by T. G. Ayer
Excitement edged his voice. Like most people, seers fascinated him with the possibility of knowing his future. But Allegra didn't think he'd want to know this particular fate.
"It wasn't really the future. I don't know what it was. You didn't look any different. Like it could be today or tomorrow, or in the next few months."
"And what did you see?" he asked again, as if the second time around he'd get a different answer.
"You died here. Alone."
Breslin paled and the courtyard fell into a cold silence despite the heat of the sun.
Portia scoffed, folding her arms and giving Allegra a sneering smile. "Is this some sort of prank? You a SeerGram or something?"
Allegra looked at Portia but she didn't have the heart to reveal what else she'd seen.
"I'm sorry. I don't feel well." Allegra got to her feet, grabbed her bags and straightened, staring at the couple stiffly. "I have to go."
She fled the house without a backward glance.
For some unearthly reason, her car started on the first turn and she drove off, terrified of what she'd seen, terrified in case Breslin gave chase for more information.
The sentry at the entrance opened the front gate for her, oblivious to the drama that was probably playing out inside the mansion right this minute.
As Allegra turned onto the main road, she gave the house one last glance. She'd made it out in time. If she'd been there any longer, Portia's bitchiness would have pushed Allegra to tell the vicious woman the truth.
That Allegra had seen her death, too.
When she'd turned to look at what Breslin had been staring at the moment he’d died, Allegra had let out a horrified cry. Portia must have sat down on the stone bench at some point. She'd been lying on her back, hands hanging to the ground on either side of the narrow seat.
With two black crows sitting on her chest, pecking out her eyeballs.
Chapter 2
If Apollo were to walk up to Allegra and ask her what she wished for most in the world, it would be a do-over of this entire disastrous day.
Not that she was stupid enough to believe in great mythical beings, but it was a nice little daydream.
Allegra sighed as she stared out at the deep blue of the heaving ocean and sipped at her cup of bitter, dark coffee. The Neptune overlooked the harbor, a restaurant that boasted long waiting-lists for their sought-after tables.
These days, seafood was one of the most prized delicacies, especially lobster, crawfish and squid. The chef at the Neptune knew people who knew people, ensuring his menus always contained near-unattainable ocean fare.
Except for the one time with the pufferfish liver.
Good thing Senator Nordstrom survived and had considered the experience invigorating.
At least the Dark Ghana was helping to still Allegra’s shaking fingers. Xenia had better arrive soon because Allegra didn't think she could stand one more moment alone with the tumult that was her current thoughts.
A tinkling of laughter from across the room announced Xenia's arrival and Allegra smiled as she watched her dearest friend in all the world cut a line between the densely-packed tables, like a great airship on her maiden voyage.
The lady’s entourage consisted of Pepper, her adorable golden retriever, whose tail began to sway with intense vigor the moment he set eyes on Allegra.
She smiled as the pair made their way toward her.
Xenia owned the room, dressed in a floor-length turquoise silk skirt with one of those weird wraparound flowy tops in which Allegra could never figure out where arms or head went. The bright colors only enhanced her deep brown skin, which made Allegra green with envy.
To other people, Xenia was a little flamboyant, but to Allegra she was the best friend a girl could have.
Pepper danced around the table, catching his lead amongst the legs and forcing Xenia to let go of the strap. He stood on his hind legs and placed his chin on Allegra’s thigh, begging for attention.
Usually Allegra would scratch his head and mutter unintelligables to him. But today she just said, “There’s a good boy,” and ignored him. Pepper seemed to take the hint and returned to his mistress’s side.
Xenia sank into the plush seat opposite Allegra and pushed her dark red sunglasses high onto her head. They served to hold back the expanse of black curls that was offset beautifully by a pair of glittering jade earrings.
Allegra leaned close and studied the stones. "Tell me those things are not real."
"Pfft," said Xenia. "You know we don't do fake." She fingered the stones, which served only to intensify the rich brown of her skin.
