02 Seekers (19 page)

“Begging boils down to three basics,” Spider said, not having noticed Eli. “Make the sell, be the sell, and always, always, sound like your heart is about to break if you don’t get that sell. You don’t want to cloud the sell with too much history. They don’t want to have a conversation with you. You have a sentence to convince them to give you money. Competition is never good. Pick a spot where others aren’t staked out. We all have territories we like to cover, but it’s a ‘get what you can, if you can’ kind of thing. Don’t let some of the older ones scare you off. They won’t do nothing.”

“Sounds like a lot more than three basics is involved,” Alex said while I laughed.

“Nah. Watch this,” he said, walking away from us.

We were back at the park with the massive church – somehow we kept ending up there. The

streets had started to swell with post-breakfast tourists. Spider made a casual, non-linear path to a thirty-something man wearing a baseball cap. Their meeting was brief, but rewarding. Spider walked back and flashed a dollar bill our way as proof of his success.

“Your turn,” he told me.

Alex pulled me to the side, far enough away from Spider for it to matter. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“I know,” I replied. Spider watched us curiously. I pulled her further away, not trusting him with her weakness. “What do you want to do, instead?”

She started fidgeting. “I can talk people into things. I can bring people down on prices and convince them to let me use their phone, but asking for money straight up? I just…”

“We’ll figure something out…”

“You heard him,” Alex said. “Everyone has to contribute. It’s their rules.”

“He won’t be around all the time…so, let me take care of it,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”

“What are you dolls talking about?” Spider asked trying to edge closer.

I went over to him and put my finger in his face. “Call me ‘doll’ one more time and see what happens. Go on, I dare you.” He put his hands up and backed away. “That’s what I thought,” I said.

He bowed, mocking me with his smirk. I ignored him and squared my shoulders in preparation for the task at hand. I willed my mind to think of it as Spider had suggested. All I had to do was ask for money: it didn’t matter what they thought of me, only that I won. Thinking about it like a game helped with getting over the moral questions. I always liked games. My competitive nature helped the insecurity fade away.

I slowly walked through the people, trying to look casual. As I did, I listened to their thoughts, searching for a compassionate soul. I found one in moments – an old lady who was feeding the birds. She accepted my need without a second thought, her smile warm and compassionate. I

didn’t even have to lie. When I walked back to Spider and Alex I had a five dollar bill in my hand. Spider crossed his arms, annoyed I was so successful so quickly.

“How was that?” I asked.

“You did all right, I guess…” he said, starting to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Alex called.

“To work,” he replied. “Be at our place by dark. I’ll see what info on this nest I can get for you by then.”

Alex turned to me as he disappeared in to the crowd. “So…this is an interesting turn in events.

From homeless to beggar in a day.”

“It’s a means to an end,” I said.

“To what end?” she muttered.

“At least I found a use for my mind reading,” I pointed out, trying to stay positive. “I’ll be able to find people willing to give money, and hopefully make enough for the both of us, so you won’t have to beg.”

“What do you want me to do while you’re making a living?” she asked, fidgeting with restless energy.

“What we were doing before. Talk to people. It’s only a matter of time before we find the

information that matters.” I wasn’t sure if I was lying. It was hard to tell what I really thought. I just knew we couldn’t give up.

“Okay. Fine. Sure,” she said, strangely upset.

She turned away and wove through the crowd before I could get another word in. I watched her go, wondering at her reaction. It wasn’t long before she, too, was lost in the crowd, and I was left with nothing but my confusion for company.

I managed to get thirty more dollars over the course of three hours. With every dollar earned, I understood better why Spider had called it a ‘game’. It was about strategy and maneuvering, only you had seconds to maneuver them where you wanted them before they told you ‘no’. At the end of three hours, I pocketed my cash with a smile and crossed the street, headed away from the church. I figured thirty dollars was enough for two people for a day…

Alex had abandoned the tourist traps in her search for information. She had turned her search toward the local bars and restaurants, knowing the locals would know worlds more information than the tourists.

