Pulled to the Dark (The Siriena Series) (33 page)

"Go inside. I'll call down to the guard to let you in." I hung up.

I walked into Andrea's office and closed the door. "She's at the apartment." I popped to the tower and then home. I called the guard and told him Sally Nelson would be expected and to send her up.

"She's here," he said.

I stood waiting by the door. The elevator pinged and then she was walking towards me, and she looked pissed.

I stepped into the apartment in front of her. The apartment door closed, and I heard a strange clicking sound. "That's far enough, Felicia."

I sighed and turned around. I was staring into the muzzle of a very large gun.

"That's not the gun you had on Saturday, is it?"

"No," she said. "This one is untraceable."

I sighed. "You don't want to kill me, Sally," I said. "You want to know what happened."

"I want to know how the fuck you drugged me."

"I will answer all your questions," I told her calmly. "What do I need to do so you will feel safe? Do you want to handcuff
me or something
? Whatever you need to feel safe."

"I'm the one with the gun," she said. "You're the one who should be afraid."

"You didn't come here to kill me," I said. "You came here for answers. What do I need to do so you will let me provide them?"

She looked at me for a good thirty seconds. Her hand was steady and the gun never wavered from my face. We hadn't gotten past the entrance of the apartment. Finally she said, "Hands against the wall."

For the first time in my life, I experienced what it was like for a professional cop to handcuff me. She was rough about it, but when she was done, she put her gun away.

"I'm taking you to the station," she said. "You are under arrest."

"For what?"

"Assaulting a police officer."

"Please tell me exactly when and where this assault happened."

"You know exactly when and where."

"What are you going to tell your fellow cops? 'Hello, I had this weird ass dream where I woke up naked and a girl I'd had a date with was leaning over me and singing. I want to lock her up for assaulting me, even though the only thing she did was help me into a wheelchair.'"

I sighed. "If you insist on taking me to the police station, clearly I'm not going to resist, but you're going to look foolish. And I don't want you to look foolish. I need your help."

"What?"

"Sally, set me in a chair, search the apartment so you know there is no one else here. Lock the door. Then come talk to me. I'll answer all your questions."

She stood thinking about it, then grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me the rest of the way into the apartment. She didn't put me in a chair but instead forced me to the floor. "Spread your legs as widely as you can," she said. "If you so much as flinch, I will hog tie you."

I did what she said.

She searched the entire apartment. Every few seconds, she poked out to make sure I was behaving. She was thorough in her search. Then she walked to the front door and locked and chained it before returning to me.

"What the hell did you do to me?"

I tried to tell her everything. I got two sentences out and she accused me of lying. I sighed and shut up.

"Tell me the god damned truth."

"Put me in a chair," I said. "What do you think I'm going to do? I'm a tiny woman in handcuffs. You're a professional cop.
You
're better trained, bigger and stronger."

"You're some sort of mumbo-jumbo aikido master."

"Yeah, and I was acting scared out of my mind five months ago when we first met. It was all a plot to get you to come to my rescue so five months later I could give you a weird dream. Do you really think I went from scared out of my mind to aikido master in five months?"

"If you try anything, I will either shoot you or hog tie you," she said. "You won't like either of them."

"If you have to pick between them," I told her. "Go with hog tying first. It's easier to explain to the security cameras. Everyone knows I'm a kinky lesbian by now, they'll think we just got carried away."

She didn't say anything, but she helped me stand up and set me in a chair.

"Thank you," I said.

"What did you do?"

I started in on the truth again. She slapped me.

I turned away and didn't say anything.

"Tell me the truth!"

"How about you let me tell you my story, whether you believe it or not? Then I can prove it. Or at least give you enough reason to believe I might be telling the truth."

"Fine," she said. "Talk. And when you're done with your lies, I am going to hurt you until you tell me the truth."

I told it all to her. Every bit. It took nearly an hour. She didn't believe a word of it. I hadn't really expected her to.

"You're full of shit," she said when I was done.

"This is where I prove it. My cell phone is in my pocket. Will you pull it out please?"

She eyed me
suspiciously but managed to pull the phone out of my suit pocket.

"Please text Petra. Ask her, are you in your office, alone, with the door closed." She wasn't going to do it, and I said, "For crying out loud, it's not a secret code to storm the building. It's an honest question."

"Fine," she said. She sent the text. We waited about two minutes before we received, "I am now. Are you okay?"

"You may answer that or not however you want," I told her. "You wanted to hog tie me. Go ahead."

She didn't need to be asked twice. She lowered me to the floor, although not as roughly as she had before, and she soon had my legs securely tied, then tied my wrists to my legs. Give
n
the yoga, I was pretty flexible.

"You came prepared," I told her. "I am going to do something you are going to find very startling. Please do not fire your gun. I absolutely promise I have no intention of hurting you, but I am going to startle you. The phone is going to ring in about three minutes. It will be me. You can answer it or not as you prefer."

I didn't wait for a response. I popped out of the apartment then straight to Petra's office, lying flat on my stomach next to her desk.

"Hello, Petra," I said. "I bet you wish you'd thought of this position for me."

"Oh god," she said. "Felicia. Are you okay?"

"Perfectly. Would you mind untying me? And if you have a key to the handcuffs, I wouldn't mind."

