Reluctant Psychic

by Dima Zales

  “Let me try,” Vlad says, leaning over Felix.

  His gaze turning mirrored, Vlad forces Felix’s eyelids open and stares into my friend’s rolled-back eyes.

  “Up,” Vlad orders.

  Felix stirs.

  “Good job,” Vlad says, getting back to his feet.

  “Give me a moment,” Felix croaks out. “Sasha, can you check if all the enemies are dead?”

  Is he kidding about that?

  How could anyone be alive?

  Then I get it. Felix probably wants a moment of privacy to wipe away drool, or something equally embarrassing.

  Stepping over severed heads and puddles of blood, I walk up to the only guy who doesn’t have any apparent wounds—the one hit by the Gomorrah gun.

  No pulse, no breath.

  The Gomorrah gun must send out some death ray or something. Creepy, but perhaps the perfect weapon for Felix’s delicate sensibilities.

  “Are you okay?” I call out without turning.

  “Solid as a cucumber,” Felix says, his voice sounding stronger. “We should proceed.”

  I turn just in time to see Vlad remove his helping hand from Felix’s shoulder.

  “Are you sure you want to keep going?” I ask, coming toward them. “If you faint in the middle of—”

  “I will not faint again,” Felix says, his hands clenching determinedly. “Let’s go.”

  He marches toward the next door.

  Vlad and I exchange impressed glances.

  Felix rattles the door handle.

  The door doesn’t bulge.

  Felix kicks it, the way cops do in TV shows. The door tauntingly stands as it was, but he yelps in pain, mumbling what must be Russian cuss words under his breath.

  “Let me deal with it,” Vlad says and lightly taps it as he’s been doing all along.

  The door flies in as though it was never shut to start with.

  “Before we proceed, can I ask about the horrible screaming in my ear?” I say. “It was almost scarier than those Johnnies.”

  “Johnnies?” Vlad raises an eyebrow.

  “I bet she means the hospital-gown people,” Felix says nervously—clearly trying to keep his mind off the massacre of said Johnnies behind us. “I think they call a hospital gown a johnny because they make it easier for patients to use the john. Now the reason the toilets are called johns has to do with Sir John Harrington—”

  “I’m sorry about that screaming,” Rose chimes in via the earpiece. “When I heard the gunfire and saw—”

  “It was pretty distracting, dear,” Vlad says gently. “Any chance you can abstain from doing it again?”

  “I’ll try to control myself,” Rose says. “I even scared Luci with my outburst.”

  I knew I’d heard a cat in there somewhere.

  “Tap on the earbud to mute it or turn it on,” Felix suggests a bit too forcefully. “I’ll also mute the mics on our webcams, so you don’t hear those gunshots.” Felix sends arcs of energy at our cameras. “Our earbuds are already muted.” He taps his, and the static comes on. “See?” His voice echoes in the room and in my ear. He taps his earbud again, and the static goes away.

  “I see,” Rose says. There’s a moment of static in my ear, and after a pause, it repeats again.

  “Did you hear me just then?” Rose asks.

  “No,” Felix says. “Looks like you got it.”

  The static repeats, and the earbud goes blissfully silent once more.

  Vlad gives me a look that seems to say, “And you wanted to take Rose with us.”

  “She wanted to go herself,” I’m tempted to reply. “I’d never bring her—especially now.”

  We walk into the new room in sullen silence, and I feel uneasy right away.

  There’s a red light at the end of the room.

  “Another lazy door?” Felix mutters.

  “Too bad some people’s mouths don’t have a convenient mute button,” Vlad whispers.

  I ignore them because my sense of foreboding kicks into the stratosphere, and adrenaline makes the puzzle pieces fit together in a flash of insight.

  “On the ground,” I hiss at my allies. “Now!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Matching actions to words, I drop into a pushup position on the floor.

  Vlad does the same, his movements so fast it looks like a CGI effect.

  Felix follows suit, grunting as he hits the floor. His landing might not have been as graceful as mine.

  At the same instant, machine gunfire bursts out, like some heavy-metal drums from hell.

