Like a Surge

by Olivette Devaux

  “I think... I think it’s Jared’s soul, trapped in that old blade, Ash. I think he’s in there, ‘cause I could see all the power lines he used to describe for us. Remember? He was the only one who could see all these things, and now... now I see stuff glowing all around us.”

  A beat of silence. “Even me?”

  “Yeah,” Cooper whispered into Ash’s neck. “You especially. And honey, your shields are leaking. You’re a lot stronger than you probably realize.”

  CHAPTER 10

  He should have texted first, Paul thought as he stood on the stoop of the last rowhouse. This one was the fanciest on the inside, and had more interesting colors on the walls, because Cooper and Ash knew they would make it their home.

  You couldn’t tell from the outside, though. The red brick, the new white windows with green accents, and the sturdy, green-painted wooden doors were the same as his and Mark’s place down the street.

  Or, Mark and Ellen’s place, because that’s what it was now.

  He pushed away the thought of his impending move, and slowly raised his hand.

  Russ grasped his bicep from behind, stopping him. “We don’t have to, you know. You don’t look very comfortable about bringing me in, and that’s okay.” Russ turned him around gently. “It can be just the two of us. Really.” His smile, lit up by the only street lamp that made the short street navigable after dark, warmed Paul with its implicit acceptance.

  He leaned in and pecked a kiss on Russ’ cheek. “Thank you, but that’s not... no. You don’t get it. It’s... I’m the fuck-up, all right? I’m the one that breaks things and fries circuits and can’t control this electrical thing I have. It’s more like... I don’t like to draw attention to myself. And Ash Ravenna, he’s strict. He runs a tight ship.”

  “You’re scared of him,” Russ said. It wasn’t a question.

  Paul looked away. He didn’t want to admit it, yet he didn’t want to lie. Ever since Paul had fried Cooper, he felt like Ash was keeping an eye on him. Not a kind eye, either. Not the caring eye of a relative – Ash’s regard felt more like being on probation and in danger of being summarily executed if he so much as tripped one of the house circuits in Cooper’s presence.

  “Look, Paul. You’re working on it. For the last ten days, I’ve watched you adapt in the most amazing and creative ways.” He squeezed his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  Paul felt a small, shy smile announce its presence. “You’re just saying that to get in my pants.”

  Russ shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying. Now if you don’t knock on the door, maybe you could introduce me to somebody else. Like your twin brother and his girlfriend, maybe.”

  Suppressing a groan, Paul spun away from Russ, faced the forbidding green paint of the door, and knocked. Hard.

  The door flew open immediately and warm light poured into the street.

  “Paul?” As Ash squinted at him, Paul noticed the tired smudges under his eyes, and the smattering of lines fanning from their corners.

  “Sorry to come over unannounced,” Paul stammered. “But there’s this guy you should meet. Ash, this is my... my friend. From school.” Damn, and now he was not only blushing, but he just knew his electrical potential was rising dangerously high. Embarrassment did shit for his control.

  “Ash Ravenna,” Ash took over, introducing himself. He extended his hand toward Russ, who was still standing way too close to Paul’s back. Paul knew he moved, because the heat of his body abandoned his back.

  “I’m Russ Yantar, pleasure to meet you.”

  They shook.

  Paul was watching Ash for a reaction and was not disappointed. A moment after their palms touched, Ash’s eyebrows rode up his forehead in an expression of pleased surprise. “Ah, yes. I believe Paul has mentioned you. Come right in.”

  They did – and Cooper was in the living room, standing over that sword.

  It was on the coffee table, and was sheathed, but it had been that sword that had, inadvertently, caught Paul’s lightning several weeks ago. It still felt like yesterday.

  “So, um. Hi, Cooper,” Paul said, fighting his urge to apologize once again.

  Cooper smiled at him. “Hi, little cuz. What have you been up to?”

  “Trying to find a way to live like a regular person, y’now... so that’s how I met Dr. Yantar.”

