Zoe opened her eyes, appearing disappointed. ‘This isn’t helping.’ She arose and wandered over to the window that afforded a panoramic view of Sydney. ‘How could I be attracted to an abusive man, who makes me feel this bad about myself? He’s destroyed my trust in the one family member I have left, and forced me to quit my job! Not that I was that excited about the position, but I certainly would have liked to depart on better terms.’
‘Okay,’ Kyle appealed in desperation, ‘I admit that I have been a total arsehole! But, you’re perceptive.’ Kyle joined her at the window. ‘Maybe you see beyond my bullshit, and recognise the scared, directionless, orphan who’s just like you?’ The money factor had prevented Kyle drawing any parallel between Zoe’s life and his own, and he suddenly realised how similar their situation was. ‘Kindred spirits perhaps?’
Zoe’s depression suddenly lifted. She smiled as if she’d had a nice thought, although she said nothing to indicate what that thought might have been.
The morning sunlight played upon her dark hair and fair skin, highlighting the emerald sparkle in her eyes, still glazed by the dreams of sleep. Her freshness and serenity was enchanting. Kyle’s gaze became transfixed on her and he knew this moment would stay etched on his memory forever, for he had never seen such a vision of bemusing loveliness. ‘Could I be falling —’
A knock on the door prevented Kyle from considering the premise, and Zoe broke from her silent contemplation to get the door. Kyle delayed to close his eyes and hold the moment captive, and when he was sure Zoe’s image was clearly imbedded in his mind, he opened his eyes to view the cityscape. ‘I must have been insane to imagine that such a goddess could ever love a scumbag like me … or that a scumbag like me could love!’
‘So,’ Kyron didn’t venture from his corner, ‘you’re a fool.’ He shrugged in conclusion.
‘Is that supposed to be encouraging?’ Kyle turned to the beast, considering that perhaps his guide needed a brush-up course on guidance.
Kyron nodded. ‘Well, yeah … many a fool has found true love despite his delusions.’
‘Point taken.’ Kyle smiled and nodded to concede. ‘Thanks buddy.’
CHAPTER FIVE
BROKEN DREAMS
Zoe looked through the peephole of her apartment door. ‘Matt!’ she panicked, opening the door and quickly pulling him inside.
At the sound of his best friend’s name, Kyle wandered into the lounge room to be sure that he’d heard correctly. ‘What’s he doing here?’ He directed the query at the couple, but of course neither of them perceived it. Kyle had never had cause to be jealous before, but when Zoe took up both Matt’s hands in her own, Kyle’s heart began to ache like never before.
‘How did you go?’ She sounded concerned for him.
Matt smiled broadly as he pulled a large bunch of keys out of his jacket pocket and placed them in Zoe’s hand. ‘I got copies of all of them. Do you know how hard it is to find a locksmith, after hours, who’ll take on a job like this?’
Kyle folded his arms, observing them both suspiciously. ‘What are you two up to?’
‘Thanks, Matt, you’re a champion. How did you go at the television station?’ Zoe skipped to more cheery subject matter.
Matt burst into a grin. ‘They gave me a job,’ he said, very proud of himself as he held out his arms to be congratulated.
When Zoe responded by giving Matt a friendly hug, Kyle took a step forward, not liking it one bit.
‘Matty, that’s great! I’m so proud of you.’ She released Matt and for a moment they gazed at each other affectionately.
‘Hey! What gives?’ Kyle looked on, disconcerted. ‘I didn’t think you were serious about marrying her.’ Kyle ignored the thought that this was a convenient lie.
Matt covered his desire by adopting his happy-go-lucky demeanour once more. ‘I’m only a shit-kicker, of course, but it’s a step in the right direction.’
‘Oh, you seem to know how to get what you want fast enough,’ Zoe assured him, her tone a little too sultry for Kyle’s comfort. ‘Tea?’ she offered and when Matt smiled, Zoe moved to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
‘I figure I’ll still keep up the cleaning for a couple of days, so I can have a snoop around while the place is empty.’ Matt made himself comfortable on the lounge.
‘Good idea,’ Zoe commented. ‘I’m going to clean out my things today, so I’ll put the keys back before he misses them.’
