Embolden

by Syrie James

  Ms. Donnelly was clearly frustrated with their current dynamic. At Tuesday’s rehearsal, she complained, “Kids, this isn’t my hobby. I believe in what we’re doing here, and I need you to as well. When you’re in this theater, the play is all that matters. Not your homework, not friend problems or your dating lives, none of it. Focus on your performance and honor the audience, or when we open two weeks from now, there won’t be anything worth watching.”

  When rehearsal ended, Claire briefly caught a glimpse of Alec. He looked totally miserable. Quickly averting his eyes, he took off down the aisle, heading for the lobby.

  Claire watched him go, her heart catching. She was equally miserable. Yes, she was upset by his macho Watcher attitude and his behavior at Erica’s party. But she missed what they’d once had. Was it really over? If she went after him this second and said something, was there a chance they could fix their relationship?

  Just then Erica appeared at her side. “If you’re going to say anything to Alec,” Erica said quietly, “make sure it’s that you were wrong.”

  Claire paused, surprised that Erica was even speaking to her. “What?”

  “You said he was upset about the brainwashing thing? Well, he was right. I just heard that Dr. Grant is getting endless flak for diverting funds for the basketball team’s new uniforms into our play. One of the team dads just bailed on a ten-thousand-dollar donation he’d promised, and Ms. Donnelly has to write a letter to placate all the parents of the kids on the team.”

  “Oh crap.”

  “I mean, it’s great that we’ve got the costumes and all, but what gave you the right to interfere?” Erica gave Claire a pointed look, then climbed up onstage toward a side exit.

  Claire hurried up the aisle, her stomach churning. When she’d persuaded Dr. Grant, it had never occurred to her that anything could go wrong. She’d been so sick of the sports teams always getting all the money and wanted the arts to get a piece of the pie. But, just as everyone warned her, it had gone wrong. She’d put Ms. Donnelly in a difficult position. Damn it.

  Claire pushed through the door into the lobby, looking for Alec. But he was already gone.

  At lunch that day in the North Quad, Claire distractedly picked at her enchiladas. Brian and Kayla were chatting about an episode of some anime that Claire had never seen.

  “I just feel bad that the werewolf led her on like that,” Kayla was saying. “It’s almost as bad as what Jason Tate did to Gabby Miller.”

  That caught Claire’s attention. She looked up sharply. “What’s up with Jason and Gabby?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Brian said between bites. “They broke up.”

  “Not just broke up,” Kayla corrected. “He came out to her.”

  The news hit Claire like a punch to the gut. “Came out?” Jason was gay? “Oh. God.”

  Kayla nodded somberly. “Gabby was crying so hard yesterday, she left school early. Today, she’s still a total mess.”

  “I heard that Jason feels really bad,” added Brian. “He’s always known he was gay, but a few weeks ago he got this feeling he could try ‘living a lie’ with Gabby ’cause he really likes her. But finally … he just couldn’t.”

  Claire felt like she wanted to throw up. What have I done? This was the second time that her new power had backfired.

  Brian glanced her way, and his eyebrows rose. “What’s wrong, CB?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. Tears stung her eyes. Brian had no idea what she’d been up to lately. She was suddenly desperate to have a friendly shoulder to cry on, but how could she fill him in, with Kayla sitting there? Then she remembered the euphemism they’d once used for her new power. “It’s just that … a few weeks ago, I was … swing dancing with Jason, and I … convinced him to ask Gabby out.”

  Brian stared at Claire, confused at first. “You what?” Then his expression changed to comprehension. “Oh. Oh!”

  “I swear, I didn’t know.”

  “Wait, you and Jason were swing dancing?” Kayla asked, oblivious. “Were you both in that class your mom takes?”

  Claire just nodded silently, staring at the pavement.

  “You still haven’t told me where I can sign up for it,” Kayla complained, glancing at her watch. “Crap, I need to get to the art room early today.” She stood, shouldering her backpack and kissing Brian on the cheek. “Ciao for now.”

