Awakenings Read online

  Almost immediately, Cat experienced the best vibe over any guy who had ever approached her. As they talked, she thought he was too good to be true. She was so used to guys putting on the act just to score, that she kept waiting for him to screw up; to look at her cleavage or touch her too soon. He never slipped once. He was perfect. The most decent man she’d ever met. She was embarrassed at her own betrayal to her feminist convictions when she realized (after three drinks) that she found him gorgeous, and went weak-kneed at the thought of his baby blue eyes.

  Cal’s conviction toward law and order and truth was almost priestly. To “protect and serve” was more than just a job to him. By the end of their fifth date (still unmolested) Cat knew she would never find a finer man. His antiquated convictions about marriage and motherhood were a small concern, but Cat knew if she let him go, she’d spend the rest of her life measuring new suitors by the standard Cal had set; and they would all fall short. She was on her guard at first, waiting for the neoconservative, the closet Promise Keeper in every cop to rear its ugly head, but it never showed. So it was a no-brainer. Over time and through lots of trust, her feminist shields (admittedly, a bit too militant in her youth) started to thin. She had tried the stay-at-home mom thing and was better for it, but now it was time for her to attend to her dreams. Grad school was possible. Cal would bend over backward to make it happen. She’d bet her soul on it.

  A special live report interrupted the show. Cat wondered if all police wives had the same knot in their stomach whenever a special report came on. The odds were always against a cop’s spouse. If the report was not about a policeman being killed, then chances were that police were rushing to whatever crisis was happening and placing themselves in harm’s way while everyone else ran the other way. But, if Cal had been involved, they would have called her already, or more likely, sent a unit over to get her.

  She was on the couch clutching Bree’s Pooh bear when Hunt’s Point was mentioned as the location of the incident. It was Cal’s precinct. Cat began wringing the toy’s arm. A graphic with a bloody rifle scope appeared next to the anchorman’s head with the words Cop Killed in bright red and yellow. Her knot tightened. The report said the incident happened only an hour ago. Plenty of time to have sent over a squad car or called. She looked at the phone on the wall, still silent.

  The reporter on the scene was a local celebrity, one of those Lois Lane types with the tenacity of a pit bull and the face of a soap star. “An officer from the Forty-first precinct was killed in the line of duty tonight…”

  The seam on Pooh’s arm began to fray, and then it burst.

  Cat stared at the ruined toy. They had had plenty of time to contact me, she conveyed to the toy telepathically. It stared back at her with cold black eyes and a Disney-perfect smile that mocked the chaos in her head.

  “… decapitated by a sharp instrument in an abandoned tenement while chasing a suspect. There has been no sign of her partner, officer Callum MacD…”

  “No!” Cat threw the toy at the TV. She looked at the telephone, willing it to ring. When she picked it up, the line was dead.

  “Mommy, is something wrong?” Brianna was standing by her bedroom door in the hallway past the kitchen.

  “Go back to bed!” Cat snapped. Bree bit her lip to keep from crying and closed the door behind her.

  It was Erin. Erin was dead. And Cal was missing.

  Cat ran to her purse and got her cell phone, which she had set on vibrate so as not to interrupt getting Bree to bed, and had several voice-mail messages in the queue. She walked into the bedroom to change clothes. Mrs. Sullivan next door would come stay with Bree while she went to the station. She hated to wake the old woman at that hour, but her mother was too far away and it would waste precious time. The precinct’s line was busy, no doubt reporters digging for a story and family members calling to see if their loved one was killed in action.

  As she put on her clothes, she saw through the window that a police car was downstairs, parked at an angle facing the curb. Cat ran to the living room to get a better view. The rain on the window blurred the outside world, but she could see well enough to tell there was no activity around the car. The cruiser’s headlights were on and the front doors were both open. From her vantage she couldn’t see the driver’s face, but his arm was slumped to his side, fingers dangling a few inches above the street. Then she noticed the other arm laying on the street, its owner obscured by the car.

