Aurator, The (4 page)

I wondered if he could possibly know that this was how it was for me.

He took a drink of water and continued. “A week or so later I was out walking around Coit Tower on a date. I’ll never forget it because it was so foggy we couldn’t see the top of the building while standing at the bottom. We were remarking on it when what felt like a cold knife stabbed into my back. I turned, half expecting to see a mugger trying to rob me, but saw that no one was there. I looked around and saw the darkest aura I had ever seen hugging tightly around a man’s shape as he moved swiftly away. I felt drawn to him somehow. I wanted to watch him. I
needed
to watch him. I didn’t want to leave my date so I asked her to walk with me, but the man was too quick and I lost him.

“Two days later, walking down by the wharf after dinner with friends, I passed by an alley—you know, the ones that are one-way only?”

I nodded my head, eyes wide.

“I felt it again, the cold blast slamming against me, and this time it nearly knocked me over. I followed the feeling of cold down the alley, scared and not sure what I was doing. When I got to the end of the alley, standing under a streetlamp was the same man I had seen two days earlier. Medium build, brown hair, glasses, nothing special, except for this eerie black aura. I felt myself drawn toward him again and he turned to walk away. I felt something boiling inside me, almost controlling me. A feeling of strength that I had never felt before. A need to do something, but I didn’t know what. As I got closer, he turned as if to say something to me, and without thinking I lunged at him, took him down. He wrestled with me, but I had a new strength—call it adrenaline, fear, whatever, but I knew I had a job to do. I saw the images of women he had hurt and would hurt flashing around him and I knew he was the one connected to my dream. I learned later that this is called my ‘purpose’ or my reason for being an Aurator, if you will.

“He begged me to let him go. I couldn’t. I asked him who he was and if he had killed people. I needed to know this was the right person. It
felt
right but I needed to know for sure. At first he said nothing, so I twisted his body like a pretzel. I felt bones crack under my hands. His mouth opened with a scream, and confessions flowed like a river. When he was done I grabbed his head between my hands and twisted his neck until it broke. He died almost instantly. The feeling that came over me afterwards was… well…” and then he paused looking at me thoughtfully, trying to gauge what I was thinking.

What was I thinking? I wasn’t sure myself and I couldn’t feel most of my body.

He took a breath to start talking again, but I put a hand up. “Wait a minute, you killed him just like that?”

“I had to.” He looked calm, confident as he said the words.

“Why? What had he done to you?” I glared at this self-righteous man sitting across the table from me.

Then he smiled and very matter-of-factly said, “He was the Zodiac Killer.”

My jaw dropped. I remembered hearing about the serial killer when I was just a kid. I knew he had disappeared, but this guy was saying
he
was responsible? Many people had claimed they knew the killer, even claimed to be relatives. But this was absurd.

I couldn’t take any more. I grabbed my purse, took out two dollar bills and threw them on the table. “Thanks for meeting me. I have a lot to think about.” I looked at my watch. It would be dinner time at home, and I was ready to go.

“Wait,” he tried to say.

I raised my hand again. “Really, I’ve had enough today. I’ll call you.”
Not,
I thought to myself. He stood, looking a little worried as I got out of my seat and left.

As I drove home I felt numb. I reviewed the events of the day and shuddered. I was glad I didn’t have to work that night and I couldn’t wait to see my family, I thought as I hit the gas pedal.

5. Home
 

As I walked through the door I felt an immediate wave of affection. Down the hall I could see my three girls and my husband at the dining room table, laughing about their day. The parade started as they emptied from the table to run to me.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Mommy,” said my youngest.

I hugged the girls with more intensity than normal, eliciting probing, confused looks from them. After a moment, my husband scooted them all back to the dining table and came over to me. He wrapped his large arms around me. He whispered in my ear, “Are you okay?”

His voice was warm and sultry, with just a hint of concern. His words seared through my body. I suddenly felt warm… everywhere. I pulled back a little so that I could see his face, and noticed my heart pounding in my chest. I loved this man. He wrapped one hand around the back of my neck, cradling it. I could feel my breathing getting faster.

