See How She Fights (8 page)

I shook off the feeling of
nausea that swept through my body. I needed to be closer so that I could see
what was going on. I needed to know what was being said. I moved silently
through the old seats toward the stage. The Seer lying on the stage turned her
eyes toward me in a quick glance before unleashing an unholy scream. It
vibrated deep down in my soul. I knew I needed to stop this, but it was a solid
vision. There was nothing that could be done. This was not an event that I
could change.

“This sucks,” I said,
frustrated.

“You’re telling me. At least you
still have your eyes. Oh, and your life,” Ren griped.

“Seriously, if you are going to
be haunting my visions, could you at least be a little nice? It isn’t like I
want any of this to be happening, you know. Besides, you are distracting me. I
need to figure out what is going on if I have any chance of stopping this. You
do want to be free to move on, don’t you?” She just stared at me with a bored
expression.

“Don’t be so emo,” she said
before moving toward the stage.

Just as we reached the stage the
Seer let out another cry. I noticed then that two of the Guardians were
removing her eyes. I wanted to look away from the grotesque sight. I didn’t
want that vision to haunt my dreams, but I knew without a doubt that every
single detail was important. I had to know everything. I looked over to the
blurry woman. I tried to focus on her but it was as though she had some sort of
shield around her.

“You aren’t breaking into that
fortress of solitude. Trust me, I’ve tried,” Ren practically shouted next to
me.

“Would you shush? They might
notice us,” I said, turning back to the Seer. Her spirit began to separate from
her body. Ren rushed up to the stage and grabbed her hand.

“I got you,” she said to the
girl.

“Where am I? What happened to
me?” Her voice was filled with terror and confusion. It was all I could do not
to wrap her in my arms tightly.

“Well, you are stuck in between
planes while her mightiness over there tries to figure out what is going on.”

“Really, Ren. The girl just
died. Could you at least show a little sympathy?” I said, turning away from the
pair. It disturbed to me that talking to sightless gory people was becoming the
norm.

“I’m dead. You don’t see me
moping,” she muttered back.

“No, I just hear you annoying
the crap out of me instead of helping me,” I said before turning my attention
to the girl. Maybe she knew something that Ren didn’t. “Do you remember
anything before the sacrifice? Did they say anything about why they were doing
it?” I asked her, hoping for at least some answers.

“I just remember walking home
from the library. I had to return some books on Druid sacrificial practices. My
mom wanted me to study up on them. She said she’d seen something coming and
didn’t want to go in blind. I still have no idea what she was babbling about
because the books never sparked any sort of information in me. At any rate, I
left the library and ‘bam.’ Someone side-swiped me into an alley and injected
me with something. I don’t know what but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t yell for
help. The first time I was able to yell was when you showed up. I could tell
you were there somehow. So, I am stuck like this?” I was surprised at how well
she had held it together. If I had been in her place I would have been freaking
out. It seemed that Seers raised up to do this sort of thing were a tough lot.

“Unfortunately, it seems that
you are. I am doing everything I can to figure it out, as is the Council. I am
so sorry we couldn’t stop this from happening to you,” I said, giving up on the
pretense and wrapping my arms around her cold form. The blood be damned, I
needed to hug her.

“Gosh, emo, get it under
control. You have a murder to solve. Can’t you figure out who that woman is?”
Ren asked.

“No. No matter how much I push
all I can see is a vague smoky outline of a woman. I don’t know who she is,” I
said, stumped.

“Well, you better get going,”
Ren said before pushing me from my vision. I really didn’t like that spook.

**********

As usual, I woke up surrounded by
people. Kennan, Ian, and Conall all stood around me in a circle as Isadora
kneeled down at my side. She wore a fluttery, lavender gown that I thought set
her eyes off nicely.

I really needed to focus here.

“We need to talk,” I croaked before
Kennan lifted me into his arms and carried me to Isadora’s office. I looked
down at my arm and noticed it was wrapped in a blood soaked cloth.

“Conall, be a dear and fetch the
medical kit would you?” Isadora said.

