Truth Seeker

A coffee shop dare gone wrong. A stupid childhood decision. A cat-and-mouse hunt that will require a triple strength espresso and a major sacrifice before it’s all over.

Philippe Ormandie can see ghosts, and his special abilities have gotten him into big trouble this time. A dare gone wrong leaves him trapped far away from home in a network of metaphysical tunnels that connects the locations of a large and popular coffee shop chain. Truth Seeker Maggie – formally known as Margaret of Cornwall, lost aunt of King Arthur – needs to find him before the tunnel’s builders do.

When Maggie catches up to Philippe, she whisks him away to what she hopes is a safe place. Unfortunately, the builders of the tunnels won’t be foiled so easily, and she finds herself hunted along with him. Betrayal and old family drama follow Maggie and Philippe no matter where they land.

Maggie needs all the help she can get as the battle ends up being not only for control of the tunnels, but for Philippe’s soul. In the end, the ultimate question is not how Maggie will save the world – and her job – but who will pay the price.

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At the start of Truth Seeker, Margaret of Cornwall, lost aunt of King Arthur, rescues a human who’s gotten trapped in a very strange and dangerous situation.

Chapter One:

Any second now…

Phillippe’s watch had stopped fifteen coffee shops ago. One of those “atomic clock” things that re-set itself according to time zone, it had given up. He hoped it wouldn’t detonate in a mini mushroom cloud on his wrist.

He slouched in his chair, his back against the display case of blue and silver coffee and travel mugs. Snow swirled outside the window and obscured what he assumed was the business district of a medium to large city. He would have preferred to sit in a warm corner away from the window, but at this point information equaled survival.

In spite of his annoyance, he willed the muscles in his face to be pleasantly neutral. He didn’t want to draw any more attention than he already did with his lack of overcoat and snow boots. Maybe people would think he came from some northern clime where people were more accustomed to the cold. He wore his black tennis shoes, blue jeans, green T-shirt, and open flannel under a blue denim jacket. Philippe, just as glad he wouldn’t have to go outside, wondered what she would wear this time. The only constants in her wardrobe were colored lenses and all black clothing. He had never seen her eyes without the glasses.

No matter what jump he made, she always arrived twenty minutes after him. They never spoke or acknowledged each other’s existence, but she always gave him a clue as to where he was. He guessed that he was in Ohio or north-central Kentucky from the assortment of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Kentucky papers left at the front or on the tables. That would fit with the weather and the neutral Midwest accents.

He thought about the chart he’d made on the back of a napkin of all the places he’d been since he’d stumbled into this unique mode of travel. What had begun as an accident was now a game of cat and mouse, and Philippe imagined the jaws of the trap as they closed a little more each time he used the tunnels. He wasn’t sure that they knew who he was, and he had no clue about their identity. His one certainty was that he hadn’t been back to his origin point. Now he wanted to solve the puzzle so he could bail out somewhere close to home in the Northwest.

He glanced at his watch, remembered it didn’t work, and looked at the clock. Any second now…

The door opened with a whoosh of cold air, and she walked in. Philippe’s resolve cracked, and he smiled at her windblown beauty. Her long, thick strawberry blond hair hung straight and breeze-tousled below her black beret, and blue-tinted lenses partially hid her eyes. He sat straighter as she studied the pastries. He knew every one of them intimately by now, but he didn’t dare make a recommendation. She waited for the portly lady in front of her to pay for a hot tea and scone and ordered a tall nonfat latte. The barista told her the total.

“$2.55, please. Are you having a good day?”

“I am, thank you.” She smiled. “Everyone seems so friendly here in Cincinnati.”

Philippe snuck his napkin out and made a notation—he’d been right.

The barista returned the girl’s smile. “We have our meanies, but in general, yes, we’re pretty nice.”

Philippe studied his makeshift map, unable to discern a pattern. The locations ranged from small towns to large metropolises. He rarely landed in the same state twice a day, and he never left the shops for fear that he would be stranded.

