—The Society for Goddess Education and Defense, Goddess Source/Ability Catalog
“Wow,” John said. “You’re really sweating. Take a break.”
Riley grabbed a towel from a short stack on a shelf and sank onto a roll of mats against the wall. The training center was one big room lined with crash pads. It took up half the seventh floor, and the rest was storage for another company. Sam sat in the corner with his laptop and cell phone, joining them every so often in a drill or chiming in with some advice or information, but otherwise ignoring them to focus on his research. Riley almost wished he weren’t there at all. Testing was easier when no one else was watching, especially not a guy who’d kissed you the night before but then didn’t act any different come morning.
Not that “testing” was a good word for what they were doing. John wasn’t a scientist. He was a fighter, something she should have thought of and been prepared for before she started this. He’d given her a tire iron and had her demonstrate what she could do with it. Not simply moving objects across the table or lifting something heavy, oh, no. He made Sam pretend to attack her, to give her impetus to throw him across the room. John wanted to see how much power she had to reverse momentum. When she’d described metal’s effect on her body, he’d put her through some basic fighting maneuvers to test her strength, then acrobatics to check her agility. Never mind that she’d never flipped or cartwheeled in her life. At least, not since she was about ten.
But she could do it. He’d shown her an aerial and, after marveling that a guy nearly fifty was capable of doing a flip like that without using his hands for support—simultaneously pleasing and annoying him—she’d tried, and actually landed on her feet. Knocked the tire iron out of her hand doing it, and put a gouge in the floor—but already, she’d expanded her abilities.
The success gave her enough confidence to shed her self-consciousness as long as they were working, but when they stopped, her awareness zoomed right back in on Sam. He’d offered praise and suggestions and zero judgment, but there was still a new layer of awkwardness stemming from last night. She wanted to be impressive but was afraid she looked stupid with everything she did.
“Here.”
Riley opened her eyes and took the bottle of water John handed down to her. “Thanks.”
“You’re looking good.” He crouched next to her, his own bottle dangling from one hand. “You obviously have some force, both with channeling and with increasing your natural strength and agility. You’re able to defend yourself, and that’s important right now.”
“Is that all I’m capable of?” She hoped she didn’t sound petulant. “It sounds like it has limited application. What about when I’m not being harassed by jerks?”
He smiled. “That’s next. You ready?”
She drank a few more gulps of water. “Ready.” She let him pull her to her feet and followed him to a card table he’d dragged to the middle of the room. She studied the items on its surface. A paper clip, a small screw, a book of matches, some coins, a crumpled ball of paper, a small book, and a letter opener. She sat in one molded plastic chair, and John swung his around to straddle it.
“What I want to see now is finesse,” he said.
“You mean how little energy I need to draw?”
“Right. We know you can open up with contact to a large mass of metal. But how much do you need, and what can you do with it?”
“I can tell you now, it’s not much.” She glanced into Sam’s corner, but he was engrossed in a phone conversation and staring at his laptop screen. “The last few months would have been much easier if draping my body in jewelry did the trick. All it does is make me a little less tired.”
“You’re still talking about blowing people across the room.” He handed her the small screw, which she folded into her fist. “Can you move that piece of paper?”
Riley had been told she didn’t need the gesture, but she was used to aiming so she held her free hand flat, fingers pointing toward the balled-up paper, and concentrated on flowing power through the screw, into her body, and out at the paper. A second later it flew off the table and smacked John in the shoulder.
“See? Glad I didn’t choose something more solid.”
“It’s just paper,” Riley countered. “I can’t do that with something bigger.” She tried with the book, a paperback, but the pages barely fluttered.
John tilted his chair to reach down and retrieve the paper. “It’s okay. Whatever you can do, you can do. Some things take practice. Some things you’ll never be capable of.” He set the paper back on the table. “Like I said, we’re looking for control here, not strength. Try again, but just nudge it.”
Riley nodded and concentrated. Again, the ball of paper flew. This time he caught it and set it on the table. “Draw back, only let a little power through.”
She concentrated less hard, and this time the ball skittered a few inches and stopped. A grin spread over her face, banishing her frustration.
“Great. Now try the paper clip.” She did, and the coins, and all of them worked as long as the object she tried to move stayed small and light. She still couldn’t affect the book. Nor could she reverse the process—when she tried moving the paper toward her, it did nothing more than rock a little.
“What’s it feel like?” John asked her.
Riley blew out a breath and shoved her bangs off her forehead. “It feels like my brain won’t bend that way.” She unfolded the hand clenching the screw. Red marks in her palm bracketed the metal. “Usually, I pull the energy through the metal into me, then push it out to do whatever I want to do.”
“You’ve had this for three years,” John pointed out. “What have you done with it?”
Her face flushed. “Not much. I mean, it took a while to figure out what was going on, and then I concentrated on not doing anything. I avoided metal, and when I couldn’t, I kept it in.” Holding the rushing sensation back hadn’t been that difficult. At least, not when she wasn’t afraid or angry. “The last six months, I’ve mostly been using it to keep people away from me. Everything I’ve done has been channeling outward.”
