That meant another girl was missing!
“I have to call Lorenza,” Sonny said, making an excuse. He took the phone from the nightstand, dialed his number, and pushed the number of his answering machine.
As he feared, the frightened voice of a woman sounded on the tape. “Mr. Baca, my name is Dolores Saavedra. You don’t know me, but your name and number were given to us by the police chief. Mr. Sam Garcia. We hate to bother you, but we want to hire you. Our daughter Celeste … We have read about the missing girls, and we’re afraid for her. We’re turning to you for help. She’s in a play.… We’re with her every night … at the Kimo Theater—”
A harsh screeching sound interrupted the message as the tape ground to a halt.
24
“What is it?” Rita asked. Sonny looked pale. “Lorenza’s probably on her way, she didn’t answer.” He had to lie, and he was saved from further explanation by Lorenza entering the room.
“Buenas noches,” she said, coming around the curtain to greet Rita. She held Rita, and Rita sobbed on her shoulder.
“Oh, Lore, I’m so glad to see you. Both of you. I didn’t mean for this—”
“Sh,” Lorenza comforted her. “It’s going to be all right. Look, I went by your place and brought your robe, a few other things. And I called the restaurant and talked to Marta. She’ll close up. She sent her prayers.”
“Thanks, thanks for everything. I feel helpless—”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“And you need to rest,” the nurse said, entering the room. “This young lady is under strict doctor’s orders to get a lot of rest. We have a lounge down the hall where you can wait—”
“When can she go home?” Sonny asked.
The nurse shrugged. “Doctor sees her tomorrow. I think after that.”
“I’ll be ready to go.”
“And we’ll be here for you,” Sonny promised, kissing her.
“I wish you didn’t have to go.”
“Hey, you got me for life. But you have to rest, nurse’s orders. We’ll be here first thing in the morning. The important thing is for you to rest. Get a good night’s sleep. Okay?”
Rita nodded. “I love you.…”
“And I love you, amor.” Sonny kissed her again; she smiled, then closed her eyes.
“She’s going to be all right,” Lorenza said on the way down the empty hall.
“She looks pale,” he replied, trying to keep his composure, keeping a lid on the anger he felt inside.
They went out into the December night and into a cold wind gusting down from the West Mesa, driving all but the homeless off the streets. On Central Avenue, around Jack’s Cantina and the Blood Donor Center, a few shivering figures in shaggy overcoats hurried down the avenue.
Rita was right, Sonny thought as he zippered his jacket. The world had gone cold and dreary. There was misery in the streets, misery in their hearts. The child, their child, seed of their love, was gone, blood flushed away, and Rita had been alone during the frightening experience.
It was cold inside the van. Sonny lifted a few books off the floor and placed them on the counter. In the dim light he read one title: History of the Navajo.
Fate or destiny or whatever the uninitiated called the great force of the energy that swept around the world had long ago settled in his soul. It stretched from battles in past times with Raven to Rita’s nightmare of the Navajos’ Long March.
Lorenza started the van, and as they waited for it to warm up, Sonny told her Rita’s nightmare. “Then I dozed off and ran into Raven again.” He told her his nightmare and the abduction of Soledad and the call he had placed to his answering machine.
“He has Owl Woman, Caridad de Anaya, Epifana, and Soledad,” Lorenza said. “And your child,” she whispered.
“And in this life, Consuelo, Catalina, and Carmen. Now he’s going after Celeste.” Sonny shivered, not from the cold but from the foreboding sense of time ending that settled in his blood.
“I thought I was learning how to be in the dream and turn him back. Why was I so helpless tonight? He hit me and knocked me out of my dream.”
“He used the strength of the child he just took,” Lorenza whispered.
“How?” he asked. He had guessed as much, but how did Lorenza know?
“Raven is everywhere now, moving freely. The minute I heard about Rita, I suspected—anyway, I really went to Rita’s to check the place. I found four black feathers.”
