Lightning In My Wake (The Lightning Series) (3 page)

Then again, I always knew where she was, so it wasn’t really a surprise that less than two hours after she’d arrived home, she
’d opened my email. 

I’d skipped the fall semester of college for one specific reason—Colby.  I knew why she’d broken up with me after years of dating.  And really I couldn’t remember a time, other than right now, when I wasn’t with her
—whether in my mind or body.  I had to do what I could to fix myself so she wouldn’t continue trying to protect herself from me. 

W
e’d met at Westminster Elementary. She’d given me her peanut butter and jelly sandwich after I realized, at the stark white cafeteria table, that I’d forgotten my lunch at home.  I’d offered her half but she’d been content to gnaw on celery sticks.  In second grade, while we lined up on bleachers, prepping to sing ‘Greatest Love of All’ to our parents at the end of year assembly, I’d reached for her hand behind the row of students in front of us and she squeezed mine back and smiled a front tooth-less smile. 

In the fourth grade I had trouble with division.  Mrs. Peabody would line us up along the chalkboard and make us call out th
e answers to her drills. And when it got to my turn, I always answered wrong.  Clayton Brown called me stupid at recess and before I knew what was happening, Colby had clocked his chubby chin until he was out cold underneath the metal monkey bars. 

And when we were twelve, under the boardwalk at Surfside Beach, where our families vacationed together every summer, I pressed my awkward lips to hers.  She
’d tasted like sunblock and salt. 

I knew everything about her.
During the summer, beads of moisture broke out on the bridge of her nose before her forehead even thought about sweating.  She clipped her fingernails down to the quick out of some asinine fear that she would scratch herself while flashing.  Her hair was the color of dry sand sprinkled with wet sand.  And when I ran my palms the length of the backs of her thighs, she moaned my name. 

On my eighteenth birthday I
’d pulled her aside after the family birthday dinner and revealed my secret—I could flash just like her.  Not the distance and certainly without the flair.  But I could do it. 

And the next day she’d broken up with me—that was two years ago.

After some time in Spain I’d decided to go to New Zealand but not for vacation—for practice.  I’d been practicing in all kinds of obscure places—the pyramids of Egypt, the catacombs of Paris, the drug tunnel between Mexico and the United States, and in all that practice, I realized a few things.

Number one: n
ot only could I travel in the underground tunnels, but I could also travel between them and everywhere else. I’d gone from Chile to Vancouver last month in one straight shot—no sweat.  Number Two: the more I traveled, the more my flash depleted, until it was nothing more than a shot of lightning.  Number Three: I had another talent, other than the seeking and the flashing. That’s what I was here to research. 

This was a
talent that even the all-knowing Colby was ignorant of.

The records of our species were kept in a cave at the peak of Mount Cook on New Zealand’s South Island. 
At least, that’s the only one I knew of. Rumor was, there were plenty more in various parts of the world, not to mention countless digital copies, but again, this is the one I thought I could gain access to. 

And there was that little issue of The Resin.  I’d discovered a pack of them in Spain, plotting and planning on catching Lucents a
nd handing them over to the Escuro for cash—the answer to the Lucent Synod. There’d been two on my tail since I left Madrid. Of course they had to fly by plane since they could no longer flash, so I was always one step ahead of them—or three. 

My new gift was coming in handy.

Why they wanted to catch us, I didn’t know.

Maybe it was all just an over
bloated case of jealousy or revenge.

My phone rang, my mother, one of the few people who knew why I was here. 

“Hi, Mom.”

“I’ve just heard from Sable.  She and Colby will be in Belize for the weekend and we’ve decided to join th
em.  Do you want to come?  You’ll have to travel by plane.”

“She doesn’t want me there, Mom.  There’s no reason to go.”

“God forbid you come to see your mother.”

She laughed after her statement but it was laced with a twinge of truth.

“Ok Mom, I’ll be there.  It will give me a chance to conduct an experiment of sorts.”  We spoke in rhymes and riddles sometimes, since most of our phone calls, we suspected, were monitored.

“Excellent, I’ll let Sable know and we won’t tell Colby.”

“Friday?”

“Yes, we are arriving in the afternoon.  Dinner at seven at the regular spot.”

She referred to the Red Ginger on the Ambergris Caye beach, our favorite in Belize but such was one of the things we didn’t discuss over the phone.

