Blood

by Kay Williams

  “Stop trying to do and just do it.”

  “That makes no sense,” Carson huffed but his arms slipped around my waist and his chin came to rest on my shoulder, his cheek just grazing mine, a little skin to skin contact was all it took for Carson’s tension to unwind and for his body to relax. “Cheater.”

  I had never taught anything before and I wasn’t relishing finding out I was impatient and scornful when he failed, being tactile was the least I could do to make up for my unhelpful remarks.

  I reached forward and picked the pen up with my hand, squeezing it so tightly I knew he would be able to taste the thread of pain the pressure brought.

  “What am I doing?”

  “Holding the pen.”

  I opened and closed my fist and couple of times.

  “What am I doing?”

  “Gripping the pen.”

  I put it back down on the table.

  “So to lift it telekinetically, you have to?”

  “Grip it.”

  “Right. Close your eyes and picture your room,” I watched Carson close his eyes as he was told to and frown a little as he tried to picture everything in his mind's eye. “Take your room apart, get rid of anything you don’t want to move, black it all out until there is dead space and only the pen left. Imagine how it feels in your hands, the ridges of the hexagon shape, the smooth plastic, its cool exterior, imagine how it feels when you reach out and take hold of it in your hand, the pressure you can apply, the relative give to the casing, hold it with your thoughts and pick it up.”

  Carson lifted his chin off my shoulder and pressed his face there instead, cutting off his need to see what he was doing and concentrate.

  The pen dragged a short way across the table before it eased up into the air, almost as if fingers had dragged it against a waiting palm and rolled the pen against flesh until the fingers could grip it.

  “See,” I complimented him with a nudge. “Easy.”

  Carson lifted his face up and his cheeks hollowed again, this time in delight at the pen sitting a few inches above the table.

  “I haven’t tried to grip it before,” he confessed. “I just kept commanding it to rise.”

  “It’s a hard thing for me to try and teach,” I replied, picking up my mug and enjoying the fading warmth against my hands while sipping at it. “I never had to really learn, it was just something I knew how to do.”

  “How old were you when they kicked in?”

  “Eight,” I said. “I lost my colour pencil under the television set, it was just out of reach, and then it wasn’t.”

  “Abstracts are genetic though, so Mum or Dad?”

  “I have to assume Dad because my mum wasn’t but I never knew him, and Mum would never tell me who my father was.”

  Carson winced and graciously didn’t ask for details.

  “Did you tell her straight away?”

  “I said I was eight,” I replied then remembered who I was speaking to, to a man several hundred years old, eight must seem very young and a very long time ago. “I told her at first, and she would have her friends around and I would display for them.”

  “She showed you off?” Carson snarled and cuddled me deeper into his arms.

  “When I was twelve and I got old enough to understand what she was doing I told her they were fading and I couldn’t focus, she thought I was bluffing so I deliberately dropped a very expensive crystal tea set. The trouble I got into was worth it when she didn’t ask me about them again.”

  “How powerful are you, Hannah?”

  “Enough that I have no fear when stepping into Night Terrors.”

  “You are being evasive again. I didn’t ruin our trust with Valdine, did I?”

  “No. I understand why you did it. Maybe I wouldn’t have been quite so forgiving if we hadn’t had the bagel talk.”

  “Why won’t you tell me how powerful you are?”

  “Because I don’t know the answer, Anthony. Everything I have put my mind and abstract to I have had success with. I don’t know if there is a limit to it.”

  “I told Valdine about how it converts spare food into fuel, he is hoping that that isn’t genetic, a blood substitute is no good if we have to feed twice as often, but he won’t know anything until he gets it under the microscope.”

  “Valdine sounds very dedicated to his task.”

  “After so many years it gets difficult to find purpose in anything,” Carson said. “When we find something to do it does usually end up becoming more of an obsession than a hobby.”

  “I hope that I'm not either of those things.”

  “Of course not. Not yet anyway.”

  “Thanks!” I complained.

  Carson smiled and I felt the shape of it against my cheek, I felt the subtle threads of his Bespelling starting to sink beneath my skin.

  “That’s cheating.”

  “Make that sound like a complaint and I’ll take it back.”

  I wanted to, but I couldn’t so I just relaxed deeper into his hold, allowed his Bespelling to lick across my skin, I didn’t protest when he sank in his teeth but it felt different his time, without his bloodlust pushing his dominant side and without the pull on my blood the wound as he fed.

  When I tried to encourage him to feed, he withdrew and refused, not so soon after the last time, not when I was still drained and I had made a promise of a sample to Valdine, but he did smile and said he would feed again. But only when I was fit enough to run.

  # # #

  It was almost ten when Carson had finally dropped me home but only after he had managed to lift one end of the coffee table off the floor. It was frustrating for me to see him struggle with something I could do without thinking. I wondered if his inability was from lack of practice or from the constant breakdown of my blood in his system. Would he had been stronger if he had used the abstract the instant he had taken my blood rather than falling into a stupor the potency of it had brought on?