“Damn him!” Sonny cursed, and slammed his fist into the counter. “Damn the sonofabitch! He taunted me in the dream! He couldn’t get me, so he went after Rita! God Almighty, what’s there left for me to do?”
He lay his head on the counter and sobbed, his pain palpable in the van, the pain of a man who has just lost a child. Lorenza reached out and held him. “There is nothing you could do, Sonny. Once evil works its way into the dream, the only way to stop it is to enter the world of the sorcerer.”
He looked up at her, wiped his eyes. “What do you mean enter his world?”
“You have to go to his dream.”
“How? Tell me how, I’ll follow him to hell and make him pay!”
“Only don Eliseo has the power to enter Raven’s world. Only he can take you there.”
“Don Eliseo?” Sonny looked closely into Lorenza’s eyes. All along she had revealed the world of spirits in parts, as he needed them; now she had said the old man could enter Raven’s dark world.
“Yes,” Lorenza said.
“He never said anything—”
“He’s been fighting the Bringer of Curses longer than anyone.”
“Why now?”
“Now is the time for you to know. Don Eliseo knew I would take you along the path as far as I could. To fight someone like Raven takes strength.”
“Me. That’s why I was chosen?”
“Don Eliseo is old. It could be very dangerous for him.”
“There isn’t much time left, is there?” Sonny asked, looking into her eyes, fearing the truth in them.
“No,” she said. “Tomorrow is the solstice. Raven has the four grandmothers. He only needs one more girl.…”
“What now?” Sonny asked.
“We go to don Eliseo.”
“To ask him for help? But you said he is old, and it could be dangerous for him.”
Lorenza’s eyes gathered the dim light in the van, and they reflected sadness. “It’s the only way,” she said, pulling back to the driver’s seat.
The old man was his guide, his mentor; they were kindred souls. Don Eliseo had passed on the learning and the struggle to Sonny. When Sonny first began to realize this was his destiny, he had resisted. First he didn’t want to go to Lorenza for the cleansing ceremony, then he doubted her, and just days ago he had even doubted don Eliseo. But now he had seen too many things. He had been to the spirit world. He had been initiated, the power to fight Raven had been given to him, as he knew he must someday pass it to someone else.
“Bueno,” he said, resigned. “Let’s go see don Eliseo.” He felt drained, from the day and the emotion.
Lorenza drove out of the hospital parking lot.
“How do you kill someone who has no history?”
“He has a history,” Lorenza replied. “Evil has a history.”
“I enter myself to find him,” Sonny said.
“Yes. But now you need the medicine that don Eliseo has been preparing.”
“The dream catcher?”
“Yes. Dreams are only one way into the world of spirits. Some shamans meditate. If you can take the medicine of a shaman with you, you can control the evil that comes in the dream. Make it disappear. Don Eliseo will teach you this cleansing of the soul.”
Cleansing of the soul? Now it became clear. It wasn’t just about cleansing away spirits that attached to the soul, it was about going within. Going deep to the root of the soul and cleansing the evil that came inherent in human nature, the impulse toward destruction. Lorenza was telling
him there was more yet to be revealed. The old man had an ace up his sleeve; there was hope. Sonny listened.
“Raven found your strong suit. You are a dreamer. You make an excellent brujo, but you are lighthearted. Sangre liviana, as the old people say. You love the joys of this world too much.”
She’s right, Sonny thought. Wine, women, and dance. That’s all he ever wanted, to be a regular guy, one of la plebe, one of the vatos, doing the things most men his age did. Thirty was a time to enjoy life, to be alive, to take Rita dancing on Saturday nights, to make love, to marry her and have children.
Then his soul had been revealed, and his life had acquired a very serious edge. The apprenticeship took on meaning. He has been chosen to be a shaman. A winter shaman.
“Nothing wrong with having a good time,” Sonny protested weakly.
“No,” Lorenza smiled. “There isn’t. It’s part of what women love in you. You love life, your sensuality flows freely and naturally. But the Calendar of Dreams is also your inheritance. The time was right for it to be revealed to you, so Owl Woman appeared in your dream. She is your grandmother. Raven recognized this, but you didn’t.”