She untied me and helped me stand. "Sorry, no key. I don't exactly need handcuffs for you. What's going on?"

"No time, you just have to trust me. Please call my cell phone and put it on speaker."

Sally didn't answer right away, but eventually she did.

"Hello, Sally," I said. "I told you it would be startling."

"Where the hell are you?"

"In Petra's office downtown. Have you searched the apartment for me yet?"

"Yes. How did you leave right in front of me?"

"You already know the answer to that. Now, I'm going to pop back. It'll take me about fifteen seconds. I know you have your gun out and it's probably cocked. I know you're scared. I'm not going to hurt you. Please don't shoot me."

"You aren't going," Petra said.

"Yes, I am," I said. "I'll be right there, Sally. Petra, you will stay here. She's scared and we aren't going to outnumber her."

Then I double-popped and ended in the kitchen.

"Sally," I said, "I'm in the kitchen. I didn't want to startle you. I'm coming out. I'm still handcuffed. I'll come out backwards so you can see my hands."

Then I walked backwards out of the kitchen. I looked over my shoulder and she had the gun pointed at my head. I ignored her and walked back to my chair and sat down. "Please put the gun away, Sally. You don't need it."

She walked over to me, giving me a wide birth. Her eyes were a little wild, but her aim was steady. I stared calmly at her. She put the gun away again.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"You already know that. I've told you. My story isn't going to ch
ange." I paused. "Look, there are
a limited number of explanations. You could be dreaming. You could be on a really weird drug trip. You could be insane. Or I could be teleporting. Pick one. If you like, I can port around a few more times to show you."

I ported out and to the bedroom. "I'm in the bedroom, Sally. Please don't shoot me."

She came in. I had my back to her so she could see my hands. Her gun was out again, but it wasn't quite pointed at me.

"Where should I go next?"

"Dojo," she said.

"Race
ya
. Please don't shoot me."

I beat her there.

"Anywhere else?"

She looked away. I slowly walked up to her. "Turn around," she ordered. I did so, not sure what she was going to do. It sounded like she put her gun away
,
then she was fumbling at my wrists. She took the handcuffs off me.

I turned around and hugged her. "Thank you," I said.

Then I walked into the living room. "I'm thirsty. Are you thirsty? I don't think alcohol is a good idea, but we have soft drinks, water, or I can make coffee or tea."

She asked for a soda. I grabbed one for each of us and handed hers to her still sealed. "Sealed for safety," I said. "Do you mind if I call Petra and tell her everything is fine?"

She handed me my phone. I told Petra we were working it out and I'd check in hourly.

"If either of you leave the apartment," she said. "The guard is calling me."

"No worries," I said and hung up.

Then I answered every single question. That took a while.

"I helped you," she said eventually. "I held you while you cried. I was kind to you. And you bring me this?"

"Yes, Sally," I said. "You helped me. You were amazingly kind. And I am now offering an unusual puzzle for you as well as immortality. Do you know what that means? You can be young and beautiful literally forever. You can live forever, if an accident doesn't get you." I paused. "You can say no. You can walk away, and I'll never bother you again. You are unhurt. I haven't done anything to you that will harm you. I'm unhurt. Thank you for that. You can walk away. Or you can tell me it's okay to bring you back there."

She looked away. "I don't like being helpless."

"I don't blame you," I said. "I don't either. It's temporary. It takes a week or two. It seems to vary from person to person."

"I thought you said two months."

"Two months to learn to go there yourself. A week or two if I sing you there and continue to hum and sing while you're there, and your time is limited to a short period before you wake up. That gets longer as you get closer to learning how to travel yourself."
I paused. "It took me longer, but we're learning."

She still didn't like it.

"Petra and I would never hurt you," I said.

"That wasn't Petra."

So I explained about that, too.

"I'm not that kind of cop," she said in the end. "I can't help."

"Maybe you can, maybe you can't. We still want you to join us, either way. But it's your choice."

"What if I say 'yes' for now and change my mind?"

"Then we'll leave you alone. If you change your mind again, you can call me."

She got up and paced around the apartment. "What do I have to do?"

"Give me permission to summon you. And do your best to learn how to use your body
there
. It'll take some time,
and it goes in fits and starts. Don't get discouraged.
"

"All right," she said. "For now."

"Good," I said. "I'm hungry. Would you like to get some lunch with me? My treat."

* * *

It took a week before she had basic movement. That was much faster than it had gone for me. I chalked it up to my expert nursing skills whereas Petra had been focused on seducing me. Petra told me it was because Sally was tougher and more stubborn than I was. I suggested she should stick with my explanation lest I be tempted to prove how stubborn I could be.

Friday night, just a week and a day after we first pulled her to
Siriena
, we gathered at our apartment for a meeting. Sally brought some cop stuff in a bag. She said, "Go over everything at the village again."

We drew a crude map of the village for her. We showed her the buildings and explained which ones we'd found bodies, as best we could remember. We explained the condition of the bodies.

"It's been another two weeks?" she asked.

"Yes," said Petra. "To be honest, we don't think you're going to be able to tell us anything more. It was already bad. But maybe there is some obvious evidence. If we had a clue how they died, that would help."

"None of us was willing to get near the bodies," I said. "And you may take one look and agree with that assessment." I paused. "Maybe you can tell us something, maybe you can't. Either way, we want you in our club."