by Dyanne Davis
As he focused his energy the feeling became stronger until at last he was on his feet, standing, moving forward without wanting to, yet drawn to someone’s pain. His hand moved unobtrusively through the air. Since finding his mother he was discovering new powers he’d never known he possessed.
He smiled to himself, the thought that he had only to put out his hand and connect with someone's energy surprising. After a lifetime of dealing with the unexplained, he was comfortable with his gift of clairaudience. He didn’t have a name for this newest emerging gift.
The best way he could explain it was mining for energy. He used his hands much the same as he used his mind when speaking to those who had departed this life and were waiting. He focused.
Suddenly he stopped walking, his eyes landing on a woman of petite stature. Even from a sitting position he could tell she was short. He stood over the woman perusing her body in a quick perfunctory manner. She was slender also. His gaze fell on the woman’s curly, dark brown hair and a lump formed in his throat.
Blaine stepped back as an irresistible urge to reach out and touch her clutched at his throat. It took all his psychic energy to resist the pull. A tightening began in his groin. Good Lord, not now. He panicked and moved backwards down the aisle. No woman had ever affected him so quickly.
“What is it that you want?”
Blaine stopped his backwards descent and looked down into the biggest pair of chocolate brown eyes he’d ever seen. For a moment he thought his heart would stop. Despite the woman’s cold stare he felt drawn to her.
The sadness that had emanated from her to bring him to her now washed over him in waves. He clicked his tongue against his teeth trying to feel the woman’s energy.
She’d placed a block to keep him out. Damn. That had never happened before.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “My name’s Blaine MaDia.” He smiled at the woman while his skin began a slow crawl of awareness. It wasn’t so much her looks as her aura. In looks she was ordinary with the exception of her eyes. It was the woman’s aura that held an intense fascination for Blaine.
“I’m sorry, Mr. MaDia. Am I supposed to know you?”
Blaine tried again to probe gently at the woman’s thoughts. When that didn’t work he tried more aggressively, but still she held out against him, blocking any entrance. This stirred his curiosity making him wonder what it was the woman was hiding so possessively that she’d thrown up a shield against a stranger.
“Mr. MaDia, did you want something?”
Now he was standing there feeling like a fool, his own psyche open for probing, his defenses weakened. He knew better than to continue with his questions, yet he felt compelled to press on. Never in all the years since Blaine became a professional psychic had he ever used that gift to seek out females, or to impress. He was now embarrassed and could feel the flush of that embarrassment with the next words he uttered.
“I’m Blaine MaDia, the psychic on television.” He gulped. The woman appeared unimpressed. “I was just walking, I didn’t want anything.” Blaine continued. Still nothing. The woman simply stared at him, her deep-set chocolate eyes turning to liquid cocoa. Now besides wanting to touch her, Blaine wanted to stand there and take a long drink from her eyes.
“I don’t know you, Mr. MaDia and I don’t mean to appear rude, but I’m very tired. I paid for two first class seats so I wouldn’t be disturbed.” She tilted her head slightly letting Blaine know she wanted him to leave.
“Sorry I bothered you,” he murmured and turned to walk back to his seat. He paused and stuck out his hand toward the woman. “Nice to meet you Miss…Miss…”
He waited for an acknowledgment and a name, but the woman looked at him with mere curiosity, ignored his outstretched hand and cast her gaze back on the book in her hand.
Surely the woman had to be a psychic, Blaine thought. In the very least, she was familiar with psychic gifts because she was using them so effectively to keep him out. And he wanted in.
He set back in his seat amused and peeved. He was behaving like a hormonal teenager, trying to impress a girl into giving him her name. Still, knowing something and having emotional feelings about it were two different things.
The very thought of not knowing bugged him, when less than an hour ago all he had wanted was to be able to tune out the emotions and the thoughts of the people around him. Now, more than anything, he wanted to know what the woman four rows ahead of him was thinking. And why she’d thrown up a defense against him.
Blaine took his glasses from the perched position on the bridge of his nose and folded them into the clear plastic container that hung around his neck. He smiled to himself. He loved the three inch case and the glasses that bent like spaghetti to fit into the case. He’d found them at a cheap boutique and thought they were cool.
He gazed around the cabin ignoring an inner command to rest. Sure he knew what he was doing. He knew that soon everyone in his section would recognize him and they would ask for readings. There would be a flurry of activity. Something in his experience no woman could let slide. Then, he thought, the woman with the chocolate eyes would drop her defenses.
He was fully aware his thoughts and actions were wrong. He had no right to violate another person’s mind without their explicit invitation. And the code of conduct governing legitimate psychics prohibited such behavior. Still, he found himself smiling at no one in particular.
The need to know this woman was erasing his moral code. It only took a moment and a bit of gentle mental persuasion before the passenger across the aisle turned to him.
“Aren’t you Blaine MaDia?”
“That’s right I am.”
“Wow. I can’t believe it. I’ve been watching you on television for over a year and listening to you on the radio. I heard you wrote a book. Is it out yet?”
“No, it will be out in a month or so. Thanks for the support.”
Blaine smiled more deeply at the man, resisting the urge for further tampering. He could easily give the man a hypnotic suggestion to carry the fuss up an octave or two, but that wouldn’t be necessary. Nor did he want to cross any more barriers than necessary.
Soon everyone in the first class section were clamoring, begging Blaine for a reading, telling him how much they admired him, watched him, believed him. Everyone that is with the exception of the lone woman occupying two seats.
Blaine tried again. She kept the invisible fence around her thoughts. In fact she’d fortified it and this time he knew it wasn’t to keep out a stranger. This time it was personal. It had been structured to keep him out.
Taking out a small piece of paper from the notepad he always kept tucked in his shirt pocket he scribbled a few words on it and handed the note to the passing flight attendant who wrote on it and gave it back.
Cassandra Boozer. Smiling his thanks at the woman he handed her his card. “Call me. I owe you one.”
He didn’t care that the woman thought it odd that he didn’t just approach his fellow passenger, or as most people thought, his being a psychic he should automatically know the name of every person he met.
Sure that happened on occasion, but most of the times it didn’t. Sometimes there was someone with such a strong personality that they would literally shout their name into his subconscious, much like the spirits he preferred to deal with.
There was only one other woman, one other person period that had ever had a draining effect on him. And that woman was his mother from his only other lifetime. This feeling he had for this woman was extremely weak compared to the massive energized connection that had summoned him to his mother’s side.
Still as weak as it was, Blaine was intrigued. He didn’t feel she was someone from his past, either in this life or the one before it, but there was something about the woman and for some reason he knew he wanted to know her.
He stopped the thought as quickly as it had come wondering if it had anything to do with the cryptic message his mother’s shadow self had delivered to
him. He remembered Michelle’s words clearly now. “You’ll find someone son.”
Could this Cassandra Boozer, the mysterious woman who feigned no interest in him or his reputation be the one he was looking for? He thought of her disinterested voice and cold stare. If she was the one, Blaine sure as hell hoped that her demeanor was just a psychic front. He had no wish to become involved with a woman with ice in her veins. No, with a woman like that he would only offer his professional services.
Again he felt the sudden tightening in his pants and lowered the paper he was reading to cover the bulge. Oh yeah, he thought, All I want to give her is professional services. With nothing left to do he decided to return to his seat and catch a quick nap.