Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, & Magic

by SM Reine

  Yes, he sends, and I feel his approval. Good.

  I’m not a seer, I say. I can’t be. It’s impossible.

  It sounds hollow to me now, but I fight to hold on to that one thing.

  I’ve read about your kind, I tell him. You play with people’s minds. You can convince them of anything.

  As usual, this does not faze him.

  You are right, he sends equably. But why would I do this with you?

  I don’t have a good answer, and it irritates me.

  His opens himself somehow, and I feel more of him.

  It is disconcertingly intimate.

  You have known that you are different, he tells me. You consciously chose to hide those differences...to suppress them where you could. His mind turns more pointed. Having a preference about what species one is, is irrational, Esteemed Bridge.

  I don’t like this much, either.

  His light begins to change, sparking in different-colored eddies that dance across his intricately woven skin. I cannot help but watch. His veins pulse, changing from white-gold to orange and red rivers with flecks of black and indigo blue. The transformation is liquid, fire-like. The fire starts from a particular structure over his head, leaks down his light skull like thinned, living paint. It bleeds into his throat, shoulders, arms, hands.

  What are you doing? I ask.

  Inside the Barrier, he sends. There is only one rule...

  The fire spreads to me, touching my light forearm first, where he holds me.

  Before the color has finished traveling to his waist, it is spreading into my transparent skin. Once it soaks my arm, it sears like ice, absorbed by my light bones.

  Wait. I am fighting panic...again. Something’s wrong! Dehgo, whatever your name is—

  Revik, he cuts in neutrally. Dehgoies Revik. I am slowing it down so you can feel the process accurately—

  No, really, Dehgo! Wait—

  Revik, he repeats. Dehgoies is my family name.

  The fire spreads up my shoulder. I am struggling against his hold now, panicking, but I can’t extract myself from his fingers, nor from that fire-like light.

  He remains calm, indifferent-seeming.

  ...The rule is this, he continues, as if I hadn’t interrupted. To go anywhere you wish to go, to find anyone or anything inside the Barrier, you must become what you seek. Distance can impact this, and time. But ultimately, even these can be overcome.

  Orange fire spreads to my stomach.

  His body is all bright orange now, with the exception of one hand, which stubbornly remains a sparking gold-white, lighter than the rest. The denser orange sinks into my thighs, moving swiftly to my knees, then my calves...

  Wait! I shriek in the dark. Revik!

  ...Whatever you become, you are drawn to. This is called resonance. It is what you and I were born to do...

  My left foot fills with liquid fire.

  Right as the last spot changes, his hand flushes orange, too, and it occurs to me in the millisecond before I’m ripped apart that he used that last piece of himself as an anchor, waiting for me to change, but the thought barely penetrates before...

  My whole being ceases to exist.

  When I can feel again, I am shooting across black clouds, moving so fast I can’t perceive anything but streaming light. I don’t realize I am screaming inside that space for a little while—if screaming is the right word, since I have no lips, no larynx, no tongue—but I feel Revik recoil as a part of me shrieks outward anyway.

  A tornado of light opens before us...

  ...and then we are inside, moving fast, so fast that all I can do is survive it, holding onto him with my mind even if I can no longer feel my body. There is no sound. Light flashes by us in long, rotating, starbursts of fire. Orange and red and yellow twist in detailed spirals that light up the dark behind my eyes, making me nauseous.

  Then, just as quickly, it is over.

  Everything stops.

  I come out the other end into the deepest silence I have ever felt.

  We float.

  Stars flicker in an expanse without clouds, so still and silent that a catch happens somewhere in my internal rhythms. My light body is back, still made of orange fire, but it is no longer uncomfortable here. Here, that orange light pulses with the sky, with his orange body suspended beside mine, with the slow-moving light I see up ahead. Gaseous clouds swirl in inexorable silence, a spiral with a fire-orange cloud at its center.

