The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (12 page)

Denni shook her head. “Everyone gets that
when they’re still adjusting to their own awakening Amzi. There was
something else, wasn’t there?”

Amna's head sunk between her shoulders. “I
guess so.” Her voice was barely audible.

“What was it?” she pushed. “If there's
something wrong nearby that I should know about, then —”

“That's
not
it, okay?” Amna spat out,
a little louder than she'd wanted. She lowered her eyes, stuffing
her hands under the table. “Sorry. I can't explain it. Not here.
Can we drop it for now? Please?”

Denni relented. She did not want to argue,
anyway. She felt close and uncomfortable, and she wanted to
discharge some of this energy that had been welling up inside her
for too long. She wanted to get out the apartment, out of the
business of being the One of All Sacred and just be Denni Johnson
instead. Arguing with her best friend was the last thing she should
be doing.

“I'm sorry,” she said after a moment. She
frowned, thinking it sounded a lot less sincere than she'd meant
it. “I was just concerned...” She stopped again, knowing that
wasn't any better. Amna gave her a wilting look that didn't
help.

“You're doing your job, girl. You're a
Johnson and a Shalei, Den, face it.” She took Denni’s hand and
squeezed it softly, flashing her a weak smile. “Look. I know what
you mean, and I appreciate it. You just need to separate the two
sometimes, is all.”

Denni nodded. “Thanks. I know.”

The two exited the restaurant after fending
off dessert offerings from the owner and headed back towards
Denni's apartment. It was nearing two in the afternoon, and Denni
had planned on doing some errands of her own, of a spiritual
nature. She'd debated whether or not to include Amna in this, and
still had not decided by the time they'd reached the apartment.
She’d just unlocked the door and let Amna in when she heard a
rushed flipping of bolts next door.

“Denni, is that you?” an older woman's voice
called from the open door. Madeleine Jakes, a short, stocky woman
in her late sixties stepped out with a slight limp and stopped at
the frame. Instantly the woman’s eyes brightened. “I thought it was
you, sweetie! You’re looking quite happy today, I could sense you
from next door!”

Denni beamed and stepped over to give
Madeleine a hug. “Somfei, Madeleine! I've been seeing a lot of you
lately! How are you today?”

Madeleine was a family friend who'd taken
care of both Denni and Caren in their youth, and had been their
next door neighbor for a good number of years. She’d become a
surrogate parent to them both over the last few years, gladly
watching over them every day. She leaned over and gave her a peck
on each cheek. “I'm surviving, sweetie,” she said. “War injury is
acting up again, but otherwise I’m just fine.” She pointed down at
her right knee, the source of her limp. A prosthetic limb grafted
just under the knee gave a faint whirr as she lifted it up slightly
to show her. She'd received the injury during the last Season of
Embodiment, but had never revealed how she'd gotten it. “Always
seems to get twitchy during uprisings, you know?” She gave Denni a
wink and a smile. Denni returned the look; she knew a pointed
reference when she heard one.

“Just call if you need help,” she offered.
“You know Caren and I are more than willing.”

“Bless you, honey,” she said, cupping her
hand on Denni’s chin. She let it stay there for a few moments, a
soft and loving touch. “Take care of yourself, Denysia,” she said
quietly. “Keep looking for the answers, child, and never hesitate
to ask for help, you hear? That goes for your friend there as
well.”

She faltered, staring at her. “I…I will.
Taftika, sehnadha.”

Madeleine beamed at her. “Allei aiya, dear.
Thank
you
.” And with that, she retreated back to her own
apartment, and shut the door, throwing all the bolts. Denni stood
there for a moment longer, confused and a little fearful, and
quickly did the same.

She found Amna in the living room, staring
passively at the vidmat tacked up between the media shelves across
the room, oblivious to the conversation that had just gone on.
“Nothing's on,” Amna sighed, tapping the remote and shutting the
vidmat off. “How's Madeleine?”

“I...uh...” Denni started. “She’s fine. Leg’s
bothering her but she’s fine.”

