Dark Daze (10 page)

No greenish yellow teeth, no black hole eyes,
no claw-like hands. How could he have been so abysmally stupid?

Ian rolled off him and sat up.

“Sorry, man.” He shoved a hand through his
sweat-moistened hair. “I thought you were someone else.”

The little man still sat there, holding his
wallet open to Ian, tears streaming down his face, and holding the
bottle of blood red face paint in the crook of his arm. When Ian
didn’t move toward the money, his unfortunate victim got up and
raced out the door, clutching the bottle.

Ian glanced around. Everyone in the store
gaped at him. Even his mother, who stood above him, her basket
filled to the brim with paint choices. Two large smears of paint
just over her lip gave her the appearance of having a moustache
above her wide mouth. She held out a hand to him—the same fingers
which had unknowingly applied the paint. If his heart weren’t still
hammering in his chest, and if he weren’t so embarrassed by his
irrational behavior, he would have laughed. It seemed like a daffy
cartoon duck had come out from one of his childhood cartoons and
painted a mustache on her.

Brie came to his side, eyes wide, and
extended her hand as well.

“Sorry.” He nodded to the woman behind the
counter, who gawked at him as though he’d just shot her dog. “I’ll
pay for the bottle he took.”

Ian picked up the bottles and rose under his
own power. Everyone in the store continued to stare at him, as the
man had done. He wished he could yell at them and make them stop,
but this
was
his fault. Perhaps he deserved a lot more than
just the embarrassment and guilt that came with jumping a harmless
birthday party clown.

Things slowly returned to normal in the
store, and Brie helped him clean the mess, her hand occasionally
brushing his comfortingly. He stood there while his mother walked
to the register to pay for her purchases, but the saleswoman must
have informed her of her unorthodox makeup because she rushed off
toward the restroom at the back of the store.

After righting the books, Ian grabbed a
Louvre compilation with the Mona Lisa on the cover and walked up to
the register. Brie at his side, he paid for the book and the bottle
of paint his victim had taken.

“Really sorry about the scene.” He waved a
hand toward the aisle where he’d grappled the unsuspecting man. “I
tripped.”

<><><>

Ian sat in the car, waiting for his mother to
exit the store. He could never remember blushing before in his
life, but he was sure he was now. His cheeks blazed. What an
idiot.

“Black hole eyes…toothy jaws…” He turned
toward Brie, crossing his arms. “I wonder if the Psych major
working on her Master’s degree would still have gone on a date with
me if she knew I was a certifiable nut. Then again, maybe it makes
me even more appealing. You can psychoanalyze me.”

“Exactly. You’re going to be my thesis
statement for my doctorate.” She lifted an eyebrow and smirked.

“At least I’ll serve some useful purpose once
I’m chained to a wall to keep me from attacking entertainers on
their way to children’s birthday parties.” How could she keep
trying to improve his mood after what he’d done?

“Oh, it won’t be so bad.” Brie’s grin
deepened into a smile. “I’ll just get you a dog collar. You can
come with me wherever I go.”

He uncrossed his arms, placing them on the
wheel. “I guess it wouldn’t be
so
bad.”

“Of course I’d have to call you Spot.”

“Okay now, I draw the line at Spot.”

“How about Sparky?” Brie leaned in, wiggling
her eyebrows.

Ian shrugged. “Maybe, but you’d have to show
me an awful lot of affection for that to work.”

She ran a hand through his hair and kissed
his cheek.

“I missed you last night, Sparky,” she purred
in his ear.

Thoughts of the clown, the door, and the
black hole eyes fled. In their place came visions of what he would
have done last night, had his mother not been so old fashioned as
to faint dead if he’d slept in the same room with his girlfriend.
He turned toward her, taking her arms in his palms, and pulled her
to him. Brow furrowed, she stared at a spot on the dash.

Ian let her go. “What is it?”

“I just realized something.” She placed a
finger to her lips. “I’d been dismissing them as strange misfires
of my gift, but now I realize what they mean.”

Ian’s brow matched hers. “What? What
happened?”

“I’ve been having the strangest flips lately.
I visit a woman reading a novel. At first I thought she would be in
trouble, but then the flips became mundane.” Brie twisted in her
seat as much as her belt would allow. “But the most recent one
seemed the most mundane, until the novel said what you were doing
this morning.”

“What?”

“I knew you would be in the kitchen having
waffles with your mother.” She glanced up at him. “I thought it was
a strange coincidence, but I just remembered something else. Once,
there was a
thing
in the shadows. A set of black hole eyes.
They seemed to suck the light out of the room. I’d convinced myself
it was imagination, but…”

She shuddered, and his reply caught in his
throat. A black BMW waited in a parking spot near the door of the
art store. The inside of the car sat bathed in shadows from the
steering wheel to the back. Hands, or claws to be more specific,
closed on the steering wheel. The BMW’s engine revved.

Ian’s gaze flew from the car to the store
where, rearranging several bags in her hands, his mother prepared
to open the door of the Arterium.

“It’s going to get her.” Ian hit the ignition
button. Stomped the gas. The truck’s tires squealed.

“What? Who?” Brie’s voice pitched high, and
she grabbed the seat to steady herself.

From behind him, Buster barked like mad. The
truck sped toward the Arterium. Ian’s heart pounded in his ears and
turned Brie’s screams into a low hum as his mother stepped away
from the door. Buster bit at Ian’s coat, tugging on his
shoulder.

The BMW drove past his mother, not even
swerving in her direction. It passed in front of the truck, and the
shadow, which had seemed to cover the inside of the car, lifted
just enough for him to see the two black hole eyes sucking the
light, despite it being daytime.

