The dowser raised her sword above her head, leaping through crashing surf that would have cut me off at the knees.
I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that would shut out what was to come. I’d never seen a vision in so much detail before. Maybe Beau was right and the pills had been obstructing my magic.
“Open your eyes, Rochelle,” Blackwell said. “Remember our bargain. You show me everything.”
I opened my eyes, knowing that closing them did nothing to stop the vision anyway. My heart rate ramped up, beating painfully against my breastbone.
“Everything,” I muttered, becoming overwhelmed with the deal I’d made. “That … is that even possible?”
The images began to flip rapidly, somehow timed with my heartbeat. They piled on top of each other, fighting to manifest so quickly that they appeared as still images now. It was as if I was rapidly flipping through my sketchbook. More sand, a glint of moonlight off Jade’s sword, blood on a craggy rock. Then Jade falling, black light swirling around her —
“Slow down, seer,” Blackwell said. He sounded as if he was in pain, but other than the heat of the band, the cold of the day, and my own emotions, I hadn’t felt any discomfort yet. Not even a hint of a migraine.
Then the visions began to blur so much that I couldn’t distinguish between them. I became dizzy, and then queasy, from this deluge. Suddenly, I wasn’t going to be able to stay upright much longer.
I swayed forward, my knees buckling. I reached up to steady myself by grasping Blackwell’s wrists. His fingertips were still pressed to either side of the half-circlet against my temples.
I felt a pulse of electricity similar to what I’d felt when touching Jade, but this time accompanied by searing heat that flared between my hands and Blackwell’s wrists. Or maybe it came from him to me.
He hissed and jerked his arms away from my grasp, pulling the half-circlet off my forehead as he did so.
The metal hairband hit the pavement between us, but I heard this more than saw it. The whiteout of the visions made my actual sight hazy, though I could now make out the outline of the sorcerer and the parking lot behind him.
Blackwell was shaking his wrists.
“I’m sorry,” I cried.
“I told you to slow down.” The sorcerer’s face was pained. “I should have been more careful, but you must listen —”
He looked up and behind me abruptly.
I turned to follow his gaze, but I couldn’t see anything except the empty parking lot and the side road beyond. No cars had passed since Blackwell had appeared. I wondered if he’d set up one of those spells again, like the one that had stopped the people in the restaurant from seeing us.
The white haze was slowly dissipating from my eyesight, but I still felt dizzy. Drained, as Blackwell said I would.
“Remember our bargain, Rochelle,” the sorcerer said, pulling my attention back to him.
He stooped to pick up the half-circlet. This movement shortened the sleeves of his suit and shirt. The skin of his wrists was an ugly, painful-looking puckered red, burned with the pattern of my fingers.
I gasped.
He tucked the half-circlet into his pocket. “Your new friends are here, but they’ll never be able to protect you like I could.”
I looked wildly around the parking lot. I was starting to shake, and my legs still weren’t holding me upright properly.
Just as I was about to look back and question Blackwell about the burns, three wolves appeared on the grassy edge of the far side of the parking lot. They stood together, posed as if they’d just stepped out of my sketchbook and into the real world.
The darker wolf in the middle of the trio threw its head back and howled. The sound reverberated through the parking lot.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I felt an intense need to run — or to fall on my knees and expose my neck. I didn’t do either.
If the wolves were here, then I’d failed to stop the vision. I looked around frantically for Beau.
Then I remembered the necklace where I still wore it. I slammed my hand against it so hard that the stone dug painfully into my breastbone and palm, even through my T-shirt and hoodie.
The wolves on either side of the dark gray wolf lowered their heads, flattened their ears, and bared their wicked teeth in a series of snarling, ferocious growls.
“Hunting at dusk in wolf form. I’m flattered,” Blackwell said behind me. “But the shifters have made a mistake, as they always seem to do. As they will with you as well, Rochelle.”
I kept my eyes glued to the wolves. “They found you, didn’t they?”
