Ghost Key (51 page)

Kate read the message twice, emotion hitching in her chest, her heart unraveling. Wayra dying? She refused to believe it.

The second text message, from Delaney, had come in a few minutes later:
Confrontation @ airport, Wayra badly injured.

“Badly injured” versus “dying.” Was this the difference between the perceptions of a teenage boy and an adult man? Or was Delaney simply trying to soften the blow? Kate squeezed the bridge of her nose and forced herself to read the rest.

Can’t leave until we can move Wayra. Hold on just a little longer. Stay safe.
♥
D

Several words leaped out at her. “Hold on just a little longer.
♥
D.” Maybe she was grasping for substance where none existed. Maybe she had gone around the bend and now read signs in everything. But to her, the heart symbol meant “love you.”

“Kate?” Zee came up behind her, set a bottle of water and a lit flashlight on the desk, the beam aimed at the ceiling, and touched her shoulder. “We’ve found some flashlights and bottled water. You okay?”

She spun around in the chair. “Wayra was shot, they can’t move him yet, and Delaney loves me.” Then she started to cry—and instantly felt like a foolish idiot.

Zee stood there for a moment, as though he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. He put his arms around her and held her tightly. “Listen,” he said gently. “When you were a little girl, your old man told me he knew that someday you would make a huge difference in the world, that you were special, that you had a particular destiny. He didn’t know what that destiny was, but he sensed it. So you buck up here, hon, don’t go melting down. We need you now more than ever.” He bussed her on the cheek, a big sloppy kiss, then turned to the others. “Sit tight. The plane’s going to be here soon.”

But how soon?

*   *   *

Wayra’s
consciousness had split down the middle, as neat as a cut apple. Part of him was still on the runway, aware of the warmth and light that Illary’s hands sent into his chest, into his heart and lungs. He heard her and Maddie talking, felt the retriever nearby. Another part of him wandered freely through the millennia he had lived, through the dramatic changes he had witnessed and helped bring about in Esperanza. He called for Charlie and Victor, but his voice sounded hollow, unreal, an echo through time.

He suddenly found himself on a high plateau, beneath the light of a blazing sun, surrounded by stone sculptures of animals—tortoises and whales, giant frogs and insects, salamanders and octopuses, creatures that had never lived at this altitude. He saw Egyptian figures, too—Nefertiti, the Sphinx, a pharaoh. He instantly knew this was the place Illary had told him about, the stone forest on a high plateau outside of Esperanza. He struggled to recall what she’d said about the special doorway. It stood between—which two creatures?

He couldn’t remember. Despairing, certain he would die if he couldn’t recover this particular memory, his knees gave way, and he dropped to the hard stone floor of the plateau.

Help me.

“You’re one stubborn shifter, Wayra,” said Victor. “Do you have any idea how long it’s taken you to ask for help?”

He and Charlie stood there in front of him, arms folded across their chests, and he felt like punching both of them. Charlie was dressed in his usual white attire, but Victor looked like he was auditioning for a part in
Gladiator
. “I’ve asked for help repeatedly. You two just haven’t been around to hear it. And since when is my asking for help a criterion for
getting
help?”

“We’re here now,” Victor said. “And we’re supposed to let you know the council has no use for you in the afterlife right now, Wayra. So you’re stuck in physical life for the time being. You have work to do, beginning with Dominica.”

“I’m not doing anything about Dominica until you tell me the truth about shifters, Victor. You more than Charlie. He’s too young to have rewritten shifter history.”

Those words hung in the air between them, a travesty, a promise, a dare. Victor looked deeply troubled, Charlie looked pissed. “What the hell is he talking about, Victor?”

Victor rubbed his old hands over his wrinkled face, and whispered, “The deeper secrets. He’s talking about the deeper secrets, known only to a few.” Then, in a louder voice: “And it doesn’t concern you, Charlie.”

“Bullshit,” Charlie snapped. “My granddaughter’s involved, so it concerns me.”

“That’s the whole thing with you, Charlie,” said Wayra. “You’re the only chaser on the council whose roots are still within the physical world. Your wife, daughter, granddaughter. That’s why you aren’t privy to the knowledge.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Victor said quickly.

