“Ollie.” Kevin’s eyes were huge.
I smelled burning and looked down to see the rug turning to ash. Flames outlined my arms and legs, my whole body. I’d disintegrated the rug and the floor under it was scorched. I looked up and said quietly, “Don’t ask again.”
Without waiting for a response, I turned and ran out the door.
I kept running, heading for the Eastside Esplanade along the Willamette River. It was raining heavily and the sidewalk was deserted. I didn’t bother trying to hide behind a Glamour as I aimed for the Springwater Corridor trail, running so fast I left gaps in the raindrops. Within ten minutes, I was about ten miles from the warehouse, in Powell Butte Park. I ran to the top of a large hill and stopped, breathing lightly. As I glared through the rain at the Portland city lights reflected off the overhanging clouds, anger surged through me, making my hands steam. Most of the time, I could tamp down on my anger over Ben’s unfair incarnation. But it was just too much to be asked to communicate with Ben, to use Ben.
I wondered – was I angry at the idea of contacting Ben or I was angry because Six wanted me to do it?
The more I thought about it, the more I did want to talk to Ben, not just to find out what the visions meant but to know he was okay.
So how did a non-mind reader go about communicating with a mind reader? I shook my arms to loosen them, balancing on my feet evenly, and twisted my head from side to side to relax my shoulders. Then I laughed a little at myself. This wasn’t a physical exercise. It was mental. So, more like mediation? Uncle Alex usually led us in mediation a few times a week – it was supposed to teach us how to center ourselves so we could react calmly to stressful situations. I hadn’t quite mastered a calm center yet, but I decided the practice was the best place to start with my experiment.
I settled on the ground, and ignoring the mud seeping through my jeans, crossed my legs and rested my hands on my knees. I did my best to ignore the rain trickling down my neck as I shut my eyes and thought of Ben. His face floated in my mind, thin with dark hair hanging over his green eyes. I smiled to myself, remembering how exciting it had been when we trained together. He was an accomplished swordsman. Sparring with him was challenging enough to be fun and exhilarating.
In addition, last fall, when my entire family thought I was a possible terrorist, Ben stuck with me. Of course, there was that kiss…
I shook my head – daydreaming about Ben’s lips wasn’t getting me closer to communicating with him. Okay, try again. I closed my eyes tighter and thought about the visions Ben might be sending me. I shivered involuntarily, raindrops flying off my shoulders. Though I could recall the visions clearly, I didn’t feel any connection back to Ben in his horrible prison cell. I’d visited him once and still had trouble getting the sight of him in his cell out of my mind. Not only was he in a cell, but he was confined to a bed surrounded by equipment monitoring his body and mind. Keeping him alive while at the same time preventing him from waking up.
I wrinkled my nose, annoyed, and opened my eyes. I wasn’t going to get through to him. Perhaps he wasn’t aware enough or it just wasn’t possible to communicate back to a mind reader. The rain running down my face mixed with tears I hadn’t realized I was crying. I pulled up my legs, wrapped my arms around them and rested my head on my knees. I was so tired.
I recognized the footsteps coming up the trail and sighed. I’d forgotten to turn off the tracking app Aunt Kate had built for our phones so she could track us while we hunted. She was usually discreet about only using it when we hunted, but I guess she’d gotten worried when I ran off.
“Hi Aunt Kate.” Resigned to the lecture she was certain to have composed, I was surprised when she simply sat beside me, only wincing a little at the muddy ground.
We sat side-by-side, gazing out at the city. Finally, Aunt Kate said, “You were very brave back there.”
I blinked, saying, “I was?”
“I don’t think Six understands what Ben means to you, what he means to all of us. To The Octad he’s just a mind reader who went rogue, like they all do inevitably.”
“Are you defending her?”
Aunt Kate shook her head. “Just working to understand the situation.” She gave me a half-smile. “As I do.” She shifted, squelching in the mud. “So…could you? Read Ben?”
I clenched my jaw to keep from snapping at my aunt, but a grunt escaped.
Aunt Kate faced me, her eyes concerned. “You misunderstand me. I don’t want you to. I don’t think it’s safe, but I am curious.”
