“Focus,” she finally said when they were gone, “and do it again.”
“No.” I folded my arms over my chest.
She blinked. “What?”
“I said no. I want you to show me.” I hesitated, wondering if the rumors were true and she really could trap a person in her gaze, though it was too late to back down now. I pushed back a sweaty tendril of hair and squared on her. “Take me out onto the streets where this shit can be put to practical use. Show me.”
She looked at me like I was speaking another language. Maybe it was just that people didn’t talk to Tekla that way. Maybe it was because I was pissed enough to momentarily forget that fact. “I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“I mean I can’t.”
“Sure you can. All you have to do is fire up the Scorpio glyph, put on a kick-ass outfit, and get in a Star cab.”
She didn’t answer, just stared a moment longer, before turning away to sail toward the door. Lesson over. But I’d finally pushed Tekla’s buttons, and I was bitter enough to want to keep on doing it. Let her get a taste of her own righteous medicine.
“What could be so powerful that you’d rather leave our Zodiac empty than take up the Scorpio sign?” I called out, knowing part of the answer was grief, but pushing for the rest. “Have you lost your powers? Your nerve? Your drive?”
“You dare question me?” she asked, voice barely a whisper as she pivoted to face me. Her lavender aura began to glow now, like it was shot through with gas. “You, who don’t even know your own power? Who can’t control her simplest thought? Who mistakes base impulse for drive?”
“Don’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t take that mystical, imperious, overbearing-and, by the way, bitchy-tone with me. Not when I’ve been so honest with you. Not when you use my weaknesses against me every day.”
“You’ve been honest, have you?” She strode over to me so fast, I took a step back before I could stop myself. “Then what’s the dark spot in your aura that means you’ve a secret you’re telling no one? What’s the dream you had last night that caused those circles beneath your eyes? What’s keeping your focus so weak and dull you can’t even crack a mirror?”
Nope, it wasn’t lack of power keeping her from claiming her star sign, that was for sure. I crossed my arms and lowered my chin. “You’re trying to distract me, and it’s not going to work. I want to know why you never leave this sanctuary.”
“My duty is here.”
I shook my head. “Not good enough. The man who murdered your only child is out there, stalking others. His entire purpose in life is to spread hate and dissension and pain…all the things you preach so vehemently against, and you’re doing nothing about it.”
“I’m training this generation’s Zodiac how to defeat him using tools that will balance-”
“Blah, blah, blah!” I’d heard it before, and raised my voice so it overtook hers. “Joaquin destroyed someone noble, good, and entirely of Light, attacking him when he was supposed to be safe, murdered him practically in your lap, and did it before Stryker even had the chance to-”
“I was there!” Tekla screamed, and the remaining mirrors around us shattered, falling like glistening rain. I rocked back on my heels, ducking for cover as the walls of the pyramid rumbled too, bowing in on themselves. A weight crushed down on my skull and chest, like the pressure in an airtight cabin was about to give with a violent pop, or someone extremely large was sitting on top of me. As I dropped to the ground I saw Tekla standing with clenched fists, her eyes wide and furious, hair snapping from its bun to swarm, Medusa-like, on a current that didn’t exist. I tried to cry out, but it was soundless, my windpipe crushed beneath invisible fingers. All I could do was lie in a fetal position, black spots dancing before my squeezed eyes, and suffocate.
By the time I realized I could open my eyes again, the room was noiseless. The screaming wind had scuttled to a gurgle, and the vacuous white walls of the dojo were back in their original slanted shape. I sucked in a breath so deep, it was like I was breaking the surface of the ocean, and it cut through the silence like shears through silk.
Chest heaving, I looked up and saw Tekla standing amid the debris of glass and ceiling plaster, looking like a disheveled statue. She blinked and said softly, “I was there.”
Oh Jesus, I thought as I slowly gained my feet. What had I been thinking? Just because she gave off an aura of invulnerability didn’t mean she didn’t have deep pockets of regret eating at her insides. I, of anyone, knew how deeply such emotions could be-and needed to be-hidden. Legs wobbling, I licked my lips and found my voice. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said…I don’t know what got into me.”
But she stared through me like I was just another wall that had to be knocked down. And right now, I wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d tried. “Every breath Joaquin takes is a betrayal to my son’s memory,” she said, big bird eyes solemn, face drawn. “I curse every morning the sun still shines on his head, and relive Stryker’s death every night in my dreams.”
“So why don’t you do something?” I asked quietly, taking a step forward.
Her eyes focused and found me, halting my forward progress. “You mean go after him before it’s time? Force the Universe to bend to my will? Or give you leave to attempt it so I can watch you die as well because I haven’t had time to pass on the tools you need to fight him?” She shook her head. “I don’t want vengeance at any cost, Olivia. Losing one more life to Joaquin’s depravity is a price too dear to pay, no matter what I might desire.”
Because she seemed to have reached into her vast reservoir of control again, I approached her. “Lives are being lost anyway. He’s not out there playing…Parcheesi.”
A slim eyebrow lifted, and I shrugged. It had been the only thing I could think of.
“No, I know he’s not.” She sighed, and she looked more human, vulnerable and soft than I’d ever seen her before. “But I can’t take up my star sign again. I’d get in my own way.”
“Like I do, you mean.” Which was why she got so angry with me. Her way of controlling herself was to hole up, push away the impulse to go after Joaquin, and teach us all to do the same. At least now I understood why.
“You lack control, Olivia.” She gazed at me for a heartbeat before adding, “That’s dangerous for any agent, but as the Kairos your every action is loaded with meaning, charged with energy. When the second sign of the Zodiac comes to pass, you must be prepared.”
“But what does that have to do with breaking through mental barriers?” Literally, I thought.
“What is the mind,” she retorted, “if not the ultimate battlefield?”
I swallowed hard because I suddenly saw what she was saying. A weak mind was a cursed mind. A cursed battlefield. “And if I’m not prepared?” I asked, my voice small.
“It will kill you.”
But not today, I thought, looking around at the devastation caused by Tekla’s emotions. And that’s all I could concentrate on. If I constantly relived the past, as Tekla did each night, or worried about portents yet to be fulfilled, I too would have trouble climbing from my bed.
“Well,” I finally sighed, motioning around the room, “at least now I know you’re human.”
Human-ish, anyway.
“Don’t let it get around,” she said, and shot me a sad smile before waving her arm through the air in a way I was becoming accustomed to…and sick of. A complete wall of sheer unmarred glass appeared in front of me. I sighed, then stepped forward as she began rambling again about focus, desire, and intent. Tekla observed, commented, even encouraged me as I attempted to dissolve it with my mind. And then she yelled some more.
This time I let her.