Chapter 10: "Odyssey of the Spirit"
-"Go. Look for him. Don't be afraid of following you heart. If you are really sure of what your heart is telling you, you will surely find what your spirit is looking for."
The still and calm waters of the Atlantic Ocean vanished in the middle of a sea of mist and foggy weather, which happened to cover the entire view of the English Channel, turning the calm seas into dangerous waters, with heavy rainstorms, constant thunders and crashing waves. The rain would not stop falling, not in the day or in the night, thunders would occasionally cause a "jumpy" feeling when you least expect it, and the crashing waves will move the ship really easily. But after a week of what seemed never ending pouring rains, everything was now part of the sounds and motions of the daily basis. If it was not enough to think that the weather had delayed their chances of getting safe and on time to the shores, it had left a nostalgic, gloomy and almost depressing feeling all over the ship. This feeling had turned minutes into hours, hours into days and days into months, all resulting in making their only week aboard look like a long and never ending eternity
Eternity was one of the thoughts that flooded her mind with such ease, leaving no space for other thoughts, maybe sometimes the idea of how horribly painful would be to cross the world and find nothing at all, no clues no relief, nothing but pain and disappointment. Sometimes relief would come to her in the most unexpected ways; as a warm smile from her friends and family, as the gentle sea breeze, as the fact that every second was a moment closer to getting to their final destination, or as simple distractions like meetings or medical checkups. But apparently this was not enough to keep her mind busy with other thoughts. Instead, she would pass most of her afternoons in seclusion with constant headaches, lying in her bed watching the cocoons of her "unborn" children, hearing the slow ticking noise of the clock and the sound of the pouring rain and clashing thunders; waiting for something to happen, anything that could free her from her current personal hell.
"What is eternity without someone to spend it with?" she thought as she stared blankly at the door in her room, waiting for something that could change her uninteresting day.
For her surprise the door suddenly flung open, letting the chilly and stormy breeze enter her room. She walked and closed it, not a surprise finding nobody but the occasional seagull that kept wandering in the hall. As she turned she realized that she had visitors in her room, the lilac haired chiropteran accompanied by two raven haired twins to be precise. The three of them were sitting in her bed, watching how she pulled a chair near the mattress.
"Morning, Auntie Saya!!" the sisters said in a choir.
"Morning Aki, Aoi, Lulu." the queen said as she sat, "Isn't a little bit too early to be already wandering around the ship, hiding from Kai?"
"No. It's already noon." Aki said as she and her sister giggled.
"Uncle Kai sends us." Aoi said innocently.
"He did?" she said giving a skeptical look at Lulu, "Is that true?"
"Well, yes. He said you had a meeting at one o' clock." she said as she looked at the clock.
She bit her lip as she watched the clock, which marked 12:45, she wondered if she could make it to the meeting within fifteen minutes.
"Can we walk with you? Today is not raining so much." Aki pleaded.
"Please, Auntie Saya." the twins said with puppy eyes.
"Ok." she said as they walked out of the room.
Outside, the chilly breeze flowed together with a very soft rain, which wetted the deck and the hallways. They walked through the halls, passing by the seagull, and climbed the stairs that led to the deck. As they emerged, they realized that a crowd gathered around something that lied in the middle of the deck. Both twins ran scared to their aunt and uncle, and the Schiff gathered also around the crowd of people, leaving Saya alone and bewildered.
She slowly and cautiously walked to the middle of the deck, and placed her hand on her brother's shoulder, but it seemed as if he had not felt anything at all.
"What is happening?" she said as she made her self through the crowd.
She heard no answer, no whisper, nothing, but she could feel the deep sights of her friends and family, although they were focusing at the floor. She looked around, but did not see their faces, and then she faced what they were currently looking. It seemed as big chunks of a hard grey stone that had been cut somehow, exposing the sides of a very strange, bright crystalline red glass, with sparkles very similar to the ones in gems such as the ruby. She kneeled besides the chunks of grey-red stone and took one in her hand, as she grabbed it and she realized they were pieces of his dismembered body. Heavy drops fell from the darkened skies and from the white skin of the queen, both with great pain and sadness. The pouring rain started to become every time louder, until not even her screams and cries were audible. She took a piece of his body and crushed it, seeing how it turned into dust, vanishing into the deep green sea; the pounding rain continued falling, hurting her papery skin. But as the rain kept falling, it started to blur her vision; she tried to turn around but the current scenery dissolved into the obscured walls of her room, and the chunk of "stone" turned into her soft bed sheets.
