The Wayward Star

by Jenn Stark

  Nikki touched my hand, and I realized this must be Dr. Yazin Kahtri. “We have seen the damage it can cause, the damage to populations who have sought to do no more than to live in peace, conducting themselves as they have for centuries. And you would take that which makes them special and wipe it from the earth. What lies within your vaccination that you’re so proud of, Dr. Rindon, and why have you created it?”

  As I watched him with the benefit of my third eye, I once again could see the flare of immediate outrage in Dr. Rindon, masked almost immediately by his political sensibilities. He smiled expansively.

  “Dr. Kahtri, I’m not a fool. I understand all too well what you’re asking me, though I would suggest that many in the audience do not understand it. Would you like to explain to them what you are referring to?”

  I couldn’t help myself, I winced. This was the issue, wasn’t it? Here in this isolated room, protected from the outside world, with researchers and scientists and medical professionals all desperate to cling to any solution possible…and yet the idea of revealing that Dr. Rindon’s miracle vaccination was masking a secret ploy to rid psychics and seers of their magic was almost ludicrous. The expression of sheer fury that passed over Dr. Kahtri’s face was unmistakable. Nikki leaned closer to me, filling me in on his background in a quiet voice. He was a well-respected scientist who had fought tooth and nail to rise in the ranks despite his humble beginnings. He was also a powerful Connected who would likely go on to do extraordinary things, unless, of course, he was considered to be a pariah.

  That word caught at me, held. The world didn’t need another pariah, but perhaps it did need a little more Sariah, after all. To nobody’s surprise greater than my own, I stood.

  “Dr. Kahtri cannot speak as effectively to this question as I can,” I said. “And perhaps not as well as you can either.” My voice carried through the room with almost as much force as that of Kahtri, who turned and stared at me with clear surprise. He had been prepared to sacrifice all he’d fought for to confront his enemy. Now, he didn’t have to.

  “While you’ve made a study of science and medicine, my role is more of what you might call internal medicine. And what I’ve seen among the people you have treated, what I’ve heard over and over again, is that there’s a mystery affliction in the wake of your vaccinations that takes the essence of a person’s mental gifts, their psychic gifts, and neutralizes them.”

  As I expected, a nervous murmuring rolled through the crowd. But given the specific nature of this group, it didn’t take root the way it might in so many other environments. Scientists, doctors, and researchers alike all expressed surprise, dismay, even disdain—only to find their well-respected peers staring back at them with stony resolution. Sidebar conversations immediately started up.

  I kept going. “I would like to believe you did not know, Dr. Rindon, that your water-purifying solutions, the vaccinations you provided for the victims of national disasters, had been corrupted. This would be your opportunity to confirm that. This would be your opportunity to share with us your outrage, your denial that there’s anything damaging to the psychic population in the drugs you’re so gallantly spreading across the world.”

  With the benefit of my third eye, I could read the calculation in Rindon’s expression, along with the energy being put forth by the members of the audience at the far corners of the room, representatives of the Shadow Court. These representatives were Connected in their own right, and they pushed their subtle influence across the room toward Rindon, surrounding him in a cocoon of power. The power to lie his ass off, anyway.

  In front of him, however, the Devil of the Arcana Council remained at his ease, a lazy, almost laconic smile on his face.

  This time, he spoke aloud. “Speak your truth.”

  And Rindon did.

  “These psychic populations you describe, these scrabbling tribes, are uneducated, unsocialized, primitive peoples,” he retorted. “You have no idea the damage they could cause. They don’t have the education or the discernment to wield the magic they’ve cobbled together and hoarded over the centuries. They don’t have the refinement of spirit to do what’s right for society. Which is to put the people in power who can do the most good, in the best way.”

  An undercurrent of rage was building in the room around me, but it was nothing compared to Rindon’s own anger as he spoke directly to the Devil but addressed us all.

