The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (7 page)

“Who was that?” Caren asked, walking up to
him.

“Building owner,” he said unevenly, staring
at the closed door. Did that conversation just happen? “He didn't
see much at all,” he said. “Apparently you did a number on his back
wall.”

Caren looked back at the wall. A good bit of
masonry had broken away, revealing an older concrete base
underneath. The width of the hole was impressive. The man had truly
been a monster. She turned back to him and shrugged. “Yeah, well,
life goes on, doesn't it?”

Poe looked at her, then at the wall, then at
the closed door. Yes, stranger things had happened around here, but
never all in tandem. He shook his head and headed towards the end
of the alleyway. “That it does,” he said. “You okay?”

“Me?” she nodded, jamming freshly bandaged
fists into her pockets. “I'm fine. Winded and hurt, and that
jackass of a sergeant wouldn’t take me seriously, but otherwise I’m
fine.”

He glanced over and met her eyes. She was no
longer fuming or venting misplaced anger; she had gotten her
chaotic energy under control. She was still angry, but she was
calm. “Good,” he said.

They met up with Sheila and Nick in front of
the hardware store. All the front windows had blown inwards from
the energy blast. Sheila had just finished questioning a wiry older
man, presumably the owner of the store, who fussed and frowned at
the destruction within. Miraculously he had survived unscathed, but
it had done a number on his business.

“
Pashyo,
” Nick said, staring at the
tattered window frame. All the glass had shattered, and even the
metal frames had been torn and bent out of their casings. It had
been one hell of a strong blast. “What the hell happened here?” he
asked.

“Assault and battery with intent to murder,”
Poe said. “Didn't take you long to get here.”

“We were coming back from a warehouse run,”
Sheila said. “Headed here as soon as we heard your call to Cilla.”
She nodded at Poe, gesturing behind him. “They've already got the
block cordoned off. We’re looking at another nuhm’ndah attack,
aren’t we?”

Poe let Caren tell the story while he kept an
eye on the surroundings. The skittish younger Metro Police officers
had spread out down the strip, maintaining order, though none
strayed close to the hardware store where they stood. Metro had
assumed this was an ARU job since his team was already here, giving
them only minimal backup. No one was taking the situation seriously
at all.

Caren was right, Saisshalé’s energy attack
should not have been that powerful. Even a master Wielder of Light
would have had difficulty conjuring up that much energy to release.
Unless he'd directly channeled the Rain of Light, which was a high
improbability. Someone or something must have supplied him with
that energy.

Someone like Natianos Lehanna,
he
shivered.

“Goddess,” he mumbled to himself, moving away
from the others. He realized he was still twiddling that cigarette
in his hand, and decided to light it up.

He was bothered by what he’d said earlier.
That voice he'd used on Caren...the one that had told her to be
patient. Where had he summoned those words? More to the point,
whose voice was it? It was of course
his
voice, but it did
not sound even remotely like him. It sounded all too calm, too
confident. He ruled out the Shenaihu side of his cho-nyhndah spirit
for the moment; he didn't think it had a voice other than a series
of angry grunts and bleats. This was something different. It was
ancient and sacred. And it scared the hell out of him.

Saisshalé.
Where had he heard that
name before?

Poe let the name float through his thoughts
as he stared at the large vidmat on the far wall, slowly pacing
through the channels. It was just past eleven and all the networks
had switched over to NewsComm feed for the next two hours. It had
been almost two weeks, and the Awakening and the failed Ascension
were still hot topics. He'd fielded all kinds of questions from the
personal to the profane during those first days, and he’d responded
to each one with the scripted ARU report released to the public. He
had no reason nor the temptation to reveal anything else at this
time.

Then Saisshalé appears, and all his
cho-nyhndah senses and emotions are set off at once. Irritation.
Anger. Disgust. Fear.

Fascination.

The man had appeared, and his spirit had
yearned to follow him without question.

Call me Saisshalé
.

Grand Reptile, in Anjshé. A reference to an
old, forgotten vengeance god.