  I opened my front door, my small flat was nothing like Carson’s four bedroom monster. The door opened straight into the living room with a set of windows in the opposite wall, to the left was the door to the bedroom and bathroom and to the right was the kitchen built into an alcove.

  I had never met anyone, in a personal or professional sense, who understood my small home; the walls were covered in replica prints of Pre-Pause art. The cabinet was a fully restored nineteenth-century Queen Anne, the dolls in my bedroom ranged from the nineteenth to twenty-second century, the most modern things in my whole flat were the kitchen appliances, my television, computer and phone.

  A colleague had once told me I had been born in the wrong era, he had meant it as a joke but it had hurt then and it hurts now. I wasn’t Pre-Pause in my thinking or in my state of living, but history had been both a hobby and a passion for as long as I could remember. I had always loved old things from fossils to family heirlooms right through to paintings, craftsmanship, music, books and toys from both sides of the Nexus.

  There was something about things that endured past their creator, things that travelled and inspired generation after generation until they weren’t just artefacts anymore but pieces of history that could be touched.

  What greater honour was there in people hundreds of years in the future looking back at one's accomplishments and not only finding them as beautiful as you did but wanting to replicate your style, or learn your techniques?

  Favlas may have Eternal races whose knowledge and experiences could span hundreds of years but what was the point in all that time useless you had something to show for it?

  I wasn’t fooling myself, or anyone; I had no creative talent, I doubted that a hundred years from now people would remember my name, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t collect and restore the kind of things that would inspire future generations.

  People often said that you don’t know where you are going, until you know where you have been. It was a sentiment that held true in trade and any kind of creative outlet, un
til you know what people had done before, and you had mastered the old techniques and skills, then you couldn't make up new ones of your own.

  I crossed to the window and unlocked it, opening it a fraction, even in the middle of winter I had it open a crack for an hour or so to let some fresh air in.

  I took off my computer bag, collapsed down onto the couch, and didn’t want to move, it had been a long week and an even stranger couple of days. I was grateful for the Pause Festival and the time away from the office so I could invest in some rest and relaxation.

  The sound of the window being eased up had my heart lurching and caused me to automatically throw up a shield and spin towards the window to take in a pair of black gloves. The only thing that stopped me bringing the window back down on the intruder, or seizing hold of the hands with my ability and unhooking the fingers, was the fact the

  gloves were followed by an impeccable suit.

  My mouth fell open and then worked like a goldfish gasping for air as Henry Heronsgate pulled himself into my apartment.

  He closed the window and dusted his gloved hands off.

  “Sorry for the overly dramatic entrance. Thanks for not throwing anything at me.”

  My step-father had once taught me that when I was faced with something mentally challenging, or with a surprise so large I couldn’t get my thoughts in order, then I should take a deep breath and a minute to count my blessings.

  Over the years his keen advice had worked wonders.

  The breath was to counter the fact that when I got stressed I tended to hold mine or just hyperventilate.

  The minute to count my blessings was to get my mind out of its short-circuited state and reminded me I had plenty to be thankful for no matter how this situation went.

  I took a slow deep breath.

  I tried to think of a blessing, but this last week had left me with nothing but questions, confusion and worry.

  “Miss Roberts, are you okay?”

  It was at moments like this that I wished I could get drunk.

  “No. How did you do that?”

  “I can fly,” he confessed. “It's part of my abstract.”

  He dragged a hand back through his hair, a classic sign of frustration that I actually found quite soothing to watch.

  “I am sorry,” he repeated himself. “I’m just here to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “You,” he replied surprise leaking into his tone. “Your talent.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “You are telekinetic.”

  I was grateful he kept his voice down even as a wail threatened to rise up in my own throat. Did everyone know now?

  “I picked up on your thoughts,” he apologised.

  “You read my thoughts? How many abstracts do you have?”

  “I don't listen deliberately!” He protested in a very offended tone. “People's thoughts are like radio waves, there are hundreds of frequencies. I can block a lot of it out but sometimes random thoughts sneak in.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Look, what I have picked up inclines me to believe that you are powerful, honest and caring. The point I am trying to make is that you aren’t alone, Miss Roberts.”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Thank you.”

  Heronsgate sat down on one of the stools that ran along a counter; I fetched a couple of glasses and the carton of orange juice from the fridge. I was surprised when he savoured his first mouthful, it was hardly a warm night.

  “We were a bit worried when you left the museum tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “Aside Cornwall’s admission and the fact the man you left with looked twice your age?”

  “It’s hardly Simon's fault my abstract scares him is it? I didn’t even know I was doing that.”

  “I know. I heard your shock, if you don’t mind me saying so though, is it such a surprise? From what I have picked up you are quite adamant about staying hidden and you get particularly closed off at the idea of having to prove yourself.”

  “My mother was fond of showing me off. I grew to dislike it.”