“Ah,” Sonny nodded. She was right. Even after Lorenza helped him find his coyote nagual to fight Raven, he had doubted. He had not taken seriously the power latent in her teachings. He had resisted. He could blame the electric shock he got from Stammer and these last months of recuperation, but that was only an excuse. The truth was that when he fought Raven on the mountain, he had seen a vision of the world of spirits, and its awesome power had frightened him.
“I was afraid.” There. He dared to say it.
“I know,” she said, studying him in the rearview mirror. “We feel fearful when we learn we have a gift. We doubt it, try to get rid of it, run from it, and in the end we recognize its goodness. With the gift we can clarify not only our own path, we can help others. So we join the battle.”
“Like don Eliseo,” Sonny said. “He’s spent a lifetime learning about his power, using it to help people.”
“Yes. Now it’s you. You are a Dream Bringer.”
“A Dream Bringer,” Sonny repeated. Oh, Lord, why me? Why me?
As if reading his thoughts, Lorenza replied: “You can go in and out of the world of spirits so easily, so vividly. To tell the truth, I’ve never met anyone with this ability. Sometimes to probe the dream we need to hypnotize the person, go into meditation, do a night of drumming and chanting. We need to pay a lot of attention to ceremony, and sometimes even the ceremony can get in the way. But you seem to zap in and out. Once you learn to be the actor in your dream, the world will become complete. One.”
“And Raven, too, has this power?”
“Yes. It comes from the same source.”
“The same source?”
“You are the dream,” she answered.
“He can enter mine, so I can enter his.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“That’s where don Eliseo comes in.”
“Ah,” Sonny mused. Yes, he had to meet Raven head-on. It was time.
“I saved Rosa. I can do it again!”
“Yes. The power is in you.”
Sonny looked out the window. A lone Christmas decoration, a plastic candle hanging from a light post, swung in the cold wind. In the awesome dark of the night someone had hung a candle. Someone believed in the light. He wasn’t alone.
La Paz Lane was quiet when Lorenza drove into Sonny’s driveway. It was cold and it was dinnertime; no neighbors stirred in the street. Across the way a light shone in don Eliseo’s kitchen window. The old man had returned from the pueblo.
Chica’s barking greeted them at the door, and when Sonny entered and flipped on the light, she scooted around in circles as fast as she could go, then leaped up into Sonny’s lap.
“Chica, how are you, girl? Sorry we’ve been gone so long. Did you visit don Eliseo?”
Chica barked.
“You hungry?” Sonny guided his chair into the kitchen. “I hate to leave her alone all day. I don’t think dogs are for bachelors. They need family.”
He paused and looked into the small dog’s eyes. Yes, she needed family, someone around the house, children to play with, to go on walks with. Family, he thought, and the word stuck in his throat. He thought of Rita in the hospital and he shivered.
“Cold,” he said.
“I’ll turn up the thermostat,” Lorenza offered, touching his shoulder as she walked by, “and I’ll get Chica some food. Come on, Chica. Food for you, coffee for us.”
“Thanks,” Sonny said, and guided his chair to his answering machine.
Dolores Saavedra’s voice played again, there was a pause, then a garbled “she’s in a play … We’re with her every night … at the Kimo Theater—”
But no phone number to call.
“Damn, I’ve got to replace the tape,” he muttered, “or fix the machine.”
He picked up the phone and called the South Broadway library.
“Feliz Navidad,” Vangie answered.
“Vangie, this is Sonny—”
“Sonny, cómo ’stás?”
“Bien,” Sonny replied. “Is Cyber around?”
“He’s always here, at the computer as usual. We’re having a Christmas party for the neighborhood kids, showing them the new Christmas Carol movie, popcorn and hot chocolate, and Cyber’s at his post. Hold on.”
After a wait Cyber answered: “Sonny, am I glad to hear from you. We got trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Sonny asked.
