Ashort time later Sierra drove into the underground garage of one of the gleaming apartment towers in the South Lake Union neighborhood. She shut down the SUV’s big engine and sat quietly for a moment, checking the side mirrors and the extra-wide rearview mirror for indications she might not be alone. There were no auras reflected in the glass.
Satisfied, she collected her pack, got out of the car and headed for the elevator lobby at a brisk pace. The fact that she could not detect any auras in the car mirrors was no guarantee there was no one hiding in the emergency stairwell or around the corner of a concrete wall. The mirror locket worked reasonably well in a one-on-one situation at close quarters, but it had some serious limitations.
She used her key fob to access the elevators, but she did not allow herself to relax until she reached the twelfth floor and was safely inside her small one-bedroom apartment.
Cozy was the term the leasing agent had used to describe the small space. Sierra had stuck with the term because it sounded more upbeat than cramped. It would have made more financial sense to go with one of the tiny studios but she knew she would not have been able to handle the claustrophobia. She had grown up on a rural island in the San Juans surrounded by a heavily wooded forest and a rugged landscape. City living had required some major adjustments.
She had worked as a Vault agent for less than four months. She was still struggling to recover from the financial hit that had struck when she had lost the job at Ecclestone’s Auction House in Portland. In the meantime she told herself she was okay with the small apartment. It wasn’t as if she spent a lot of time in it. Like the other agents who worked for Ambrose Jones, her “office” was a booth in the underground level of the Vault nightclub.
Out of habit, she made her way through the apartment, locket in hand, checking to make sure she truly was alone. Mirrors glittered on every wall. She thought they made the place look bigger. Also, she liked mirrors.
Satisfied there were no zombies hiding under the bed and no psychic monsters in the closets, she changed into pajamas and slippers and padded into the kitchen to pour herself a large, medicinal glass of wine. It had been a very long night—also a very unprofitable night.
She sat down at the dining counter and picked up her phone. She had deliberately left it behind when she set out to deliver the artifact. Vault protocol dictated that agents carry minimal tech when operational. It was a precaution that made it more difficult to be tracked.
She hesitated before turning on the phone. Adrenaline mingled with exhaustion was still charging her senses. She should probably wait until morning to check her messages. But Mr. Jones might have decided to throw another job her way to make up for the Keegan fiasco. If she didn’t jump on the opportunity, he would offer the delivery to another agent.
She swallowed some of the wine, took a deep breath and turned on the phone. There were not a lot of messages. That was directly attributable to the fact that she did not have a lot of friends at the moment. Her former colleagues at Ecclestone’s had ghosted her in the wake of the scandal that had shaken the exclusive auction house to its foundations.
Someone had to take the fall for the fraudulent art and antiques that had been evaluated and authenticated by the experts in the house. The clients who had been scammed wanted blood. The firm’s reputation had been on the line. When rumors surfaced that the con artist was the new associate in the American Antiques Department, the CEO had leaped on the opportunity to throw Sierra under the bus. Julian Mather, the man she had been dating, was the first to disappear. The colleagues she had considered friends had vanished shortly thereafter.
Sierra told herself she understood. No one with a viable career in the world of fine arts and antiques could afford to maintain a relationship with someone who was rumored to deal in frauds and fakes. Reputation was everything. So, sure, she understood. Nevertheless, it hurt.
It didn’t help that losing the job had proven her parents right. Again. She was not cut out to live in the normal world, a world where those who claimed to have psychic talents were viewed with deep suspicion or, equally unsettling, a scary fascination. She had done her best to conceal her abilities during her tenure at Ecclestone’s, but the need to hide that part of herself was stressful, and it was a huge barrier when it came to establishing personal relationships. One of the quickest ways to lose a date, it turned out, was to tell him you could make him faint by using your psychic powers on him. A lot of people in the so-called normal world were not exactly open-minded when it came to the paranormal.
There was another issue that had made passing for normal difficult. She had been raised in what sociologists called an intentional community. Quest had been founded by an eclectic group of artists, misfits, neohippies, psychics—fake and real—and others seeking an alternate path. The thing about growing up in Quest was that none of her friends and neighbors had a problem with the concept of the paranormal.
