That one was different from the others. All the previous dreams had been the end of the woman's life. After they had lost the Witchblade. This seemed more like the middle. A break in the pattern. Sara didn't understand it. Last night she had no problem sleeping, and tonight they had returned. Since she had told Jake, whenever she was around him the visions weren't as bad. And last night there were no dreams.
She wasn't about to go over to his place and ask to borrow him every night. Not yet anyway. He was comfortable, though.
"I need to stop thinking about this."
The rain outside normally would have helped her sleep. It wasn't helping her now. Maybe Irons knew why the Witchblade wouldn't let her rest? No. She wouldn't call him. If she picked up the phone it would be to get pizza, or tell Jake to get over here.
Maybe she could try tiring her mind out.
Let's see. How were the triple homicide, boy in the alley, and the dreams all connected? Could the dreams be warning her about her end? Was she going to be connected to the other four murders? Why was there no blue food?
Damn. That wasn't going to work.
The phone looked tempting again. What number would her hand dial?
Sara picked up the receiver and dialed. She wasn't sure of what number.
Four rings.
"Yeah," a sleepy voice came over the line.
"Jake?"
* * * *
He was wrong about that one. The boy on the street wasn't like the others he had sent.
The white-haired man wouldn't be pleased that he had chosen wrong, or would he? Perhaps he wouldn't care, he hadn't so far.
The teen wasn't quite what he was looking for, but he was close. The kid was foreign; with pale eyes, he was special. He didn't look Japanese, but those thing were trivial. All that mattered was that this one was strong, so much stronger that the others that it made them look insignificant. The boy's mind was incredible. It was difficult to subdue him. He fought well, in mind and body. The teen knew what he was, and he had complete control. He had to be the one of the few the white-haired man was looking for.
There was another, though. He had gone back to where he found the foreign boy, and there was another. Not quite as potent, but still . . .
It made him shiver. He would have compared the feeling to sex, if he had any experience in the matter.
He wasn't supposed to send the Japanese boy to be with the others. Was he? He didn't look like others he had seen: blonde hair and pale, violet eyes weren't normal features for an Asian. His eyes were angular, but not like the Japanese woman who he sent away months ago. Oh well, it didn't matter. The creature was his. There is more to him than his mind.
The kid in the alley. He hadn't been wrong before. The little punk wasn't worthy . . . it must have been the drugs flowing through his body, and he had been fortunate. The Lady Detective was there to find the body. She was something. Her and the teen. They would please the white-haired man. He just had to get her away from that partner of hers. The last portion of the woman was put into place. He loved art so much, and now that nice lady was a part of it. He was sure she could appreciate it from her place in the next world.
The rats began to feed.
* * * *
Some times it really amazed her how people's bodies were found. At five twelve this morning, Sara Pezzini was woken from her, now rare, sleep to come and see a murder victim that just had to be connected to the triple homicide that she and Jake were working on. Jake's cell phone went off a few minutes after she had put down the phone. She tried not to make any noise. Who knows what would happen if some one found out they were 'sleeping' together. Granted, they weren't having any kind of intimate relations. But better safe than sorry.
But the beat cop was right.
This one went with the other three at the house. This guy had a thing for cutting people up.
The woman was spread out around the I-beams of the over pass. The murderer had scalped her and nailed her hair to the pillar. The rest of her body was laid out in a symmetrical pattern. Like he was trying to draw a picture.
The officers were still chasing away rats too. It was by shear luck that the body had been found. The highway cleaning crews only came by once a month. A volunteer had noticed the bags of trash that had been dumped over the wall, and came down to pick them up. His co-workers said that he fainted when he saw what was left of the woman.
"We really need to find this guy, Pez."
"The first forensic reports should be in when we get to the office. We'll have to start from there."
A woman's scream echoed in her ears. A man's voice singing a corrupted version of a lullaby joined. Sara had to cover her ears as it got louder.
"Pez?"
It kept on getting louder.
"Sara?"
And stopped the second Jake McCartey's had touched her shoulder.
"It stopped. I'm fine."
"What did you see?"
"Heard. Not saw. Just voices."
He nodded his head and began to lead her towards the car.
"Where are we going?"
"They want to get everything they can. It's starting to rain. That means we go."
"They can't tell us to leave. We've barely been here!"
Water began to pour from the sky.
"Shit!"
Nearly every person at the scene began to scramble to gather what evidence they could. The coroner had already bagged the body, and the photographer rushed to finish off his roll of film. It was ordered chaos.
It wouldn't stop raining for three more days.
* * * *
It had chosen a strange way to punish her for her untruthful ways.
But did the whole kingdom need to suffer for her mistake? The Gauntlet
had shown the princess her fate. In numerous dreams that
left her fearing the very word "sleep". Everyone would drown when
the island nation sank.
Her advisors told her that dreams had no structure in reality. But, they had come true before. And the ground tremors were getting worse every moment.
A thousand years of history would vanish under the water. Utopia would be lost, because she was a "pretender" according to the Gauntlet.
The ground shook again. This time it did not stop. Her wrist felt light. Where did it go?
The rest happened too fast. The land broke apart, and fire swept through the city. She felt weightless as the earth receded into the ocean.
The princess was pulled down. No matter how much she swam she couldn't reach the surface.
Salty water filled her lungs and she fell further into darkness.
* * * *
Sara's eyes flew open. She had fallen asleep at work? That's right. The storm had knocked the power out. No light, no phones, and no heat. The rain hadn't shown any signs of letting up either. The forensic reports had come to them electronically and there was currently no access to them. The hard copies would take longer to arrive. With nothing to do the rain must have put her too sleep.
