Catharsis (Book 2): Catalyst (3 page)

            I have no idea how much time I have until his surprise arrives to ruin our party, so my choices are limited.  Try to get to where he is before the something happens, or turn and try to make it to the door?  My guess is that the wooden entryway separating us will be harboring the present, so running towards him means putting myself closer to whatever's coming.  Bad idea.

            Instinct tells me to get away from the badness, and with that realization I turn and start moving across the small kitchen.  Not knowing what the Aryan surfer has in store for us in the next few moments, I don't know if it's safer to stop and cover my eyes and ears or keep them open so they can assist me in my attempt to make it through the closed back door.  Gambling, I decide to hedge my bets and try for both.  I propel myself off the ground and towards the center of it while tucking myself into a protective ball.  My landing will certainly be painful, but hopefully I'll survive whatever is about to happen.

            As I'm in the air flying towards the door (Like a small, female Hispanic cannon ball), everything around me bursts into sunlight and thunder.  The kitchen around me becomes a brighter white than anything I've ever experienced in my life.  Even through closed eyes, the power of the whiteness is nauseatingly strong.  Following on the heels of the sudden supernova is a roar that can only be described as an angry pack of lions riding a subway train into the mouth of a tornado as it destroys a fireworks superstore.  It is such a level of overwhelming noise that it goes over the top and becomes a lack of sound.

            Feeling both blinded and deafened by whatever just happened behind me in the kitchen, my ability to hold my body tightly together dissolves as I slam into the house's back door.  Instead of hitting it like a well-aimed missile, I slam into the wood-encased glass of the door's window like a carelessly thrown jellyfish being discarded on the beach.  My momentum carries me through it, and I spin end over end across the back porch and come to a rest on the recently cut lawn.

           
I was right
, I think and try to find my way onto my wobbly legs. 
That wasn't good
.

CHAPTER FIVE

            The ground keeps moving underneath my feet as I try to stand, and I realize balance is not currently my friend.  Then again neither is anything from the now foreign lands of vision or hearing.  Falling back down onto my hands and knees, I look around what I believe is the backyard (At least that was the direction I last remember traveling.  I'm not really sure what happened after I burst through the back door.) but everything is just varying shades of white.  Behind me is a brighter white (I think that's the house.) and ahead of me is darker white, or at least a less strongly-illuminated white (most likely the unlit backyard.). 

            My ears are giving me nothing more than a constant high-pitched ring of feedback, but I attempt to speak anyway in hopes that I'll be able to hear myself.

            "Ren, I'm blind," I say in my best estimation of a normal voice so that he can have some idea of what's going on.  Or at least that's what I intend to say.  I mean my mouth moves and I'm pretty sure words came out of it, but there isn't a single change in sound hitting my ears.  Just that constant ringing.  Did I really speak or can I just not hear anything?

            "I'm blind and deaf, Ren!"  I yell louder than before and do my best to listen for any hint of what I said to be picked up by my own ears.  Nothing. 

            I'm pretty sure I yelled because I opened  my mouth more and strained as I pushed the sound out through my vocal chords, but it made no difference as far as what I could hear.  It's very disconcerting to not know if you're making noise or not.  I don't like it.  At all.

            With a final attempt to check my own hearing (And a hope that maybe I can hear and the issue is just with my vocal chords - an unlikely but hopeful possibility.), I bring my hands together in front of me in a clap.  Aiming my hands for each other without being able to see them is surprisingly easier than I would have guessed, and they smack against each other about a foot in front of my face.  The impact of my hands connecting with each other is jarring (I put some seriously frustrated strength behind the maneuver.), but if I hadn't felt it for myself then I never would have known it had happened.  I couldn't see the action, and it certainly made no more sound than two shadows chasing a feather at midnight.

            No good.  I'm down two senses right now.  Two very important and necessary senses.

            After taking a quick breath to calm myself (What did that crazy, blond surfer just do to me?), I realize I can't just stay out here on his lawn.  Either he will be coming out here after me (I doubt he's just going to embrace the forgive-and-forget mentality after what just happened in his house.), or the police in the car out front will be coming to investigate (That flash of light - and horrifying rush of sound - had to have been noticeable beyond the house's walls!).

