Call Out (3 page)

I'd had a hard time reconciling my mental
image of London with anyone who could be best buds with a guy like
Brian. Faced with the reality, I could picture it just fine. I
could imagine people placing London in the role of little brother,
even though he couldn't look less like Brian. Where Brian was dark
– dark hair, darker eyes, and deeply tanned skin - London had icy
blue eyes, a peaches and cream complexion most women would kill
for, and hair like sun-darkened honey.

London smiled at me, and I realized he had
caught me staring. I looked away for a second, but then made myself
meet his eyes.

"So. Which one of you wants to tell me what
the hell is going on." Yeah, I get belligerent when I'm
embarrassed. Sue me.

"Not here," London said, polishing off the
last over-sized bite of his burger.

I wanted to kick him. Instead, I pushed back
from the table and stood. I couldn't give into the temptation to
kick if I was standing. The boys stood, too, and after we dealt
with trash and trays, we headed back to Brian's room.

London sat cross-legged on the foot of the
king-sized bed, giving no thought to putting his shoes on the white
duvet. I pulled the chair out from the desk and turned it to face
him. Brian stood near me, leaning against the desk.

Silence stretched out until it seemed
unbreakable. London appeared to be at a loss.

"Sometimes," Brian said, his hushed voice
crashing like a wave into the quiet, "sometimes London has these
hunches. He just...knows things."

London shook his head and looked up at Brian.
They managed to carry on a whole conversation without saying a
word, but I had no idea what was said. London looked down, like he
suddenly found the carpet fascinating, and Brian moved to sit
beside him on the bed. For moral support, I figured.

"I don't know where to start," London
admitted. He sounded young and tired and sad. I rolled my chair a
little closer so I could lay my hand on his knee. He managed the
barest hint of a smile.

"Maybe at the beginning?" Brian
suggested.

"It doesn't matter where you start, London,"
I disagreed, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice. "My
best friend is missing. I'm sitting here with my hands tied,
waiting for you guys to clue me in to what the hell is going on.
Just start talking and see what comes out."

He came a little closer to a real smile this
time, but it still didn't touch his eyes. He took a deep breath,
and then he said, "I haven't told very many people what I'm about
to tell you. My family knows, of course. Brian knows. And Kent and
Adrian," he said, naming two of the three other members of their
band.

“Not what’s his name?” I asked, trying to
remember the other band member.

“Jimmy,” London said. “And no. He’s kind of a
new addition to the band. I haven’t known him nearly as long as the
other guys, and...I guess I just haven’t felt right telling
him."

Now that he’d mentioned it, I remembered
Dylan telling me that Jimmy had only been with the band the past
couple of years. He was kind of their jack-of-all-trades: taking
over rhythm guitar to leave Adrian free to work the crowd, chiming
in on keys or percussion when needed, that sort of thing. Dylan had
also told me that he was quite a bit younger than the rest of the
boys in the band. Given how young London looked, I figured Jimmy
had just graduated from Huggies. I figured his youth didn’t do much
to inspire London’s confidence in whatever secrets he had.

“Whatever it is, it's okay," I assured him.
And somehow, I believed it.

London covered my hand, his fingers curled
lightly around mine. I moved so that we were really holding hands,
and he gave a little squeeze as if to say 'thank you'.

"My mom says I used to say and do some pretty
strange stuff when I was a little kid. I'd talk to people who
weren't there, or talk about things I shouldn't have had a clue
about. My parents thought I was just imaginative and observant," he
said, making air quotes with his free hand. "The older I got, the
weirder I got. I stopped talking to invisible people, but sometimes
I would just...know things. Like, one night I woke up crying,
because I knew my granddad had died. Mom didn't get the call from
Grandma until a couple of hours later. Heart attack, out of the
blue. But I'd known about it before Mom did."

I squeezed his hand. I'd heard enough stories
about this sort of thing that it didn't shock or surprise me. Hell,
I'd had a couple of similar experiences myself.

"When I was fourteen, Jerry disappeared."

