Spires of Spirit (23 page)

She shook her head at the sensation. Above, the stars were almost washed out by the city lights and the smoggy air, but they were burning brightly within her.

She used her old key to let herself in through the security door, and she padded up the hall, her footfalls all but silent. As had been the case on many other nights—nights now months past—she smelled the dinner of the old Korean couple in the front apartment. Fish, garlic. Whether she lived in Denver or L.A., whether an ancient blood had come alive in her or not, this life would continue.

Before she knocked on the door, though, she paused, head down, thinking. This was her past. This was only her past. She lived in Denver now, in a different climate, among different people, leading a different life. And now those differences had been augmented infinitely. Did she have any business here at all? For her, Carrie was gone. It did not matter anymore.

But Carrie had, it seemed, sensed her presence, and she opened the door while Lauri stood pondering. She was dressed casually, and her light hair was caught back on one side with a cloisonné comb that Lauri did not recognize.

After looking at her for a moment, Carrie turned and went back into the apartment. She left the door open behind her. Lauri hesitated, then followed.

The odor of fresh paint hung in the living room. Furniture had been moved around, and there were two new pieces of art on the wall.

Carried stayed on the far side of the room. She was regarding the rug as though burning words into it. “Well, now that you blew a bunch of money coming out here . . .”

The stars were bright . . . and growing brighter. Lauri could see the shimmer about herself plainly. In an instant, she felt the apartment, how it had changed: the different bedspread in the other room, Ron's suits and ties hanging in the closet, the rack of elegant wines in the kitchen. She felt tranquil, and that surprised her . . . or maybe it did not. Odd how the stars changed things . . .

Carrie was glaring at her now, and Lauri found that she had to laugh softly. “I didn't blow anything.”

“It's not going to help. I gave you my answer. I won't let you interfere with my life.”

Lauri took an experimental turn around the room, noticing the difference the starlight made. True, it was a shabby apartment, but it had its points, and she could, even now, remember the joy and the laughter that had, at times, filled it. “I think you can take a few minutes for me without calling it interfering.”

“I'm not coming out to Denver.”

“That's all right. It's not necessary.”

Carrie stared. Lauri wondered if she had seen the shimmer, but decided that it had more likely been her tone of voice. Factual. Exceedingly
pro forma
. “Then why the hell did you come out?”

Lauri's world grew. She could sense the apartment building with its rooms and its people, the street outside where her rental car was parked, the vast, sprawling, pulsating city that tumbled down the mountains and stopped only when it reached the sea . . .

She let the awareness pass, focused instead on Carrie. “I came here to say good-bye. That's all. It was nice while it lasted, and we were good for each other for a while, but I know, and you know, that it's over. And I just wanted to let you know that I understand. And if I caused you pain, I'm sorry. And that's all.”

The stars shone. Lauri watched Carrie struggle with the words, and while she watched, she suddenly saw her and knew her just as she had seen and known the steward on the plane. It was an intrusion, she knew, and she pulled out of the vision immediately, but not before she had felt the fear in Carrie, and the need for security, and the deep sense of isolation that a lesbian relationship had inflicted upon her.

Carrie had clenched her fists in preparation for an outburst, but then she appeared to change her mind. “I . . . I didn't know what you wanted.”

“I don't want anything.”

“You've . . . changed.”

“I guess so.” Lauri shrugged. She was thinking longingly of Denver, of the mountains and the pines and the aspens, and of a certain meadow surrounded by trees . . .

She remembered the sparrow hawk. Unafraid. Trusting. Its eyes had been as bright as the promise ring that now burned on her finger.

Slipping the ring off her hand, she laid it on the coffee table along with her old keys. “So, I'll see you later,” she said. “Take care.”

For a moment, Carrie looked at the ring, and then she bent, picked it up, held it in her palm. Lauri crossed the room in silence and let herself out, but she paused for a moment at the open door. Carrie was still standing by the table, the ring in her hand, her slender figure seemingly a part of the furniture and the pictures and the books: a memory—only a memory—of a time when there was no starlight in the world.