           
I can't stay here
, I think.  I may not know what's around me, but I definitely know what - or who! - is waiting back there in that house.  And Ren was right about that guy; he is definitely more dangerous than I gave him credit for.  He managed to resist one of my strongest pushes, and he found a way to both deafen and blind me in one move.  That is a much more impressive adversary than I was prepared for.

            Needing to pick a direction, I opt for the "darker" white part of my surroundings over the "brighter" white one that I assume is the house I just fled.  "Away" is good for now.  I'll worry about "where" away is taking me later.

            "Renny, I'm running," I say as I start to jog at a slow pace.  "Away from the house.  I can't see.  I can't hear.  And I have no idea where I'm going.  But I'm going to haul some butt in an attempt to get there."  I pause and consider the situation for a moment before I continue speaking.  "I could probably use some help here.  You know it kills me to ask for it, but I might be in trouble."  My hands catch the edge of the white fence about the same time I'm expecting to run into it (Thank you eidetic memory!), and I gently vault over it and aim for the neighbor’s house I had remembered seeing earlier.

            "Maybe you could use that nifty, tracker thingy you put on me a few weeks ago," I say in what I hope is a normal-sounding tone (I hate not knowing if I'm shouting or not.  It’s frustrating.) and slow as I anticipate finding the edge of the house.  My fingers close on the rough bricks I remember pulling myself up not more than a half hour ago (Back when I had all five senses, and didn't realize how lucky I was.), and I turn my body to the right and jog along the house's broad wall looking for the front corner and a chance to finally center my internal GPS.

            While I was in the yard, I didn't have enough information to pinpoint my exact location and know where I was (I could have been anywhere in the yard, or along the fence, or along the house's wall), but now that I'm at the house's corner I know exactly where I am.  Pulling up my memories of the past several days of my stakeouts of Chadwick's house, I can easily retrace and count my steps.  Even being limited to only three senses (and one very impressive memory), I should be able to get away from here before he can follow me.

            "Ren, I'm heading out to the street," I say and push away from the corner of the house and count the fifteen steps I know it will take me to get to the sidewalk.  "I'm going to walk it from here.  Either you find me, or I'm going to find my way home to you."

            Feeling the ground underneath my feet change from the soft give of the grass to the hard resistance of the sidewalk, I turn left (away from the house that has caused my current plight) and start walking towards my home (or abandoned warehouse.  To each their own.).

            "Oh," I say as I continue my blind meander.  "And I used up all my energy reserves getting out of there.  I'm starved...and things are about to get interesting..."  I let my words trail off as I inhale deeply to get a better sense of my surroundings, and the warm scent of a late evening pedestrian hits my nose.

            "Real interesting," I repeat and increase my pace so that my path will intersect with what smells like a middle-aged man on the other side of the street.

CHAPTER SIX

            Feeding has helped.  Tremendously.  My eyesight is back to normal and the ringing in my ears has faded away enough that I can only tell it's there if I stop and focus on it.  It has helped that I no longer feel guilty about drawing blood from strangers.  I take their blood, but I generally don't kill them.  I figure people give blood to the Red Cross to save lives; this isn't all that much different.

            At least that's what I keep telling myself.

            "So what did he do again?" I ask as I turn in my padded, black leather chair and look at the man sitting a few feet away from me in front of a wall of computer monitors.  "And how can I avoid
ever
having to experience it a second time?"

            "Please remember to turn off your microphone next time," he says without turning to look at me.  "There are things in this life I just don't need to hear."  He pauses and then drops his head slightly and closes his eyes. "Ever.  Please."

            The glow from the monitors is pretty much the only light in the warehouse currently, and they illuminate his well-muscled torso and chiseled face quite well.  He's impressively strong , and he's in better shape than I ever was (Well, I mean,
before
all this started.  He doesn't really have me beat now, but then again, I'm not really a fair measuring stick either.).  All of which is made even more impressive knowing that he's dying and his time left on this world is limited.  If it had been me, and I had been diagnosed with a rare, untreatable blood cancer then the last thing I would have cared about was getting into shape.  But that's also why I like the guy.  He intrigues me.

