by Nat Kennedy
“Can be a drag,” he said.
“So, are you heading home?” she asked.
Reggie instinctively stiffened, then shrugged away his outward concern. She knew this was the way to his house? This woman creeped him out. Was probably a mentalist. He tightened his Mind Shield, imagined blocks of stone surrounding his inner thoughts. Layers and layers of bulwark.
“Sandra. Did you press charges against me?”
He studied her face. Her smile actually brightened before she tampered it down. “What charges, professor?”
“Playing the dumb blond doesn't suit you. You were one of my brighter students, so I don't see why you'd resort to making up lies like a little girl to get attention.”
Confusion and hurt crossed her face. Reggie's certainty wobbled. What if he was wrong?
“Professor, I'm going to go now. I hope you have a better week.” She turned, swiveling slowly on the heel of her sneaker as she kept her gaze on him. At the last minute, he saw it, that light in her eyes, the quirk to her lips. What a showman.
“I have a BWS agent who is a very close friend who said she'd check you out. She's great at distance and not far away.”
Sandra glanced at him over her shoulder. “Nobody's great at distance, and I've nothing to worry about. I didn't do anything.”
Reggie pulled out his phone and tapped on the keys. He wasn't texting anyone, but Sandra didn't know that. Instead, he set his phone to record.
“Stop that,” Sandra said. “Nobody is good at distance.”
Reggie held the young woman's eyes. “My friend's a class 3 mind-reader. Now, tell me everything, or I let her know to come on down and find out the truth. I hear being mind scrubbed by an agent is a lot like drowning in the surf. Wanna try it?”
Sandra's lighthearted smile twisted into something corrupted by hate. They said women Wielders didn't have Taint or madness, but Reggie found no matter a Nerve connection or not, some people simply wanted to poison the world with their own vitriol. With her teeth bared and her nose scrunched, she leveled loathing at him like a red hot iron. Reggie felt himself losing his balance. He flailed his arms as he began to rise from the ground; the smell of wood smoke saturated the air. A Tracer that could disappear in campgrounds and cold fall days.
“Attacking with the Nerve!” he called out, his panic not faked. “The agent will love to know this about you.”
“My word against yours, you idiot.”
He hit a few buttons, sending the first recording to Beth's email, then set it to record again. “I'm the idiot? I'm recording this. You're trapped, Sandra. You're a selfish brat. How did you get those other women to join you?”
“Screw you!”
The focus of the lift shifted and Reggie fell through the air, certain he would crash into the dirt five feet below, but the lift grabbed his foot and he dangled there. The force jerked him around and he lost his grip on the phone. It bounced against the hard packed soil.
Just great.
“Why would you do this to me? Why try to ruin me?” He scanned for his phone, but couldn't find it. His sister might get the recording in time, but without any idea where he was, the cavalry wasn't coming to his rescue. But they were in a well-attended public park, someone would come along, call the BWS, take this crazy Wielder down.
On the weekend before Thanksgiving break.
This area of town was nearly deserted, plus the evening held the bite of winter. Ah crap. Someone had to have a dog that needed walking.
“Stop following me. Stop threatening me,” she screamed.
Reggie coughed, it wasn't easy getting air. Charred wood scent made his eyes search for a fire; the entire park smelled like it had been set ablaze.
“That won't fly. And as you know, it's my way home.” He gasped. He needed air. Tensing his abs, he tried to curl himself upright. Blood pounded in his head. “And you've already cried wolf once. Put me down, Sandra.” With his wheezing voice, his command didn't hold much steel. “Let's talk. You're not going to kill me and you're a bender, not a mentalist. You can't muck up my memories.”
His elevation shifted. A quick up and down, up and down, like she was shaking him up to explode. His body jerked and bounced. His head snapped.
“Stop it! Stop attacking me with the Nerve!” Maybe someone would hear. Someone would come.
Sandra let him go. His shoulders hit first, then his head.
Chapter 9
He lay there, eyes closed. Flashes of pain drummed over his body.