“Indeed. But they came without the warrior’s daughter.” The sorcerer laughed. “I’m oddly disappointed.”
“You’re insane.”
“Aren’t we all?”
An answering howl sounded out somewhere off in the distance.
As if they’d been waiting for this signal, the wolves crouched down, ready to spring.
“Remember, Rochelle,” Blackwell said.
“I’ll remember,” I answered, but I didn’t take my eyes off the wolves. I should be running, fleeing. The farther I took the necklace from the parking lot of the barbershop, the better. But could shapeshifters distinguish between friend and foe in their animal forms? And even if they could — would I be considered a friend? Or would they chase me if I ran?
All three wolves leaped for me.
I screamed, ducking and covering my head as I felt them blow past me. The fur of the one on the left actually brushed my face. A fleeting glimpse of a purple-paisley pattern obscured my eyesight. I blinked and it was gone.
The three of them landed behind me.
I spun, expecting to see the vision unfold before me. Expecting to see Blackwell throwing his magic at the wolves. Expecting them to fall, and knowing now that I couldn’t do anything about it. That maybe I’d been foolish to try. Maybe I’d brought the vision to reality by trying to thwart it.
Blackwell was gone.
Gone.
The wolf on the left — the one who’d brushed against me — let out a high-pitched yip of pain, then stumbled. It shook its head and pawed at the side of its face. Then it turned back in a blur of gray, lunging to snap its crazy-long teeth in my face.
I nearly wet my pants.
But I didn’t move. There was no way I was going to move. Only prey ran.
It would be ironic to save Beau from Blackwell — which, at least for this moment, I seemed to have done — but then die in a wolf attack myself.
The darker wolf, who’d been in the middle of the formation and was obviously the leader, slammed its shoulder into the snarling one, throwing it onto the pavement. The lead wolf then gnashed its teeth viciously at the wolf lying on its side, who didn’t move from its thrown position.
Satisfied, the lead wolf trotted away.
The other wolf righted itself, shook its head a second time, and then slunk away from me, all the while looking back resentfully as if I’d hurt it somehow.
The three wolves spread out across the parking lot, noses to the ground.
I lifted my hand to my cheek. I could still feel the trace sensation of the wolf’s fur there. I remembered Blackwell’s burned wrists. I wondered if I had hurt the wolf. I wondered what, if anything, I’d shown it in the brief moment it had touched me. Or had I just imagined the indignant look it gave me? Had I just imagined the glimpse of purple paisley? Purple was Lara’s color of choice. Was Lara the wolf who brushed against me?
The wolves continued to ignore me as they systematically crisscrossed the parking lot. Gathering scents, I imagined. Clues to Blackwell’s disappearance.
I knew how the sorcerer appeared and disappeared. I’d seen the day he found — no, stole — the amulet with the crimson stone he always wore. I always thought it had been a hallucination, but it wasn’t. I thought that hallucination had marked the beginning of the years of torture my broken brain had do
led out.
Except … my brain wasn’t broken. It had been a vision, not an overly active imagination. Not a hallucination.
I didn’t have an unknown psychotic disorder.
I saw the future. Well, I assumed I saw the future. Though how, I had no idea. ‘Magic’ was what everyone had been suggesting, but that word — that concept — was generic enough that it didn’t actually supply me with any true understanding. Was magic energy? The energy I felt as electricity when I touched Beau, Jade, and Blackwell? Energy from where?
And why me? What purpose did the visions have?
Was I a harbinger? A messenger? If so, whose messages was I relaying? And, again, why?
And — pushing aside thoughts that were too large to comprehend while standing in the middle of a deserted parking lot, freezing, dizzy and surrounded by wolves — what had I just agreed to with Blackwell?
The sorcerer collected things. Magical artifacts. I’d seen evidence of these devices three times now. The amulet, the amplifier in the restaurant, and the half-circlet that somehow gave him access to my visions.
