Crestview Place, Bel Air
His three companions watched Derek unlock the door, enter, and close it behind
him. With a sigh, Nick handed Rachel the aluminum case containing the spectrometer,
then bent to pick up her suitcase and Alex's.
"How's he been today?" the doctor asked. "His color's bad."
"Fine, I guess," Nick replied in irritation. "Seems tired... and that's the only
answer I ever get out of him."
"Sloan'll be here tomorrow," said Alex over her shoulder as she walked ahead
to open the gate leading to the guest quarters.
"Good," responded the young man. "Something's all wrong... my teeth are on
edge.... I feel like we're in a mine field."
< < + > >
Derek stepped across the marble foyer to open the living room's double doors.
He entered, pulled them to behind him, then leaned back against the brass inlaid wood.
He took several deep breaths and began to center his mind... to turn it inward and
outward at the same time... to seek his own center and to search the universe around
him. He had no right to be this tired. Verdamme! He certainly hadn't done anything
to warrant it. His heart was beating too rapidly.... Concentrating, he felt for his pulse
with his mind and counting... one, two, three, four, five... he slowed and steadied the
throb in his neck.
Slowly he pushed himself forward into the cold emptiness. This could never be
a home. How could marble, glass, and brass offer the warmth that a home needed?
Though the great house on Angel Island was an immense pile of stone and brick
through which many evils and little joy had passed, it had a warmth that this modern
construct never could.
As he stepped down the double steps into the sunken living room, he felt a
confusion flutter, like a monarch butterfly, around the edges of his consciousness.
Derek brushed his hand against the cold wall and knew that the place had once been
splattered with warm, red blood. This was where the murders had occurred. In the gray
fogginess of vision he saw a man's body sprawled across the stairs that he had just
descended. Blood dribbled down the steps, pooled upon the floor, and ran along the
cracks between the marble tiles. Another body, a plump, brown haired woman, leaned
grotesquely beneath his hand. Her skull had been smashed against the wall and had
smeared blood down the white marble as she slid, dead, to the floor.
The precept steadied himself, then stretched his hand into the vacant air.
Through his fingertips, he sensed that neither of these two poor souls had remained
behind in troubled unrest. Suddenly, his mind caught a jarring flash of Amanda Drake
curled on the floor in an ever widening bloody pool. Her panicked anguish coursed
through him until he slammed that window shut.
Slowly, he walked to the center of the room and braced himself against the white
leather couch. With a deep breath, he hesitantly opened himself a mental millimeter at
a time. There it was... fear... rage... chaos... a wild, unfocused energy. He felt the
terrified maelstrom swirl against his consciousness, only to veer away as it touched
him. At the same moment he slammed his own barriers tightly into place, but in that
instant he felt no intent to harm... only a sense of being lost... of seeking home... the
way a dog will search each doorstep for a scent of the familiar.
Then it was gone. Derek steadied his breathing and filed away the sensations
and impressions to be searched later with a clearer mind.
* * *
The precept walked around the corner of the house and down the flagstone
steps, past cascades of bougainvillea and honeysuckle, toward the rustic guest cottage.
Thinking that this place was much more to his tastes, he opened the cottage's
back door. He found his team gathered around the kitchen table, munching a variety
of snacks.
"Want something?" Alex asked. "They left the cupboards loaded with goodies,
but not much real food."
"No, thanks," Derek replied. "Nick... you can set up in the living room... the
center of activity seems to be there... between the stairs and the couch... monitor them
from the foyer. Rachel and Alex can handle the recording from in here."
Alex swallowed her last bite of peanut butter sandwich. "That's not very
convenient," she protested hoarsely.
Ignoring the researcher's statement, Derek said, "Test out the equipment and get
the baseline readings this afternoon. Alex, do you have the files I gave you?"
Alex reached over to the kitchen counter where her purse lay and pulled the file
from beneath the bag. Nick passed it on to Derek, who took it, then rather absently
turned away.
"Thanks," he said over his shoulder. "I'll be out by the pool."
"Looks like we're in for a rather unsociable evening," Rachel commented as she
rinsed her glass out and sat it in the draining rack.
< < + > >
Softly panting in the afternoon's heat, he lay deeply concealed
in a brushy thicket. He lifted his nose to scent his quarry. His hunger
was boundless, never to be sated with blood and flesh. High above, he
heard the rhythmic heartbeat of his prey... he sniffed its weakness.
His nose crinkled. Still such strength? Impossible! It still
resisted his magic... the strength not of a belagana witch existed within
this one, but of a Dineh shaman.