“Of course,” he said with a bow
before sprinting Guardian speed down the corridor.

“Now, what pray tell has happened
to you since we last saw one another?” Isadora asked.

“We need to get to the Lawndale
Theater. I think there might be a dead Seer there,” I said before passing out
against Kennan. My mind had apparently had enough for one day. Between the
early morning wake up and everything else, I was well and truly done.

**********

CHAPTER NINE

When I finally came to, I was moving.
I looked around, trying to gain my bearings, and found myself in the back of a
van surrounded by Guardians. Kennan sat next to me propping my body up with his
own.

I moved to sit up, causing a sharp
pain to shoot up my arm. I looked down to find it wrapped in red-tinted gauze.
I moved it gingerly, trying to see what had been done. From the feel of it I’d
been stitched up. I couldn’t remember any of it.

“Where are we?”

“On our way to the theater,” Kennan
muttered in my hair. “You really need to stop blocking me out, Izzy.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. I think
that it might be Ren messing with it. She was there again. Kennan, we can’t
interfere in the sacrifice if it is still going on. Whoever this girl is, she
has to die today,” I said sadly. As much as I wanted to change it, I knew the
rules. It had been a solidified vision. For whatever reason, God had intended
today to be her day to go. If I began messing with that, I would be a worse
person than Xavier.

“What do you mean we can’t stop
it?” The rage was building in his eyes.

I put my hand on his arm trying to
get him to calm down and focus. He knew as well as I did that if it was a solid
vision, neither of us had a choice. After a moment, he calmed himself enough
for me to continue.

“I don’t begin to understand how
this works, Kennan. But, I think that if she doesn’t die, then I would never
have met her on the other plane and had that conversation. From what she said,
her mom knows something about the rituals. The girl was leaving the library when
she was taken. I think her mother knew, Kennan. So, we can’t stop her death,
because if we do then I would never have known about her mom and that bare
scrap of a clue,” I paused, thinking about it before adding, “I think.”

I was no scientist, but it sort of
made sense. If she didn’t die, she couldn’t tell me that stuff. If we stopped
her death, another reality might split off. I hadn’t seen enough episodes of
Doctor Who to fully understand paradoxes. I needed to do more research.

“I know you’re right, but it
doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it,” his voice vibrated with anger.

“I’m not happy about it either,
Kennan. I wish, more than anything, that I could save this girl. The best way I
can help her now is to figure out what is going on and stop it so that her soul
can be at rest.”

As the last words left my mouth,
the car came to a rest outside the dilapidated theater. The Guardians unloaded
and, as one, surrounded me. I wondered how often they had practiced this
formation. I took them all in and noticed a familiar ninja suit in the pack of
otherwise black clad Guardians. A chuckle rose out of me involuntarily. It was
a horrible time to be laughing, but I couldn’t help myself. Ian turned and
winked at me before we began moving inside the building.

“Remember guys, we can’t stop it.
This has to play out,” I said with more authority than I felt I deserved. They
all looked at me and nodded before continuing on.

We reached the interior and I was
struck by the smell of old urine and the faint smell of extinguished candles.
The place had obviously been used by a few squatters. We made our way up to the
stage where the ruined body of the Seer lay abandoned. Tears welled in my eyes.
Somehow, here in reality, it was so much worse. Seeing her die in the dreaming
had not prepared me for the look of anguish that was left on her face.

I found myself feeling unnaturally
angry about it all. The way they left her body lying there like so much trash.
She had lived a life. She was someone’s daughter. Perhaps she was someone’s
lover. Had she had a Guardian? What would happen to him? I stood staring down
at her body with tears streaming down my cheeks.

“It never gets any easier,” Conall
said from my elbow. I had not even noticed him in the group. “If it does, then
you aren’t the person we need you to be,” he said moving away. I just loved
cryptic statements. I looked to my left to find Kennan staring down at me. His
face was strained with concern.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m mad. How could they just leave
her here like this? I don’t understand what kind of person would do this to
another one, Kennan. Whoever this is, whoever is doing this, I’m going to stop
them. I don’t care if it takes me the next hundred years to find them, I will.
This will not continue.”

