Drawn

by David Alan Jones

  Leslie and Moss immediately struck up a conversation with a blue-haired woman while Satterfield chatted with a distinguished old gentleman sporting a wire-thin mustache.

  Anna folded her arms. This reminded her of every team sport she had ever played back in elementary school P.E. The perpetual new kid, she had always been the last to be picked, if she was picked at all. Often, a coach or teacher would have to force a team to take her.

  “Hi there. What’s your name?”

  Anna spun to find an elderly woman smiling at her.

  “Anna.”

  “That’s a lovely name. I’m Renni, and this is my husband, Lee.” Renni, who leaned heavily on a four-footed cane, tilted her head to indicate the wizened man standing next to her.

  “Howdy,” Lee said.

  “This is pretty awkward, isn’t it?” Renni asked, grinning.

  “Extremely.”

  “Still, it’s not so bad. A little forced, but it works. Would you like to chat a bit? We can get to know one another. We might be a good fit for you.”

  Anna nodded. “Okay.”

  They sat in the couple’s small living area, Anna on a comfy couch, Lee and Renni ensconced across from her in matching glide rockers with padded footstools. Framed pictures of smiling people, mostly children, hung on every wall. Was it strange they should make Anna more uncomfortable than the elderly couple now eyeing her? She had never lived in a house with pictures. Photos were for wallets and IDs.

  “How old are you?” Lee bent forward to eye Anna like a connoisseur inspecting a newfound piece of art.

  “You don’t ask a woman her age.” Renni gave her husband a sour look.

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Oh, Lee, she’s just a baby,” Renni said. “We have a great, great granddaughter your age.”

  “Got any children?” Lee asked.

  “Uh, no.”

  “Lee Rolston,” Renni said. “You’re embarrassing the girl. I’m sorry, Anna, my husband doesn’t know the meaning of the word couth.”

  “I’ve moved around a lot.” Anna shifted in her seat, uncomfortable.

  “Slinker, huh?” Lee pursed his weathered lips. “You weren’t part of Society growing up?”

  Anna laughed. “No. My dad says succubi shouldn’t be governed any differently than regular people.”

  “I’ve heard that one before. If you believe it, what made you join the Order?”

  Anna told them of her last night in Columbus, her mad dash from the Society goons who had come into Pete’s, and her subsequent capture by Matt Snow.

  “So, you think the Indrawn Breath has your family?” Renni asked.

  “Yes.” Anna would have said more about her family, but her thoughts kept slipping past them.

  “That’s horrible.” Renni sat forward on her rocker, her aged eyes intense.

  “Real Society,” Lee said, “the one I served for eighty years, is gone. Those bastards in Washington eroded it.”

  “Lee Rolston, language.”

  “Sorry, hon.” To Anna, he said, “You grew up hating Society, I get that. Kids follow their parents. But I swear, it wasn’t what your father thought. Sure, some shady characters tried to lord it over the little guy. That happens in every government. But the people I worked with were honest and hardworking.”

  Anna kept her mouth shut. She hadn’t come here to argue with some old Society loyalist. But her experiences with the Order made Lee’s claims ring false to her ears. So what if the people he worked with a million years ago acted nice? That had nothing to do with the present.

  “Lee, the girl doesn’t want a history lesson.” Renni must have seen something of Anna’s thoughts spelled out in her expression. “What are you planning to do after you graduate into the Order, Anna? I’ve heard you can go free after that.”

  “Not free exactly,” Anna said. “We’re like reservists. They can call us up at any time; make us fight if that’s what they want.”

  “You don’t want to fight?” Lee asked.

  Anna suspected her next words would nix the votary idea for the old incubus. “No, I don’t. Honestly, I just wish both sides would leave me alone. They can annihilate one another for all I care. I just want my family back.”

  “That’s why you should fight,” Lee said. “Not because you love fighting, but because you’ve got something to fight for. Don’t you agree?”

  Anna nodded slowly.

  “I don’t mean to pry, but have you got many votaries, Anna?” Renni tilted her chin down as if confiding a secret, or perhaps eliciting one.