Charlie stepped away from his fellow chaser and settled next to Wayra. “I think it’s got everything to do with whatever these secrets are, Vic. So come clean. We won’t snitch on you, will we, Wayra. We won’t go to the council with your transgressions.”

Wayra realized Charlie was taunting the other chaser, trying to get a rise out of him. And it worked.

“My transgressions?”
Victor burst out.

His gladiator clothing evaporated as quickly as dew on a leaf. He now wore a floor-length robe that dated back to ancient Greece, probably what the intellectual elites wore, Wayra thought.

“I wasn’t born in any goddamn Lemurian lab, Victor, and you know it. You’ve known it all along and just never bothered to tell me the truth. All of you ancient boys on the council know it. My shifter lineage was one of the original seven on this planet, older than you and the council put together. In return for my taking care of Dominica, you’ll have to tell me the truth about shifter history. And if you don’t, if I sense that you’re lying to me, I’ll bring her back. And to get rid of her, I’m going to need some help. That’s my second condition.”

Victor laced his fingers together and turned them out as he stretched his arms in front of him. His clothing changed rapidly now, from the Grecian tunic to plain denim jeans and a blue work shirt, to the armor of a warrior in the time of Genghis Khan. Then to the jeans again, his down-home “I’m your buddy” disguise. “You have my word.”

Wayra glanced at Charlie. “Is his word worth a shit?”

Charlie whipped off his Ben Franklin specs and rubbed the lenses with a corner of his spotless white
guayabera
shirt and fitted the glasses on top of his head. Then he brought a cigar from his shirt pocket and his trademark silver Zippo lighter from the pocket of his white slacks and lit the cigar with a dramatic flourish.

“Now
that
is exactly the right question, Wayra.” He tilted his head back, blew smoke into the air, and stabbed his cigar toward Victor. “This man was my sponsor, my mentor, and has been my most avid supporter even when I’m breaking all the council regs. They’re politicians, Wayra. That’s how it works over here. Some are good, some are bad, some are just hypocrites, spiritual assholes. But Victor … when he gives you his word, it’s better than any written contract.”

The recommendation, uttered with such conviction, convinced Wayra it was okay to agree even though it came from manipulative Charlie. “All right. Then we have a deal.”

Victor pressed his palms together and rolled his eyes skyward in an exaggerated manner. “Christ Almighty.” He sat down so that Wayra was now sandwiched between him and Charlie. “Good thing.” He brushed at something on his jeans. “Otherwise we’d have to roll back a whole bunch of years.” He rubbed his hands together and Wayra could hear skin rubbing against skin, calluses moving against calluses. “We’d have to roll back centuries. And no telling how long it would take to untangle everything.” Then he brought one hand to Wayra’s chest and the other to his back …

And Wayra gasped and sucked at the air and his eyes popped open.

Pale chocolate against white. Illary’s face was the first thing he saw, and they were surrounded by thick, heavy fog. “How … long?”

“More than an hour.” She leaned over him, her hands moving along the sides of his face, over his hair, tears rolling down her cheeks. “If you … I…”

“Mi amor,”
he whispered, and cupped her lovely face in his hands. “I felt the light from your hands.”

“Are you fully healed?”

He touched his chest, and moved his hands slowly over his ribs, where the bullet had gone in, but didn’t feel any wound. He could breathe. His heartbeat sounded strong, steady. Blood rushed through his veins. He was in his human form again. “Healed enough to do what needs to be done with Dominica. As soon as the hostages are on board, we’ll find her. In return for dealing with her, Victor has promised to reveal the truth about shifters, what he calls ‘the deeper secrets.’”

“Will he keep his word?”

“I told him that if he doesn’t, I’ll bring Dominica back.”

“But something else healed you, too,” she said. “It had to.” She gestured at the thick fog that covered them and the entire runway. “This is not
brujo
fog. I sense it was generated to buy you time.”

He agreed it wasn’t
brujo
fog, but Wayra couldn’t tell what had generated it. “I went there, Illary. To the place you told me about, the stone forest. Victor and Charlie were there. It’s where Victor and I struck a bargain.”

“Then let’s go fulfill this bargain.” She brought her mouth to his, a brief kiss that held an eternity of promise.

