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The gunfire came just as she started to think that they were going to make it to that relative safety. The screams of parents as kids scattered off the playground made her heart jump into her throat, but she didn’t stop running. The kid was a heavy weight under her arm, but she didn’t dare put him down. Her legs were short but his were even shorter, and there was no way he’d be able to keep up.
A bullet zinged past her ear—from the front. “Oh, fuck this,” she muttered, realizing that the guy had brought backup. Would they risk hitting the kid?
No more time to worry about maybes and mights, she decided. Nulls with guns now scared her more than the risk of Max at his worst.
Without missing a stride, she reached down with two mental hands and dragged up current, spinning it with a thought into a tent of magical energy deflecting not only bullets but eyesight from finding them.
Once, she would have needed a cantrip or spell to help focus her thoughts and direct the current. If she’d had time, she still would have used one, just to make sure her intent was clear and focused. But her ability to channel was greater than it had been then, and she didn’t need words any more than she needed hand-waving or a wand.
She found, channeled, and created, all in one swoop. Wizzing did have its perks.
Then the cramps hit her, and she almost dropped the kid as she doubled over in agony. Perks, my ass. She managed not to drop Marc Jr, mainly because his arms were wrapped around her neck.
“We gotta run,” a soft, serious voice piped near her ear.
“I know, kid, I know.”
But she couldn’t move, not for all the little hands tugging at her. The pain was too intense; it took all her energy to keep the shield up and still remain functional. They were going to have to hope that the shield was enough, that they could outlast the threat, hope that once they started attracting attention, the bad guys would give up and go away.
“Over there!” A voice shouting, alerting: bringing danger. Backup troops, she had been right, the guy wasn’t alone. And nobody seemed to be willing to get involved, not that she blamed them. Gunfire sent smart people for the general direction of down and away. The only people crazy enough to get involved—heroes, professional or otherwise—were not the sort she wanted involved in this, either. Best case scenario, they’d ask to see ID, and the kid didn’t have any. Nor did she have any proof he belonged with her. That would lead to…questions.
A guy came running up, gun in hand, his face red with the exertion of chasing after her, and the first guy, the contact, was close behind. They weren’t giving up—they knew she was there, somewhere.
Her shield wasn’t going to be enough. If these guys were aware, and trained, they might even be able to see through her shield. You could fool all of the people some of the time, but not if they knew what they were looking for. Not even she could do that. Or at least, she thought, she never had been able to before….
Wren reached deep inside herself for another double handful of current. Dark blue and reds, a shimmer of orange, an etching of silver, all coiling around her hands, sliding up her shoulders, setting fire to her bones. The power that possessed her almost overwhelmed the cramps, reminding her of how good it could feel to simply let go, to let the current run through her.
Kill them.
The thought—an echo of her own voice, her own memory—shot through her like a lightning bolt, familiar and terrifying. Suddenly she was no longer in a green suburban park, but surrounded by concrete and metal, pressure slamming against her brain, her pulse racing, the weight of an entire city crushing her with the need to strike, to destroy, to kill any and everything that stood against her, that threatened her and hers.
No. No more. Never again. The thought was hers, supported by deeper, masculine voices.
She could kill. She had killed. She had been backed into a corner and struck out, and destroyed those who threatened her and hers.
The knowledge no longer devastated her. She had killed. She was not a killer. She was not. She would not allow that reaction, that desire, to rule her, to control her. She would not.
The current scorched her skin, but she controlled it. Controlled herself.
Survive. Do not kill. Survive. The two warring instincts—the two opposing needs—battled for primacy over her reactions.
*Idiot female.*
The roar of words in her head was fire and brimstone, treacle and mud, coming down over her barriers like brackish high tide over the breakers.
*Max?* A mixed wash of relief and fear. She had been right; her current called him, even here. He scared the hell out of her, but hell was what she needed to get rid of, right now. Better the devil in someone else than the devil in you?
*Max, I…need help*
Admitting that to anyone was difficult for her. Admitting it to a crazy man, a fellow lonejack who had just tried to run her off the job, who was as likely to kill them both as help them, to a wizzart who might do anything, or nothing, in response to her plea…
*Let me in*
Oh God. What a very, very, very bad idea that was. She had no choice. There wasn’t anyone strong enough, near enough. Trust wasn’t an issue in the face of survival.
She grabbed the kid more tightly, and let down her barriers just enough to let Max slide in.
Given access to her inner self, he swept up and over her like a storm front, his intent rising up before her, his intent to do what she could not. His tarry current was vile and yet beautiful, black lightning sparking and flashing inside a dark storm cloud of his awareness. Battered, barely holding herself together, somehow she fought it.
*No! No killing.*
His disgust at what he saw as her weakness was a physical blow in a psychic battle. Wren took it, absorbed it, did not strike back but merely—merely!—demanded that he adhere to her command.
She was not strong enough to command a wizzart, not without going there herself. Not without losing her own tenuous control. But he could allow himself to be directed, if he chose.