A shoe scuffed against pavement. A release of breath. The wind shifted the denuded branches and evergreen boughs. He focused on the sounds, waiting for the pain to mellow out. Using a trick his sister taught him, Reggie shored up his mind against the ache in his shoulder. It was dulling now. Nothing so overpowering. His heart boosted adrenaline through his body, and he tried to calm it down. He breathed in, and out.
He opened his eyes to smooth, hard packed earth. His cell was nowhere in sight. Sandra stood nearby. He wondered if she was worried he was dead.
“Assault with the Nerve,” he said.
“Nobody will believe you.” Her voice was quiet, light, as if not wanting to leave an imprint in the world.
Stupid, privileged woman.
“My sister is BWS. My overprotective older sister. She will believe me, and the agency will follow.” He felt heavy. He pushed himself up to sitting and rubbed at his shoulders. He would be sore for a week at least.
“I would suggest you visit a center and learn to rein in your temper.” He craned his head, his stiffness limiting his range. She stood there, mouth pressed in a thin line with an emotional tempest brewing about her. She did not look at him. She did not walk away. “A Wielder with a temper, who would lash out in violence. That's a danger.”
“I'm sorry, Professor Wolfe. I didn't mean—” She shuddered as she sucked in some air. Her entire body was stone-still, except for the movement of her eyes. Up in the tree canopy, down the trail, along the pavement, then finally on him. “Are you okay?”
“No. You nearly juiced me with the Nerve.” He stared at her, forced her to look at him. “You could have broken my neck, Sandra.”
“I didn't want to do that.” Her voice was shrinking, fading, like her body. Folding in on itself.
“I know, but you reacted without thought and you've too much power to be so irresponsible. You cannot do these things, or people will think you're skell.”
She snapped to attention. “I'm no skell, only men are skell. Do not include me in any category with them.” Her pretty face had gone ugly with bared teeth and bitter denial.
“Oh yes, you can go skell.” He forced his tone level though he wanted to point and scream “Bigot!” “Only not from the Nerve, but from the power. Megalomania is just as readily a mental disease.” Legs wobbly, he pushed himself to his feet and brushed a smear of dirt off his hip, catching the sight of his phone under a salal bush. He wondered if it was a lump of garbage or still recording.
She shook her head at him, taking a step away. “I'm no skell. I'm not.”
Reggie studied her. A young woman, smart and attractive, one of the blessed who could pluck the Nerve of the World, and so desperate. Desperate for attention. Desperate for acceptance.
“Sandra. I need you to help me with something.” His shoulder ached, and he wondered if this was worth it. Sandra might not be able to help him, and then he'd have to find another Wielder... other than his sister.
Sandra's eyes went wide, a little unnerved. “What do you want? Is this blackmail?”
He walked toward her, limping. He'd smacked his hip hard and each step called up a slash of pain through his lower back. “You would know, wouldn't you?”
“What do you want?”
In the distance a car honked. When the noised died, no other sounds stirred the park. “I've a friend in trouble, with the Mara Murda cult. I need to know where they are.”
“Yeah, so... what do you want me to do?”
“Fi
nd out where they are.”
Her head jerked up; she gaped at him. “What? Me? Why would I have a clue how to find them?”
“My sister did a background check on you. I know your mother was involved in the cults.”
“But that... that was not supposed to.... How did...? She's not involved in those crime cults. Those skell cults.”
Reggie sneered at his student. For this woman, he had no compassion. “I need to know where the Mara Murda are. I know they are somewhere on Steptoe. Find them. I want the info in two days or —” he rubbed his shoulder and flexed his neck, “I might have to press charges for being attacked by a Wielder. Me, a helpless man.”
She bared her teeth again, and Reggie was certain she was part badger in nature. “You are such a bastard. I cannot believe I thought you were attractive.”
He shrugged apologetically. It wasn't a good idea. The ache bloomed and boomed again. “I do not date students. Ever.” Reggie thought about Kyle and how he had been so so tempted.