I frowned; if curiosity were a significant ability, then Aunt Kate would excel at it. Sometimes I wondered if she was a reader. She always seemed to know what I was thinking.
“I can’t. I tried.” Not willing to provide the details of the experience, which had left me with a headache, I stood up. She rose to her feet and put an arm around me.
“Ollie, I can’t tell you what to do.” My skepticism must have shown on my face because she snorted. “Well yes, I can--but not how to feel. If you need to talk, I’m here.”
“Thanks.” I gave her a quick hug. “Since I can’t communicate with Ben, what do you think will happen next?”
Aunt Kate was silent for so long I didn’t think she was going to answer. Finally, she said, “I’m not sure.”
Her words lacked conviction and I suspected she did know, but I didn’t push the subject. We stood staring out at the city while my thoughts swirled around with worry over Ben, Emma, and Mountain of Ash.
Chapter 14
When Aunt Kate and I returned from Powell Butte, Six was gone. I didn’t know where she was staying while in Portland to annoy the Brighthalls, but I didn’t really care.
Kevin had set up a survival training program on the Wii in one of the training rooms. I watched him duck and dodge assailants for a few minutes before deciding the fact that he was ignoring me meant he wanted to be alone. Uncle Dan was nowhere to be found. In fact, I’d barely seen him since Six arrived.
Deciding that a twenty-mile run qualified as enough training for the day, I went home. If Uncle Dan had any complaints about me slacking off, he would be sure to let me know.
Dad was on a conference call with his office in Hong Kong. He greeted me with a wave, and then held up five fingers twice in a row. Dinner in ten minutes. I headed for the kitchen where a pot of chicken and sausage gumbo simmered on the stove.
I grabbed bowls from the cupboard and set the table, all the while pondering the big reveal that the visions were from Ben. Even though I couldn’t figure out how to communicate back to him, receiving visions from him felt like we were talking, sort of. I smiled to myself, feeling a tingle in my belly. It was nice to know Ben was thinking about me. My smile faded. If Ben was able to communicate, it meant he was probably aware of his current state – in a coma, in prison. That had to suck beyond the telling of it.
“Hello Olivia.” Dad’s voice jerked me out of my gloomy thoughts. “How was your day?”
I opened my mouth, then hesitated, on the verge of telling him everything. I settled for, “Fine.” I wasn’t ready to tell Dad about the visions – not until I knew more about what they meant and what Six and her sisters had planned for me.
After dinner, I went to my bedroom intending to finish my homework, but I couldn’t get the idea of Ben trapped in his mind out of my head. When I realized I’d been staring at my geometry homework for ten minutes without seeing it, I closed the book with a bang.
I called Zoe. “Hey, can you meet at the Steel Bridge?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I just need to talk.”
“Yeah, Mom told me what’s going on.” Zoe’s voice muffled for a moment. I assumed she was pulling on one of her ubiquitous hoodies. “See you in a few.”
The Steel Bridge is my favorite of the many bridges spanning the Willamette River between the east and west sides of Portland. I like how the middle of the bridge lifts like a lid pulled up for ships to pass under it. Both car and light r
ail traffic traveled over the bridge with an upper and lower bridge for pedestrians. When I was a kid, if a MAX light rail train was crossing at the same time as our car, I pretended we were racing. There was a time I thought the coolest job would be to live in the big machinery house controlling the bridge lift; now it was one of the places I thought would be good as a hideaway from the world.
It’s where I met Ben for the first time. I wasn’t sure if falling off the top of the bridge, then getting rescued from the Willamette River by Ben qualified as “meet cute,” but I had good memories of the experience.
The bridge is about seventy blocks from my house, but I went full Glamour and ran at top speed. Drizzle fell around me as I ran by houses made cozy by interior lights. Restaurants were winding down the day’s service. Traffic was light on I-84 when I ran across the bridge at 20th street. A few determined cyclists rode through the misty rain, blinking lights marking their path, unaware as I blew past.
It felt good to focus all my energy on action for a few minutes.