She had dreamt again. This one followed the pattern of the others. The one from last night seemed to be a fluke. What was that thing Jake had told her: "One is random, two is coincidence, and three is a trend."
It was getting old, but no less tiring. For some reason the dreams drained her. Maybe Gabriel Bowman could find out why.
"Hey Pez."
"Jake. Where'd you go?"
"To see if that courier who's bringing the reports over had gotten here."
"Some how I doubt that he'll show up any time soon."
Yawn.
"Did you get enough sleep?"
"I'm still catching up. I took a little nap while you were gone."
"No problems?"
"I had another one. This time she drowned when her island kingdom fell into the sea. Her punishment for lying to the Witchblade."
"Ouch. A pretender?"
"I guess."
He set his flashlight upright, like a torch, and sat down in his seat across from her. Putting his feet up on his desk.
"So what do we do now, tell ghost stories?"
"We wait until the power comes back. We go over what we have. If there was enough light, study the photos some more."
"Come on, Sara. There's barely anything except the pictures. No one saw anything. The neighbors thought the house was abandoned."
"He wants to be found. The paper didn't even start going to that house until that day. And I'm betting our guy knew that the cleaning crews came by today. He's playing with us."
"Or trying to tell us something."
"That too."
There had to be some connection between all the victims and herself. Why did everything have to be so cryptic? Didn't any one know what a straight answer was anymore? Danny, Nottingham, Irons, Dominique. Riddles. The visions were so vague there was almost no point to them.
"What did you see at the house anyway?"
"Huh? O-oh. There was red. Everything was blurry. I thought I made out the guy in the tub once. He was running. Um, there was metal and screaming. And singing."
"Singing?"
"I've heard it a few times. It sounds like a lullaby. I don't know what any of it means yet. Or what it has to do with me."
"With you?"
"Supposedly there is no randomness in my life now. Everything is connected."
"Everything?" An nod, "Even me coming over?" Jake finished with a smirk on his face.
Sara rolled her eyes at him, "Probably."
"Well I didn't go over to the victim's homes for sleep overs."
She laughed at his attempt at humor, and threw a pencil at him.
"I should hope not . . . I wonder why I don't have the dreams when you're close by. And when you've touched me the visions stop. Anything you're not telling me?"
"When I was a kid some mystic at a carnival couldn't tell me my future. Her little toys wouldn't work when I was around. I thought she was full of it, but maybe there was something to it."
The lights flickered for a moment. They seemed to fight for a moment then came on completely.
"It's about time."
"Don't say anything, Jake. They might go out again."
"Very funny."
"I try to be. Let's see if we can get those forensic reports now."
* * * *
The Lady Detective had found his picture under the highway over pass. He really wished that those people wouldn't take apart what he had so carefully put together. But he couldn't be mad at the police. They were doing their jobs. Like he was doing his job. The white-haired man was happy when he told him that he was in possession of the foreign teen.
The white-haired man knew who the boy was. Seiji was his name, and he wasn't a seer like the others were. He was something called a tele - a telepa something. Seiji could read minds and talk to people without speaking. And the white-haired man said that Seiji could move things with his mind too. But the words were too big and complicated. He could never remember them. It didn't matter. A lot of things didn't matter. He knew what mattered now.
He had to get the Lady Detective. The white-haired man told him that she was definitely one of the few. She even saw something while he was watching her. But that partner of hers. He was her opposite. He was like the girl in Atlanta that hurt him so badly. Her skin was so cold he burned himself when he grabed her arm.
The Atlanta girl was strong, she was like Seiji. How she fought, not her mind. He still had scars from where she punched him. But she was the negation. Negation was a word he knew. One of the few big words that mattered. The seers powers didn't work around her. Just like the Lady Detective's partner. He dulled her senses. People like the Partner and the Atlanta girl were common. But few were so powerful. A fortune teller once said that those people had clear auras. He understood those kinds of things.
The people he had sent on, their auras were so bright and pretty. But the Negations had no color. Reality seemed to bend around them. It must be some thing to do with having no color.
He was staring at Seiji now. He was so much brighter than the others, and he liked the color green too. The boy must be someone important. He was glad that he didn't send Seiji on now. It was too bad that he had to use so many things to keep Seiji subdued. He would love to talk with him. Like right now. Seiji was glaring at him. He looked angry.
"Don't worry. The white-haired man said not to send you to meet the others."
"I'm not honored." Seiji spoke in perfect english. It surprised him. That, Seiji had no accent. "You have no idea what you're doing, do you?"
"I'm helping people, and getting rid of the unworthy ones."
"You're hurting people."
"You don't understand."
"Yes I do. You think that I've been sitting here for the fun of it. You know what I am. You may have me drugged up to the point that I can't call for help. But I've been learning about you."
"What did you learn?" He was happy. He loved to learn things.
"I-," the drugs were kicking in, "The Atlanta girl. The rain."
"She was mean to me. And she is a Negation. I don't like her that much."
"She doesn't like you either."
"Are you two friends. I have lots of friends."
"Yes," It was getting harder for Seiji to think, "She knows about . . . about you. Where I am. Sh-she'll come looking."
"No She won't!!" He stood up an yelled, "No one knows where we are!"
"She'll kill you if I don't. You're insane."
"NO! No no nono! You don't understand! The Atlanta girl doesn't understand! I'm helping people! I don't want to talk to you any more!"
The drugs fully kicked in and Seiji was knocked out. It was a good thing. He didn't want to talk to him right now. He had seen that little girl in the park. She was so young, but she was like the Lady Detective. She needed his help now.
