Heartless A Shieldmaiden's Voice: A Covenant Keeper Novel Read online

  “WELL, YOU MADE it, graduate. Know what? I’m proud of you.” Standing in the doorway of her brand-new corner office, Marsha greeted Carole. “Did you learn enough about gardening at Happy Acres?”

  “Yes.”

  Marsha didn’t motion towards the comfortable chairs by her polished desk. Picking up her leather handbag and car keys, she shooed her assistant away.

  “I made an appointment with the recruiter. Are you certain this is what you want to do?”

  Carole nodded. There really wasn’t any choice. She’d graduated high school before turning eighteen and had to leave Happy Acres. Mr. Happy had offered her a job taking care of the emu, but even if she had transportation and a place to live it wasn’t for her. More importantly she had to stop combing the desert at night looking for another hallucination. If it was—it was! She corrected her thoughts, refusing to be tempted to spend even one more night combing the desert. Besides, she liked to fight and that is what marines did. It was what she did well despite the disapproval of the voices. A small part of her cared that they didn’t approve, an even smaller part wished she could please them, but the biggest part of her just wanted to fight.

  For the first time ever Marsha touched her. She ran her hand down the thick blonde braid knotted tightly against Carole’s head, tugging it over her shoulder and leaving it to rest across her chest where breasts had finally made an unremarkable appearance. Pressing her fingers against Carole’s cheek, Marsha sighed.

  “You are too beautiful to be taken seriously in a man’s world. You never pick the easy path, do you? Marines don’t have gardens you know, and they eat what is put in front of them.”

  The voices started to grumble and Carole shook her head. “I will manage.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you will. Well, come on then, they’ll be expecting us.”

  THE CHURCH LOOKED exactly the same as it had that Easter Sunday fourteen years ago. The surrounding neighborhood didn’t. Santa Fe 1987 bustled with upscale tourist shops and art galleries. Carole crossed the street against traffic and entered the adobe courtyard. Her heart ached with expectant memories. It had been right over there, at the front of the courtyard, that she’d felt the touch of her father’s heart for the first time. The road had engulfed part of the old parking lot, but it had been close to that stop sign when her heart had last filled with the loving touches of her entire family. That part had been real! Hadn’t it? At least that much had, surely. She forced her mind away from the memory, afraid to take comfort in possible delusion, crossing her arms over her chest as though to protect her heart.

  The statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe stood in front of the church named in her honor. In the heat, a pile of flowers sat wilting around her stone feet, baking in the hot air, their sickly sweet scent mixing with the fumes of nearby traffic. Carole reached a hand towards the statue, but a watchful Priest shuffled closer and she pulled back. He wore the familiar black dress she remembered from that Easter so long ago. He began rearranging drooping bouquets, keeping a suspicious eye on her. A trickle of sweat ran down Carole’s back. Did he know her father? Know where he was now?

  “Mass is starting.” The comment was a command and he headed towards the building. Carole took one step and stopped, unable to imagine what it would be like to step foot in that church again. She had an idea of what would happen if she asked for help to locate her father, a Priest. Resting a hand on the rough adobe wall, Carole watched people file into the church. Taking a deep breath, the pain in her heart abated slightly. Mom and Gran had loved her, whether or not her memories were accurate their love had been real, so had her father’s. She still felt echoes of their love in her heart. Carole turned, pushing through the gate. She left, certain only that even now he still loved her, wherever he was.

  LOOKING OUT THE window of the Greyhound bus, Carole took in the endless ocean and chunky palm trees of coastal South Carolina with stoic acceptance. She’d never before been outside the desert southwest, yet in the three day bus ride from southwest to southeast almost none of the countryside was unfamiliar or new. She’d seen all of these places in her black dreams. Just like returning to Our Lady of Guadalupe and finding only the surrounding neighborhood changed, these highways and buildings were new, but the geography—the slope of hillside, the rivers and waterways—looked almost exactly the same. Leaning her head against the glass, Carole pondered that. Not for the first time she marveled at the delusional depth of her bizarre brain. How did her aberrant mass of grey know not only what the country looked like, but how it smelled and sounded? No wonder so many schizophrenics believed the reality inside their heads, it was just as real!