Matt opened his bag up, pulling out bits and pieces and placing them on the coffee table. ‘I brought the tape for you to listen to, and I looked into this Burke bloke that your uncle is so concerned about.’
‘You’re going after Nivok. Are you crazy?’ Kyle came to squat in front of Matt, concerned for his wellbeing now that the plot was somewhat clearer. ‘You’ll be shot!’ The vision from the Pool of Truths came to mind. ‘Literally. I’m not kidding, Matt, you can’t do this. I won’t let you!’
‘I couldn’t find a damn thing on the internet, so the case is probably before its time. Either that or it’s been deliberately suppressed,’ Matt confessed, disappointed, and Kyle breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I plan to visit a library as soon as I get a free moment and check out the newspaper archives.’
Zoe smiled broadly as she appeared at the kitchen door with Matt’s cup. ‘No need.’ En route to Matt she retrieved a couple of files from her kitchen bench and handed them to him, setting his tea down on the table. ‘It would seem that Mr Burke was once in the employ of Nivok Industries, more than twenty years ago, which was even before my parents died.’ A sorrowful expression flashed across her face and was gone. ‘I wonder if he knew them?’
Matt was both stunned and delighted by Zoe’s revelations.
Kyle was thrown into panic all over again, while Matt excitedly opened the file to read through it. Kyle leant over his mate’s shoulder, interested in Zoe’s findings and was thunderstruck to recognise the person pictured in the file as being from one of his visions. ‘Hey, that’s him!’ The white man Kyle had seen at the ritual during his dolphin dreaming was readily recognisable in the old picture. ‘Timothy Burke is my father!’ Kyle nearly choked on the realisation and staggered about dazed.
Matt stopped reading and gazed into space as he pondered what he’d learnt. ‘A geologist, huh. Now why do you think your uncle would want to keep this man away from you?’
‘A geologist,’ Kyle echoed, impressed by his father’s qualifications.
Zoe merely shrugged at the question.
‘We need to talk to this guy,’ Matt decided.
‘Well, that could prove a little difficult. He’s still in prison as far as I know,’ Zoe informed him, and was startled by another knock on the door. Concerned, she rushed to the peephole. After a quick glance she turned back to Matt with a look of utter horror on her face. ‘Jesus, it’s my uncle,’ she whispered, flying over to the table to aid Matt to pile the incriminating evidence back into his bag.
Matt raised himself to standing and with bag in hand he turned this way and that, not knowing what to do with himself.
Kyle, arms folded, watched the scene play out in front of him and couldn’t help but find it amusing. ‘Busted, Matty … way to go.’
Zoe quickly escorted Matt to the bathroom. ‘In here.’ She pushed him inside and closed the door. Back in the lounge, Zoe spotted his teacup on the table and quickly took it to the kitchen and dropped it in the sink. She collected herself as the knocking was repeated. ‘Coming.’ She took a deep breath and opened the door to find a large bunch of flowers in her face.
Her uncle popped his head out from behind the floral arrangement, sporting a large smile. ‘What were you doing … hiding a man in here?’
Kyle chuckled. ‘A couple, in fact.’ He approached Nivok to observe him at close range, enjoying his advantage immensely.
Zoe, accepting the flowers and kissing her uncle’s cheek, stepped back to allow him to enter. ‘No, I was meditating. And you can’t come out of a trance too quickly o
r you spin out.’
‘You learn something every day,’ he replied, obviously having no knowledge of such things.
On her way to the kitchen to put her flowers into some water, Zoe noticed her uncle’s keys sitting in full view on the bench top — Kyle noticed them too.
‘A distraction … coming right up.’ Kyle rushed to the mantel on the opposite side of the room and was surprised to recognise the couple featured in the ornately framed photograph. ‘It was Zoe’s parents, the couple who died in the car explosion.’ His memories of the shark dreaming confirmed this. Kyle looked at James Nivok. ‘Let’s see what kind of a reaction this fetches.’ Kyle attempted to push the picture off the mantel but his hand passed right through it. Here willpower governs all, Crystaleyes had said. Focusing, Kyle willed it to fall, which didn’t work either. Then, as a last resort, he envisioned his wish, and the picture fell off the shelf.
