“‘If
you can?’ said Jesus. ‘Everything is possible for one who believes.’”—Mark 9:23
(NIV)
“Go
forth and set the world on fire.”—St Ignatius of Loyola
Chapter 1
FAITH AND TRUST are funny things.
They are the kind of feelings that can make you believe in
something or someone even when all logic and reason tells you that it ain’t
possible. Now, I understand that it takes a leap of faith to believe my words
when I explain that I see things beyond what most would think is normal.
My name is Aeron Lorelei and you could say that I’m a little
different. I can tell a person’s life from their jewelry and I can read other
people whether I like it or not. I also have the added bonus of displacing
ailments, healing, and sometimes, I can even wound a person.
You see, when someone touches me, I learn more about them than I
would ever wish to. I will state that it ain’t a voluntary thing but I was born
with my burdens. I tried to block them out and to fit in but, well, that really
didn’t work. From the age of sixteen I spent a decade locked up in a mental
institution and I thought that was pretty bad. But, uh uh, nope, it all got
worse when I was released. My hometown really didn’t appreciate my
re-appearance and it took the faith of one particular person to help me through
all the chaos that happened. Her name is Renee Black, or maybe I should use her
full title, Commander Renee Black of the Criminal Investigations Group.
What’s weird, in a funny way, is that she didn’t like me one bit
when we met and let me tell you, the feeling was entirely mutual. Yet, when all
kinds of darkness was threatening to swallow not only me but the folks in town,
Renee was the one who pulled me up, dusted me off, and got me to believe in
myself. I trusted her faith in me.
To cut a novel to a nugget, I ended up being hailed some kind of
hero for using my burdens to stop a killer. And, for my efforts, I ended up
with my jaw wired up for what felt like forever.
It’s real strange to think that I left my hometown of Oppidum not
long after to join up with the Criminal Investigations Group, or as we call it,
CIG. I spent six months in a kinda boot camp with my boss, Ursula Frei, or, as
I call her, Scary. Trying to turn someone like me into some kind of elite
operative wasn’t an easy task and
being
that poor soul was a darn sight
harder. I was still aching in places where there should not be muscles.
Somehow, I’d managed to pass the requirement, as Frei called it, but I got the
feeling that she just gave up on a bad job. It’s pretty impossible to be
stealthy when you stand at well over six foot and wouldn’t look out of place in
a WWE ring.
So, there I was on the next phase of my training. Renee was in
charge of this part as it was all about being a protection officer. I was kinda
hoping that she was going to be a little less brutal. I hoped.
Now, Renee and I hadn’t seen each other since Frei got her
sadistic mitts on me. I’d had to live in barracks on the CIG base so I was
pretty much over-excited about getting to see, not only a friendly face, but a
person who got me . . . well, as much as anybody could.
For some unknown reason, Renee had complete faith and trust in me.
They were sentiments that I sure-as-shoots returned. At least that’s what I’d
figured. Little did I know that what followed would test every single bit of that
theory.
So, as I said, faith and trust are funny things. They ain’t easy
to come by and they can get destroyed faster than a tornado can twirl.
How deep was my trust in Renee? How strong was my faith in her?
And would they still remain when everything in front of me told me I was wrong?
Chapter 2
THE CIG TEAM dropped me off at the side of the highway, with my
pack, sometime around noon on a freezing January day. The reason I say sometime
was that they’d placed a hood over my head to transport me and had dumped me at
the side of the road without even taking the hood off.
As I fought with the sack-mask, I could hear a car approach and
felt a familiar presence in that vehicle. I grinned. Renee. I released myself
from darkness and squinted into the glaring winter sunshine.
The car stopped opposite and I grabbed for my pack, wondering if I
should go and join her. Wait, no, was I meant to do some kind of military
parade? I’d never quite got all the protocol in “boot camp,” and when you
didn’t get protocol, you had to do a forfeit. I had two extra inches of muscle
on my arms from all the push-ups.
Renee saved me from my deliberation by getting out of the car.
Unlike the bodybuilding berets I’d spent the last few months with, she wasn’t
in military fatigues. Nope, Renee was in jeans, a turtle-neck sweater, and
bomber jacket. Her blonde hair was shorter than I remembered, kinda funky. She
was wearing aviators. Man, she was cool. I looked down at myself still in
fatigues. Of all the things to describe how I looked, cool wasn’t it.
“I didn’t get told to wear nothin’ different,” I blurted out as
she strolled toward me. I had no idea why I felt so jittery.
Her frown dipped below the ridge of her sunglasses as she prowled
up to me. “It’s just not good enough, Lorelei.”
I snapped to attention with her tone and she paraded around me.
