SHIAM Conspiracy- Book 1 (17 page)

“And how is that?”

“Free spirited,” she said with a smile and
then broke into laughter.

Zak found her laugh delightful. Smiling to
himself, he said to her, “I must admit, you’re not exactly what I
would expect a Sister of the Seventh Circle to be like.”

That made her laugh all the more. Zak decided
he liked watching her laugh. It was intoxicating. Her eyes seemed
to sparkle, the golden flecks in them shimmering.

“The Sisters felt much the same way,” she
said. “Anyway, Reverend Mother arranged for me to be appointed to
the Institute as a paranormal researcher. I suspect my father was
in on it as well, in order to relieve him from the obligation of
trying to change me. I like it here well enough, but there are
times that I really miss home. There is nothing more beautiful than
the Mythnol Forest.”

Zak continued to watch her, his guilt over
past sins nibbling at him again.

Megan became aware of his steady gaze and her
laugh was nervous this time. “What did you expect, an old maid
veiled and robed?”

“Well,” he said. “I did expect someone a
little more...pious.”

“My father was hoping for that, too.” Her
smile turned almost sad. “He is like many of the older generation.
He believes the old ways are best and that they should be followed
out of respect for our heritage. How much do you know about the
Tah-Kna, anyway?”

“Not much,” he admitted. “Never been very
religious.”

“Now that remark shows that you know nothing
about it,” Megan said, turning another corner. “Tah-Kna is not a
religion. Not in the way Humans think of religion, anyway. Do you
not know anything about Elvish culture?”

“Yeah, I know some,” he said defensively.

He kept Megan in his peripheral vision as he
made a show of looking out the window. He didn’t want her to know
that he was studying her, but he couldn’t seem to get enough of
her. She was one attractive woman. And the fact that she was an Elf
seemed less important at the moment. After several minutes Zak
broke his own silence. “Do you really believe that stuff about
foretelling and all?”

“Of course, all Seers possess special insight
into the T’eh.”

“Yeah well, you may think your destiny is
locked into some grand scheme, but mine isn’t. I choose my own
destiny.”

“You are bound to your destiny whether you
believe in it or not,” Megan told him patiently.

“So you think that some cosmic plan brought
us together?”

There was no chance of misinterpreting the
sarcasm that went along with his question. Megan looked over at
him, her smile holding a hint of a reprimand. “Yes.”

They both settled into the silence that
followed. As they entered into the Zone the neighborhoods they
passed through became more deserted. Zak couldn’t help but wonder
if it was the violence of the storm that had so completely cleared
the streets, or was it the violent predators who hunted there.

Rain was still falling heavily when Megan
turned onto Venmuroo Road and Zak had a difficult time reading the
street numbers. He figured seventy-eight to be pretty close to the
waterfront, since street numbers in the city generally began at the
Serpent River and increased eastward.

The buildings along Venmuroo were all
commercial, and like everywhere in the Zone, were mostly abandoned
and badly in need of some tender loving care. Even the few that
were occupied were no prizes, being run down and shabby at best.
Most of the commercial occupants in these buildings hadn’t even put
up signs to identify their business. But then, the type of commerce
that was attracted to these buildings were not the sort that was
advertised on Comm Net or conducted sidewalk sales. Other than
maybe a small import business, or a low-end storage broker, these
businesses were mostly of the illegal variety. Illegal drug
manufacturers, counterfeiters, thieves and slavers prevailed in
this part of the city. Not exactly your Chamber of Commerce
types.

“It has to be this next block,” Zak said when
they pulled up to the stop sign at the intersection with River View
Drive. “The river is all there is after that.”

Megan drove even slower as she started down
the last block of Venmuroo Road. The first decrepit building on the
corner to their left was followed by two empty lots. Megan stopped
at the first building they came to after that.

“This is it.” she said in a low even
voice.

In the darkness the single-story structure
was no more than a shadow. The headlights of Megan’s Pegasus
illuminated an old beat-up sign at the entrance to the deserted
parking lot which proclaimed the building to be
Tanner’s
Warehouse
in faded black print. In the flashes of lightning the
building took shape, a collage of colorful graffiti smeared across
old red brick walls. Well above ground level a single row of
windows, most with their panes broken out, revealed total darkness
inside. The warehouse had obviously not been used for quite some
time. The parking lot consisted of more potholes than pavement and
the bit of lawn in the front of the property was a jungle of weeds
and tall grass.

“What the hell is that?” Zak said, straining
for a better look through the heavy rain. He could barely make out
a narrow band of reddish, luminous air shimmering up into the
blackened clouds.

“Some sort of energy discharge?” Megan
guessed.

“Yeah, but from what?” He used his Elf vision
in an attempt to make out more detail. It didn’t take long before
he felt the first twinges of pain in his head from using his
special vision, as he continued to stare at the distorted stream.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Nor have I.” Megan sounded as mystified as
Zak felt as she stared up at the roof. “Look. The air is thickening
and the red seems to be growing darker. I think the energy must be
building.”

As they watched, the throbbing distortion
grew in intensity, vibrating wilder with each pulse. It appeared to
expand, untouched by the rainwater, which cascaded down around it
in unnatural streams. Gradually the distortion became more and more
agitated, shaking and shimmering more violently. Then suddenly the
shimmering column snapped away from the rooftop and drifted up into
the night sky. Lightning flashed above the building, turning
darkness into split-second daylight. Before either of them could
react, another distortion began forming on the roof in the exact
spot where the first had just broken away.

“Guess we should go and take a closer look,”
Zak said, switching back to his normal vision.