“Why not? It's not like I'm some innocent village maid. I'm twenty and I've had boyfriends. I stress boy. I'm tired of men my age.” She turned away, head shaking like some defeated general. “Why couldn't you have given me a chance?”
Ah damn. His sister was right, he didn't like being the bad guy. He didn't want to hurt her, but he'd never teased or singled her out, let alone flirted with her. “You are a wonderful and smart young woman, but I am not interested in you.”
“How do you know? You don't know me.”
“And you don't know me.” He sighed. This was getting tedious. “I'm gay.”
Oh God. Had he actually said that? He tore his eyes away. In the cold fall weather he could feel his cheeks heat up. Damn, damn, damn.
Her face went slack. He'd stunned her into catatonia. What a fool he was.
“You're gay? Seriously?” She pressed her face into her palms, and she began shaking.
She was laughing at him.
“I fell for a gay guy? Oh hell, this is ridiculous. I can't believe,” she gasped for breath, “that you're gay. You're so... not flaming. And,” she shook her head, filling the air with laughter, “you're so not interested in me.”
“No, I'm not.”
“Is this guy in that cult you want me to find your lover?”
“No, he— Not at all. He's more like a student.”
“Oh, I see.” She gave him a knowing smirk, and he didn't even try to dissuade her of whatever world she was devising in her twisted mind. Her entire body language changed. She no longer huddled in on herself, but stood tall, proud even, like a runway model. Her shoulders were back, chin up. No more hiding under her fringe of hair. Her smile was as strong as her eye contact. This woman was one great actress, or one hyper-charged bipolar. Maybe she was skell, mad with magic. He would make the case it was possible in women from this one example here.
“Two days,” he said, exaggeratedly rubbing his wounded shoulder, to remind her of the task at hand. “Find me that location in two days.”
Her I-know-all expression fell into something sour and petulant. “I can't promise you anything.”
“Don't promise, do.”
“Who are you, Yoda?”
“Lives are at stake, and you have the means. Don't you think you should do something good, instead of just adding poison to the world?”
She tossed her hair and half turned away from him. “Oh my God, get off your high horse. You're such a simpleton, if cute. We're not here in this world to do good, you asshole. I'll do what I can, but no promises.” She began to walk away.
“And,” he called out to her, “get help.”
She lifted up her hand and flipped him the bird as she sauntered away, adding more sway to her hips than was necessary. Did she think that would entice him away from men? He did not understand this woman who cared for nothing.
He scrounged out his phone from under the bush. A little crack scarred the screen, but the electronics still worked. The recording captured everything, though the sound was muffled after it had fallen from his hands. As he brushed the dirt off and scraped it out of the seams with his fingernail, he wondered who else he could beg or blackmail to help him find Mara Murda.
~~~
The internet was not the deity of information this generation thought it was. Other than news articles and some studies on male cults, little was known about Mara Murda.
A male gang of Wielders who perpetrated various crimes from theft to murder. Heavy in the drug industry, they pushed specific drugs, such as Pixie Dust, which were claimed to cure or stop the side effects of male Wielding, but usually increased those effects instead while adding a boost to the power. The cult branded its members with the Stigma, a stylized symbol that looked like a Greek letter psi.
Nothing was known of their numbers, of their hierarchy, or of their location. They were active all over the west coast and preyed on male Wielders who had nowhere else to go, many who had two strikes against them and were slated to be shipped off to the Disentanglement Centers.
A college offered prefect hunting grounds, where male Wielders foresaw a future of hiding in the dark or going mad, of being overlooked in jobs if they came up against female Wielders for the same position. The cults shone in a future of limited prospects. A place of acceptance, or possibility.
False possibility.
Lord knew that if Reggie hadn't had Bethany to keep him on the straight and narrow, to provide him support and training, even he could have ended up with one of the cults, or locked away for the rest of his life.
Reggie scanned his notebook full of scribbles searching for anything that might spark insight, that would give him that one clue so he would know where these bastards were keeping Kyle. He threw his pen down on the table and leaned back into the chair. The clock read fifteen till five.
Something dug at the back of his memory. He glanced at the calendar.
