Jennifer Rardin - [Jaz Parks 1] - Once Bitten, Twice Shy

sat opposite us in a wing chair upholstered in blue twill.

Cassandra opened the case, reached into it and brought out a foot-high pyramid made of multicolored glass orbs, each about the size of a large marble. I moved the case out of the way and Cassandra gently set the piece on the ottoman.

'Is this what I think it is?' I asked.

'The Enkyklios,' she said, nodding. 'My vision of your… my second vision is recorded here.' She touched the top marble of the pyramid and the whole thing shivered in response. 'You may want to watch this in private.'

'No,' I said, challenging Vayl with my glare, 'let's keep this all wide open. That way nobody can accuse me of more lies, and later we can talk about how I can't abide people who leap to judgment!' I let the anger carry me, give me the strength to sit in the living room like a regular person rather than lock myself in a closet like a scared kid. It's hard, it hurts to stop hiding. Riding another, and probably my last, wave of anger, I said, 'Let's do this.'

She pressed on the top marble, which bent but didn't break, like the Jell-O molds Granny May used to make because she thought we liked the taste of rubbery strawberry letters and two-legged elephants.

'Enkyklios occsallio vera proma,' Cassandra whispered. Well, that's what it sounded like anyway. She kept going, reeling off a list of words that sounded like Latin but weren't. As she spoke the marbles shivered again, then began to roll in random directions, though they never completely lost touch. It reminded me of clock gears, and yet no one movement seemed to trigger another.

The pyramid undid itself, rolling into a variety of other forms that resembled the prow of a ship, a sailor's hat, a Harley Davidson, a strand of DNA.

'That is so cool,' I whispered, despite my pounding heart and a nauseating fear of how Vayl would react to the new discovery. Bergman had left his lab/computer center, a miracle in itself, and sidled over to the empty wing chair. He stood behind it, looking as if he wanted to attack the Enkyklios with a bat.

At last the marbles stood in vertical rows of three, forming a sort of plateau with a single, bluish-gold globe sitting above the rest. 'Is that me?' I whispered, feeling a little faint as Cassandra nodded.

'Are you ready?' she asked. I rubbed sweaty palms down my pants.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get it done.' My voice sounded fake in my own ears, a recording in definite need of a remix.

She touched the marble and said, 'Dayavatem!' She pulled her hand away and sat back, making room for the images that rose from it, digital quality holographs in living color and sound.

I saw myself, 14 months younger and light years closer to innocence, sitting in the living room of what looked like an old frat house. The stuffing peeked out of several holes in the couch and love seat, the coffee table had once been a working door that now sat on a double-high pile of cement blocks, and the chairs only rocked because their legs were uneven.

'Look, Jaz,' said Bergman, 'the furniture in the picture is arranged the same way you did it just now.'

'The same way she always does it,' Vayl said, folding his arms across his chest.

'Since you're so determined to be mad at me, go right ahead,' I said, 'but the fact is I never knew why I kept moving the furniture around. I wasn't usually even aware I was doing it. Then you said something, and it seemed like such a strange thing to do,' I shrugged, 'I made up a reason so you wouldn't think I was crazy.'

Did I detect a slight softening in Vayl's expression, or was I just fishing? Never mind. The show had gone on. In a room it hurt my heart to see again, my band of Helsingers and I sat around the recycled door playing a card game I knew I'd been good at but could no longer remember the name of.

I could tell we meant to go back out, because we still wore our uniforms. Superman Suits, we called them, feather-lite body armor encased in navy blue leather. We were all high on adrenalin and success, toasting each other like German bobsledders, eating pizza for God's sake. Pizza.

The room tilted and nearly took me with it. But Vayl's hand on my shoulder steadied me. I looked up, grateful he still thought enough of me to leave his chair. He settled on the arm of the couch beside me.

'I only remember bits of this,' I said, sensing that explanations might keep me from falling headfirst into the nightmare that, until now, had only played itself out behind my eyelids. 'That's Matt on my left. He'd just turned 26 two weeks before. The tan is from the trip we'd taken to Hawaii to celebrate.' My throat closed on the words, and for a minute I couldn't speak.

Matt and I sat on the couch, talking softly while the others played out the hand. Brad and Olivia, a married couple from Georgia, sat in the tattered love seat that met our couch at 45 degrees. They took turns throwing red plastic chips into the growing pile and teasing each other about losing the down payment on their house in a single hand.

Dellan, a muscle-bound vamp who'd been turned in the 60s, sat on the floor to my right, cradling his crossbow, eating all the toppings off his pizza. He threw what was left to Thea, also a vamp and sometimes his lover— depending on how much he irritated her—who sat on the floor to Olivia's left. Tomato sauce made her gag, but she couldn't get enough of that stuffed crust.

We'd go back into the field as soon as the pizza and cards had played themselves out, but for now we were just kicking back and enjoying the company. 'That's Jessie, sitting in the chair across from us, the one in front of the fireplace. She was my sister-in-law. She was—' I shook my head, not knowing how to capture Jessie's vibrant, infectious humor, her intense loyalty, her deep and abiding passion for my brother in words. 'She was my hero.'

Jessie had draped her leg across the chair beside her, as if saving it for David. Having made her bet, she was fashioning an airplane from a couple of paper towels. I knew eventually it would come floating my way and I would be required to throw my napkin back at her, but for now I was content to snuggle with my honey.

It felt a little sick to watch my handsome young lover rear his head back and laugh at one of my wiseass comments, as if I was some grief-crazed widow rolling out the home movies for a torturous walk over the coals of memory lane. But, God, it was good to see him, to see all of them, and remember with a sort of shock how happy we'd been together.

I started talking again, fighting the vortex of pain that had robbed me of everything I'd liked about myself.