John nodded. “So you’ve been directing the flow of energy in one direction, and this”—he nodded at the paper—“tries to reverse the flow midstream.”
“Exactly.”
He suggested imagery and steps to change what she was trying to do and still get the effect she was going for, but nothing worked. Riley got more and more frustrated, which seemed to dam everything up so she couldn’t even direct the power out to the paper, never mind “tell” it to bring the paper toward her.
“One more thing,” John said, glancing at his watch. “Then lunchtime.”
Good. She was starving.
“I want you to set these matches on fire.”
She stared at him. “The whole pack? At once?”
He made a face. “Okay, try one.” He ripped one from the pack and stuck the end of it into the side of the paper clip, to protect his fingers, and held it out. “Try that. Hold the screw, and channel heat. Flame. Elements. Whatever.”
“Very helpful,” Riley muttered, but she tried. Nothing happened. When she held the letter opener, she could access enough energy to bend the match under the force of her attempt, and then twist the whole paperclip out of shape. But John said he didn’t feel any warmth. She held the tire iron instead, with similar results despite the larger mass of metal.
“So what does all this mean?” Riley asked.
“It means you’re average.” He gathered up the things on the table.
Riley helped him, disgruntled. She didn’t want to be a freak, but now that she knew she wasn’t, she didn’t want to be average, either. It was kind of a letdown after all the raving about her uniqueness.
“Average how?” she asked.
“Very few goddesses are like Quinn, able to heal and move stuff and sense things and alter perception and set fires. Most are concentrated in a couple of areas. Like her mother, Tess. She can g
row the most gorgeous plants you ever saw, and she can make changes to living tissue. Remove scars, fix teeth, stuff like that.”
Marley had told her a little about this already. “But she can’t throw a person ten feet.”
He chuckled. “No, I don’t think she can.” He hefted the table and moved it back to one side of the room. Riley got up and followed with the two chairs.
“So what would you call my thing?”
He shrugged. “No need to label it. Consider it a starting point. We can do other tests. Be careful what you try on your own, though, so you don’t hurt anyone.” He cocked his head as he looked at her, and she could almost see the thoughts spinning through his brain. “If you wanted, you could turn this into a lucrative bodyguard career, something like that. Or join the Protectorate. We haven’t had a protector goddess in a long time. Not since I can remember.”
Riley sighed. She’d barely adjusted to the idea that the Society wasn’t a gang of con artists or something, and he wanted her to be a champion for them? “It’s a lot to think about. But thanks.”
“No problem.”
They paused next to Sam, who didn’t seem to realize they were there for a few seconds. But when he looked up, his gaze landed squarely on Riley, and he smiled enough to expose the dimples and make her insides swoop.
“All done?” he asked.
“For now,” John said. “Marley set some time aside to dig with her through the archives, and I have meetings. You ready for lunch?”
Sam frowned at the computer. “I need a few more minutes. I’ll lock up here.”
John tossed him a set of keys and turned to Riley. “There’s a shower upstairs if you want to use it before you cram yourself into Marley’s office.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I will.”
He left, and Riley hesitated. She didn’t want to interrupt if Sam was deep into something, but he caught her hand when she started to move away. The contact somehow eliminated all her uncertainty, even when he closed the laptop and faced her with a very unhappy expression.
“You know what I told you yesterday about Quinn and the leeched power?”
She nodded, distracted by the way his fingers wrapped around her hand. His was so big, she wondered if he even noticed he was still holding hers, or that his thumb was stroking her palm. The sensation shivered its way up her arm and into her chest.
He sighed. “I have to go to Mississippi.”
“What?” That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say, especially after he told her last night that he was staying. “Now?”
He nodded, his mouth turning down and his eyes murky with worry. “Nick said Quinn’s getting worse. She can’t put off making the transfers, especially now that they apparently know what to do.”
Riley frowned. “I can understand that, but why does it have to be you?”
He stood and released her to pack his laptop into its case. “Something about needing a filter to help separate the power. He didn’t go into a lot of detail, just insisted it had to be me. Look.” He set the case on the floor and faced her, his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t want to leave here with the Millinger issue unfinished, but I’ve spent the last few hours researching and making calls, and I’m not getting anywhere. No one has any information. I can’t reach anyone associated with Millinger at any of their claimed locations.
“On the plus side,” he continued, not sounding all that positive, “no one has seen Anson anywhere near here. If you stick with John and stay around other people, you’ll be safe until I get back.”
Riley wasn’t worried about her safety at the moment. She’d held her own against both John and Sam today, and she doubted anyone would approach her while she was around the Society. But she hated that Sam had to leave right now, when they were just getting started.
“How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
He hefted the laptop case over his shoulder and walked out with her, flipping off the lights and locking the door with John’s keys. “A couple of days at the most. I’ll fly down tonight, meet up with them to do the transfer tomorrow, and fly back as soon as I can.” They went into the stairwell and climbed toward the floor above. “I don’t know yet how this all works, but I’ll keep you posted.”