“Lab security is hot on my trail. They’ve hired a Net detective. Right now I’m playing tag with him, but I don’t know how much longer I can hide.”
“Eric mentioned their detectives were on to you. Get out. I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me.”
“I can’t get out, Sonny. And don’t feel guilty. Remember, I was a mole before I met you. I’m getting close to a lot of caca.”
“Like?”
“Like I’m getting close to finding my dad. There’s a government file. Really encrypted. Top secret. Code name: Roswell—The Apocalypse. My dad used to read everything that had to do with the Roswell Incident. He told me what happened there. You know the story. A flying saucer crashed near Roswell in 1947. The air force found aliens from outer space. They have a very encrypted file on the whole thing. There’s a small group of generals in the air force who really believe there are flying saucers out there. You wouldn’t believe the incidents they have listed. Anyway, a spaceship crashed in Roswell, and they actually found bodies. Not human bodies. The air force investigated and told the press it was a weather balloon that crashed. But they took the bodies from the wrecked flying saucer.”
“Took the bodies? What the hell are you saying, Cyber?” Has the kid flipped, Sonny wondered, or am I not tuning in?
“About the same time the Russians are threatening the U.S. with atomic bombs. They’re building all sorts of secret weapons, including airplanes that can carry a nuclear bomb but can’t be spotted by radar. Now they call it the stealth bomber.”
Sonny grew irritated. “What does Roswell have to do with anything?”
“The group in the military who took the alien bodies and hushed up everything are in charge of the Roswell file. Now they call themselves the Avengers.”
The hair along the back of Sonny’s neck prickled.
“Why in the hell would they be interested in something that took place fifty years ago? Something that’s science fiction?”
“It’s not science fiction,” Cyber’s voice rose defensively.
“What is it?” Sonny asked calmly.
“They took aliens from that UFO, Sonny. And they’re still alive.”
“I don’t—”
“You don’t believe. Okay with me. But that’s what I gathered from the files I could read. This group called the Avengers, they’ve kept those aliens alive all these years!”
“You can’t prove—??
?
“No, I can’t prove anything. But if I crack their files, I can!”
“Why would they keep the secret all these years?”
“Because they didn’t know how to use the aliens. Now they do. There’s something in those alien bodies they can use!”
Sonny rubbed his forehead. He was losing it.
“This group uses government money and experts, but they don’t answer to anyone. They’re government people, but they’re not even listed in Pentagon files. It’s scary.”
“Could be loonies, a wild militia group,” Sonny suggested. “They’re using computers now, communicating with each other.”
“No. These guys are too smart. What they’ve set up is impossible to get into. They must have their own fiber-optic lines. It’s sophisticated, Sonny, believe me.”
“And you think your dad came across them?”
“That’s right. He probably tripped into their network by accident. He was a Roswell Incident freak, always looking for stuff about it, so he found the Avengers. He broke their code. He found the Avengers, reported to his superior, and that same day he disappeared. Does the name Jack Ward ring a bell?”
“CEO of Sandia Labs,” Sonny said.
“My dad’s supervisor,” Cyber replied.
No, Sonny thought. Jack Ward wasn’t into disappearing people. Cyber had gone overboard.
“He stumbled into Avenger territory and got murdered.”
“You think they killed your dad?”
“Yes.”
“Whoa. Wait a minute—”
Cyber’s gone off the edge, Sonny thought. Accusing the labs of murdering his father. Had Cyber been in cyberspace too long? Lost it? The whole thing smacked of science fiction. Cyber had gone loco in his eagerness to find his father.
“You don’t believe me,” Cyber said. “You think I’ve coasted into cyberdream? You think I’m making this up?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Sonny replied. The headache that had been forming in the back of his skull pressed down on him. He wanted to help Cyber, but the information was jumbled, Cyber had his own agenda, and yeah, maybe he was falling into cyberdream. The fatigue and Rita’s loss weighed heavy on Sonny.