tried to keep her mind on the customer’s order, but the conversation from the bar intruded. She grumbled under her breath.

“Excuse me,” said the woman. She waved one hand in front of Sable and ignored her two small kids as they punched each other and screeched like cats fighting. The woman’s sky-blue nail polish caught Sable’s attention. “I want two ice cream cones and a large malt.”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t serve ice cream.” Sable glanced at the bar and gritted her teeth. She took a breath and focused on the woman and screaming kids. “We have pop, but nothing like malts or ice cream. Sorry,” she said again.

“But you are an eating establishment. Why don’t you have ice cream?”

“Because we don’t.” Sable sucked in another breath and tried to think soothing thoughts. It didn’t help and she felt the churning energies surrounding her emotions begin to gather.

The sound of a particularly loud giggle made her turn back to the bar involuntarily, where two college-age girls were jiggling their assets. Justus was not looking at them, though. He watched her with narrowed eyes as he polished the bar in a circular motion. Well, crap. With that kind of look, Sable wondered what she had done. Again. She turned back to the lady. The two kids had taken their epic battle under the table.

“Can I get you a soda?” she asked. The smile she plastered on her face felt hard, but the woman shrugged, unimpressed.

The woman gestured at the front window seat, flipping her hand in the air. “What about those? Don’t you serve ice cream in those dishes?”

Off to the side of the crystals, Sable had arranged vintage sundae glasses and cups. They ranged from golden amber to cobalt blue and filled one small shelf. The clear glasses held red marbles, and the woman was pointing at them.

“No, they’re for display. They are from the last century and are very old.” Sable kept her voice as level as possible, but looking at the fluted glasses, she had an idea and pulled a spiral notebook from her back pocket. “So, do you want the soda?” she asked absently as she scribbled.

“No, we wanted ice cream. Come on, kids; let’s go before something gets broken.” The woman walked to the door without a backward glance, and the kids tumbled after her, punching each other and squalling.

“Brats,” she heard Bert say under his breath. He walked to her side and wiped the dark brown tabletop with a white towel.

She kept her back to the bar when a giggle from behind her made her clench her teeth.

“I know they’re just kids, but still,” Bert said. He looked at her and then snapped his towel in her direction. The loud
pop
sliced into the discussion at the bar, but it resumed, to Sable’s disgust.

“Hey, cut the seriousness. What’s the problem, anyway?”

Sable shrugged. “No problem.”

She shoved the small notepad into her back pocket. Too many distractions with too little business made for an exasperating day. Besides, she needed to check the web site for orders and go through her little notebook scribbles. Genius ideas came at any time, and writing them down helped her remember. It also made her look too busy to care about the commotion at the bar.

The thought of the vintage sundae glasses in the front window was on her mind. The variety of fluted and smooth cups was enough for an individual page on the website. She studiously ignored the loud feminine laugh and ambled to stand by the display to make a quick inventory of the glasses in her notebook, her back to the bar. Bert moved to stand beside her.

“No problem, huh,” he said quietly. He seemed to study the glassware beside her. “Girls getting to you?”

“No,” Sable said, too quickly.

His mouth twitched, but he didn’t comment. Bert picked up one of the sundae glasses and held it to the light, watching the play of colors through the prisms.

“How about you?” she asked.

He turned pink, and she bit her lips to keep from laughing.

“It is what it is, and those two are what I call subprime. And I don’t claim that cousin of mine as a relative.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Bert’s cousin, Miss Red Tank Top. Justus seemed busy with dusting the glass shelving and mirror. Her voice low, she said, “It’s just that…”

She stopped. Bert waited patiently, looking at her with his head tilted like a curious cat. Sable huffed irritably. Her words ran faster, like a Slinky tumbling down a staircase and just as graceful.

“I feel like I’ve done something wrong, that he’s pissed at me, and I don’t know what I did. I tried to apologize for yelling. I wanted to hear his story, his side of the night at the concert, but he won’t say more than two words to me, and I don’t know what I did to…I don’t know what to do.”

She didn’t see how anyone could make sense of that speech, but Bert nodded and sighed.

“Hey, I know, but he’s had a tough few years, and there isn’t a lot of trust in him, okay? It’s not you…geez, that sounds like a bad relationship, doesn’t it? ‘It’s not you, it’s him.’” He laughed under his breath and flicked a glance at the bar. He spoke even lower. “His dad died when he was sixteen. That was the bad part. And he’s never hurt for money. I guess his dad left him and his mom pretty well off. He even has a college degree—MBA, I think. Anyway, he’s had some…problems, and it’s kinda been bad. For him.”

It was the longest, most disjointed speech he’d made yet.

Sable bit her bottom lip, wondering how much Justus had told Bert. “I’m not sure I completely understand his crabbiness, but I’ll try not to take it personally.”

“He likes you, if that helps. I mean—damn, now I sound like a pimp—he likes havin’ you around. It’s just…complicated.”

“Understood.”

She really didn’t understand, but Bert wore a worried frown that made her pat his arm.

“Maybe you’ll get the whole story from him sometime,” he said.

She didn’t answer, but nodded.

One of the tramps—girls—sitting at the bar said, “How about some music?”

It was Bert’s cousin, the one wearing a red spaghetti-strap tank top. She flipped her long blond hair back over her shoulder. Probably, Sable thought acidly, because the locks of hair spoiled the view of her ample breasts. The other girl had her back to Sable. Her arm stretched out along the top of the bar. The girl had her cheek on her arm, looking up at the bar owner.