Breaking Bread with Phantoms
This time, she was dead for two minutes. Jackson had felt her pull and knew it to be weaker than the first time. He knew why. She was calling to them both at the same time. She was only calling to him in case he was the key to getting to his brother. She was also farther away.
Jackson forced his eyes and his body to remain open and strong against Perma-Shift as he crossed a distance greater than he ever had. He brought a hand to the back of his neck to rub at the pinching beneath the skin there. She was lying on a bed. There were others with her, circling her. They were dressed alike and holding hands. Through a Perma-Shift fog, Jackson could see Point, Monk, and some others he’d never met before.
Bright Star’s eyes were open and wearing a blue blaze into the ceiling. Her hair fell back from her delicate brow. The white dress she wore flattened against her skin shaped by her thick thighs and breasts. She could have been an opalescent goddess carved into the front of a ship. A thick leather belt was cinched around her throat. It was one of those he’d used to secure her on New Year’s. He tried to tamp down the guilt that suddenly, physically came over him. He had to force it away if he was to help her.
Bright Star’s face should have been red. It probably had been, but now, now it was an opaque, pristine white. She had no pulse. Her body was growing cold.
“What have you done to her?” Jackson railed. He turned to the group all garbed in white standing around her. Some of them shifted from one foot to the other with anxiety. Others closed their eyes and wept. Who were they? It didn’t matter.
They had done this. He unleashed his anger and fed it to his High Energy. He may not be able to save her but he would certainly be able to destroy the ones who had done this to her.
Never had fury taken so completely over his being. Parameters of Shift 101: Feel nothing in excess. That way led to imprecision. Servicemen could not afford imprecision. That way led to excess leakage. Servicemen avoided leakage at all costs. Jackson didn’t give a damn.
The anger raged inside of him. With one psychic heave, Jackson hurtled pure Energy at the group. Enough High Energy to kill them all. Blinding pain sliced through his head at the effort but still he could easily see his Energy did not reach them. Instead, it slammed against an invisible barrier then found its way back inside of him. As the Energy poured back into him, the Perma-Shift subsided until there was nothing left but the knowledge that he had failed. A force protected them from his violence.
Breathing heavily, Jackson turned his attention to the one who had summoned him. Jackson neared her without any sense of his feet or legs. He was drawn like a moth to a flame. He reached down to touch her. She was still so goddamned beautiful. His chest hurt.
Suddenly, a cool, steel hand circled his wrist. He stepped back as Rush took his place next to the bed. With efficient and gentle fingers, he eased the strap from the buckle. White and red marks crisscrossed angrily beneath it. Both of his hands clenched around her neck. And for a moment… nothing.
Then, she was alive. She was alive! Her skin was warm, and her eyes were as bright as ever. She was up on her knees in the bed, laughing as fat tears rolled over her cheeks. She reached out to embrace Rush, but he peeled her arms from him and backed away.
Jackson couldn’t believe she was alive. Alive and perfect. He could barely tear his eyes away from her to watch his brother’s retreat. Rush stood back, then turned to the watchers. Rush did not address the assembly. Instead he started to walk out. The assembled group, with the exclusion of Jackson and Monk, fell to their knees before him. One of his eyes blinked. That one, uncontrolled flutter explained the effort of the Shift, the albatross of responsibility being lowered around his neck just as the belt had been tightened around hers.
He could have easily Shifted himself away but he did not. Followers caught at his pant legs. Still, he walked out of the room with little expression. Jackson did not know whether to follow him or tend the delicate woman who had just been returned from the brink of death.
Quickly, he focused his High Energy and located his brother. He reached out to him. Rush returned a mental wave that indicated that Jackson should not come after him.
Jackson watched the girl who had just been saved. She was awake and calm.
“Why?” Jackson questioned.
“Jackson,” she called his name. It was sweet like candy on her lips. “He’s saved me every time. Every time. Imagine. If he saved everyone in this room, in this city, the way he has saved me…”
“You can’t save everyone.” Jackson challenged, using words that sounded contrived even to his own ears.
“Rush can,” she answered in a hollow voice. Then her eyes rolled back. She dropped back on the bed. Jackson hurried to her side but not before her chest arched up off the bed. She was taut like a bow and her eyes burst open with blue light so intense the ceiling started to burn. Then she slumped quiet again.
Jackson stood with his jaw dropped. He had never seen anything like it. He didn’t know what to do.
When she opened her eyes again and sat up, she smoothed her hair with one hand and let him help her up with the other. Jackson didn’t have to ask for an explanation. Monk provided one.
“You understand leakage, right?” Monk asked. “Of course, you do. It’s all in that damn Service orientation film.”
“Parameters of Shift 101. I know all about it.”
“Well, you just saw what Rush’s residual High Energy does after a Shift. It doesn’t affect him with Perma-Shift like other Shifters. But he does have immense leakage, so instead of returning to him, his High Energy affects the person who experiences the Shift.” Jackson waited. “Look at her.”
