Dark Sight

by T. G. Ayer

  She screamed as the creature charged Vissarion, watching in horror as the man sidestepped the animal with inches to spare.

  The boar's tusks were honed to deadly points and had missed Vissarion’s sternum by an inch, leaving a clean rip in his pristine blue shirt.

  The boar galloped off then turned to face them again, great rushing snorts emanating from its glistening nostrils. A gold ring hung from its nose, glinting in the sunlight.

  “What is that thing?” yelled Allegra as she edged behind the commander.

  But Vissarion stepped around Allegra, putting her in direct line of the approaching beast.

  What a craven thing to do.

  “What in Hades are you doing?” she shrieked, craning her neck to look at him, stunned that he’d use a woman as a shield.

  “He won’t hurt you. Stay where you are,” he whispered in her ear, holding her shoulders tightly.

  She let out a low strangled scream. “You’re trying to kill me. Why are you doing this?” Tears blinded Allegra but she blinked them away, furious with herself for allowing her emotions to weaken her in front of this stranger.

  The waves crashed on the shore, sounding louder to her ears now that she was caught within a maelstrom of fear and anger.

  “You have nothing to fear,” he said against her ear. His voice was filled with elation, as if the sight of the charging boar filled him with joy.

  The man was demented. That much was certain.

  Allegra sagged against him as she watched the beast gallop closer. The edges of her vision dimmed but Vissarion squeezed her arms again and gave her a slight shake. “You’ll be fine. He’ll never harm you.”

  Allegra shivered, barely listening to him as she stared into the fiery eyes of the oncoming boar.

  What evil had she done to deserve such a death? Perhaps her visions were a curse on her for some crime she’d committed?

  Or had she done something wrong with her knowledge to anger the gods?

  Unable to face such a painful fate, Allegra closed her eyes, holding them shut so hard they hurt.

  The hoofbeats came to a sudden stop and a rush of warm air blanketed her face as the animal huffed against her skin.

  He is sniffing me.

  The idea galled her so much that she cracked open an eye and peeked at the creature. Shock froze her in place as she stared into the boar’s fire-lit eyes. His body shimmered with sparks of blue electricity, but he didn’t attack her.

  In fact, it looked like he was about to nudge her, as if he wanted to be petted.

  Eyes wide, Allegra glanced over her shoulder at a smiling Maximus. “It is confirmed, then,” he muttered, as though to himself.

  “What’s confirmed?” asked Allegra out of the side of her mouth. She refused to move her head and lose sight of the boar, regardless of how compliant he appeared to be.

  At the sound of Vissarion’s voice the boar lifted its head and sniffed at him. A strong hand settled on her left shoulder, and the boar inched closer and inhaled.

  It huffed and snorted, backing away and giving its head a swaying shake. Then it reared up on its hindquarters and disintegrated into nothing.

  Allegra sucked in a breath, forcing air into her lungs.

  She was not going to faint.

  She refused to faint.

  Not in front of Maximus, the demented-hot-agent-man.

  She leaned forward, hands on her knees and breathed deeply. Vissarion seemed to understand and let her catch her breath. Thankfully she didn’t keel over and kiss the sand.

  She straightened after a while, schooled her features and met the commander’s eyes.

  “Coward.” She spat the word at him.

  He only chuckled, his gray eyes sparkling.

  “Not at all. You felt threatened, which is why he came. But he knows me, so it’s unlikely he would have killed me.” Then Vissarion paused. “Okay. Maybe he would have hurt me to begin with, before he recognized me. By then, perhaps it would have been too late.”

  Allegra shook her head and waved her hands in his face. “Enough.” She stared at him, clenching her fists to stop them from shaking. “What the hell was that thing?”

  Vissarion straightened, still amused, but slightly more sober. “His name is Xales. He’s a gift from Aries.”

  “He’s yours?”

  “Not mine.”

  “Huh?” asked Allegra, finally cottoning on to what Commander Vissarion was saying. “He’s mine?”