The air changed—a low hum that he felt in his bones from his jaw to his tailbone to his feet. Time to go. The sensation propelled him out of his chair. He threw away his white cardboard cup and folded the newspaper he’d left at his table. On a whim, he took out his pen and scrawled a note on a paper napkin, which he dropped by the spiked wooden heel of the redheaded woman’s left boot as he walked past.

The storeroom of the coffee shop was located off a small hallway. Philippe wondered if he would ever be able to tolerate the smell of coffee beans again after he got out of this mess. Burlap sacks lined the walls of the small closet, regular to the right, decaf to the left, and espresso in the back. One of them glowed a warm mocha, the aroma of coffee translated to a visual sensation. He looked over his shoulder one more time and touched the rough burlap sack.

The glow moved up his arm—a warm, electric tingle and all his hairs stood on end. The room receded into a dark brown fog, the bag melting away under his pinching fingers. He peered into the tunnels, a series of hallways diffused with coffee-colored light. His footsteps made no sound as he ran down the hall, the sense of someone after him even stronger this time. There was one door, which he yanked open. He could almost feel the breath of his pursuer on his neck as he tumbled out on to the burlap sacks, and he finally felt he could exhale without someone hearing him.

He pictured himself as a rodent who crept through the shadows of that strange world, glimpsed in the peripheral vision, but gone before seen.

This new closet opened on to a long, red-tiled hallway. He made sure no one was around, then slipped out and turned to the left. What luck—restrooms! The ones in the last place had been outside the store, which he’d been afraid to leave. He went into the men’s room and stood at a urinal. A young man in a suit came in with a wheeled carry-on and laptop case. Philippe looked away. Two more men came in, both with luggage, and a middle-aged guy with a little boy. The kid pulled a miniature red and yellow wheeled carry-on behind him.

Philippe exited the bathroom and the hallway to find ticket counters. This was his first airport stop, and he noted that on his napkin. Security guards patrolled the checkpoint and kept watch at strategic intervals. For the first time in days, Philippe felt safe, and he didn’t even need the redhead to tell him where he was this time. A sign over the exit blinked, “Welcome to San Antonio!”

He pondered his options. He didn’t make enough money at his waiter day job or cover band night job to pay for an airline ticket home. With a thrill, he wondered if the redhead had read his note or if she’d even noticed it. He strolled into the coffee-shop to wait. Sleep deprivation made him incautious, and he forgot to order something before he sat down.

“The seating area is for patrons only, sir,” one of the baristas snapped.

“I’m waiting for a friend.”

Philippe studied his list. Downtown Cincinnati to the San Antonio Airport. Even though he hadn’t had a choice, he felt pleased. At least it was warm here. He imagined what it would be like to just walk outside, catch a shuttle to the Riverwalk, and have some real food and a margarita. He guessed this place would be open all night, or at least most of it, and he could sneak back into the closet whenever it called to him. He hoped.

“You’re getting careless, Philippe.”

He jumped up and found himself face-to-face with the redhead. She wore the same all-back outfit as in Cincinnati, except she carried the sweater and wore a black spaghetti-strap top under the leather jacket. This time her sunglasses had light purple lenses. She tossed his note on the table, and his scrawl mocked him with what must have seemed desperate words—Talk to me, please – Philippe.

“Now that we’ve met, I can buy you a cup of coffee,” he offered.

“You’ve been traversing the tunnels for four days now.” She looked at him, and he realized how disheveled he must appear. “Allow me to buy you dinner.”

Four burritos, a margarita, and a chalupa later, Philippe was ready to talk. The woman, who had introduced herself as “Margaret, but everyone calls me Maggie. Don’t even think of calling me Mags,” sat across from him and picked at her taco salad. He’d panicked for a moment when they left the airport and the coffee shop—was he shutting himself off from his only route home?—but he sensed he could trust her.

“You’ve hardly touched your sangria,” Philippe said. Or thought he did. The earth tilted, and his tongue felt loose in his head. He’d been stupid to order the margarita, but he needed to unwind.

