First Crossing

By Tyla Grey

Usually, Eve liked Saturdays. By the time
patients had made it as far as her weekend sessions on make-up and skin care,
most of the painful surgery was over. Their scars were beginning to fade, and
they were generally feeling a lot more cheerful about their prospects.

Her classes always had a waiting list, now that word had
spread about Eve Prentice’s magic touch with skin care. Nobody could understand
why people under her care healed faster, or why their scars became almost
invisible, and Eve pretended that it was just a mix of positive visualization
and special skin cream blends.

She would never be able to explain what she did anyway. She
couldn’t explain it to herself.

Today’s morning class had been one of the best yet: full of
laughter and optimism. It should have been a great start to the weekend.
Instead, Eve was bleakly certain that she’d be lucky if she survived it.

Something was
off
about today. She’d felt it from the
minute she woke up, and she was never wrong. Until today, though, her
predictions had been about bad things happening to someone else. What worried
her this time was that some calamity was barreling straight at
her.
Worse, she had no idea what it was. Not a single clue.

How could you head off disaster if you didn’t know what it
was? Or where it was coming from?

She shut the clinic door behind her, wheeled her heavy case
down the ramp and heaved it into the trunk of her Chevy Malibu. The lid of the
trunk closed with a dull ‘thunk’ that seemed to echo her state of mind
perfectly. Eve leaned against the car to stare up into the sky, as if there
might be some answers written up there in that cloudless expanse of blue.

She did a quick body scan. No hairs standing on end; no
prickle of warning, so there was no immediate threat. No feeling of unwellness,
no unusual symptoms, so it wasn’t physical.

Deep inside… that was different. That’s where she felt it;
that and that strange connection with the
otherness
of life that she had
never been able to explain.

She quartered the sky above her and checked each quadrant as
far as her senses could reach, and then did the same for the richness of the
earth under the concrete. Nothing lurking above or below.

Well, standing here wasn’t going to provide her with any
answers. She ran through her options. Go home, get changed, swim the length of
Rockaway beach and back. The freezing water of the Pacific was just what she
needed to focus her mind. She’d have the ocean to herself; very few people
could put up with the temperature the way she could.

Or maybe go to the gym and work out then do forty laps. Get
changed and go for a fast, sweaty run. Yeah, a run
followed
by a swim.

Truth to tell, she was getting tired of the frantic physical
activity. She felt like a scared animal, sensing an earthquake coming and
running around in circles looking for shelter. It didn’t really matter what she
did, she wasn’t going to be able to outrun
it
.

Damn, damn, damn.

She unlocked the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel,
staring at the rows of cars in front of her. On impulse, she pulled down the
visor and peered up at her image in the mirror. Pale grey eyes, almost silver,
looked back at her from under white-blond bangs. 

Normal. She looked completely normal. People used to have
difficulty coming to terms with that, when they found out that Eve shared her
grandmother Alice’s gift of precognition. It was as if they thought she should
look a little bit odd; maybe wear clothing decorated with stars and moons to
fit their idea of a Mystic Meg. Not an ordinary-looking girl clad in jeans and
a scoop-necked t-shirt.

So why do they want to hunt me down?

The thought came out of nowhere, slashing through her mind
like the blade of a dagger. Eve blinked.

Hunt her down? Where had that come from?

Abruptly, in her mind, she saw a quick flash of a girl
fleeing, shadows racing after her. It lasted only a millisecond. But it wasn’t
like her normal visions; it lacked clarity. And she knew the girl was
her.

She slapped up the visor, her heart thumping. This had never
happened before; never. Now she had some idea of the emotions people felt, on
the rare occasions she had trusted them enough to warn them. A hopeless sense
that something was coming and it wasn’t good, and you had to just hope like
hell you could survive it.

Eve turned the key and started up the Chevy. She cast one
more look around, saw nothing, and headed out into the traffic. Time to go
home. What she needed was a dose of her father’s solid practicality.

***

She was barely halfway into the driveway when the sense of
dread returned, thudding into her chest like a physical punch. Eve
instinctively hit the brakes, and sat gripping the wheel of her car, staring at
the pleasant little white cottage in front of her. The house she’d lived in all
her life. The house her father
had lived in for most of
his
life.

Why was she afraid to go in?

She sent out a feeler, and instantly set aside her first
concern: that something had happened to her father. No, that wasn’t it. He was
in there, and he was okay.

But
something
was wrong.

Eve glanced from side to side. The big oak tree that shaded
the concrete car pad was the same as always. Nothing sinister lurked behind the
sturdy trunk, or in the leafy branches. The mailbox gleamed in the early
afternoon sun.

All was quiet.

She turned off the ignition, and stepped out of the car.
Whatever awaited her, she couldn’t run away from it. She knew that as surely as
she knew her own name.

The door opened just as she reached it, and her father stood
there in his soft old Levis and a familiar butter yellow golf shirt. He looked
at her, his grey eyes full of pain, weariness in every line of his face. He
looked ten years older than he had when she left that morning. He reached out
and drew her to him with his work-roughened hands, and hugged her tightly.

