Chapter 14
JOKER
Later that night, Cobra called an emergency church meeting to iron shit out.
When we were all assembled around the table, Cobra slams down the gavel and turns to me. “I’m gonna let Joker start off.”
I retell the story of seeing the guy at the Halloween party, leaving out my dream or vision when unconscious. This shit sounds crazy enough without adding hallucinations to it. I show them the pictures sent to me, and they pass my phone around the table in silence.
“I get this shit isn’t right,” Mamba motions to my phone, “but what makes you think it’s one of the Nomads?”
“Cause none of this shit started happening until we met up with them at the safe house. And the guy I saw at the party looked exactly like the one we offed at the safe house. I know it sounds crazy, but I also know what I saw. And this was before I fell in the basement.”
“Like I said the other night,” Rattler adds, “we were pounding those shots pretty hard and?—”
“I wasn’ t fuckin’ drunk.”
Python nods at me, “Yeah, I’ve seen this guy drink way more and be sober and straight. Out of all of us, Joker can handle his booze.”
Cobra takes it all in, not saying anything, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
“On the other hand,” Mamba leans into the table, “Rattler and I saw both of those fuckers at the end, and neither one of them was breathing. So, either they had some miraculous intervention, or there’s some kinda ghost floating around.”
Rattler nods, and as the others digest Mamba’s words, I jump in with my proposal. “I wanna have another meet with the Nomads. Only this time, we all go as a show of strength, ‘cause there’s no way,” I point to my phone, “I’m letting this stand.”
“Not a bad idea,” Cobra says. “That way, if some bullshit is going on, we’ll be able to stop it before it goes any further.”
The brothers nod their agreement, then Boa looks up from his laptop. “Probably a good idea to have the old guy, Warrior, there too. Although he’s not the one who put this curse on you, he might know something about it, or a way to remove it.”
“Fuck, brother,” Cobra nods at me, “I’m trying to make him feel better, not worse. It’s bad enough he believes this bullshit, but now you too?”
“It’s not bullshit.” Boa taps at the keyboard of his laptop. “If Warrior is a shaman, then he has powers beyond this world. Powers for good and evil.”
“Regardless, I’ll connect with the Nomads after the meeting and set something up for tomorrow night.” Cobra looks around the room. “Anything else?”
When no one speaks up, Cobra slams the gavel down again.
Cobra grips my shoulder. “You look like you could use a drink.”
“In a minute. ”
All the brothers head for the bar, but I stay behind and sit next to Boa, who’s still typing on his laptop.
“So, these powers Warrior might have are real?” I ask when everyone is out of earshot.
“Absolutely.” Boa types in some keywords, then turns the laptop to me with article after article about the powers of a shaman.
“Gotta ask you something else.” I look over my shoulder, then back to Boa. “How do you feel about time travel?”
“If I had my choice, I’d definitely go back to Roman times.” He puffs out his massive chest. “Would’ve loved to be a gladiator.”
“You know most of them died, right? Eaten by fuckin’ lions.”
“Still, cool times.”
“So you believe it can happen, time travel?”
Again Boa types at his keyboard, then turns the computer to me.
“Time travel to the past is theoretically possible in certain general relativity spacetime geometries that permit traveling faster than the speed of light , such as cosmic strings and traversable wormholes ."
“What the fuck is a wormhole?”
“A wormhole is a hypothetical structure that connects disparate points in space. It may be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in time.”
“Can we try that again in English?” I deadpan.
“There have been theories of tunnels that can be traveled from one point to another. Einstein believed in the theory of relativity, so in essence, he believed time travel could be possible, but to date, there have been no recorded events. Only people who claimed it happened to them. ”
I digest Boa’s words. “Probably ‘cause when people say it’s happened, their friends think they’re nuts.”
“Maybe, but scientifically it’s hard to prove.”
“Geez, fuck, how do you know all this shit?”
Boa shrugs. “Photographic memory helps, but I just like to read and learn shit.”
“Thanks, brother, for not thinking I’m crazy.” I push out of the chair and rest my hand on Boa’s shoulder. “And . . . let’s just keep this between you and me.”
“No problem.” Boa closes his laptop and pushes away from the table.
The guy is fuckin’ huge, bigger and wider than the rest of us, and the crazy thing is, it’s all natural.
Sure, he works out, but his bulk is genetic and belies the knowledge stored in his brain.
Most people look at him and only see his size, but the man’s brain is just as big, which makes him an amazing tech genius and club treasurer.
Nobody can move and finesse money like Boa.
“You coming to the bar?” Boa asks.
“Nah, I’m out.” My head was starting to throb again. I didn’t know if it was from the fall or all this added info, but either way, I was beat.
We tap fists, and I head out the back door to the lot.
The halogen lights cast shadows over the area, but as I get closer to my bike, one of the shadows moves.
I pick up the pace, and the shadow fades off in the other direction.
I run after it, and when it turns, the light illuminates a familiar face—too familiar.
“Hey,” I call out. “What the fuck do you want?”
The Nomad who’s supposed to be dead just stares at me—or his image just stares at me.
“Don’t back down like a fuckin’ coward.” I spread my arms wide. “You wanna piece of me? Come and get it.”
“I don’t want you, but when you find out who I do want, it’ll be too late. ”
I lunge, but the shadow evaporates. I spin around, surveying the lot, but it’s gone. I’m alone. I stomp to the side of The Gold Mine, then go completely around the building, but there’s no one.