  Thank goodness Rose is on mute right now. If I feel like screaming, she’s probably waking up the dead with her panicked yells.

  Felix points his gun up like a periscope. The screen shows the door and the wall behind us riddled with bullets.

  I swallow my heart back into my chest and exchange a grim glance with Felix.

  If we hadn’t ducked in time, we’d be dead—and even Vlad would be inconvenienced, at the very least.

  But then, could I have actually died here instead of from the admiral’s knife in my throat as my vision foretold?

  It’s possible.

  By blabbing about my vision to everyone, I could’ve easily created another one of those butterfly effects and changed the future I foresaw.

  “I’ll get them on the reload,” Vlad shouts into my ear over the noise. “Cover me!”

  The machine guns keep firing, so I have to yell into Felix’s ear. “Get ready for cover fire as soon as—”

  The gunfire stops.

  Vlad blurs into motion.

  I shoot into the darkness—aiming mainly at where Vlad shouldn’t be.

  Felix follows my lead, firing his weapon in the vague direction of our enemies.

  Before I can shoot again, I hear the sounds of spinal cords ripping, followed by blood gushing like a spray from an overzealous five-year-old’s water gun.

  The sickening copper smell is back, so I look at Felix for signs of fainting.

  I find him looking determined instead.

  “All clear,” Vlad says, appearing out of nowhere.

  We jackknife to our feet, run toward the faint red glow, and examine the carnage.

  All those bullets came from more Johnnies. Going by the severed body parts, there must have been seven—unless one of the heads rolled away into the dark.

  What I took for machine guns turn out to be AK-47 assault rifles—not that this would make us any less dead if we hadn’t hit the ground.

  “This was why Darian called,” I say, my voice unsteady as I explain my earlier eureka moment. “That’s the red light we were to be wary of.” I point at the bulb above the “NO ENTRY” door the dead guys molested earlier. “The whole ‘Use the force’ bit was advice for me. Darian wanted me to trust my seer intuition—which went through the roof when we entered this room.”

  “It fits,” Felix says, his words barely audible. “Seems like we wouldn’t have crashed at that red light, as Vlad said.”

  There’s a sound of hissing static. “Darian could’ve just said ‘watch out for AK-47s when you enter such and such room,’” Rose says in my ear, her voice now like sandpaper. “This is Fluffster complaining, and I agree with him.”

  “Seers,” Vlad says with exasperation. “They are an infuriating lot.”

  I choose not to get offended and instead ponder if I should swap my gun for an assault rifle.

  “They don’t have any more ammo,” Vlad says when I share my idea with him.

  “Crap.” I look at the rifle next to my feet with disappointment. “I only have the one magazine.”

  Vlad shrugs as a hiss of static informs us that Rose is back on mute.

  I do a quick mental count. I have thirteen out of my fifteen rounds left, which isn’t that bad.

  “Do you have to make this much of a mess?” I ask Vlad, mostly to lighten the somber mood. “Felix is trying not to faint.”

  Before Vlad can reply, halogen lights come t
o life in the neighboring room.

  Someone decided the darkness isn’t an advantage against us, after all.

  We exchange grim looks and cautiously enter the stadium-sized, lit-up room.

  “What the hell?” Felix asks, articulating my thoughts exactly.

  The room is filled with hospital beds. Hundreds of them. On each bed is a Johnny hooked up to an IV, with a feeding tube going up his nose and sunglasses covering his eyes.

  “All men,” I whisper. “Someone is not an equal-opportunity employer. Assuming the Johnnies are actually employed to be on life-support, that is.”

  There’s sudden static in my earbud. “Maybe this is where Baba Yaga keeps her wounded minions?” Rose suggests. “Though that doesn’t explain how the ones who shot at you ran about.” The static repeats.

  “How big would her organization need to be if they get so many injured as part of their day-to-day operations?” Felix replies. “Unless they’re at war with a bunch of other gangs?”

  The static comes on again. “Fluffster thinks the room looks like a hospital housing an aftermath of a war between a bunch of different gangs,” Rose says, “and I agree with him.” The static shows up again, silencing Rose’s earbud.

