by Hondo Jinx
After much bucking and moaning, the bands of power uncoupled, whipping away in three separate sections. A flash of red energy rushed into Nina. Crackling yellow light disappeared into Sage. And a red and yellow barber’s pole plunged into Brawley.
His body shuddered as these braided energies rushed through him, exploded in his skull, and crushed down into a single point that snapped away into some secret capacitor in his mind.
“What the fuck?” Nina gasped, collapsing to the ground. “What the fuck?”
Even in his confusion and elation, Brawley had to grin at the way her stunned utterances echoed her reactions to their first coupling. He leaned over Sage’s quivering body and kissed her pale back.
Sage turned her face sideways, trying to see Brawley. A veil of golden hair had fallen over her face and undulated now with her panting breath.
“What the fuck?” Nina moaned nearby.
Brawley reached down, gently brushed Sage’s blond hair aside, and straightened her glasses, which had gone cockeyed.
Her blue eyes stared at him with something like awe. “You,” she panted. “You are a power mage.”
10
“Huh?” Brawley said.
“Wait… what?” Nina said, rising shakily to her feet. Rattled by ecstasy and gleaming with perspiration, she looked amazing.
Brawley pulled his length from Sage’s slick heat and pointed it in the direction of his love.
His first love, that was.
Because sensible or otherwise, the adoration he now felt toward this golden-haired stranger could be nothing other than love. He did not feel for Sage what he felt for Nina—how could he?—but he wouldn’t try to deny the glowing ember of affection that was certain to shortly ignite into a blaze of true love.
“It is as I suspected,” Sage said, wobbling as she stood on shaky legs. “Or rather, it is as I had not fully allowed myself to suspect. It seemed so improbable.”
“Improbable?” Nina said. “You mean impossible. The power mages are dead.”
Sage shook her head. “They are dead no longer.” She gestured toward Brawley. “He just opened a second strand and bound the three of us together. Our lover is a power mage, the first power mage in twenty-three years.”
“Oh shit,” Nina said. “We are fucked.”
“Speaking of which,” Brawley said, touching the delicious curve of her sweaty hip.
Nina skittered away as if he’d touched her with a curling iron. “Oh no you don’t, mister. Keep that ball bat away from me. I need a minute to recover, and this shit Sage is talking about, it’s a big deal. A huge deal. Epically huge. Like we are totally screwed, everything is changed forever, what the fuck is Nina supposed to do now huge.”
“Meanwhile, I’m just standing here with my dick in my hand and no clue what y’all are talking about,” Brawley said.
“When Nina described her experiences with you, I began to speculate on the possibility,” Sage said, straightening her lacy white bra. “Then you told me your age, and I had to investigate. Twenty-three years ago, the Order orchestrated a mass execution known as the Culling. In one fell swoop, the Order killed every power mage on Earth.”
As Sage spoke, Brawley felt a surge of curiosity. He was riveted to her words. He had to understand this, had to know the truth.
“The Order explained that the Culling was done to protect the psi community,” Sage explained.
“Bullshit,” Nina interrupted. “My dad says it was a power grab.”
“Whatever the case,” Sage said, bending to step into her panties, “the Order determined that power mages were too strong—and too dangerous—to live.” She turned to Brawley. “Normal psionicists are limited to a single strand of power. No matter how powerful we become, we will never gain access to other strands.”
Sage twitched her pixie nose and smiled. “You increased my psi score by ten percent to 145. Thank you. This will be quite advantageous in my studies. But I remain a Seeker and will always be limited to the talents of my order. Nina will likewise remain limited to the abilities of the Unbound.”
Sage focused on Nina for a second and said, “Bonding with me raised your psi score to 157.”
“Hot damn,” Nina said with a grin. “Another two percent boost. I’m anxious to see what, exactly, that means. You two pumped me full of so much energy, I feel like a volcano ready to erupt. What’s our all mighty lover’s psi score now?”
