Part 1: Discord
Chapter 1 San Francisco Legacy House... June 2001
"Good morning, Dom!" Rachel shouted, as she closed the front door behind her
and carefully stepped over an orange, electrical cord.
The elderly servant looked up from plucking a leaf off the foyer's Persian carpet.
"Oh... good morning, Dr. Corrigan," he replied, over the roar of the vacuum. He
switched it off and dragged the machine aside. "May I get you some breakfast?...
There's plenty left."
"No... thanks.... I actually managed to eat with my daughter this morning," she
responded in a tone that was only half-joking. Of late, she had felt like an
overwhelmed bartender, trying to fill fifty different drink orders, while juggling the
bottles in a sideshow act and listening to everyone sob over their beers. There simply
wasn't enough of her to go around. "Are they upstairs?" she asked. "How is it today?"
"Yes, ma'am... the control room.... Cheery enough on the surface... dismal
beneath." The brevity of the reply told all. "And how is Miss Katherine?"
Rachel halted at the foot of the stairs and nodded her understanding. "Kat's
fine," she replied. As she looked up over her shoulder towards the library, a shiver
coursed down her spine. With a tired sigh, she swept her hand through her blond hair,
and slowly began to climb.
Now, the great house seemed forever cold and dreary, as if it was really was the
medieval castle it pretended to be. Deep inside, she yearned to be free of it and free of
all it represented... an unyielding enemy called "evil," a war that offered only Pyrrhic
victories, a secret society which often fell back on the old, repugnant adage, "the ends
justify the means"... and... it reminded her of a man, who had challenged her beliefs
to their very core... who had given his life to this House, to the Legacy, and to that war.
She yearned to be what she had once been... a wife, a mother, a doctor... nothing
more... but her friends needed her.
In the library, she paused before the antique wall map, took a deep, fortifying
breath, and allowed the security laser to scan her retina. The solidity faded and she
stepped through the illusion into the dimly lit control room.
"Mornin'," said Nick, as the hum of the hologram died away. Heaving a deep,
weary sigh, he hitched one hip onto the corner of the computer console. "Run that by
me again," he told Alex, who was seated at her keyboard..
"Hi, Rach," the researcher called over her shoulder. She looked up at the former
SEAL and smiled a gentle, tolerant smile. "OK... there's a newspaper interview with
a Japanese tourist...." She clicked her mouse to produce a page of the San Francisco
Chronicle
"Please...," Nick groaned, "cut to the chase.... When was San Francisco's sun ever bronzed or this Pacific ever gilded?... Sounds like he wrote it in Cabo after a few too many margaritas."
Alex cleared her throat, then paraphrased, "Two tourists were walking along the north end of Ocean Beach... apparently that area just below Cliff House.... They'd been looking for seals...." She chuckled. "Not your old Navy buddies, but of the Zalophus californianus variety... aka sea lions... at Seal Rock. Anyway, they were on their way back to their car when they saw a figure... an apparition.... Evidently it rushed towards them... and knocked them off their feet."
"Dangerous things... flip-flops...," Nick absently responded as he looked down to toy with the heavy, gold band that had replaced his Navy SEAL ring. His thumb gently stroked its blue stone. Would he ever become used to its weight, he wondered, but pushed away the thought and reached for his coffee mug. "Tourists... wind... deep, soft sand... probably fog instead of a bronzed sun.... Come on, Alex!... There's nothing there."
"They weren't the usual Fisherman's Wharf fodder," the black woman countered. Ready to defend her theory, her voice had taken on an edge. "I talked to them... at their hotel.... They're high school science teachers from Osaka.... Both were very level-headed, no nonsense types.... They were shaken... and spoke good English. They remembered a feeling of intense cold... then the figure disappeared into a mist... on a clear day." She emphasized the word "clear". "I checked with the Coast Guard to verify the weather conditions."
A moment later, Alex's lips curved in a crooked grin. A hint of malice touched her expression. "By the way, to get their names and hotel, I had to promise the reporter a 'good time'."
"Hope you both enjoy it," Nick quipped, sipping his coffee.
"Well...." She grinned again. "Actually... you're the one he's expecting... at a nice, little bistro in the Castro.... It's called 'the Gay Nineties Cafe'."
Nick sputtered into his cup, then realised the game. "Funny!... Miss Moreau... and is the ghost a joke, too?"