It had all been a dream, a very mortifying nightmare to be precise, probably the effect of her chronic migraines and preoccupations. She looked around, the rain had not stopped falling for a minute, pounding constantly as hard as her heart right now; and the clock marked one o'clock in the morning. Her head although had stopped aching but her heart did not; it only made it beat with more strength. She stood up from her bed in the dim lighted room, looking for a jacket as she made her way out of her room. As she opened the door, the cold air made her legs shake, although, she continued walking through the deserted halls, a thing that had now became a habit of hers. It had been some time after she started walking when she realized that she was far away from her room. She looked around and found a familiar shadow in a faraway end. It was her "sister-in-law", who remained sited outside her room.
"I did not knew you too enjoyed being up all night." Mao said with sarcasm.
"Hmm? I was just walking, I cannot sleep." she said as she approached where Mao was sitting, "Why are you sitting outside? You too suffer from insomnia?"
"Kind of. The boat shaking makes me feel seasick." Mao said as she looked at Saya's concerned face, "You should be happy, we are almost there."
"I know, but it is just that. . . I don't know really why I'm so concerned." she said with angst.
Mao gave a smirk and looked the other way of the dim moonlighted hallway, and then faced the queen once again after she had stood up from the cold floor.
"Go. Look for him." Mao said with a tender voice, seeing right at Saya's red blood eyes, "Don't be afraid of following you heart. If you are really sure of what your heart is telling you, you will surely find what your spirit is looking for."
Her words were clear and sincere, if she was really certain that he will be there, she will find him. He has always been there when she needed him the most. She hoped that this time will occur with no exception. But even tough she wondered if she would be stopped by somebody, would someone even dare to interfere in the most eternal of loves?
"What about Kai? He's always a worrywart, over over-protective big brother." Saya said as she wiped her slightly wetted eyes. "He would want to come too."
"Do not worry; I'll stop him if he even dares to put a foot in Paris." Mao said as she winked her eye, "He should understand you have to do it alone. Besides if you go now, I guess you will be back when he's up. I'll tell the others besides Kai if you're worried. "
"Thank you Mao." she said as she hugged her.
"Do not thank me. Just go right now, before it is too late." Mao yelled as Saya ran through the hall, but she was now to far away to have heard Mao's words.
"I hope Kai does not over react, but I guess I'm asking for so much." she mumbled under her breath as she silently tried to sneak back into her room.
Meanwhile she returned to her room, far away in the hallways of the ship, Saya ran as fast as she could, in her human speed, through the dimly moonlighted hallways. She climbed the stairs that led to the deck and stopped for a moment, looking at the raging sea. It was still raining when she got there, but even though she decided to literally jump to the storm. Was it the heat of the moment that made her take that decision, was it the hope, faith and relief she had found in Mao's word what made her take that path? Or was it both? It really did not matter, because she knew she was certain of what she will find out there this time; she knew she would find him waiting for her, just the way they had promised years ago during that night at the Metropolitan Opera House.
As soon as she entered the storm, her heart started to pant and overflow with the heat of the moment. It was difficult to find her way through the endless sea of mist as she moved in blurs, landing in what she could find. The dense fog and pouring rain was still heavy, making her body soak and her clothes heavier. The more she jumped was the closer she was of getting there; she could feel something in her blood that told her heart did not lied.
As she got to land, she started to see some weak lights in the horizon, by dawn she had already reached Paris, it did not took her more than a few hours to reach the city, but it did made her push her self a little harder than usual. As the first rays of sun braked into the many streets of the city she felt the consequences of her rush, exhaustion. Although she had turned a trip that normally had taken some days into a one night walk, she felt her body heavy, numb, cold and her clothes damp and soaked with rain water.