Words spoken within had never resonated like
that, spiritually
and
physically. A name alone would not
have brought up his defenses, and yet somewhere deep inside, it was
a fearful name indeed. What manner of spiritual being was he? Poe
had tried to sense his presence — he'd grown accustomed to sensing
the difference between the warmth of a Mendaihu and the chill of a
Shenaihu — and felt nothing. He sensed less than nothing...he
sensed a
void
. The absence of both spirits. Perhaps he held
an altogether different kind of spirit. Not cho-nyhndah, and
certainly not the strange mix of yin-yang spirits that encompassed
them.

What manner of spirit was this Saisshalé?

He had come close to asking Chief Inspector
Farraway that very question during the Questioning sessions earlier
today. It had not been the right time though, and more importantly
he didn't want bring up something that could have been more trouble
than it was worth. Caren had taken him on and had put up an
honorable fight, and that was enough for now.

He pulled out a cigarette from the nearly
empty pack on the coffee table and lit it up. This line of thinking
was threatening to keep him up tonight. He was too tired to do
anything else, yet still too shaken by the day's events to let it
go just yet. He took a long drag and looked out the long set of
windows that made up the eastern wall of the living room. If he
chose to, he could get off his ass and sit by those windows like he
always did. He would calm himself by watching the late night
pedestrians, the automated delivery transports, or just the
near-silence of an empty street. From the couch, however, he could
only see one thing, and it was not what he was in the mood for
looking at right now. The Mirades Tower glimmered from its hundreds
of lower office windows, still wide awake and watching everyone.
The damned place was hard to hide from sometimes.

—
vrddddddddit——vrddddddddit—

The vidmat channel froze its image, small
white numbers flashing in the corner, asking if he wanted to answer
the incoming call. He rarely got calls on the vidmat this time of
night. Who would be calling him? Caren, perhaps? No, she always
reached him by comm. He let it ring one more time, just enough for
the vidmat to track the call. It was a Pullock Street Heights
residence that he recognized immediately, and let the call
through.

Akaina Shalei lifted her head at the vidmat
cam and smiled at him. The kind of warm, appreciative smile she
gave whenever they connected. Her glossy black hair, nearly always
tied up in a tight ponytail, now hung loose about her shoulders and
tucked behind her ears, framing her slightly tanned face, the glow
of a desk lamp turned to its lowest brightness creating soft lines
of shadow. She knew he'd be up this time of night, having his last
cigarette of the day and ruminating over the day's events. She'd
accepted his odd habits, even his smoking habit, accepting them
instead as personal quirks that made him who he was.

“Hey,” she said, her voice barely above a
whisper.

“Hey yourself,” he said. “Good to hear from
you.”

“I haven't interrupted, have I?” she asked
quietly. “Sorry I'm whispering, but Ashan's in the next room
sleeping. Just thought I'd check in. I was worried about you
today.”

“Doing better,” he said.

“Anything I can help you with?”

For a moment he was tempted to ask her about
Saisshalé, but again decided against it. He was afraid she would
have the answer for him, and he wouldn't be ready for it. He pushed
the question away —
far
away — and instead relayed the day’s
events. She'd read the report, though she still reacted with
surprise when he spoke of Caren's attempt to bring the man down. In
all the years he'd known her, only once did Caren display anger of
that magnitude, and that was a few weeks ago.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks for asking
anyway. How's business on your end? I hear Anando’s already started
classes at the warehouse. Pretty impressive, given the short amount
of time.”

Kai nodded proudly. After Denni's failed
Ascension, Kai and Ashan had devoted much of her time giving to the
new community, offering help and guidance for anyone who asked.
They whatever they could to help these people through a
particularly tense and confusing time. It wasn’t just a sense of
responsibility for them; it was in their nature.

“I've started a self-defense course down
there,” she said. “Simple physical skills, things like that.
Ashan's teaching an advanced course in soulsensing.”

“I'm glad you're doing this, Kai,” he
said.

“I'm glad to be doing it,” she replied.

