Earthshaker

Chapter 4

Chapter 4Two hours later, I was back at Cruel World Travel, eating Duke's amazing chicken soup. Still feeling a little logy but better than before...physically, anyway. Briar had insisted I let the paramedics drag me down to the medical center in the ambulance, but the doctor there had found nothing wrong with me.

My state of mind was another matter. Now that I knew for a fact that something wicked had entered Aggie's life, I was filled with foreboding. My level of hope had taken a massive hit.

And then there was that memory. The vision of the man on the hill and the city on the coastal plain. I didn't know if it was real or fake, but I couldn't get it out of my mind. Kept playing it back, over and over, dissecting every detail. It made no more sense the fiftieth time I watched it than it had the first time.

What a day.

"Have some more soup." Duke refilled my bowl from his red thermos. "And eat those crackers, too."

"I'm not hungry." It was true, though I had to admit the soup was perking me up a little. "And I don't want you giving me all your lunch."

"I'll order out." Duke pointed a finger at the little stack of saltines on my desk, then pointed at me and raised his eyebrows. "Now eat."

I picked up a cracker to get him off my case. The truth was, he didn't need to eat food in his current form, and we both knew it...but we worked together to keep up the illusion. To make him feel like a human being again.

"Aggie's in deep s**t," I told him. "I'm talking pure evil."

"But you don't know where she is," said Duke. "And you don't know who or what is behind that evil."

I shook my head as I swallowed more soup. "It's powerful, Duke. That's all I know. Stronger than me, maybe."

Duke frowned and leaned his hands on the desk. "I've put the word out on the network, asking for help from far and wide. If she's out there, they'll find her."

"God, Duke." I shuddered as a feeling of dread crawled through me. "What if she's not out there anymore?"

Duke met my gaze and held it, locking his deep brown eyes to my blue ones. "As far as we know, she's still alive and kicking, earth angel. Don't write her off yet."

I picked up a saltine, then put it down again. Zero appetite. "I think I might be responsible somehow, Duke. When I read the entombed cat, I had some kind of vision. A flash of memory, I think."

"What kind of memory?"

"I was on a hill overlooking a strange city. Talking to a man with blond hair who I'd never seen before." I sighed and pushed away the bowl of soup. "What if he's involved? What if I'm involved, and I don't even realize it because I can't remember?"

"How did the man in the memory make you feel?" God bless Duke, he didn't question my story, he just wanted details. "Did he seem threatening?"

"Not threatening." I closed my eyes and thought back. "He kissed me. I didn't push him away."

"Hmm." Duke leaned back and stroked his salt-and-pepper mustache. "And you have no other memory of this man?"

"None." I opened my eyes. "Maybe I picked up someone else's memory. Like an afterimage. Maybe it's one of Aggie's."

"Have you ever done that before?" said Duke. "Soaked up someone's memories by coming in contact with an object?"

I shrugged. "First time for everything."

Duke narrowed his eyes. "What about the substance you touched? The stone shell around the cat? Did you recognize that?"

"There's another mystery," I said. "The cat was encased in hardened ash and mud. Volcanic ash and mud. What they call pyroclastic material. But here's the thing." I sat back in my chair and folded my arms over my chest. "To create a shell like that, it would have had to engulf the cat in a molten flow at temperatures thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, then been flash-frozen at hundreds of degrees below zero."

"But there was no evidence of a process like that in the apartment, was there?" said Duke.

"Which means there was someone with special abilities involved." I nodded grimly. "Someone with control over temperatures and volcanic material like nothing I've seen before."

"But why do it?" said Duke. "Why go to the trouble of encasing the cat and leaving it in the apartment like that?"

I rubbed my eyes hard with the heels of my hands. I felt tired and wired and hopeless all at once. "A message, I guess. A calling card."

"Poor Aggie," said Duke. "What did she get herself in the middle of?"

Just then, the "Caravan" ringtone played, and the front door flew open. Turning, I saw Briar march in with a fistful of crumpled paper.