            "But Renny," I begin, sounding confused, "you've told me I have to leave the mic on when I'm out there so that you can hear what's going on and be able to track me.  It's not my fault about that explosion.  I didn't know it was coming.  And even if I did, then how was I supposed to take the time to turn off my mike.  You can't hold that against me.  Seriously."

            "Not the explosion, Cat."  He turns and brings his dark, sunken eyes up to meet mine (No matter how much he works out, or how great a shape he gets in, he doesn't seem to be able to lose the "haunted" look that makes the skin around his eyes look recessed.  I know it bothers him, and it's a side effect of the poisonous blood in his system, but it's still disconcerting to look at at times.).  "The guy on the street.  Your feeding.  I don't want to hear that."  He stops and breathes deeply, and I can hear the air quietly whistle through him.  "I know you have to do it, but I don't need to hear it."

            "Oh," I reply sheepishly.  "Yeah.  Sorry about that.  I know you've told me.  That was my fault.  I was a bit…" I look him in the eyes and try to smile as prettily as I can (I know my awkward attempts at flirting have no effect on him - judging from the lack of a change in his pulse or breathing - but I also hope that it can at least lighten the mood when I screw up.  Which is often.).  "Distracted at the time," I finish.

            "Uh huh," he mumbles as he turns back to the glowing screens in front of him (But at least I'm pretty sure I saw the corners of his mouth twitch into smile territory.  Not a full on commitment mind you, but at least it was a start.  Impending death sure can make a boy morose.).  "And that's still not my name," he says without looking at me.

            "Ugh," I groan at him in my best mildly-annoyed-teenaged-girl voice (Hey!  Use the powers that come naturally, I always say.).  "You know I can't use your real name.  It's ridiculous.  Come on," I say and scoot my chair a bit closer to him, so I can lower my voice. "Pater?  Pater Knighton?  That's not even a real name!  How am I supposed to talk to you without giggling.  And what kind of name is Pater anyway?"

            "We’ve covered this before," he says with a tone of resignation smearing through his voice.  "My parents combined their names to make it.  And in German, "pater" means..."  But I don't let him continue.

            "I know what it means.  You've told me before, and I don't forget things.  Remember.  Perfect memory?  Things stuck in here forever," and I tap the side of my head for emphasis.  "Plus, it was a rhetorical question.  I wasn't trying to get the whole background again.

            "And it's not like I can use your last name either," I continue.  "As we found out last time.  That was a total bust."  (Apparently, I can't stop from saying his last name as "Kuh-niggut" and envisioning the Monty Python troupe from Holy Grail.  It cracked me up every time, and my constant laughing fits made communication with me nearly impossible.  I'm going to blame that one on my dad and his great taste in classic movies.)

            "So until we find something better, I think 'Renfield' will just have to work.  It's short.  It easily breaks up into a nickname," I say, and then lower my voice as I mumble.  "Plus I think it fits our current situation.  It keeps me grounded."

            The handsome man in the chair next to me (Can I really think of him as a "man" when he’s less than ten years my senior?), who has become my one and only friend over the last several  months, turns to look me in the eyes and just stares at me for several seconds.  His breathing doesn't change, and his heartbeat never wavers.  He's just a steady rock as his eyes bore into me.  He may not have the super abilities that I have (Are they "powers" or just "abilities"?), but his own are impressive.  I do my best to not wriggle under his intense gaze.  His emotional steadiness has helped settle me since we've been together, and it pays off now.

            "I know Cat," he finally says in his low voice.  "I spend my free time reading, too.  I understand the reference."  He stops and just looks at me as I count the beats of his heart.  I get up to six before he speaks again.  "And it'll do for now, but don't forget my real name.  Names are important."  He finally breaks eye contact and turns back to the large monitor in front of him before speaking again in a lighter voice.  "Don't think I'm going to be eating any bugs for you, Vlad."  And I swear this time that the hints of a real smile actually cross his cheeks.

            "Ok, I agree,” I say before shifting topics.  "Now, seriously, what was that in Morrin's house?  Because I don't ever want to experience that again!"