“You have scuff marks on your boots, your shirt is hanging out on
one side, and what do you call this?” Her hand ruffled through the back of my
hair.
I tensed at the sound of her words. It was
one thing for Ursula “Grouchy” Frei to give me a dressing-down but Renee doing
it was painful. My throat got all dry and my skin sprung a leak. “I . . . Um .
. . I—”
“You what?”
I wondered if I’d lost my burdens altogether. I mean, I had felt
her coming and I was sure that she had been pleased to see me. Even her aura
had started the little light show it performed whenever she was talking to me.
Frei had broken my antennae, I was sure of it.
“You look like a mess, Lorelei,” Renee continued when I didn’t—couldn’t—answer.
“You think this is a vacation?”
I shook my head.
“You think that the protection corps is the easy option?”
If I did, I sure didn’t now. “No.”
“No?” Renee walked around to stand in front of me. Her glasses
bounced the sunlight up into my eyes as she leaned in. “No?” Her frown
deepened. “No
what
, Lorelei?”
Oh, heck . . . what was she again? I shoved my hands in my pockets
trying to think.
Renee yanked them back out again.
She folded her arms.
With her eyes hidden, it was like she was wearing a mask. Her
stance said she meant business but her aura rippled with pinks and yellows
which swirled from her like wispy fingers toward me. Frei had broken me. I was
so confused.
“I asked you a question, Lorelei.”
Snapping my eyes to the distance, I bit my lip. “What did you ask
again?”
“Drop and give me fifty.” Her voice was so curt, so mean.
I dropped to the ground ready to start push-ups when I heard it:
Laughter. Warm, gentle laughter.
“What did she do to you?” she asked through soft chuckles. Her
fingers curled around my bicep as she pulled me to my feet. “Where’s the
bad-ass attitude I met way back when?”
She drew her aviators down with her finger. Her nose crinkled up
with her laughter.
“You’re not mad?” Was she mad? Wasn’t she? Huh?
Her grey eyes gleamed with amusement. “I thought you figured that
out when you were watching my light show.”
“But you were saying . . . you said . . . I mean . . . but . . .
the push-ups?” My head hurt.
Her eyes filled with affection, with warmth. She opened her arms
and launched herself into me for a hug. “As if I’d ever do such a thing to you,
Dimwit.”
The sound of Nan, my grandmother’s, pet name hit like a wave of
warmth, vaporizing the tension that had been in place. I’d not even realized
how hunched my shoulders had been.
I squeezed Renee back, fighting the urge to cling to her. The
pinks and purples filled my vision even as I closed my eyes. Relief palpitated
through me. Heck, I’d missed her. “Never leave me with Franken-Frei
ever
again.”
I felt Renee rumble with laughter before she released me.
“Franken-Frei?”
“Yup,” I said with a grin, hoping she wouldn’t notice how mushy I
was. “I got everyone calling her it . . . behind her back.”
“I missed you,” Renee said, almost as if she were telling it to herself.
Boy was I glad to hear it. Still, I didn’t trust my voice enough
to speak. I could even feel the tears brimming. Clearly, I needed therapy.
Well,
more
therapy.
Her aura waved around like it was doing a happy dance. After a
second of silence she shook off whatever thought was in her mind and her aura
quietened down. “So, you ready for the real work?”
“Are you going to make me do push-ups?”
Renee squeezed my arm. “Aeron, if I make you do any more physical
training, there won’t be clothes to fit you.”
I followed her to the car, stowed my pack, and smiled at the fact
she’d already put the seat way back so I could actually get in.
“So, where are we going?” I asked as we set off down the endless
strip of road. There was nothing but frosty white on the sparse dirt either
side. “And where are we?”
Renee smiled. “Can’t tell you. But it’s going to take a while so
just relax.”
I stretched out my legs as much as the space would allow and
pulled open the top shirt buttons. Why anyone thought it was smart to look like
you were choking, I didn’t know.
“Probably a good idea if you ditch the fatigues,” Renee murmured
as she glanced at me. “You
have
got something else, right?”
“Jeans and a t-shirt,” I said.
“The
same
pair that I bought you in the summer?”
I looked down at my hands and Renee chuckled, her soft chuckle
once more.
“What am I going to do with you, Lorelei?” She grinned at me. “You
must be the only woman on the planet who only owns a handful of clothes.”
“Not like there was much point when General-Nit-picker-Frei had me
crawling around in mud all day.” I sighed. “You know what happens when I’m in
water.”
“She made you do that course?” Renee scowled so much that her
glasses slid down a little.
“Made my jaw feel a lot better though,” I said, rubbing my chin.
“You could have drowned!”