The fear intensified. “Dad…?” 

From behind him, a voice spoke. “Hello, Eve.”

Eve went stock still. The voice was deep and resonant, and
hinted of deep, secret places in the world and limitless skies. It slid into
her mind like honey, yet she was bone-chillingly afraid of what it might bring
into her life.

It didn’t sound like the voice of a stranger. On some
soul-deep level she
knew
this man.

Eve gently eased her father away, first making eye contact
and patting his face reassuringly, and only then looked past him to the man
standing in the entrance to the living room.

Warrior
. His massive body was clad in deceptively
simple dark clothing; a short-sleeved black tee-shirt that strained over his
slab of a chest, and black cargo pants. She knew those clothes concealed
weapons; she sensed steel in three different places on his body. Blades… and
other weapons she didn’t have a name for.

He stared right back at her, his gaze skimming her body and
then meeting her eyes with an unblinking stare. Black eyebrows arched over
moss-green eyes in a face that looked like it had been sculpted with the blade
of an ax. His dark hair was carelessly tied back with a leather thong. Scary.

“Come in,” he said, gesturing to the sitting room, for all
the world as though he
owned the house. “We have a lot to discuss.”

Eve took a deep breath. She had never been one to deny
reality. Both her ability to peek into the future and her work with accident
victims had taught her that nobody ever knew what lay around the corner. Not
one of those shattered bodies ever expected calamity to befall them.

Her future had come to meet her. Or her past had caught up
with her. Or both.

“Eve, I’m so sorry,” said her father, touching her arm. “I
never wanted –“

“It’s okay, Dad. Whatever it is, it’s okay.” She gave their
visitor a sharp nod and walked around him into the living room, taking a seat
on the comfortable old leather settee. Absently, her hand caressed the plump
cushion beside her while she narrowed her eyes at him. “I know you. Or I
have
known you.”

“Yes.” He leaned back, his green eyes piercing. “How much do
you remember?”

Eve gave a brittle laugh, trying to control the tumult of
emotion in her chest. “Nothing
.
That’s it. You’re somehow familiar, but
you’re not part of my conscious memories.” She studied him carefully. “Who are
you?”

“Hunter.”

“Is that your
name,
or your job?”

She detected a flare of amusement in his eyes, although his
face didn’t move a muscle. “It is my name.”

“Huh.” She regarded him warily. “Okay. Hunter, then. Tell
me,
should
I remember something?”

Beside her, she heard her father sigh. Hunter caught the
sound and his eyes flicked to the older man. Eve followed his gaze, to see her
father now staring at the floor, his hands linked between open knees. “Tell
her,” he said tonelessly. “I had hoped this day would never come; that Eve
would live out her life here. That we both would.”

That sounded less than promising. Ignoring her increased
heart rate and a growing dread, she squeezed his knee and turned her attention
back to Hunter. “Go on.”

“You know me because I brought you here when you were just a
few hours old,” he said. “Your mother ordered me to accompany you. Your safety
was her only concern.”

My mother?
For a moment, Eve stopped breathing. What
did he mean, a few
hours
old? According to her father, her mother had
died when she was a babe of three months. Why had he lied? What could her
mother have been protecting her from? And… the thought almost made her heart
stop – was her mother still alive?

Eve put a hand to her forehead, not knowing which question
to ask first. Maybe that’s why Hunter was here; people were after her mother.
Maybe now they wanted to hunt Eve down, too.

That phrase again.
Hunt her down.

His
name was Hunter.

Should she be worried?

With an effort, she yanked her mind back to focus on him.
“Is she –” She moistened her lips. “My mother…are you saying she’s alive? Did she
send you here?”

“She’s alive, yes.” His words were decisive; his tone even.
He didn’t even seem to realize that his words were smashing her life asunder.
“My coming here was a joint decision: your mother and… others. They have
learned that you are in danger here. There is no choice but to take you away.”

“Hang on there,” said Eve, instantly annoyed by his
presumption. “There’s always a choice. I’m not some soft, helpless female, you
know. Tell me what’s going on and
I’ll
let you know if I want to leave.”

A muscle moved in his jaw. “With all due respect, Eve –”

Eve rolled her eyes, her irritation growing. “Oh,
please
. 
Anytime someone says ‘With all due respect’, I know that means they’re about to
patronize the hell out of me. Believe me, I know how to take care of myself. I
do martial arts, boxing, and hey, I can even shoot. So your reasons for wanting
me out of here better be good.”

He sat looking at her for a long moment, and although his
expression remained completely calm, Eve could tell that he was keeping a lid
on his temper. When he finally spoke, his measured tones made more of an impact
than a shout.  “Oh, I’d say my reasons are good.” His voice grew softer, yet
more menacing. “You might be able to handle yourself well in this world, Eve,
but you have no idea of the kind of beings that are hunting you right now. You
won’t even see them coming.  How well equipped are you to deal with beings that
can enchant you with one gaze, and make you go with them willingly? Or who can
dematerialize and attack you from behind?”