  “No. And it doesn’t embarrass me. I’ve always had my family. That’s it.”

  “Just four then?” Lee asked, silver brows raised.

  Anna nodded.

  Renni turned to him. “What do you think?”

  “I think this girl needs us.”

  Drawing from Renni and Lee came easily for Anna as if their decision to aid her had opened a floodgate of energy. It coursed through her veins, making her heart race. The longer they chatted, the more intense it became.

  “Let’s give you a test,” Lee said after a couple of hours spent discussing family, politics, and whatever other meandering topics the old couple desired. He rose slowly and motioned for Anna to follow.

  Despite her usual reluctance to open up with strangers, or perhaps in defiance of it, Anna had spoken freely with Renni and Lee. She had told them about her upbringing on the run, her life slinking from one state to another, and even her involuntary admittance into the Order. Spilling that way had come as a surprising relief. It was as if she had been holding her breath for years and could now finally exhale.

  Maybe she had missed out not having grandparents after all.

  Lee opened a small closet off the main room. Woefully outdated suits and sports coats hung inside.

  “What am I supposed to do with your clothes, Lee?” Anna asked, grinning.

  “Not the clothes. That.” Lee pointed to a seventy-five-pound dumbbell resting on the floor. “I got it years ago when I could still draw worth a damn. I haven’t been able to work out with it in forever.”

  Anna drew strength and hoisted the weight in one hand. She laughed in delight. It felt no heavier than a bar of soap.

  “Bring it to the living room.” Lee made a production of introducing Anna as the strong woman in a traveling circus for Renni’s viewing pleasure.

  Renni clapped and whistled as Anna first pressed the weight overhead; then, feeling braver, she gave it a couple of light tosses from hand-to-hand.

  “I remember when I could do that,” Renni said.

  Anna set the dumbbell on the floor.

  “You’ve got quite a draw on strength,” Lee said.

  Anna’s eyes went wide. “Oh, God, I didn’t take too much, did I? Are you okay?”

  They laughed.

  “You can’t hurt us,” Renni said. “We’ve got dozens of children and grandchildren, not to mention friends. You draw from us; we draw from them.”

  “Besides, if it’s too much strain, we can always clench,” Lee said.

  “Clench?”

  “They haven’t shown you how to clench?” Lee sounded scandalized.

  “Maybe they don’t want recruits knowing how, dear,” Renni said.

  “Wait,” Anna said. “Are you saying I can stop another succubus from drawing from me?” Anna stared back and forth between her nascent adoptive grandparents. If true, this could change everything.

  “Of course you can,” Lee said. “It’s one of the first things they should have taught you. It’s an essential skill.”

  “And not just drawing,” Renni said. “A good clench keeps others from charming you, too.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “It takes someone with wrecking ball talent to charm you out of a clench,” Lee said.

  “How do you do it?”

  “You just—” Lee began.

  “Lee, we’re going to get Anna in trouble.”

  Anna gave Renni a
pleading look. They had to teach her this. She needed an edge against the draw sergeants even if she never used it. But how to push Renni into relenting? She turned a spotlight smile on her erstwhile adopted grandfather. Lee knew his wife. He would know what buttons to push.

  “If we’re sponsoring this girl, that makes her family.” Lee gave Anna a decisive nod. “I want her to have every possible advantage. Don’t you?”

  “Well, of course I do, but—”

  “Let’s practice with something safe,” Lee said. “Draw eyesight, Anna.”

  Renni let go an exasperated sigh, her eyes rolled to heaven, but she smiled too and made no more protests. Anna got the feeling she had done that a lot in her marriage to the cantankerous Lee.

  Anna drew vision and nearly toppled off the couch. “Whoa. It’s like I switched to HD!”

  “Now you see it,” Lee said, “and now…you…don’t.”

  Instantly, Anna’s vision snapped back to normal. She drew harder, focusing on the elderly couple, but nothing happened.

  “How?” she asked.

