Dark to Mortal Eyes

Dark to Mortal Eyes

Chapter One

Choose Your Poison

Willamette Valley, October 2003

Josee discovered the canister while seeking firewood in the thicket. A chance
encounter, nothing more. The odds of finding it here beneath a sword fern
were slim, she knew that, but long ago she had retreated from belief in a grand
design. She’d been down that slope before.

In her hands, the object pleaded for purpose. For significance.

She shook her head. Nope. A random occurrence–that’s all this was.

Prompted by sporadic raindrops on leaves overhead, Josee Walker built
her campfire, blowing at kindling and newsprint until flames rose with halfhearted
applause. Satisfied, she returned to her discovery. Weighed the canister
in her hands, noted water spots and rust stains. Scratch marks, too. She
polished it with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and found her face reflected in the
metal surface.

That’s me? After two days without a mirror, the sight was disturbing.
Don’t even look like myself. I look so…wasted. Out of it.

Josee rotated the object and found a skull-and-crossbones symbol.
Stenciled in black, it made her shudder as she rolled the canister into her
bedroll.

Rocks shifted nearby.

“Hey.” She raised her voice above the patter of rain. “That you, Scoot?”

“Who else? I scare you?”

“Not even. Just making sure.”

Josee’s friend wheeled his bike down the railway embankment. His dreadknotted
hair hung like soggy pretzels from his hood and funneled water down
the front of his poncho. Moisture clung to his thin beard.

“Quick, hon,” said Josee, “get in here.”

“Think I’m frozen to the bone.”

“I started a campfire for us using the classifieds. How’s that for irony, considering
we have no place to stay?” As Scooter dropped his daypack onto the
ground, Josee heard his chattering teeth. “Scoot, you poor thing.”

“You don’t have to mother me. And what, this place isn’t good enough?”

“Oh, cork it.” She kissed him on the cheek. “What’d you get us?”

“Dinner. Found some bread and fish fillets at the old Safeway in
Corvallis.”

She studied the expiration dates. “Hmm, should be okay. Only a day late,
looks like.” The fillets were actually fish sticks that she knew he’d collected
from the Dumpster by the store.

“They’re fine,” Scooter said. “Let’s eat.”

She pushed back a tuft of hair. “Better watch it, mister. Might find yourself
traveling alone.”

“Think so?”

“Know so. And you know you can’t live without me. You adore me.” She
teased him with turquoise eyes. He couldn’t resist them, she was certain of
that. Part of her survival gear. Multifunctional. With a twinkle of these eyes
she often masked her real thoughts from others; her feelings, too.

Right now I feel far away–that’s what I feel. Detached.

“You ask me,” Scooter was muttering, “beggars can’t be choosers.”

“You mean the food? Beggars, artists–we’re all in the same boat. Yep,
have to take what we can get.”

“Money’s a security blanket. That’s all it is, Josee. People goin’ through the
motions for another paycheck, selling their souls for a slice of suburban
heaven–”

“Or suburban hell.” She watched the sputtering fire.

“Load of crock. You and I know better.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Babe, you okay?”

Josee peeked from beneath her pierced eyebrow and black hair, started
to answer, then with a flick of her wrist waved him off while fanning at eyeburning
smoke and memories. Her past was a vandalized scrapbook: pages
torn, photos scratched, facts rubbed out. The book’s coverage of her childhood
was a mess.

Yeah, there were a few unsullied years, beginning with her adoption at age
nine. Before the darker days of teenage angst, of reproachful encounters.

Events she preferred not to speak about.

Give them credit, her adoptive parents had tried to provide an atmosphere
of acceptance in which she could open up, but she felt nothing. It was
useless. They would never understand, and she refused to risk further rejection.
Already she had developed an effective coping mechanism: Josee Walker
trusted no one but herself. After making life miserable for everyone in the
house–and feeling guilty for it–she had taken advantage of her newly
earned driver’s license and moved into a friend’s converted garage. Never
bothered to look back. The past was the past, she told herself. Best to let it go.

That was six years ago.

“What’re you thinking?” Scooter prodded.

“That it’d be nice to stop thinking.”

“Tomorrow you get to meet your birth mother. That’s a good thing,
right?”

Josee grimaced. “I hope she’s ready for it.”

“For what?”

“For me. She might expect her daughter to be, I don’t know,
more…frilly.”

Scooter’s grin sparked amid his facial hair. “You sent her a picture, didn’t
you? Don’t worry, she’ll like you just the way you are. If not? Her loss.” He
dug into his poncho. “Here, Josee, little somethin’ I picked up. Nothing big.”