His planned revenge would be a waste of resources. He would
run this white man to earth like a worthy enemy. Perhaps, it was not
the song of the ancient one at Oraibi that he needed to complete his
task... perhaps it was the power of this belagana magic. He would
ponder.
Suddenly a mouse scuttled through the underbrush. He
pounced... blood, flesh, and fur would have to fill his belly for the
moment... patience would do the rest.
< < + > >
Crestview Place
Derek tossed the files onto a patio table, then turned to lean against the terrace
railing. Looking down, he inhaled the sweet scent of the yellow mustard that cloaked
the steep mountainside a hundred feet below. Beyond lay a truly spectacular vista...
clear and cloudless. The late afternoon sea breeze had pushed the gloomy haze
eastward all the way to San Bernardino. Here and there crystal, skyscraper islands
sprouted from a lilac sea of blossoming jacaranda trees. Like a heavy breasted snow
goose, a white jumbo-jet glided to a landing at LAX. Beyond, to the west, the Pacific
glittered silver in the copper sunlight. Orange flares sparked from windows on the
faraway hills, while Catalina Island rose bluish in the distance.
The precept opened himself... he could feel the tensions spread out before him...
the taut interplay of emotions... of desires... of hatreds... deceptive beauty concealing
a sinister soul. It felt like a city... like Amsterdam or San Francisco.
With a tired sigh, Derek turned away to pick up his folders and settle his long
body into one of the cushioned pool-side lounges. God! He ached. Where had his
energy and focus gone? Was this how age crept up on you... not at a snail's pace, but
more like a snail getting hit by a speeding freight train? More and more often he had
found himself wondering how many more battles he had left in him. It was unending....
Was it futile? Was he the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke... plugging one
dark hole, while another dozen oozed their evil slime unchecked? He had made the
decision to be that "little Dutch boy" long, long ago... once upon a time he had indeed
been that little Dutch boy. He would abide by that decision to the end... no matter
what... but, perhaps, he needed to step back from the brink for just a little while... to
once more find his balance. Soon, he promised himself.
For a few minutes he lay with his eyes shut, reveling in, absorbing the sun's
warmth and strength. He allowed no other thoughts to intrude... only the golden
warmth penetrated to his heart... to his very bones.
Finally he roused himself and opened the manila file to study Miss Lopez's
report. Slowly, he scanned the photos and perused the documents sentence by
sentence, trying to grasp additional details from between the lines.
It was a tragic story of being in the wrong place at the wrong time... a young
couple, Gary and Susan Mattox, expecting their first child, had been house-sitting
while the owner, a well-known actor, was off on an Australian location shoot... they
had been violently slain during a home-invasion robbery gone wrong. They'd been
unable to open the safe.
Derek searched his feelings... he got neither sense of male nor female... just
unfocused, confused, angry energy. It hadn't even felt human... it felt feral. He ran his
hand through his hair and looked up at the cubical monstrosity before him. He tried to
set aside his personal tastes in architecture... to reach toward the environment, the
aura, of the place. It was cold... mausoleum-like... no life... no age... no joy... no
sorrow... empty, except for the hangover of the evil and horror of the murders and the
aftertaste of Amanda's pain... all retained in the atmosphere and latticework of
energies that sustained this little corner of the universe.
There it was again... that chaotic, frightened, angry cyclone... but it wasn't evil.
Derek shut his mind to it, then gazed back down at the papers in his hand. He steadied
his shift in perceptions, took a deep breath, then fought to bring the print into focus.
He turned the page to the autopsy photos and reports. Somehow the turbulent
energy was born of this event. "Born," he whispered to himself. "That's it... born." He
excitedly tore back through the autopsy reports.
< < + > >
In the growing dusk, Alex again climbed the flagstone steps to peek around the
cascades of magenta bougainvillea. Derek had been out there for three hours. She
stretched out her senses toward him. She smiled... he was asleep. Quietly she walked
around the pool to where the precept lay softly snoring with the files still clutched in
his hand. Gently, she pulled them from his grasp and thought to awaken him. Alex
rested her fingers on his shoulder and opened her senses. She felt only a wall of
weariness and restless dreams. Chilled, the researcher pulled her jacket close and
turned back to the guest house.
"Food's here," Nick called from the den as she pushed open the back door.
Alex's stomach growled at the scent of stuffed angel wings. "Nick," she said,
"you'd better go wake him."
The former SEAL looked up from the fireplace and the fire he was building.
"Me?" he asked. "Why me? You were just out there."
"You're elected," said Rachel as she opened the cartons and laid out the paper
napkins and plates. "We're on the persona non grata list... to put it politely."
"Right," agreed Nick, pushing himself to his feet.
