As Simi and Jaylon approached the front desk of the hospital in Santa Fe, several people waiting near the large potted houseplants took note of them. Jaylon, who was known to Simi always to wear his black motorcycle jacket, leather boots , and with his long hair combed back, gave a peculiarly nefarious look about the young man to those seated inside. And Simi, too, caught off-guard when she ran up to the town square of Madrid, was still wearing her black peasant blouse and dark-colored shorts. Her own jet-black hair was in disarray from the motorcycle ride and her demeanor, as well, was severe to the perplexed onlookers. The two walked up to the desk, behind which sat the evening administrative nurse in charge of visits.

"May I help you," the round-faced, overweight woman asked.

"We're here to see the man who was brought in with knife wounds this afternoon," Simi stated. "From Madrid? His name is Cody. . . a journalist."

The woman paused and just stared at the two of them for several seconds. She then looked down at a clipboard on her desk.

"That patient you describe is still under care of the physicians here. He will see no visitors this evening. Indefinitely for now. Not until I get clearance from the doctors. I'm sorry."

Without any eye contact, the nurse went back to tending to paperwork on her desk.

"And besides," she added softly, almost to herself, "If he were able to see visitors, coming out of Intensive Care, they would have to be members of his immediate family."

She then looked back up at the two of them.

"Are either of you  related in this way to this patient?"

The woman glanced into Simi's face rather harshly, and confidant that neither she nor Jaylon were family. She seemed to be fixated, however, on Simi's black onyx crescent moon, which she had worn as a neckless since a child.

"Is there any way then, ma'am. . . that we can find out the man's condition?" Jaylon asked softly and patiently.

The woman was reluctant to answer and now seemed perturbed at their continued presence.

"One moment, please," she answered back sternly. She picked up a desk phone and dialed three digits. After several seconds she spoke under her breath. "Present condition of Mr. Berenson . . . in Intensive four?"

The woman waited and seemed to be listening carefully. She then hung-up the phone and looked back up into Jaylon's and Simi's faces.

"The patient remains in serious but stable condition," she reported mechanically. That's all we know at this time. It's not until he's recovering, that we'll allow him family visitors."

Simi looked over at Jaylon helplessly.

"So I'm afraid I'll have to ask you two to leave. Hopefully his condition will improve."

With this the woman went back to her paperwork, seemingly still annoyed that Simi and Jaylon had not yet left. Just as the two decided to move away in the waiting room to a place where they could discuss the situation, two men, wearing business suits entered from the street entrance. They walked up to the desk where the two of them had been, but being blocked from view by the tall interior plants, the men were unaware that Simi and Jaylon had taken note of them. Jaylon motioned to Simi to not move or speak. It became quickly clear to both that this foreboding pair were communicating with each other in French. When at the counter, however, they switched to a broken English.

After getting the information they needed from the same nurse, the men officiously moved away and the older of the two took out a cellphone and made a call. It seemed he was informing someone outside the hospital what they had learned. This conversation was also masked to Simi, as it was in French as well. Jaylon, fully aware of who the men were, held Simi's arm firmly and cautiously until they left the waiting room. Simi did not have to ask Jaylon about them, as by now, their exceptional perceptions with each other did not depend much on speech.

Just when Simi and Jaylon felt it was safe to pass out of the waiting room themselves, Simi looked back and could see the woman who had been with Cody during the attack walking up from a hospital corridor. She entered into the main waiting room to speak with the administrative nurse. The unfortunate young woman looked haggard and depressed. She had obviously just come from the intensive ward where Cody had been brought in by ambulance only an hour before. After signing some papers with the nurse, the young woman started for the exit, where Simi approached and intercepted her carefully.

"I'm so sorry for what happened today," she told her, taking her hand. "You're Cody's girlfriend, right?"

The petite blond looked at Simi with a confused and distraught demeanor.

"Yes. And who are you?"

Jaylon stayed back, sensing is own presence would not be helpful to what Simi wanted to learn about Cody's condition.

"My name is Simi. And I was sometimes helping Cody with his research. Over in Madrid. How is he . . . I mean . . . his condition. . . will he . . .?"

"The doctors say it's too early to tell," she replied in a weak voice. "He was just given a lot of blood. But he's still unconscious."