Allegra rolled her eyes because they both knew Allegra herself did fake, since a physiotherapist’s income did not often run to genuine jewelry. Xenia, of course, could splurge with her parents’ money because there was too damned much of it.
After ordering a sweet Lanka tea and a bowl of water for Pepper, Xenia studied Allegra's face. "You have to tell me what's wrong. You're looking all pale."
Allegra snorted. Her own pale skin could put milk, lilies and clouds to shame. But Xenia was only seeing what she herself felt. Stressed, tense, worried.
And afraid.
Allegra inhaled softly then waited as the waitress arrived with tea and water. The girl set the drinks down, one on the table with a polite smile, and the other on the floor with a barely disguised grimace.
Allegra straightened her spine as the waitress hurried away. She met Xenia’s eyes without a smile. "I have to tell you something. But you have to swear you will not freak out."
Xenia nodded solemnly. "I swear."
Allegra studied her friend carefully. She could read right through her lies. Allegra’s lips thinned. "Swear on Hera."
"What?" whispered Xenia, her dark skin flushing. "That bad?"
Pepper’s head popped up, nosed propped on the edge of the table, watching her with doleful eyes.
Allegra nodded, unsmiling.
Xenia blinked, and swore on Hera.
Allegra told her everything that had happened at Darius Breslin's mansion.
While Xenia processed the tale, Allegra sipped more of her coffee and stared at the white-topped waves, wishing she could just ride out into the sunset and live forever where the sun met the sea.
Dreams are for kids.
"And," Xenia leaned close, "how are you coping?"
Allegra hid her shaking hands beneath the table and smiled. "I would have been okay - I think - if I hadn’t had a second . . . episode . . . with Connor Kiriakis just now."
Something cool and wet nudged Allegra’s shivering fingers, but she drew her hand away from Pepper’s nose. As well-meaning as he was, she wasn’t in the mood for the dog.
He gave a small whine and returned to place his chin on the table at Xenia’s elbow.
"Hades almighty." Xenia swallowed. "What happened?"
Allegra sighed and leaned forward. To an onlooker, the two women would have appeared to be friends meeting for lunch and a gossip. And usually, that was exactly what they were.
Today was different.
And something was telling Allegra that nothing would ever be the same again.
"Kiriakis has a hamstring injury."
"He still deadlifting?" Xenia sipped her tea, then petted Pepper’s head to get his nose off the table.
"At sixty-four he shouldn't be, but who can tell him anything?"
"So what did you see?"
Allegra swallowed hard. "He was dying too. In the same way. Fever. Dehydration. Sores around his mouth. He was on his yacht and it looked abandoned." Allegra ran her fingers through her hair and groaned softly. "What in Hades is going on? I'm going crazy, aren't I?"
"Did you tell him?"
"Kiriakis? Why would I do such a thing?" Allegra's laugh was mirthless. "I managed to maintain my composure, thank Apollo. The last thing I need is to upset the sweet old man."
"Ally, you did the right thing, and maybe it's best to keep this under wraps for a while."
/>
"Who would I tell? You think I want a long line of people at my door bringing me chickens and lambs to read their entrails?" She sighed and sat back, pressing her fingers into her forehead. "What am I going to do? How can I possibly do my job like this? I can't work if every time I touch a patient, I see his horrific death."
"Come on, Ally. You are being a little dramatic. Maybe you're tired, or just stressed. And besides you've always had forebodings like this. You managed so far without going loco. Maybe it's nothing more than an overactive imagination."
Had anybody else said those words, Allegra would have been furious, but Xenia knew her enough to know her past too. Allegra's parents had died when she was sixteen, leaving her in the care of her parent’s closest friends—Xenia’s parents, thank goodness.
Allegra had had a terrible dream in which she'd seen her parents’ deaths, but when she’d told her dad not to go out that night, he hadn’t listened. Instead, they’d driven off and died in a collision with a fuel tanker on the highway.
