The fire had tasted her but she survived. Charlie had found out about her through his information network. He had watched her and now he had saved her.
The little girl who had grown into a beautiful teenager had grown into a woman because Charlie took her in. Her beauty had been a price she was more than glad to pay. As she looked at the melted ruin of her face and arms, she often thought what price can one place on freedom?
She didn’t want the scars on her body to matter, they were nothing compared to the scars on her soul, but they did, they kept her as much a prisoner as her father. Then she learned something about herself that changed everything. She might not have any control over the way she looked, but she could control how others saw her. It wasn’t hard. Maizey picked a mask and that is the face she showed to the world. Not many knew her secret, the way the scars still burned and stretched when she moved, when she talked. The ugliness that went far deeper than her skin.
The shame.
Then learning what Charlie had planned. She could make a difference instead of wishing she was something she wasn’t. Learning how to love herself. Learning to forgive her father and then learning to forgive herself.
Understanding she was willing to do anything to keep others from going through what had been her life.
Maizey surfaced from the memories. She had given Cross the chance to see her as she truly was. He didn’t need sight to see her, he only needed Maizey to allow him inside, and she had. With her illusion removed, she took his hands and guided them over the taught ridges and valleys that was her face.
“This is who I really am, Cross.” She watched his face closely, looking for the telltale signs of shock or disgust. She waited for the hands beneath hers to jerk back as he understood what he touched was not the beautiful girl she had shown to him in his head. “You wanted truth, this is my truth. This is who I am behind the magic. If what I showed you was a lie then I’m sorry. Sometimes we deceive ourselves so much it becomes difficult to know where the lie stops and the truth starts. I guess the lie has become comfortable to me over the years. The lie is how I see myself.” She didn’t cry now. She was glad of that. Showing him her truth was one thing but showing him the shame she felt by way of tears was something else altogether. She still had some pride left to her.
“That truth is yours now,” she said. “You can do what you want with it.” She suddenly felt very small. Her truth wasn’t noble or self-sacrificing. It was ugly and selfish and for all her psychic prowess, she couldn’t begin to think of what Cross would think of her now. Cross moved his hands from her cheeks to her eyes, where lids were pulled tight with scar tissue, to her misshaped nose and down to the nearly lipless mouth. He moved his head as if he were seeing her with his eyes and not his hands. Shame washed over her. She wished, for all her truths, that she could be beautiful for him. She wanted to be beautiful for him.
His one hand cupped her face as the other smoothed her hair. He held her gently as if she might break if he touched her wrong.
“I have spent nearly my entire life in the dark. I stopped judging what I couldn’t see a long time ago. What I consider beautiful is what most people don’t even know how to look for. Would you like to know how I see you Maizey?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice to speak. He still held her face in his hand and felt the movement. “I see you as a bright powerful force, all crazy yellows and reds. You are energy and movement. You are warmth and caring. You feel like home to me.” He brought both hands back to hold her face.
Wanted or not, tears burned tracks down her face at his words. She knew he felt them as he held her and wiped them away with a thumb. “But mostly what I see when I look at you is hope. I see hope, Maizey. And hope is the most beautiful thing there is.” Cross leaned in and kissed her ruined mouth and for one still moment, he made her feel beautiful.
Chapter 24
A CALMNESS SETTLED over Cross as he released Maizey. He wondered if it was something she had done to him to make him feel this way. If it was, he couldn’t say he objected.
“Now you know,” she said.
He felt the truth in Maizey’s words, in the past she’d shared with him. She was no threat to him. Shame washed over him for a moment.
“Now I know,” he agreed.
“Will you let me help you?”
“This will help me free Kale?”
“Yes.”
“Then, yes,” Cross said. “I believe you. Do what you have too, show me what you need too, but understand one thing before you do.”
“And what would that be, love?”
Cross reached a hand out and found her face once more. He let his fingers move lightly over her features. She had put the illusion back on. “I understand what drives you now, and you know the same of me.”
“Aye, I do.”
“Then you understand that Kale comes first. Whatever it takes, my life or anyone else’s, Kale comes first. He’s sacrificed too much of himself for me already.”
Maizey took his hand and held it for a moment before kissing the palm and letting it go. “I know. And that is exactly why you need to learn what I have to teach you.”
“As long as we’re clear.”
“As glass, Love. Are you ready to learn exactly what has all those people in that department of yours scared shitless at the thought of losing you?”
Cross grinned and spread his hands giving her the go ahead.
“Well then,” Maizey took a breath. “Let’s start with what you do know. The psychic ability is a given, I am confident you know what you’re doing when it comes to delving into other’s psyches. As for the ability to manifest energy, you obviously knew how to do this before they messed with you, before you were injured, do you remember how you did that?”
Cross almost said no, when one thing, one single incident came front and center. “There was one time. Finn and I brought this kid in- real unstable abilities and sociopathic tendencies on top of that. Short story he was about to kill Finn. I interceded.”
“How?”