"No... this wasn't the only sighting," Alex continued eagerly. "A down-and-out... beach bum... a 'treasure hunter' type... Travis Something... or Something Travis... claims to have seen a male figure... dressed old-fashioned... surrounded by an icy mist... that threw him down some stairs and made his metal detector's battery explode."
"Not exactly the most reliable of sources," Rachel considered, stepping closer to join the discussion. She sensed the underlying tension. The team had more than enough work at the moment.... They didn't need another case.... They were still shorthanded.... She read the exhaustion in Nick's eyes, but she also sensed Alex's desire to escape.... The doctor saw the dark circles beneath her friend's eyes and the mottled tones in her normally smooth, cafe-au-lait complexion. Stress was taking its toll. She needed a diversion, and although this case offered little real evidence, it seemed to have piqued her interest.
"Yeah... and fog... and cold in San Francisco... who'd a thunk it," Nick muttered in sarcasm.
"No one's really been hurt?" Rachel asked.
"Nothing like that... not yet... just bruised derrieres," Alex replied, "but I've got a 'feeling' about this one. His activity is escalating."
"Alex...," Nick countered, "we just don't have time to chase anecdotes.... I've got the financial report for last quarter to finish, and the next one's due in a couple of weeks, plus God knows what other bureaucratic bullshit. The Ruling Council's promised to send someone from London to help, but so far not even a name's been mentioned. We've got three open cases and four waiting in the wings... and nobody but us chickens to handle it all."
Alex's dark eyes flashed as she retorted, "I'll do it on my own time, if I have to."
"Your own time?... You don't have any 'own' time any more," Nick corrected, "and neither do I."
"Hey... hey...," Rachel interrupted, tenoring her voice into its patient soothing mode. "Isn't a good ghost hunt what everyone joins the Legacy for?... Maybe, this is what we all need." She glanced at her watch. "I've got a consultation after lunch, but there's still plenty of time.... What say... I check the databases?... That's always been a dangerous beach... riptides... lots of drownings.... I can see if there's been any other strange happenings in that area in the past few weeks... and you guys can at least give Nick's Mustang a spin..... Go take a look and grab some lunch... away from here."
Nick momentarily hesitated, then yielded. Still uncomfortable at giving outright orders to his friends, he suggested "So... we go take a look?"
Alex nodded, smiled at Rachel, and pushed herself to her feet. She welcomed any opportunity to get away from the House, which no longer felt like a home. It appeared unchanged... same furniture... same décor... same everything... except... it was now only an old, cold house. It had lost its soul.
< < + > >
Ocean Beach...
Nick and Alex stood with their coats pulled up about their ears. While Angel Island and the Legacy House had basked in cool, hazy sunshine, here the world was one of cold fog. They could hear the hiss of the waves, rolling up the wide beach. In the distance, there was the crash of breakers against the cliff's base, the barking of sea lions at the colony on Seal Rock, and beyond the ever constant fog horn at the Golden Gate.
"Anything?..." Nick turned to watch Alex, as she brushed her mop of dark, curly hair from her face and sought to establish a "feel" for the presence of anything supernatural. In boredom, he poked his toe at a pile of brown, rotting kelp.
"No," she admitted, wrinkling her nose at the seaweed's stench. "You know... he could have been a drowning victim... maybe a suicide off the cliffs... or... I remember reading that the first Cliff House was severely damaged when a ship carrying dynamite wrecked on the rocks just below... back around 1885, I think. Maybe he was a sailor," she mused.
Nick remained silent... allowing her to ramble on... hoping that she might key into something... any sort of energy.
Finally she halted and turned back to her friend. "Nick...," she said, hesitantly.
"Yeah?..."
"I was thinking...." To her ear, her voice seemed to echo loudly in the fog muffled silence. "I was thinking of maybe taking some time off... away...."
He turned and read the fatigue... emotional and physical... in her face, in her protectively crossed arms, in her hunched stance. "We're not talking long weekend, are we?"
"No...." She looked into the young man's the troubled face. In the past months, he'd seemed to have grown so alone. She guessed it was the hazard of the job... of being a Legacy precept. "I'm sorry.... This is so unfair to you.... I know how much pressure you're under... the Ruling Council... the workload... everything else...." Her voice trailed away.
"But...," he added quietly.