She said something, didn't she?
Amna
asked

Denni twitched at her words. She swiftly
headed to the kitchen.

“Something to drink?” she called out.

Don't ignore this,
Amna continued.

“I'm not. Something to drink?”

A second or two passed before she answered.
“Water, please.”

Denni came back into the living room with two
bottles and handed one to her. “She just offered her help if I
needed it, that's all,” she said. “Called me Denysia, too.”

“So?”

“She's
always
called me Denni. She
believes in True Self, just like we all do, but doesn't believe in
flaunting it to the worlds. Each spirit's unique, and we should
revel in that. So she never addresses someone by their True Name
unless it’s offered or warranted.”

“Slip of the tongue?”

“Definitely not.”

Amna leaned back in her seat, head back and
gazing at the ceiling. “I don't know what to tell you, Den. Could
be she's a reality seer.”

Madeleine? The woman was definitely Mendaihu,
and had claimed to be so before Denni even knew what it meant.
She’d been a part of the uprising during the last Season, but she
had never outright said she’d been a Warrior or a Protector of the
One. Just another Bridgetowner who chose to join in the fight.
“Stranger things have happened,” she managed.

“Like a teenage deity,” Amna retorted.

Denni gave her a sour look.

“She's suggesting you do some research,” she
continued.

“Obviously,” she said, and joined her on the
couch. “She knows who and what I am, and still treats me as always.
Just unsettling, hearing it come from her.”

Amna pushed herself back up and faced her.
“So what do you think?”

“I’ll be honest, I was planning on just that
before you came,” she said, and lightly tapped her on the arm. “She
included you as well.”

Amna frowned at her. “Huh. What kind of
research are we talking about? I’m nowhere near the level of a
Mendaihu Gharra, I hope you know that.”

“Hmm, no. I was thinking more of visiting a
library.”

Amna met her eyes. “A sehna lumia? Are you
sure that’s a good idea?”

She took her friend’s hand. “It’s something I
need to do, Amzi. I understand the rules — I may be the One of All
Sacred, but even I can't look at someone else's memories, only my
own. I wouldn’t dare try invading someone else’s privacy.” She
paused, attempting a comforting smile. “But I can look up the
records of the One.”

Amna frowned at her. “That’s some serious
rule bending there, Den.”

“We'd be connecting with the previous
Embodiments, Amna, not the separate spirits that harbored them,”
Denni she explained. “I need to know what they know.”

“And you’re sure you can get away with
it?”

“Of course,” she said softly, squeezing her
hand. She briefly described the week that had passed in that
nonspace she called a sanctuary. Ampryss hadn’t suggested it, but
it was certainly implied:
you have all of time to fall back
on
, she’d said.
You do not always need to stay here, in the
Now, processing everything as it comes to you.
Even if visiting
the sehna lumia was not Ampryss’ intent, it was hard not to ignore
her own interpretation. She couldn’t deny herself this offering,
not now.

Amna was still unconvinced, however. “How
would you understand eight different consciences sharing one
spirit? How would that work?”

“I’m going to assume it’s not as intense as
being in contact with over five thousand spirits at once,” she
said. “If I can handle that, I can handle this.”

She squeezed her friend’s hand tightly.
Amnaia,
she said within.
Are you willing to help
me?

Amna did not waver.
Anytime, Den.
She
took her other hand and held it tight, as everything around them
began to fade away into Light.
I’m with you.

CHAPTER TEN

Imbalance

Goddess, why was it getting so hard to hold
it back? Caren roamed the hallways without direction, avoiding
other agents as much as she could. She'd used Mendaihu-level power
for the first time on a Shenaihu nuhm’ndah yesterday, and that
primal sensation of disgust and hatred had not gone away. Perhaps
it was the drain of energy after the fight, the dread she'd felt
after going through the arduous Questioning process, then finally
getting reamed out by Chief Inspector Farraway, all in the span of
three hours. She'd decided to skip Poe's dinner invitation by
hinting that she’d rather be with Denni. She just had no more
energy to spare. Just enough clock in, do her hours, then get home
and sleep. She hated hiding this from him, but she couldn’t, not
when he was going through his own issues.