  Renni, despite her earlier misgivings, leaned forward. “You draw from yourself, that’s the trick. Your charm, your vision, whatever you need. It’s that simple. If you know how to draw, you know how to clench. Try it.”

  Renni winked, and the room went suddenly, catastrophically silent.

  Anna jumped in shock, frantic at the sudden hush. Then she saw Lee and Renni watching her, looking supremely pleased with themselves.

  Renni mouthed something at her. “Clench.”

  It took Anna a moment to get a feel for what she wanted. Drawing from herself wasn’t something she had ever contemplated. But it was no different than drawing from her family. The energy appeared when she looked. She merely had to grasp it.

  Sound returned, rushing in on Anna, dislodging the pall of charm that had engulfed her.

  “Good!” Renni said.

  Anna staggered back a step. A flood of memories and feelings sluiced into her head as if a dam had broken inside her skull.

  Lee caught her arm. “What is it?”

  “It’s the charm.” Renni scooted forward on her rocker to pat Anna’s free hand before sliding backward on the return rock. “Or the lack of it. My guess is she’s been drowning in the stuff for weeks.”

  “They keep making me forget.” Anna’s voice quavered.

  “Let go of the clench,” Lee said.

  “No. I can’t. I’ll forget everything.” She slapped her free hand to her right shoulder and felt a hard nodule there.

  Renni’s eyes snapped open after drifting closed. “What is it?”

  “They put something in my arm.”

  “A tracker,” Lee said. “It’s standard these days.”

  Anna ground her teeth. Had the Order no limits? First kidnapping and imprisonment, and now tracking devices?

  “You can’t hold a clench forever, Anna,” Renni said, her final words slurring a little. “It’s dangerous.”

  Renni was right. A bead of sweat slid down Anna’s forehead. Drawing from herself demanded more energy than drawing from others. If she kept this up, she would pass out.

  “You know how to clench now,” Lee said. “You can do it anytime you like.”

  “What if the charm won’t let me? What if I forget how the instant I relax?”

  “That won’t happen,” Lee said.

  “You’re sure?” Anna asked.

  Lee looked pained. “No. I’m speculating. But I’m certain if you keep clenching, you’ll do yourself a mischief. It plays merry hell with your abilities when you overuse it, and you can’t draw from someone else while you’re clenching anyway.”

  “Let it go, Anna.” Renni stifled a yawn that turned Anna’s name into a soft growl.

  “They chipped me!” Tears of outrage stung Anna’s eyes.

  Lee put a hand over hers. “Please, don’t hurt yourself. Let go.”

  Anna ground her teeth but released the power. A soothing calm immediately blanketed her concern and worry, smothering them in a shared grave.

  “I take it you’ve had no contact with your folks since you got to Camp Den?” Lee asked. His gaze darted to Renni, who had leaned back in her rocker and was now snoring contentedly.

  Anna shook her head, hardly listening. She had been worried about something important a moment ago. She couldn’t remember what, but it had distressed her.

  “They have to keep security tight on Camp Den. Can’t have loose lips on cell phones cluing Society into their whereabouts. But it’s a bum deal for you recruits. I tell you what. So long as you don’t rat me out, would you like to try your folks on mine?” He pulled a phone from his pocket.

  Anna’s heart quivered in her chest. “Yes! I mean no. I can’t do that. It’s against the rules.” Her gaze skittered off the phone whenever she tried to look at it.

  “Clench,” Lee said. “Give them a call.”

  Anna let go a shuddering breath of relief when the clench worked. “Oh, thank God.”

  The phone rang ten times before the connection clicked and a ubiquitous female voice told Anna the wireless customer she was trying to reach was not available.

  “Dammit.” Anna dropped her clench. She handed the phone back to Lee without conscious thought.

  “They got email?” Lee asked, holding it out again.

  “Oh, yeah! I was so focused on calling, I didn’t think. But I can’t email my family, Lee. There are camp rules…” Anna clenched again. “Damn. I hate me on charm.”

  “Hurry,” Lee said. “You’re shaking.”