"His brother," Brian explained.

"He was 18, and the police thought he had
just run away. But my parents are awesome. I mean, we fought with
them, yeah, but...run away? From what?" London shook his head. "We
were all pretty freaked out. No one had heard anything from him -
his friends, his girlfriend," he closed his eyes, remembering.

"His girlfriend came over, just needing to
hang out with the family, you know? And she showed me the ring he'd
bought her. A promise ring, because he couldn't afford an
engagement ring yet. She showed me that ring, and I had one of my
feelings. I asked her to hand me the ring, and the second she laid
it in the palm of my hand, I knew Jerry was more or less okay. I
didn't know where he was, but I knew he was alive."

London swallowed a couple of times, and Brian
got up without being asked to grab a bottle of water from the
minifridge. He uncapped it and handed it to London, who gave a
little nod of thanks before sucking down a couple of gulps of
water.

"The police found Jerry the next day. He'd
been in an accident a couple of towns over, and he hadn't woken up
yet." He gave me a little smile. "The story has a happy ending. I'm
telling you because you look nervous."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. In the middle
of retelling a traumatic story, and the guy's quoting The Princess
Bride at me. Or maybe misquoting. I wasn’t sure. "Maybe a little
concerned," I quoted back at him.

He smiled. "Jerry made it through just fine.
Didn't marry the girlfriend, though."

I said the first thing that popped into my
head. "How did your brother manage to end up with a normal name
like Jerry?"

It was London's turn to laugh. "It's short
for Jericho."

I grimaced. "I'm sensing a theme."

"Oh, yeah," London said. "Florence, Jericho,
London, and Holland. I got lucky."

"Wow. And I thought being called 'Liz' was
bad."

"Not 'Liz,' huh?"

"Good God, no. Elizabeth. Or Morgan. If
that's still too long, it's Em. But never Liz, or Liza, or Libbie,
or Emmy, or...just about anything else anyone's ever come up
with."

"Good to know."

Brian made a small, amused sound, drawing my
attention. He smiled at me, and I finally got a hint of the man I
remembered. "That bloke on the boat," he explained.

It took a moment for me to figure out what he
was talking about, but when I remembered, it surprised a laugh out
of me. "I'd forgotten about that. The creepy old guy who serenaded
me that one night. The one who kept calling me Lisa."

We'd managed to clear the tension in the
room, at least.

London stretched out on the bed. His hair
brushed the headboard, and there were only a couple of spare inches
at the foot. The guy really was freakishly tall. Not, like, Yao
Ming tall, but still.

"Come on," he said, patting the bed beside
him. "It's still storytime."

With a mental shrug, I kicked off my shoes
and crawled up onto the bed to sit with my back against the
headboard. London wiggled around to pillow his face against my
thigh. It should have been an uncomfortably intimate gesture coming
from someone I had just met, but this felt...different. It reminded
me of Dylan’s niece curling up on my lap during a scary movie. I
hesitated for just a second before reaching out to brush the hair
back from London’s face. For a moment he just lay there, eyes
closed. Then he scooted back to his own space, lying on his back
and staring up at the ceiling.

"So, yeah. The whole thing with Jerry. His
girlfriend spread the story around school, the whole ring
premonition thing. I was already a geek, and now I was a freak,
too. I tried to pass it off as a coincidence, that I was just
trying to make Celia feel better. And the other kids bought it,
mostly. But one of my teachers knew it was bullshit. She'd seen the
signs before."

"What signs?" I asked.

London didn't answer. He just stared at the
ceiling, avoiding my eyes.

"Signs of magic," Brian explained.

"Magic?" I gave Brian my best 'are you
shitting me' expression.

"I prefer psychokinesis," London said. "Makes
me sound like less of a crackpot."

He had a point. Psychokinesis sounded a lot
more credible than magic.

"So...you're like...a seer...or
something?"

London sighed and sat up. "Something like
that. It's...more than that. And it's hard to define, or explain.
But I have certain natural abilities. After my teacher figured that
out, she convinced me to learn how to control it. That lasted right
up until one of the kids at school found out, and started rumors
about me trying to start a cult. I wanted to fit in more than I
wanted to learn to deal with my freaky powers."