He also collected people. He desperately wanted Jade Godfrey.
And he’d just collected me.
I stood there in the parking lot while the wolves did their tracking thing, awash in questions and piecing together what few answers I could. The white haze of the visions had lifted, though I was still chilled to the bone and drained. Really, really drained. I also kind of wished I’d retained more of the numbness, because my right arm was starting to throb again where I’d wretched it falling out of the bathroom window.
Despite feeling like crap, I really wasn’t interested in standing around waiting anymore. I didn’t think werewolves could talk in wolf form, but I imagined others would arrive soon.
Maybe they’d want answers, or maybe they’d be pissed with me. I didn’t really care either way.
I didn’t need all the answers to all of my huge questions to know where I wanted to be. Besides not wanting to be here anymore, I mean.
I also wasn’t interested in testing the theory of whether or not I’d thwarted the vision or merely delayed it. I needed the necklace — and Beau — to be nowhere near this parking lot, ever.
So I turned and walked away. The wolves let me go with barely a glance. I guess they’d already proven I was easy to track.
Each step I took back to Beau was less shaky than the first.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I started to walk back the way I’d come, but when it came time to turn up toward the bus stop, I kept walking. I figured the road I was on was parallel to the main road, so that I’d see the bus when it passed. Though it wasn’t like I could sprint the block or more to catch it, so my logic was definitely flawed. Still, I didn’t feel like changing directions.
I wondered where the werewolves had parked. I wondered if they changed shape in their cars. If they did, where did their clothes go? I couldn’t remember what had happened to Beau’s clothing when he turned into his tiger.
I wondered if the wolves could track Blackwell when he just disappeared like that. Could they track the magic of the amulet he wore?
I wondered if they were going to come after me.
But I couldn’t get worked up about any of it. I was so tired, bone-tired, and yet I felt light.
I felt free. I felt ready.
The sun came out from behind the low cloud to warm my back with a kiss of heat just before it finished setting. I pulled my tinted glasses out of my bag and slid them over my sun-sensitive eyes. It was an automatic sort of gesture, because I didn’t really need them.
A few cars sped by in both directions, but the bulk of the traffic stayed on the main road to my right. I passed a few houses with large front lawns as I walked. Not all the driveways were paved, and some of the porches needed paint.
My phone pinged, and I checked it to find a text message from Blackwell. I was really hoping it would be from Beau, even though he didn’t have a phone.
> I look forward to our next meeting, Rochelle.
So the wolves hadn’t gotten the sorcerer. I should be worried about that, shouldn’t I? Did I want the shapeshifters to get Blackwell? I didn’t even know what the sorcerer had done to them, or to Jade Godfrey. I didn’t really want to know. I just wanted to be in the Brave with Beau.
I was going to buy Beau a phone. No, I was just never going to leave his side again. Then I didn’t have to worry about being able to call him.
An old Chinese man was walking toward me. I would have sworn I could see the street empty for blocks ahead, but I hadn’t noticed him until he was only about two houses away. Maybe he’d crossed onto the sidewalk from one of the driveways.
I could see that the guy was a character even fifty or so feet away from him. He was wearing a white dress and flip-flops. I was cold in my jeans and hoodie, so he must be freezing. But he was smiling away like the world was his playground.
Maybe he was crazy. I didn’t mind crazy. I still wasn’t completely sure I wasn’t living in a fantasy world myself. I was still working through all that in my beleaguered mind.
He was about twenty feet in front of me now, grinning at me like we knew each other. I wondered if I’d ever seen a person as old as him before. Yet, he walked … lightly. He wasn’t gliding or anything, but there was something about him … something more.
“We meet,” he said when he was about ten feet away. I’d been about to step to the side to skirt around him. I’d already averted my eyes so to not accidentally engage whatever weirdness he might have going on in his head.
He reached out his hand, but not for me to shake. It was almost as if he expected to grab something.