Jackson did, and immediately he knew. He had to have been blind, deaf and dumb to have missed it before. Bright Star’s entire being was fairly glowing. She hadn’t just been saved. She’d been enhanced. At once, Jackson understood. It explained her amazing level of Talent. To be saved by Rush was to become more than you were before. It was to become just a little like him.
Monk nodded, reading his mind. “Every time it happens we become more and more like him.”
*
There were ten places set for dinner that night, though only eight were occupied. Rush and Monk had both decided not to come. Jackson didn’t even know why he was there other than to make sure Bright Star was really and truly okay after what had happened that afternoon.
When he sat down, Bright Star immediately began to introduce him to all of the people around the table, all of whom now lived in that same residence on Kolter Street. Granted, they had more than enough room between the three floors—when had they gotten three floors? But Jackson still wasn’t sure he was comfortable with their presence.
There was a young woman who looked like Bright Star, only skinny. Her name was Myrto. There was Point. There were Xavier and Megumi. Then there were the scrawny lank-haired teenagers Bright Star introduced as Destroy and Harm.
Even though the bedraggled pair looked completely as if their names suited them, Jackson joked, “I hope your parents didn’t name you that.”
“Don’t matter what they named us,” the girl, Destroy, answered. “We got the names the world gave us.”
Jackson started to say something but decided against it. There was something wrong with both of them and the way they stared at him with their red-rimmed eyes.
“Jackson, leave them alone,” Bright Star admonished. “They believe and that’s all we should be concerned about.”
“That’s right,” Harm piped in as he speared a chunk of meat on his plate. “We believe. You should leave us alone.”
Jackson thought to get up from the table and go, because the wave of nausea and disgust that hit him then was so strong. But he didn’t. He would overcome this suggestion. As long as Bright Star stayed, he would stay. He stared at his plate as he ate and tried only to talk to Bright Star as much as possible and to avoid the repellent gazes of the youngest two.
That’s
why he was shocked when dinner was over and he found himself left sitting alone with them both.
“We’re special,” Destroy announced to him without guile.
“I’m sure you are,” Jackson returned, not knowing what else to say. “Everyone here is.”
“Do you want us to show you?” Harm asked. He sniffed a little but held Jackson’s gaze.
“No,” Jackson answered truthfully. He didn’t care if he sounded like a coward. He had never felt the kind of High Energy that streamed off of them. It was horrible and he wanted no part of it. “What I do want to know is how she found you.”
“Bright Star?” Destroy clarified. “She didn’t find us. We found her.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” Harm answered. “Easy for me.” Then, as Jackson watched, the boy’s eyes began to wobble, bubble and crawl. Slowly they came alive until they were a mass of swirling, swelling, squirming gray. Jackson knocked his chair over as he jumped up out of it.
“Calm down, Cowboy,” Destroy put a surprisingly strong hand on Jackson’s arm. Surprisingly strong. He could barely move out of her grip. “He just sees in Energy like that.”
“What?” Jackson demanded.
“He sees in Energy and we were following the Energy for two years until we were able to find the center of it. Now we live in it.” She smiled, and Jackson noticed her eyes were also crawling. It was like looking into a pit of oily, swarming, sodden gray worms.
Destroy and Harm both stood then, with their mercury eyes roiling. They held hands and spoke in unison. “You have Energy, too, Jackson.”
Jackson said nothing. He could feel his heart rate speeding up and the inside of his mouth turning to cotton. He tried to tell himself there was nothing to be afraid of. Hell, he even told himself he wasn’t afraid. But no matter what he told himself, the truth was a different story.
“You have Energy,” they continued clasping hands, speaking in a haunted harmony. “But it isn’t the Energy we need. Your light does not burn as bright.” They took a step toward him. “You needn’t worry, Jackson. We can’t hurt you.”
Jackson continued to be silent and to slowly back away from the advancing pair.
“You’re protected by him,” Destroy said. And as she said it, Harm put his nose in the air and sniffed. He sniffed again, pointedly in Jackson’s direction.
“You’ve always been protected by him,” Harm stated, then sniffed again. “Destroy!”
“Yes, brother,” she snapped her attention to the other.
“We have come to our doom here.”
“Of course, brother,” Destroy agreed.
“Let’s not interfere with fate,” he said.
Then, they were gone. Jackson started to gulp air desperately. He’d only been half aware that he had not been breathing before.
He went to find Rush.
*
Jackson didn’t know what made him stand outside the door instead of walking right in, but he knew what kept him there. It was the conversation—or half conversation—he heard on the other side of the door.
“Don’t ask me that. Please, God, don’t,” his brother was saying with a cracking voice. Never in his life had he ever heard Rush sound so vulnerable and broken. It gave him pause and he felt an empathetic pain that made him tremble. He couldn’t stop trembling. Waves and waves of anxiety coursed through his body. It was as if he was falling.
“I can’t let you die. I can’t. I don’t know what I would do. I want to. I want to so badly, but I can’t find it inside me to do it. I don’t know what it would do to me. Just wait, please wait. We’ll find another way. I just need more time.”
Then, somehow, Jackson heard a voice, or rather an Energy—a pure Energy—that sounded inside him like a sad, feminine voice. “You have to let me go, my wonderful, beautiful, shining star. You should have let me go then, but it’s not too late.” A sob, then a stuttering sigh. “You can let me go the very next time, the very next.”