Melanie's recital at 7 pm at the Pope School Stage. Tonight.
Reggie snatched up his cracked phone and texted his sister, reminding her about her daughter's Thanksgiving show. Then he scrubbed down in a five minute shower and shaved off his crop of stubble, nicking himself twice. Dressing casual nice, he checked out the clock again. He still had over an hour. He checked his phone. No response. He called his sister and left her a message.
“Sis, Melanie's recital's tonight. Do not miss this.”
He hoped she wouldn't flub this up. He hoped she was helping Kyle. Crap. He couldn't wish her to be at the recital and at some SWAT strike on the Steptoe hideout. He just hoped she was all right.
When he arrived at Pope School, there was already a full parking lot. He waited in line for a program and flipped through to see Melanie in a tutu, performing some awkward looking pose with grace. She was a beautiful little girl, with thick brown hair and a joyful grin.
“Reggie,” someone called and he turned to see Paul.
“Paul, glad to see you.” They shook hands and Paul glanced around, his face falling into annoyance. “Beth here?”
Reggie offered an apologetic smile. “I think she's on a case, a big one. Crackdown on a cult. I know she'd be here if she could.”
Paul waved his hand through the air, cutting off Reggie's excuse, however valid it was. “Just like her. Not surprised.” He seemed to realize who he was talking to. “Ah, no worries. Melanie is used to it by now.”
Maybe, Reggie thought, but obviously you aren't.
They filed into the auditorium, waiting for other parents and family to take seats as they took their own. The director was announced, then the student's teacher. Finally the Wielder who would carry the children in their leaps. He fished out his phone and texted Bethany again.
She could be saving Kyle and other young men right now. Reggie glanced over at Paul. His rugged face watchful and ready. He was a good father, Reggie knew. Bethany was a good agent.
The curtains went up.
~~~
At home, Reggie checked his email accou
nts. In his private email he deleted a few spam and responded to an email from a friend. In his office account he immediately zeroed in on an email from Sandra Scott's university provided address.
It read: Professor, I have what you requested. Meet me at Evermore Diner for breakfast at 8.
Reggie's heart pounded and he cursed her stupid games.
Chapter 10
Reggie pulled open the door to Evermore Diner at 7:47 a.m. His trunk was stuffed with gear, anything he might need. Maps, blankets, food and water. He had an extra set of clothes and rain gear. He had a tent and backpack in case he had to hike over a longer distance. He would get the info and leave. He would not submit to this infantile play date.
Sandra wasn't there yet, so he got a table near the door. He sipped at his water, tapped his fingers against the splatter patterned Formica tabletop.
At five after, Sandra breezed in wearing a sassy blue dress that could do nothing to warm her legs. She took off her coat and left it on the rack near the door and sat down across from Reggie.
“Good morning,” she said with an abundance of cheer.
He sat up straighter. “Morning. What's the location?”
She tutted, wagging a finger at him in gentle discipline. “Breakfast first. You can't run off on an empty stomach.” Then that sickening cheer dropped away and she was all hard business. “I'm not telling you until we've had breakfast, so don't even try. Have you ordered?”
Reggie considered his options and put on a smile for the waitress. “Ma'am, can we order now? I’m in a hurry.”
“Of course,” said the middle-aged waitress. She pulled out her pen and pad and waited.
“I haven’t even looked at the menu yet.” Sandra pouted.
“Omelet? French toast?” Reggie suggested. Then he turned to the waitress and ordered an omelet, toast and sausage.
“You, hun?” the waitress asked, her curiosity painted on her face in the lines around her mouth and the high arching of her brows. Sandra hmmed as she scanned the menu and finally ordered waffles.
After the waitress left, the two sat in silence. Sandra with her hands in her lap, all prim and proper, and Reggie lounged, cockeyed in his seat, affecting an air of not giving a shit. It was one he learned from his observations of Kyle. Sandra picked up her glass, sipped, set it down. Reggie held onto a placid expression of indifference, denying the raging bull inside. Raging to get the information and dash out of that restaurant.