Since then, several times similar premonitions had aided her and Xenia in avoiding trouble, so neither of the girls would be ready to fob them off in totality.
Again, she sighed. "Maybe you're right."
Wishful thinking.
Xenia tapped one azure fingernail on the table in front of Allegra's hand. "I have an idea."
"Which is?" Allegra asked, returning her focus to the undulating surface of the ocean.
"Touch me," said Xenia. Allegra snapped her gaze to her friend’s face, alarmed. Xenia merely raised her eyebrows encouragingly. "Tell me if you see anything."
Allegra studied the serious edge to her expression. "Er . . . I don't think so."
"Why in Hera's name not?" Pepper danced in a circle and whined. Xenia shushed him.
"Because the last thing I want to do is see your death.”
Chapter 3
Allegra flinched, having spoken the words a little too loudly.
She scanned the tables around her, relieved to find her outburst had gone unnoticed.
Inhaling softly, she said, "Maybe it's nothing, but if these . . . visions . . . are real, then I do not want to see how you die."
Xenia grinned, unaffected by Allegra's morbid reaction to her suggestion. She waved a hand at Allegra, dismissing her concern. "Don't be so melodramatic. What's the worst that can happen? You see my death? We all have to die someday. Besides, maybe you could save me from whatever awful demise you see." She lifted her shoulder, her shrug simultaneously nonchalant and elegant.
Allegra leaned forward, a little suspicious that her friend was hiding her own concern all too well.
There. Xenia was a good actress, but Allegra knew her long enough and well enough to read between the lines. The odd expression in her eyes, the almost imperceptible tightening at the side of her mouth.
Two things that confirmed Xenia was having a silent freak out.
"That's BS and you know it," Allegra snapped. "I've been right too many times in the past for this to be my imagination."
"Come on, Allegra."
Allegra tilted her head and stared at Xenia. Lifting a hand, she raised one finger. "The time I told you not to go to Oliver Randall's party because I had a bad feeling and the cops ended up raiding the place for underage drinkers."
Xenia rolled her eyes.
Allegra lifted a second finger. "The time I didn't go on the field trip to the Amazon Rainforest because I had a strange dream about people dying, and the class contracted Hepovirus and Claude Braga and Ernestine Filian both died from it."
No eye-roll this time.
Allegra lifted a third finger. "The time I tried to stop my parents from going to a business dinner because I had this strange vision about bloody broken glass-”
Xenia raised a palm. "Okay, fine. I get it." She sighed loudly. "But it doesn't change anything. You need to verify that whatever it is you’re seeing is the real thing."
Allegra had already lost the will to fight. Maybe Xenia was right. After all, it made sense to find out, on the off-chance that she’d suddenly developed a seer’s power. If these visions were based on some form of reality, it would mean that those people really were about to die.
And maybe, just maybe, she could warn someone.
Xenia reached across the table and took Allegra’s hand. Though she instinctively jerked away, Xenia didn't allow her to let go. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, because just the touch of Xenia's skin sent Allegra straight into another vision.
Allegra blinked hard, staring around her; Xenia's garden, the large expanse of stunning roses and rare flowers, surrounded her. A pale hand reached across the stony path before Allegra and she moved toward it.
Xenia lay on the grass, shaded by a large plant, her face swollen, her breath coming in short bursts. Her parched lips were cracked and oozing fresh blood, and her beautiful hair was soaked with fever sweat. She was staring up at the single flower that drooped from the plant beside her.
A gigantic purple bloom was larger than Allegra's head, and so dark it was almost black. And as she watched the flower dropped from the stem and floated to settle on Xenia's chest.
But Xenia was dead before the flower landed.
Allegra sighed and opened her eyes. She stared at Xenia, her vision misted by a film of hot tears.
Xenia didn’t comment on Allegra’s emotional reaction. Instead, she schooled her features and asked, “What did you see?” keeping her voice calm and neutral.