  “Russ,” Russ said vehemently as he crossed the room to shake Cooper’s hand. “Just call me Russ.”

  Cooper’s gaze glanced between Russ and Paul with so much amusement, Paul might as well have been stark naked. Was it that obvious that they had, somehow, become an item?

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Cooper said. He didn’t let go of Russ’ hand. “Yeah, definitely. There’s something, but I’m not recognizing that flavor of a power signature.” He let go. “Do you?” he asked in Ash’s direction.

  Ash shook his head. “No. Russ is a mystery.” He motioned to the sofa. “Have a seat, guys. Do you want any water? Beer? We still have some green tea from earlier, it’s great iced.”

  They settled into the cozy velour of the sofa, with Russ eyeing the built-in book shelves that flanked the fireplace and the earth-tone colors highlighted with aqua accents. He shook his head, so Paul shook his head, too. “No, thanks. We just came because Russ has absolutely no idea who he is.”

  “What I am,” Russ corrected gently. “I have a pretty good idea who I am and being slightly... eccentric... does not define me as a human being.”

  “Or as any other being,” Cooper said with a nod. “But don’t tell us, okay? I want to run an experiment!” Still standing, he reached for the sword on the table.

  “No, don’t!” Paul yelled in warning. “I’m charged!”

  “I think I’ll be fine,” Cooper said levelly. “I think I was fine even last time, except for the lightning scar.”

  “Breathe, Paul,” Ash said in a voice that was, for once, calm and supportive. “This could be really good. Cooper discovered this literally just before you came over.”

  Slowly, Cooper picked up his sword. He bowed to it the way he always did, then took three more steps, until the wall was just few inches away from his back.

  He drew it out of its scabbard.

  Even in the intimate light of the living room, Paul could tell where the discolored part ended and the healthy, shiny half of the blade began. Meanwhile, Paul was focused on his breathing, clamping down what power he could.

  “Wow.” Cooper’s sword was now pointed at him and Russ, and Cooper’s expression was dazed, as though someone had hit him on the head with a dictionary. “Shit, wow. Both of you guys are something else!”

  “What do you see?” Ash whispered, slowly walking to Cooper while not taking his eyes off Paul.

  Paul writhed uncomfortably.

  “Breathe, Paul,” Cooper said softly. “Breathe, or you’ll do that lightning thing again.”

  “Arc,” Paul said. “It’s called that, and... and I can get rid of it in the bathroom. Or I can ground it if I touch a buried pipe. But here –!” He hated, absolutely hated, the panic in his own voice.

  “I got your back,” Russ hummed next to him. “Just focus on your center, like you had before. Focus, and breathe.”

  Russ’ gentle hand slid over his shirt, stroking his lower back. “I got you,” he repeated, but at the same time, he drained off some of Paul’s energy. He could feel his electrical potential drop. His hair didn’t stand on its ends anymore, and that urgent desire to lash out has, incredibly, subsided.

  “Holy shit.” Cooper dropped the tip of his sword toward the ground, looking like a kid with a Halloween prop, rather than an elementalist. “Hot damn, guys, but you’re amazing together!” He sheathed his sword, bowed to it, and set it back on the table before he headed into the kitchen, bringing back a chair. He settled it down, facing all of them, and propped his bare feet on the stone-top table. “Sit down, Ash. You’re hovering.”

  Paul gave Ash another nervous gla
nce. Yep, he was hovering all right, and he’d been sneaking surreptitious looks in his direction. As though he expected a lightning to strike, which would have been funny with anyone else, but was dead-on in his case. “I’m so sorry, Ash,” he blurted out. “I really am, and I’m working on it. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been for you, seeing Cooper all blistered up and in pain like that.”

  To his surprise, Ash’s nervous vigilance turned to guilt. “It’s okay. I know it’s hard on you, too. Not being able to touch anything, or anyone. Shit, that’s no way to live.” Ash nodded an acknowledgment in Paul’s direction, but as he did so, his gaze stopped on Russ.

  Russ, who was sitting very, very close to Paul.