  “The time has come to consolidate the forces that should be in control and allow them to do their jobs,” he said. “The world is on the verge of collapse. Disaster is coming whether we want it to or not. And disaster should come to some of these populations. They bring the rest of us down. If I can help remove that parasite from the earth, it’s my right and my honor to do so. And believe me, as sure as I’m standing here among you, I will do it.”

  And that was all it took. Moving as one, the members of the audience possessing uranium cubes covered them with their hands, and with that simple movement, a psychic surge of energy lifted from the white-skirted tables, exploding toward the ceiling. Immediately, Nikki, Lainie, Eshe, Simon, Brody, and I lifted our grounding rods, and another surge of electrical power joined the fray, deflecting the geyser of power pouring from the cubes and guiding it into an exquisite pattern that traced and wound and wove itself in an arc over the room, surrounding us in a bubble of stars and crackling threads. At once, I was reminded of the Magician’s collection of magical spheres. We, the people in this room right now, could have been captured within one of those spheres, a new kind of life struggling to take form. And as with any surge toward life, there was inevitably chaos.

  All this happened in the space of two breaths, which was about how long it took for those members of the audience who were not Connected to lose their ever-loving minds.

  People leapt to their feet, screaming, scrambling for the exits, but of course, the exits were blocked by members of the Shadow Court. And so, as human populations had done since the dawn of time, they turned on each other.

  Perhaps more importantly, they turned on Dr. Rindon.

  “Sara!” Nikki shouted, and I whirled around to see the doctor cornered on the stage, his hands up in the magician’s stance I’d become so familiar with since becoming a member of the Council. In the exigency of battle, his guard had finally been fully stripped away, and I realized the truth.

  Dr. Rindon was one of the most powerful Connecteds I’d ever witnessed who wasn’t already on the Council. This was no stooge bent to the will of the Shadow Court. He could easily have run the Shadow Court, I suspected, but his passions quite clearly lay elsewhere. The role of humanitarian, of great savior of the populace. The celebrity of being in the public eye as he silently struck down those who didn’t even know he was administering his deadly blow.

  He brought his hands forward. A wave of magic lashed out around him, and screams rose up in earnest. A good thirty people went down, their hands at their temples as blood spurted through their fingers. Around them, real horror began to take root as the Unconnected members of the audience witnessed this targeted attack. I felt the pressure of Rindon’s magic as well, but I was twice warded, first as an Arcana Council member, and secondly because I was holding Tesla’s grounding rod. Not only did it redirect the uranium energy bursts, it also apparently deflected anything thrown at me. And if it worked for me, it could work for damn near anybody. I forced my way through the crowd and thrust the rod into the hands of Dr. Kahtri.

  “Get up!” I shouted at him. “You asked for this fight, so fight it!”

  His eyes widened as his vision cleared and he gripped the wand I handed him. “Who made this?” he demanded, momentarily distracted as any good scientist would be by the marvel in his hands.

  “Nikola Tesla. He’ll be expecting recognition. Now go.”

  I turned to see the other members of my party handing off their rods as well, Simon sticking close to Brody and Nikki, Eshe lending her strength to protect Lainie. I moved to jump back into the fr
ay when a hand on my shoulder stayed my forward motion.

  “They fight,” Armaeus said, his words somehow audible despite all the screaming. “The playing field has been leveled, and you have given them permission to fight. Permission and the tools. It is their fight more than ours.”

  I scowled, turning back toward the battle in front of me, but I realized immediately that Armaeus was right. Two forces, human forces, were allied against each other. The Shadow Court might have provided the support to Rindon, but the Shadow Court wasn’t here beyond a few of their minions. Just as in the bar at the MGM Grand, when the conflict was between mortal Connecteds and both sides were properly prepared—mortals needed to be allowed to make their stand. There were no demons crawling out of the woodwork or demigods squaring off, here. There were merely Connecteds who were willing to stand against their oppressors and defend their truth. Their abilities. Their right to exist.