  He nodded, looking like he was bursting to say more.

  “That makes no sense. It . . . he . . . just disappeared into thin air.”

  “That’s what familiars do.”

  “Familiars?” Allegra frowned, backing away from him, now wary again. “I am not involved in witchcraft.”

  “I wasn’t saying you were. And besides, this type of familiar isn’t connected to witchcraft. The boar is directly connected to one particular line of seers. It follows and protects each Oracle throughout her lifetime of service, and then he is passed on to the next in line.”

  Allegra shook her head again, unable to process the words he spoke. “What are you talking about?” she asked slowly, backing away and jogging toward the house.

  She didn’t really want to hear his words, her action effectively dismissing him. But she should have known that this agent wasn’t easily dissuaded.

  “Your visions.”

  She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned slowly to face him, one hand on the wooden banister for support.

  “How long have they been going on?”

  He waited as Allegra scowled. “Five days.”

  Vissarion nodded. “Six days ago I was in Argentina, at the deathbed of a powerful seer.”

  Allegra shrugged. None of what he had just said made any sense to her. “What seer?” she asked. Her stomach was already clenching when he answered.

  “The Oracle of Pythia.”

  Allegra laughed. “She is just a myth.”

  “As mythical as the Seer’s Boar?”

  Allegra shuddered. “Okay.” She folded her arms. “I admit you have a point, but I’m still not clear what this has to do with me.”

  Allegra was lying.

  She had a vague sense of where this was going, but she refused to accept the possibility.

  Not yet.

  Chapter 12

  The sun was warm on Allegra’s skin, but beneath she was cold to the bone.

  Commander Vissarion had trailed her up to the house, his silence following her like a living thing. He’d allowed her to take the lead, had even said she was the one in charge. That he’d take it at whatever pace she wanted.

  It had sounded very much like a proposition to her, and she’d wanted to laugh out loud. But the rising hysteria within her center warned that should she lift the lid to her inner turmoil, she would, like Pandora, be in for a lifetime of trouble.

  Allegra had suggested coffee at Khan’s Koffee in Barbarina Town, a few minutes’ drive away from the house. She’d wanted to remove the agent from her home, to take him to a public place where she would feel safer.

  And now they sat on the outside terrace of the coffee house, at her usual table, waiting for the waitress to set down their cups of espresso. As tiny as the cups were, they contained a good kick in the pants.

  Which Allegra certainly needed at this point.

  She picked at the bowl of figs, grapes and dates that she’d ordered, pushing the fruit around on her plate. Her appetite had disappeared along with the boar. Which she was trying to convince herself she’d hallucinated. Maybe right now she was hallucinating again and she was still asleep, safely back home in her bed.

  Because only a bad dream would make sense of this morning’s events.

  Commander Vissarion looked uncomfortable as he studied the crowd, searching the faces of passers-by as if looking for someone.

  “What’s wrong?” Allegra asked, sipping her coffee. The bitter bite was an instant hit to her palate, and went down smoo
th.

  “I don’t like sitting out here. It’s too exposed.” His eyes scanned the surroundings again, then paused as he watched a couple across the road who glanced over at the coffee shop one too many times.

  “You really need to calm down, Commander Vissarion. You’re going to draw attention to us with your suspicious behavior.”

  He snorted. “That’s a bit of a mouthful. Call me Max.” When she merely nodded, he said, “We need to talk about this in a more private place. We must not be overhead. The information we have to discuss is important. Top-secret.”

  Allegra’s eyes widened but she didn't object. Besides, she was not keen on advertising the strange, barely believable details of her recent days.

  They drank their coffees and left the table to move further inside the coffee house, finding seats at a rear alcove shrouded in shadows. This time Allegra ordered a milk coffee and a coffee cake.

  She was going all out.

  “Thanks for agreeing to move tables.”

