by Gwynn White
I swallowed. “Oh.”
Pausing at the silence this produced, I glanced at the man on the log.
“So why can’t you read him? Because he’s been poisoned?”
Some of the heat left the seer’s eyes. Exhaling, he gestured towards the man.
“He’s dying. And someone’s been messing with his light. There are a number of blocks on it, and it feels like they were put there by more than one seer.” He gave me a hard look. “I can’t even get at his impressions of what happened tonight. Most of his aleimi is behind a shield. I don't want to mess with it too much or whoever’s holding the other end will likely be able to ID me. Given that I’m here with you, that wouldn’t be good for either of us. They might be able to ID you, too.”
I didn't understand most of that, either, but I didn’t want to ask, so I just nodded.
“Okay.”
The seer stared at me, his eyes holding a sharper wariness.
“I did feel one thing,” he said.
Seeing the scrutiny in his eyes, I frowned. “What?”
“He’s afraid of you.”
“Of me?” I let out a strangled laugh. “Are you sure he’s not afraid of the guy who keeps bashing his head into a log to get him to talk?”
“I’m sure.”
When he continued to stare at me, I sighed. “Why? Why is he afraid of me, Simon?”
“I was about to ask you that.”
I exhaled in frustration. “Look, you cut me down yourself. What, exactly, do you think I could have done to him? To any of them?” Combing my fingers through my hair, I added, “Anyway, they thought I was some kind of magical seer. They’re probably just blaming me for whatever actually happened because it fits with their twisted seer-cult scripture.”
Remembering that I was saying this to an actual seer, I trailed, looking up at him. It occurred to me in the same instant that I'd kissed him earlier that night.
I’d made out with a seer. Some part of me couldn’t quite believe that.
When I saw his eyes narrow on mine, I cleared my throat.
“How is it you’re walking around the streets… like that?” I said, feeling my cheeks warm. I motioned towards his neck. “Isn’t that illegal?” When he only frowned, I leaned my hip against the log. “I don’t think even cops are allowed to let their seers walk around un-collared. Anyway, the LAPD can’t afford their own seers, so I doubt the NYPD can. Are you really SCARB? Or do you work for someone else? Some company?”
His frown deepened in my general direction.
Before I could think of anything more to say, he caught hold of my waist, pulling my weight off the log and supporting it against him. Like last time, the motion was rote, almost perfunctory, but I found myself noticing the contact now.
“Come on,” he said gruffly. “He’s dead. We should go.”
My heart jackknifed. I looked down at the man chained to the log.
He continued to gaze up at the stars, but his breath no longer emitted clouds into the night air. His jaw was slack, his mouth slightly ajar. His pupils were fully dilated. His chest didn’t move.
It struck me that he was the first person I’d been with while they died since my father.
The thought brought a sharp pain to my chest.
I struggled to breathe, inexplicably fighting tears.
It might have been shock. Or maybe it was its opposite––maybe my feeling was coming back from the adrenaline and shock wearing off. Maybe my mind was finally switching back on, finally realizing my life was no longer in immediate danger.
I was still struggling to breathe when the seer’s arm tightened around me, squeezing me against his side.
A flush of liquid warmth hit my chest––shockingly intimate, even as it relaxed that clenched fist around my lungs and breath. My cheeks warmed as my chest loosened, as I found I could breathe again, as some deeper part of me relaxed. I leaned against the hard body and arm without thought, exhaling in what was close to a sigh.
I looked up when I realized he’d done that.
Whatever just happened, it felt like it came from him.
He didn’t return my gaze.
Before I could speak, he was already steering me towards the stone arches, in the same general direction I’d seen the female seer exiting earlier. I considered trying to talk to him, asking him more about the man on the log.
Then, after a quick glance around the clearing, I realized I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
24
House on the Hill
I wasn’t really listening when he told the robo-taxi where to go.
I didn’t really think about our destination at all until the cab pulled up to a curb and the side doors opened.
Without looking at me, the seer started to get out.
I thought he was just going to leave me the cab and bid me adieu, but, before I could ask, he had ahold of my hand. Clasping it tightly in his long fingers, he pulled me out of the back seat with him without speaking, and shut the door behind us.
Still gripping my hand, he walked up to the front and flashed his own barcode to pay. While the blue-green light ran over his skin, I couldn’t help seeing the dark “H” it illuminated on his lighter-colored inner forearm.
Jon was right. He had a human racial-cat tattoo.
Swallowing, I looked down at the “H” tattooed on my own skin, fingering it with my free hand before wincing at the raw skin of my wrists.
My headset was gone.
I’d been thinking about how expensive it would be to get a new one, assuming no one found it by the club and turned it in to the police. I’d lost one before, which meant I’d have to pay a double fine, most likely, in addition to replacement costs for the set itself.
Given my financial situation lately, especially with this trip to New York, just thinking about it made my stomach hurt.
