Most people believed that only one mate existed for them, and I didn’t like to contradict them. It kept confusion to a minimum and stopped skeptical clients from asking questions that would be too hard to explain. More than seven billion people live on earth. Thinking that only one other person can be someone’s perfect match is ludicrous. True, some of them might not speak the same language, but still. They make translation apps for a reason.
As quickly as possible—the longer I stayed under the trance the longer my recovery would be—I cataloged each scent, trying to find it in my Rolodex of memories, hoping it came from a location familiar to me, hopefully somewhere in St. Louis or at least a city I had visited. I made it a point to travel to different places to fill my catalog and increase my success rate.
One smell, in particular, I pinpointed without trouble. It came from a hamburger joint that I liked. The problem: it was a chain. There might be thousands of them all over the country, and maybe even the world, but since I recognized it, I latched on to it. Still, this clue was too broad. I had to narrow things down.
Dammit! Like I’d said, getting away with using only one of my senses would be too good to be true.
It was time for the next most-disposable sense: hearing. But before I moved on, I focused on a strong male scent that was unique. It was the most prevalent scent from one of Celina’s mates.
When I felt certain I’d committed it to memory, I let my ears come out to play. Immediately, my shimmering surroundings filled with a cacophony of sounds. Horns blowing, a sledgehammer, the din of voices in a crowded place, someone coughing, a lawnmower, the low bass of a rap song, a loud fart. Most of them were useless, sounds one could hear almost anywhere. I riffled through them in frustration, discarding them, shutting them down one at a time, gradually bringing down the cacophony to a bearable level.
Shit! This was taking too long already. I knew I had to hurry, but the stress of it made me clumsy. I stumbled over the sounds, hesitating to send them away even when they were irrelevant.
Finally, over the racket of all the remaining sounds, one caught my attention. It repeated itself over and over, which meant the potential mate, my mark, heard it often, maybe even every day.
Better yet, I recognized it!
It came from the bells at the Cathedral Basilica, announcing the top of the hour.
Bingo!
Maybe St. Louis didn’t have seven billion inhabitants, but with nearly three million in the metro area, the probabilities of finding mates right here didn’t suck. Besides, who could be more compatible than someone living in your own backyard?
Wasting no time, I snapped out of the trance and breathed a sigh of relief when I came to.
Rosalina always said that watching me during a trance scared her, that my eyelashes didn’t flutter and my chest barely rose and fell. From the sound of it, I appeared dead or comatose, but I never had trouble breaking out of a trance, though sometimes I wondered... what if I got stuck in one of them?
My eyes sprang open. Exhaustion weighed my every limb, making me feel as if I’d partied hard and been put away soaking wet.
Rosalina sat next to me, holding my hand. She smiled when I met her gaze and seemed relieved to find that I’d only used two senses. She could tell because I hadn’t lost my sight and I could still see her.
Besides feeling like a wet rag, the price I paid for tracking amounted to losing the senses I used during the trance. Of course, the loss of my senses kicked my butt the worst. For every minute I stayed under, my senses went dormant for an hour. In the past, I’d been deaf, blind, anosmic (unable to smell) and hypoesthetic (numb to the touch). I’d yet to lose my sense of taste. I’d never used it during my trance. Learning what my mark ate every morning for breakfast didn’t seem useful.
Right away, the lack of smells hit me like it always did. Losing my most powerful sense was awful, worse than dumpster diving and inhaling the rotten juices like crack cocaine would be. I was sure of it. The way the air just went blank, dead, deeply unnerved me and left me feeling unmoored. The silence, I could handle. The peace, the solitude in the absence of all sound wasn’t bad. But the lack of scents... too weird.
Rosalina signed, her hands moving as she formed the word “read.” She held up her e-reader.
I said “yes” but didn’t hear myself.
She and I were studying sign language so we could communicate. It had been her idea. She also tried hard to make the periods when I was deaf as comfortable, stress-free, and restful as possible. Reading did the trick.
Her head snapped up, her brows drawing together as she listened for something.
“What is it?” I asked.
She beat her fist on her open palm to indicate someone was knocking at the door. In one fluid motion, she jumped to her feet, her back turned and stiff.
Shit! Something told me the knocking wasn’t friendly.
I scrambled out of bed woozily, imagining another Beetlejuice trying to tear the door down. My weak legs protested as I stood.
God, they’ve found us!
I glanced around, searching for something to use as a weapon. The bedside lamp screamed, “pick me!” I clumsily threw its shade on the bed, unplugged it, and held the base like a bat, ready to hit whoever walked through the door right in the gonads, because I was certain the intruder had a pair of them. My arms trembled like ramen noodles.
Rosalina’s shoulders relaxed.
Huh? No Beetlejuice?
She turned and glanced at the lamp and my threatening stance. She laughed and shrugged, seeming to say, “Yeah, sure, go ahead and leave him gonadless.”
I was confused, to say the
