Summoning Courage

Chapter 1

Chapter One

In the dream, I was not me.

I was floating in the room with me. I could see me, Mack, sitting at the table, a glass of bourbon in my/his hand. Across the table was Recca, red hair, green eyes, Mona Lisa smile. She looked beautiful.

Claudius. I was Claudius, Recca’s guardian spirit, floating in the room, watching her, as I often did. Was it Claudius who thought Recca looked beautiful, or was that all me? I couldn’t tell.

It was an apartment. A safe-house. I recognized it. We had been there just a few days earlier. In the dream, we were there again. We were hiding, trying to dodge agents of the Seers Guild, a tracer team under the command of senior agent Melody Watkins. They were after Marina’s talisman. The talisman would lead them to the key. The key would let them open the Piero Gate. The open gate would give them access to the Piero Codex. The Codex would let them rule all of Destiny. Or so they believed.

It had taken all night, and some very dangerous magic, but we had finally lost our pursuers.

Lilly was asleep in the next room. Recca and I were taking a moment to breathe. To drink. But our glasses had gone empty.

Recca got up from the table and went to the kitchen. Mack followed her.

Claudius spoke to Recca on the spirit plane. He wasn’t speaking English, but somehow in the dream, I understood what he was saying. "The two of you will have beautiful children. I look forward to meeting them."

Recca laughed.

"What’s the joke?" Mack asked.

Claudius continued to whisper into Recca’s ear. "After two thousand years, I know love when I see it in a woman’s eyes." Mack could not hear it. Was not aware of the hovering spirit.

"Oh, sorry. It’s Claudius," Recca said.

"Roman emperor and spirit comedian?" Mack asked.

Recca smiled and handed Mack a drink. "He thinks we’re in love."

Mack frowned a little. "You find that concept laughable?"

Recca smiled gently. "It just surprised me, coming from him. In the past, he has always mildly disapproved of my…."

"Your previous lovers were mere entertainment, and poorly chosen," Claudius said. "This one is your perfect complement. Your children will blossom, as powerful as any seers who ever lived."

"Then," Mack said, "you think he may be onto something?"

"Oh, I admit, there’s a spark," Recca said, her voice low and close. "But it takes more than just a spark to start a fire. We’re from opposite sides of the fence. It’s hard to imagine how we could make it last."

"I don’t have an answer to that," Mack whispered. "I can only see so far into the future. I don’t know how things are going to turn out. So, I always go with my gut. It’s not always the best choice, but it’s the only way I know how to be."

"And what is your gut telling you now?" Recca whispered.

They/we kissed. I watched it from outside myself, through the eyes of a two-thousand-year-old spirit. I didn’t look nearly as suave as I had imagined. If a disembodied spirit could smile, then Claudius was grinning like a fool. I detected an unmistakable I-told-you-so feeling.

But then the telephone rang, and an alarm sounded, and the moment was over.

I/Claudius became overwhelmed with a sense of danger, and an urge to protect Recca. My awareness shifted. Suddenly I was outside, above, looking down on the apartment building. It was morning. People were stirring everywhere. Confusion. But I sensed malice. Malevolence. I sniffed it out. It was scattered. A van parked in the fire lane beside the apartment complex. The elevators at the west end of the corridor. A stairwell at the east end of the building, bathed in morning sunlight.

My awareness swooped down to each of those places in turn. Examining. Claudius did not know these people. To him, they were threats, and nothing more. But with my own awareness within the dream, I recognized them. They were a Seers Guild capture team. Two teams, in fact, one a tracer team, the other a pure tactical unit.

I found myself back in the apartment. Mack and Lilly were heading out the door.

"They’re my people," Recca said. "I’ve got this." She pulled her car keys from her bag and tossed them to Mack. "Find that talisman."

"Recca, you can’t—" Mack started, but Recca interrupted him.

"I’m still Guild captain for this district," Recca said. "And I have some tricks up my sleeve. I’ll be fine. You have to recover that talisman, Mack. Do not allow the key to fall into their hands!"

Mack shoved Lilly out the door. "We’ll finish that conversation later," Mack said to Recca.

Recca replied, "You bet we will. Now go!"

The door closed. Mack and Lilly were gone. Without speaking, Claudius relayed to Recca’s mind the images he had gathered from outside. And he heard, somehow, Recca’s inner voice as she reacted to them.

"Tactical team, but in civilian gear. Stealth mode. Simple authorities not involved. Good. Melody Watkins running the op from the van outside. Not so good."

Recca was squatting next to a large intake vent. The grill had been removed. She pulled a couple of hard plastic cases from the cavity. Opened them. The gear inside would have seemed an odd assortment of junk to a Simple. A police-style nightstick. A dark brown poncho. A pair of silver medallions.

Recca pulled the poncho over her head. It was enchanted to hide her aura. Astral camouflage that would make it difficult for seers to see her on the astral plane. The nightstick could be used to pummel people in the usual way, but would also be enchanted, probably with a stun spell. The medallions were batteries storing magical power that could be released in an instant: effectively, astral grenades that could knock someone unconscious from twenty yards away. There had been a conventional 9mm pistol in the kit too, but she had given that to me. Or rather, to Mack, who was now gone. I was still there, as Claudius.