If he chose.
*Hurt them,* she suggested. *Scare the shit out of them. But don’t snuff them.*
He resisted, and she pushed harder. *Harder to scare away than to kill* she challenged him, risking the taunt to get his dander up and aimed where she needed it. *Just keep the kid safe.* She hesitated, then added *and me, too!* just in case he was unclear on the concept of “help.”
Push and shove, push and shove, an endless space of a second, and then she felt his reluctant acquiescence, felt the brimstone and treacle mass sweep around until her current and his slammed against each other, their differing masses and density creating virtual thunderclaps where they came into contact. The kid shuddered, caught between them, racked by the current. She didn’t dare reach down to comfort him, all of her focus on keeping Max with them and in the game plan.
*Follow me* A visual with the words, a thick black anvil of a storm cloud opening up, a stovepipe chimney down into the heart of the storm, swirling around her with all the power of The Alchemist’s overpowered, overfull brain.
She grabbed the kid with both hands, keeping him down on the ground with her, trying to send some reassurance, and leaped into the maelstrom.
Inside, there was a second of calm, the winds howling around outside them, and then monsters leaped at her, claws black and bloody, their teeth serrated and their scales slick with oily, viscous substances she didn’t want to think about. Once they would have terrified her; once they would have made her run like hell.
She had walked on the wrong side of madness since then. She had led people to their deaths, had taken lives from the undeserving, and decided who was deserving and who was not.
Her own monsters inside were just as frightening as anything Max carried. Worse, because she had birthed them.
*You know nothing* Max spat, even as he was laying his own current over hers, forcing them to integrate and work together. *You understand nothing.* The monsters grabbed onto her, digging their claws in, their bilious blood dripping into her veins, sending directions of what to do and how to do it directly to her core. It was a little like rape, and a lot like school, and entirely horrible. That was exactly the impact he intended, she was pretty sure. Bastard.
Her only consolation was the thought that whatever she was seeing, the guys after them were probably getting a taste of the same feedback in their un Talented skulls, under the force of Max’s wild energy. She hoped that they did shit their pants, and then some.
Whatever they were getting, it was working. The bullets didn’t so much miss them as decide to veer erratically away from them, zinging into trees and puffing up dirt where they hit the ground. If they could hold out…no, they couldn’t. The goons might run out of bullets, and the cops might show up, but that wasn’t going to solve the problem of getting the hell out of here.
Her brain formed the thought, but Max’s finished it.
*now* was the only warning they got, and the ground moved under their feet, disappearing into the storm along with sound and sight, smell and taste. They did not exist, except in Max’s overstimulated, current-overrun mind, his will the only thing holding them in reality.
And then the ground dropped in under their feet, their stomachs dropped in after them, and sensation returned.
Wren threw up.
So, she was oddly reassured to note, did the kid.
“Fool brat. Fool. Deserve to get herself killed.”
Max was behind them, his clothing filthy, his shoulder-length white hair literally standing on end from the static he was generating.
“You’re not listening. You never listen, you didn’t listen and then you listen to someone else. You think that gets overlooked? Never diss crazy people, little girl. ’Specially when they crazy for you. You came back?” he spat. “You almost died. Brain’s dead, there is no coming back. Back is the new front and front and center means get the hell back.”
He was being typically cryptic, and she didn’t have the energy to argue with him. Sprawled on the floor—tile, black-and-white squares, the smell of disinfectant in the air, she determined from the clues that the old bastard had translocated them into some bathroom somewhere—she didn’t have the energy to do anything more than wipe her mouth and blink the tears from her eyes.
“You okay, kid?” she asked instead, turning her head to look at the boy.
He sat in a puddle of his own vomit, and looked at her with eyes that were huge, blue, and scared.
“No.”
“Smart kid,” Max observed, calming down a little, smoothing his hair down with hands that crackled with current and just made things worse. “Might actually survive to grow some hair, that one. Might. Maybe.”
“I don’t like him,” the kid told Wren.
“Nobody does, kid,” she said, hauling herself up to her knees and testing if she felt strong enough to get all the way up yet or not. “But he just saved our asses. Say thank you.”
The kid looked up at Max and, politely, said “Thank you.”
“Didn’t do it for you. Or for you, either,” he added irritably, when Wren started to say something. “Did it for…neveryou-mind. Just can’t stand Nulls think they got the right to interfere in our business.”
Wren shook her head, too tired to respond to that, either. Max had been a bigot when he was sane, too. The first time she had met him, Neezer had warned her…
Neezer.
For some reason, the “sense” of her old mentor was stronger than it had been in years. She had begun to forget what he looked and sounded like, over the past few years, but suddenly the memories were all there again, strong and clear. John Ebeneezer had been the one to tell her what she was, train her how to use current safely, had got her through most of high school without failing out or cracking up—and then disappeared when he felt himself start to wizz, rather than risk her safety with his madness.
She had yet to forgive him for that. Especially now, knowing what she knew.