  This static situation could get as annoying as her screaming.

  Vlad stops walking and stares at the far corner of the room, his posture suddenly tense.

  A slender, dangerously handsome man is whooshing toward us—with a speed that rivals Vlad’s. His shoulder-length jet-black hair rustles behind him as he glides in our direction, and his marble-green eyes glint maliciously.

  I stop in my tracks. “That’s Koschei. He’s Baba Yaga’s lieutenant.”

  Static shows up again. “Are you sure he works for her, and not the other way around?” Rose asks. “Fluffster says Koschei features in as many Russian fairy tales as Baba Yaga.”

  “I know who and what this is,” Vlad says grimly, stepping in front of us. “You need to run. Right now.”

  “Where?” I look around the room. There are many doors around the giant space.

  “Use your power to figure it out.” Vlad blurs into motion in the direction of Koschei.

  I hesitate, unwilling to leave an ally to fight alone. Given his Mandate aura, Koschei is clearly one of the Cognizant, and Vlad said he wouldn’t kill our kind, which might give Koschei a huge advantage in this fight.

  Since I made no such pledge, I aim my gun at Koschei and see Felix do the same in my peripheral vision. Like me, Felix must’ve realized we could shoot Koschei before Vlad has to deal with him. I just hope Felix also realizes we’ll be in trouble with the Council if we succeed.

  I shoot.

  Rose yelps like a stabbed pig. She’s clearly forgotten to mute her gizmo.

  My bullet hits Koschei in the chest.

  The thin man doesn’t even slow down.

  Felix shoots next.

  On the screen of his gun, the blast hits Koschei in the head, but this doesn’t slow him either.

  In an eyeblink, Vlad and Koschei face each other chest to chest, like two roosters ready for a fight.

  I lower my gun; I’d risk shooting Vlad if I continued.

  Koschei punches Vlad in the chest, and the vampire slides back a few yards from the impact, though he remains on his feet.

  I aim for Koschei, but Vlad leaps back at him before I can fire.

  Moving like a video on fast forward, Vlad closes the distance and punches his opponent in the face.

  Koschei’s head snaps back as though it met Mike Tyson’s and Muhammad Ali’s fists at the same time—which isn’t surprising when I think about what happened to all the doors Vlad had merely tapped.

  Moving faster still, Vlad whooshes behind the dazed Koschei and grabs him in a headlock.

  With a crunch, Koschei’s head twists in the most unnatural direction; if he were able to look down again, he’d see his own back.

  Vlad lets go of his now-limp opponent, and Koschei slumps to the ground like a sack of rotten potatoes.

  “So much for not killing another Cognizant,” I mutter as I watch Koschei’s aura flicker and disappear.

  “What are you still doing here?” Vlad says without lifting his gaze from the dead man’s body in front of him. “I told you to—”

  A flash of purple energy surrounds Koschei, and when it dissipates, his Mandate aura is back.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I resist the urge to rub my eyes.

  The head that was twisted backward only a second ago starts to turn back with a nauseating creak. Then a bullet falls out of Koschei’s chest and hits the ground with a metallic clink.

  “Was that my bullet?” I ask in disbelief. “And did he just come back to life?”

  “They call him Koschei the Immortal for a reason,” Rose whispers in my ear. “You better leave. Vlad might be busy for a while, and Ariel still needs to be rescued.” The static shows up this time.

  Good. She remembered to mute herself.

  Before I can reply, Koschei gets back on his feet, his movements eerily reminiscent of old-movie Nosferatu rising from a coffin.

  Out of the two of them, shouldn’t it be Vlad doing that?

  As soon as Koschei is on his feet, he swings a fist at Vlad. Vlad dodges the punch, grabs his opponent’s wrist, and snaps his arm in two.

  Something in my peripheral vision catches my attention.

  One of the gown-clad goons must’ve come out of his coma because he’s sitting upright in his bed. Moving with jerky, exaggerated motions, he tears the IV from his vein. Then, seemingly oblivious to the blood streaming from his arm, he rips the feeding tube from his nose and swings his bare feet to the floor.