She accepted a case of charcoals and pencils. “Where’d you get this, or do
I want to know?”

“Worked out a deal. Hated to see you scratching away with that stubby
pencil of yours.”

She paused and listened to the rain. “Where’s your Discman?”

His hands pushed into his pockets, jacking up his shoulders.

Josee pawed through his pack. “You hocked it to pay for this?”

“Listen, we gonna eat or what?”

She opened the art case, found that fingering the colorful implements
recharged her imagination. Too wet out to do any sketches, but later she’d get
a chance. “Thanks,” she said, nudging him. Her throat tightened. She clicked
the case shut and busied herself with her bedroll until confident her voice was
steady. “Something I wanted to show you, too,” she said. “Look what I found
while gathering wood.” She hefted the canister. “Sort of spooky, don’t you
think?”


In a dank basement studio, canvases draped the concrete walls. Shades of scarlet
and ebony dominated, splashed across cubist artwork. Spanning floor to
ceiling, the collection’s centerpiece depicted a white chess queen against a stark
background. She was losing her balance on a castle parapet, her silent scream
exaggerated, lances poised below to skewer her.

The Lady in Dread.

Karl Stahlherz frowned at the picture. Since its completion, he’d been
unable to paint, despite his gnawing appetite for distinction. He knew the art
was good; his mother had fostered his gift, and in statewide galleries his pieces
had sold for respectable and increasing amounts. Never under his own name
though. Payments filtered through an art institute called the House of
Ubelhaar, and the only means of identifying his work was his signature saffron
streak across the lower right-hand corner.

He remained an unknown. Barely a footnote in federal government files.

Soon that would be rectified.

Stahlherz slipped an audio book into his newly acquired Discman.
Taking only cash or trade, he supplemented his income with the sale of art
supplies. The kid who’d stopped in earlier had telephoned first, asked for a
specific item for his girlfriend. Stahlherz had waited on the porch’s uneven
stone steps, nervous, tapping his fingers against the air until the kid arrived
astride a rusty bike. Most likely another college dropout–scrawny, hair tickling
his chin, multiple pockets down the baggy pant legs.

The kid handed over the Discman. “Works great. Check it out for
yourself.”

Testing the player’s components, Stahlherz fumbled and almost dropped
it. “Appears functional,” he managed. He relinquished the art case, tried to
look his customer in the eye. “Keep me in mind the next time you need supplies.
Without the overhead, I can underbid most shops around Corvallis.”

“Thanks, but I’m from out of state.”

“Your girlfriend–”

“Doesn’t live here either, not anymore. Ran across your number on a flier.”

“Shipping’s inexpensive,” Stahlherz pressed. “With an address, I could
add you to my files and send you quarterly fliers. Or e-mail if you’re online.”

The kid kicked at a foot pedal. “Nothing against you, but I pretty much
keep to myself. I try to stay off those kinds of lists, to avoid the eyes of Big
Brother. Fly under the radar, low as I can go.”

Stahlherz bobbed his head. Despite the twenty or thirty years that separated
them, he could relate to this kid. “Your views sound vaguely anarchistic.”

“Might say that.”

“You’re not the only one with such ideas. This region’s gained a share of
notoriety for similar leanings. In fact, I could put you in contact with others
who–”

“Nah, that’s all right. You know how it is… Girlfriend’s waiting.”

Watching the kid ride into the drizzle, Stahlherz felt he had mishandled
a potential recruit. Never mind. As a mentor to many, a sower of discord
and activism, Stahlherz could visualize his objectives at last. He and his
recruits would soon mete out justice to this cancerous culture in which they’d
been bred.

Chemo treatments, as it were. To purge society’s disease, bring it to its knees.

In the basement, Stahlherz rotated in his desk chair and drew inspiration
from his canvases. He focused on The Lady in Dread. Pain, he mused, was the
great equalizer. None were beyond its reach, and he had harnessed his mind
to see into such mysteries. He could control his intellect. Guide its mighty
surges.

As if to mock his thoughts, a rook squawked from the cage above his
desk. Black wings beat the bars, and feathers lighted on Stahlherz’s onyx chess
table. Insolence filled the bird’s sable eyes. A single talon, a polished spike,
poked between the bars.

“Now, now,” Stahlherz reprimanded. “You’ll have your chance to roam.”

Logged on to the Internet, he sent his first summons. He signed it: Mr.
Steele.


“What is that?” Scooter was pointing at the cylinder’s base.