"You and I need to take a drive," he said. I could tell from the tension in his voice that he hadn't found Aggie.

"Where to?" I said.

"Secret Valley," said Briar. "You okay to travel?"

"What's Secret Valley have to do with anything?" Secret Valley's a popular ski resort an hour south of Confluence; I couldn't think of a connection to Aggie, except that she might have gone skiing there at some point.

"Divinities Enterprises." Briar slapped the crumpled papers on the desk in front of me. "This was in with Aggie's mail, but it wasn't stamped or postmarked. The postal service didn't deliver it."

The top sheet included a logo for Divinities Enterprises, encircled by what looked like a ring left behind by red-lipsticked lips. Below the logo in flowing script were the words, "Experience The Powers of Love."

"It's a dating club, from what I can tell," said Briar. "Ultra-exclusive. Beyond high rent. Caters to the Washington, D.C. elite."

I could accept that. Secret Valley was just two hours from D.C. "What does this have to do with Aggie?" As I asked the question, I flipped to the second page...and my question was answered.

Right there, in full color, was a photo of Aggie, a soft-focus glamour shot. Surrounded by a nimbus of light, she grinned as if she'd just been laughing, eyes slightly crinkled. Her full, dark hair framed her face and flowed over her shoulders, one lock falling over her glittering left eye. She wore a low-cut black evening gown dusted with silver sequins, pinned with a silver brooch shaped like the Greek letter "alpha." One hand was upraised; she was waving at the camera. So beautiful, so friendly, so welcoming.

"Meet TV's First Lady of Weather," it said above the photo. "Aegle Regal Can Be Yours." That was what it said underneath.

"They used her real name," I said. "Aegle."

"Divinities has an event this weekend at Secret Valley," said Briar. "According to that flyer, she's scheduled to be there."

I scowled at the photo on the flyer. "She never said anything about it to me."

"Maybe she didn't want you to know," said Briar.

"Or maybe she didn't know, either," said Duke. "Maybe it wasn't her idea to be there."

"It does seem like a big coincidence." Briar cleared his throat. "She goes missing the day before she's the star attraction at a high rollers dating club no one's heard of."

"'Aegle Regal Can Be Yours.'" As I read the words out loud, I felt my stomach twist.

"Maybe a bachelorette auction?" said Duke. "Win a date with the TV weathergirl?"

"This feels more like a for-profit operation to me," said Briar.

"Why use her real name?" I kept staring at the photo, haunted by the image of Aggie waving at the camera. It was like she was waving goodbye. "Everyone knows her as Aggie."

"I think it's safe to say your world's involved in this," said Briar. "It has a dark side, doesn't it?"

"Yes." My voice sounded far away. All I could focus on was Aggie waving in the photo. Goodbye, Gaia. Goodbye. Suddenly, I had the terrible feeling I was never going to see her alive again, and nothing I did could change that. She'd always been there for me, and I'd let her down for good when she'd needed me the most. Any action I took from that point on would be futile.

But what else could I do?

I might be prone to manic upswings and depressive downturns, but those aren't the only two things that drive and define me. I also need to have answers, and I never give up. If it's an unstoppable killer I'm tracking or an impossible trip I'm planning, I'll never give up. If it looks like all is lost, and I'm sunk in the deepest trough of the darkest phase of my inescapable misery, I'll still never give up.

And I will never, ever give up on a true friend, no matter the cost.

"Okay." I folded the papers neatly and got up from my chair. "Let's see what the hell's going on at Secret Valley."

"I'm coming, too." Duke headed for the coat rack. "I think you might need me."

I didn't argue with him. His instincts were never wrong. Didn't even have to ask if he had his work caught up for the day, because he always did.

I stuffed the folded flyer in the pocket of my jeans and marched out the door. My heart was racing. Just as I'd had the feeling of dread for Aggie's fate, I had another feeling, too. One that made adrenaline sizzle through my bloodstream with anticipation. With the expectation of going to war.

I had a feeling I was moving one step closer to whoever was behind this. The evil presence looming over my soul.