The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (7 page)

             
“What was that?” she asked.

             
“You projected yourself into Alexander’s mind,” Emeric replied. “Well, rather, Alex allowed you to enter his mind.”

             
“But…how?” Callie asked.

             
“I discovered yesterday that fear triggers your ability to Perceive,” Emeric explained. Callie remembered, as he spoke, that she had seen him murdering the girl yesterday only when he was about to attack her. “I told Alexander to focus on a vivid memory, and then to approach you in what you might consider a violent manner. In this way, you were able to enter his memory.”

             
“Great, thanks,” she bit off sarcastically.

             
“It was a worthwhile experiment,” Emeric said, offering no apologies. Callie shook her head in disbelief, understanding that, as a lab rat, she wouldn’t be receiving any four-star treatment. No one cared about stepping on the lab rat’s tail.

             
“Why couldn’t he see me? And why could I hear you?” she asked.

             
“When you are Perceiving, it is as though you are undergoing hypnosis,” Emeric explained. “You are using a deep part of your subconscious, but you are still fully aware of the world in which your conscious mind is living. You are able to hear what is happening in the present world, while simultaneously experiencing the memory with all of your senses. And, as I explained, no one in the memory is able to see or feel or even hear you. You are a bystander, a witness, and that is all. You cannot change the events of the memory; you are virtually powerless. But in equal measure, the memory cannot harm you. You might stand in a pit of fire and feel a burn, but your skin will be unscathed. It is nothing but an illusion, do you understand?” he asked.

             
“Not remotely,” Callie retorted. “But yeah, I get the idea.”

             
“Callista, you must learn to control this ability,” Emeric said. “Soon you will be able to enter whichever memory you choose without provocation.”

             
“How?” Callie asked.

             
Emeric nodded subtly at Alex. “Try to enter Alex’s mind again,” he urged. “He’ll be focusing on the same memory. See if you can penetrate the walls of that thought, escape the memory and enter a new one.”

             
She looked uncertainly towards Alex, who remained still on the other side of the room. “What do I do?” she asked.

             
“Since fear seems to be your trigger, perhaps recall a fearsome experience. Recall when Alex approached you before, for instance.”

             
Callie took a shaky breath, and nodded. She closed her eyes, conjuring up the image of Alex leaping towards her as before. Her stomach clenched, but not enough. She was afraid, but only in the way that people are afraid when looking backwards and knowing the outcome. It wasn’t real fear, just the memory of fear.

             
She frowned. A fearful experience.

             
A thought came to mind, but didn’t sit well with her. The only memory that she had on reserve which she knew would bring honest fear into her heart was not one she recalled readily. Not that she’d never remembered it before. She’d been having nightmares about it for the past four years.

             
She swallowed and prepared herself. And then she allowed herself to be in the car again, facing the highway, the semi-truck crossing the yellow lines…and suddenly the car flipped over and she was yanked out of the window and landed on the cave floor.

             
She felt a dizzying tug upon her body as she opened her eyes. Her palms were slick as she pushed to her feet. Her breath came in shallow pants. But she had done it.

             
She laughed once, a short note of victory. “I did it,” she called out. She wiped her hands on her pajama bottoms, noticing for the first time that she was, in fact, still in her pajamas. She knew that would have been embarrassing if she’d cared about what the men back in reality thought of her.

             
“Very good,” Emeric called to her. “Now can you find your way out?”

             
Callie drew a steadying breath, not bothering to look around this time. She closed her eyes, trying to picture herself elsewhere. But all she could see was darkness. She felt the same cool breeze, heard the same birds, and tried again.

             
Maybe, she thought, if she focused on the accident again, she could use fear to land in another memory. And so she tried to bring to mind the accident. The semi, the three jerky twists of the steering wheel, the world spinning out of orbit…. For some reason, these details, which had been etched into her mind for years, seemed blurry and out of place here. She couldn’t fully remember them. It felt like she were reaching for something through deep layers of sand, unable to really trace its outline.

             
She sighed. “It’s not working,” she said. “I can’t get out by myself.”

             
“Try again,” Emeric said patiently. “Try to erase this memory from your mind, disappear into the dark space. Find another.”

             
Callie tilted her head back and cried out in frustration. “I don’t know what you’re
talking
about,” she said.

             
And then, like before, a flash of light and a swirl of pictures, and Callie found herself being catapulted back into the present. She wobbled only slightly this time.

             
She angrily tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Stop doing that,” she said. “It freaks me out.”

             
“You don’t know your way out yet,” Emeric replied. “Alex has to force you out of his memory.”

             
“He can do that?” Callie asked, looking at Alex. He didn’t seem to have moved. He wasn’t even looking at her now, choosing instead to gaze out the window in boredom.

             
“Once he is aware of your presence there, yes,” Emeric said. “You are not yet strong enough to fight him from doing so. Eventually, you will be able to hang onto your position in one’s memory, even if they try to force you out.”

             
“See, that, right there—I have no idea what you mean,” Callie said. “I know I’m from California, and I’m supposed to be down with this whole ‘feel the vibes’ stuff, but honestly, you are not making any sense.”

