of breath by greeting my father. “Hey, Albert.” I pointed to the phone, mouthed, “It’s my dad,” and turned my back to her before she managed to reach past her civilized veneer and smack me a good one.
“Jaz? Did you try to call earlier?”
“Nope.”
“Huh. Somebody keeps calling and hanging up.”
“Probably a telemarketer. Um, could you call me right back?” As in, on his scrambled line.
“All right.”
We hung up. Seconds later we’d reconnected in a way that was safer, at least from his end. “Look, Albert, I’ve encountered a creature nobody seems to know much about. It’s called a reaver. Third eye in the middle of the forehead. Badass shield that repels bullets and blades unless you can find the sweet spot. Takes souls but only under certain circumstances. I’ve been able to get some background on them but not much. I was hoping you could call some people. Maybe see if anybody’s ever dealt with one of these things before.” I really didn’t expect Albert to be able to help me on this one. But he’d rediscovered quite a bit of his pride assisting on my last case, so I was hoping we could continue the process on this one.
“Absolutely.”
“Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
“Will do.” Funny, in our thirty-second conversation he seemed to have shed ten years. Had he really felt that useless in his retirement? If so, maybe I should talk to Evie. No way could I keep him busy enough to maintain this new outlook. Maybe she could think of something.
“Lucille Robinson?”
Cassandra wheeled me toward the white-jacketed forty-something holding my file folder in her hand. She was studying me with an air of disbelief. “How in the world does a person get eight nearly identical wounds in her hands?”
“I’ve been hanging with the wrong crowd. My mother always told me it would come to this. I guess I should’ve listened to her, huh?”
She eyed my gauze-covered fists. “What did you do?”
“Would you believe I wiped out while trying to surf the handrail at the telephone building?”
She shook her head, her ponytail waving a double negative behind her.
“Would you believe I punched a skateboarder who was surfing the handrail at the telephone building?”
“That I’ll buy.”
“Sounds like we’ve got a winner,” I said just as young black guy with the name “Dr. Darryl” stitched on his lab coat entered the picture. For a minute there he couldn’t seem to decide which one needed more attention, me or my file.
“Ms. Robinson.”
“Hi, Doc. Would you believe I punched a skateboarder—”
“No.”
Cassandra helped me to the table and laid her hand under my cheek because some sadistic nurse had stuffed the pillow with concrete blocks. As I rested my head in her palm, I had my own vision. My blood-soaked corpse lay on the glowing wooden deck of the
Dr. Darryl stuck a needle in my left hand so he could numb it, at which point I decided the entire medical profession was an oxymoron. My brain wanted to rant further, but the vision expanded.
Now the Tor-al-Degan arrived on the yacht. Not vanquished after all, just transplanted from Miami so she could finish the job she’d started. She shambled toward my failing soul, licking her chops, her pincers waving with delight at the prospective meal before her.
“Do you feel this, Ms. Robinson?” Dr. Darryl asked, pinching the skin of my numbed hand.
I started to shake. It wasn’t making the sewing any easier, therefore the doc did not approve. He frowned at me.
“She’s afraid of needles,” said Cassandra, shrugging when he gave her a perplexed look, as if to say, “Who can explain the human mind?”
Cassandra leaned over and whispered into my ear, “I saw that vision too, Jaz. It’s what they want you to see. They want the fear to mold to you, like a body cast. Because if you can’t move, you can’t fight. You were right before. We have a choice. We can change the vision. You were right.”