  “What the hell is going on?” Cat whispered to herself.

  Maggie started barking and clawed at Bree’s door.

  “Not now, Maggie.”

  She heard a crash in Bree’s bedroom and her child’s scream. Cat didn’t even remember opening the door; the scene before her was instantaneous: shattered fire-escape window, bits of glass like stars strewn about the carpet, rain and wind streaming in through the billowing drapes, and a strange swarthy man hoisting her daughter by the arm.

  “Ah, the lady of the house.” His smile was yellow. His long black hair billowed behind him.

  Maggie rushed past Cat and lunged at the intruder, who dropped the girl to protect his throat. Cat scooped up her daughter and rushed into the hallway and turned right toward the front door. She skidded to a stop. Blocking the exit was the largest, ugliest man she’d ever seen. He lumbered toward her. Cat bolted the opposite way through the hall into the master bedroom at the end. She slammed the door behind her and locked it, well aware that it bought mere seconds. She heard a crack from Bree’s room—Maggie whimpered and went silent.

  Cat laid her daughter on the bed and began rummaging through her armoire at the far end of the room. She threw shoebox after shoebox over her shoulder, cursing every pair, until she picked up the one that weighed right. Inside was the Colt .32 caliber automatic pistol Cal had bought at a gun show. Under his supervision, she had fired it a dozen times at the Orchard Beach range but was now having trouble remembering the steps. She didn’t even know if it was loaded. Cat jumped and almost fumbled the weapon when a large hand smashed through the door. She remembered the safety, snapped the catch and aimed at the door. Hinges and wood flew apart. Cat held her breath and fired.

  CHAPTER 6

  SAVING STRAY CATS

  Seth summed up the day’s events and concluded his life had been better before Lelani entered it.

  This morning, he had been a photographer with a home, friends, and a job. Now, his home and job were gone, his roommate was dead, and none of his friends wanted anything to do with him. His life was in danger, he was fleeing a crime scene, leaving behind a decapitated cop and an abundance of his own blood, hair, and scraped skin all over the combat zone. Add to that, he was riding on a city bus with an unconscious police officer kidnapped from the crime scene and a woman who, among other things, refused to ever sit down.

  Even now, she stood in the open corner reserved for wheelchairs, despite plenty of available seats. The driver and few passengers were oddly oblivious to Officer MacDonnell propped up on the bench, even after Lelani carried him aboard slung over her shoulder.

  Seth nearly jumped out of his skin when the cop’s radio blared, “Officer MacDonnell, please respond!” The few passengers in the bus looked around for the sound. Lelani searched the radio for the off button. The radio blared again and Seth jumped in to turn it off for her.

  Seth stood up and began to pace.

  “Stay close to me,” Lelani said.

  Seth wanted anything but to stay close to her. It was hard for him to believe that just a few hours earlier he had entertained notions of shooting her for a centerfold; that she would be his ticket to the big time like Playboy or Maxim. The longer he stayed with her, the more things unraveled. She was getting weirder by the hour. Earlier, she had insisted they wait until post-rush hour before taking the subway to the Bronx, citing lack of space in the cars. Then, she would only stand in the area between the port and starboard doors because the seats were “too thin.” At 110th Street, a group of Hispanic teens came abo
ard and began making catcalls at all the young women. Seth had suggested moving into the next car. She refused. They continued harassing girls down the line until they came to Lelani. The tallest of them only reached her shoulders, but they had numbers. After one of them ran his finger down her arm, Lelani put her hand up, palm facing the hooligans, and in a foreign tongue, sang a verse from the most beautiful lullaby Seth had ever heard. The youths fell asleep where they stood, piled atop each other. The car erupted in applause. Lelani had spotted a baseball bat sticking out from under one of the teenagers’ coats and handed it to Seth; a bad omen.

  The bat! Seth remembered. He had left it at the crime scene; add another set of fingerprints for the forensics experts.

