The woman’s mouth split into a grin. ‘Well, not now. Everything’s good, honey, but the hoagie… That’ll set you up for whatever distance you’ve got left to drive.’
‘One of them then.’
‘Right you are. You go get yourself a table and I’ll have Jo bring your meal over when it’s ready.’
Heather raised an eyebrow. ‘Jo?’ The woman nodded past Heather and she turned, spotting ‘Jo’ easily enough. She was threading her way between a couple of tables, dressed in a short black skirt, white blouse, and an apron. She had shoulder-length, ash-blonde hair and green eyes. She was pretty, though she looked a little distracted. It was fairly busy in the restaurant. Plenty of people with thoughts to seep into a telepath’s head. ‘What’s your name?’ Heather asked without looking around.
‘Emma.’
‘Well, Emma, I suddenly feel like celebrating. Why don’t you add a bottle of beer to that order.’ It looked like Heather’s luck had suddenly decided to kick in. Some Ultrahuman powers really did work in mysterious ways. And Emma was going to get a big tip.
~~~
Jolene, or Jo, did not technically live in Eddyville. There was a farm to the west of the town and Jolene was living in a trailer set amid some trees at the back of their land. It was easily quarter of a mile from the nearest other building. That meant there was going to be no sneaking up on the scruffy little structure: Jolene was going to detect Heather’s mind as soon as she got within fifty feet or so.
So, Heather did not attempt to hide her arrival. There was a badly surfaced road leading up to the trailer, and Heather drove up it, parked, and stepped out of the car. She paused, waiting to see whether Jolene would do anything, but there was no sudden exit out the back of the trailer. Why would there be, really? Heather walked over to the trailer’s door and knocked.
‘Who is it?’ a voice called from inside. ‘Noah? If that’s you, I am not interested in going to the bar tonight. I just got back from there.’
‘It’s not Noah,’ Heather replied. ‘My name is Heather Bryant, Miss Beck. I’ve been employed to find you by a law firm in New Millennium City.’
‘By lawyers?’
‘You’re not in any trouble, I promise. Could we not discuss this through a trailer door?’
There was a slight pause. ‘Lock’s busted anyway. Come on in.’
Heather opened the door and stepped inside. Inside was a little better appointed than the decaying exterior. It was clean and tidy, but there was not a whole lot of room. Off on the left there was a kitchen and a dining area. To the right was a square of seating and a TV set that had to be about thirty years old: it still had a CRT and if the screen was much more than twelve inches across it would be a surprise. Jolene was leaning over to turn it off, a mug of coffee in her other hand.
‘You were in the restaurant at lunchtime,’ Jolene said with a frown.
‘That’s where I spotted you,’ Heather replied. ‘Pure luck that I stopped at that restaurant for lunch, but luck’s kind of my thing.’
‘Huh?’
‘I’m an Ultra. A really minor Ultra. Sometimes I get lucky.’
Jolene shrank a little. ‘I’ve been told that Ultras are the Devil’s work.’
‘I know, but you don’t believe it, do you? Does what you have feel like it’s evil? I mean, annoying, maybe, but not evil, right?’
‘I guess not. But Jonas Harrison–’
‘Is probably not what he seems to be, Jolene. For starters, he didn’t get rid of your abilities for good, did he? The voices came back? That’s why you ran away.’
‘Yes, but it was mostly the things Jed kept thinking whenever he looked at me. He never did anything, but the things he thought about…’ Jolene gave a shudder. ‘I don’t believe that was a demon tricking me. I think that was really what he was thinking.’
‘Probably.’ Heather sat down on one of the over-soft cushions opposite Jolene. ‘Look, when I say some lawyers hired me, that was partially accurate. They’re under instruction from someone else. Have you ever heard of an Ultra named Twilight, comes from New Millennium City?’
Jolene shook her head. ‘Momma never let me watch news programmes and the like, not when Ultras were on them.’
‘Cygnus?’
‘Oh, I’ve heard of her. The girls at school said she’s beautiful.’
‘She is. Well, Twilight works with Cygnus, and they’re looking for you to help us with Harrison. He’s trying to do to a lot of other Ultras what he did to you.’