I paused for a moment, trying to
find my balance. These men expected me to be a leader. I had to get myself
under control. I swallowed deeply before addressing the crowd.

“I need to know who she is. I want
her address, her known associates, her mother’s name, any information you can
give me about her.” I conjured every cop show I’d ever watched and spat out
orders, feeling ridiculous the entire time.

“Look at you, Bossy Pants,” Ian
whispered in my ear as he walked past. I was really grateful to have him there.
Molly might want to kill him on a daily basis, but I was sure glad to have him
around.

The Guardians set about making
calls, trying to identify the girl and get a cleanup crew to gather the body
for a proper burial. We were there for three hours before everything was
complete and we had a name for the girl. Her name was Isabelle and she had just
turned twenty-five two weeks prior to her death. I thought back to Ren’s file
and remembered that she had also just turned twenty-five.

“How old have they all been?” I
shouted to no one in particular.

“I believe they have all been
twenty-five, Milady,” a Guardian I didn’t know answered.

“Just Izzy, if you don’t mind,” I
muttered.

What was the link?  There had to be
some reason that only twenty-five-year-old Seers were being sacrificed. I felt
as though I was missing all of the outer pieces of the puzzle. I had everything
in the center but nothing on the periphery. Whatever it was, I would figure it
out.

**********

“We are going to go to the mother’s
house.  Would you care to accompany us, Izzy?” Conall asked with a wink. At
least I thought it was a wink. His only having the one eye kind of threw me
off. For all I knew he could have been blinking.

“If it isn’t a problem for me to
come along, I’d like to. I have a feeling her mom knows something that may help
us.”

“Alright, we will take the extra
car. Ian, are you coming or staying?” Conall asked.

“What do you think?” Ian asked,
rushing over.

“Don’t you think the ninja suit was
a bit much for this outing?” I whispered.

“A ninja suit is perfect for every
occasion,” he replied indignantly.

“Maybe, if it wasn’t the quality of
a cheap Halloween costume,” I said before stepping into the protection of
Kennan’s arm.

We loaded into the car. Conall was
in the driver’s seat and I couldn’t take such an open opportunity to annoy him
for granted.

“You sure you’re allowed to drive
there, one eye?” I asked as Kennan pulled me back against the seat.

“From what I hear you are not
permitted to drive. Therefore, you have no room to talk,” he replied with a hint
of laughter in his voice. I was glad I was finally breaking down that whole
serious exterior a little. Yes, he had joked with me, but I think that had been
more to annoy Kennan than anything else. He was more like Ian than I had
originally thought.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just drive,”
I groused, snuggling into Kennan’s side. It felt good to be in a car full of
people I trusted. Well, a car with two people I trusted and one that I was not
quite sure about.

We made our way to the other side
of the city and pulled into a parking structure. As one, we exited the car and
made our way into the towering building. Conall flashed some sort of badge to
the doorman and we were let in with no fuss.

As we approached the elevators, I
was struck by a paralyzing fear. It wasn’t something that happened every time I
got in one. Normally, I was able to tone down the paranoia. But when I was
worn, or tired, which I happened to be, it became harder to ignore. I reached
out to grip Kennan’s hand tightly and closed my eyes in the process. Maybe if I
envisioned wide open spaces, I would feel better.

“What’s going on?” Conall voice was
laced with concern.

“She has a thing about tight
spaces,” Kennan replied quickly, trying to get them to drop it. While Ian and
Conall talked, Kennan bent his head to whisper in my ear. “If I could distract
you, trust me I would.” He pulled back with a sly grin and I caught a flash of
our last elevator ride together. Distraction indeed. Just as I let my mind
fully submerge in the memory, the elevator came to a stop. We climbed out and
headed to Isabelle’s apartment. Her mother was waiting for the news that no
parent wanted.

“Come in,” we heard from behind the
door before we were even able to knock. “Don’t just stand out in the hallway,
get in here,” she yelled again.