  Anna opened a dropbox website and posted a simple message asking her mom and dad to respond. They usually checked it every week or so in case she or her brother, Nate, had something to say.

  Shuddering and sweating, Anna released the clench.

  “You okay?” Lee slipped the phone from her trembling fingers.

  “I will be.” Anna hugged Lee. “Thank you.”

  The old man patted her back. “You’re welcome. I promise things are going to get better.”

  Anna placed a gentle kiss on the sleeping Renni’s papery forehead.

  “Don’t be afraid to draw on us.” Lee led her toward the door, a grandfatherly arm about her shoulders. “We’re tougher than you think.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You’re gonna need good votaries before this is through. I can feel it.”

  Anna smiled. “I think I just got some.”

  7

  Talents

  An electronic horn blasted reveille through the barracks. Several women groaned, Anna among them, but all thirty-five rolled from their narrow bunks as the overhead lights snapped on and four draw sergeants came screaming into the room.

  “Up, dressed, beds made, five minutes!” shouted one.

  “You’ve already wasted thirty seconds of my time,” screamed another.

  A third stood over a recruit who had been dilatory in rising. Though the young girl was now hurriedly folding hospital corners into the woolen blanket on her bunk, the draw sergeant bent to scream imprecations into her ear.

  Sergeant Torres remained silent. She stood by the barracks door at parade rest, surveying the mayhem with dark, inscrutable eyes.

  Anna clenched, and the charm filling her head evaporated, boiled away by seething anger. Her place in the world tumbled in on her as if she hadn’t been conscious of it, of anything, before this instant. She knelt next to her designated cot meticulously folding its scratchy woolen coverlet while strangers screamed at her. Other strangers, nefarious, mysterious, and frightening, held her family hostage while she rotted in this cage, a tracking chip in her arm. Fury did not begin to describe the rage coursing through her blood, her heart. She shot Torres a withering look, one that might have blistered the draw sergeant’s skin had she been looking Anna’s way.

  “You’ve got to stop that.” Leslie stood above Anna, putting the finishing touches on her own bunk.

  “Stop what?” Anna froze, suddenly afr
aid. Did Leslie somehow sense Anna’s clench? She trusted her friend implicitly—or would have if not for the draw sergeants’ charm drowning Leslie’s true thoughts. If she knew Anna’s secret, the charm would compel her to rat Anna out.

  “Stop baiting Torres.”

  “You mean stop resisting her mind control?”

  Leslie shrugged. She understood charm and its effects, having studied them in-depth over the past five weeks, yet she refused to believe the Order would do such a thing to their own recruits. Why bother when their underlying message served the same purpose and with lasting results?

  Military training suited Leslie, a fact that surprised her even more than it did Anna. She had taken to life at Camp Den, embracing it and the subsequent brainwashing that came with it. Not that she saw it as such. Never mind that the draw sergeants had convinced her to lie to her parents, telling them she had, on a whim, decided to quit school and join the Army. Life in the Order necessitated that sort of thing. She saw no charm behind it because she would have made that call regardless.

  But not Anna. Leslie’s father hadn’t been a paranoid doomsayer. Anna’s had. And she knew charm when she felt it.

  “It isn’t right what they’re doing.” Anna pitched her voice just loud enough for Leslie to hear over the tumult of shouting women and scrambling feet. Her hands shook from maintaining the clench. She held it long enough to cast another steely glance Torres’s way before letting it drop.

  Satterfield yelled the platoon into formation in front of the draw sergeants on Camp Den’s sprawling running track.

  Anna drew warmth against the cold weather, though she kept it subtle. Recruits weren’t supposed to draw outside of regulated hours. Torres had noticed Anna’s skin steaming last week and made the platoon do push-ups until they were a quivering, moaning mess.

  “If you’re cold, you push!” Torres had shouted as she paced through the ranks.

  Torres did not pace today. She stood on a wooden platform generally reserved for whoever was leading PT, hands on hips, scrutinizing her platoon. Her breath came out in sugary puffs. Anna suspected she was drawing warmth too.