We had agreed to meet back at the theater for lunch. It was the first time we had separated since the fire. I worried about her – worried that the second she left my sight she would get hurt or killed. Things kept happening when I wasn’t looking; it didn’t help that most of those things were deadly.

My feet wandered off course as I searched for the theater, the unfamiliar roads confusing me. I turned on a familiar looking street, hoping it led back to the theater, and realized too late it was the street for the hotel. People were going in and out of the front of the charred structure – people in official city uniforms. I backed up slowly, not wanting the reminder of the past two days thrown in my face so abruptly. I half turned to find another street to get to the theater but stopped mid-turn. My eyes told me the impossible; my body stopped moving with what I saw. Frozen, I stared hard at the person coming out of the charred wood of the once beautiful hotel.

The tall figure stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and looked up at the hotel briefly. He adjusted the hat of his city personnel outfit and bent down for a second, placing something on the ground, and then he moved over to a motorcycle along the curb. The shock melted. I knew that figure. I knew his form and the curve his face better than anything in the world, even over the distance. It was Daniel.

I started walking toward him, my shock suppressing my ability to speak. Was luck real or was I imaging this? The motorcycle roared to life, and my fast walk turned into a run. He was leaving.

My time was running out.

I found my voice. “Daniel!”

The motorcycle peeled away from the corner and was gone before I could yell a second time.

“Crap!”

I kicked a crumpled can into the road. I followed the path of the can in dejected anger, wishing I had been faster with my run or quicker with my words. The can stopped parallel to where he had been standing, almost as if it knew the spot and had stopped there on purpose to torture me.

Glaring at the spot, I noticed a rock on the edge of the sidewalk. I raced over to it and picked it up eagerly. It was smooth and perfect, though a bit charred as if it had been in the fire, too. I recognized it as well.

Daniel had once done a magic trick with a rock – after the school pool had blown up around us –

to prove he could do anything. I had kept the rock, wanting a part of his magic. It had been in the hotel when the room had caught on fire. He had gone inside and found my rock! It proved what I had thought. I had just missed Daniel. I turned it over in my hand and looked at the hotel. A couple of workers stared at me oddly but didn’t comment, figuring I was loitering because of the appeal of mass destruction. They’d had many such visitors in the past day. Not wanting to look too suspicious, I shoved the rock into my pocket and walked away.

My eyes scoured the roads for somewhere close I could hide and think. An obliging side road provided me with privacy. I slumped on the stucco and looked up at the bright sky. It was hard not to just start running, to chase after him, regardless of the fact that I didn’t know which way he had gone.

He had been so close! I kicked at the building behind me, while still leaning against it. I set the bag with the sword against the wall and gripped my necklace. It was cold against my skin. It was the coldest thing in the hot sun. Sweat trickled down my back and face, a contrast to the gem Ellen had given me so many years ago. Why couldn’t one thing work out on this stupid trip? All I had needed was a couple of seconds, and I had blown it. I took a deep breath to calm the feelings in my chest.

Frustration gave way to determination, and I dropped the necklace. It was just another set-back in a long list of set-backs. Now, I knew he was alive. He wasn’t rotting in some gutter, dead by the hands of evil Watchers. Our fire hadn’t been a continuation of his death. It had been

unrelated. However fleeting the satisfaction of that fact might be, for now, it was enough. I would keep looking. Eventually, I wouldn’t be too late.

Chapter 11

Remembering that I had to meet Alex, I pushed off the wall. The sword was heavy as I picked it up again. It weighed almost as much as the thoughts on my mind. I was curious, wondering if it could sense my emotions or if I was transferring some of gravity to the sword. It was weird to think of a sword as a living thing, but it felt sentient. It was creepy. Wondering about its strangely alive feel helped take some of the anger out of my thoughts. Any distraction was a welcome one.

I finally found the right road, the unfamiliar roads growing more familiar as I walked. Alex paced impatiently in front of the green awning of the Orpheum as I approached.

“Where ya been?” she asked when she saw me, obviously worried.