The young woman's face suddenly showed she would break down from the strain. Simi instinctively reached out and put her arms around her. The girl put her head on Simi's shoulder and allowed her to embrace her while she tried regained composure.

"Who did you say you were, again?" the young woman asked, clearly too upset to concentrate.

"Cody had interviewed me a couple of times. About his . . . well, the project he was working on. Over in Madrid. That's where I live."

"Yes. . . And I warned him to not pursue that story any longer! It was getting just to scary. The people that were involved in it seemed too dangerous to me. I warned him to stop putting online what he was finding out."

Simi's and Jaylon's eyes met.

"What was he putting online?"

"Besides the book he was writing . . . about all that . . . the Southwest and some  . . . forces of good and evil . . . he ran a blog."

"A website on the Net?"

"Yes. About what his findings were. The research. . . the interviews. God! I told him the people he was writing about were going to read those things! . . .And make trouble for him one day. He didn't listen!  And now they may have . . . killed him!"

The young woman began to openly sob uncontrollably , while still in Simi's embrace.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. She used a handkerchief produced from the pocket of her jeans.

"Look. Can we go somewhere . . . and talk?" the girl asked. "I just need to sit down. This is all so unreal!"

Simi looked over at Jaylon. She could sense he was listening in and now was sending her a strong message that they must get the young woman to safety and leave the the hospital themselves.

"You'll take her in a taxi back to my place over in Golden," he whispered to Simi. "Just follow me on the bike," Jaylon said.

"What is your name," Simi softly asked the disoriented girl.

"Michelle," she answered.

Jaylon led them out the exit and hurried them around the corner. From there he told them to wait in the shadow of the building as he moved up to the nearest intersection. Several moments later he had haled a taxi and returned for Simi and Michelle to join him in it. He directed the driver to where he had left his motorcycle, then got out. He told the man to follow his bike to the little town of Golden, some thirty minutes south of Santa Fe.

While riding in the taxi, now following Jaylon, Michelle asked Simi where they were taking her and why so quickly.

"Jaylon understands the situation with these people who attacked Cody this afternoon," she told her. "And so do I, Michelle. We've also been targets of them. They tried to drive me out of Madrid where I live with my parents. And Cody has been fighting them for years. Maybe even much longer."

"I don't understand."

"Trust us, Michelle. For now you must. These people have been around as long as there's been two sides to everything. And it's not really about good and evil. Just two powerful warring sides."

"But those men in the hooded jackets? They just came at Cody as I stood there. From nowhere on the street. They beat him and stabbed him! How can you say that's not evil?"

"Because they were acting on what they feel is the side of 'good.' Of course it's evil, Michelle."

"What? But you said . . ."

"There's little difference in these forces . . . they push at all of us in the world, Michelle. They're just always at odds. Jaylon and I am somewhere on the front lines in this war. Cody was only guilty of trying to expose this. He discovered it's going on like a war zone now . . . Here. In the area of the Southwest. It flares up in many places of the world and always has at many times in history."

The young woman was now silent.

"Your Cody only discovered the existence of all this, Michelle. That blog and book he's writing has come too close to them. Too close to those who want to keep it all hidden."

As the sign off the highway read "Golden. Population 183"  in the lights of the Taxi, Jaylon's motorbike cruised off to the right in the darkness to follow it. The taxi tailed him diligently as directed. When the few houses began to appear on the outskirts of the little town, Jaylon's bike again left the main roadway up the side of a mountain, now just a dirt road.

From there, the bumpy pathway eventually terminated at a small, wooden house among a stand of mesquite trees. Looking to Simi be one of the many rundown, mini-Victorian miner's homes of the past century, it seemed wildly out of place to the young woman from Los Angeles, still in shock from the events of her most hellish day. Yet, there in the desolate high desert region, the tidy little house sat. It was as enchanting as the mysterious character of Jaylon himself.

Climbing off his bike in the headlights of the taxi, Jaylon walked up to the driver and handed him what appeared to be two twenty dollar bills. As the cab sped away, the girls got out and followed their host up to the front porch of his house. There on the wooden platform the lights of Golden could be seen just down from them on the mountainside. And further to the south, the little lights of Madrid twinkled like jewels against an inky black sky.

* * *