"But... right now... I'm so confused.... I don't know what to do.... I don't know what I want to do.... Life has lost its... its... direction... its... joy.... I want to get that back.... I want Julia to be alive again... and I want Philip to be here... and... I want us to be a whole team again... like we were...." Alex hesitated and looked down as she dug her bare foot into the sand. " Maybe I can get a temporary assignment to the LA House... or take a sabbatical to help out at the hostel. Ingrid wants to go back to the convent, and Maggie carries on, but sooner or later, she's gonna crash. She can't handle both the hostel and her judicial duties indefinitely. Henri Savignon e-mailed me the other day to offer a position at the Sorbonne, but now's not the right time for that."
"You've thought it all out," Nick stated, bluntly.
"No...," she reached for his hand and squeezed it tightly as her fingers sought the ring. "I'm afraid to think... to plan.... Too many dark things are waiting."
"Whatever's right for you, Honey." Nick held her hand and returned the squeeze. "I can handle those assholes in London... and... well... maybe... soon...." He left the thought open, but Alex could read it in his dull eyes. He grinned and decided to change the subject... lightly. "...and a certain mountain of a cop, by the name of Tiny Jackson, is in LA... right!"
Alex gave a tilt of the head and grinned, almost bashfully. "We talk a lot, but the phone and over-nighters just don't cut it. I like him a lot... and he more than returns it... but we need time together... and I need to be away from here... away from... memories...."
Suddenly, Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire chimed from the pocket of Nick's pea coat. Shrugging his apology, he reached for his cellphone. "Rachel... did you find anything?"
Watching her friend nod, Alex read his face.
"OK... we've drawn a blank too," he said. "I don't think there's anything else we can do."
"Let's grab a bite up at Cliff House. We can check out the museum?..." Alex suggested as they trudged up the steep, sea wall steps, back to Nick's red convertible.
The former SEAL groaned. "Ain't there enough old stuff in the House."
"This is different," she scolded. "It's a museum of mechanical figures, 'penny arcade' stuff.... It's fun.... Besides... I don't want to go home yet.
< < + > >
Musée Mécanique...
After a quick sandwich amidst the tourists at the landmark restaurant, Nick allowed himself to be dragged down the outside stairs to the seedy, mechanical exhibition that lay below. They paused before an automaton of a small, fat woman with apple cheeks and a missing tooth. Alex inserted a coin and the figure's raucous laughter echoed through the room.
"She looks like Christina!" Nick muttered, speaking of the small sprite that favored the San Francisco Legacy House with her sometimes ominous presence. "No wonder she scared the hell outta me when I was a kid."
"You've been here?" Alex asked in surprise.
Nick smiled wistfully. "I don't remember being in here, but Mom brought me and Jimmy here the week before Playland closed. That was the real penny arcade.... It was an amusement park where the condos are now. I must've been all of three. Old 'Laughing Sal' used to be there... scared the shit outta me.... She was so loud and the laugh went on and on. Mom loved the place, though God knows why.... Pop proposed to her there... in the Fun House." A lingering silence followed that admission.
As "Sal's" laughter finally died, Alex at last broke the tension. "Let's try 'Grand-Ma'." She hurried over to the mechanical, Gypsy fortune teller and dropped her coin into the machine, then eagerly grabbed the small slip of paper. "Patience is a virtue," she read in disgust. "What's that mean!"
A group of teens, headed for the video games at the rear, shoved their way down the crowded aisle. "Who knows?..." Nick said, cramming himself against the glass case. When the "herd" had passed, he reluctantly allowed Alex to insert a coin for him.
The old woman moved in her booth as the gears and levers whirred, clanked, and hissed. He pulled out the paper and read slowly, "'You are about to begin a journey, perilous and long. If good fortune smiles, love will life make strong.'.... Great!... This one is Christina... with worse poetry. Any other 'fun' ideas?..." He glanced at his watch. "Let's get home. I've got a journey, perilous and long, to take through mountains of paperwork," he said, thinking of the folders filled to bursting with spread sheets, grant requests, financial statements, memos... all the "stuff" he hated most in the world.
Before Alex could reply the building seemed to tremble, the door slammed open, and a rushing wind tore through the gallery. Nick pulled her between the machines to avoid the stampede of patrons pushing down the aisle towards the exit in orderly panic. "Earthquake?" she suggested, as the player pianos, mechanical devices, and toys all began to work at once... in an uproarious cacophony... without benefit of monetary inducement.
"Yeah... right...." Nick agreed sourly, shouting over "Sal's" joyous hilarity. "The
wind caused a 'power surge'... in machines that don't use electricity."
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