“I’m not supposed to drink on the job.” She smiled. “But you can. First question: how did you end up in the tunnels?”

Philippe wished he could make full eye contact, but even though they sat in shadow, she wore her purple lenses.

“A couple of my buddies and me went for coffee after work on Monday,” he explained. “One of them, Arnie, dared me to slip past the baristas into the back and snitch some beans.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow.

“Childish, I know.” His cheeks heated. “I went, but someone came in behind me, so I looked for a place to hide. I ducked into the closet and decided, while I was in there, to just grab some beans from one of the sacks.” He paused and tried to figure out how to explain what had happened next.

“Go on.” She leaned forward.

“I found one with a little hole in it, and then this warm tingly feeling washed up my arm, and then, whoosh, I was in this place full of tunnels and doors.” He watched her. Was she buying it?

She looked over her glasses at him.

What the hell? Her eyes were yellow. No, gold.

“What happened then?”

He had to keep going. The words spilled from him before he could help it. “I freaked out and opened the first door I came to. Let me tell you, I was surprised as hell to find myself in someplace with palm trees.”

Maggie pushed her glasses up her nose. “Sorry, they slip. Go on.”

Maybe he’d been so sleep-deprived he’d dreamed up her weird eyes. They looked normal now. “So then I took a few minutes to get my bearings and figure out where I was by looking at the papers. Tampa, Florida. Across the freakin’ country.” Now he looked at her to make sure she didn’t think he was nuts.

“That’s not surprising. Go on.”

“Well, then a bus full of old people pulled up, and they stampeded inside, so I took the chance to go back to the store-room and try to find my way back. This time I saw the bag glow, so I touched it, and zap! Back in the tunnels.”

“Did you have any idea what you needed to do to get back?”

Philippe shook his head. “I just kept trying, figuring that I would get to the right one eventually.”

“Your friends are really worried about you.” She leaned back and studied him with crossed arms. “When you didn’t reappear from the back, they told the baristas, who looked for you. A day later, you were listed as a missing person. A buddy of mine at the police station saw how you’d disappeared and gave me a call.”

“Are you the coffee police?”

Maggie chuckled, a sound like wind-chimes. “Hardly. I’ve been trying to get into those tunnels for almost a year now. I even took a job as a barista, but I got fired for some spurious reason.”

He knew how that went. “So what do you have to do with all this if you’re not the one who built the tunnels?”

“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that right now. Let’s just say that my organization is not the only one that’s very interested in you.”

Philippe’s heart thudded, although her statement confirmed what he’d sensed. “Me? Why?”

“You’re the first unauthorized breach of the tunnels, and the builders, and whoever’s behind them, are panicking. They would like to interrogate you, I’m sure.”

“I have some questions for them.” Philippe’s face flushed. “They had no right to keep me from getting home.”

“And if they caught you, they’d kill you, so being trapped away from home is the least of your worries.” She fiddled with her napkin and spoke in a low, intense tone. “It’s how they think, Philippe. They consider you to be equivalent to an animal, like a research rat who’s escaped. They figured that if they kept you running scared and away from home, they could catch up to you. Luckily I did first.”

He checked to find the nearest exit. “What do you want with me?”

“I want to know everything in the smallest detail, what the tunnels are like, how you get in them, how you get out, and how they work. I want to know who built them, what their purpose is, and how to destroy them.”

“You’re a lady with a lot of questions.” Philippe yawned. “Can we talk about this later? I’ve been running on caffeine and sugar for the past four days.”

Maggie nodded, pulled a black leather wallet out of her jacket, and laid down enough cash to cover the meals and leave a tip. She stood and gestured for him to do likewise.

“I have a good friend here. We can stay with him. If anyone asks, we’ll tell them you’re my boyfriend.”

She turned, and Philippe studied her slender back and nice ass. “No problem.”

Rat or no, he liked this maze.

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