Sage looked at Brawley, blinked, and smiled again. “169.”
“Cool,” Brawley said, recognizing the high number even if he couldn’t even draw a strand yet. “But what do these scores mean, exactly? Are they like a power bar on a video game.”
“Yeah,” Nina said. “Like mana, if you know what I mean.”
Brawley nodded. He’d never gone in much for video games. Like all other complicated electronics, he was pretty much allergic to them. But the cowboys he’d traveled with played them all the time.
“Having a lot of juice lets you do more stuff,” Nina said. “Every psionic action burns up juice. Some more than others. And some actions, you can choose to open the throttle and pour in more force. So if I wanted to do something simple, like…” she paused, glanced at the book cart, and the pistol lifted into the air and floated over to Brawley, “…hand you your gun, I’d only burn a point or two. There’s not an exact point cost per action, but you get the idea.”
He nodded. “So each action has a cost.”
“Yes, if I decided to pick up Sage’s desk and hurl it across the room—”
“Please don’t,” Sage said. “My desk might not look organized, but I assure you that I know the location of every item, right down to the smallest Post-It note.”
“I don’t doubt it, Brainiac,” Nina said, “and you can chill. I’m not going to wreck your weird-ass lair. But if I did throw the desk, it might burn fifty or sixty points. Again, I’m ball-parking, but you probably get what I’m saying.”
“Also,” Sage added, “though one’s psi score is supposed to remain fixed from birth to death, it is not the sole determiner of one’s functional power. If you are focused, train hard, secure a knowledgeable mentor, and concentrate on efficiency of technique, you can learn to spend fewer points per action.”
Sage glanced at Nina and said, “So an experienced, hardworking psi mage born with a psi score in the low 130s might, over time, learn to perform so efficiently that she could execute more psionic actions between rest periods than, say, her dear friend who was lucky enough to be born with a higher score but who never put in the effort to maximize her potential.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Nina said, and stuck her tongue out at Sage.
“Works for me,” Brawley said. “Practice is my middle name.”
“No it isn’t,” Nina said. “Your middle name is Peckinpah.”
“You’re a funny one,” Brawley said, and mussed her purple hair. “So what you’re telling me is, as a power mage, I can tap more than one strand?”
“Yes,” Sage said. “In fact, you already have. Perhaps you already feel an unusual degree of curiosity?”
He nodded.
“As I suspected,” Sage said. “And you feel an illogically potent affection toward me?”
He nodded again.
Sage smiled. It seemed spontaneous and girlish and made her pretty in a new way that dinged a little bell in Brawley’s heart. “I feel the same way toward you,” she said. Then, turning to Nina, she added. “And toward you.”
“Aw, thanks,” Nina said, and embraced her friend. “I love you, too, Sage.”
Something primal and hungry rose in Brawley as he watched Sage’s pale abdomen crush up against Nina’s spherical breasts.
“Of course you do,” Sage said happily. “We are bound. All three of us are bound together, thanks to our power mage.”
Standing arm in arm, the two women smiled at Brawley.
His mind was racing along, wanting answers. “So Nina, why did you seem so upset when Sage said I was a p
ower mage?”
Nina frowned. “Because we are fucked. You’re not supposed to exist, Brawley. Twenty-three years ago, the Order didn’t orchestrate a pruning. It was a Culling. And when they find out that you’re a power mage, they’re going to finish the job.”
“Oh no,” Sage said, looking suddenly terrified. “I have been so elated that I didn’t realize…”
“What?”
“An event this significant will resonate across the Latticework of Truth. Even as we speak, Seekers are receiving some sense of what has happened here. I don’t think anyone will be able to see Brawley specifically, not in the initial resonance, but we have to cloak you. Seekers the world over are likely trying to uncover your identity at this very moment.”
“I thought you said I was cloaked already.”
“Just wait,” Nina said. “Let Sage do her thing.”
Sage reached out and placed a hand on Brawley’s forehead. “Physical contact isn’t strictly necessary, but it will strengthen the obscuring shroud.”