I tripped. With my head cranked to the side to look at the old guy, I hadn’t seen that the driveway I was crossing was cracked right down the middle. I twisted my ankle. I threw my hands forward as I realized I wasn’t going to get my other foot underneath me in time. I fell.
My left elbow connected with the old guy’s outstretched hand.
A jolt of electricity ran up my arm.
I got my other foot under me just as the shockwave hit my brain and everything went blurry. My legs went to jelly.
“Sorry, sorry,” the old man said. His Asian accent was crazy-thick. He was holding me aloft, as if I wasn’t only an inch or so shorter than him and probably just as heavy. He was sturdy underneath the old man skin.
I got my legs sorted back underneath me as I straightened. He let go.
I stared at him. For someone so old, his almost-white hair was thick and his back was straight. He was wearing a robe, not a dress as I’d assumed. It was long enough to hit the tops of his sandaled feet, mostly white with some simple gold embroidery at the edges of the cuffs and neckline.
“You caught me.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was going to fall.”
“Big crack in pavement.”
“You gave me a shock when you touched me.”
“Did I?”
He was grinning at me so heartily that I started to think I’d imagined the electric shock and the hazy vision.
I turned away. The sidewalk stretched endlessly in front of me. But I didn’t keep walking.
Why was I walking down this road anyway? The bus would have had me back in Portland by now.
I looked back at the Asian man. He nodded his head, encouragingly.
“I’m Rochelle … Hawthorne Saintpaul.”
“Yes. Daughter of Jane Hawthorne, the Oracle of Philadelphia, and Kai Lei, a sorcerer of Hong Kong.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Or maybe that was what it felt like when a long-lost fragment of your life snapped into place.
“I’m Chi Wen,” the old man continued, as I swayed before him like I was ready to drop in a faint. “Far seer of the guardian nine.”
“Guardian of what?” I heard myself whisper, though I wasn’t currently formulating any thoughts in my em
pty, empty mind.
“The world and all the magic within it.” Chi Wen laughed as if his assertion wasn’t exactly as insane as it sounded.
“You knew my parents?”
“No. I’m sorry, fledgling. I did not. Shall we continue to walk? I’m enjoying the feeling of the setting sun on my face.”
Completely mute, I pivoted and followed after him in the direction I’d just come. We walked, me a step behind for a block or more.
At some point, I spoke. “There are wolves up ahead.”
“Yes,” he replied gleefully. “Interesting creatures. I will soon meet one who runs with the warrior’s daughter — her hair intrigues me — but today is not that day.”
Warrior’s daughter … Far seer … guardian of all the magic in the world … Jane the Oracle of Philadelphia …
“Green hair. Kandy,” I blurted. My voice was shaky. But then, so was I.
Chi Wen nodded but said nothing else.
“Jade Godfrey …” I said. “She said she knew someone like me.”
“She said she knew someone like me.” Chi Wen repeated my sentence word for word, yet there was a correction of my phrasing in there somewhere. I didn’t catch whatever he was emphasizing though. Maybe the ‘me?’ It might have been his accent, or it might have been my inherent unwillingness to be corrected.
We walked for a few more blocks. I could see the strip mall up ahead, but it wasn’t close enough for me to distinguish the barbershop yet.
“So … this is all real?”
Chi Wen took a deep breath, and slowly lifted his arms like wings to the sides. “You feel the air in your lungs, yes?”
“Yes.”
“The stone underneath your feet?”
“Pavement, but yes.”
Chi Wen stopped and gazed down at the ground for a moment. “Pavement,” he said.
He didn’t move.
A car passed us, then another.
I shuffled my feet. I wasn’t sure if … maybe he’d gone to sleep? With his eyes open in a completely creepy fashion?
“You …” My voice cracked. I started again, speaking louder. “You were saying?”
Chi Wen began walking again without warning. I stumbled after him.
I See Me (Oracle Book 1) Page 22