August was hot, as was typical for late summer in Denver. In the morning, the sky was blindingly blue, with a yellow sun climbing above the flat horizon that looked out onto Kansas. The sun raised the temperature, and it raised also the tall thunderheads that would, come mid-afternoon, bring a foretaste of steaming dusk to the city and leave it simmering as though under the lid of a pot.

And as Lauri pulled the company van into the parking lot outside TreeStar Surveying, she discovered once again that Elves did not sweat.

She parked the van and ran her fingers along her hairline. Not a trace of moisture. Just the soft shimmer of starlight that was one with immortal flesh, visible only to immortal eyes. It was unnerving. She wondered if she would ever get used to it.

She wiped her dry fingers on her Levi's out of old, human habit, and, with a flick of her head, settled her dark hair over her ears, covering them for the benefit of the new secretary. Amy had been with the company for only a few weeks and did not yet know that she was working with a myth. It was somewhat difficult to decide on a way of telling her.

Lauri swung open the door into the air-conditioned office, glad that she did not have to worry about that particular problem. That was Hadden's department.

Hadden owned the company. He, too, had to keep his ears covered.

Amy was blond, with blue eyes, and as usual, she was fighting with the computer as Lauri strode into the room. Lauri waved to her on her way back to Hadden's desk.

Hadden looked up at her approach.

“Bloomfield's happy,” she said.

“Good.” He leaned back in his chair. “How was the drive?”

“You will notice,” she said, fluttering her work shirt, “That I am . . .” The fluttering was doing nothing. She was dry. And reasonably cool, too. She had perceived the heat, she realized, but it had not affected her. “. . . uh . . . that I would be sweating under . . . uh . . . other circumstances.”

Hadden smiled.

“A lot.” She fluttered her dry shirt again. Very unnerving. “When do we get the air in the van fixed?”

Hadden's gray eyes twinkled: a just-perceptible flash of starlight. “It's a pretty old van. You think we really need it?”

Lauri made a wry face. The phone began to ring, and Amy picked it up. “Probably doesn't matter,” she said. “But please: no more two-hour trips.”

“Shouldn't be necessary. Bloomfield has his elevations, right on schedule, and that should settle it.”

“We could skip the air and put in a stereo,” Lauri offered. “Honestly, the boredom will kill you faster than the heat. That is, if the heat . . . uh . . .” She looked chagrined. “Well . . .”

“Lauri,” Amy called. “It's Mr. Bloomfield. Line one.”

Hadden gestured to his telephone. “Be my guest.”

Puzzled, Lauri punched in the line and picked up the handset. “This is Ms. Tonso,” she said. She listened for a minute, her lips pursed. Then: “I'll take care of it immediately, sir.” There was an edge to her voice that even she could hear, and when she hung up, Hadden looked at her curiously.

“Problem?”

The drive out of Golden and back had been long and tedious, and the heat, though it had not produced any sweat, had nonetheless shortened her temper. Lauri did not like it. Not at all. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. There was a sky full of stars within her, and she could see them now, surrounding her, floating in the velvety blackness. She took their light in along with the air she breathed, let them calm her, let the anger seep away.

When she opened her eyes, the edge in her voice was gone: “The graphs and tables were missing from the report. Now, I saw them first thing this morning, just after Amy got through printing them. I suppose they're around here somewhere.”

Amy approached, a folder of papers in her hand. “Is this what you're looking for?”

Lauri too it, riffled through its contents. “Yeah. But what are they doing here?”

There was an embarrassed smile on Amy's face. “I thought . . . I thought we were supposed to keep them here. File copies? So I took them out of the report.”

Silently, Lauri looked at her, then at Hadden, then down at the telephone, then finally at the plate glass windows that gave out upon the sizzling parking lot.

“Did I do something wrong?” asked Amy in a small voice.

The young woman was frightened. But two weeks on the job, and she had fumbled badly. Nor was this the first time: there had been misfiled pages, missent letters, checks and bills that had, seemingly of their own accord, crawled off into other dimensions. Lauri figured that Amy fully expected to be fired on the spot.

