Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged (7 page)

“Whoever
said the truth hurts had it right. Callie slept on the edge of the bed, our
bodies never touching, which took real effort since the old cabin mattress was
so narrow. She was up at dawn and moved about the cabin as if I were a shadow,
paying little attention to me, and I wasn't quite certain why.

Was
she deciding if she could accept me as I was? Was she thinking of ways to tell
me good-bye? Or was she simply mad that I'd occasionally been less than
truthful with her? I was on the lookout for Callie's discovery that I was
short-term fun with no long-term benefit.

I
took Elmo for a walk, dog walking I imagined being what every lover on the
planet did when she wanted to avoid a fight, or rehearse what she'd say in the
inevitable upcoming fight, or pray that maybe the fight, like a pugilistic
Passover, would somehow leave her door unmarked.

"I
didn't get to check in with you last night," I said to Elmo. "My
evening didn't go very well. The whole Barrett thing resurfaced like a dead
body on the beach, and Callie was as pissed as any non-psychic woman I've ever
dated. I think her feelings are hurt. So how did your night go?"

He
walked in total silence, giving me nothing.

"Aw,
come on, don't you start. Remember that talk about the aisle? Well, I'm not
really aisled yet. She's toyed with me and told me I'm not ready, and said I
had a lot to learn, and on and fucking on. And now suddenly at this moment, on
this trip, she's decided somewhere back in time I was already totally hers, and
that I've fucked up and been unfaithful, and that furthermore I spin the truth
and have bad energy, or something close to that."

Elmo
gave me a look that could only be described as a glower.

"Fine,"
I said with sarcasm. "You always take her side. Keep it up and dog
biscuits will be a thing of the past."

He
suddenly broke loose, ripping the leash from my hand, and raced up the cabin
steps and banged into the screen door, reminding me that I could do a lot of
things to him, but he would not tolerate threats. Callie opened the door for
him and by the time I entered, they had disappeared into the bedroom,
apparently allied in their determination to hide from the energy of threats and
lies.

I
went to the computer and started working on the script, trying to focus on
something other than this rift in my relationship with Callie. The thing I
loved about writing was its ability to take me to another place when the place
I was in was uncomfortable or unavoidable or both. Buried in words I could lose
all track of time and forfeit the need for food or companionship. Writing, like
lovemaking, was all passion and focus, and that's what I needed right now—and
maybe it would even be what Jeremy Jacowitz wanted.

By
the time I took a break it was getting dark and I was about seventy-five pages
in—not polished pages but first-draft pages— when out of the corner of my eye I
noticed Elmo fretting and pacing. Not the kind of pacing that meant he needed a
walk, but the kind that said something was wrong. Sounds were emanating from the
bedroom, moans and whimpers, and I rushed in to see what was wrong.

Standing
in the doorway, I didn't know what to make of what I was seeing. Callie was
stretched out on the bed, her body moving as if aroused, as if I were there on
top of her, but her face was wrenched in terror. Her hips undulated but her
hands pushed off something in the air above her, the hair on her head pulled
straight up, electrified, as if someone had hands on it. The room felt like it
was filled with sparks, the air ionized as if in an electrical storm. A wind
whipped around the room, its source invisible, and I was frozen, frightened,
unable to move until Elmo's squeaks set me in motion, and I literally leapt
into bed beside her. Then I really felt it—an electricity, a hair-raising
sensation on my neck and arms that could only be described as an energy field,
a powerful pulsing tide. Caught in the waves with her, I struggled to remain on
the bed.

"Callie."
I pulled her into my arms and now both of us were being rocked. Then, as if
someone shut off the breaker, I sagged into her. Having something substantial
to grapple with, rather than the mere air above her head, she pushed me away as
if I were the cause of whatever was happening to her and began to cry.

"Stop
it. Wake up, Callie. Talk to me!"

Her
eyes snapped open and she seemed disoriented. "How long have you been
here?"

"I
heard you moaning and..."

She
sat up in bed and hugged her bent knees in a seated fetal position, looking
embarrassed and vulnerable and shook up.

"I
need to take a shower," she said suddenly, jumping up and hurrying into
the bathroom. Hearing the water running, I waited on the edge of the bed, not
knowing what to do and worried something was wrong with Callie that I was now
discovering—something disturbing.

"Thanks
for letting me know," I told Elmo, and he pressed his warm and heavy fur
suit against my leg.

Callie
was out of the bathroom and into her flannel nightshirt in minutes.

"Were
you dreaming? What happened? Your body looked like...like you were making love,
but your face looked like you were fighting off a killer."

"It
was an attack," she said flatly, sounding almost irritated with me for
asking, and I didn't have a clue what to ask next. I must have looked hurt
because she put her arms around me. "Someone wanting to steal my energy,
suppress and frighten me."

"Someone
like a real person?" My head was reeling. Maybe this was why Callie Rivers
had parked her sexuality for so many years; maybe this was why she was obsessed
with energy.

"Someone
with the ability to travel mentally, energetically, out of body," she
explained.

"Sorry,
but you're going to have to go slower. This is freaking me out. Ghosts were one
thing but now a ball of energy?"

"In
its simplest form."

I
said nothing, trying to think, but I couldn't grasp a traveling,
woman-attacking energy.

"There
are energy thieves in everyday life, Teague. People who drain you physically
and emotionally. An extreme example of that is an attempted rape."

"You
were raped?"

"Someone
was trying to sexually assault me energetically, which is nothing more than a
person without the physical body present. It's hard for someone to shut down my
physical form, because I'm so aware. Attacking me on a different plane was
another way of trying to take my power, frighten me, when I was asleep and
vulnerable."