  He studied the bus passengers: an old Hispanic woman in a maid’s smock, a teenage couple making out, a tired construction worker, and a mother with her young daughter. None of them paid him any attention despite his overt gaze. It was as though he weren’t there.

  Lelani touched the rubber strip that signaled a stop request. The bus pulled over at the next stop, but nobody got up. Seth saw the driver searching the rearview mirror for someone getting off. After a moment, he resumed the route.

  Seth watched her study the advertisements as the bus headed up Pelham Parkway. The babies were in at the Bronx Zoo, demonstrated by the bronzed webbed baby shoes of some exotic bird; Dr. Rajashkharappa guaranteed he could end your foot pain for only sixty dollars; and the language institute could teach immigrants English in only six months, provided they could read the ad to begin with.

  Lelani hit the rubber strip again, and seemed amused by the sound of the bell. Seth studied her and realized a change in himself. Through her eyes everything took on a fresh perspective, as though the most obvious things were new and exotic. Sometimes she came off like a genius. But earlier, they had passed a street construction site and the pipes and wires beneath the street had enthralled her. “Everything flows here,” she had said. Her outlook forced Seth to reconsider things he’d often taken for granted. Although a novel feeling, it wasn’t worth going to prison for. Now, Seth needed a place to stay until he could sort out the mess that had become his life. Beyond that, he couldn’t care less if he ever saw her again.

  “Please signal a stop,” Lelani asked.

  Seth slapped the strip.

  As before, Lelani effortlessly picked up Officer MacDonnell and carried him off the bus. The driver shouted for whoever to “Cut that out!”

  Lelani handed a fold-out transit map of New York to Seth.

  “Find Mayflower Avenue,” she said.

  Seth pointed the way.

  They passed Italian bakeries and delis, bodegas, dry cleaners, and Korean grocers, all gated shut at that late hour. A bar’s canned music spilled onto the street along with a few stumbling patrons. The vibe was less claustrophobic than in Seth’s neighborhood. Even in a cold drizzle at this time of night, Avenue A would be jumping with partygoers, diners, bar hoppers, dealers, addicts, musicians, artists, police, and transients. At the time Alphabet City had teemed with the denizens of eastern and southern Europe, huddled in rear tenements, the tranquil street they currently walked on had been farmland. This was where people who craved a slower pace came to settle. All the better, Seth thought. No one around to question their business.

  “So these guys we fought,” Seth said while they walked, “they blew up my apartment and killed Joe?”

  “They thought Joe was you. It was a sloppy job.”

  “They’re not … normal.”

  “‘Normal’ is a relative term.”

  “I mean, they’re freaks.”

  “The swordsman is human. At least biologically.”

  So it would come down to space aliens. She gave off that “mother ship” vibe.

  “A desert warrior, probably Verakhoon,” she finished.

  “So what planet did the other two come from?”

  She threw him a furrowed glance to imply he was speaking gibberish. “The big one is likely descended from frost giants. I’m sure even you noted his size.”

  “Frost giant? Like from an ice planet?”

  “Star systems are too far apart to make travel between them practical. The odds of even a generational vessel completing a mission are approximately twenty-seven million, four hundred eighty-three thousand to one.”

  “That a fact?” Seth checked her ears for points.

  “Is there something wrong?” Lelani asked.

  “Never mind. What about the little gray guy?”

  “He’s part troll. Trolls are underground dwellers—excellent night vision, highly sensitive to light. Their skin is a strange hybrid of clay and organic flesh. It can bend and stretch to fantastic proportions, a trait developed to survive in their cramped universe. Their bones are soft, like cartilage, and a hormone they release at will makes their muscles, organs, and ligaments as malleable as putty. The ooze on their skin is a runoff of this process. I think it originates from their bone marrow. It’s valued by magic users as a catalyst for spells. It’s also extremely flammable, which is not a problem when you live in damp underground caves.”