  “Yeah.” Brian pasted on a smile until Kayla left. When he returned his attention to Claire, he looked serious again. “CB. Did you really try to turn Jason straight?”

  “No!” Claire lowered her voice, taking a shaky breath. “I had no idea he was gay. I thought he was just too shy to ask Gabby out, so I gave him a little … psychic nudge.”

  “Wow. Well, at least you didn’t convince them to get married or something. It sucks now, but it’ll blow over eventually.”

  No wonder Alec and Helena were so insistent that I not use that power, Claire thought. At least nothing bad had happened to Señora Gutierrez. Yet. “I’m a ruiner of all things,” she muttered.

  Suddenly, Brian’s eyes lit up. “Hey, I’ve got something I know will cheer you up! I had a moment of pure inspirato during my free track this morning. Look at this.” From his backpack, he grabbed his laptop and powered it up. “Remember that photo we found of your dad outside the Cleveland courthouse? I did a reverse-image search on it, and here’s what I got.”

  “A what?”

  “Reverse-image search. You give a search engine a picture, and it’ll mine the web for anything similar.”

  Various pictures of men with different hair colors and hairstyles filled the screen. Some were clean-shaven, others had beards or mustaches, but almost all were wearing a suit and tie. When Claire looked closer, she realized they were all the same man. “That’s him! My father! That’s amazing!”

  “Check this one out.” Brian clicked on an image of Tom with long blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Two bodyguards flanked him as they exited a white building. It was tied to a news article in German.

  “When’s this from?” Claire asked.

  “May of last year.” Brian autotranslated the page, resulting in an article in somewhat broken English. The title was clear enough, though: “Eyewitness Give an Important Testimony to Heinz Trial.” The caption below the photo said it was taken at the Palace of Justice in Vienna.

  “Vienna? Why was my dad giving testimony in some trial in Vienna?”

  “Well, with his Grigori language skills, he’d be able to speak German like a native.”

  “So we were right about what the Fallen are using my dad for. But it’s not just in the U.S.”

  Brian nodded. “They’ve taken that show global.”

  “Which means he could be anywhere in the world that has trials by jury.”

  “You’ve just got to get ahead of it, CB. Predict where they’ll be next.”

  “How?”

  “Maybe you and Helena could take a closer look at this moment in Vienna, the way you did in the New York apartment and subway? You might be able to see a pattern to how they move him around or find some other clue.”

  Claire looked at him, a smile spreading across her face. This was exactly what she needed: a mission. Something to take her mind off the other woes and fiascos in her life. “Thanks, Bri. You’re brilliant.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he replied with a grin.

  Claire had learned her lesson. Although she was one for three in her mind-control experiments, her success with Señora Gutierrez didn’t make up for the epic failures. She promised herself she’d never use that power again.

  Alec, Neil, and Erica still weren’t talking to her. Which hurt and made rehearsals awkward.

  But at the same time, she was excited to have had a breakthrough about her father.

  “Grandma?” Claire called Helena from the car
on her way home. “I just learned something about Dad. Get ready to do some psychic shenanigans.”

  “If you refer to our mental sojourns in such a way again,” Helena replied dryly over the phone, “I will ensure that you only accompany me in the projected form of a dog.”

  “I prefer a unicorn?” Claire bartered.

  “That could be arranged.”

  Over dinner, Claire told Helena and her mother what Brian had discovered. Soon after, the three women were sitting in the living room, looking at the photo of Tom in Vienna on Claire’s phone.

  “This may not be as seamless as our jaunt through the apartment or the subway station in New York,” Helena told them. “There, we occupied the same physical space, just at a different time. All I have to go on here is this image, the pictures we’ve seen online of the Vienna courthouse, and my experience there decades ago as a tourist.”