He thought about how to explain it to her and realized he couldn’t even explain it to himself. “I don’t know. I knew I had to do something. All I remember is being angry. This little shit was about to kill my partner and I was going to have a front row seat. I wanted to hurt him, I remember that. The rest,” Cross raised his shoulders in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t do anything. It just happened.”
“You did it, the power’s always been there. It’s part of who you are. I felt that much, but because of what they did to you, it’s been pushed so far into the background, you forgot about it, but when you needed it, your reflexes took over. All we need to do is coax it back out into your conscious life.”
She was right, he could feel that power simmering inside of him. He always could, like a caged animal still and quiet waiting for the time to pounce. Cross simply needed to let it out of the cage. He closed his eyes and pictured Kale bloodied and beaten in his cell, he thought of the life his brother must have had and what had been done to both of them. He felt familiar anger begin to bubble through him and then, yes, he found that caged beast and cracked the door open.
Energy flowed through him. It was like taking a breath, natural, instinctual and easy. He opened his eyes and the room was brighter. He followed the glow and realized he held a glowing ball of pure energy between his hands. It pulsed and waited for him to do something with it. It also scared the crap out of him. “Well shit, now what do I do?”
Maizey laughed not at all worried at what she was witnessing. It was as if previously homicidal men manifested power in her presence every day. “What do you want to do with it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Then don’t. This power, this energy comes from you, Cross. It’s yours to command. You can use it as a weapon, or you could simply let it go.”
“Let it go?” Cross wasn’t sure he completely understood.
; “Let is dissipate back into the singular elements from which you collected it.”
“I can do that?”
“You can do that, love. Just let it go,” she said again.
Cross wasn’t so sure, but he trusted Maizey. He opened his hands and gently released the energy there. Through his shadowy vision he saw the brightness he had been holding expand until it covered the ceiling above them and then it separated. Cross saw this as brilliant glowing specks. Then the specks faded and rained down on both of them. Cross feared for Maizey’s safety but to his complete and utter surprise she laughed.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Like falling stars.”
“I didn’t hurt you?” Cross said, a smile on his face.
“No, Love,” Cross felt her touch his face. “You did it and that’s only the beginning, but first would you like to learn how you can see again?”
Cross brought his head up and stared at where he knew she sat. “What?”
“It’s not like you used to see, but would you like to know how to use that power to see when you want?”
Cross’s heart rate bumped up and his breathing quickened. “You can do that?”
“No but you can.”
“How? I’m blind Maizey, no amount of energy can fix that.”
“It won’t be sight, not like before, but it might be something you can use to get by with. A sort of sight is better than none, right?”
“How do you know I can do this?”
“Well, from what I can gather from looking around the nooks and crannies of your subconscious, this is how it works. When you lost your sight, it took a while, but you began to rely on other cues, your hearing, touch, you remembered details of the physical world so you could navigate, right?”
“Yes.” He still didn’t understand, but he was definitely intrigued.
“Okay, that was how you adapted physically, but what you never realized was your other abilities adapted as well. You just learned you always had the ability to manipulate energy, but that too adapted to your loss of sight.”
Cross thought he understood what she was getting at. “The first time I tried to get out.”
“Yes, you saw the threat and turned it against the person trying to hurt you. Without your sight you didn’t know how to do that. Thanks to Coben and Tanya you forgot you even knew how.”
“But my body remembered.” Cross said. It was starting to make sense.
“And it adapted. Now as you gather the energy around you, your mind can stream it back out. Energy can’t be destroyed, but it can be transferred. So my best comparison would be radar. You ping energy out, it bounces off objects around you and they become visible to you. Does that sound right?”
Yes,” Cross was excited now. “You think I can do that?”
“It’s all about control, Cross. Right now when you gather energy to do anything, you go for broke. In essence, you’re using a sledge hammer to crack open an egg. You need to only take what you need. I can’t tell you how much or how little, but I think once you realize what to do it will come naturally to you now that you understand. Want to give it a try?”
Cross exhaled and tried to relax. Nerves crawled like ants along the inside of his skin as he attempted to focus. He used his hands to gather the energy around him, he tried to keep it under control but it was difficult. The now familiar tingle danced between his hands as he kept the power whirling quietly. “Okay, now what?”
“Now, instead of expending it out, absorb it inside of you.”
“What? You’re kidding.”
“Trust me, love. It won’t hurt you. This is what you were born to do.”
Cross considered that. “I don’t know how.” The energy between his hands buzzed like angry bees waiting to be set free.
Maizey sounded infinitely patient. “Yes you do, trust your instincts. Charlie removed anything that could have blocked you, now all you have to do is stretch yourself. You can do this Cross.”
Sweat beaded on his head. He was breathing fast and he wasn’t nearly as confident as Maizey gave him credit for.
Trust yourself.
Cross took a breath and let it out fast. He wanted to take that ball of seething energy and compress it, make it smaller until it slipped right into him. So that’s exactly what he did. He molded and squeezed and pressed and as he did he felt heat, but it didn’t burn. The more he pushed, the warmer he felt—on the inside. It was a good feeling, satisfying like eating after along fast. His palms touched each other and Cross understood that he no longer held the ball of energy, it was now inside of him.