‘I don’t know…’
‘Talk to them. At least talk to them. And, uh, if you really do want rid of your telepathy, Cygnus can remove it permanently. I think you’d be missing out, personally, but she can do it if you really want it.’
‘If I help them,’ Jolene said, less question and more expectant statement.
‘If you’ll talk to them,’ Heather replied. ‘I think she’d do it even if you don’t think you can help them.’
~~~
There was a muffled thump from somewhere in the back of the trailer, followed by a muffled expletive and a giggle. It was still light outside and Andrea had materialised herself in the bedroom, but Heather was not sure what the cursing was about.
Jolene was, however, wide-eyed. ‘I can’t hear them! Or you. There’s like a soft hiss, like when a radio isn’t tuned to anything.’
‘That’ll be Cygnus,’ Heather replied. ‘She can project a field of, um, psychic noise. It blocks telepathy. She probably figured you’d prefer that to extra minds to listen to.’
‘I did,’ Cygnus said, walking through the kitchen from the bedroom. ‘Um, sometimes it gives telepaths headaches. Delphine hates it. If it’s bothering you–’
‘No!’ Jolene exclaimed. ‘No, it’s better than the voices.’ She was still wide-eyed, but now it seemed more to do with the fact that the tall, beautiful heroine of New Millennium City was standing in her lounge. Cygnus was wearing jeans and a cropped T-shirt, but she was still right there in all her glory.
‘You could’ve warned me about the low ceiling,’ Jacob said from behind Cygnus as he walked in, neck bent to avoid bumping his head. He was wearing slacks and a shirt over his suit, and he looked a bit weird in the crooked posture, but Jolene’s eyes widened further at the sight of the tall man, his glowing eyes appearing brighter in the dim trailer.
‘I didn’t know she was bringing you,’ Heather responded. She scooted down the bench seat she was on so that Jacob could sit down and straighten his neck. He looked grateful.
‘He’s our object lesson,’ Andrea said, stepping around Cygnus. She, too, was in casual clothes, but like Jacob, the sight of her eyes was enough to tell anyone she was not a normal human.
‘Object lesson?’ Jolene asked.
‘We’ll get to that. So, Jolene, Harrison suppressed your powers for a while, and then they just came back?’
Jolene nodded. ‘Seven months. I had seven months of quiet, and then the voices faded back in one afternoon. I could hear people’s thoughts if I concentrated on them. I could hear Jed thinking about what he wanted to do. I’m not going back there. No matter what, I’m not going back to that house.’
‘We’re not asking you to,’ Cygnus said. ‘Like Heather said, I can suppress your abilities permanently and you can live a normal life, if that’s what you want. Or, we can help you learn to control your telepathy better. I’ve spoken to the Union of Ultrahumans and they have other telepaths who can teach you. There are ways to make it manageable while you learn.’
‘That’s where I come in,’ Jacob said. He pulled aside the collars of his shirt to show the suit beneath it better. ‘This suit keeps my abilities contained. Without it, I’d be cooling this room down because I can’t take temperatures much above fifty. With it, I don’t tire myself out trying to cool the world, and my power only affects me. I’m trying to learn to do all that myself, but in the meantime, I have this suit.’
‘Oh,’ Jolene said. ‘I just don’t see much use for what I
can do. It’s just annoying. Sometimes scary.’
Heather grinned. ‘Are you kidding? The FBI are going to be recruiting people like you pretty soon. Local police forces are likely to do the same.’
‘The Union employs telepaths for various things,’ Cygnus added. ‘When you concentrate on someone, can you just hear what they’re thinking, or do you see what they’re seeing, hear what they’re hearing?’
‘I get the senses,’ Jolene said. ‘It’s weird, seeing myself through someone else’s eyes.’
‘There, you see that’s very useful to law enforcement. You can basically be a corroborative witness to a meeting where a police officer could never get away with wearing a wire. The Union uses sense-telepaths to keep an eye on Ultras going into dangerous situations. I’m not saying you should keep your powers if you don’t want them. Heather said I’d take them away, and I will. But I think you should give the other way a try before you make your mind up for good.’