Josee traced a hand over the skull and crossbones. “Nothing.”

“Maybe you should put it back where you found it.”

“Maybe I’m a big girl and can do what I want.” She braced herself, hoping
for Scooter’s opposition, which would confirm her sense of foreboding.

“Your call,” was all he said. “Let’s get this food cooking.”

“That’s your big response?”

“You got a hungry man sittin’ here.”

“Why do you do that? Why do you back off?”

“What, you’d rather fight?”

“Well, you spout off at everyone else like you’re the man of the hour, but
when it comes to me, you back away. Don’t you have an opinion at least?”

Scooter shrunk into the thicket’s shadows, arms crossed beneath his poncho.
His introspective nature had drawn Josee to him, yet his lack of assertiveness
annoyed her. All the loyalty she tried to give… And he just grunts when it
comes to choosing sides?

“Figure it’s up to you, Josee.” His fingers twisted at his moonstone ring.
“I’d leave the thing alone, but that’s just me.”

“Hey, if we disagree on something, it’s not like I’m going to bite your
head off. You should realize that by now, Scoot. I care about you. Any reason
you should doubt that? Am I doing something wrong?”

“No.”

“’Cause sometimes it sure seems like I’m doing something wrong.”

“It’s been a while,” Scooter ventured. “A long time actually.”

“Since?”

“Since…you know what I’m talkin’ about. You gonna make me spell it
out? I’m lucky to even sneak a kiss anymore.”

“We’ve already talked about this. You said you understood.”

“I do, in the cerebral sense. Up here. Not trying to complain, but”–he
tapped his chest–“in here it still feels like you’re pushing me away. Am I
blowin’ hot air? Am I making any sense?”

“There’s more to love, hon, than just getting it on. Plenty of people do that
without an ounce of real feeling for each other. Look at Josh and Heather–
perfect example. Already told you, just need to work through some stuff.”

“You think it’s wrong, babe? Is that it? Like some kind of moral issue?”

“No. Yes. Heck, I don’t know, Scooter. Yeah, we jumped in too quickly.
There’s a part of me that says to hold off. It brings up thoughts of the past I
don’t want attached to our relationship.”

“So I’m the one who gets robbed.”

“No, don’t give me that. I’m not your property, never have been.”

His eyes caught hers with the look of a wounded animal. “I’ve never
thought of you that way.”

Josee lifted the canister and heard herself growl, “Dang it, why do you
make me feel guilty? How’d we even get on this subject? When’re you going
to start standing up for yourself? That was my original point. What’s so
stinkin’ hard to understand about that?”

“Listen, I’m not trying to–”

“Not trying? Hey, you said it, mister, not me.”

“Josee–”

“Wait, I didn’t mean that.”

He pulled his knees to his chest. Although Josee wanted to reach out, she
distrusted her ability to do so in the aftermath of indignation. She had a real
knack for lighting sticks of dynamite around those she loved. Dynamite…and
love. A poem idea swam through her head, but she held it under.

Scooter nodded at their meager food pile. “Chow time yet?” His teeth
still chattered as he rubbed his hands together.

Josee resorted to routine. “Should take only a few minutes. Know how
you feel. I’m hungry too.” Before taking out a battered frypan, she set down
her discovery and gave it a maternal glance. “I’m keeping this thing,” she said.
When he failed again to retort, she added, “Finders keepers, isn’t that the way
it works? Belongs to me.”

Creepy. Or was it just her imagination? The skull and crossbones seemed
to be taunting her with a cold, black grin. She fidgeted. Tried to ignore it.
Throughout the meal, the hollow eyes continued to stare right through
her.



“Whasit gonna be? Choose your poison.”

Beau saw the countergirl’s brow lift over sequined glasses, and he
scratched his chest. He felt like a moron. Café Zerachio’s whole vibe was
wrong, and he couldn’t figure out why Mr. Steele had summoned him here.
The overhead menu was a blur of neon chalk curlicues, and the sound of
grinding espresso beans had Beau grinding his teeth.

“What about just straight coffee?” he tried. “Got anything like that?”

The girl pointed to the coffeepots behind her. “House blend?”

“Perfect,” Steele broke in. “And I’ll take a short double cap. Make it dry.”

With his part-time tractor repair job, Beau made okay money, but he was
glad to see his mentor pay the bill. Not that it mattered much. As of tonight,
Beau knew that his life was going to change.

Mr. Steele was leading the way to a corner alcove, chin down, a sack slung
over hunched shoulders. Smarter than smart, the middle-aged guy wasn’t
much of a people person. Had salt-and-pepper hair, eyes that darted this way
and that, fingers that tickled the air when that brain of his started revving.