  “As would anyone with a conscious,” Heronsgate agreed. “I know that I work my way out of any friendship where the other party is more concerned with the movements of my stock options than in me.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’ve met so many nice people, like Cornwall, it's not pleasant to discover that my subconscious automatically chooses to repel them just in case, and I don’t know how I’m doing it, how do I stop using my abstract when I had no idea it was engaged?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just consciously thinking about giving people a chance will help.”

  “At least I’ll be able to guilt Simon into being my guinea pig. Even if he would be unaware of the fact.”

  “He likes you a lot, that’s half the problem, he’s afraid and he doesn’t know why and his animal reacts and it pushes one too many buttons, on the plus side he does seem determined to get over it.”

  “You can read his mind too?”

  “Wildlings? No, but when he decided to get himself drunk and confess his woes I was there to listen,”

  “Did you take pictures?” I asked, Cornwall drunk sounded kind of amusing.

  “No,” Heronsgate chuckled. “And I don't think your abstract pushes everyone away. I never felt like it, neither did Ryan.”

  “I put your assistant off though didn’t I?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it!” Heronsgate chuckled. “I can’t read him either because he is a magic user but we spend so much time together in and out of work I thought I knew him, but I have never seen him approach a girl before, never seen him so nervous and then in the space of a couple of minutes his whole personality shifted.”

  I remembered thinking that he represented everything that would cause me heart-break the next morning and not to get too involved with him and from then on he had withdrawn and didn’t bother to hide his disapproval.

  “It’s been a very bad week.”

  “Not all bad, Ryan was quite taken with you.”

  “Oh?”

  “He has plans to introduce you to his son and everything.”

  I had to pause a minute to take in the fact that I was being teased by Henry Heronsgate.

  “Remind me to avoid that meeting until I’ve got my abstract under control.”

  “I don’t think the fear factor affects others like us.”

  “Are you outing them?”

  “Ryan already knows I’m here, we’ve known each other a while. He isn't an abstract but his children are.”

  I remembered being surprised that I had gotten along so well with Harper, but he was

  nowhere near my age and so I hadn't bothered being worried about him the same way as I had avoided Adams's overture of friendship.

  “I know his daughter, Sarah, does have an abstract. She is lazy with it though which is disappointing, so I can only assume that his son does as well, but I've never met Freddie. I promised to ask about the man twice your age?”

  “Anthony is Dependant he is more like eight times my age. Possibly more.”

  “Really?” Heronsgate sat back looking a bit shocked and I belatedly realised that he had just as much right to know why I had left with Carson.

  “Have you ever shared blood?”

  “No. Eternal business moves slower than mortal and they don’t really get involved with motor sport.”

  “I have, with Anthony, the reason he wanted to see me tonight was because after he had fed he not only absorbed my blood, but my abstract as well.”

  Heronsgate paled slightly.

  “Genetically speaking its not that surprising,” he managed finally. “But in a practical sense? I had no idea they would be able to.”

  “Me neither, and thankfully Anthony, as it turns out, is on the Dependant Council and was more concerned with issuing me a warning than taking advantage.”

  “But it’s a warning
that should be spread,” Heronsgate finished.

  “Your visit is very timely,” I agreed.

  “I’ll get the word out,” Heronsgate nodded. “Will we see you again?”

  “Highly doubtful,” I replied, there wasn't anything coming up in my future where I was sure that someone with his money and status would mix with mine.

  “You are going to break Ryan’s heart,” Heronsgate teased again.

  I left him finishing his juice while I grabbed my bag and found a couple of personal cards offering them to him.

  “Just in case.”

  “Thanks,” he took them, sliding them into the inner pocket of his jacket.

  “If you need anything.”

  “I’ll call,” he replied. “It was nice to see you again, Miss Roberts.”

  “And you.”

  Heronsgate opened the window and with a wave goodbye launched himself out into the night. I closed the window and watched him go, he was fast enough to be nothing more than a dark blur in the night. I wondered what it was like to be able to free fly like that, as a telekinetic I could make things fly but the whole idea of a broomstick looked so uncomfortable I had never given it a proper try.

  # # #

  The day was bright and warm for April, a fair came through the Portal in Hyde Park and spread themselves on the banks of the Serpentine and through the trees.

  It fitting that the fair should set themselves up in the shadow of the Pause Memorial Wall. Each stone slab was two-foot square and each had a single name inscribed on it, a tribute to all those who had died or gone missing during the upheaval.

  I loved the fair, the brightly coloured tents, the mix of magic and potions balanced with the efficiency of Fusion generated power.

  The stalls and theatre events, the animals and displays.

  It was a circus, a bazaar and a school.

  I wandered the stalls enjoying the atmosphere and candyfloss.

  The weight of my computer satchel reminded me I could be called upon at any minute and dragged back to the office so I couldn’t go into a show, but there was still plenty to see to keep me occupied while I tried to forget Carson’s warning and just relax. Which, I admitted to myself, was very difficult when my every move was shadowed by a thin man who looked in his thirties, wearing a plain pair of jeans and a tee shirt.