As Nivok glanced over at the disturbance, Zoe clutched the keys and deposited them quietly in a drawer, breathing a silent sigh of relief.
‘How impressive was that?’ Kyle stood staring at his achievement, stunned by his newfound capability.
Nivok retrieved the picture of his deceased brother and sister-in-law from the floor and replaced it on the mantel. He seemed spooked as he viewed the picture, and then cast his eyes around the small apartment with a look of apprehension on his face.
‘Would that be a look of guilt I see?’ Kyle moved in close to the magnate to observe him. ‘What’s wrong, Nivok, are you afraid the past is coming back to haunt you?’ Kyle didn’t know what his assumed father had on James Nivok, but it must have been pretty nasty to have made them enemies. ‘I do believe Matt is right about you … I’ve learnt to spot treachery from a mile away.’
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Zoe called out from the kitchen.
Nivok relaxed to respond, ‘No, thank you, sweetheart, I can’t stay.’ He took a seat, unaware of the lad standing right beside him, peering down on him with arms folded in mistrust.
‘What a shame.’ Zoe was hard pressed to hide the relief in her voice. ‘Why not?’ She re-entered the room, and after placing the flowers on the mantelpiece next to the photo of her parents, she took a seat on the lounge opposite him.
‘I just came to make sure all was forgiven for the other day.’ He forced a smile to reassure her. ‘I didn’t mean for you to leave the company, you know.’
‘Look … I wasn’t interested anyway. It’s for the best,’ she insisted. ‘Please just forget it ever happened.’
Nivok smiled and there was a slight pause before he added, ‘And I need to ask you a favour.’
Kyle’s eyes widened. ‘Here we go.’
‘Seeing as you are going to sell me this land in less than a week or so, I wanted to get your permission to have a couple of my people go up there and start surveying it for me.’
A brief image of the hunk of rock in Nivok’s office came to mind. ‘If Tim was a geologist …’ Kyle’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Nivok accusingly, ‘ … then I think I’ve got a real good idea why he was forced into hiding.’ Kyle immediately moved to stand by Zoe. ‘Don’t allow it, Zoe. Say no.’
Zoe hesitated to answer — almost as if she was considering Kyle’s plea. Nivok waited patiently for a response. ‘To tell you the truth, uncle, I’d really like to see it before you start blowing it up … or whatever you intend to do with it. After all, my parents must have felt something for it to have kept it pristine and undeveloped this long.’
‘That’s my girl,’ Kyle stated proudly.
Nivok was concerned by her reluctance to fall into line. ‘It’s not like they bought the property, honey. They inherited it, just like our grandfather did.’
For the first time Zoe wondered why her grandparents had passed the land on to her father, the younger of the two sons. Maybe they hadn’t wanted James to get his hands on it?
‘You’re not thinking of backing out of our deal? Five million is a lot of money.’
‘Of course not.’ Zoe laid on the girlish charm to comfort her uncle and get her own way. ‘It’s only a week for heaven’s sake. Surely it can’t make that much of a difference to your schedule?’ She came to sit beside him, taking hold of his hand. ‘I’ll try and get up there before we exchange contracts. Just out of respect … I think I owe it to my parents to at least see this piece of land.’
Nivok smiled, outwardly resigned to her pleading. Kyle was impressed. ‘Damn, this girl is a better bullshitter than I am.’
‘I want to go now.’ Kyron had left his sheltered spot in the bedroom.
Kyle turned to see the yowie appearing even more terrified than usual. ‘What is it?’ The beast was backing away up the hall, its fearful eyes focused on Nivok. ‘Do you recognise this man, Kyron?’
The beast shook its head. ‘I want to go!’ it repeated, threatening to burst into nervous tears if the request was not met.
‘Okay.’ Kyle moved over to the huge creature to reassure it. ‘We’ll go somewhere else.’
‘Anywhere,’ the beast encouraged him. ‘Just will us out of here.’ Kyron grabbed hold of Kyle to be transported to the desired destination.
To Kyle’s mind, the first place to flee during a confused moment was home; when Kyron made contact with him that was exactly where they went.