‘Well, I guess I could at least sleep on it. Miss Bryant said you wanted me to do something to help you.’
‘We’d like to take you to New Millennium City,’ Andrea said. ‘Harrison is giving a big speech in front of a big crowd tomorrow night. It’ll be televised on several local channels and ACPN will broadcast it nationally. We don’t need you to make the plan I’ve got work, but I’d really like to confront him with the fact that you got your powers back. For one thing, it’ll let the other people he’s neutralised know that it’s not permanent, and that he’s lying about how he’s doing it.’
‘You don’t think he got his healing from God?’
‘That depends on your point of view. I guess, if you’re religious, then all Ultras get their abilities from God. I’m a rationalist, and all the evidence suggests that Jonas Harrison got his powers from an exploding alien spaceship. He’s no more a servant of God than I am.’
‘You’re saying that he’s an Ultrahuman? But he says that Ultrahumans are evil. He says they’re possessed by–’
‘He’s lying,’ Cygnus said. ‘Well, Astraea says that he believes what he’s saying, so he’s deluded. Either way, he’s wrong.’
Jolene set her jaw and straightened her back. ‘I’m in. Momma spent months telling me I was going to Hell for letting a demon into my soul after that man took my powers. I want to be part of telling the world what he really is.’
New Millennium City, MD, 30th April.
‘Sad news from Louisville, Kentucky, this morning,’ the presenter on ACPN said. Behind her, a picture of a man in a white bandana mask appeared, and Cygnus felt her heart sink a little. ‘Carl Louise, formerly known as White Spectre, was declared dead at his apartment in Louisville last night. Police are investigating the death but have indicated that they are not currently seeking anyone else in the matter.’
‘Which is code for suicide,’ Andrea commented.
‘Who was he?’ Jolene asked. She had been brought back to the house the night before and had spent the night in one of the guest rooms.
The presenter answered her. ‘Mister Louise confronted the self-proclaimed pastor Jonas Harrison a week ago at a prayer meeting in Louisville. Police have not commented on the possibility that Mister Louise took his own life due to the loss of his powers. Mister Harrison gave a statement to ACPN indicating that Mister Louise had “gone to face the final judgement of the Lord,” but refused to answer questions regarding the reasons Mister Louise may have had for taking his own life. Mister Louise had no family.’
‘And that is why we need to show Harrison for what he is,’ Cygnus said.
‘Someone would have got to Louise if he hadn’t killed himself,’ Andrea said. ‘He was a public figure. He’s bound to have enemies. Without his powers, he was a sitting duck for a bunch of thugs.’
‘And yet,’ Jacob said, ‘your plan is to do pretty much the same as Louise did. Are you sure he can’t take your powers away?’
‘Absolutely sure? No. I’m as sure as I can be that he can’t take away the ones that count, but he could remove my mutant abilities. That still makes me one big, bad, dark goddess.’
‘But you can’t be sure?’ Jacob pressed.
‘Okay, so it’s a calculated risk, but it’s one I’m willing to take.’ Andrea’s brow furrowed. ‘Jacob, this guy is going to have more and more people convinced that Ultras are evil as he goes on. You know how religious this country can be. The more successes Harrison chalks up, the more people will believe we’re demons. But if he fails, just once, then God is not on his side and we win.’
‘You don’t even believe in God.’
‘No, I don’t, but I’m perfectly willing to use other people’s belief to turn this around before it gets out of hand.’
~~~
Jonas stood in front of his biggest crowd ever, soaking up their energies with their praise. Receipts were up since his campaign had begun, so they had been able to hire a big theatre to hold his first meeting in New Millennium City. It was only just big enough. His audience was even bigger than those he could see thanks to the cameras watching his every move, transmitting his every word to thousands, maybe millions, of viewers out in the city and beyond. Huge spotlights illuminated the stage, and Jonas felt as though the whole world, and God above, was watching.
‘Brothers and sisters, I am here,’ Jonas said. ‘I am here in this city of the lost to tell you that the minions of Satan have come here before me and they do the Devil’s work in your streets. They are here. They are here in this very hall! They sit among you as you praise the Lord, and I shall call them out and cleanse them of their diabolical corruption.’
