stained with his own blood, was made transparent by the rain growing heavier by the minute.
Get up! Stand up before you drown, he thought in a language that seemed both familiar and foreign. Somehow, he understood the meaning, but it was as if he was creating words as he used them, as if when they formed in his mind, he was using them for the first time.
He staggered to his feet, shivering. Weakly, he leaned against a brick wall to regain his bearings. Looking upward into the weeping sky, he blinked into the rain and covered his face with his arm.
“Where am I?” he muttered aloud. “How did I get here?”
Even as he spoke, he knew. Hazy memories, fog-like images, crept around the corners of his mind.
Garrin Cross. That was his name. He had been attacked from behind. The last thing he remembered was a plastic bag being thrown over his head.
“Who? Why?” he asked, frowning, fighting to sort it out. One answer seemed to make sense, and a name. Chang. One of Chang's hired thugs. It had to be. Angrily, he fought to force the scattered remnants of memory to take form, to stick.
I was to meet him here, he remembered. We were supposed to seal the deal. When I drove up, he was over here by the alley. I walked toward him ... then ... someone came from behind and before I could react, or even draw my gun, somebody hit me and then ... the bag … and … I died. I … died?!
A shouted curse from Cross's lips dashed against the surrounding brick walls and was blown to shreds by the wind. He shook his fist at nothing but a face in his mind. “Chang! How could you do this to me! You'll pay for it, you damned Chinese mongrel!”
He stopped in mid-sentence. But ... I’m alive, he puzzled. He slowly took a deep breath and blew it out quickly. No problem breathing now. He held his hands in front of his face, wriggling his fingers as his curse was slowly replaced by laughter. “Look at me! I'm alive. I'm alive!”
For a moment, all was confusion as two memories fought each other, neither making sense. The man held his head and closed his eyes, straining to knit the two ends of a broken rope together.
I am Garrin Cross. But I am not Garrin Cross. I am Qeoc-neh-qiti, high priest of the Brothers of the Moon, given this body, given a new life as Garrin Cross.
Yes. It was starting to come together, the elements of his existence swirling, coalescing into a sphere he could grasp.
I am here to serve the One True Lord. He has given me rebirth. I am here to become this man, this Garrin Cross, to assume his identity, to enter his world. There is a mission for me, but I must wait until I am told.... I must master this body, this double language in my brain, and learn to live with power in this new life, before I can serve Him. Only then will he come to me. Only then will I serve the purpose of my re-creation.
Garrin Cross lifted his head and looked around. At the end of the alley he saw a portion of a derelict building with a loading dock and, parked near it, a sleek, black automobile. “That’s my car,” he said aloud, the memory of the machine forming in his mind. “It’s called a, a Porsche. That’s right. That’s my Porsche.” He staggered toward it, half-running, at the same time reaching into his pocket for the metal and plastic thing, called a key, that he knew would make it work.
Following instinct that guided him even as he made the movement, he pressed a button on the key's monitor pad and the door latch clicked. With an instinctual movement, as if he had done it a thousand times before, he slipped behind the wheel. For a moment he sat in the machine, wondering what to do next. Coaxing the memories of its function to manifest, he found he knew to put the key into the ignition and, thus, started the motor.
A second curse expressed his amazement. “Good. Very good. It's working. Now, I am supposed to make this thing move.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I damned-sure hope I know how.”
He did. His left hand automatically switched on the headlights and wipers, his right hand took the wheel and his foot pressed the gas. The car surged forward into the storm.
He drove, following the images and recollections that entered his brain; sloshing at first through dimly-lit, deserted back streets, then moving on through neighborhoods of tightly-woven, busier streets and finally joining a frantic, coursing torrent of automobiles, trucks and buses that was the interstate. He careened a bit unsteadily from lane to lane until he caught the hang of it. A few cars swerved and honked, spraying water on his windshield in their wake, but he finally settled into the lane that felt right and stayed there.
I’m remembering. It’s coming back. That ramp up ahead is Highway 101, he instructed himself, reading a long, green sign as he drove under it. I take this and my exit should be coming up twenty minutes after that.
Sure enough, at the prescribed time he saw the exit he was looking for and turned onto the ramp, leaving the nightmare of the freeway with a soft mutter of relief under his breath. Another half hour of driving, remembering turns as he came to them, landmarks as he saw them, found him in an up-scale residential area. He squinted and scowled through mists of rain to make out the road signs.
Coastal Pine Drive. My house is this way ... he confirmed, turning off the main street onto a two-lane, winding road that slowly climbed its way up the thickly-wooded, eastern slope of the San Rafael mountains. Peering through mist and a foggy windshield at the dark, blurry outlines of houses and trees, he finally recognized a gated driveway leading to a Spanish-style mansion set well back off the road; its lawns mostly obscured by a dense fortress of scrub oak and pine. He pulled to a stop in front of the gate, pushed a button on a remote control he recalled being located in the dashboard—-it was right where his memory told him it was—-and the gate swung open.
He drove forward, up the brick-paved drive, and stopped in front of the expansive, red-tiled and stucco hideaway villa. As he approached, two black dogs, lulling under a covered porch, sprang to attention, ears forward, noses pointed toward the car and its occupant. Cross got out of the car and whistled. Both dogs came running, jumping and whimpering, deliriously vying for their master's attention. Cross rubbed their ears and scratched their chins. “Miss me, boys?” he asked. The dogs responded in the affirmative with wagging tails and happy barks.
With the same remote control that opened the gates, Cross keyed in a digital code that opened the front door and stepped into the warmth of a spacious entry hall. He looked in amazement at the luxuriant furnishings, massive fireplace, carefully-detailed architecture and gilt-framed artwork that decorated the place. It was an odd sensation, seeing each thing, each possession for the first time, yet knowing it intimately at first sight. Straight ahead rose a fabulous, carved railing and an ascending, Mexican-tiled staircase. He hurried up it to the bedroom and shower he knew were waiting on the second floor. There, he threw open the bedroom doors, stripped off his sopping tie and shirt, and headed straight to the bathroom to turn on a steaming stream of hot water in the shower. No sooner had he done so than he heard a movement and soft cry behind him.
“Garrin?”
He turned to see a slender, stunningly-beautiful, dark-haired woman dressed in translucent white lingerie hurrying toward him, her arms outstretched.
She came to him and kissed him hard, pulling him close to her as her arms passionately embraced him. “Oh Garrin,” she breathed, pressing her head against his chest. “I've been so worried.”
A name came to him. Alicia. Alicia Elizando.
The woman continued with trembling voice, “When you took off like that this morning ... I was afraid you weren't coming back. Where did you