She hadn’t expected her Mendaihu energy to
drain so quickly. She’d only used it twice. First to propel that
man, Saisshalé, into that wall. Then once more to keep him there
until he’d gotten that lucky kick in. After that, all the fight had
gone out of her. It scared her just as much as it had pissed her
off.

“Caren! Hold up!”

Agent Nick Slater jogged up from a far
corridor and caught up with her, and by the look in his eyes, he
wasn’t in the best of moods either. Before she could respond
however, he gestured for her to keep quiet and hailed an elevator.
Once they were on and he tapped the lift to rise to the seventh
floor, he finally let out a long breath. Only then did she notice
that he was fidgeting like someone who’d just been spooked by some
seriously bad news. Goddess, what had he uncovered? She went to
reach out and steady him, but he waved the offer away, nodding
quickly.

“I was poking around the reports from
yesterday,” he said, measuring his words. “Something about the area
bothered me. Not just the situation, but where it took place. I
couldn’t quite figure it out, not until just the last hour or
so.”

“It wasn’t an unstable neighborhood, if
that’s what you mean,” she said. “Poe and I cast out multiple
threads just before everything happened.”

“Not that,” he said, and glanced at the
elevator. “Does the phrase 'here lies fate' sound familiar?”

Caren stopped cold. She’d completely
forgotten about the graffiti. She hadn’t even mentioned it during
the Questioning sessions. “Go on,” she said slowly.

“It's been popping up everywhere lately,
smartpainted, and always in a high foot traffic area. It's a
spray-based enamel, quick drying, using a stencil or a portable
laserstat. Mostly used by the Public Works department, but
commercial artists have been known to use it for immediate image
stamping. It's expensive as hell and even harder to clean off.”

She managed to find her voice just as the
elevator doors opened. “Where else have you seen this?”

“It's been reported all over,” he said.
“Three near Branden Hill Park, eight in South City, eighteen in the
Waterfront…all within the last day, and corresponding to incidents
of violence before or after the fact. Someone wants to make a
point.”

Caren shuddered. How many attacks had taken
place that hadn’t been reported? “Not a coincidence, is it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It's
too close to the attack area, each time. A block or less away. I
called one of my buddies at the PW, he says that this stuff is hell
on the paint scrapers, it's so hard to clean off. I also accessed
some of the security cams at those intersections where the graffiti
was found, just to see what I could dig up.”

The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach
began to grow. “You sure you got the time right?” she asked.

“One twenty-three in the afternoon is when
your incident took place,” he said, pausing in front of the doors.
“The tag could not have been put there no more than an hour
before.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Poe and I walked
by the one on the corner of Guyton West and Sandison Avenue. It
looked like it had been there at least a day or so. It was dry, but
one tire mark had gone through it. No padding after it,
though.”

Nick frowned. “Weird. Smartpaint isn't
supposed to do that. We could have gotten something out of that
tread.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “Nick, why are
we really here? We could watch the security vids in the
office.”

“The words themselves,” he said. “About four
years ago, when I was a cop in the South City district, there was a
stretch of about five weeks where I'd see those words sprayed
somewhere new each day.”

The incident played in Caren's memory. “Some
punk gang, right? Some startup jackers thinking they were going to
start something down there…they had a few nuhm’ndah in their ranks,
didn’t they?”

Nick nodded gravely. “Spiral, they called
themselves. I was part of that investigation. Damn near got killed
three separate times, trying to pin those bastards down.”

“That was you?” Caren said, eyebrows lifted
in surprise.

“Me and a few Mendaihu agents,” he added. “My
first case with them. They protected me with their lives more than
a few times.”

Caren regarded him quietly. They had remained
in the foyer of the library, voices not quite a hush. The events
still unnerved him, but he had learned to accept them as part of
his past and not his current life. He gestured ahead and led her to
the front desk to grab the files he’d requested and a keycard for
one of the private rooms.

Caren held her tongue until they were in the
room with the door closed and all recording modules off. “Do you
think Spiral is involved this time out?”