There were demons out there in his audience. He could feel them, and he would locate them and bring them out to be shown the light, but he was hoping for something a little more dramatic. He had done his research on New Millennium City. There was one so-called Ultra who he really wanted to meet. If he could get Twilight up on stage…
‘In Churchton, the people run scared of a demon of great power. She hides in shadows. She strikes out of the darkness. She claims to be doing God’s work, but–’
‘I have never claimed to be doing God’s work, Mister Harrison,’ Twilight said as she walked in from stage-left. ‘I don’t actually need an old white guy in a robe to tell me to do the right thing. I don’t believe that guy’s helping you either, but if you want to try your luck against the Avatar of Shadows, I’m willing to try mine.’
~~~
Offstage, Jolene was nervous and trying not to show it. She stood beside Cygnus and Heather, in a pool of darkness that Cygnus was creating, watching Harrison’s staff rush about in confusion. None of them had seen Twilight until she had stepped out of Cygnus’s field, and none of them could see the three women within it either.
‘Are you sure he can’t sense us?’ Jolene asked.
‘This field is obscuring us from vision, hearing, and any method of detecting cosmic energy,’ Cygnus replied. ‘That’s how he can spot Ultras. He senses the energy we produce. I’m doing the same thing to watch what he’s doing.’
‘So, uh, you don’t believe in God either?’
‘I used to. My family was never very devout about it, but we’d go to church at Christmas and Easter, and we pretty much thought God ran things. Then an Ultra named Thermite killed my mother and father. I decided that I preferred to believe that God didn’t exist, that things happen by chance, or the works of men. The alternative was believing that God did exist, and He’s a bastard who views people as insects.’
‘Uh, oh.’ Cygnus’s voice had gone from a sort of musing tone to something a lot harder on the last sentence. Jolene decided that asking anything else might not be too good an idea. Besides, the banter on stage was heading in a direction which was going to be her cue.
‘Oh, I’m pretty sure you’re full of shit, Mister Harrison,’ Twilight was saying. ‘You don’t even know what your own powers are. You don’t know their limitations. I think it’s time you met one of those limitations.’
‘Here we go,’ Heather said. Taking Jolene’s shoulders to give support more than anything else, she stepped forward.
‘Good luck,’ Cygnus said. She lifted into the air, vanishing up into the roof of the auditorium, the shadows pulled away with her, and Jolene and Heather walked out onto the stage.
~~~
Andrea gave Jolene what she hoped was an encouraging smile and turned back to Harrison. For the night’s events, Andrea had decided to wear the gown June had designed for her. She had expected it to be first seen in public at some ball or other, maybe at the Huntress’ Den, but this was the right occasion. It was black, of course, with a collar around her neck supporting a bib of mesh fabric down to the upper slopes of her breasts. The rest of the dress, such as it was, was made of a slightly shimmering material which flowed like water. The front and back were panels cut to show her legs all the way to over her hip bones. From the way it looked, she was wearing nothing beneath the dress aside from boots, which were a shinier version of the over-the-knee heeled ones she wore in costume. Harrison had described her as a wanton harlot, and she had countered that slut-shaming ought to be beneath him, but she was not surprised that it was right up his alley.
‘Do you recognise this young lady, Mister Harrison?’ Andrea asked, lifting an arm to indicate Jolene, just in case any of the audience had missed her entry.
‘I do,’ Harrison said. ‘She was the first. She was the one who God sent to show me the demons living in His people. I cast–’
‘You suppressed her telepathy for seven months. It came back. If God meant for you to do His work, wouldn’t he have done a better job of it? I know someone who can permanently neutralise Ultrahuman powers. She doesn’t claim she’s doing God’s work, that’s your hubris.’
‘You told me something evil had been inside me, Mister Harrison,’ Jolene said. She sounded a little shaky, but determined. ‘You told me the things I heard were a demon trying to turn me against my family. Nothing changed when I could hear those things again. It was not a demon. Or if it was, it was in someone else.’
Harrison looked taken aback for about two seconds. Then he rallied. ‘Child, you’ve taken that demon back into your heart. I can–’
Liberty Page 17