At the back lot, I head straight to my Harley and inspect every inch of it. I contemplate getting Cobra, but what would I say?
Hey, I saw a fuckin’ ghost in the lot, and it communicated with me telepathically.
Cobra was having a hard enough time wrapping his head around the other shit I said, so this would put me in the looney bin category for sure.
My phone buzzes with a message, and I yank it out of my pocket.
Unknown Caller: “You’ve been warned twice.”
“Fuck!” I bellow into the night air. What the hell is goin’ on?
I jam my phone into my pocket and straddle my Harley.
Normally, I take Boulder Highway home, but tonight I stay on the back roads, keeping my speed no higher than forty miles per hour.
I won’t feel comfortable until I give my bike a thorough inspection in the shop, and until then, wiping out at forty miles per hour is much better than wiping out at eighty.
DAISY
I’ve become somewhat obsessed with organizing closets, kitchen cabinets and the containers we keep in the storage area off the garage where I am now putting away all the Halloween costumes and decorations until next year.
I’ve always been neat, which I’m sure any psychologist would say was the result of living in a falling down shack in the hills of West Virginia. Needless to say, it was impossible to keep clean, but I swore when I had a place of my own, it would be tidy and neat.
With only six and a half weeks left of my pregnancy, all those tendencies are amped up to a somewhat manic level.
Of course, I kept all this to myself as not to worry Joker.
He’s been protective with this pregnancy to begin with, and after what happened to him the other night, he’s been edgier than usual.
Then me finding out about his near miss in the garage, and it doesn’t help I still feel he’s keeping something else from me.
I appreciate his need to watch over me, but I also want to be aware and be there if he needs me. One thing Joker learned in our first days together is I’m very resilient and can take care of myself. After all, I’ve been doing it for most of my life.
As I trudge up the stairs, I take a break midway to catch my breath. Our condo is set up on two levels with a garage, laundry room, and storage one flight below our living space.
At the time, we wanted a two-car garage and the extra storage unit, but that was before I was carrying around an extra thirty-five pounds.
Which is no joke when I have to climb those stairs two or more times a day.
I massage the small of my back, anxious for our little person to be born so I can have my body back.
I continue up the rest of the stairs and stop. The condo door is ajar, and I’m sure I closed it. Derek and Deana are already home. Maybe Joker got home while I was in the garage, but I would’ve heard his Harley, and knowing his phobia with security, there is no way he’d leave the door open.
I enter the kitchen door slowly and call out for Derek. No answer. My heart flutters. I call his name again and wait, then grab a knife out of the block on the kitchen counter. Yup, I’m the gal who believes in being prepared.
I grip the knife tighter, and few seconds later, Derek enters the kitchen. “What’s up?” His eyes travel to the knife I’m clutching.
“Was someone here while I was down in the storage area?”
“Nah, just me and Deana. Why?”
“Nothing.” I replace the knife, then stare back at the door. “I must’ve left it open.”
“Geez, you’re lucky Dad didn’t come home.” Derek rolls his eyes. “We’d all be subjected to one of his speeches on security.” He laughs around his words, and I force a smile. I’m still not one hundred percent sure I left the door open.
Derek goes back to his room. I secure the door, then freeze my hand still on the lock. On the floor separating the kitchen from the pantry lies a yellow manila envelope.
I slowly bend, pick it up, flip it over, then carefully open it.
My heart kicks up, and even the baby makes a violent move inside me as I gaze down at pictures of Joker in the garage, me getting into our SUV, Derek leaving UNLV, and Deana on the playground of her school.
A cold sweat covers my arms, and when the room tilts, I grab on to the counter for support. I cautiously move to the kitchen chair, then fan the five-by-seven-inch photos across the table.
I swallow hard when I realize, in the span of the fifteen minutes I was in the storage unit, someone was in the condo with my children only two rooms away.
I try to control my breathing as I examine the photos again, but an overwhelming fear consumes me, so I shuffle them together and shove them back into the envelope.
I plan on showing Joker when he gets home, but by the time I reach my bedroom, I change my mind. He’s so jittery lately with the baby coming and what happened on Halloween that I don’t want to add to his stress.
I open up the bottom drawer of my bureau and shove the envelope under a pile of t-shirts and shorts, sure I’ve made the right decision.
The next morning, Joker’s phone wakes me, but I feign sleep, just like last night when he returned home from The Gold Mine, I made sure I was already in bed under the covers.
Most times, that wouldn’t deter Joker, especially if he wanted sex, but the man took pity on his pregnant wife and let me sleep.
I didn’t like deceiving him in this small way, but I fear he would see I was hiding something from him.
“What’s up?” Joker mumbles into the phone.
I can only assume he’s talking to Cobra. They have a language all their own which few understand. Joker leaves the bedroom still on the phone, and I notice he’s already dressed.
I stretch my stiff body, then roll to a sitting position in the bed.
With all the added weight in the front of my body, I’m totally off balance.
I sit on the side of the bed for a few minutes listening, but I can’t hear any more of Joker’s conversation.
I’ve learned over the years, club business is private, and even though Joker tells me more than most, he still keeps information to himself.
My eyes drift to the drawer where I hid the pictures, and the same uneasiness washes over me. I contemplate telling Sheena, but I’d have to swear her to secrecy, and it wouldn’t be fair to her. Somehow, I have to figure this out on my own.