When I arrived at the bridge five minutes later, I glanced at my watch and felt a glow of pride. I’d made the run in my fastest time so far.
The bridge loomed over me, the top obscured by mist. The two towers containing the lifting mechanism between them were like sentries guarding the river below them. Though I couldn’t see them right now, I knew cables spanned the gap between the towers. I waited for a few cars to pass by, wheels making soft splashing sounds, and then I crossed the lanes to stand at the base of the eastern tower.
I climbed up, moving easily from girder to girder. Once I reached the top, I sat on the railing. The rain had settled down to spitting, but the cloud cover was still low. The city, the river, and the lights all looked eerie, as if I was looking into another world. This was reinforced when Zoe appeared silently by my side. Of all my cousins, she was the best at stealth. It was a part of her significant ability – super speed. I’d known her to run from the warehouse to Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in the time it took normals to drive to the gym.
“Hey,” Zoe greeted me in a subdued voice. The mist and soft lights affected her as well.
“Hey, thanks for coming out.”
She shrugged. “Better than homework.”
I grinned, knowing that was a front. Zoe loved school. She went to the technical high school where anything mathy was her favorite subject. She sometimes shadowed her mother on some of Aunt Kate’s missions that were more technical.
“Mom told me about the visions.” Zoe sat cross-legged on the girder. “What I can’t get my head around is how Ben’s coherent while in a coma,” she pulled out a handful pebbles from her pocket, “not to mention the damping field.” She held out her hand and I took a few stones.
“I know, right?” I pointed to an outcropping of rock a few feet from the eastern shore.
Zoe aimed and threw a rock, hitting the outcropping precisely in the middle. “I only went to the Complex once while Mom was on the Council. I was pretty young.” She pointed to one of the pillars holding up the ramp connecting I-5 to I-84.
I knew Aunt Kate had been on the Council when Mom died. From Uncle Alex’s lectures, I knew the Council included five supernormals elected from the five supernormal districts around the US. Each member served three-year terms and could be re-elected once.
“Too bad you weren’t there often enough to figure out how to break into the prison.” I lobbed my rock, just barely hitting the pillar.
Zoe smirked, either at my almost-fail throw or at the idea of breaking into Ley Prison. Her next words confirmed the direction of her thoughts. “When we were kids, we talked about it a few times. You know, to check out the criminals in there.” Her eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Emma especially was interested.” She started to toss a rock aimlessly, but I tracked the direction of the toss and caught her arm before she could hit some cyclists coming off the bridge onto the esplanade. If she’d hit one of them, the force of the stone would injure or kill the cyclist.
“Yikes.” Zoe shifted her aim to a post in the river. Then she stuffed the rest of the rocks back into her pocket.
“So you never thought of a way to do it?” I asked, wondering what I would do if she said yes.
“No, it’s too well guarded — underground, guards, damping field. Especially the damping field. We could never figure out how to get around that restriction.” Zoe shrugged. “I wonder how Emma managed to escape.” She grinned at me. “Thinking of going in after Ben?”
I kept my eyes on the river, grateful for the darkness to hide my blush; most supernormal eyes weren’t quite good enough to see shades of color in the dark. “What do you think they’re going to do about him?”
“Don’t know — Mom thinks they might try to wake him up, but that’s a fairly major decision.” Zoe blew out her breath in a sigh while I tried to hide my inner jolt at the idea of Ben being awake. “I don’t know, Ollie.” Zoe narrowed her eyes at me. “But when were you going to tell me about you and Ben anyway?” She nudged me.
“There’s nothing to tell.” I sighed at her snort. “Okay, we kissed, but then well…you know what happened. It’s not like there was time for anything to get started.”
Zoe gave me a one-armed hug. “Sorry, Ollie.”
We sat, lost in in our own thoughts about Emma, Ley Prison, and Ben, until I realized I’d been staring at the same spot in the west bank of the river, my subconscious poking at me to notice what I was seeing. I leaned forward, screwing up my eyes to focus on a spot in the wall just above the water line.
“Zoe,” I murmured, not sure how far sound carried over the water. “Look over there, just to the left of the bridge. Do you see something?”