  Turning to the grey-haired lady beside her, she brushed her mental illness aside and focused on what she could control. “Excuse me? Mind if I borrow your scissors?” The plump lady put her crocheting down. Soft blue and pink balls of yarn rolled around her seat as the bus bumped down the road. A veined hand reached into a bag covered in glitter and rhinestones and she handed Carole shears.

  “Don’t mind at all, Sweetheart.”

  Carole jabbed the tip of the tool into her hair at the top of her head and started to chop.

  “What are you doing?” For a grandmotherly type, the woman had a big voice that carried. It didn’t compare to the shouted protests of the voices in Carole’s head. Apparently crazy house liked her hair long. She ignored them all and continued to saw through her thick hair with the scissors. It made a crunching sound as she worked the blades through the fat French braid.

  “Oh, honey, I’d never have let you use them if I’d known you were going to do that.” The lady had one hand pressed against her cheek, and looked distraught.

  Carole passed the scissors back to the woman and ran a hand through her hair. She felt lighter, taller, like she could run faster.

  “I’m going to be a Marine,” she explained, because the grandmother kept staring through over-sized glasses.

  The woman shook her head. “What’s a pretty girl like you want to be a Marine for?”

  “I’ll be good at it.” Carole said with confidence. The voices made no comment about that, still lamenting her hair. She held the braid up and looked at it. It was nearly two feet long. She rolled it up and jammed it into her bag.

  “Well, now the front is too long for the back. Hold still, I’ll fix it for you.” It took several minutes, as the bus stopped and started, but the woman chewed her thin lips and her scissors snapped sharply. Onlookers appeared appalled, but when Carole glanced in the bus driver’s mirror she smiled at the results. Her messy hair stuck up around her head in all directions. Running her fingers through it, loose hair showered down.

  “Thank you, it’s perfect.”

  “You’d look good bald,” the old woman laughed. “Good thing, ‘cause you practically are.”

  THIRTEEN WEEKS LATER Carole still had that braid. Kneeling on the floor of her barracks she rolled each regulation item of clothing and tucked it tightly inside her canvas bag. These insignificant scraps of cotton were the only tangible remnants after her weeks at boot camp. The only two personal items she owned she jammed safely between the clothes. The long braid she kept only because of the voices strange obsession about women and long hair. It seemed to pacify them, though they still ranted every time she trimmed her hair. The second item a spattered, crumpled piece of paper with a recipe on it and Carole’s Bread written on top, listed basic ingredients that were becoming harder to acquire. It was all she had of him, her father, the Priest.

  “You don’t get much mail.” For the first time the Sergeant spoke to her in a normal tone of voice. He moved down the empty barrack, stopping at the foot of Carole’s metal bunk, and looked down at her.

  Carole rose immediately and responded, “No, Sir!”

  “At ease, Marine.”

  In the thirteen weeks since she’d set foot on Parris Island, Carole hadn’t received even a piece of junk mail. It seemed an odd subject for small talk on her last day. The Sergeant motioned for her
to return to her task, and Carole watched him in her peripheral vision while she resumed packing. He looked uncomfortable and Carole automatically glanced towards the nearest exit. Six seconds, including knocking him unconscious.

  “People noticed,” he kept his voice low. “They also noticed you’re an exceptional recruit. That’s not necessarily a good thing for you.” Bending as though to inspect her bag, he dropped a piece of paper into it, his voice a faint whisper, “Don’t read it here. Look at it on the bus. Good luck, Blank. You’re going to need it.”

  THE AIRPLANE BORE the orange and red bird of a popular overnight delivery company. It sat on the runway, engine sputtering and propellers whirring. The door stood open. Ignoring the voices, Carole obeyed her orders and climbed inside. Six marines glanced her way as though expecting her and a thickset one moved to shut the door behind her. Except for the pilot, they wore all black, like Carole. A tall black man with fine-boned exotic features fished a lighter out of his pocket. Clicking it to life he held it towards her. Carole tugged her handwritten orders from the waistband of her pants and held the yellow paper over the flame until the charred remains drifted down to mingle with a small pile of ashes.

