joegoda | Aspects : Book 3

"Wow." It was a quiet exclamation from Goth. She was riding in the back seat, while Barbie took shotgun. I looked in the mirror to see what she was wowing about. She had twisted in her seat so that her head was turned around and she could look out the back window.

"What wow?" I asked her, refocusing on the road.

Traffic is a bugger in Tulsa at noon, even though I was driving through some of the less populated areas. Idiot drivers exist, and I have yet to figure out the natural law that keeps their numbers constant.

There is an intersection in New Mexico, where highway 491 (which used to be named, interestingly enough, highway 666) and 64 meet. The population there can be compared to a very small cow town, about 8500 people with a ratio of dogs to humans of 10 to 1, respectively. There are no hotels or motels in Shiprock. There is one combination gas station and liquor store. That store just happens to be at that particular intersection.

At any given moment, quite possibly this moment right now, someone will be crossing that intersection and will meet with another vehicle coming across the road. That accident will not be a pretty sight, and will quite likely result in at least one fatality.

This is why I have always followed the advice of a good, though long lost friend, when it comes to driving. "Chet," he said, "someone out there wants to die, and they want you to do it for them."

I heard Goth turn back around in her seat and felt her hand on my seat's backrest. "You have a whole bunch of dark spots in the sky around your place," she said wonderingly. "In fact, some of them are following us right now."

"Yeah," I said, shrugging. "It happens."

"Don't you find that kind of... I don't know... weird?"

Barbie had also twisted in her seat, trying to see what Goth was talking about. Where she was sitting didn't give her much of an opportunity to look out the back clearly, and she was contorting into all sorts of interesting positions. "I don't see anything," she complained.

My eyes flicked to the mirror and I caught Goth's eyes. "Not really," I said to her. "There's a long story about bad guys and monsters and shadows and stuff that I won't bore you with."

Focusing back on the road, I hit the brakes a bit harder than I wanted, just so I wouldn't bash into a Ford Focus that had decided to pull out onto 129th without looking to see if it was clear.

"I call 'em Shadows," I continued, after sending a small and harmless curse back at the driver of the Focus. And yes, curses can be harmless. A curse like 'I hope you make it to where you're going' is a harmless curse.

"They feed off of despair and that feeling of hopelessness that some folks get. They hang around me because... well, they're also a kind of watchdog for some really bad folks." I shifted to the left lane, turned on my blinker, and pulled up to the light at 11th street. "The bad guys have been watching me for a long, long time, which, by the way, means it wasn't the smartest thing you girls could do to break into my apartment. Now, you're going to be watched, too."

"Because...?” Goth asked.

"I still don't see anything!" Barbie whined, irritated.

Because," I explained, "the energy you're putting out healing Barbie is like a beacon to them. You can stop, by the way. She's pretty much there."

"Um." Goth shook her head. "No." As simply as that.

"Where are the shadows?” Barbie demanded. "I can't see them!"

"Barbie," I said patiently as I turned left on 11th street, "you can see them, you just don't know how yet. You know that thing you see right before you teleport?"

"What thing?" she asked, pleased that she was finally being recognized.

"That glow." I glanced over at her. "You do see a glow, don't you? Like a shimmer just outside your vision?"

"Yeah," she said, trying to remember. "Maybe. A little."

I sighed. "How long have been able to teleport?"

"Since last month," she nodded, flipping her curls. "I got a really bad headache right before it started happening."

"Last month?" Huh. "You've only been able to do this for a month?"

Goth leaned forward and touched the back of my seat. "Her parents kicked her out a month ago." She sat back. "She was pregnant."

Barbie reached behind the seat and swatted at Goth. "Shut up!" The sound in her voice was one of betrayal.

"Pregnant!" It was something that the Sight did not show me, and it should have. "Wait... you said 'was' pregnant."

Barbie hunched back into her seat and crossed her arms over her chest, protectively. "Yeah," she muttered miserably. "Was."

"Oh." I let that single word say all I had to say about that. Everyone makes their choices, even if it seems like the choices sometimes get made for us. Barbie made a rough one. I wasn't going to tromp on it or judge it. Hell, I've made plenty of my own rough choices. Who was I to judge?

It did, however, explain a few things. Abilities like teleportation and telepathy can be brought on by the onset of a hormonal imbalance in the body. Puberty is where some folks find it. Being pregnant would also be a trigger, since the body does a serious hormonal flip during that time.

The headache that Barbie had got and Goth's reluctance to stop pushing her healing into Barbie would be an indication that the abortion had not gone well. I suspect that the healing Goth was doing was only partly, and a very small part at that, physical.

I let it drop. Instead, I started out with Abilities 101 for Barbie. Goth probably needed it as well, but somehow I suspected my little Gothgirl had a pretty good handle on it.

"The abilities you have," I began, "are the direct result of your manipulation of the universe around you. You, Barbie, have the ability to bend time and space around you. A pretty nifty gift and very, very rare." I glanced over at her, still in ice-princess mode and hurting from past memories. "There are a thousand witches that wished they had that ability."

"Really?" she muttered, not quite involved in the conversation, but not quite one hundred percent withdrawn from it either.

I figured her emotional wound was pretty raw and fairly recent. Stupid Sight didn't let me in on that. I figured her scars were emotional abuse. Well, they were. But the ones she inflicted on herself out of guilt were far worse than the ones her family had given her.

I glanced in the mirror at Goth, to see her watching me. She gave me a tight little smile and nodded at me, approvingly.

"Really," I assured Barbie. "In fact, I don't know of a single witch that can teleport."

"How 'bout you?" she asked, casting a solitary eye at me. Grumbled really. Gone was the cheerleader. she wasn't even interested in the shadows that were following us. "I heard that ever since that thing in Kansas, there isn't much you can't do."