I prayed Jon or Cass found it and picked it up, since they were linked users and should have been able to ping the GPS to find me. Then again, given what time it was––which was around three a.m. according to the robo-taxi’s dashboard clock––Jon was probably calling hospitals and police stations by now, if not roaming the streets looking for me.
I wanted to call and reassure him I was alive at least, but the black-haired seer claimed he didn’t have a headset on him either, which would have been weird if it was anyone else. As it was, I didn't argue. I’d heard a lot of government types didn’t wear them, since they were targets for hacking in a way most civilians weren’t.
Besides, he was seer. No matter who his owners were, he likely had his own reasons for staying off the grid.
When the robo-taxi pulled away from the curb, he tugged on my arm to follow him.
I did as his hand and arm asked––until something caused me to look up.
When I saw the hotel he was leading me towards, I slowed my steps.
My eyes scaled up the white stone edifice. It definitely wasn’t my hotel. In fact, rather than the two-star fleabag where we were staying on St. Marks, I was now standing outside probably the nicest hotel I’d ever seen.
Looking around, I also realized where we were.
Central Park was directly across the street. I once more stood on the block where I’d seen the seer get tasered that morning. I could see the exact corner of the sidewalk where it happened, less than a hundred yards behind us. Horses and carriages no longer stood there, and the kiosks were all closed but one, but it was definitely the same corner of the park.
I vaguely remembered noticing the hotel that morning, too, not long before that female seer got tasered. In fact, I might have been staring at it when I ran into her.
He resumed pulling me towards the entrance, where two uniform-wearing men were already stepping back to open the doors for us.
I followed, stiff-legged, when suddenly, my brain clicked on for real.
I came to a dead stop, releasing his hand.
“Hey,” I said, as gently as I could. “What is this? I ne
ed to get back. My brother is probably on his second heart attack by now, assuming he hasn’t gone full-blown vigilante and started beating up random people to find out where I am.”
I glanced at the four-story lobby I could now glimpse through the glass windows.
“Anyway,” I said, swallowing a little. “I don't know who you think I am, but I can’t afford a room here. Not by a long shot. This place probably costs more per night what I earn in three months from my crappy job… and I’m already broke from the plane fare here.”
The black-haired seer stopped on the curb, right before it dipped in to form a small driveway for pick up and drop-off for valet parking. Resting his hands on his hips, he avoided my eyes, frowning as if trying to decide what to tell me––or maybe what to do with me.
Briefly, he looked borderline flustered.
Studying his expression, I tried to understand what the look meant. Clearly, he was trying to decide how to answer my question. He also looked like he was worried about something.
I noticed again that his eyes really were the strangest color, in that they had almost no color at all. It was easy to miss until you were staring right into them. It was easy to convince yourself they were just light blue or gray or even green, that they weren’t that different from any human with darkish skin and light-colored eyes.
Other than that, he looked human. He looked really human, as human as me.
That weird––something––I normally noticed in seers, I still didn’t really see on him.
At the same time, now that I was looking for it, I saw hints of what he was. I saw it in everything from those strangely-colorless irises, to his height, to the angle of his cheekbones and the faint almond slant of his eyes. It was there, but in such small amounts, it was easy to dismiss each individual thing, to assume he was just an unusual ethnic blend of human.
I was still studying his face when he shifted his body so that his back squarely faced the door of the hotel. It occurred to me that he’d done it to block the view the doormen had of the two of us. I stiffened, not sure I liked that very much.
Stepping closer to me, he lowered his voice.
“Allie.” He hesitated, meeting my gaze for the first time since I’d stopped him. “I’ll take you back to your hotel,” he said, his voice low, almost a murmur. “I’ll take you back tonight. I promise. But I need to talk to you first. Alone.” Hesitating, he added, “It’s important.”
“Why?” I said. “Why is it important?”
He hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the hotel. He looked back at me.
“Inside, okay? Not out here.”
I looked up the side of the building again.
Watching me look, he frowned. “I’m not trying to lure you anywhere. I just thought you’d prefer to talk here. Particularly compared to where we just left.” Seeing me continue to hesitate, he took another half-step back. “I have no ill intentions. I’ll bring you back to your people right after, I promise.” As if reading my mind, he added, “You’re already late. Another hour won’t make much difference. And we need to discuss how we’re going to spin this… what happened, I mean.”
Thinking about that, I found myself nodding slowly.
Yeah. I’d forgotten about that side of things.
Dead bodies in the park. Surveillance seeing me get grabbed outside the club. An uncollared seer with what had to be unauthorized firearms.
It hit me for the first time that I could go to jail for this.
“You won’t go to jail, Allie,” he said quickly. “You won’t. But we need to talk.”
“You just want to talk?” I said, still wary for some reason.
He made an odd gesture with one hand, a symbol that made me think of “scout’s honor” when I was a kid. “I won’t hurt you, Allie. I won’t let anyone else hurt you, either. I won’t let you go to jail. But we need to be on the same page for a few things.”
I frowned a little when he said my name. He’d been saying it all night, but for the first time, it really hit me how familiar it was, how he said it. He said it like he knew me, like we were friends, not like I was someone he’d just met.