Armed with her non-lethal weapons, Recca approached the apartment door. Opened it just a crack. Peered into the corridor.

Claudius popped past the door and down the hall, showing Recca the two burly looking men in gray sweats standing by the elevators. He snapped his awareness to the other end of the hall, showing her the matched pair of men coming up the stairs. I felt Recca’s will holding Claudius in place, commanding him to watch and report when the men reached the top stair. He did.

One of the silver medallions rolled into view. Claudius was watching the physical plane, not the astral plane. He did not see the bright flash of astral energy. He only saw the two men drop unconscious at the landing.

Claudius moved to confirm that the men by the elevator had also been knocked out. As had a few residents who were merely going about their day, preparing to go to work. No permanent damage would result.

Recca slipped out the apartment door and skulked down the corridor toward the stairwell. From the top of the stairs, she could see the aura of the man waiting at the bottom around the corner. She descended the stairs. Swung her nightstick around the corner ahead of her. The man dropped.

Recca turned toward the sidewalk that led to the street. And came face to face with Melody Watkins.

Melody held one hand palm out, a calming gesture. The other hand held a nightstick similar to Recca’s. "We only want to talk to you, Recca," Melody said.

Wary, Recca adopted a ready stance. She nodded to the unconscious man at the foot of the stairs. "You brought an awful lot of muscle for a polite conversation."

"Just a precaution, in case Kincannon resisted arrest."

"Mack works for me," Recca argued.

"When it suits him," Melody countered. "But you know you don’t run him. He’s a wanted man, Recca, and you’re on the wrong side of this."

Three other men, threats to Recca, were positioned at different points around her. The street. The parking lot. But they were not closing in. They stood, watching, waiting. Claudius relayed this sense to Recca.

"I told you once before, Melody, there’s a difference between loyalty and justice. The League of the Dragon is trying to steal the Piero Codex, and I am not going to let that happen."

Melody shook her head. "The League of the Dragon is not what you think it is. And they’re not trying to steal the Codex, they’re trying to safeguard it."

Recca scowled. "So, you’re working for them."

"So are you," Melody answered. "You think the League of the Dragon has infiltrated the Seers Guild, but you’re wrong. I did some research of my own after we spoke before. The League is not a separate organization, Recca. It’s just an archaic nickname."

"Nickname for what?" Recca asked.

Melody took a moment to ensure that her face was calm, unthreatening. "For the oligarchs of the Seers Guild. Recca, the Dragons have not infiltrated the Guild. They are the Guild. The very same Guild that you and I have loyally served for years. Now please, let me take you in and debrief you."

Recca’s hands shook, and her eyes welled with tears. "What the hell are you saying? That I’ve been a sap all these years, working for my own enemy?"

Melody’s temper was rising to the surface. Her voice raised almost to a shout. "I’m saying that your head has been filled with lies and that’s got you working against your own people!"

Recca’s breathing was rapid. Her eyes darted like a cornered animal. "Those bastards are not the Seers Guild that I work for!"

Melody lunged, swinging the nightstick high. A roar escaped Recca’s throat, and she exploded into motion. She blocked Melody’s ferocious blow and countered with one of her own. And a second. And a third. Melody defended, deflected, remained on her feet.

The other men were closing in now, quickly. Claudius hung in the air, desperately wanting to help, but there was nothing he could do. Melody matched Recca blow for blow as the threatening men rushed ever closer.

The men came into view. One of them raised a weapon. There was a loud snap. Two metal wires embedded themselves in Recca’s back. She convulsed and dropped to the ground, her body no longer under her control.

Melody disarmed Recca and bound her hands behind her back.

The dream flashed into fast-forward mode. Recca facing Anthony Winston, the Seers Guild oligarch who masterminded this scheme. Recca bound in the back of the van. A long drive. A high barbed wire fence with a guarded gate. A building with walls of concrete, which Claudius passed through effortlessly. Winston shoved Recca into a room, following close behind.

And then they disappeared. Claudius could no longer see her, no longer sense her location. She had no location. She was gone. Recca had ceased to exist.

I snapped awake. Me, Mack, awake and back in my own body, lying on Lilly’s sofa. My heart still pounded with the panic that Claudius had felt at Recca’s disappearance. It was his memory I had been dreaming. Memory he had shared with me, a dream he had created to communicate with me. I opened my inner eye onto the astral plane and saw Claudius there.

"The Ring," Claudius said ominously.

"Yeah," I said. "They took her to the Ring. Thanks to you, we now know where to find the portal to it. But getting in isn’t going to be easy. And getting her out, even less easy."

I sensed the ancient spirit’s tension, his despair. He had been bound to Recca’s bloodline for centuries. Being separated from her was painful to him, in the most literal sense.

"Don’t worry, Claudius. We’ll find a way to help her."