She shifted to peer in the direction I indicated, speaking softly in response to my cue, “No, I don’t.”
“Look at river wall, just above the water.” I didn’t want to point in case it drew the creature’s attention. Whatever I was looking at had ice blue, glowing eyes set into an inky black face. Some of the monsters had amazing eyesight, better even than a supernormal’s amazing eyesight.
“I still don’t…oh, wait.” Zoe went silent for a moment, then said in a fake drawl, “Yep, I think we got ourselves a critter.”
“Should we call the others?”
Zoe hesitated before deciding. “No, we might lose it before they get here.” She twisted around and started to shimmy down the girders. “Come on, let’s go see what it is.”
I followed her, feeling the excitement of the chase despite this being my second hunt of the day. Honestly, another hunt was easier to process than the thoughts in my head right now.
We dropped from the main level of the bridge down to the lower pedestrian bridge closer to the water. We walked slowly across the bridge, watching the glowing eyes as we got closer to the riverbank. I didn’t think we’d been made – the eyes appeared to be scanning the water, the bridge, and the far bank equally.
“It looks like there may be a hole in the wall,” Zoe murmured. “I’ve never noticed one before now though.”
“Yeah, me either,” I shrugged, “but why would we unless we had a reason to?”
We were over halfway across when the eerie, blue, glowing eyes faded back into the hole, gradually disappearing as if the monster had retreated further inside. The opening appeared to be about five by five feet. I nudged Zoe. “I wonder if that opening leads to the Shanghai tunnels?”
She grimaced, no doubt remembering our fight last fall against the Mongolian Death Worm in the old system of tunnels running under Portland’s Westside. The tunnels were creepy, dark, and easy for creatures to lurk in for days before anyone knew they were there.
We reached the end of the bridge where the walkway merged into the waterfront sidewalk. No one was around except a group of folks huddled near a building a couple of blocks away. I leaned over the railing, wondering how to get to the hole where the creature had gone. I was still thinking when Zoe grabbed my arm. “Hang onto my back.”
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br /> “What?” Confused, I pulled away. “You can’t fly.”
“No, but I’m fast enough to swing over and into the hole before we hit the water.”
“How do you know?” Her confidence astonished me.
“Got a better idea?” Zoe grinned. “Come on, you overthink things too much.”
With a sigh, I gave in. I looped my arms around her neck, feeling slightly ridiculous. Zoe took a running start. I gasped, hastily wrapping my legs around her waist right before she swung over the railing. Arcing out over the river, momentum brought us back towards the wall. I tensed, ready to attack, as Zoe aimed for the opening. She landed on the edge, crouched down. I jumped off her back, mimicking her crouched position. For a breath, we waited, scanning the dark interior for signs of life, but nothing stirred. No glowing blue eyes greeted us.
“Okay, let’s go.” Zoe crept forward, straightening up when she realized the ceiling got higher once we were inside.
She pulled a knife from the back of her pants and I wished for my sword while holding my hands at the ready. Even though I carried my own defenses through my fire and ice abilities, it was still comforting to carry an actual weapon during a hunt.
The obviously man-made tunnel angled under the Old Town district, so I decided I was correct about this passageway leading into the warren of Shanghai tunnels. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. The opening behind probably once lead to a dock for supplies, or as the story ran, was used to shanghai prisoners into working on ships.
Zoe stopped, holding up a hand. I heard a shuffling, dragging sound ahead of us. She glanced back at me. I nodded and we darted forward together almost silently.
A screeching wail echoed off the walls as a jet-black shape flung itself at us, past Zoe and straight into my chest. I staggered, trying to hold back the creature’s snapping teeth. Up close, the creature’s glowing eyes were as large as saucers, almost mesmerizing, tempting me to gaze into them instead of fight. The creature screeched again, twisting off me to attack Zoe, who held her knife out to one side. I saw luminous blue blood dripping off the point and realized she’d stabbed the monster. The creature looked like an enormous caterpillar, though I’d never seen a caterpillar use its antennae like whips. Fortunately, Zoe had a lot of practice with whips and dodged the lashes gracefully.
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