  They joined hands. Claire felt the expected jolt as she melded with Helena’s mind. Closing her eyes, she found herself envisioning the picture of her father that Brian had found. The image rippled and faded into whiteness. The smell of car exhaust and the sounds of nearby traffic infiltrated Claire’s senses, along with the hum of conversation in German. A breeze drifted through Claire’s hair.

  Suddenly, she was standing on a sidewalk in front of a massive, white marble building, with Helena and Lynn beside her. White marble columns and two statues of lions flanked a wide staircase leading up to three ornate doors. It was just like the picture online: the Palace of Justice in Vienna. Helena’s projection of the building and its surroundings was so accurate, every last detail seemed real.

  They were in Vienna! But when?

  Half a second later, Claire had her answer. A few steps ahead of them, her father, wearing a long blond wig, was being led up the stairs by the two Fallen bodyguards from the photo. Press photographers and reporters clustered around them, snapping photos and calling out questions in German.

  “Oh my God, it’s Tom,” Lynn cried, excited.

  A couple of reporters walked straight through Claire, Lynn, and Helena, charging after her dad and his guards as they walked up the stairs, falling back only after the trio entered the building.

  Lynn and Helena darted after Tom. Claire hurried to keep up, pausing briefly in confusion when her mom and grandma passed through the outer walls of the building and disappeared inside.

  No matter how many times Claire had done this, it still felt weird to walk through a wall. She took a breath and dashed ahead, emerging inside a cavernous entry hall with an incredibly high ceiling. Claire had never seen anything like it. The entire place was made of carved marble, like something out of a fairy tale. Another wide staircase led up to a second-floor gallery.

  Unlike the accuracy of the building’s exterior, however, the projection of the inside wasn’t entirely formed. As Claire glanced around, many areas—a side corridor, a section of the upper gallery, portions of the lobby where men and women in suits were walking to and fro—were blocked out by blobby, black shapes.

  “I can’t see everything,” Lynn worried.

  “It’s my fault,” Helena explained. “I have limited visual information, but we have enough to go on.”

  She was right. Her father and his bodyguards were clear as day. They followed their quarry into a courtroom. Everything about it felt old world, from the high, carved, wooden ceiling, to the paneled, carved backdrop behind the judge’s bench. All the people in the room, from the judge and lawyers to the dozen or so people sitting in the audience, were vague, incomplete shapes.

  Her father was in the witness box. Over the course of several minutes, her dad answered questions and gave some kind of speech. Since everyone spoke in German, Claire had no idea what they were saying. Stepping close to the two seated bodyguards, Claire confirmed that they were wearing the same type of earbuds Malcolm and his cronies had worn to cancel out her own persuasion powers.

  As he spoke, her father’s expression was blank, but he maintained an air of competency. Claire looked for signs of an aura. Sure enough, a muddy gold light shimmered around him. Her dad was definitely drugged and using his powers as he spoke.

  Evidently, his testimony was effective, because as he was escorted out, a murmur of approval rippled through the audience. Claire knew she’d just observed something underhanded and criminal. At the same time, she couldn’t help but be impressed. Her dad had just influenced an entire roomful of people. She could barely control one mind at a time.

  “What happened?” Lynn asked, as they followed the trio from the courtroom.

  “It’s just as we thought,” Helena replied. “Tom claimed to be an eyewitness in a murder case, and the defendant will no doubt get off. Not just because of his testimony, but because he used his power of persuasion on everyone in that courtroom.”

  “What a clever system,” Claire added bitterly, “to keep the Fallen out of prison, whether they’re guilty or not.”

  Moments later, they were outside, watching as Tom was guided into a limousine.

  “What now?” Lynn asked.

  “We take a ride,” Helena replied. Without missing a beat, she stepped into the back of the limo, beckoning for Claire and Lynn to join her.

  Claire couldn’t believe this … she was going to ride in a limo with her father! As she climbed into the vehicle, the image was still incomplete, but Claire could see her dad sitting between the bodyguards. Helena and Lynn sat on the rear-facing bench, and Claire plunked down between them.