When equilibrium was restored, Kyle found himself standing in his own lounge room. Kyron was still with him, rather anxious about the situation, clutching Book tightly. Kyle’s physical body was seated on his lounge seemingly as perturbed as Kyle felt. Dwelling on all that had unfolded in Zoe’s apartment, he was more than a little disturbed. ‘Nivok!’ Kyle’s liberated form muttered with a good serve of malice.
‘Matt was right about that guy.’ Kyle was stunned as his physical self echoed his conclusion.
Kyron stopped his nervous fidgeting and looked from one Kyle to the other, amazed. ‘What’s happening?’ he quietly asked the book in his hands.
A miracle … I do believe Kyle is actually in tune with himself, which could be dangerous at this early stage of his re-education. We should not have come here; it was not my intent. Kyle’s will is growing in strength … we should move on and quickly.
Kyle lost his wonder abruptly and looked at Book to protest: ‘I need my body back. I have to help Matt.’
‘I have to help Matt.’ His physical self echoed his sentiment, and stood up with the book, reading on as he moved towards the door.
Too much emotional knowledge too soon. I was afraid this would happen. You must listen to me, Kyle, and put all physical world affairs to the back of your mind. Although you have learnt well so far, there is still much you don’t know. You are nowhere near prepared for what you must do here … we haven’t even started work on your mental body yet.
Kyron, finding himself more fearful for his charge than himself, stepped forward and placed a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. ‘Listen to Book, Kyle. Book is all-wise, all-knowing. Don’t leave us again so soon.’
His promise to finish reading pained Kyle now, and he would not listen to reason. He took hold of the book, not to be swayed. ‘I’ll have to take my chances. Matt will be shot if I don’t. He has no idea what he is getting himself into —’
Neither do you … and I will no longer have the power to advise you, once you have quit.
Kyle was annoyed by the suggestion that he was giving up, but was resigned to the cause of saving his best friend. ‘I’m not quitting! We’re just experiencing a slight delay.’ He moved towards his physical self with the book; Kyle’s physical self turned from his path to the door to confront his unconscious form. ‘I’ll be back.’
No Kyle, don’t, there is no way back … this is a mistake!
Kyle ignored Book’s plea, fighting with his better judgement to do so. He placed his book into the Book of Dreams that his physical form was still holding.
I should have taught you patience first.
Kyle heard Book’s last regretful thought as the two
books merged to become one. ‘Whoa!’ He felt suddenly dizzy and the floor rushed up to meet him with a heavy thud.
Wakefulness brought Kyle’s attention to a throbbing on one side of his head and he immediately wanted to retreat back into dreamland. His eyelids parted and he saw the view across the timber floor in his tiny entrance hall. He sat up, still clutching the book. Kyron was gone and Kyle was alone in the room. ‘I’m back! Ouch!’ His excitement was cut short by his physical ailments — headache, hunger, thirst. That was one of the nice things about an etheric form, no physical pain. It was a relief to be back in control of his own person, however, and he wriggled his body parts to get a feel for wielding his denser body.
‘I won’t let us down,’ he swore to Book, feeling a wee tinge of remorse now that telepathic communication between them was broken.
Kyle grabbed an old sports bag that was amongst the mess on his lounge room floor and placed Book carefully inside it. ‘Sorry about the smell.’
Putting on a jacket, Kyle checked his watch and was surprised at the time. ‘Shit!’ He tossed the bag over his shoulder and bolted out the front door.
Kyle strode in through the glass double doors of the Nivok Industries building and straight up to the night watchman at the security desk. He held no fear of being reprimanded, as he had made friends as well as enemies in this place. ‘Hey, Charlie. How’s it goin’?’
‘Kyle. What are you doing here?’ Charlie gave him a large smile as he came out from behind his desk to frisk Kyle and check his bag. ‘I heard you got the flick … the boss’s niece, huh?’ Old Charlie gave him a wink, having a chuckle at his young friend’s misfortune.
‘Yeah … seems you were right about her.’ Kyle retrieved his bag. ‘Nivok kicked me out so quick that I left some of my stuff behind. Do you mind if I go get it?’