"I get that," I said, and I did. "But you did
learn a little, right? That's why you wanted me to bring something
of Dylan's, so you could...do whatever it is you do."

"Yup."

I scrambled off the bed and dragged the
garment bag out of my rolling case. London stepped up beside me
just as I pulled the dress out of the bag, but it was Brian who
reached out to touch the soft fabric.

The pain in his eyes hit me like a fist to
the gut. I put my arm around him, and he hugged me to him.

London grasped Brian's shoulder in what
seemed to be both more and less than a comforting gesture. He
reached his other hand toward the dress, and the second his fingers
brushed the fabric his knees buckled and he nearly took us all
down. Somehow Brian and I managed to keep London on his feet, and
Brian got him to the chair.

"Fuck," London breathed. A tense moment
ticked by before he came back to himself. "She's okay."

Brian let himself fall then, sinking to his
knees, leaning on London for support. I slid down the wall behind
me to sit on the floor.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"Too much emotion," London said. "Strong
emotions make it easier for me to...see things."

"That's what the whole touching thing was
about," I realized. "Why you put your hand on Brian's shoulder
before you touched the dress."

"Yup. Contact helps, too. But I just wasn't
ready for that much of a reaction. I was touching both of you, and
you both have really strong feelings for Dylan. I didn't think
about that.” He pushed the chair back a little and got to his feet.
“Didn’t even really realize you were touching me, honestly. At
least not until after it was too late to do anything about it."

I replayed the scene in my head and
remembered that, yes, the arm I’d had around Brian’s waist had
brushed against London when he reached for the dress.
"So...um...emotional overload?"

"Yup, pretty much."

"I think 'emotional overload,' is the phrase
of the day," Brian said as he let London help him up.

"No shit," I agreed. "So, Dylan's okay. But
how do we find her? Have you got some kind of mystical tracking
device in your arsenal?

London shook his head. "Not something I know
how to do," he admitted. "And I don't really talk to anyone who's
involved in that stuff. I think I can find some help, but it’ll
take time." He rubbed his eyes. "Right now, I need a drink. It may
sound shitty under the circumstances, but I really, really need a
fucking drink. And some air. I'm going to find the bar."

"It doesn't sound shitty," I assured him. "It
sounds human. You do what you have to do to cope when the shit hits
the fan."

Chapter Three

London's coping mechanism involved getting a
drink in the bar. Brian's, working out in the hotel gym. Assuring
them both I'd be fine, I shooed them out of the room. I still
needed to find a place to stay, and I needed to get rid of a day's
worth of grime and stress.

Thirty minutes of steamy shower later, I felt
halfway human again. I pulled on undies and my PJs - a faded
t-shirt and Star Wars boxers - and set my laptop on the desk. I'd
find a hotel and the number for a cab company, and then I'd worry
about real clothes.

I had gotten about ten seconds into my hotel
search when London let himself back into the room. "Find the bar?"
I asked.

"It's hard to miss," he said, crossing the
room to drop a key card on the desk beside me.

I nodded and tapped a new search into my web
browser. For a minute or two the only sounds were the hum of air
conditioning and the clicking of laptop keys. Another new search,
even though I had a feeling I wouldn't find much in my price range.
'College student' is not a high-paying job.

"Hey," London said, crouching down beside my
chair so we were more or less at eye level.

I dragged my attention from the computer to
look at him.

"Are you doing what it looks like you're
doing?" he asked.

"If it looks like I'm trying to find a place
to sleep tonight, then yes."

He reached up to brush a stray lock of wet
hair back from my eyes. "There's a perfectly good bed right behind
you."

"Yeaaah. I don't think it's big enough for
the three of us."

London eyeballed the bed. "I think it might
be."

"London..." He cut me off before I could say
any more.

"It's not some weird come-on. I just think we
should all stick together tonight."

"One of your feelings?"