  Allegra shrugged as if it was nothing. But it had taken every ounce of willpower to clamp her jaw shut and let Vissarion have his way. She’d done so only to placate him, her entire purpose being to get him to tell her the truth.

  He sat back, comfortable at last with the cowl of shadows enveloping them. “Your visions . . . they focus on a terrible worldwide plague. One in which people suffer from fevers, coughs and chills, followed by boils, sores and an intense thirst. One that seems to dehydrate them from the inside out.”

  Allegra stared at him in horror. “How did you know that? I never told anyone all the details.”

  Vissarion leaned forward. “We have seers who have confirmed this.”

  “And this Pythia … the one you know . . . did she predict this plague?”

  “Once, a year ago, she mentioned something. Only vaguely. Aurelia had been ailing for a few years now. Her powers of prophecy, her sight . . . they had been fading with her.”

  “She told you about this a whole year ago and you did nothing?” Allegra was unable to keep the judgment out of her voice, but she didn’t care. If he’d ignored the original warning, then he was guilty of being supremely irresponsible.

  Vissarion sighed and leaned his elbows on the table. “Her visions, or at least what she’d mentioned to me of what she’d seen . . . they were vague. At the time, she’d been hysterical, terrified. Almost unable to speak of it. She’d already begun to lose the power of speech. Her handmaiden helped translate her hand signs, but there just wasn’t enough information at the time.”

  “And now? How do you know these things if your Pythia is dead?”

  “FAPA has numerous agents who also have the sight. It’s one of the reasons we recruit them.”

  Allegra stiffened. Was Vissarion trying to recruit her? Was this whole thing, including the boar, a ruse to get her to comply? She shook her head, shutting off that train of thought.

  “And their visions are the same?”

  “As yours? In a sense, yes. All the senior seers in the agency, anyone with enough power to be considered trustworthy, are seeing visions of people dying. Through a collaborative effort we’ve managed to put details together that have given us a picture of what we are looking at. A mass epidemic a few months from now. Although they can’t expect total accuracy, they’re estimating three months at best.”

  Three months.

  Xenia’s purple flower.

  Though it was a blow to hear her visions confirmed, in another way it was a strange relief that she was not the only one to carry this burden. Allegra shook her head, trying to clear her mind. To focus on the essential information.

  “How do their visions work?”

  “Mainly through touch. Similar to yours, only much less powerful, more shadowy. And sometimes through dreams. Our seers have visions but they aren’t expansive enough, detailed enough. They aren’t telling us what we need to know, only the worst of the epidemic symptoms and the aftermath. But the Pythia’s powers are much stronger, they extend much further.”

  “Aftermath?”

  The agent’s face went a little gray. “Total annihilation of the human race. The seers cannot see people in their visions. Or at least not enough people to make a solid survival estimate or even a guesstimate.”

  “I see.”

  Allegra sat back, turning over Vissarion’s revelations in her mind. It was a lot to take in. Had she not already seen much of what he’d described, she would have passed him off as a crazed lunatic.

  At least now, she could confirm that she herself was neither crazed, nor a lunatic.

  “What does the Pythia have to do with me? Why did the Boar come to me?”

  Maximus sighed and his shoulders hunched. “Have you not pieced it together for yourself?” He smiled sadly.

  Allegra shook her head. “I’m piecing well enough, thank you. The only problem is, I can’t see how I could possibly be related to her, or be descended from the Pythian line—which I can’t even believe I’ve accepted as anything but a myth. My parents had no powers, and neither did my grandparents.”

  Not that I knew of.

  “Allegra, you are the Pythia. Aurelia died six days ago. When did you get your first vision?”

  “Five days ago,” she said softly, looking away from his keen steely eyes. Allegra refrained from adding that she did occasionally have strong premonitions and warning dreams. Still, she had to admit that the current level of conscious visions took mere premonition to a whole new level.

  “I know it’s a lot to process, but you need to accept it. Fast. We don’t have the time to wait for anything. Humanity’s days are numbered and you are our best hope of stopping our imminent doom.”