  We are swimming inside a nebula, watching flares arc and dissipate into blackness above.

  I watch the light flow in its dense dance, feeling so much inside, wanting to feel it so much, I can barely formulate thought.

  He is pleased.

  Are we...here? I manage.

  He nudges my mind towards a particularly beautiful arc of light as it explodes outwards.

  We are, he replies. But not in the physical, Esteemed Bridge. All places that exist in the physical exist also in the Barrier...but many exist here that do not exist there. This is one of those. He observes me as I look around, still seeming pleased. I thought it best to go first to a place where accidents were not so much of a danger...

  I try to absorb all of his words, can’t.

  We float over unspeakable beauty for what could be minutes, days, aeons...

  I remember that homeless seer in San Francisco with the kind eyes.

  A part of me will never leave this place, I think.

  ...when he changes frequency, distracting me.

  The new vibration spreads more quickly this time. Several structures over his head are involved, working conjointly.

  But I’m not ready to leave.

  Wait! Wait, no...please! Can’t we stay a little longer?

  You will only grow accustomed through doing.

  Wait! Revik...no!

  At home, I would have been in tears.

  The new frequency locks in. It is pale blue, the color of a virgin lake...

  It rips me out of that flame-filled sky.

  We enter the mouth of another tornado. I am screaming again, out of my mind. Being so far out of control makes it impossible to resist; I give in out of necessity, and it feels like dying, even beyond losing that beautiful place and its silent immovable peace...

  But once I really let go, the fear recedes.

  I look around at the wormhole walls. It is oddly silent.

  He is beside me, his light features serene.

  The tunnel walls are complex, made up of blue and white streaks so tiny they amaze me, pulling me out of my emotional attachment to the fiery orange cloud we are leaving behind. These new colors feel familiar, and they are beautiful, too, twisting ahead of us like a long, sloping tunnel. Once I grow interested in the beaded colors I can see each individual gradation, and they look like emerald and blue jewels.

  I feel his approval, and again, a near-relief.

  Where are we going? I ask.

  I want you to see that you can be anywhere, he says. With anyone.

  We emerge out into a new night sky.

  It is less silent here, but in a way I can’t describe, not even to myself. There is a faint busyness here, like the hum of very soft static.

  I make out the familiar outline of Earth, and realize in wonder that this is the source of the familiarity I feel. It is also the source of that quiet hum.

  But Earth here is not Earth as I’ve ever seen it.

  Light beings streak and hover over the shining sphere of the planet. They cluster over continents, attach themselves to other beings both lower and higher in the atmosphere. They attach themselves to land masses and cities and even oceans and sky.

  The Pyramid hovers like a shadow over the largest concentration of lights.

  It is huge here.

  Even as I begin to stare at it, he steers my attention firmly back to him.

  Your interest in them is natural, he says. But it is too soon.

  Again, I don’t understand.

  He feels my confusion. />
  ...It is possible to go more directly to the thing or place you seek, he explains, still keeping my attention focused on him, and away from that bright cage of Pyramid-shaped light. I thought you should see where you are, first.

  He pauses then, polite.

  ...Do you have any questions?

  I laugh. I can’t help it.

  We descend through clouds, aiming for the surface of that light-filled world. As we begin to speed up, vertigo hits me for real, tinged now with an edge of exhilaration. We pass through a layer of rough, exploding light which I realize lives at the edge of the atmosphere. Fires spark my body like solar flares, then curl and diminish, leaving the landscape to unfurl below, enmeshed with a far denser intricacy of fine, colored threads. As we pass through them one by one, I feel connections between people and other beings, feel the warm pulse of life, the mix of vibration...and feel a liquid surge of delight.

  You do remember.

  His light is all warmth again, relief mixed with else...a familiarity that is personal, that borders on affection.

  I know this should probably unnerve me, but it only makes me smile here.

  North America grows larger.