He chuckled softly. “Hmmm, nice that I still have this effect on you,” and smiled at me.

I smiled back wrapping my arms around him, “Always will.”

He leaned in and gently kissed my forehead, then he moved slowly down to kiss both eyes before pulling back. “You’ve been crying.” I wasn’t sure if it was a question or observation.

“Yes,” but here in his arms it was a little hard to remember why.

He leaned forward again, this time also having to shift lower because he was so much taller than me, and kissed me. He’d kissed me like this many times before, but there was something different in it. I needed him right now. My entire body was responding to his kiss. Moving slowly closer together, our lips stirred every emotion in me. He made a small groan through his lips against mine and said in a soft but urgent tone, “Later.”

I groaned. Then I realized that our girls were still within earshot. I could hear them talking in the background but knew that the ache for him that my body was feeling would have to wait. We wandered back into the dining room where I sat down and joined them to eat. Simple, uncomplicated conversation flooded the space between all of us as I switched back and forth in my head between the conversation I had just had in the cafe and the goings-on in little girls’ lives. I couldn’t be one of the people Aaron was talking about, I just couldn’t. Just then my oldest daughter’s comment caught my attention.

“I told Haley today that we live in a magical house.” This was Alexandra, or Alex as she preferred to be called, the fourteen-year-old, who spoke the words with a hint of sarcasm.

Trina, now eleven, asked, “What do you mean magic?”

“I’m a princess!” shouted Abigail… Abi, the seven-year-old.

We all laughed.

“No,” said Alex. “I told her it was magical because I put my dirty clothes on the floor at night and they show up in my dresser clean and folded a couple of days later.” She turned to me with wide eyes, laughing hysterically. Her laugh was infectious and the whole table roared. She was right.

“Ahhh, the kids are asleep,” I heard my husband say as he came up behind me while I was making the girls’ lunches.

I smiled without turning, knowing what his tone of voice meant. “Go ahead. I’ll be done in a minute and then I’ll be up.”

I felt him move closer to me from behind. He reached both of his hands out and rubbed the top of my shoulders. I shuddered. Slowly he moved both hands onto my back and down my sides. Stopping at my hips, he slowly started to massage the small of my back with his thumbs. I could hear his breathing, slow and steady until I shivered under his hands, then his breath caught and he let out a low chuckle. I realized that I had just put mayonnaise on the peanut butter sandwich, so I decided that making the lunches could wait until I could think more clearly.

He leaned against me gently, urging me forward until I was slightly against the counter. He wrapped one arm around my waist, pushed up against me. My breathing was fast and I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. My body was aching for him. He reached with his other arm and, sliding down my hip, he reached around my thigh and I felt what I needed. His breath quickened with the occasional moan, and I was unsure if each breath was his or mine.

As I turned to face him, he kissed me with an urgency, the same need as my own. Both of us, breathing fast and desperate, as if our obsession was realized and we were achieving our fix, like addicts. Our bodies moved together, our hands removing clothes, almost without thinking from years of practice.

He lowered me to the floor, and with the heat of his body and my own I didn’t mind the cold floor. He had a way of touching me. I couldn’t get close enough, my body needed more. He held himself above me for a moment, looking at me, his eyes filled with my same desire. He pushed softly down on me, moving rhythmically over me. Our bodies performed the dance we had perfected. In that moment I was able to let go of my day, my worries, and my fears. In that moment I was lost… in my soul mate… I was able to release all fear.

The next few days passed without incident. I was working the next four nights in a row and I welcomed the busy schedule. I loved my job and could easily get lost in taking care of people, forgetting all the problems in my life… real or fantasy. If it weren’t for the auras around me and the corresponding blasts of heat or cold, I could almost forget that something was not right with me.

My days blurred together, and I was content in my mundane household duties of cleaning the house and attending to, as my daughter referred to it, the “magic” laundry before heading to my last shift.