  Allegra shook her head and sat back. “This is insane.”

  “The end of the world is pretty insane, don’t you think?” Vissarion said, his tone now cutting.

  She could tell he was losing patience and she didn’t blame him. She didn’t want all this craziness to be true.

  And yet his words meant that her visions had not just been a product of her wild imagination, that she’d really seen the terrible future ahead of everyone.

  In that moment, she felt the pull of grief. She’d seen Xenia’s death.

  It had been real, not just some random dream.

  Tears formed a hard knot in her throat.

  She had to pull herself out of her thoughts to concentrate on Vissarion’s words as he spoke again. “Tell us what you want. Whatever it is, we will make it happen. Money? Travel? You need only ask and we will provide it, as long as you cooperate and help us prevent the mass extinction of our species.”

  Despite the weight of his words Allegra stiffened. “I’m not for sale.”

  “I apologize. I don’t mean to insult you.” He had the grace to look regretful of his words.

  She shrugged and then sighed, defeated, exhausted. “I don’t need money in order to do the right thing for our world and our survival as a species. It’s just that I don’t see how I’m supposed to help you do anything about it?”

  “Your powers are hidden inside you, Allegra. All you need to do is to bring them to the surface.”

  Allegra shook her head. “What powers, Commander Vissarion? All I get are visions.”

  He smiled. “Please call me, Max.” Only after she nodded, did he say, “I know how some of the Pythia’s visions work. I spent a fair amount of time traveling to Argentina over the last few years to meet with her. In her time, Aurelia was a valuable asset to FAPA as well as to international investigation teams.”

  “You became friends?”

  “I don’t think the previous Pythia knew what it was to have friends. She was a very lonely person. Her power kept her apart from everyone.” He sighed.

  “Perhaps she kept herself apart from everyone because of her powers.” Allegra’s voice hitched and though Maximus studied her face, she didn’t turn away. “I understand what it’s like to know things about those you care for.”

  She knew h
er fear was openly displayed on her face but she didn’t care that he saw it. Somehow, knowing that he too was afraid of what was coming, made his company bearable, agent or not.

  Max nodded, his shadowed features telling Allegra that he understood what she felt. He cleared his throat. “We’d all lost hope. We thought that Aurelia had died, that the last Pythia had died, without any known relatives. But it’s obvious that you must be her descendant.”

  Allegra shook her head. “Without investigating my ancestry, I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

  Max smiled. “Can I show you something?” When she nodded, he reached for a plump date and a fig and set them in front of her. “The date is ‘yes’ and the fig is ‘no’.”

  Allegra frowned. What was this man up to?

  She was beginning to think he was a little strange in the head. Still, she nodded with a tilt of her head, uncertain but curious to see where he was going with this strange demonstration.

  Max turned to look across the restaurant and out the giant glass windows. The street outside was sunny and bright, filled with passersby hurrying off, determined to get somewhere. “See the man in the red suit, the one with the blue hat?”

  Allegra nodded. The man looked like an Indus peacock with those colors, but with fashion what it was in this day and age, Allegra had seen much worse.

  “When he reaches the end of the street will he turn left?”

  Allegra’s brow scrunched as she stared at Max. She hesitated.

  Max shook his head. “Don’t overthink it. Before he gets there, just touch the applicable fruit.”

  Allegra took a deep breath, watched the man closely then reached for the date. Max turned to watch as the man reached the corner and turned left.

  Feeling a light lilt of exhilaration, Allegra looked at Max who was smiling very widely indeed. “Right. A few more tests?” When she nodded, he proceeded to ask her a number of random questions about the people outside, the waitstaff in the restaurant, and the patrons.

  Every time Allegra was right in her prediction, however insignificant it was.

  Max leaned close. “Is there a way to prevent the coming epidemic?” Without hesitation, Allegra’s hand moved to the date.