“I hope it all goes well, and that Quinn’s okay.” Riley reached for the door at the landing, but again Sam’s hand on hers stopped her.
“I’m sorry to do this now, when we haven’t even had a chance to talk about last night.”
Her heart fluttered, and she was sure it showed in her eyes when she looked up at him. “What is there to say?”
One side of his mouth twitched up. “It was that bad?”
She laughed. “Hardly. We just met, that’s all.” God, had it been barely two days ago? They’d packed what felt like a month’s worth of living into such a short time. “I can’t expect anything from you.”
“Oh, yes, you can.” He tugged her against him and cupped her face, his other hand hot on her back. Riley had time for a fleeting thought that she was a sweaty mess, but it vanished as soon as their mouths met. His lips were soft and smooth, but firm and talented as they swept across hers. He nipped at her bottom lip and she opened to him, accepting his tongue in a hungry dance.
Too soon, Sam cradled her head between his hands and released her mouth. His breath panted into hers, and he kept his eyes closed for several moments before he spoke.
“I really don’t want to leave you.”
Riley couldn’t tell him not to, and she couldn’t make herself say it was okay, so she stayed silent. The pads of Sam’s fingers dragged across her scalp, igniting a cascade of shivers that forced her eyes closed. As soon as she did, he kissed her again, this one gentler.
“I’ll call you,” Sam said. “John will watch out for you, but please be careful.”
“I will.” The words came out rough. She cleared her throat. “Don’t worry about me.”
He chuckled. “I will.”
Then, so quickly it felt gratifyingly like he was tearing himself away, he was gone.
Chapter Seven
The greatest of power is built not accompanied by fanfare and spotlights, but quietly, with a constant eye on long-term growth. Power and influence, invested properly, is its own return.
—Numina manifesto, revised
Riley felt better after she’d showered, but only physically. Knowing Sam was gone created a hole that was completely illogical, given how short a time he’d been in her life. But that life had irrevocably changed in the last few days, and he was an intrinsic part of the change. She missed him, and he’d been gone about half an hour.
She was about to leave the shower room when she heard raised voices and hesitated. John was in the hall talking to a woman Riley had briefly met this morning—Jeannine, the president of the board.
“This is the absolute worst time for us to lose you,” she said.
“It’s not like I’d be disappearing into the jungle. I’ll be around. But you knew when I first came in here it was temporary. This isn’t my thing, riding a desk.”
“And you think Nick Jarrett is any better suited to it?” There was bitterness as well as argument in her voice.
“I think he’ll be on the road a lot. But he’s younger, smarter, less resistant to change. I’m not talking about doing this tomorrow.” An edge had entered his voice. “Nick will come in to head recruitment, and I’ll train him to replace me in a year or so.”
Jeannine lowered her voice. “And what about Numina? I thought we agreed not to bring anyone else in on this until we had a better handle on what we’re dealing with.”
Numina? Riley had never heard the word, but the context gave it a sinister essence.
“The bigger it gets, the less comfortable I am keeping it to ourselves.” John had lowered his voice, too, and the combination of what they were saying and the hushed-but-urgent way they were saying it sent shivers of apprehension through Riley. “Others will have to be involved before too long
.”
“Probably. But I won’t let you walk away.” Footsteps came closer. Riley hoped there wasn’t steam seeping through the crack in the door.
The steps halted suddenly. “Make no mistake, Jeannine. You have no say in this. I may work in this building, but the Protectorate is and always will be a separate entity. I know you don’t like that I’m not under your thumb, but I refuse to let you try to put me there, even now. If I want Nick to take over, Nick will take over.”
Riley could almost feel the fury radiating through the hall. “It’s not up to you, either. Nick has to agree. He might not.”
“Then I’ll find someone else. But you won’t resist this.”
“Whatever. Be ready in five minutes.”
And with that, the woman stalked down the hall. Riley only had a glimpse of beige flashing past the skinny gap in the doorway. She waited, hearing nothing from John. He’d probably gone back into his office, which was in the opposite direction.
Riley bit her lip. She had only been part of the Society for a couple of days, but she already knew tension between it and the Protectorate was a bad thing. John was upset that they were keeping things from…whom? Everyone? It sounded like Numina was new to everyone, not just her. Old fears and suspicions reared up, and for a second she was ready to run again, but the feeling was short lived. Stronger was the urge to learn more, to join in the fight.
John and Jeannine knew more about what was going on than they’d told Sam. Whatever Numina was, it must connect to Millinger and Anson’s plans.
Maybe Jeannine’s secrecy should feed Riley’s reservations about the Society, but everyone had been welcoming and helpful to her so far, and now she was torn between old fears and new loyalties. She couldn’t just walk away and leave Sam and Marley and anyone else to be affected or harmed by this whole thing, especially when she seemed to be part of it. She had to do more.
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