*   *   *

Sanchez
couldn’t find an adjective that described what he felt when he saw Wayra and Illary moving out of the fog toward the plane. She had her arm around his waist and he stumbled a few times, but he was upright and walking and in his human form again.

So was she.

Shapeshifters, the two of them. He had seen some mighty strange things as a viewer—UFOs, aliens, a place with twin suns. Once, he’d even found himself inside a UFO during a viewing. But he’d never seen anything like this, the transformation of a man to a dog or wolf, and now back again, and the transformation of a bird into a woman. But ever since he’d first viewed Maddie that day back in Homestead, his life had become a living testament to the impossible.

Delaney, Rocky, and Maddie ran toward this odd couple, and even Jessie started toward them, then glanced around, saw that Sanchez hadn’t moved, and hurried back to him. She whined and pawed at his leg as if to say,
Aw, c’mon, dude, let’s greet them.

So even though Sanchez felt like the outsider, he joined them.

The fog continued to provide a cover and Sanchez worried that it might prevent them from taking off. Delaney was more concerned about the choppers they could all hear somewhere nearby. Once, searchlights swept over the runway, but the fog was still too thick for them to be visible. As the choppers moved away again, they boarded the plane.

They had cleared most of the debris to either side of the runway, but Sanchez fretted about the stuff they couldn’t see, pieces of wood, chunks of concrete, bits of bone. He and Delaney put on headphones, and there were two more sets in the cabin that Wayra and Maddie used so they could speak to each other without shouting over the din of the engine. He wondered how they would cram even more people into the cabin and worried about the unforeseen, the unexpected. But the unforeseen and the unexpected were becoming his new norm.

As they took off, the fog fell away behind them, and when Sanchez looked down, all he could see was a white blanket that seemed to cover most of the island. At five hundred feet, out over the gulf, Sanchez’s BlackBerry and his fed cell jingled simultaneously, text messages, both from O’Donnell.

Am assuming you & delaney r in hiding. We lost most of hazmat unit we sent in. Now national guard & fire depts on way & fully armed. They’ll help u both get out, just show yr ID. D has questions 2 answer about the escape of kate davis. & you went rogue.

He read the message aloud. Delaney just laughed. “What an asshole. I’ve got a few questions for
him
. What hazmat unit is he talking about?”

Maddie brought him up to speed. “It was a drill, that’s what I think. And it went horribly wrong. They hadn’t counted on that. They actually believed there had been a biological terrorist attack, and after the unit was nearly wiped out, I figured they were just going to let everyone die off. But what’s happening now changed their game plan.”

“That’s cynical,” Sanchez said.

“Cynical, but likely.”

“She may be right,” Delaney said. “The feds, the CDC, HSD may have just taken advantage of a situation to see what they could learn from it.”

Before Sanchez could say anything, the radio crackled and a male voice was audible in the headphones. “This is the Gainesville tower. To the plane that just took off from Cedar Key airport, we have you on radar. Please identify yourself.”

Delaney glanced at Sanchez. “What’s your hunch?”

Sanchez thought about it, but not for long. “We can use them to our advantage. I’ll talk to them.” He adjusted his mike. “This is a blue and red Cessna two-ten, with two federal agents on board.” He spat out his badge ID. “The situation on Cedar Key is dire. The island has been under quarantine since March 17, due to a suspected biological weapon. No supplies have come in, people are now rioting in the streets for food, and most of the island is burning. There’s no biological weapon here. I repeat, this area was not subjected to a biological terrorist attack. It’s all part of a military drill. We are sending videos to CNN’s iReport. The residents on the island are desperate.”

“We’ve got video?” Delaney asked.

Sanchez held up his BlackBerry and passed it to Maddie. “Red, send all the video that’s on there to CNN. Tell them more is coming.”

“You got it. Tell the tower they’re getting the video, too.” She took the BlackBerry.

“Uh, Cessna two-ten. We copy. Can you get any of these people out?”

“We’re going to try. If you can provide an e-mail address, we’ll send you the video as well.”

“Please switch to a cell phone and call 352-555-7691.” He provided an e-mail address and Sanchez repeated it for Maddie.