That was because a number of residents, including her parents and grandparents, had come from Fogg Lake, the rural town deep in the mountains of Washington State that had the unique distinction of being a community in which psychic phenomena were accepted as normal. There was a reason for that attitude—in Fogg Lake, the paranormal was normal.
Decades earlier, in the latter half of the twentieth century, Fogg Lake had been the unwitting subject of a government experiment gone very wrong. An explosion in a secret laboratory concealed in the nearby caves had shrouded the entire area in a strange fog laced with unknown paranormal radiation. The locals had slept for a couple of days, and when they woke up they discovered that things were different—they were different. The ability to see auras was suddenly commonplace in Fogg Lake. Many people began to experience visions. Others heard strange voices or perceived colors that had no names.
The range of paranormal talents varied widely, and it wasn’t long before it became apparent that the changes had gone all the way down to the DNA level. The result was that Sierra and the other descendants of those who had been living in Fogg Lake at the time of what came to be known as the Incident were also endowed with paranormal abilities.
The first message on the phone was from her grandmother, reminding her that her grandfather’s birthday was coming up in three weeks during the Moontide celebration. Sierra dutifully responded that she was looking forward to the event and reminded herself that she had yet to find the right gift. She needed to focus on the problem. It wasn’t easy coming up with the ideal birthday present for a man who prided himself on a life of reflection, meditation and the study of philosophy. She would probably end up taking her usual gift—a bottle of good wine.
The second message was from Gwendolyn Swan, the proprietor of Swan Antiques in Pioneer Square. Interested in hiring you to authenticate an artifact rumored to be of unusual provenance . . .
In the underground market, unusual provenance was code for an object that was believed to have a paranormal vibe. Swan’s shop specialized in such artifacts. When Sierra had first entered the competitive go-between business, Gwendolyn Swan had helped her establish her reputation as a true talent by asking her opinion on a couple of relics. Sierra had identified one as a fraud and the other as an item that had probably come from a Bluestone Project lab. Swan, a strong talent herself, had been pleased. That, in turn, had convinced Ambrose Jones to give Sierra a chance.
Gwendolyn Swan paid well and Sierra appreciated the additional income. The money she made as a go-between for the Vault was good, but Jones couldn’t keep her busy all the time. Agents were free to take outside contracts. She could certainly use one to make up for the lost commission tonight.
The last message was from her father. She hit Call Back. Byron Raines answered on the first ring.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She smiled. Her father had the voice of a poet—probably because he was one.
“How did you know?” she asked. “A delivery went bad.”
“How bad?”
“The client tried to kill me. I had to use my locket to escape.”
“Honey, I know you can take care of yourself. But your mother and I really don’t think this go-between business is your calling.”
“I know, Dad, but I’m good at it. Usually. And after what happened at Ecclestone’s, I agree with you—the normal business world isn’t a good fit for me, either.”
There was a short silence.
“Need a poem?” Byron asked.
“Yep. I could use one.”
Some kids were raised with bedtime stories. She had been brought up on bedtime songs from her mother and bedtime poems from her father.
“I think I know of one you might find helpful,” Byron said.
“One of yours?”
“No, the poem I’m thinking of was written by someone else. Give me a few minutes to find it. I’ll e-mail it to you.”
“Thanks, Dad. Love you. Love to Mom.”
“Love you, too, kiddo. See you soon when you come home for the Moontide celebration. Oh, and don’t forget your grandfather’s birthday.”
“I won’t. Looking forward to seeing everyone.”
Sierra ended the call and sat quietly, drinking the wine and trying to decompress.
The poem popped into her inbox a short time later. She read the first few lines and smiled. Her father had a gift for finding or crafting a poem that went straight to the heart of the problem.
“I don’t know who I am,” you say,
“Or why my hands deal dust,
As though the lot of cards I hold
Have crumbled as I play.”
She finished the poem and then she finished the wine.
“Message received, Dad,” she said to the empty room. “I’ll keep listening for my calling.”