"Who
is it?" I was horrified by the idea and furious someone would attempt to
harm her in any way, even ways that seemed crazy to me. "Is it Manaba,
because I'll yank the feathers right off her raven head!"

"Never
Manaba. She obeys the cosmic laws and would never be part of that kind of
imbalance. It's not the Navajo way and it's not in the Navajo heart. She's a
spiritual leader."

Something
in her tone and protectiveness of Manaba angered me. "I'm not real clear
on spiritual leaders. There's one in Rome wearing a dress and fabulous jewelry,
some guy in India wearing diapers and sitting on a mountaintop, a guy in China
trying to turn himself into a single drop of rain, and then there's your Indian
woman who binds her butt in buffalo briefs and dances in the fire."

"Is
it the dress code that bothers you?" Callie said in a tone that seemed
more reprimand than question.

"No,"
I replied, defiant and not giving in on this one. "It's a matter of a pure
heart and who really has one. I haven't figured that out yet."

Elmo's
ears elevated off his head about two inches, and he launched his loose fur suit
at gator-speed into the main room and let out a chest-deep bark that made my
heart jump. Grabbing the gun and a flashlight from the bedside table, I went
out the door, making sure Elmo stayed inside to avoid his putting his nose to
the ground and never being found again or killed and eaten by something with a
paw print the size of a butter plate.

Taking
the porch steps in two jumps, I landed on the ground, pointing my gun with my
right hand and shining the light with the left. As if the light had been
magnetized to its source, the beam landed directly on the largest fur face I'd
ever seen outside of the Discovery Channel. A huge wolf—standing so close the
vertical slits in its glistening eyeballs looked like coin slots, its teeth
bared, poised to lunge and most likely rip me to pieces—glared at me as the
door clicked open behind me. Without looking at Callie or taking my eyes off
the wolf, I ordered her back into the cabin.

"Don't
kill it!" she warned, running to my side. "Teague, put the gun
down." Her hand rested on my forearm and I couldn't believe what she was
saying. As if the wolf knew her, it stopped snarling and stood as relaxed as a
dog.

I
stared into the calm animal's eyes and a chill traversed my arms and across my
shoulders and down my thighs. The eyes were human; I would bet my life on it.
In fact, by dropping the gun to my side, I had. The soul behind the eyes of
this wolf was more human than people I'd known, and I stared, mesmerized.

"Go
in peace," Callie murmured, and the animal moved its head in a way that
could only be described as acknowledgement. Then, as if mission accomplished,
it turned and sauntered back into the woods.

Breath
left my body in one relieved and explosive burst. "Holy shit!"

In
the clearing to our left, as if beamed in from outer space, Manaba appeared, or
had been there all along and we hadn't noticed her. This time, Callie,
seemingly nervous, stood close to me as Manaba took two steps toward her, and
Callie put her arm around my waist, perhaps for protection.

"She's
not doing anything to get herself in any more danger," I interjected.

"Danger
exists. We merely walk into its energy field and join it." She addressed
me but kept her eyes on Callie.

"You
have the more powerful medicine," Callie whispered.

"But
it has been unbalanced," she said, not waiting for further discussion, and
disappeared as the wolf had.

"You
and I need to talk, and that's an understatement," I said, but Callie was
already heading up the porch steps. I made one sweep of the area where the wolf
had appeared before I followed her inside.

"Okay,
you're telling me somebody's energy tried to rape you, then a wolf appears that
I believe is going to eat me for dinner and it turns out he knows you and likes
you, and then Manaba, who definitely knows you and likes you, comes out of
nowhere and demands help. What the hell's going on?"

Callie
said nothing and went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed as if
meditating.

"Manaba
obviously knows about the attempted rape because she showed up right after it
happened. How would she know unless she was involved?"

"Intense
energy can be felt by those who are sensitive to it."

"Mind
if I have a glass of wine?"

I
left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen, needing time to think and,
frankly, a diversion to allow me to hide my feelings from Callie.
Was she
totally fucking bonkers? I'd bought into the astrology, and the animal
conversations, and even the ghosts, but now she wanted me to believe that...
what? A ball of rape energy was loosed on her?

"I'm
sorry you saw it," she said, appearing suddenly behind me and seeming to
understand how this was perhaps one of the hardest elements of her life for me
to witness.

I
poured a glass for myself and she refused one. I plopped down on the couch,
propped my feet up on the coffee table made from a tree stump, and said,
"Shoot."

She
pulled up an astrological chart on her computer, and my thought process was so
overloaded with insane ideas that I welcomed something relatively harmless,
like checking out the planets.

"What
are you looking for?" I asked, trying to control my internal sarcasm and
becoming more respectful of her, which she appreciated because she suddenly put
her arm around me as I stood beside her. I melted into her, grateful for her
touch.

"I
told you when you arrived that this was a dangerous time for women—Mars
conjunct Uranus in Aquarius squaring Venus in Scorpio—that we would be under
attack. It's in the stars right now. Perhaps this person is trying to drive me
away from here because he or she knows Manaba is seeking my help. This attacker
is someone very powerful in the psychic world, someone who can attack with more
force than anyone could muster in the flesh. I'm grateful you came into the
room and disrupted the energy."

"And
if I hadn't?"

"It
would have left me as violated as if it had been a physical person."

"But
what if it happens again, how do I protect you from... energy?"

"Everything
is energy, Teague. Accept it, work with it. How you direct energy and redirect
it and block it or absorb it is how you move through the world healthy or
unhealthy."

When
I was in police work, I was accustomed to attempted rapes and animal attacks,
but not by people I couldn't see and wild animals who were really people.
Callie would say no more about the energy field, but she did seem
uncomfortable, as if holding something back. I wasn't in the mood to let
anything ride.