As she spoke, Brawley felt a strange, tickling sensation in his head, as if a light shawl of feathers was settling overtop his mind.
“Oh,” Sage said, sounding surprised and happy. “This new power you’ve given me is quite impressive. Normally, cloaking someone would have taken extreme concentration and would have left me exhausted. But it was easy, and I feel completely fine. This makes me very curious about my potential.”
“That’s it, then?” Brawley asked. “I’m protected?”
Sage nodded. “As well as I can protect you, anyway. We can’t take any chances, though. If my order suspects that a new power mage has emerged, they will scour the Latticework night and day, hunting for any clue about your identity or whereabouts. They likely already know our general location. Not precisely, but they probably understand that we are in Florida, perhaps even the Keys. They might even suspect Key West.”
“Yeah,” Nina said. “About that, the we part, do the Seekers know about you and me?”
“Not me,” Sage said. “I am always cloaked. You, though? Doubtful. But we can’t be too careful.” She reached out, placed a hand on Nina’s forehead, and a second later pronounced the Unbound beauty to be cloaked.
“Sweet,” Nina said. “Thanks.”
Shimmying into her skirt, Sage said, “Unfortunately, I am only capable of a simple cloaking at this point. With this new power, I should be able to learn stronger cloaking feats quickly, but we need to visit Hazel tonight.”
“Is that your crazy mentor?” Nina said.
Sage frowned. “Hazel is not insane. She is very powerful and perhaps a touch eccentric, but—”
“The hammock lady, right?”
“Yes, Hazel enjoys lying in her—”
“Crazy,” Nina said. “As in batshit, cuckoo bananas crazy. Which assures me that we are totally fucked.”
“We need Hazel’s help,” Sage said, slipping into her blouse. “Besides, she might be able to help Brawley figure out the mystery of his past. This revelation explains the powerful cloaking spell you’ve been carrying all these years. One of your parents was apparently a power mage. Either they sensed the Culling, which occurred on the day you were born, and cloaked you in advance of the tragedy, or your mother survived long enough to cloak and hide you. Hazel might be able to tell us, and she might be able to determine who your parents were, as well.”
Brawley was burning with curiosity, but Sage needed to get back to work. They agreed to meet after her shift. In the meantime, Brawley and Nina would go back to her place, grab a few things, and visit her brother and father before heading across the island to Brawley’s RV.
Sage would put in for an emergency leave of absence, and tonight, after they spoke with Hazel, the three of them would leave Key West together, just in case the Seekers—and by extension, the Order—determined the basic location of the event. Because if the Latticework coalesced around Key West, the island would soon be crawling with Seekers, Order agents, and perhaps even FPI agents.
“Federal Paranormal Investigations,” Nina explained as they left the library.
It was surprisingly difficult for Brawley to say goodbye to Sage. Yes, he barely knew her, but he wanted to know her, and furthermore, he hated leaving her here alone, even if she was almost certainly safe. These psionic bonds of love were awesome but obviously came with a price. He would never again be truly carefree, not unless his women were safely by his side.
As they walked out, Michael waved goodbye, grinning in a way that told Brawley that the friendly librarian had gotten an earful of lewd sounds through the bolted door.
Brawley automatically started to lift his hand to tip his hat in farewell, remembered again that he no longer wore one, and gave the guy a parting wave instead.
“The FPI is always snooping around, looking for us,” Nina said. “And when something big happens, they always seem to know about it. Word on the street is they keep Seekers in some government dungeon and force them to do psionic surveillance.”
Brawley listened intently, still seized by a fever of curiosity. There was so much he wanted to know. What did it mean to be a power mage? Who were his parents? What was his true name?
A tornado of questions swirled in his mind. He wanted to know everything, especially everything about the psionic community. That went double for his past and quadruple for anything that might pose a threat to his women.
All this being said, he still forced himself to scan their surroundings. It wouldn’t do to walk blindly into an ambush.