I reached out with my free arm and pulled her in tight for a hug. I put my head on her shoulder and took a moment. Even though I loved her dearly, I wished she was Ellen. Ellen would make me feel better in an instant. All she had to do was share that bubbly laugh of hers with me and my mood was better. Ellen didn’t have to say anything to take away the worry.

Alex rubbed my back soothingly, trying her best to comfort me. “Something bad?” she

whispered.

“I was too late,” I said. “Daniel was at the hotel. He left this. It was mine.” I held up the rock. “I yelled, but he didn’t hear.”

“Oh, Clare…are you sure it was Daniel? I know you might think so, but the brain can be funny sometimes.”

“I’m sure it was him,” I said. “I would know him blindfolded in hell.”

“Which way did he go?” she asked, believing me.

“He went straight then turned left. That’s all I know. He could be anywhere in the city by now.”

“Clare…”

“Yeah?” I said into her shoulder.

“You really stink,” she said with laughter in her voice. Because of my height, her face was right at my armpit.

I released her quickly. “Sorry.”

“We’ll find him,” she promised. “He’s alive, at least.”

“But we don’t know about Jackson and Margaret. What if he blames me if they’re dead? I have to know for sure before I see him…” I sucked in a deep breath and gathered my thoughts. “Did you find anything out?” I asked her.

“Yes. There are some great clubs around town, I look like Marilyn Monroe, I have a nice butt, whatever I do, I should try Gumbo, and all the old women around here like to call young people

‘baby’ for some reason.”

“So….nothing,” I said.

“Sorry,” she said.

I smiled briefly at her, not blaming her for the lack of information. It wasn’t her fault. She was doing her best to help in ways she didn’t have to. But the fact that information was so hard to find was depressing. Why had no one mentioned to me that information could be as elusive as fully clothed people at Mardi Gras?

Lunch looked tasty; the four bites I took were tasteless. The memory of Daniel being so close hammered against my mind almost as bad as the thoughts from the crowded eatery, which was

saying a lot. Our time in the eatery ended with a screaming baby, who was wailing in the corner of the seating area. The parents ignored its cries, punishing the rest of us, because they were too lazy to take the baby somewhere until it stopped crying. I tugged at Alex’s arm, unable to handle the sound any longer, and threw my sandwich in the trash. She took her sandwich out into the heat, understanding my desire to get away from the noise. She didn’t talk to me. Instead, she focused on her sandwich that went beyond my desire to not hear anything.

We separated at the boardwalk, after agreeing to meet at the theater later. I went back to begging as a distraction, desperately eager for the time away from my thoughts, and Alex went back to chatting people up.

The darkness which slowly slid over the moving city meant little to me as I mingled with the tourists and locals. I gathered more cash, and explored the city some, as the party crowd stormed the city in barely there dresses and ridiculous amounts of hair gel.

Alex had to come find me, before I remembered my promise to meet her at the theater. “It’s dark,” she said. “You we’re supposed to meet me at the theater.”

I was sitting on a hard bench. The water I had found again lapped at the banks of the river, the kindest sound I had heard in days. Lights reflected off the water in dark, rippling, shades of perfection. It was easy to get lost in that perfection. Sitting there among the peaceful perfection, I had lost all sense of time.

“Huh?” I asked.

She sat down next to me, understanding of the state I was in. She didn’t try to comfort me with soft platitudes; she focused on something that would really make me feel better. “I’ve been doing some thinking. Daniel being at the hotel makes the French Quarter more likely to be where the nest is.”

“He can drive anywhere. That’s the beauty of cars,” I said.

“I’m right. You’re wrong,” she said. “I think we might want to look at some of the clubs in this part of town,” she added.

“Why?” I asked.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people today. They kept mentioning clubs I should go to, and it got me to thinking. Clubs make for a good cover. People go in and out all night. Disappearances would be easy to cover up…and it would be easy for a super-spy-Watcher to hide out in one.”

I sat up straighter on the bench. “That’s not half bad.”