  The plane taxied down the runway, and every man but the pilot found a place to curl up among stacks of packages and mail. Within minutes their eyes were closed and their breathing even, except Carole. It was her first plane ride, and in the stripped down, rumbling craft, with the fumes of jet fuel in her nostrils, sleep was the furthest thing from her mind. But after a couple of uneventful hours, outside of the voices continuous bellowing about airplanes being forbidden and unnatural, she leaned against a pile of brown paper packages and tried to relax. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the protesting voices in her head and growling hunger in her stomach. Despite the vibrating noise, rumbling staccato into her bones, she eventually slept.

  “UP, PRIVATE.” A rough hand shook her awake. Her five teammates were up and eating. One of them tossed her a canister of water and a foil packet of rations. Carole looked through the packet and settled on food the voices approved. She peeled wax off a piece of cheese, piled peanut butter on it and thankfully shoved the entire thing into her mouth. After a moment of studying the wax peeling, she ate that too. A couple of the men looked at each other but said nothing. One of them spread a blueprint on a pile of mail.

  “This is the resort where you’ll find your assignment, Blank. He’ll be arriving about the same time we are. You’re going to have one hour from the time you step foot in that hotel, to get in, swap discs, and get out. We’re meeting here.” The Marine pointed at the map indicating the corner of a parking garage. “If you are late, we will leave you.”

  All five of men gazed at Carole, varying degrees of incredulity in their expressions. They wore experience in their posture and quiet confidence on their faces. She knew her seventeen meager years probably seemed ridiculous to them. Carole sat straighter. They didn’t know her. No one did. The tallest man stood and put his backpack on, threading straps under his legs.

  “Do you have many jumps?” The other men began to follow suit and Carole grabbed her parachute, emulating them. She shook her head in answer. The tallest Marine frowned at her. “How many jumps do you have, Private?”

  “This will be my first, Sir.”

  The rattle of the plane door rolling open and the force of incoming air blew past them, but Carole had no doubt the plane would have gone silent if not for the wind. The men all looked at each other. A thickset Marine yanked at the straps she’d buckled, loosening them. He tugged her parachute off and tossed it onto the floor of the plane near the pilot, hooking only lightweight straps over her body. He snapped goggles over Carole’s head and adjusted them as he shouted instructions at her.

  “I’m going down with you, tandem. I’ll be your parachute by holding onto your back. My chute can carry both of us.” One beefy hand grabbed hold of her straps and he briefly lifted her with one hand, checking her weight, and nodded an affirmation to the leader.

  “Out of time, Wright,” shouted the tallest, the handsome black man. The men deferred to him, but even if they hadn’t, Carole would have known he was the leader. He wore his authority quietly, in every movement of his strong body. Holding onto an overhead strap, he motioned with his chin towards the open door of the aircraft.

  Wright pushed Carole to the door of the plane, snapping his harness to hers and shouting instructions directly into her ear. “Belly first, Private. Arch your back and trust me.” The voices in her head were frantic, and Carole realized that for the first time ever, they didn’t know what to expect and neither did she. She was doing something new to them. The realization hit her as both terrifying and thrilling.

  Wright shoved her. They fell and for several long seconds her mind stopped, fear almost took her. It was cold and the rush of wind strong, speech impossible. Strapped to her back, Wright wrapped around her like a human backpack. His strong legs covered hers and forced them into position. She arched her back. Beefy arms wrapped uncomfortably around her waist, but her mind was flying. It felt fantastic, the air so clean. Somewhere deep in her psyche she knew that this is how air should taste. Over the merciless wind she fought to suck in deep breaths, trying to eat as much of the clean air as her body could hold.