             
Emeric smiled at her. “I think you have had enough for now,” he said, not unkindly.

             
“Great,” she said, falling onto the couch while the world struggled to stop spinning.

             
“Are you alright?” Emeric asked. A crease of worry knitted his brow.

             
“Fine,” Callie replied. “That was just…weird.” Her gaze flicked to Alex.

             
“Your color is paler than it should be,” Emeric noted with something akin to concern. She laughed, thinking about how easily he would have killed her yesterday, and that now he was worried because her color was off. “The Healer will be in soon to fix your breakfast. We will try again later in the day.”

             
Callie was only listening with half of her mind now. The other half was completely focused on Alex. He had returned to watching her now, not seeming to mind that she was watching him right back. She squirmed under his scrutiny. The way he was looking at her reminded her of someone who expected something. It was almost an angry look, it was so harsh.

             
“Alexander?” Emeric asked.

             
Both Callie and Alex looked toward Emeric at the same time, surprised to find that he stood in wait in the doorway. Alex followed him over to the door, and Emeric looked back and forth between them with startled curiosity. He might have said something, had not Alex stepped from the ledge and disappeared into the wind. Emeric shook his head, as though dismissing a thought, and followed.

             
The tiny woman whom Callie had met last night appeared in the room, as though on cue, and walked into the kitchen. Callie saw then that there was another door, the one from which the woman had just appeared. She wondered what was back there, but didn’t care quite enough to go explore.

             
The woman began to open drawers in the kitchen, and Callie stood to see what she was doing. Knowing that the person who had poisoned her drink the night before would be fixing her breakfast made Callie nervous.

             
She eased herself into one of the high-backed chairs and watched as the woman sliced into a large, purple fruit. She wielded the knife with precision and expertise, and Callie was reminded that Emeric had called her the Healer.

             
“What is your name?” Callie asked her.

             
At first, the woman didn’t respond, and Callie began to wonder if she really
were
deaf. But then, in a deeper timbre than Callie would have associated with such a petite figure, the woman replied, “Shay.”

             
“Why did Emeric call you a Healer?” Callie asked, somewhat entranced by the skilled choreography the woman was performing with the knife. She seemed like a surgeon, slicing through the tough skin of the fruit with a mixture of ease and concentration. “Are you a doctor?”

             
“I am a shaman,” Shay replied. The knife paused. “At least, I would have been.” She resumed her movements then, and continued, “I needed to leave my village before my training was completed.”

             
“A shaman?” Callie asked, surprised.

             
“I am an Aztec,” the woman said.

             
“An Aztec?” Callie spluttered, wondering both why she could only seem to repeat what the woman said and if there were really any Aztecs left in existence.

             
“I had been studying beneath the shaman in my village for ten years when my wings began to grow. I would have needed to study for another fifteen years at least before I could have become a village shaman.”

             
“How old are you?” Callie asked dubiously. She seemed to be about twenty four, but if she had already studied medicine for ten years, she must have been older.

             
Shay finished slicing the fruit and placed the juicy cubes into a small bowl. She handed the bowl to Callie and replied, in the same breath, “Five hundred and fourteen.”

             
Callie balked. “Wh-what?” she cried. “Wait a second, wait. You’re…
immortal
? All of you?” she asked.

             
Shay nodded, a strange expression on her face. “Did not Emeric explain the nature of our people?” she asked.

             
“No!” Callie said, her voice pitched too high. “How is it even possible?”

             
Shay circled the counter and sat next to Callie. She plucked a piece of fruit from the bowl and pursed her lips. “It is a complicated set of evolutionary distinctions,” she explained, her tone somber and thoughtful. “Surely such an idea is not unfathomable. You have seen creatures live for hundreds of years before their demise. We simply live far longer than you do.”

             
“Yeah, and never die,” Callie exclaimed.

             
Shay nodded. “True,” she said, and popped the fruit into her mouth. Callie studied the woman before her. An ancient Aztec, right in her midst. She noticed again the tanned skin, the dark hair, the glasses, and marveled at the fact that this woman could have been mistaken for an ordinary person. Well, without the wings.

             
“But how?” Callie asked.

             
“We produce a much higher amount of telomerase than humans do,” she explained. “Our wings produce it in mass quantities, which allows a Guardian to evade any kind of prolonged injury. Once a Guardian grows his or her wings, all other forms of aging are halted.”

             
“Wait,” Callie said, holding up a hand. “Telomerase?”

             
Shay blinked at her. Then recognition dawned that Callie didn’t understand what this was. “It keeps people, humans and Guardians alike, from aging. Humans tend to stop producing it. Guardians don’t.”

             
“So, basically, you just produce a bunch of the stuff, and you never die?” Callie asked, unable to make herself understand.

             
Shay nodded. “Unfortunately, such excess also causes several side effects, not the least of which being the inability to reproduce. The body senses enough telomerase being produced in the wings, and effectively ceases to allow its production in other areas of the body, including in reproductive cells.”

             
“You never had kids, you mean,” Callie said.