Maizey was right, this felt right, natural. He didn’t think he needed the sledge hammer to see, so he opened a very small doorway in his mind and let the energy trickle out in a slow steady stream and as he did, the world around him lit up in a blue-electric pulse. He laughed as he realized what he had done. Actually it was more like a giggle, Cross didn’t care. He had done it.
He turned to see Maizey sitting beside him. “I see you.”
Maizey smiled and Cross was sure he had never seen anything more beautiful. “There you go, love. Now you can’t keep this up 24/7, but I think you’ll find it doesn’t take much to ‘keep the lights on’.”
“No, this is like breathing. Now that I know how, I don’t even have to think about it.” He stood and turned in a circle. “I can see.”
“You can, but remember what I said about running that marathon? After a while you’ll be able to do this without payback, but you need to work those mental muscles out a little bit at a time.”
“I’m almost afraid if I stop I won’t be able to do it again,” Cross said. It was the truth. He didn’t trust himself to call up his sight again, but he did trust Maizey. He let the rest of the energy out slowly, as he did he took in every detail of the room he was in, the colors, the fabrics, but mostly he watched Maizey and as the last of energy left him, like a breath exhaled, his sight dimmed and being in the shadows again was all the darker for having been shown the light.
He was standing in the middle of the room when his knees buckled. He had no center, nothing to reference up from down. Cross was standing one moment and the next he was spinning. Maizey caught him before he hit the ground, or floated away, he couldn’t tell which.
“And that would be the marathon,” she said as she brought him gently down to his knees.
“Ah, right,” his hand went to his head to try and stop the spinning. A queasy rolling gripped him. Maizey half dragged him back to the bed, Cross tried to help, but his brain stopped taking requests.
“This gets easier, right?” he hoped.
A light kiss on his head and a blanket was thrown over him. He curled into its warmth and tried to will his world to be still.
“Infinitely. I promise, but for now just sleep.”
“Don’t leave,” his words slurred and an uneasiness gripped his heart at the thought of waking up alone in the dark. He held a hand out and felt her fingers, cool and slender, wrap around his.
“I’m right here, love. I’ll be right here when you open your eyes. Trust me.”
Cross squeezed her hand and let sleep suck him under.
Trust me.
Those words followed him down as he realized he had done just that.
Chapter 25
THE PLAN WAS full of holes, both Vic and Finn knew it, but it was the best that any of them could come up with. It could work. It probably wouldn’t get them killed. Maybe.
“Tanya took my badge,” Finn reminded Vic.
“I am aware of that.”
“I can’t come with you.”
“You can if Maizey hides you.”
Finn paced in circles and rubbed his head. “What makes you think she hasn’t moved Kale?”
“Because whenever she moves that boy, she puts the entire building on lockdown and doubles security. She hasn’t done that. But she has sequestered herself down in the tombs for the last few days. Something is up.”
The tombs. Two floors
beneath the streets of Manhattan was a place very few people knew existed let alone have ever seen. That is where the most dangerous freaks were kept. Restricted entry. Excruciatingly tight security. Motion and heat sensors every few yards. If alarms sounded it was never a drill and the guards there were instructed to shoot to kill. No exceptions. Tanya was Lord and Master of the tombs and as far as Finn knew there was one and only one occupant locked down there alone in the dark.
Shut away from humanity, sunlight, and all contact, save Tanya was where Kale Delancey existed. To say he lived would be an unfair exaggeration.
“I was only ever down there the one time. Tanya wanted to convince me that Kale was the least dangerous brother. Took me twenty minutes to get through security. I never even saw him face to face. She took me to the control room and I watched a live feed.”
“What did you see?” Vic said. Finn knew he was curious. Everyone who worked for the paranormal department had heard about Kale Delancey, but almost no one saw him. He was an urban legend. Except Finn knew he was real, he had seen the man. He had no idea how rare that was until years later.
“I saw Cross,” Finn said. “If Cross had been kept a prisoner for the last ten years. I don’t know what I was expecting, but he was just one man, sitting there staring at nothing. I felt sorry for him, not afraid of him.”
“Said the man about the caged lion right before the lion ate him,” Vic said. “Look, as far as I know, they still think I’m the faithful employee. I’m due back tonight, I’m on night shift. Thought it might be easier to get to Kale then.”
“This is suicide, you realize that, right?” Finn said.
“Relax, man. I don’t do suicide. This is the best I have right now but feel free to chime in if you think of something better.”
Finn sat down opposite Vic and spread his hands giving him the go ahead. Vic reached behind him and pulled rolled paper from a cardboard tube. They looked like schematics. “This is the complex. All the upper levels here,” Vic pointed to the two different levels shown on the paper. He pulled another paper from behind the first and placed it on top. “And this shows the two underground levels. Kale, as far as anyone knows, is in the bottom most level.”
Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More Page 99