Everyone was already in bed as I got ready for work. I loved to look in on my girls before going to work. It grounded me in what was important and why I was
really
here. Then I walked to our bedroom where my husband was reading in bed. As I leaned over to kiss him good-bye, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me on top of him. He kissed me the way he usually kisses me when he’s looking for more. My body was responding before I could think about being late. He chuckled and pulled my face gently from his. His eyes were warm and a little excited. I heard his quickened breath, but as the moments passed it slowed. I giggled and blushed. “I love you,” I whispered.

He squeezed me close to him and whispered in my ear, “Always have, always will.” One more quick kiss and I was gone. I hated leaving my family. My little corner of sanity where everything felt normal.

6. Vision Realized
 

Work passed quickly that night and it was a fairly normal shift… busy. Lots of patients left over from the evening shift. Slowly but surely we got everyone out, discharged or admitted, dealt with the few who came in, and around two in the morning we actually got to sit for a few minutes. I enjoyed most of the nurses I worked with—good people with good hearts and all with white auras. It definitely made it more comfortable to work. We caught up on family, took a few bites of food and then heard a call come in. “Ambulance coming in with a female, 37, multiple trauma.” I took a last couple of bites of my sandwich and got up. This patient would be coming to my room tonight.

I watched as the paramedics wheeled the gurney in, and I saw that she was covered in blood. Her arm was wrapped where reportedly there was a compound fracture. I could see the bump in the bandage from the bone protruding through the skin. Not too much bleeding at the break… good… maybe there were no arteries damaged. The report was given by the lead paramedic, and I listened as he read off his notes. “Found in the park by a pedestrian passing by, he called 911. Appears she was attacked, beaten, possibly raped. Naked from the waist down, top torn. Multiple contusions all over abdomen and extremities. Police are still on the scene and a detective is on her way here.”

They transferred her to our gurney as she hollered out in pain and I began to check her lines as I yelled for someone to grab pain medication, and maybe a sedative. I was pleased to see all the IVs the paramedics put in seemed to be working well. The doctor was there listening to her lungs as he called out orders for labs and an x-ray, while I drew blood.

As I filled the last vial I looked at her face for the first time. My breath caught and I clutched my chest, which suddenly felt tight and painful. I had seen her before. I would know her face anywhere, as it, along with others, haunted me daily. She was one of the women in my dream, and I could see her face in my mind moving in and out of focus. The image was burned in my memory, the shoulder-length curly brown hair and large green eyes that stared at me, full of fear and pain. There she lay with the same hair and face, eyes wide open, and I stared at the same green eyes that looked at me in the vision. The memory of her face was so vivid and sharp, mirrored by the bruised one that lay before me, that I had to close my eyes. I stood and staggered back from the bed in obvious distress. My coworkers took this as a reaction to the situation, not knowing what I was truly reacting to, and sent me outside for some air as one of them gave her medication to help relieve her pain.

I ran outside, I couldn’t breathe. How could this be? Leaning against the wall to steady myself, I screamed, “NO!” and dropped to my knees. People were walking around me but I didn’t care. Unfortunately a scene like this outside of our hospital was not terribly uncommon, and nobody seemed distressed by my behavior.

“Are you okay?” came an obviously concerned voice behind me.

I turned and felt pushed over by the wave of heat that crashed into me. There in front of me was a police detective, judging by the uniform and badge, with the hottest, whitest aura I had encountered since Luke. It hurt me to look at her. I wondered what this meant about me: if it hurt me, did that mean I was bad?

“Are you okay?” This time she spoke a little more slowly.

She offered her hand to me, and I took it. She had strong hands, warm to my touch, and I noticed her carefully manicured short nails.

“I’m fine, thanks. I was just caught off guard by a patient they just brought in.” I stood with her help and looked at her. She had short, wavy brown hair, and deep brown eyes that seemed to bore directly into my soul. She was taller than me but just as slender, although she looked like she worked out a lot more than I did.

“Well, as long as you’re okay. I need to go in and check on someone who came in.” She smiled, turned, flashed a form of identification and was let into the emergency entrance by security.