"Yeah, well... That 'Kansas thing' almost killed me." I turned right on Garnett. I had thought about Rigobertos, a Mexican place that serves absolutely killer and authentic Mexican food, but decided that wasn't want I wanted. "I don't recommend the experience."

I set my mind on Hanks Hamburgers, just a tad West of Mingo on Admiral. The burgers were good, inexpensive and they made incredible malts. I was needing the chocolate and the sugar.

"I'm sort of a special case, Barbie," I told her. "I started out like you, a bit psychic." She looked over at me with the 'Really?' look in her eyes. I nodded. "It's true. I was able to see things and hear things that most people couldn't see or hear." I shrugged. "It's true. Granted, it's not like being able to move from place to place, but the basics are the same."

"Then, when I was in my teens, I met a few folks... a Triad. They took me in and showed me what I was capable of." I didn't mention Robert or the two sisters to her. There was no need, and it keeps things more simple if I just leave it as 'a few folks'. "It was they that gave me the connection between being psychic and doing magic." I looked over at her. "And do you know what that difference is?"

"What?"

"Not a damn thing," I said.

I stopped talking as I waited for the light at Garnett and Admiral. It's another one of those torture things that the good folks at the street department set up. No green turn arrow at this light, even though there were two and a half lanes. I've witnessed quite a few near misses at that light.

"It's energy, isn't it?" This from Goth in the back. "It's all the manipulation of energy, just like you said."

I nodded, waiting for an old green Chevy truck to get through the intersection. I love old ugly trucks. They have much more character than the big, stupid trucks of today. I can tell by how much those old trucks grin. Don't believe me? Check out their grills.

I pulled across the street and headed West on Admiral. Admiral is one of those streets in Tulsa that let you know that no matter how great a city Tulsa thinks it is, it is really nothing more than a big ol' town. There's four lanes, and sparse buildings, all giving the indication of impending failure. Oh, there are a few places where growth can be seen, and I say a silent prayer for them, but somehow... I just don't see it.

"Energy is all there is, kids." I checked all the lanes around me. It was fairly clear, except for a couple of heavy movers. A Wal-Mart semi was up ahead, and there was a flat bed hauling a big yellow road grader or something. I kept behind them a good distance, knowing that they would be interesting to watch as they maneuvered the traffic circle at Mingo.

"Everything is energy," I continued. "You, me, this van, this road. Even the shadows that hang around me. It's all energy moving, doing, and being. What magic is, Barbie, and what psychic ability is, is nothing more and nothing less than understanding energy and manipulating that energy. And you do that by working with it's vibrations."

I went on to explain about the vibrations of the universe, how a person can, if they are sensitive to it, take those vibrations and merge with them. And once merged, that person can fully understand what those vibrations are all about and become one with them. And once THAT happens, then it becomes possible to create those things that everybody else calls magic.

"But...," Barbie said, "I don't feel any vibrations. I just think about where I want to go, and I go there."

"And that, dear Barbie, is why you are psychic, rather than magical." I smiled at her. "You are a rare and precious jewel in your ability. See, magic does... psychic just is."

I pulled around the traffic circle, an interesting death trap where merging traffic defies those that are already in the circle. I like it because it allows me to cheat death by threading a needle with a camel. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Hank's is just past the flea market. It's not pretty. It's not very big. But, my oh my, they do make good food. I pulled onto the gravel shoulder and found a place to park.

"So," Barbie said, after she had gotten out, "how come I can't see the shadows?"

I opened the door for the two of them and followed them in. I found a booth near the back. Hanks was not terribly busy but there were enough people that I didn't feel entirely comfortable talking about things that, just 50 years ago, would have gotten me hung by the neck until dead, dead, dead.

"Let's eat first," I suggested. "We'll talk about it later, okay?" I nodded at the other patrons. "Not everyone is open minded and accepting."

The waitress came over and I ordered a malt and a half pound special. That's a half pound of beef, tater tots and drink. I added chili for thirty cents and I was set. Barbie ordered the chicken breast sandwich and a chocolate shake, and Goth ordered the same. They decided to split an order of onion rings, which, in my opinion, is the best way to order onion rings. Hanks are pretty good size, so you either split the order, or you have some to take with you.

According to the clock on the wall, there was still about an hour to go before the group at Gypsy's was due to show up. That meant that we were going to be fashionably late, which was just fine with me. I would rather have a great burger in a run down little joint than meet any group of teenage witches in a yuppie coffee shop.

I sat with my back to the door, which would drive my friend Tim crazy. He likes to be able to watch for whatever enters the building. He's like that. He's not paranoid; he's just very, very prepared. Me... not so much. I've gotten to the point where I can pretty much feel what is going on around me, beside me, and especially through me. Besides, I wanted the girls to see the rest of the people in the restaurant.

I asked them to keep their eyes open and tell me what they saw. Goth opened her mouth and I raised a hand to stop her.

"Just observe for right now," I quietly asked her. "This is for Barbie's training. I want you to help her see what you do. You know how, so help her out. I'm going to eat."

Goth gave me another of those little grins and nodded. She leaned over and whispered something in Barbie’s ear, which caused Barbie to smile at what she said. Barbie then leaned over and whispered in Goth's ear, which cause a whole batch of whispered conversations that I chose to ignore.

And then my cellphone beeped. Did I mention that Blackwolf had my number on speed dial? Yeah. I thought I had. He has his own ringtone too. Bad Moon Rising by Credence Clear Water Revival. I signaled the waitress, and she came over to the booth.

"We're going to need it to go, hon," I said. "I just got a call from work." She shrugged and moved back to yell something at the cook.

"What's going on?" Barbie asked.

"Looks like you're going to get a practical lesson," I told her. "If we're unlucky enough."