I shrugged. Renee had seen my healing in action. It was a weird
thing that happened when I stood in running water. It removed all the
afflictions from people that were stored up in my hands and it seemed to fix me
too. The problem was, it sucked me under. Not a clever thing to do on my own.
“She pulled me out,” I offered. “She was furious though.”
“Yes, you probably messed up her hair.”
I raised an eyebrow at the snarky remark. “Do I detect mutiny?”
“No,” Renee said. “Just realism. It takes her ages to do her
hair.”
I stared out at the barren landscape, trying
to get some clue as to where we were. No mountains, no foliage, just frosted
grasslands and a couple of rocks. If it had been warmer I’d have figured it
could be a desert or someplace. I sighed. I didn’t have one iota, it looked
like the middle of nowhere. Thank goodness I didn’t have to navigate in my new
role as a CIG secret service . . . well . . . whatever I was. What use I was
going to be was yet to be revealed to me.
“Have you heard from your mother?”
I turned at Renee’s tentative tone. “Why? What has she done now?”
“She hasn’t done anything,” Renee answered, her eyebrows rising
over the rims of her glasses. “I just thought that perhaps she had checked up
on her daughter.”
“Ha!”
Renee jumped and flashed me a startled look.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, staring down at my pants. Maybe it was still
kinda raw. “Considering I never knew that she existed up until last year, I’d
be surprised if she can remember me.”
“Aeron.” Renee squeezed my leg. I looked up to see her gentle
smile. “You know her reasons and if you’re going to have to answer to her,
you’re going to have to get used to her being in your life.”
“No,” I said. Uh, uh was I getting used to nothing. She abandoned
me. She took off and left. I’d done my good daughter routine. “You take the
orders and do all the protection stuff. I’m just there to cause chaos.”
“You’re there to use your skills.” Renee slowed the car. She took
her glasses off and fixed me with her intense gaze. “You’re an important part
of the team.”
“Why?” I knew Renee had missed me but I was nobody special. No
doubt my mother had just wanted me out of the way so she could live in Nan’s
cabin. “Mommy dearest is the one who sees the future, you protect the person in
question—”
“POI,” Renee interjected. “Person of Interest.”
“Yeah, them too,” I said. “And Franken-Frei and the
I’m-not-at-liberty-to-say crew figure out what is going to happen and stop it.”
I stared out at the sparse nothingness. It seemed to echo how I felt about
everything. Lost in a wilderness. “You worked well without me before—”
“We didn’t.” I looked at her and she nodded, her eyes blazing. The
rims of her irises caught the light, the edges tinted with cyan. “I mean it,
Aeron. We had great intentions but you know better than to place all your
assumptions on visions.”
I winced even at the mention of them. I got visions sometimes, all
fire and raging infernos burning through into my mind. My mother was welcome to
them.
“That’s not the point,” I said, trying to shake off the shiver
creeping up my spine. “There’s no real place for me. Sure I may be able to fix
you up if you really need it but this,” I motioned to the fatigues, “is never
going to work and you know it.”
Her blonde eyebrows dipped, sandy-colored strands of her fringe
flopped into her eyes. “Then why are you even trying?”
I sighed. “Because I
have
to. My mother blackmailed me into
it or have you forgotten?” What could I have said? No? My father adored her and
had waited his whole life for her to crawl back into town. He needed someone to
help raise my half-sisters. It was my fault they had lost their mother. My
fault. What could I do?
“You could have said no,” Renee said, her aura darkening.
“If I did that,” I shot back. “I wouldn’t get to see my favorite
head shrinker now, would I?”
Renee laughed. “That’s
Doctor
head shrinker to you.”
When we met, she was undercover as a psychiatrist. Sometimes, she
was still that doctor lurking below the surface. Lilia, my mother, was a hero
to her and most of the CIG people. For some reason that made Renee want to
close the chasm between my mother and I. I’d tried to explain a million times
that it wasn’t that I didn’t like Lilia, more that I didn’t know her. She had
abandoned me and my dad to go play hero. That made me mad sometimes. I tried
not to feel that way but I did. And, I was sick of pretending otherwise.
“Stop it,” I said as Renee’s energy flickered. “If we are meant to
end up like an episode of
The Waltons
, we will.”
As always, my reading Renee made her nervous and her fingers
gripped the wheel tighter.
“I forgot how freaky it feels around you.”
I patted her on the hand. I got the flash of where we were and
where we were headed. “Well, we got a ten-hour road trip to get you
re-acquainted.”
“Hey!” She protested, rubbing her hand from the static shock.
I grinned, relaxing back into the seat. “Missed you too, Doc.” I
closed my eyes. “Missed you too.”