But: “I'll just run out to Golden again and give Bloomfield the pages,” she said. Her voice was calm and firm, almost cheerful. She met Amy's eyes. “Easy there.”

Amy's blue eyes were moist.

“It's OK, Amy,” said Hadden. “We'll handle the rest. Just check with the field team in charge of the measurements before you take anything out of one of their reports.”

Amy was still staring at Lauri. A single tear was winding down the side of her nose, leaving behind it a streak of mascara.

Without thinking, Lauri reached out and laid a hand lightly on Amy's shoulder. The young woman flinched as though she expected to be struck. “It's all right,” said Lauri. “Really. No problem.” The stars were still with her, leaching away any anger she might have felt, and she suddenly noticed that the blue of Amy's eyes had deepened.

Something flashed there, just on the edge of sight. Lauri caught her breath and quickly removed her hand.

“I'll . . .” Amy fumbled for words, wiped at her eyes. “I guess I'll get back to work. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.”

“Be at peace,” said Hadden as she went back to her desk.

Lauri was still wondering what she had seen. “I don't understand.”

“Now you know how it happens,” said Hadden softly, and Lauri, startled, looked at him . . . and met eyes that flashed starlight.

***

Now you know how it happens.
The words were still with her ten miles later when she took the on-ramp to westbound Highway 6 and headed out to Golden. She had not asked Hadden what he had meant, but she suspected that she knew.

She herself had not always been elven. Four months ago, in fact, she had not yet closed her eyes to see the stars shining in the darkness. Four months ago, she had been human. But there had been old blood in her veins, and it had awakened, and it had transformed her.

It had awakened, yes.

That flash . . .

Highway 6 wound on toward the foothills, a ribbon of concrete that split the scrubby landscape and passed through urban sprawl where outlying condominium complexes rose boxy and new from the arid ground. Still, Lauri was not seeing with her old eyes, and the condos were pretty in their own way, the sunlight glinting pleasingly from freshly washed windows and glowing on cedar shake roofs. And, regardless of their rectilinear presence, the land beneath them still lived, fertile and rich, wanting only the touch of water to bring it to bloom and fruition. And if people needed a place to live in the growing city, and if they therefore claimed the open land for themselves, why, many of those same people also had old blood in their veins, and someday it might awaken in some of them . . .

. . . and Lauri wondered again about Amy. The elven blood could wake up in many ways: spontaneously, by the presence of others in whom it had awakened . . . or it could be triggered outright. Lauri had been half among the stars when she had touched Amy, and the effect had been electric. The deepening blue of the woman's eyes. That quick flash.

“What the hell did I do?” she mumbled out loud as the van rattled into Golden. “And how far did I stick my foot in it?”

She was warm—not hot—but completely undrenched when she got to the Bloomfield offices, and she grinned as she handed the papers to the contractor.

“You look as cool as iced tea,” he said, eyeing her above his half-glasses. “You must have the air conditioner from hell in that truck of yours.”

“It's the best,” she said truthfully.

On the road again. Lauri donned her sunglasses and settled back in the seat. The inbound traffic was light, and she thought back to the incident at TreeStar. Amy had been afraid. No, not afraid: terrified. At the thought of being fired? Well, possibly. But the job market certainly was not that tight, and Amy had good references.

Nervousness would have been understandable. But that fear . . .

It was not the job, Lauri decided. It had to be something else. She replayed the event in her mind, watched, once again, that mascara-stained tear creep down the side of Amy's powdered nose, watched again that almost subliminal flinch with which the young woman had reacted to a comforting hand.

It was late when she got back to the city—past closing time—and she simply took the company van to her apartment. When she got home, she opened a can of pop, sat down in her living room, and called Hadden.

He caught it on the first ring. As usual. It was as though he had been expecting the call. As usual.

“All right,” she said. “What did I do?”

“I think you know,” he said. His voice was calm. It was always calm. Lauri had noticed the quality in her own voice since she had changed, but Hadden had it down to an art.

“I woke up the blood, didn't I?”