Allegra wasn’t buying the act. She blinked away the tears and swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure she wanted to say the words out loud, but Xenia squeezed her arm again.
Allegra flinched, expecting to be hit with a vision again, but this time nothing happened. Except for the wave of nausea filling her belly.
“Sorry,” whispered Xenia.
Allegra smiled and shook her head. “It’s fine.” She reached out and held Xenia’s hand, ignoring the roiling in her stomach. Allegra stared at the dusky skin starkly contrasted to her own paleness.
The two girls were so different and yet they’d lived most of their lives as close as sisters. And Allegra owed it to her friend to be completely honest with her.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “I saw you in your garden. You were lying on the ground beside one of your weird flowers.”
“Was I dead?” Again with the bland expression. Good actress.
Allegra nodded.
“Any idea when this will happen?”
Allegra shook her head, unable to voice the words because of the huge lump in her throat. She was still trying to get over the fact that she’d just seen her best friend die.
Xenia freed her hand from Allegra’s now vice-like grip, and rapped her nails rhythmically on the table - a habit of hers from way back when they were in school - her eyes staring up at the ceiling as she considered something. Then she looked at Allegra and said, “Which flower was that? Describe it.”
Allegra frowned, trying to remember anything specific about the bloom. “It was huge for one thing.”
“How big?” Xenia stopped rapping.
“About as big as my head I think.”
Her friend nodded, her skin a little gray now. “Color?”
“Purple. So dark it was almost black.”
Xenia’s eyes widened a fraction, and she let out a breath that Allegra hadn’t even realized her friend had been holding. “I just bought that. It’s called Agrippina Noctus. It blooms once every decade, and only at night.”
Allegra leaned forward, her ears buzzing. “So when will it bloom again?”
Xenia’s features tightened, and she looked a little ill herself. “In three months, give or take a week. The bud has only just appeared.”
Allegra’s shoulders slumped as she felt the fight drain from her body. “That’s not good.”
“Understatement.”
“You see? This is the very reason I didn’t want to test it on you. I don’t think I can handle the burden of knowing that
so many people are going to die from the sickness. Especially the people I love.”
“So the symptoms . . . were they similar?” asked Xenia. Allegra noticed that she didn’t include herself in the question. She could understand why; it would make it more real.
Reluctantly, Allegra nodded. “Dehydration, fever. Dying of thirst.” None of the deaths were a pretty sight and Allegra was determined not to elaborate.
She watched in silence as Xenia called a waiter and ordered a couple of brandies. Allegra didn’t bother to remind her that it was the middle of the day. To be honest, it was probably the best idea. Her nerves too needed calming.
Both girls sat in banter-free silence as they waited for the drinks to arrive. Even though Allegra noticed her friend’s hands shaking, she refrained from pointing it out. When the waiter arrived, they lifted their glasses and downed each of their single shots in one swallow.
Allegra laughed as they thunked the glasses back onto the table. “We should have told him to make it a double.”
Xenia snorted. “That’s all we need right now. To get smashed while the sun is still shining.”
Pepper got to his feet again and nuzzled the girl's elbows, first trying to gain Xenia’s attention, and then Allegra’s when his mistress nudged him away.
Without thinking, Allegra reached out and patted him on the head. The vision was unexpected, especially since she’d automatically assumed that this new ability applied only to humans.
The handsome golden retriever limped down a deserted road flanked by storefronts with shattered windows and a scattering of tire-less rusted cars. Pepper’s usually-rich golden coat was flea-bitten, his ribs poking painfully through his skin.
Allegra recognized the area, a side road that led into the marina with the Las Suertes harbor in the distance. The waters were dark and silent, garbage and random debris floating on the oily surface. The ships docked at the piers listed to one side, all rusted and abandoned, except for a flock of silent gulls.
Dear merciful Apollo.
Allegra snatched her hand away, unable to hold back a mournful sob. This time a nearby couple turned to stare at her undesirable public display of emotion. She ignored them and looked at Xenia.