  We descend towards the west coast, then California. I laugh as San Francisco appears in a shower of sunlight over fog-blanketed hills and suspension bridges covered in cars. The steel skyscrapers and brightly-colored homes grow larger, more diverse. The glittering bay shimmers a pale gold with the light bodies of plants and fish, darker near the marinas and docks, lighter again at the gates of the open ocean. It is breathtaking. Stunning.

  Yes, he agrees. It is still quite pretty.

  I pause on his qualifier, then let it go.

  Now the lights of people dominate, but I see every other living being as well; I am shocked by the variety of them, their different colors and vibrations.

  Hawks, blue jays and sparrows wing by. I see dogs running down the street, their outlines discernible through a blur of amiable light. Flies and gnats and ladybugs are pale dots; worms, cats, moles, snakes, squirrels, raccoons, rats, fleas, butterflies, trees, flowers, ants, gophers, beetles...they all flicker and shine separately yet remain connected in the overall matrix of light and vibration on the ground. Whatever I focus on encompasses my view, until I can feel each individual light, until it vibrates slightly with my own.

  Then I start to see them, moving among the clusters of blurred human lights.

  ...They are everywhere.

  Chiseled outlines like the man beside me are present in nearly one in five collections of humans. Some walk in their own clusters, five or six or even ten of them together, speaking to one another animatedly, showing the faint outline of business suits and blue jeans, T-shirts and name brand coats. Just as often, I see them alone, or with groups of blob-like humans.

  I see seers attached to humans by the geometrical shapes that rise above their heads. It’s not hard to see that the communication isn’t equal; instead, it’s more like ventriloquist and wooden dummy. In some places, two or three seers control the humans in an entire building. A kind of horror takes over as I see more and more seers controlling humans in this way.

  So many, I say. How did they all get past the Sweeps? Past SCARB?

  He senses my fear, and his light grows cautious.

  SCARB isn’t interested in controlling all seers, he tells me. Only those who are not owned. They are also not officially aware of the Rooks, who are quite good at infiltrating human hierarchies, including SCARB itself. Many of these seers you see are owned. Many are also Rooks, albeit low-levels ones for the most part, non-infiltrators. It is in the interests of both human and seer governments to keep this reality from civilians.

  Wait, I send. You’re saying human governments—

  Yes, he says, emitting a shrug. Does this really surprise you? Although, as I said, even they do not know the extent of it. Some know this situation isn’t tenable. There is a sort of ‘cold war’ happening between the seers and the humans on many levels.

  I don’t answer him for a moment.

  Shrugging. he adds, There are more seers here than you see now, Allie. Those with the skill and inclination can eliminate their frequency from regular perception in the Barrier, mainly through blending with the lights that make up their environment.

  Another thought trickles in, one that has already occurred to me.

  They cannot see us, Allie. At least not in a regular scan. I am shielding us. Therefore, they would have to know where they were looking. There are ways to track anyone, of course...

  I stare down, trying to count them.

  It is impossible.

  Seers have only three real options, he tells me next. We can live with the Seven in seclusion, and according to their holy precepts. It is not a bad life, but it is not for all seers, just as it would not be for all humans to live as monks. The second option we have is to be owned...to sell our sight to humans. It provides some freedoms, providing one is skilled and has an employer who is fair. But it is risky...a kind of voluntary slavery.

  He adds, The third option we have is to join the Rooks...or ‘the Org,’ as they call themselves. They are an underground network of seers with an anti-human agenda.

  Which are you? I say, unthinking.

  After a pause that lets me know that the question is, indeed, rude, he says, Presently, I am all but the third.

  I watch a cluster of seers toy with a crowd of humans, changing their emotions back and forth like ocean currents. I feel their laughter as we pass.

  They are no more dangerous than humans, he says, a little defensively that time. There are mature elements, and less mature. Kind, and less kind. Thinking, he shrugs. Some are bitter about being enslaved, of course...

  I stare at him. No more dangerous than humans?