Megan pulled into the driveway that led to
the empty parking lot. The potholes posed no problem for her
anti-grav car and Zak watched the anomaly on the roof disappear
from view, now hidden by the building as they approached it. Megan
parked next to a door at the side of the building. They both sat
for another long moment, watching the futile attempt of the wipers
to clear the windshield of the steady stream of rain.

“I really don’t think I’m going to like
this,” Zak said. A feeling of apprehension settled over his mood.
He couldn’t put his finger on the reason, but he knew he was not
anxious to find the answer. He could tell by Megan’s reluctance to
get out of the car that she shared his feelings.

Megan finally opened the glove box and pulled
out a flashlight. Handing it to Zak, she opened her door and got
out of the Pegasus. They had no umbrella and Megan seemed too
distracted to bother with a protection from rain spell, so they
were soaking wet well before reaching the small side door.

She stood waiting for Zak to open the door to
the building. As he reached out to try the door, he somehow knew
that it was not locked and when his hand came in contact with the
metal handle, he suddenly felt something that made his skin
crawl.

D
eath met them at the door.

There were no decomposing bodies or gross
smell of decay, although it promised all that. Elves could perceive
much more than Humans. It was like a
knowing
. It was as
clear as sight and as strong as smell. And it was as undeniable as
touch. A profound sorrow threatened to overwhelm Zak, a sudden
sense of loss so strong that it seemed to rip away a part of his
soul. The grief was not personal to him, but perhaps more deeply
felt for that very reason. It was one Elvish ability that Zak
resented above all the others for its intrusiveness, although it
had served him well back in the days when death had been so much a
part of his job, providing him with an unfailing warning system
whenever death and the impending danger that so often accompanied
it was nearby.

The danger he felt now, however, was not
immediate.

“Oh, no!” Megan stepped slowly into the
building behind him. She also felt it.

The sadness and pain in her voice mirrored
the instinctive
feelings
Zak was struggling with. Elvish
emotions were intense, especially those related to their
extra-ordinary senses and Zak’s Human side only threw him deeper
into that turmoil. Humans had much less natural control over their
emotions and he had the misfortune of sharing in that. Elves were
also taught increased control over their emotions through their
spiritual training, but Zak had rejected the spiritual aspects of
his training during his time with the Elves. And so, he remained at
the mercy of his raw emotions.

A sense of grief threatened to consume him.
It was by no means the first time he’d felt it, but it never seemed
to become any easier to deal with. It was all he could do to
maintain his composure as he wrestled with the disproportionate
feelings induced by a mixture of Elvish and Human blood. This lack
of control had been, perhaps, his biggest challenge during his time
in the military and later with ASID. Even though it had served as
an early warning system against impending danger, it had also been
an emotional burden that could have easily gotten him killed, and
nearly had on more than one occasion.

“No...” Megan repeated more softly this
time.

“Bloody hell!” Zak’s only defense against the
intensity of emotion was anger. It came to him as automatic as his
resentment towards his Elvish heritage. He knew that as intense as
his emotions were, Megan’s were even more so. After all, she was a
full-blooded Elf. What he overlooked in his unexpected desire to
protect her from the pain he felt was that, being an Elf, she was
also better equipped to handle the intensity of those emotions.
“Maybe you should stay here.”

“Not a chance,” she said stoically. “We are
in this together.”

He looked at her for a long moment, the
darkness within the building masking her features from him, “Have
it your way.”

Dripping wet, they crept further into the
building. Zak turned the flashlight on and led the way. Using his
Elf vision along with the flashlight would have enhanced his
ability to see considerably, but because of the headache he already
had from his brief use of his special vision earlier, he chose to
make do with his normal sight. The beam of the flashlight tunneled
into the darkness, revealing rows of ivory colored steel shelving
that seemed to run the length of the warehouse. The shelving stood
a good six meters high, with wide isles running between each row
like forgotten trails through metal canyons. Most of the shelves
were empty but for the occasional abandoned box or forgotten crate.
The windows they had seen from outside spanned the length of the
building along the near wall, allowing periodic strobes of
lightning to freeze their surroundings in flashes of stark white
light.

Zak took the first isle and followed it. The
sense of death and loss grew heavier with every step he took. The
building was warm and humid, smelled damp and moldy. The ivory
shelving rose up to the rafters on either side of them, stretched
out into the gloom before them like hideous skeletons of long dead
monsters. Dust and cobwebs confirmed that the warehouse had not
been used in some time.

At first there was only dead silence inside
the building, the stillness disturbed only by the persistent rain
and thunder from outside. But as they moved deeper into the
building, they picked up on another sound. A distant crackling,
like high voltage current arching across two contact points, seemed
to rise and fall within the silence of the building. It was barely
audible above the tin sound of the rain falling upon the metal roof
above them, but grew steadily louder and then abruptly ended in a
soft popping sound. Several heartbeats later the low sizzling began
again, slowly growing into the crackling discharge of unseen
energy.

“Do you hear that?” Megan whispered.

“Yeah, I hear it.” Zak concluded that the
sound belonged to the strange anomaly they’d seen on the roof of
the building on the way in.

About a quarter of the way through the length
of the building they came to an intersection. To the right, the
cross-isle ran only several meters before stopping at the near
wall. Looking to the left they could see only that it ran on into
the darkness, presumably to the far end of the building. They
continued straight ahead, following the strange crackling sound
that grew steadily louder the further they went.

As the end of the shelves drew nearer, they
became aware of another sense, that of smell. Death greeted them
here in a more tangible manner, drifting on invisible air currents
as a blend of old blood and decay. A shaky breath escaped from
Megan as she walked next to Zak. He, himself, felt an increasing
nausea as they went on.

The smell of decomposition quickly grew to a
much worse stench as they came to the end of the steel framed
shelves. They were about three quarters through the length of the
building and were entering what appeared to have once been some
sort of packaging area.