Brie’s foot kicked at his ankle. Ian blinked.
He was still barreling down the row of cars at full speed, heading
straight toward his mother.

And the entrance to the very big, very solid
building.

Ian stomped the breaks. Nearly stood on them.
The truck screeched to a halt and the smell of burning rubber
offended his nostrils. Pale as the canvases she clutched to her
chest, his mother stood near the hood of the truck, tremors
wracking her slight frame.

“Oh God.” Brie panted in the seat beside him.
The door clicked and harsh retching began.

Either he was going crazy, or he was in real
trouble, though he guessed it meant trouble no matter which way it
ended up. The monster had tried to make him run over his mother. He
had to get his mother and Brie somewhere safe. Until they were, he
posed a genuine danger to both women and maybe Buster too.

“Mom, get in.”

His mother’s color changed—white as milk to a
sallow green. Like an automaton, she moved to the passenger side
and climbed in the back. Buster whined and nuzzled her neck.

“Are you all right, dear?”

He ignored her, punching up his bank in his
i-com and transferring five hundred credits to his mother’s
account.

“I don’t know what happened back there, but
after what you say you saw in the Arterium, and what happened a
second ago, I think I should drive,” Brie said.

“I agree. You seem a little overwrought.” The
calm and understated sentence was a stark contrast to the fear
shining bright in her eyes. She must have thought he’d lost a few
sandwiches on the way to his picnic. And Brie was right, she should
drive.

“What did you see in the store?” His mother
gazed at Ian, when he climbed into the passenger seat. Buster leapt
into his lap. He forgave the forbidden action, knowing Buster must
be sensing the anxiety.

He turned to look at his mother’s worry-drawn
face.

“I’ve transferred five hundred credits. When
we’re done, I want you to take Buster and go away for a while.”

Buster whined and snuggled deeper into his
lap as though he understood Ian’s words and didn’t want to be left
behind.

“Don’t tell me where you’re going, I can’t
know. You’re in danger if you stay around me.” He waited for her
barrage of questions and protests to begin.

“What are you talking about? I am not going
anywhere. Not until you tell me what happened back there. Don’t
tell me the silly story from this morning had something to do with
this.”

Ian fisted his hands in his hair. “I’m not
sure. Maybe I’m nuts, but something was going to get you back
there. Or maybe nothing was. I don’t know. All I know is, you
aren’t safe around me, either of you, and I have to do something
about it.”

“I’m not going anywhere either. Not even if
you do tell me what this was all about,” Brie said. “But you better
start talking.”

He couldn’t let them get hurt. He’d only ever
had his mother. Together they’d weathered the lonely years while
women came and went because he couldn’t share his secrets. Now he
had Brie too, who was not just special in the same way he was, she
was extraordinary in so many more ways. He couldn’t lose either one
of them. Not when he might be the one causing it.

“I don’t even know what to tell you. It all
happened so fast. You have to go so I can figure this out. If we
can’t talk about this like adults, I’ll settle it like a child.
I’ll wait until you aren’t looking, and I’ll take off. It’s simple
but true; you can’t get hurt if you don’t know where I am.”

“No. Don’t do that. I’ll paint, and we’ll
talk when I’m done.” She eyed Brie and asked in a barely audible
whisper, “Should we drop her off somewhere?”

Ian shook his head. “It’s okay. She
knows.”

His mother’s eyes widened. “All right then.
We’ll talk when I’ve finished my painting.”

“And then you’ll go?” Ian asked.

“If there is a reason.” She nodded. “I do
know a place. I’ve wanted to visit there for ages.”

“Glad to hear it.” He’d begun to worry. If by
some miracle he was able to get her to leave, she would follow him
in a rented car. Now he just had to convince Brie to go, once he
had the information he needed from her. Something in him made him
think it would be harder than convincing his mother.

His mother held the paintbrush, her fingers
flying across the canvas. The frenzied disassociation he’d come to
recognize as her own form of premonition reminded him of the
conversation he’d had with Brie in the truck before he’d nearly
killed them all.

Brie walked into the room, hair wet and
pulled back in a bun. Ian turned to her and smiled. She looked
beautiful, even in the baby pink sweats and plain white t-shirt
they’d stopped to buy her on the way to his mother’s house.

“Tell me more about what you’ve seen in your
premonitions.”

“I’m not clairvoyant. Premonitions are like
seeing the future, which isn’t exactly what I do.” She took his
hand and walked to the overstuffed sofa. She sat, propping her feet
on the matching ottoman. “I live other people’s experiences. I’m
able to see what they see, hear what they think and say, and
sometimes I can know what they know, but only for the short time
while I’m in their head. For instance, Andrea has a Felix the Cat
clock. It was a gift, and though she hates it, she can’t bring
herself to get rid of it. And she has some really weird rituals
about reading.”

Ian didn’t want to ask what sorts of things
they might be. “Well, what have you experienced? Anything else
important, with hindsight being twenty-twenty and everything?”

“Let’s see.”

For some time, she tapped her lips, not
speaking, and Ian stared at the soft tendrils curving around her
face. One gently caressed her neck when she tilted her head. It was
as though her hair were trying to seduce him, calling his attention
to the soft hollow at the base of her neck, her gently protruding
collarbone, and the enticing mounds hidden beneath the modest
square neckline of the t-shirt.

A moment later, when she sat forward,
dropping her feet to the floor with a thump, Ian had forgotten what
they’d been talking about. He adjusted in his seat, his jeans
tighter than they had been only moments before. “What?”

“I said, I just realized something. All my
flips have led me to this moment.” She covered her open mouth with
her fingertips, which muffled her words. “I see the connections
now.”