  I noticed Eshe, Simon, and the Devil making their way to the edges of the room where no one guarded the doors any longer. Reluctantly, I followed them. No one stopped me. No one cried my name. Justice had heard the cry of the Connected, and Justice had helped them take a stand. It was their right to carry that struggle to the end.

  I turned one last time as the battle raged on. Then I nodded.

  “Stay in the fight,” I murmured.

  Then I closed the doors quietly behind me.

  29

  When explosions burst through the doors of the main conference room, the fire department was finally called, and the police as well. But the Arcana Council were the first responders.

  Most of the Unconnected conference attendees escaped unscathed, other than superficial injuries. The specific magic of the Shadow Court was directed primarily toward its opponents, a variant of Rindon’s vaccination that combined an advanced form of null tech with a powerful sorcerer’s punch. The Connected were not so lucky. Four had been killed in the battle and dozens of others injured. The Magician and I moved through their ranks, healing where we could, making no distinction between members of the Shadow Court and those of the ancient societies. When a person was dying, his affiliations were much harder to discern, and we were not here to play God. We were here to balance the playing field and let Connecteds fight for the right to exist.

  I stayed a little longer over the limp body of Dr. Sebastian Rindon, stretched out beside the still form of Dr. Kahtri. Both men had survived, yet not without grave cost. They were both in comas, locked inside their own minds, fighting on. The only indication they were still alive was their shallow, short breaths and the flicker of their eyes beneath their closed lids. EMTs were readying both for transport to the nearest hospital, but my fingers sparked to render them aid.

  I glanced up to see the Magician watching me.

  “They would not welcome your assistance,” he told me.

  I made a face. “If I were locked in my brain, I guarantee you I would take any help I could get.”

  “Not at first you wouldn’t,” Armaeus insisted. “They both are fighting for ideological reasons they believe are pure and right. It is their fight.”

  “I guess,” I muttered.

  “Meanwhile, we would do well to leave this place before we’re noticed.”

  I snorted. “I think we’re kind of past that point.”

  The Magician smiled. “Fortunately, I have had a great deal of experience of cleaning up the messes that magic can make. There will be no recollection of our attendance here by anyone who might wish to do us harm. I have, however, allowed memories to live on in the minds of those who are merely curious. It is time to build their awareness of the Arcana Council, brick by brick.”

  “Curiosity can just as quickly turn to disdain,” I warned, but I fell into line beside him as he gestured me down a somewhat empty hallway. The media had finally descended on the summit, drawn, sadly enough, by dead bodies. But the breathless reporting would carry with it more than the tragedy of death. It would highlight the reasons why the fight broke out. Even in its most sanitized form, the implication was clear. A group of underrepresented societies took issue with the pharmaceutical concoctions being introduced into their communities without proper testing. People’s DNA had been changed at a fundamental level, and a peaceable demand for explanations had resulted in a not so peaceable response that had quickly spiraled out of control.

  We were halfway down the hallway when the space shifted around us. In a blink of the Magician’s magic, I found myself standing with Armaeus in a courtyard outside the conference center. The other members of our team stood there as well, doing a good impression of loitering, all except for Lainie and Eshe. Those two stood ramrod straight, their eyes fixed on a point on the far horizon, their hands loose at their sides, their lips parted as they murmured in hushed tones.

  “Do I want to know?” I asked.

  Brody fielded that one. “You know those phone-a-psychic networks?” he asked. “Apparently, these two are hooked up to some kind of psychic switchboard that just turned the fuck on. They’ve been absolutely leveled with contact since we busted them out of that conference room, people all over the world reaching out. Simon’s got them miked up, so even though the advice they’re spewing out is subvocal, we’ll be able to parse it out later.”

  “It’s the absolute coolest,” Simon agreed, bouncing up and down on his toes. “Though you might want to lose the phone-a-psychic characterization, my man,” he said to Brody. “Eshe will kick your ass if she thinks you disrespected her.”