It was not even nine o'clock when she started to walk through the streets, everything brought her an air of nostalgia as she toured the city, it had not changed much, of what she remembered, since her last visit. Many stores and places where still closed, and she ran out of options of where to look. She had already been near to the place where they stayed last time; she had sneaked out to the balcony in the Eifel Tower, and been to the library, she had also searched near all the most important sightseeing points in the city; but apparently she did not find where he could be. Stressed, she sat on the bench of a park that had a view to a part of a city she had not searched yet. In the horizon, it could be seen a white circular building that catch her attention.
"Was not Cinq Fleches here?" she murmured to her self.
"You mean that white building over there?" a strange eerie voice called from behind.
"Yes, is there still being used?" she said innocently as she turned to see the man sitting behind her, but he was hiding his face as he read a newspaper. "I guess not, right?"
"Hmm, they wish. It has been abandoned since the last CEO went mad." the man said.
"You mean, Solomon Goldsmith?" she said with interest.
"No. I believe Van Argiano was his name." he said indifferent, "But, I highly recommend you to stay away from that place, people says strange things happen there. I must leave, goodbye."
Saya stared shocked at the former offices of Cinq Fleches, was it really true what the man had said? If it was true, what kind of strange things happened there? She thought it would be a trip worth doing, so she went on her way to the white building.
As she got to the building, it seemed so obscure, so abandoned; maybe the man was right; after all nobody could have managed the company all this years. The grounds surrounding the building were deserted, and framed in a wire fence. She walked around the fence trying to find a spot to enter, when she found a familiar man near the fence; he was wearing an old weathered brown suit and hat, and he was too reading a newspaper, you could barely see his face and some of his gray colored hair, and you could tell he was above sixty-five.
"Young lady, please do not enter this place." the man pleaded in a dry voice.
"Excuse me, have we met?" she said as she stared at the man.
"Probably not, but I can tell you strange things happen here." he said shakily.
"I have been told thank you." she said as she tried to climb the wire barrier. "But I can take care of my self."
"Under your own risk, madam." he mumbled under his breath and left the place.
"Under your risk, but I guess it dose not matter more food for the "mice."' he said chuckling.
As soon as the stranger left, Saya climbed the barrier and entered the lonely building; it was obscure and with an eerie feeling in the air. As soon as the door shut behind her strange shadows passed through the dimly lighted lobby. Besides her footsteps, there were few sounds that could be heard, like panting sounds.
Back at the Red Shield Headquarters, everybody remained in a carelessly calm for the moment. All but Kai knew where Saya was and still they were all calmed; but not for long. Kai searched every centimeter of the ship for his sister but she was nowhere to be found, and that worried him as the over-protective brother he had turned over the past few years.
He stormed into the great meeting hall, or conference room/ cafeteria they had adopted over the last week, where everybody remained seated eating breakfast in calm.
"Where is Saya!? I am sure you all know!!" he yelled.
Everybody turned around, and looked with indifference and returned to their plate, surprisingly nobody answered, only munched.
"She's at Paris; we'll meet her there by nightfall." David replied.
"She's where?!" he reacted with amusement.
He took a chair and tried to clam down, about what had happened and where Saya was.
"So after all she went to look for Haji and probably meet Nathan." Kai sighed heavily.
As soon as he mentioned the name of the queer chevalier, was when everybody dropped their forks and knives and turned to see the red haired man.
"What?! Nathan is there and you did not tell us!" David said raising his usual voice.
"She said Nathan would "like to meet her soon" or something like that." he said in his own defense, "But she did not implied to visit him!"
"Never hold information like that again!" David said giving a cold look to Kai, " The difference between knowing and implying could cost Saya's life!!"
Kai stood speechless, at David's words; it was not likely of Kai to hold important information such as this. He could see the fury in David's eyes, and he understand why, as far as they knew, Nathan was still a threat to the Red Shield, especially Saya. And leaving her alone with the possibility of Nathan being there was like a death sentence to her. Everything in the ship started moving at four times the normal speed, just to get to Paris on time, every second they spared was highly important.
Back at the city of lights, the queen walked through the abandoned halls of the pharmaceutical company, still hearing strange panting voices around her.
"Hello?" she yelled "Anybody here?"
Her voice echoed through the empty walls of the once successful corporation, and at the same time, something threateningly- thirsty lurked in the shadows.