I brushed myself off and realized that I had a job to do and couldn’t let whatever insanity was going on right now get in my way. I put my key card up against the sensor and walked through the doors. Back in the trauma room, my charge nurse walked up. “You all right?”

“Yeah, just needed a moment.” I need an eternity to process this, I thought, but I can’t say that without ending up strapped to a gurney myself.

“Good,” she said and walked out of the room. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ve got a chest pain coming into room two.”

I waved her off without looking at her, as if I was fine, and walked back over to the bed. I looked at my patient’s face again and noticed she seemed more comfortable now, probably due to pain medication and sedation. I started to feel a strong urge building in me, anger… almost painful. My breathing sped and I felt my face getting hot.
This has to stop
, I thought to myself. My fists clenched, and then it all stopped as I felt a wave of heat smack me from behind. I turned quickly, eyes still intense, jaw tight, and stepped toward the heat.

“Whoa,” she said, holding her hands up in defense. It was the same woman from outside and I now saw the identification she flashed earlier. A police detective, probably the one coming for this woman.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, this case… well, I’m a little upset.”

“I can understand that. I’m here to investigate. Are you the nurse taking care of her?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, we’ll need a rape kit and pictures of the injuries.” She said this so matter-of-factly that I took a step back. Then I remembered that only I knew this woman… sort of… before she came in here.

“I’ll take care of it.” I tried to go back to work, not looking too much at the patient’s face. Images kept racing through my head. The faces… the screaming… I remembered every detail of the dream. I turned to the detective who was sitting now, writing, and asked, “There are other victims, aren’t there?”

She raised an eyebrow and looked at me over her glasses. “Maybe, why?” Her look was too intense. I looked back at the patient.

“No reason, just wondering.” Now I was wishing I had phrased my question a little differently, rather than trying to confirm what I already knew.

The detective got up and walked toward me. I had finished assessing the patient and was washing my hands. She extended her right hand. “I should have introduced myself to you. I’m Charlene McGuire. Detective McGuire. And you are… ?”

Drying my hands, I turned to face her. “Megan Hales.” I shook her hand but said nothing else. I tried to pull my hand back but she held on. It was a firm handshake, not one of those limp ones you sometimes get from women. We locked eyes for a moment, and then she let go of my hand.

I moved away from her, partly because I was uncomfortable with her questioning eyes, but also because her heat was too much.

She sat down and started writing again. I sighed.
Good
, I thought, maybe she missed my saying too much.

“So, have you seen any other victims?” She asked suddenly without looking up from her paperwork.

Damn
. “No,” I tried to say nonchalantly, although I didn’t think I pulled it off.

She chuckled, “No?”

“No.” Good, I was much more resolved in my answer that time.

“Okay,” she said in a conceding tone. “If you do think of someone or something that would help the case, here’s my card. I’m going out to make a phone call.” With that she walked closer to me, handed me her card, smiled a very knowing smile that really pissed me off, and walked out.

I continued to care for my patient. I couldn’t believe it. How could this happen? I couldn’t ignore this terrible urge, a drive to do something. I couldn’t place the feeling I was having. I knew who I needed to call to help me. Damn.

I got home from work just as the kids were ready for school. My husband was leaving with the oldest and I would be dropping the other two off. They all came running, just as they always do, and we were out the door. I stopped at the grocery store, did the usual shopping and headed home. I knew what I needed to do today but part of me was delaying. I didn’t want to admit that I needed his help.

Back at home, I started putting the groceries away and reluctantly dialed the number.

“Aaron?” I asked as he picked up the phone.

“Hello, Megan.”

“Aaron, I need your help. I guess I need some answers. Can you meet with me today?”

“Of course I can. I can get out of work in about two hours. Want to meet at the cafe?”

“Sure. Umm, Aaron?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

I finished putting away the groceries, cleaned up, and had time to take a quick nap. I lay down, but my mind was racing. I had seen her in the dream but she wasn’t dead… nobody had killed her. I didn’t know what to think about this. Clearly I was out of my league here. One thing I knew—I didn’t want to admit that maybe he was right about who I was.