  “Aren’t you lil’ Ms. Encyclopedia Freakanica?” Lelani ignored the snub. Seth realized that she believed everything she was saying. “Why would anyone have sex with a troll?” he continued.

  “Most mixed breeds are not the result of consensual sex. There are stringent laws in almost every society about racial purity. To be half of one race is to risk ostracism from both. All living beings are naturally suspicious of things not quite like them. Years of war, however, have bent and broken the rules of…”

  Lelani halted at a highway overpass. “Are we going the right way?” She took the map from Seth, studied it and groaned. She turned right and resumed walking. Seth hurried after her.

  “You can be a little nicer. I don’t need to be here.”

  “Where would you go?” she said.

  “Anywhere. It’s a free country. I have a life, you know.”

  “You had a life. Those ‘freaks’ are looking for you.”

  “Not for anything I did.”

  “You constitute a threat.”

  “I’m a porn photographer. The only thing I threaten is good taste and decency. Maybe I should take my chances on my own.”

  “Suit yourself. As long as you’re with me, though, you can maintain the illusion that you are not friendless, homeless, and penniless.”

  Lelani was right. With her, there was shelter, more snippets about his past, and the possibility that in a weak moment she might sleep with him. This limbo of aiding her was better than what awaited without her. For the moment.

  They approached Mayflower Avenue and turned the corner toward Cal’s home.

  “What are we going to tell this guy’s wife?” Seth asked.

  “I don’t know. She complicates matters.”

  “You have to tell her something. You said yourself all this will cause problems for his family. You should warn her about the circus freaks.”

  “I didn’t mean it complicated things for her. I was talking about his family in Aandor.”

  “He’s got two wives?”

  “Not quite. Captain MacDonnell comes from a very respected family of low noble stock. The higher nobility traditionally seek unions with MacDonnell’s family for children not destined to inherit their fathers’ titles. One such union was arranged with Lord Godwynn’s child. I think her name is Chryslantha. This is a very important match for Cal. She is Godwynn’s firstborn daughter; her dowry is huge and it includes property adjacent to the MacDonnells’ ancestral lands. The union would elevate the MacDonnells in the aristocracy. But his marriage here constitutes a breach of contract between the families. This will cause problems for his father. At the very least, it sullies their excellent reputation. He will have to repudiate his American wife.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to repudiate her? Hell, what if he doesn’t want to go back to your ‘Magic Kingdom’?”

  Lelani turned
sullen. She struck Seth as the type who liked to have every angle covered, and maybe she hadn’t considered this possibility.

  “Callum is captain of the Guard for Archduke Athelstan, High Regent of Aandor,” she said. “He’s here in service to his lord. Once he remembers who he truly is, he’ll perform his duty and I will follow his orders.”

  Seth got the impression she was trying to convince herself.

  “What if he’s like me and can’t remember?” he asked.

  “There’s a spell I can use to help him remember.”

  “Aha! You can’t keep track of the big gaping holes in your own story. Why haven’t you used this spell on me if I’m your guy?”

  “There’s an aura around you. You’re inoculated from magic. It’s an extremely elaborate enchantment. Captain MacDonnell does not have this barrier.”

  “An aura, huh? It’s a little convenient for you that I can’t remember all this crap because I put some whammy on myself.”

  “You did not ‘whammy’ yourself, Seth. The spell protecting you is beyond either of our abilities. I wouldn’t know where to begin removing it. I’m not even sure I should. Right now, it serves you better than your memory would. Soon, I’ll have the captain back, and the burden of leading this mission will be off my shoulders.”

  “You’d better hope his loyalty to this lord is as strong as you think it is.”

  “It has to be. The fate of my people is tied to House Athelstan. As it falls, so does my race. Others, too. Cal’s family would have no place in a world ruled by Farrenheil. The enemy wishes to control every aspect of their subjects’ lives. Dissidents and scholars disappear and are never heard from again. They use magic to torture and kill. Nations like this exist everywhere, even here. Aandor, for all its flaws, stands in opposition to this type of regime.”