Conall opened the door and held it
for us to get inside. Ian and Kennan entered on either side of me so that I
became the filling in a Guardian sandwich. We arrived to find a simply
decorated apartment and were greeted by a woman that could easily rival Isadora
in class and eccentricity. She sat on a multicolored chair as though she had
been waiting for us all afternoon.

“So it is done, I presume? And you
must be Izzy. It is a pleasure to meet you, although I would have preferred
happier circumstances. I am Eleanor,” she said, motioning for us to sit down. I
must’ve had a shocked, or perhaps confused, expression on my face. I never
could hide what I was feeling. “You seem disturbed by my lack of emotions.”

“Well, to be honest, I am a bit confused.
Isabelle was your daughter, right?” I asked, staring at the woman.

“Yes. You see, I saw this day come
weeks ago. I knew she was going to die. I knew there would be some sort of
ritual. I had no more information than that. So, I’ve grieved silently for
weeks. As my daughter went about her day to day activities, I sat in misery. I
could not tell her because she had to stay true to her course. I have to live
with that. So instead of focusing on her, I turned my focus toward helping you,
Izzy. I recognized part of the ritual as one the Druids used to perform.”

“Isabelle told me something about
some books she had returned to the library,” I said thoughtfully. Perhaps
Eleanor would have the key to unlock this mystery. Hopefully, she could at
least tell me about the ritual.

“You saw her? You spoke with my
baby?” Eleanor gasped as a tear threatened to slide down her cheek. “But, you
didn’t interfere did you?”

“No, I was having a vision of the
ceremony. In it, she died, and once she was removed from this plane, I guess it
made it so that I could talk to her. I am not really sure why or how. I just
know that I talked to her,” I finished, feeling sick to my stomach. I didn’t
want this woman to know that her daughter was stuck between planes unable to
move on.

“I know she is dear,” Eleanor said,
reaching for my hand. “Do you mind if I see what you saw?” she asked. I knew
she wanted to sift through my memories to see our interaction.

“I don’t mind, but it is all a bit
ghastly. Are you sure you want to have that sort of memory of your daughter?” I
asked, knowing if I was in her place I would want to remember her happy and
alive.

“It is not about wants, sweet girl.
It is about needs. Perhaps there is something in those memories that would make
more sense to me,” she said sadly before continuing. “I need you to center your
mind. Think back to the vision and replay it in your mind.” I did as she said,
and as soon as she latched on, I could feel her moving in my mind. She flipped
through the images like an old movie replaying sections as she went. When she
was finished, she looked at me, astounded.

“Well, that was disturbing,” she
said, looking a bit green. “Who was the other girl there?”

“Ren.  Apparently I see dead people
now,” I muttered before I realized it was an entirely inappropriate time to
make such a joke. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“I understand. You did nothing to
offend me my dear.” She patted my hand before settling back in her chair. “So,
this Ren was also a victim of the sacrifice?”

“Yes, ma’am. She showed up in the
dreaming last night, urging me to solve this mystery,” I said just as my
exhaustion decided to settle over me.

“Well, I do believe we should head
out to the Council, don’t you?” she asked before moving to the door where a
packed bag awaited her. As she passed her daughter’s picture, her hand
unconsciously rose to brush a finger across the image. She may have appeared
put together, but I knew she was a hair’s breath away from breaking down
completely.

“That sounds like a brilliant plan
to me,” I yawned, following her out.

We made our way back down to the
garage quickly. The elevator didn’t try and kill me this time. Thank God for
small favors.

We began to pile in the car, and
the image I was struck by caused me to giggle. I imagined a clown car stuffed
to the gills with Guardians. Everyone stopped to stare at me as though I had
finally gone mad. It was the second time that day I had found humor in an
inappropriate situation.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I crawled
into the middle of the backseat.

“I thought it would take her longer
to crack than that,” Ian said, snickering as he climbed in. I reached up and
smacked him upside his head as he sat.

“I am not going crazy. I was just
thinking of clown cars.”

“I rest my case,” Ian said as we
began to pull out of the garage.

**********