She hung up and my stomach performed its typical acrobatics at the thought of seeing Colby again. 

~~~

             
The next morning, I flashed to the front door of the Lucent Guardian of the area. I’d been told that he guarded the clandestine records, but I hadn’t gotten the information from the most reliable source—I’d gotten it from an on the fence Resin.  For all I knew, I could be walking right into the pit.

His home was more castle than cottage
with vines and flower laden plants climbing the fence and peeking out from cracks in the gray stone walls.  When knocking at the huge iron and oak front door didn’t produce any results, I pulled the long rope-like cord next to the threshold.  A gong rang through the place and then, within seconds, a man lurched the door open—clearly I’d disturbed—something.  I hoped to God the white button down with gray slacks I’d worn was formal enough.

I used a cough to camouflage the gasp that erupted when the owner appeared.

The man was huge—monstrous, really. I could’ve taken a picture of him, Photoshopped some fur on his body and passed him off for Sasquatch. His long ponytail and beard reminded me of a Viking warrior. I supposed that was why he had been chosen—for the scare factor.

“Excuse me, s
ir, my name is Theodore Ramsey.  I was told to ask you about accessing the Lucent texts.” Take that, you six foot four, could have me in a coma with his pinkie finger, Yeti.

“Why?”

Why—I hadn’t expected why. Why was he asking me why? I’d always thought the Lucent texts to be the equivalent of the state library. Fill out a form and walk right in.

I should’ve known better. The Synod had rules for everything under the sun. They also had rules for things not done under the sun.

Micro-management didn’t even begin to thoroughly describe them, and since the Lucent Guardians were part of the Synod or directly under them, I supposed they’d make this process just as difficult.

“Because I have questions and I need to research some things about myself.”

“There are copies of the archives available for anyone to view,” he respectfully swore and then proceeded to close the door in my face.  This was the point at which a smart man would’ve moved on, turned right around and just dealt with it.  But I’d never professed to be a smart man—only cunning.  I was gonna die at the ripe old age of twenty at the hands of a crypto zoologist’s wet dream.

“I c
an just flash inside if I want to, but I thought the respectful thing would be to ask,” I yelled into the splice of the open door, which grew smaller and smaller as he shut me out.  And then it halted and began to swing it open again. 

“You can travel?” He stuck his large face into the opening. When he began to talk, his jaw worked against the frame and the door at once. It reminded me of Jack Nicholson as he
’d stuck his head into the hole he’d just axed open.

“Yes, I am also a seeker and—maybe more.”

“Come in,” the door swung wide for my entrance and then closed firmly behind me.

The Yeti stuck out his hand, “I am Collin.  Let’s begin the journey.”
He was no nonsense.

“Now?”

“I’m sorry, I thought your reason for coming here was to study the texts.”

“It is—I just didn’t expect—let’s go.”

With heavy footsteps, we made a straight shot through his castle. He took me to the back of the house, then through an invisible panel in the wall which led to a library that would make the United States Library of Congress shit its pants. 

The shelves were made of cedar.  I could smell it way before the door was opened. 
There were book shelves nine feet tall spanning the room.  Just when I thought my eyes had trailed to its northern limit, I saw a set of stairs that led to the second floor—with more books. 

“This is it?
” I asked, staring, quite unimpressed.

“Did you need more?” h
e asked, unbelieving.

“I just assumed…”

He chuckled, a low grumbling laugh, “You assumed, it was a cave-like cavern, buried deep in the mountain, never to be discovered, taking days and weeks of hiking and starvation to reach?”

“Yeah, something like that. So tell me, where in the Hell do I start?”

“Tell me, Theodore Ramsey, male Traveler, what you’re looking for. I’ve been the Guardian for forty years. If it’s here, I know where to find it.”

“I’m looking for the papers on Eivan.”

He screwed his face up in disbelief. “And why would you be looking for those?” His attitude had suddenly morphed from helpful to suspicious.

“Because I think I’m
a…,” I couldn’t even say it out loud. If I couldn’t say it out loud, there was no way I was who I suspected I was. The person I suspected I was embodied strength and confidence. We were told stories about him as children. He was to our people as Robin Hood was to humans.

I gathered my courage and tugged nervously at my top button, preparing to tell the first person ever of what I’d discovered about myself.
“I am Eidolon.”

Chapter Four

Colby

Lucent females shall not attempt to travel with their mates.

Ari showed up at two a.m. on Friday morning with two bags and a grin, “S’up ladies! Let’s go!”

I’d met Ari at an arcade by my house. Two games of Galaga and one shared cotton candy and we were best friends. She was homeschool
ed by her parents. My parents hadn’t known we had Lucents that close to our home. Good thing Ari had a super big mouth. She’d gotten angry at her mother at a family dinner and flashed from the table to her room. Her mother gasped and her father lost all the color in his face. I simply smiled, clapped and responded, “Ari can flash too?”

“Where are you gonna be,” I asked both of them.
Between Ari and my mom, someone had to take inventory. I was the most responsible of the group and that was really saying something since, in general, I was mostly selfish and wild.

“I’m going to the alley behind the hotel,” my mother reported like I was the parental and she was the teen queen.

“And I’m flashing to one of the lifeguard posts on the beach,” Ari answered in turn.

“Ok
ay, Mom, you go first and I will be right behind you.  Then we can all check in and get some sleep.”

“You already made reservations,” my mother thought the whole thrill of our gift was flying by the seat of our pants.  But what did an advance reservation hurt?

“Yes, we all have cabins out on the water. Are we ready?”

Ari was gone before she could answer and her crystal clear golden wake told me she’d arrived without trouble.  My mother
was next and her wake, pale purple, like a beauty queen’s dress, resembled pixie dust—a good sign. 

I was next.

It was a simple process.  I visualized the place I wanted to go, and I was there. I didn’t understand the physics of it—nor did I care. The physics of it would probably take all the fun out of it. I just knew that I could get into Sacs in the middle of the night or was able to see the sunset in every time zone in the world—all on the same day.  It wasn’t necessary for me to have visited the spot before, just to have seen pictures or video.—the beauty of a cell phone with internet was incomparable. 

I felt
the familiar tug of time and space plunging me to my desired destination and before I knew it, I was next to my mother in the alley behind a tropical Belizean paradise.

No time was wasted—I knew Ari’s game. The last one in the ocean after arriving at a destination bought breakfast the next morning.
After checking in quickly and paying a fee for our odd arrival time, I slipped my maxi dress onto the floor which revealed an ivory crochet bikini. I loved the cabins in Belize. Why people stayed in hotels overlooking the best view in Central America, when they could stay in these huts, hovering atop the ocean, was a mystery. I booked the same cabin every time, no matter what.