Then again, after tonight, maybe we were friends.
Or something, anyway.
At any rate, I had a few questions for him, too.
“All right,” I said.
I saw his shoulders relax. He shifted his body sideways to open my view to the glass hotel doors. Following a polite-seeming motion of his hand, I began to walk under my own power, glancing back when he followed. I still moved slower than usual, gritting my teeth a little at the pain in my hips and arms as I walked.
It also struck me that I was barefoot, and wearing clothes that might have been club-appropriate when they were spotless at seven o’clock that evening, but gave off more of a “beat-up hooker” vibe in a setting like this, especially at this time of night. Plus, I was filthy, and probably had smoke smudges all over my face. I didn’t even want to know what my hair or make-up looked like.
More than any of that, I hurt.
My arms hurt especially, and still felt a few inches longer than they should be.
He took my hand again, right as we reached the glass doors. I saw one of the doormen look me over, quirking an eyebrow at the seer, right before his expression went blank.
He smiled a blank-eyed smile at the seer instead.
“Good evening, sir!” the man said cheerfully.
“‘Evening,” the seer said, nodding.
I glanced at the other doorman, and saw an equally blank look on his face. He wasn’t focusing on either of us, but looking towards the park.
I was still staring up at both of them when the black-haired seer gripped my hand tighter, guiding me through the glass doors. Once we were in the lobby, instead of releasing me, he pulled me closer, wrapping an arm around my waist once I was by his side.
That time, I couldn’t fail to feel the protectiveness in the gesture.
He walked me through the four-story lobby and directly to the nearest bank of elevators. As we passed under crystal chandeliers, near a wall mosaic depicting a beautiful white house on a hill covered in white trees, I saw no one looking at us at all.
25
A Normal Life
He was staying on the sixty-third floor.
It was the second highest floor in the hotel.
On the ride up in the elevator, the seer muttered that no one would bother us.
He said the upper floors had their own concierge, that they were designed more as serviced residencies than hotel rooms, although they could be used as either. When I asked about the missing floors among the numbered buttons, he told me those floors were corporate headquarters for some high-end technology firm, and required a different elevator and passkey.
He stopped talking after that.
It seemed to take a long time to reach the higher floors.
I’d been in taller buildings, of course, everything from the rooftop bar of the Black Arrow Building in Seattle to the Empire State Building as a tourist just the day before––but I don’t think I’d ever been in a hotel room that high up before.
He still seemed uneasy around me. I watched him lean against the elevator car’s brass railing, a vaguely uncomfortable look on his face as he avoided my eyes.
It was utterly silent as we exited the elevator.
He led me down the left-hand corridor, taking my hand without comment.
As we walked the length of it, I noticed two things. One, there were very few doors set in the wall. Two, every door I saw lived only on the left side, which made me wonder if the wall between the two corridors was more for privacy reasons than anything structural.
He took me to the very last door.
Releasing my hand, he used both a keycard he extracted from his wallet and a thumbprint scanner to open the door. The lock clicked as he removed his thumb and the door popped ajar. He caught hold of the handle and jerked it the rest of the way open before motioning me polite
ly inside.
After the barest hesitation, I followed the graceful wave of his fingers.
I only made it a few steps before I stopped, staring around at the wide-open space.
It was bigger than my shared flat in San Francisco.
That’s pretty much where the ability to compare the two spaces ended.
Staring at the view overlooking Central Park through the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows, I felt a stab of vertigo. I noticed a faint shimmer beyond the french-style doors to my left and realized a balcony likely stood outside. Made of one of those transparent super-materials, it had clearly been designed to not obscure the view for anyone standing inside.
All in all, probably not the best room if you were afraid of heights.
Luckily, I wasn’t.
I ventured closer to the window.
The darkness of the park filled most of my view. Even this late, the shadowed expanse of trees and lawn remained sprinkled all over with fairy-like streetlights, broken by the glimmer of lakes and ponds reflecting light from the sky and the buildings. Holograms snaked over the air on the edges of the park, everything from a sea horse I saw swimming across the sky to an Asian woman wearing a bikini, smiling and winking from one hundred feet in the air. I watched a flock of holographic birds wheel and bank over the vicinity of the Met, then scatter into a few thousand butterflies.
Only one hologram stood over Central Park itself, near one of its roads. It formed a beautiful delicate design like a tiered building made of glass. I watched it change colors and morph, holographic snow falling inside the glass structure.
I wondered what it was.
“A restaurant,” the seer said, apparently hearing me. “Well… more a private club. But it has a restaurant and bar attached. It’s nice.”
I nodded, not bothering to comment.
I’m not normally one of those people who thinks very often or very hard about how rich people live. I’d known a fair-few rich people over the years, living in San Francisco––especially in art school, and even Jaden’s parents, who owned like five properties in different parts of the world. I had tech friends who made good money, and one friend whose father was some kind of Vice President for Firestorm, one of the biggest defense contractors on the West Coast. I knew his parents lived in a virtual palace in China Beach.