“What if she won’t let you go?”
“The very next time, my world.”
Jackson didn’t know if he should go in or not. This was all too much. And suddenly, he felt like his head was going to explode. It seemed to be splitting with Perma-Shift and he hadn’t even expended any High Energy. He didn’t know what the fuck to do.
He stormed into the room, and as soon as he was inside, the pain dissipated; almost as if it had never been.
Rush was seated on his bed facing the window. Jackson could only see his back. He slumped over and cradled his head in his hands. Jackson took a quick scan of his surroundings, both with his eyes and with his Energy. He could feel the subtle but aching buzz of abused Energy. There was no one else in the room. There wasn’t even any other Energy in the room. Not a trace. “Hey,” he called hesitantly.
“Hey.” Rush returned. He didn’t sound guilty to Jackson. He didn’t even turn around to face him. He sounded tired, though, as he continued to stare out of the window.
“Were you just talking to someone?”
Rush looked at him then and shook his head slowly.
“Can I talk to you?” Jackson asked, taking a step into the threshold.
Rush turned and Jackson could see his strained expression in profile: tense lines around his mouth, smudges like those he used to wear all the time. “Jackson, I can’t right now. I’m sorry, man, I just can’t.”
Jackson didn’t argue. He just walked out of the room with a shake of his head. There were so many things wrong in his world right then, so many things he didn’t understand. He couldn’t handle anymore.
After Jackson was long gone, Rush looked at the girl who had moved to stand in front of the window. Her shoulders were rounded in a sad slump and her hands were clasped in front of her. Rush didn’t want to be in love with her, knew that the world would be a better place if he wasn’t.
“You have to let me go,” she urged him sadly. Then she faded into the sunlight and the room went dark.
First, Second and Third Degree Burn
This time was for Jackson. She dressed in a diaphanous gown. The sheer white layers fluttered and settled on her like netting over a trapped tarpon. She chose the gown for its color—Rush liked her in white—but also for the ease at which the material would burn. The dress clung to her soft and primitive curves. It, like her skin, had been rubbed down by elderly women and blinded men with a thick, sandalwood-scented oil. The oil’s aroma would blossom on her skin when heated by the flames. The oil itself would cause her to burn faster. The Followers had bound her hands and feet with dried vines, then attached her to a wooden pyre in the center of the ancient ballroom. They’d restrained her so the natural human instinct of self-preservation would not prevail. It had never had any chance of prevailing. Bright Star would never try to save herself.
She waited patiently for Point to return. She’d gone to get Monk who had been absent from the congregation much of the morning. He would have to do the honors. Bright Star didn’t care to explore why. She just accepted that this was the role. He was progress and somehow at the same time record.
Point entered the room. She wore neat gray slacks and a cream blouse. Her hair was up in a bun and she wore short heels. She looked like the professional that she was. She looked like the leader that she was. She was carrying a lit torch and a clipboard. Behind her, following slowly, was Monk.
He wore a white t-shirt, white pants, and a yellow armband. He was tall and had the aggressive gait of a military man. He came and stood before Bright Star. With a minor Shift, she reached out to him with her mind and touched his cheek.
His disengaged glare turned soft. He believed.
“Take this.” Point handed him the torch. “And please, say the Energy.”
This had become his role. Before that last time, he had been compelled to say something to them all. He’d retold the story of Bright Star’s first rescue. He talked about her vision. He talked about her sacrifice. Then he touched the lit torch to the flowing fabric
near her feet and with a whoosh she was consumed in flames.
Forty seconds passed. In the first ten her skin bubbled, her hair shriveled, and her ears began to melt away from her skull. At twenty seconds, she opened her mouth to scream but inhaled smoke instead. At thirty seconds, her blue eyes were turning black, as was her charred and flaking skin. Amazingly enough, she only started to die at thirty-five seconds.
That’s when Rush appeared.
When he entered the room, many of the Followers sat down. They knew he hated the kneeling, but some couldn’t bring themselves to stand in his presence. Some were physically incapable.
He walked in and his jaw dropped when he witnessed the burning pyre in the center of the ballroom. He’d known the time was near for her to make another attempt. The world could feel her High Energy gearing up over the past several weeks. He had even known that this time, this time there would be fire. Still, he couldn’t have been prepared for the acrid smell of burning flesh. The disfigured but living soul melting in a ball of orange and blue flame in the center of the room even dipped its head in deference to him and he felt his mouth pool with bile. He was going to be sick.
“Save her,” Monk prodded.
“Don’t you dare speak to him!” Point whispered harshly. She was shocked at Monk’s audacity. “It is his choice to save or not. He must make it, or all that we work for is lost.”
Monk ignored her. He had to, as they all felt the life slipping from them. The sudden wash of grief that came over him was overwhelming. Something hard pressed into his back, he couldn’t breathe. Bright Star was sharing her pain. And her pain wasn’t the fire or the flames, or physical in any way. Her pain came from the knowledge that Rush was truly considering not saving her.
Bright Star Page 15