Geniuses were like that, Beau had been told. Always ten moves ahead.

“You see the way that girl looked at me?” Beau touched coffee beans
strung along the wall. “Real snooty.”

“Don’t let it irritate you, my friend. Let’s say nothing foolhardy.”

“Foolhardy?”

The girl approached with their drinks, nodded at Steele. “Thasit?”

“Should do the trick.” From beneath graying brows, Steele’s eyes tracked
her retreat. His body rocked in his seat.

Beau carried on, his interest in the coffee diluted by the sting of his
mentor’s words. “You’re wrong there, boss. You watch, I’ll do everything as
planned.”

“I have been watching, and soon you’ll have the chance to prove yourself.
Within the next twenty-four hours, the girl should be arriving in town, may
even be here now.” Steele savored his cappuccino. “Mmm, won’t she be in for
a surprise?”

Beau cast a glance around the empty café. Although his heart raced in
anticipation of the task, he was afraid of messing things up. His father’s face
flashed before him, but he knew nothing would ever impress that fool. Beau
had tried–oh, how he’d tried. Forget it though. Eight months ago he’d torn
a flier from a bulletin board at Fred Meyer’s supermarket and found a legitimate
shot at approval.

ICV…In Cauda Venenum.

The group had nabbed Beau with its ad for artistic outsiders. It fit him to
a tee. Before dropping out of school, he had earned nothing but trouble from
teachers and disrespect from classmates for his cartooning. “Wasting your
time,” a senior had once told him, with a finger thump against his latest
sketch. “Your artwork’s a joke.” Others had done more than ridicule; Beau
would always hate those high school locker rooms.

Mr. Steele was the one who’d given him new ambition. He and the members
of ICV recognized Beau’s value.

And the Professor won him over for good.

At secretive gatherings, the Professor hammered out their goals in that
hushed tone that masked tough-as-nails determination. You can, you will, you
must obey to find the way… It was one of the Professor’s credos. Inspiring.
Providing purpose. And Beau soaked it up like a rag stuffed into a gas tank’s
spout.

“Okay, cough it up,” he said. “What’s my next move?”

Steele shifted his eyes, then clasped Beau’s wrists. The fingers were
anchors dropped into soft skin. Beau tried to withstand the pain, looked
toward the counter where the girl swayed to soft drums over whale song. He
curled his toes. Chose to shut down. Focused on the last ICV meeting and the
support he’d sensed in the Professor’s eyes. I must obey to find the way…

Steele’s grip tightened, testing the anchor’s hold. “Beau, this will be your
chance to leave your mark. Do you believe that? Are you ready to pay the price?”

He hardened his gaze. “Yes, I’m up for it.”

“As I understand it, you’ve worked before on the machinery at Addison
Ridge Vineyards. I assume, therefore, that you’re familiar with Ridge Road.
Starting this evening, we need you posted there on surveillance. When this girl
of ours arrives, she expects to meet with her mother. You’ll make certain such
a reunion never occurs.”

“You betcha, boss. For the good of the network.”

“In cauda venenum.”

Energized, Beau echoed the phrase. A literal reference to the sting of a
scorpion’s tail; it was a name wrapped within a warning. For as long as he’d
been shoved aside, he’d looked forward to making others suffer. This was his
big chance.


Scooter was in the tent as the campfire burned low. She needed a few minutes
to herself, Josee had told him. In the slivered moonlight beneath the branches,
she found their canteen. From a vial she kept on braided twine around her
neck, she extracted a red capsule and washed it down with water.

Daily routine. Doctor’s orders. Through the years it’d become second
nature.

She heard Scooter shifting in his sleeping bag, felt a tug of remorse.
Words that flowed so easily from her fingers could stab so sharply from her
mouth. Dynamite…and love. Her manner of delivery seemed to have pushed
him farther away.

“Scoot? You still awake?”

His breathing skipped, then turned heavy. No reply.

She slipped a pencil from her new case and, by firelight, wrote:

who will discover the gold in me
without the use of dynamite?

A pause. A nibble on the eraser.

dreams and hopes, buried alive
beneath the rubble of strife

Josee slapped at a mosquito, then crouched to ensure that the canister was
still in her bedroll. With her sleeping bag removed and situated in the tent,
the metal object felt cold and unyielding against her hand. A chill crawled
along her skin. She hurried to cinch and knot the cord with all the strength
her small fingers could muster.