American Quest (9 page)

She squeezed her eyes and tears wrung from them with continuous flow down her stinging cheeks. She concentrated and felt certain that whoever had tried to push her in front of the train was now a good distance away. She began to pick up traces of Gloria again, a vague sense that she was somewhere nearby.

The train sped through the underside of the city. After two transfers and a crossover, she was back in Brooklyn.

She would go back after Gloria again soon, but she needed a better plan. She tried to think back on what that woman had told her so many years ago. The woman from the Auxilium. They talked about what to do if Gloria’s lover was taken. But what was she supposed to do if the
Pravus abducted Gloria instead? She searched her mind to remember the instructions.

“Join the quest.” That’s what the woman told her to do. What did that even mean? Why hadn’t the woman been more specific? Why didn’t Candace ask more questions when she had the chance?

Bleeding and burned, Candace stumbled back to her apartment and locked herself inside. A look in the mirror showed her skin torn and blistered on her face, arms, and hands; the outline of the glasses marked two Triscuit-sized patches of unharmed skin beneath. She peeled off her clothes, sobbing and shaky.

She had to call Jamie. Jamie would know more about the quest, she was sure of it. Jamie didn’t run away from frightening prospects. Jamie cared too much to let fear win.

The battery on her cell phone was stone dead. She’d never bothered to hook up a home line—it seemed so pointless these days. She limped to the outlet and plugged the phone in, and then tried powering up. It flashed to life.

She took a moment to steady her shredded nerves before dialing. As she took three deep breaths, the image of a diner in Maine popped into her mind. She’d never been to Maine. How did she know with such certainty that the diner was there? There could only be one reason.

Candace punched in Jamie’s number, but only got Jamie’s voice mail. She steadied her voice and tried to speak slowly, telling her that it had begun and where they should start. But despite being plugged into the wall, the phone’s battery blinked out again.

She had to go see Jamie in person. To talk about the quest. To do everything she could do to save Gloria.

A pounding came at the front door.

She nearly dropped the cell phone to the linoleum. Her heart went to her throat. But beyond the pounding, she could hear Gloria’s voice on the other side.

“Candie! Oh God, Candie! Please help me! Candace! They’re right behind me!”

Candace tore open the locks, swinging it wide.

But Gloria was not there. Instead, two fat, red-haired men stood leering.

One of them snaked out a hand and caught Candace by the wrist. He spoke in Gloria’s voice, that unmistakable sanded rosewood intonation that belonged only to Gloria. His horrible, crusted mouth and bulbous nose impossibly resonating with her lovely, soothing inflections, though not her words.

“Why, hello Candace, dearie. Gave us quite a run, didn’t you?”

ONCE AGAIN, BRUCE DIALED GLORIA’S cell phone. Once again, it clicked over to voice mail. Once again, he wanted to throw the phone against the wall.

He hadn’t spoken to Gloria since he walked her to work that morning. They hadn’t had their usual lunchtime phone conversation. And now, at almost midnight, there was still no sign of her.

He dragged his fingers through his hair.

He wracked his brain, trying to think of a business function he might have forgotten about. But that wasn’t it—they would have discussed something like that on the way to work. Some social function with Candace or one of the people at the office? No, she would have made a big deal about his remembering to eat dinner if she knew she wasn’t going to be around. Whatever took Gloria away was not on the radar screen this morning. And that worried the hell out of him.

Bruce felt that he always knew where Gloria was. He imagined he could reach out with his mind and see her whenever he wanted, catching a virtual glimpse of her at her desk or in a power meeting. In the time they’d been together, Bruce felt a growing keenness to his perceptions as they related to Gloria. He even knew when she had a bad day before he saw her.

And now he felt nothing. It was as though someone had stolen his sense of taste or smell. Something was wrong. Decidedly wrong.

He’d made numerous calls. The people at the office knew nothing useful. One of her colleagues thought she’d seen her in the hall that afternoon. Another recalled a conversation, but then couldn’t remember if they’d had it today or yesterday. The receptionist said she went out to lunch, but didn’t know who she went with and had no memory of anything else that happened that afternoon. Candace’s phone bounced to voice mail as quickly as Gloria’s had, and none of her other friends knew anything more than Bruce did.

The clock clicked over to twelve o’clock and Bruce’s anxiety ratcheted up. It was a new day. Why did that seem so daunting?

He had to call Jamie. He realized she wouldn’t know where Gloria was, but she’d been his go-to person since preschool. If nothing else, she’d give him a little perspective. And if not perspective, he could at least freak out with her and know she would understand.

He hit the speed dial.

“Hello?”

The sound of Jamie’s voice was a salve to his nerves. Instantly, he started to wonder if he’d been overreacting.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he said a little sheepishly.

“Not much. You know, sleeping, that sort of thing.”

Bruce cringed. “Right, sorry. Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong?”

The tone of Jamie’s voice caught Bruce by surprise. “Why’d you ask me that?”

Jamie’s voice got a little sharper. “Bruce, tell me what’s wrong.”

His anxiety was returning. “Nothing. I mean, it’s just that Gloria hasn’t come home yet and that feels weird to me.”

“Oh God.” Jamie’s voice came in a flutter as though the call was breaking up.

“I’m overreacting, right?” Bruce said nervously. “Can you imagine how possessive I’m going to be once we’re
married
?”

The little bit of levity didn’t muster even a chuckle from Jamie. In fact, she didn’t say anything. Maybe she was formulating kind ways to explain how Gloria was a big girl and how he needed to give her the latitude to be caught up in a business meeting and lose track of time without worrying about checking in with him.

He waited for Jamie to tell him these things.

But she never said any of that.

What she said was, “It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“I’ll be right there.”