An uncomfortable silence followed. Kai looked
away, delaying the moment just a bit more. He really didn’t mind
talking about it, but he was tired and it was late, so perhaps it
was best that he didn’t bring it up. He'd get all worked up, which
would cause his cho-nyhndah moodiness to kick in, there'd be an
argument, and he'd feel like an idiot for the rest of the night.
But she understood his situation, probably more so than he did, and
always forgave him for all the petty arguments they'd had.

Still, he hated ignoring what needed to be
said.

“The nuhm’ndah attack,” he said.

Kai slowly lifted her eyes to meet his.
Without a word he could tell that if she were there, she'd be
speaking from within, soothing him already. He showed a brief, weak
smile before continuing.

“Well, I guess...” he said, and faltered. He
could already feel that cold itching, that prodding deep within
that was just out of his reach. He took a deep breath and started
again. “I guess I'm just concerned about what happened, is all. I
mean, it's not that we were the agents there at the time. Maybe I'm
just being paranoid, but it's been relatively peaceful since Denni
returned. But let’s be honest — it was only a matter of time before
another idiot made a move.”

“Alec, it was coincidence that it happened at
that time, in that place,” she said. “Many smaller assaults aren’t
even getting properly reported. Most Mendaihu would rather settle
the score themselves rather than involve the police or the
ARU.”

“I know that,” he said. “But this one...this
one didn't seem like an ordinary attack. It felt planned. Maybe not
to lure Caren and myself, but any Mendaihu in the area.”

Kai frowned at him. “That's not why you're
upset, though, is it?”

He shrugged an admission. “It's a bunch of
things, Kai. A lot of it didn't sit right with me at all.”

“Anything in particular?” she prodded,
squirming in her seat. One of his moods was about to turn again and
she waited for it patiently. He felt guilty for subjecting anyone
to these fits of anger, but Kai seemed to understand that she
should not take it personally, soothing him rather than reacting
with equal animosity.

“I’m worried about Caren,” he said. “I know
she's cho-nyhndah, and a stronger one than she lets on. But in all
the years I’ve known her, I've never seen her react to a situation
with such…I don’t know. Violence? It just…it seemed so unlike
her.”

“She was protecting edha Milainikos.”

“I believe that Caren acted in the right,” he
said. “The man was attacked by a Shenaihu nuhm'ndah. She played by
ARU rules and came to his defense by whatever means possible. I
wouldn't have used as much force, but she did the job expected of
her.”

“So what's the problem?” she asked.

He grumbled and looked away, taking another
drag form his cigarette. “The problem is that Caren took the whole
thing personally,” he said. “Gordan invoked the name of the One,
and she responded in the only way she knows how. She's as much a
cho-nyhndah as I am...” He stopped short. No, that couldn’t have
been it. There was something more, but he just couldn’t grasp it.
He’d heard the man’s words just as she had, and it had nothing to
do with Denni. It wasn’t the Shenaihu side of her kicking in. It
was something else. Instinct? “I really don't know, Kai. Something
is off and it’s bugging the hell out of me because I can’t place
what it is.”

“Alec...” she called, her voice soft and
warm. “Don't pressure yourself into worrying about her. She's still
learning to accept her Awakening, just as you are.”

“But I fucking
hate
it!” he growled,
slamming his fist down on the armrest of the couch. “Pashyo, I hate
these damned mood swings! All they do is cloud everything up, and
I…” He hit the armrest again and shook his head, cursing at himself
Calm yourself, Alix. Don’t let this get out of hand.
He took
yet another slow breath and got himself under control.
“Nyhnd’aladh, Kai. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

Kai leaned in closer. “Is it really that
bad?” she whispered.

“That's the thing, Kai. It isn't bad at all.
It's not debilitating, and I can easily keep it under control. It’s
just irritating and embarrassing. I hate it when it slips out. And
getting back to the subject — maybe I’m just too paranoid. Maybe
it's because Caren seems to have completely discarded all the
neuroses she's had over the last five years, and I'm not used to
the change. You work that close with someone for that long, you get
to know their reactions and their quirks. Caren’s change has been —
well, not unsettling, just unexpected.”