  “Perish the thought.” Brody turned his attention to me. “I got a call from Interpol as well. They’ve been busy. Apparently, a tip came in from one of the attendees shortly after the fight broke out that gave them all the ammunition they needed to contact local authorities who were already primed for a drug bust. This was in Houston, Texas, one of Star Research Laboratories’ biggest installations. Catering to, you guessed it, Solidarity Pharmaceuticals.”

  “What did they find?”

  “A whole lot of drugs that were not FDA approved, with manifests indicating they were being circulated throughout the United States. It’s one thing to unload your crazy internationally, but the FDA is a lot more particular here at home. Chances are they’re not going to find anything illegal in those drugs. The psychotropic elements aren’t going to show up on any sort of scan, I don’t care how sophisticated the crime labs are. But it will slow the Shadow Court down, and in the meantime, we’ll have the ability to create more psychic antivenom, or whatever it is you want to call it.”

  “Not only that,” Simon said, “did you see those grounding rods that Tesla gave us? They absolutely rocked it. They created like a pup tent of safety you can pop whenever needed. Tesla is going to make a freaking fortune, I am telling you that right now—and that’s above and beyond the supply he’s going to distribute for free.”

  “For free?” Brody asked, his surprise plain.

  “Dude. You can be excused for not knowing this, but one thing about Tesla, he was a big proponent for electricity for all in his day. He had no interest in the rich being the only ones to be able to play with his toys. That’s crossed over into the realm of magic as well. He’ll get these rods to the people who really need it. All with proper recognition, of course.”

  I smiled. “Of course.”

  “So what’s going to happen to Rindon and Dr. Kahtri?” Nikki asked as a medical helicopter swept into view, heading for the conference center. “Do you think they’re still fighting each other?”

  “Yes,” the Magician said. “They are both operating deep within their psyches, using up their vast storehouses of rage, each created from two very different foundations. They will exhaust themselves eventually, and then they will rest. In time, they will wake. What they choose to do after that, I cannot tell you. But I suspect they will stay in the fight, each on their own sides. Their societies will support them or abandon them, each to their own proclivities.”

  “Wait, what do you mean?” I began, but some
thing at the edge of the courtyard caught my eye. I turned it to see Mayah and Dylan Pendragon standing there.

  “Miss Wilde,” the Magician murmured, gesturing me over to them.

  I glanced their way, then back to him. “Come with me,” I said.

  Something flared in his eyes, but he said nothing further as we made our way over to Pendragon and Mayah. Mayah spoke first. “Justice answered the call,” she said, her words warm and approving. “It’s not the last time you will be summoned to the fight.”

  “The last time?” Pendragon scoffed. “It’s barely the first. The Shadow Court has been clipping along easy as you please. I can guarantee you they didn’t expect today’s outcome to be so definitive. Those people were out for the count. It was a motley collection of Connecteds in there, none of whom would meet the Shadow Court’s standards for purebred excellence, and they knocked the buggers out cold. The Court’s not going to take that well, not well at all. They’re going to up their game, is my thinking. It would be smarter for them to go back underground to rebuild with a new understanding of who they’re up against, but they’re too proud for that. They struck, and we counterstruck so hard and fast that they looked foolish. Not a group that’s going to take kindly to that.”

  “Especially since we have also gained victories beyond today’s simple setback of the Shadow Court,” Mayah agreed. “In many ways, the whole world was watching. Chatter has already started.”

  I glanced back to where Eshe and Lainie stood, their bodies almost electric with the flow of information cycling through them.

  “I think you’re right in terms of the chatter, but how far will that take us?” I asked.

  “Further than we’ve come in a very long while,” Mayah said. “With this awakening, Connected societies may realize there’s more of us out there than we believed. There will be strength in those numbers. Strength and shared experiences that can benefit all. For so many centuries, millennia even, we have survived because we remained hidden. But that cannot be how we move forward. The Shadow Court will always come up with another way to eliminate the outliers. It is only by presenting a united front that we stand a chance not only to win this battle but to ensure lasting peace.”