  Though his eyes are blocked by sunglasses, he seems to be looking my way.

  In an adjacent bed, another gown-clad guy does the same thing, except once he’s up, he runs in Vlad’s direction.

  “Vlad, watch out!” I yell. “Felix, let’s go.” I grab Felix by the arm and pull him with me as I start to run.

  The adrenaline in my system seems to sharpen my intuition. I become certain which door to take—though, unfortunately, it’s one of the farthest ones.

  Naked feet slap against the floor behind us.

  I turn to see the first-to-get-up goon chasing us and shoot him in the torso.

  He falls, but two more goons get up from their hospital beds ahead of us, their uncut toenails scraping across the cement floor.

  I shoot one, and Felix takes care of another.

  Sparing a glance at Vlad, I catch him ripping a leg off of his gown-clad attacker and clubbing Koschei over the head with it.

  Koschei staggers, and Vlad leaps at him, ripping his heart out.

  Literally.

  Somehow, the guy who lost his leg has a high enough pain tolerance and immunity to blood loss to try to claw at Vlad from the floor. Vlad tosses Koschei’s heart at him, then follows with a few devastating stomps that turn the man into a mound of gore.

  At the same exact time, Koschei’s aura dims as his body slumps to the floor.

  A second later, the purple shimmer surrounds him again, and this time, I know he won’t stay down for long. “Don’t look there,” I warn Felix as I look away myself. “Vlad is doing his thing.”

  Felix doesn’t look anywhere but the door as we pick up our pace.

  A couple of bare-assed Johnnies get in our way, and we shoot them almost at the same time.

  Felix’s Johnny falls down.

  The one I shot loses a part of his face, but keeps running for us.

  I shoot him again—and Felix does as well.

  The man falls down.

  What are these guys? And if they’re human, what was in those IV bags? Pure meth?

  Jumping over the two bodies, Felix reaches the door first, pulls on it, and grunts in frustration. “It’s locked.”

  Should I shoot the lock?

  I have nine rounds left, but even without my powers, I suspect I might need every single one. There a
re hundreds of hospital beds around this room alone, and each body on them is a potential threat.

  “Cover me,” I tell Felix, and without waiting to see if he will comply, I pull out the picks from my tongue and start working on the lock.

  The door yields quickly, but Felix still manages to put down a couple of attackers in the time it takes me to jimmy the lock open.

  We go through the door and find ourselves in a long hallway.

  A Johnny runs into the hallway after us, gets Felix’s death ray in the head, and falls down.

  Another one takes his place, and Felix and I aim at him.

  The door at the other end of the hallway screeches open, so I let Felix take care of the other attacker and spin on my heel to confront the new threat.

  As I feared, another Johnny storms in from the other side of the hallway.

  “Back to back,” I command and press my sweaty back to Felix’s even sweatier one.

  Felix’s back muscles spasm, and the Gomorra gun beeps softly.

  I raise my gun.

  The guy in front of me speeds up.

  With no time to aim, I point at him and squeeze the trigger.

  The bullet hits my attacker in the eye. What’s left of his sunglasses flies to the side, exposing something odd.

  The eye I shot is gone, which is disturbing but understandable. However, I can’t think of a reason why the other eye looks as though it’s filled with black energy. There’s no white in this eye at all.

  He keeps running.

  How does this guy see where I am with those messed-up eyes?

  For that matter, how is he still running?

  Not waiting for the universe to answer, I shoot again.

  The bullet hits his leg.

  Blood gushes from the wound, but my attacker keeps moving forward—now with a limp slowing his progress.

  I spasmodically squeeze the trigger once more.

  This bullet hits him in the stomach and rips through the intestines. Some of them come out, but he still keeps coming at me, leaving a bloody trail in his wake.

  Gasping out a breath, I press the trigger.

  No new wounds.

  Adrenaline focuses all my attention on aiming the gun. The hallway seems to turn into a tunnel as I channel all my recent target practice into this shot, pointing the gun at where I hope his heart will be.