“What? Why will you be right here? What’s happening?”

The line went dead. He dialed her again.

Jamie’s voice came labored, as if she were hurrying. “I’ll be right over. You really don’t want to do this on the phone.”

“Do what? What are we doing? Do you know where Gloria is?”

But when she replied, her voice crackled through the receiver. “I’m go . . . down . . . phone’s gonna drop. . . .”

The call dropped.

Bruce squeezed the phone as if doing so would coerce it to cough up some answers. Why did Jamie react the way she did? Why couldn’t they “do this” on the phone? How could she know something about Gloria that he didn’t know?

The pent-up energy in his body felt combustible. He wanted to move, to take action. But what kind of action? He didn’t have a clue. Jamie was maybe twenty minutes away. How could he possibly wait twenty minutes to hear what she had to say? How was he going to feel after he
heard
what she had to say?

He lowered himself to the floor and knocked out some push-ups until his arms turned to spaghetti. He wasn’t really the exercise type, but he needed to do something. He flipped over and did sit-ups, then over again to squeeze out more push-ups. His muscles ached, but he wasn’t any less anxious.

He went to the window.
Why wouldn’t she just tell me over the phone
?

Jamie finally arrived, coppery pixie hair mussed and blue eyes wide.

“I have a lot to tell you and you’re going to be tempted to interrupt often,” she said sharply. “Avoid that temptation.”

Jamie never spoke like this. What was going on? “You do realize I’m borderline psychotic at the moment, right?”

Jamie’s expression softened and she reached out for him. She held him close for a few seconds—and then she pushed him onto the couch. “Sit and listen,” she said as he looked at her, mouth agape.

She marched into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. “You
know how you always joked that the reason we’ve been best friends all our lives is because we hit it off so well in the nursery?”

“What’s this got to do with—?”

“Bruce! You know I’m not going to jerk you around, so humor me!”

There was a simple explanation for Jamie’s brusque tone: alien abduction. Though he was feeling more nervous by the second, Bruce placated his best friend. “Yes, that’s always been the joke.”

She set the kettle on the stove and joined him on the couch. “Well, you were almost right about that. Here’s the thing: it’s no accident that I was born one day after you. I was born
because
of you. From the moment you were conceived, you were marked as someone unusually passionate. I mean crazy passionate. Off the charts passionate. Don’t ask me how that works at conception; I’ve been wondering that for years.”

“Jamie . . .”

She put a hand up. “This means you’re likely to accomplish great things—could be, I don’t know, incredible works of art or leading a revolution. Writing works—plays, for instance—that change the way people think. That’s major stuff. But as it turns out, not the
most
major stuff. The thing about people like you—and trust me, I’m no expert on any of this, as much as I’ve tried to be—is that we knew you’d seek a life partner who was equally passionate.”

“We?”

Jamie tipped her head downward. “You’re interrupting. I asked you not to interrupt, didn’t I?” She sighed. “Yes,
we
. I was put here to watch you. To guard you.”

Bruce’s ears rang, striving to process the nonsense that poured from Jamie. “Wait a minute. Hold on. Who’s ‘we?’ And if I’m so special, why would you have to guard me? Where the hell is all of this coming from?”

Jamie waited a beat, but didn’t scold him again for interrupting. “‘We’ is me and . . . oh God. I’ve been visited by—hang on, one thing at a time.” She tugged at a curl that spiked down over her ear. “The reason I am guarding you is because your potential increases exponentially if you fall in love with someone like you. Amazingly, you managed to date a bunch of lightweights for a long time. Then Gloria showed up.”

Bruce snorted. He’d never heard her talk so crazy before, and if it were anyone other than Jamie, he’d be whistling for the paddy wagon by now. But he took it all in, thinking he’d sort out the truth from the insanity later—if only she’d get to the part where she told him where Gloria was.

Jamie continued. “Both of you, you’re unusually committed and passionate people. And you found each other and fell in love. That’s an amazingly rare thing. It shoots the potential the two of you have up into the stratosphere. But it’s also a dangerous thing. It draws attention from a kind of darkness that would love to pervert your power. And when it does—no,
if
it does; we have to make sure it doesn’t—it would destroy you. And not only you.”

Jamie didn’t have to worry about his interrupting any longer. Bruce was officially speechless.

She took a breath. “With that kind of power in the wrong hands, it could destroy the world. When you met Gloria, I knew there was a serious risk. I’ve been waiting for this phone call ever since.”

The teakettle began to whistle. Jamie rose to attend to it.

Bruce stared into an empty space. Dark powers watching them? Where did that put Gloria now? His stomach rolled. Too much, just too much. He shook his head. He was barely aware when Jamie set a teacup before him.

Jamie punched a number into her cell phone and listened, then shook her head, ending the call. “No Candace. I got a voice mail from her, but the only word I could make out was ‘Maine.’ I thought she was telling me she was going on vacation. Now I wonder. . . .”

Bruce sharpened his gaze on her. “I don’t believe any of this.”

Jamie kept her eyes on the teacup for a moment before lifting them to Bruce. She spoke softly. “Yes you do, Bruce. Yes you do.”

Bruce felt tears approaching. He shook his head slowly. “Yes I do. How could I possibly believe this?”

“You believe it because it’s the truth. You can recognize it as the truth because you’ve reached a new level of understanding.”

A new level of understanding. Unusually committed and passionate.
He didn’t ask for this. He just wanted to have a great life with the woman he loved. He didn’t want dark forces watching him. He didn’t want Gloria to be at risk.

What he wanted was a shot of tequila. He reached for the bottle on the sideboard.

Jamie stopped him before he could take a drink. “You’re going to need to be sober for this.”