“So the FPI is part of the government?” he asked. “As in the fuggle government, not the Order?”
“That’s correct” Nina said. “Your hard-earned tax dollars at work in the world.”
“How come I’ve never heard of them, then?”
Nina laughed. “You think the government wants voters to know they’re funding investigations into paranormal events? The FPI keeps a low profile and a lower budget. As far the bureaus go, the FPI is definitely the ugly runt of the litter. They’re thinly staffed and underequipped, and from what I hear, their home office is an abandoned missile silo in the Midwest. According to my dad, the place looks like the lobby of a one-star motel and smells like mildew and coffee. The FPI agents still use the beat-up, black vans they were issued a million years ago. They look like they drove straight off the pages of Firestarter.”
“They sound like a joke.”
“Yeah, but don’t let their cheap suits and sketchy rides fool you. What they lack in funding, they make up for in persistence. These people are serious. I mean dedicated to the cause. They’re like modern day crusaders. And they will stop at nothing to find us and lock us in cages.”
When they turned onto Duval Street, Brawley’s stomach roared like a lion. He nodded toward a place called Willie T’s, where people sat outside eating burgers and fries, drinking beer, and listening to a live band play what sounded like a cross between rock and jazz.
“Let’s go to my place first,” Nina said. “I want to get my shit before Junior Dutchman sends someone to welcome me home.”
Brawley bristled at the thought of someone meaning Nina harm. “I still say I just cut to the chase, track down this asshole, and shoot him between the eyes.”
Nina gave his arm a squeeze. “Easy, tiger. How about we just lay low, get out of here with Sage tonight, and spend the next couple of weeks playing cards and having sex.”
Brawley grinned. “That sounds pretty good, too.”
When they reached her street, he told her to hang back while he investigated.
She laughed at that. “You have no idea how powerful I feel right now.”
“Cool,” he said. “But hold up and let me go first.”
“All right,” she said, trailing several feet behind him while he investigated the alley beside her place. Nina’s pink moped was still chained by the fence. Brawley paused there, listening for a moment and scanning the ground near the fence gate.
Everything was
sand and gravel here. He couldn’t even make out their own tracks, let alone cut for sign.
He stretched onto his tiptoes and looked over the fence. The backyard was empty. A slight breeze corrugated the surface of the pool, upon which a few stray leaves spun like rudderless boats.
Boats about to sink, Brawley thought.
Then he paused, wondering where the hell that thought had come from. He had no idea, but a sense of deep foreboding washed over him.
He slipped the pistol from his waistband, racked the slide, and held the weapon alongside his leg, making it less obvious to any nosey neighbor who might be peeking between the curtains.
The sense of foreboding remained, a vague yet powerful warning echoing over and over in his mind like the instinctive warning call of some primordial beast that had taken up residence within his skull.
Meanwhile, he felt a faint prickling sensation in his head, as if the inside of his skull was itching.
“What is it?” Nina whispered, stepping up beside him.
“Don’t know,” he whispered. “Just got a gut feeling that something isn’t right here.”
She tugged at his arm. “We can’t ignore that. Sage opened your Seeker strand, and Seekers have a gift for smelling trouble.”
He nodded. It made sense, and his gut was kicking him in the ass, trying to hustle him out of there. At the same time, he wrestled with his curiosity. He wanted to know what the hell was going on here. And if there was a threat, if someone was waiting for Nina, well, he wanted to go in there and snap their fucking necks.
But that would be stupid. They would have the drop on him.
“Come on,” she said, tugging his arm again. “I’ll get that shit later, when we come back to town. It’s not worth it.”
“All right,” he said, kicking his curiosity and anger to the curb and turning with her to go.
Then, with a loud squeal, a dark blur turned into the driveway and roared straight at them.
Instantly, even as his body was still reacting to the threat, Brawley’s mind recognized the black Escalade from their earlier run-in with the psi mob.