  As the car took off, Tom kept his head in his hands, as if he were struggling to stay awake. “Where are we?” he mumbled in English. “What day is this?”

  “It’s Thursday,” the first bodyguard answered with a trace of a German accent.

  “Where are we going? I can’t remember …” Tom’s voice drifted off.

  “We’re taking you back to your hotel, Herr Wolff,” the second bodyguard said. “You’ve had a big day, you need to rest.”

  “Oh,” Tom replied. “All right.” He settled back against the headrest behind him and closed his eyes.

  Claire’s heart ached. He looked so lost, so confused. It was infuriating that she couldn’t do a thing to help him. Not only was she not really there, all this had happened almost a year ago.

  After a short drive, the limousine pulled up to a hotel and stopped. Even more sections of the image were blacked out now, but Claire could make out a pair of men who stood waiting for Tom. Both were bald, and Claire recognized one from her vision—he was the same guy who’d injected her father in that hotel room.

  Claire, Lynn, and Helena leapt out of the car, following Tom’s captors as they guided him through the lobby, into a glass elevator, and down a series of vague corridors on the seventh floor. They unlocked the door to a hotel room and ushered Tom inside.

  The door slammed shut in Claire’s face.

  “I’m losing the connection,” Helena announced with a sigh. “We can’t go any farther.”

  With that, all the sights, sounds, and smells around Claire zipped away, and she was back to sitting on her living-room floor in Brentwood. After a moment, Lynn went to the kitchen, returning with a glass of ice water for Helena, who was dripping with sweat and looking exhausted.

  “I’m sorry,” Helena said as she sipped the water gratefully.

  “Don’t be. That was great, Grandma. We confirmed everything.”

  “They seem very methodical,” Helena commented. “I suspect this is a pattern. Wherever he’s giving testimony, they take him directly from court to a hotel room.”

  “Did you recognize that bald guy who met the limo?” Claire asked. “He’s the one who called Dad Mr. Boulanger. Maybe he’s part of a more permanent detail guarding his room.”

  “That would make sense,” agreed Helena. “The people carting him around to courthouses probably change with each international locat
ion.”

  “We have to rescue him,” Lynn insisted.

  Helena sighed wearily. “Believe me, I know. But to accomplish that, we’d have to know where and when his next court appearance is going to be.”

  “Is there any way to know that in advance?” Lynn asked.

  Helena shrugged. “It’s possible that I might foresee it. But I’d have to be really, really lucky.”

  Claire fell silent, the grim reality of the odds weighing on her mind. It could be years before her grandmother hit upon that information, if it happened at all. How would she stand the waiting, knowing that her father was in captivity, being manipulated and drugged out of his mind?

  Suddenly, Shane Malcolm’s offer rang in her ears:

  I can find out where he is with a phone call.

  Claire’s stomach twisted. All she had to do was go to Shane Malcolm. She could strike a deal with him for the information, and …

  No. It was a really bad idea. A deal that would have consequences. She put the thought out of her mind, hoping that another solution would soon present itself.

  Because otherwise, her dad was doomed.

  thirty-two

  Alec and the rest of the cast had spent all weekend in final costume fittings and walking through the entire play while the lighting, stagehand, and sound crews made sure everything was ready for opening night.

  Now it was Monday, three days until opening night, and nearing 10 p.m. They’d crawled through the first half of the play, with only a few screwups during set changes. The focus had been more on the technical aspects of the production the past few days rather than the acting. Which was a good thing, since Alec’s mind was decidedly elsewhere, Neil was aloof as ever, and Claire seemed to be distracted, just going through the motions. She still hadn’t said a word to Alec outside of the play itself, although once or twice he’d caught her glancing at him in a way that suggested she felt bad about the tension between them.

  Thankfully, Ms. Donnelly had been consumed enough by technical problems not to call them out for their detachment.