Interrupted and Raided

    Fingers of fear crept over Katalea’s body like a lover’s caress. Thorough and invasive icy prickles made her shiver.  Dakari reached out to comfort her, but found his hand shaking too.  

   

    A sudden headache signaled an oncoming vision.  Instead of trying to block it, Katalea embraced it. She took her already unstable body over to the love seat and laid across it.  She closed her eyes before they could roll back in her head and willed the vision to come.  She had never tried to control her visions before.  She had no idea what to expect.  

    The vision hit like a sudden thunderstorm in the middle of a summer day.  As if waiting for an invitation, it flowed through her and took over her senses.  She could feel herself walking down the hallway, looking for Paolo or any of the security detail.  Finding none, she wandered down the stairs looking for hotel staff.  The hotel was abandoned save for the small group of businessmen that loitered in the entryway.  

    As Katalea neared she caught a whiff of their scent.  Sulphur!  She turned to run, but realized that they had not sensed her.  It was her vision after all.  She could see their leader in deep conversation away from the others.  She debated only a second whether or not she should listen in.  Curiosity continued to be her downfall.

    “I have done all you asked, and the note has been left.  So far we have gotten no response.” Katalea heard the man say.  Essam’s dragons were a gruppa from Russia but this man spoke plain English.  He was dressed in black slacks with a white button-down shirt.  He looked more like a door-to-door salesman than a hench man.  His skin was pasty white, and Katalea thought he looked like someone that didn’t get out in the sun much.

    The man ran his hands through his military style haircut.  “I can personally guarantee them being in your possession within the hour, sir.”

The man was getting more and more frustrated by the minute as he listened to someone shouting.  “I don’t think they suspect anything. It won’t matter, I personally guarantee they don’t stand a chance against my crew if they make a run for it.”

More shouting poured out through the phone as the man pulled it away from his ear.  “Yes sir, I will personally guarantee they are alive and ready for questioning as soon as we are en route.”

He made hand signals now to round up his men.  When he finally hung up the phone, he began to give orders.

Katalea willed herself to come out of the vision.  She found herself slumped on the floor with a very worried Dakari crouching over her, fanning her with one hand, offering water with the other.

“Oh, thank the goddesses.” He said when her eyes fluttered and then opened.  He started to reach for her to embrace her, but she cut him off.

“Quick, make us invisible.  I’ll explain later.”

Without a thought he conjured an invisibility cloak over them. At Katalea’s suggestion they quickly went and stood on the dining room table.  As she opened her mouth to start explaining the door busted off its hinges and shattered to the floor.

She felt Dakari tense beside her as they watched an endless stream of men storm through their rooms.  Armed with guns, and dressed completely in black it was not hard to imagine their intentions were anything but malicious.

Shouts of “clear” could be heard coming from the bedrooms as the men checked over every inch of the place.  They looked in every closet, under couches and behind curtains.  No one thought of checking on top of a table for invisible people.  The man from downstairs sauntered into the room, obviously expecting his prey to be captured and ready for transport.  

“What do you mean they are not here?” He raged.  Looking around the room at all the blank faces, his voice cracked as he shouted, “Look again, I can still smell them.”

Dakari’s hand tightened on hers as the man sat at the table.  He was no more than mere inches from Dakari’s left foot.  Katalea ceased to breathe.  

“Here is the note sir.  It was left unopened, but it was inside.”  A skinny man with horrible acne came forward with the envelope.  “We left it here about ten minutes ago.  They had to be here to bring it in at that point.  Even if they got past us somehow, they couldn’t have gone far.”  

A breeze from the terrace ruffled the curtains.  All heads turned that way as a planter’s box crashed to the floor of the small balcony, spilling dirt all over the corner.  The man at the table smiled smugly as two armed men rushed out.  

“They thought they could escape over the balcony.  Fools,” the man in the white shirt practically spat his disgust.

Screams outside were followed by a sickening thud as the two armed men fell headlong over the rails.  

“They must be on an adjacent balcony, shooting at us,”  The man said, his tone slightly impressed.  “I had not given them that much credit.  Well played young scholars.”  He stroked his chin where a beard must have once grown.  

He turned to the rest of the men in the room.  “Get the drones out of the vans.  Search every balcony.  Keep scouts posted all around the perimeter.  We must not permit them to escape.”

Standing, he motioned to the pock-faced man.  “Install cameras in every room,  I want to know if they come back here.”  With that, he did a military about-face and stormed out of the room.

Katalea watched in fascination while clutching Dakari’s hand.  She began to exhale slowly as the man in the white shirt left the room.  She heard Dakari in her mind as clearly as if he spoke out loud.

“We need to get out of here as soon as this goon leaves to get the cameras.”  He motioned to the gangly man who had bent to pick up something off the floor.  “I’m not sure how we can get out, but we have to try.”

“I am on the same page as you, Professor Toma, but I have a plan.”  

They watched in silence as the last of the goons left through the shattered door.  They waited a full ten seconds before moving, and then being careful to stay covered, they climbed down together.   Katalea pulled him onto the balcony, making sure not to leave footprints in the freshly spilled soil.  The flutter of wings was the best sound Katalea had ever heard.

Zinnia, in all her purple glory, hovered over them. “I never thought they would leave,” said looking right at them. Invisibility didn’t seem to phase her.  “Come on, let’s go.” 

She gripped each one of them around their waste with one arm.  She lifted off as if their weight were no more than a feather.  They flew to a nearby tree and alighted on a high branch.  

“Do we have any idea who they are?” Zinnia asked.  

“No, none,” Katalea answered.  She could feel the fragile happiness from her new friend.  “Thank you so much for coming!  You really saved our butts.”

“How did you get a message to her?” Dakari asked incredulously.  “I was thinking about how we moved all of us out of the book room earlier, and wondering if I could pull that off by myself.  And then, bang, here you are.”  He smiled at her with gratitude.

“I actually sent a message to Aquina, as she can somehow hear me.  She must have rounded up Zinnia.” Katalea guessed.

“Yes, the others are all waiting back at the university.  We are not safe here now, Let’s go figure out what’s next.”

They transported back to the university and Katalea thought of the man in the white shirt.  “He might not want to personally guarantee things he cannot control,” was the last thought she had before putting him and all his goons out of her mind for good.  

Sadly for the man in the white shirt, his personal guarantee cost him his life.