  Lights appeared beneath her in the dark. Carole tried to calculate where they might be, she became uncomfortably aware of Wright’s arms and strong legs wrapped around her. His hands pressed together, right over her heart, and she didn’t think it was a coincidence. He tapped out the seconds right against her chest for what seemed twenty very long seconds. Finally Wright grabbed her hands and tugged them to hold onto his harness, squeezing, so she held tightly. With one hand folded across her chest, he used the other to pull his chute. The abrupt slowdown yanked her roughly, her hands involuntarily loosened on the straps, but Wright’s left arm held her in a crushing grip. Then they were drifting down, and she tightened her hold. The lights below them grew larger and brighter. The voices in Carole’s head seemed frozen. Drifting towards the earth suddenly felt unnatural. To be so high felt wrong, but the voices were silent and at least she’d finally found one way to stop them.

  THE CLOCK WAS ticking. Carole had fifty-five minutes to complete her mission. The sticky heat of Miami waited politely outside as she pushed through a revolving door into the opulence of the city’s crown jewel, The Vanderbilt Towers. The icy blast of air-conditioning raised goose-bumps. Glass and mirrors sparkled across the foyer, and a fountain shot geysers of aquamarine water into the air. Brightly colored exotic birds squawked from branches of tropical trees inside little jungles contained by marble and glass, right in the middle of the hotel lobby. Live music from a string orchestra drifted across the foyer.

  Carole smoothed her short hair self-consciously. Captain Lincoln had soaked it with water from his rations bottle, and slicked it back with perfumed oil. He had also applied what felt like far too much makeup, all in the confines of a moving automobile with the entire team crammed shoulder to shoulder. All the while he’d instructed, incredulous that she barely knew the difference between eye shadow and blush. Unable to comply with the 80’s marine motto of woman first, marine second, makeup had been the only lesson she’d paid little attention to in boot camp.

  Taking a step forward and trying not to wobble in her heels, uncomfortably aware of the tight dress revealing far too much of her, Carole tried to ignore the voices. They’d recovered from skydiving, and were lecturing about propriety in clothing. “Simplicity. Virtue. Clean.” Sometimes they sounded oddly similar to Sister Mary Josephine from the orphanage she’d once lived in.

  “Good Evening, Ma’am. Welcome to The Vanderbilt. Are you joining us for the Ambassador’s reception?”

  Miraculously, a nod was all it took for admittance. The hotel manager led Carole right through the ballroom doors and past the guest list that she wasn’t on. He escorted her to the bar and ordered her a white wine spritzer. She never had to say a wor
d. It was a lucky break, because the dress wasn’t conducive to gaining entrance through an elevator shaft. The escort and the drink made her appear to belong. The manager passed her his business card and strode off. Carole dropped it on top the gilt and glass bar and examined the liquid in her glass. Her stomach snarled with hunger. Not entirely certain what she held in her hand, she hesitated, tempted. No wavering fumes emanated from the drink, but the voices began. “Filth. If you sully yourself you will cease to be!” The voices had definitely recovered from the jump.

  People looked in her direction, but with smiles. Captain Lincoln had been certain she’d be admitted without a problem. Corporal Horne had commented that her good looks were the only reason she’d been temporarily assigned to the Pact, as they called themselves. The remark still made Carole bristle. She spotted Ambassador Balto Nelson across the room. She sized him up, six feet of dark and handsome. He looked fit and fast, and standing in a crowd of beautiful admirers, she doubted he would ever go willingly with her anywhere. How could she possibly lure the man to the privacy of his hotel room? She’d never so much as held a man’s hand with intention, she did not do seduction. Judging by his female stalkers, she was in the minority.

  Clutching her glass of wine, Carole turned her back on several men standing at the bar. Hungry, she grabbed a bowl of nuts off the counter and headed in the Ambassador’s direction, shoveling nuts into her mouth as she watched the man. By the time the nut bowl was empty, she knew how many men were guarding him, where they carried their weapons, where the ambassador hid the floppy disc, and that one of his bodyguards watched the Ambassador a bit more than the job required.