“According to the parapsych doctors at the clinic there’s an eighty-five percent chance that I won’t remain a Seven for much longer,” he said. He started walking again. He kept his tone calm and clinical. “They warned me that my aura is unstable in the regions that are linked to the psychic senses. I was told that in all likelihood my condition will continue to deteriorate.”
She hurried to fall into step beside him. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I have to find a new line of work, among other things,” he said. “Which, as I mentioned, is what I’m trying to do here on Rainshadow.”
“Please don’t try to brush me off, Slade. I want to know what’s happening to you.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She spread her hands wide in a gesture of frustration. “Because of what we just did back there in that meadow, for heaven’s sake. We’re lovers now.”
Okay, this was where things were going to get dicey, he thought. He realized he wanted the lovemaking to mean something to her, something important. But he also knew that it would be infinitely better for both of them if she stuck with the resonate-with-the-moment approach.
“Look,” he said, “the truth is, no one knows what’s going to happen to my talent. The experts don’t know if I’ll stabilize at some point or if I’ll lose my para-senses altogether. I was told to plan for the worst-case scenario. Any other questions?”
“No.” She touched the pendant at her throat and then she shook her head firmly. “But I think the experts misread your aura. Or maybe they couldn’t see far enough along the spectrum. Or maybe they just did not understand what they were viewing. That happens a lot when it comes to analyzing high-end talents, you know.”
“So now you’re a trained aura-reader?”
“No,” she said. “But I know what I see in your rainbow. I’ve told you that rainbows are a reflection of the primary ultralight colors in a person’s aura.”
“Are you saying that you can see something in my aura that none of the experts saw? Thanks, but no thanks. I can’t afford to waste time with that power-of-positive-thinking crap.”
“That’s the spirit,” she shot back. “Think negative. That way you’re never disappointed.”
The sharpness of her tone caught him by surprise. She was usually so cheerful, so sunny and warmhearted. Like a dust bunny, he thought. But dust bunnies had teeth. He thought about that night fifteen years ago when Charlotte had tried to fight off a bigger, stronger attacker with only a flashlight. Underneath all that sweetness and light, Charlotte was a fighter.
“I’m just trying to be realistic,” he growled, feeling defensive now.
“What happens when you push your talent to the upper limits?”
“I was told not to risk it.”
“Why?”
“The theory is that the more I use my talent, the harder I push it, the faster it will deteriorate,” he said.
“I don’t understand. Everyone knows that if a strong talent runs in the red zone for a prolonged period, he or she can certainly exhaust his or her senses temporarily. But it takes only a couple of hours to recover completely.”
“The folks at the clinic warned me that I probably wouldn’t recover from a serious burn,” he said quietly.
“But knowing you, you have experimented a bit, right?”
She knew him too well, he thought. How had that happened? He had never let anyone get close. But somehow she was right next to him, physically and psychically. She had somehow slipped through the invisible barricades he had spent a lifetime building and shoring up.
“I had to see for myself,” he admitted.
“And?”
“Let’s just say that I learned my lesson. I saw my future and there’s nothing good waiting there. All I can do is try to buy as much time as possible.”
“What, exactly, did you experience when you rezzed your talent to the max after the explosion?”
They were inside the trees again. The silver meadow disappeared behind them. The thick darkness dropped like a shroud. He jacked his talent up just enough to guide her through the trees and summoned the scenes of his recent nightmares.
“A storm of energy,” he said. “It was like looking at an advancing hurricane or a tornado.”
She touched the mirror pendant. “That’s not what I saw reflected in your rainbow earlier tonight when you took me into the night canyon.”
“I was only partially jacked then.”
“It was enough for me to see your true colors. I saw them the other night when you kissed me and I saw them again tonight when you made love to me.”
He studied the tiny mirrored pendant at her throat. Moonlight glinted on it. He was uncomfortable with the knowledge that Charlotte seemed to be able to dig out his secrets. But he knew a few things about her, too. One of the things he knew was that she would not lie to him.
“What, exactly, did you see?” he asked.
“A lot of powerful ultralight. I can’t put a name to all of the various primary colors because I’ve never seen them before, but I can tell that they come from the far end of the spectrum and that the frequencies of the radiation are rock steady. There was no sign of instability.”
“What does that mean for me?”
“Well, for one thing, it means that you’ve got some serious talent you don’t seem to be aware of,” she said.
“Whatever is out there in that storm that I can see when I go hot is not my old talent. I don’t recognize it, Charlotte. The energy looks chaotic to me. That is never a good sign when you’re talking about human psi. You know that as well as I do. Chaos on the spectrum is one of the surefire indicators that a person is either going psiblind or mad.”
“It’s not chaos. I told you the bands of light in the rainbow are strong and stable.”
“Then why don’t I recognize the energy?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You’re going to have to find out for yourself.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
“The same way you did when you first came into your talent back in your teens,” she said patiently. “The way I did it. The way Devin will eventually figure out his developing psychic nature. You work with it and you experiment until you understand how to focus and control it.”
He went cold. “Damn it to hell. Are you telling me that I’m coming into a new talent?”
She smiled. “Relax, you’re not becoming a Cerberus. You won’t go rogue.”
Cerberuswas Arcane slang for those who developed more than one kind of talent. Such individuals were so rare as to be the stuff of dark myth and legend. True multitalents generally died in their teens or early twenties. The problem, according to the Society’s experts, was that the human mind could not handle the high levels of stimulation and acute sensory perception that accompanied multiple talents. Cerberus talents invariably went insane and self-destructed. Most of the handful of recorded cases took their own lives early but a few had survived long enough to become murderous para-psychopaths.
When it came to dealing with Cerberus talents, Arcane policy was simple and straightforward. Get rid of them. The corollary to that policy was by whatever means necessary.He happened to know from his time working for the Office that the FBPI and the Guilds had similar policies.
“You’re sure?” he said.
“Oh, yes.”
“Because I have to tell you that having Arcane, the Office, and the Guilds coming after me is all I’d need to make my life full, rich, and complete.”
“Well, you did indicate that you were a trifle bored with being chief of police here on Rainshadow.”
“I’m not joking,” he said. “How can you be certain that I’m not developing a second talent? No offense, but you sell antiques for a living. You’re not a para-shrink or even an aura-reader.”
“I know.” Charlotte’s voice went flat. She folded her arms around herself and started walking again, very quickly. “You’re right. You probably shouldn’t be taking advice from a low-rent talent like a rainbow-reader.”