  Well, perhaps that is an exaggeration.

  You think? I burst out. What are you all doing here?

  Surprise and anger flare his light.

  What do you mean? We live here! The same as you!

  I refocus on the seer lights, fighting back more words.

  Those lights come in all of the colors of the Barrier, textures ranging from smooth as milk to jagged electric sparks. I notice they differ far more from one another than the lights of the humans, which all seem to occupy roughly the same spectrum of gray. The seers are chameleons, changing their skin from contact with one another and threads of light through which they pass.

  Yet, somehow, they are more solidly individual than I can express.

  I feel my companion’s light change subtly and...

  We are in another part of the city.

  The building feels familiar as we pass its dim walls.

  Then I am staring at the glowing hands of a Betty Boop clock on the wall near the ceiling and it hits me that I am in the diner where I work...worked...did work. I watch human, blob-like forms move through a catacomb of vinyl booths. Still, I know these blobs somehow. After I concentrate a little harder, I recognize Sasquatch the cook, Cory behind the bar.

  I try to determine if any of the light blobs are Cass––

  To learn a place or thing from another’s light...this is called imprinting, Esteemed Bridge, he tells me. I took this one from you.

  I look down. My light-feet are standing in a man’s plate of ham and eggs. He eats through my ankles, but I feel his light fingers and tongue and jerk away, repulsed. My companion grabs my light arm before I can float across the room.

  I am what is called an infiltrator, he says. A seer trained to find things behind the Barrier. It is a trade, one that is learned, often at a young age.

  A spy? I venture.

  He doesn’t like this, I can tell.

  Still, he shrugs it off.

  A human equivalent might be espionage, he sends after a pause. It is how my human employer sees it, certainly. For a Rook, the designation of espionage is more accurate. They do not follow Code and operate under a quasi-military structure, as you see reflected in the spatial re
presentation of their network of seers.

  At my bewilderment, he adds,

  ...the Pyramid.

  I am back to looking around the diner.

  I don’t understand, I say. How are we here?

  Resonance, he sends. It is what we seers do. We resonate with things. Everything has a vibration. Every person, every place, every event. You can see a past event if you can recall its imprint, or if you resonate strongly enough with someone who was present. The future is more difficult. His light body emits a shrug. ...For obvious reasons. Even in the present, imprints change. People change, seers more than humans, although usually not enough to fool an experienced tracker.

  His light sparks, hardening and softening in waves.

  There are exceptions, he adds. These things are very complicated in terms of functionality, Alyson, but the principle is simple. Resonance means things that have the same vibration are drawn to one another. Everything in the Barrier operates thus.

  But what is this? I ask, waving a light hand over the diner. Are we on Earth? Or not?

  Yes, he sends at once. ...And no. Reacting to my exasperation, he adds, It is a level of the Barrier. The Barrier is not material. ‘Where’ has a different meaning here. It is closer to ‘what.’ But we are close to the ‘what’ of Earth. Here, its ‘where’ is less important.

  When I want to argue, he cuts me off.

  Simply grasp the basics for now. Your consciousness must learn to split in order to grasp it fully, Esteemed Bridge. All seers must learn to be in two places at once...to hold two views of reality at once. It is normal for us.

  Without waiting for my reaction, he changes the tenor of his thoughts, making them a near warning.

  One other thing, he continues, hovering over a family dining on hamburgers. And this is important. While it is true that the Barrier is where we seers have the most power, it is also the place we are most vulnerable. When you operate outside of the Barrier, you are invisible here, Allie. Powerless, like a human...but untraceable. Inside, you can be attacked.

  I don’t know what this means, but fear ripples my light. I look around, half expecting to get smacked out of nowhere.

  I hear Revik sigh. I can tell I’m taxing whatever levels of patience he possesses. He turns his attention to the blurred human lights, and for an instant, I see through his eyes, an eagle’s view of all humans, everywhere.