She could almost see him, sitting behind his desk in the lab, marking papers, looking up to utter some annoyingly right bit of wisdom she was too much of a teenager to appreciate….
Wren froze the memory in midprogress, and turned to stare at Max. She sniffed at him once, twice, like a dog scenting a bone. Familiar. Familiar in a way the body never forgot, the mind never let go of.
The grizzled old wizzart took a step backward. The wrinkles around his bright eyes deepened, and his lips drew back from rotted old teeth.
“Where. Is. He?”
The words were growled out, her voice dropping a full octave, making the kid forget his own misery long enough to scoot away from both of the adults, his blue eyes wide.
She had the pleasure of seeing uncertainty and a smidge of caution flicker in Max’s eyes. “I don’t—”
“Max. Where. Is. He.” A definite growl now, edged and hungry. She could sense the current-signature all over the old man now that she was looking, the specific flavor of someone else’s magic. Someone not Max, and not her, but familiar all the same. Neezer. Neezer had been near him, had worked current around him. Recently.
In the bedrock, in those woods. Hidden, wizzed: but alive.
Neezer was alive.
“Old man, you tell me…”
“No.” He could growl better than she could. “Told you to go. Shouldn’t have been there. Shouldn’t have known. Won’t go back, too late now. Gone. Keeps moving. Pissed at you, girl.” Max glared at her, and like a sea change, or clouds moving, there was a spark of sanity in those eyes again, and his words were clear and to the point.
“He doesn’t want to see you, brat. He doesn’t want you to see him. You grok?”
Knowledge hit her like a brick to the head. Oh yes, she understood. Didn’t mean she liked it. Or that she was going to accept it. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said softly.
“Yeah. It does. You escaped. Good for you, maybe. But you did it your way. Us, we are what we are. And we’re dangerous, brat. You had your chance, maybe, and didn’t take it. School’s over. So stop looking for us.”
“I wasn’t looking for you, you fell over me!” she said, distracted by his comment, the way he had probably intended. Damn Max: crazy or not he knew how to play her.
“Pish.” The sanity faded, and the wizzart was back. “Men’s room. Pretty thing. You wanna see my dick, you’re sprawled on the floor like that?”
If he was trying to shock her with being crude, he needed to work up better material than that. But the point was made: she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him on anything useful, and going back to the site wasn’t going to turn up Neezer—Max was right, by now he had moved on, or hidden himself again.
Besides, there was the kid to worry about. The handover had been blown, but she still had to deliver to get the final part of the payment. Assuming daddy dearest still wanted the kid. Christ, don’t borrow trouble, Valere. The client gets the goods, you’re within letter of the agreement, everything’s peachy. He’s not a puppy you can adopt, damn it.
“This isn’t over, Max,” she warned him, standing up.
“Yes,” he whispered, his eyes level with her own, not blinking, not once, until her own eyes hurt. “Oh yes, it is. All over everything.”
And with a manic grin and an inrushing of air that smelled like burned ozone, he was gone.
“Where he go?” the kid asked, looking around as though expecting to see Max lurking in one of the stalls.
“Hell, hopefully.” She looked down at the kid, and sighed. “All right, come on, full cleanup this time. Grab some paper towels and get your disgusting self over to the sink….”
This was so not in the job description.
four
It took her almost half an hour to get the kid presentable again, including rinsing his T-shirt out and holding it under the air dryer until it was okay to put on again, if still, based on his grimace, a little damp. Wren, with more experience in being Translocated, had managed to miss her clothing when she threw up. She washed her hands and face, rinsed her mouth out and gargled with warm water, and figured that was as good as she was going to get, right then. But oh God, did she want that hot shower and a long nap. Not to mention that drink.
“Ready?”
The kid nodded, but looked less certain than he had since all this began. She didn’t blame him a bit. In fact, it was a damned wonder the kid was still there, and not running for the first noncrazy adult he could find.
It made you wonder what the hell his home life was like.
Despite her concerns, nobody gave Wren or the kid a second glance when they walked out of the bathroom. She still felt horribly exposed and vulnerable, same as she did every time someone else Transloc’d her. The loss of control over your own molecules was disturbing, even without the throwing-up part. If she could do it herself with any kind of accuracy or reliability…
If you could, many things would be different. But since you only manage it under extreme stress and with massive stomach upset, let it go already!
Max had dropped them off in the men’s room of a chain restaurant off Route 95 in Connecticut, just north of New York City. It was more than a hundred fifty miles from the aborted handoff site, far beyond what most Talent could manage. Show-off, Wren thought bitterly as she looked out the plate glass windows at the visible highway signs.
Then the white lettering on that sign really sank in, giving her a start. This was the client’s hometown, where he lived and, more important, where he worked. Which meant that either luck had finally smiled on her, or—and this was the unpleasant thought—that Max had done some digging in her brain while he was hauling them around.
She strongly suspected the latter, and made a nasty promise to return the favor, if she ever got the chance, just on principle. She hated the thought of anyone in her brain. It made her feel…rumpled.