  Russ, whose arm Paul still felt around his back, and whose fingertips were drawing little circles on the back of his arm.

  The penny dropped. “Wait. Russ can touch you without getting zapped?”

  Paul couldn’t have stopped his smile from coming even had he tried. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Cooper said, looking like a man with a secret too big to keep to himself.

  “Well, fuck me sideways,” Ash said, and plopped into the reading chair which Cooper had left for him.

  “Maybe later,” Cooper said coolly. “Now let me tell you what Jared has to say about this.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Despite the late hour, their little house was crammed with people. Once they had reassured Russ that he was welcome to stay overnight, Ash brought out wine and paper cups, and they all settled down in chairs and on the floor by the fireplace.

  “We should’ve met at my place,” Hank grumbled as he tried to lower his large body into a cheap little camping chair. “At least I have enough space.”

  “You want us to move over there?” Cooper asked. “We can.”

  A brief discussion ensued. Mark had ordered three pizzas, but they would arrive soon and there was no point complicating the situation. He was ensconced in Ash’s reading chair now, sipping his wine with Ellen snuggled in his lap with her glass of water. “So why are we here, other than to wait for my pizza?” She looked around expectantly and sipped more water.

  “We’re here to meet Russ,” Cooper said, trying once again to assume control, and morph the chaos of their group into a semblance of a strategy meeting. “We all know Paul is working on controlling his power surges, and to do that, he’d been taking classes at the PittTech Institute. Paul?”

  When Cooper motioned for Paul to speak, he expected him to launch into an explanation of what he had been learning. Instead, Paul look at Russ. “Do you want to tell them, or should I?”

  Damn. Cooper bit his lip. That was next on his agenda. They were skipping ahead on topics – he pretty much gave up hope on an organized meeting, like he would have with one of his architecture clients. His little clan was akin to an unruly kindergarten class.

  “I’ll tell them.” Paul look around, then tilted his head at Cooper. “If you don’t mind.”

  The gesture did not go amiss. “No, go ahead. Please.” After what Cooper had seen of Russ’s power signature, he was only too eager to find out what he, and they, were all about.

  “I used to think I was crazy, seeing colors. Shining lights, auras, stuff like that.”

  “Oh, good,” Hank interjected. “We need someone like that!”

  Russ turned to him. “But I see it only when it’s related to electricity. That’s why I studied electrical engineering, and that’s why I’m teaching the stuff now. Or at least, the practical bits and pieces high-voltage workers need to know.” He cast down his eyes, not looking like a professor at all. The professors Cooper had known out in Rhode Island had been full of themselves. Russ wasn’t. He was modest, if anything, and right now he emanated that embarrassed, self-conscious feel of a cornered man. “Go on,” Cooper prodded him gently.

  “So, anyway, I learned to ignore the colors. Our world is full of various electrical potentials, and I keep seeing things all the time.” He wrung his hands. “It’s inconvenient. It makes driving dangerous, especially if there are heavy clouds overhead. Seeing all that activity is distracting.” He reached for his wine cup and took a healthy swig.

  “Don’t try to control it with alcohol,” Cooper warned. “It doesn’t work and brings a host of other problems besides.”

  “I tried everything. Booze, weed, acid. I’d seen a shrink who gave me pills. The pills were making me sick, though, so I ditched ‘em.” He peered around the group with a rebellious expression, as though he expected someone to try to talk him off a ledge.

  “And now?” Ash asked softly.

  “I sort of figured that the more I ignore it, the more likely it will go away. I did my best to tell the real and the pretend apart – and then Paul came into my class, and, wow.”

  “Sparks flew,” Mark said.

  “Shut up, you jerk,” Ellen shushed him with a giggle.

  “He was glowing! He was fucking glowing a bright pink! And that’s after he blew up all of our fire hydrants somehow. I couldn’t ignore the glow.”

  An embarrassed silence followed for only a short time. Paul leaned into Russ, then looked around the room, meeting their eyes one by one. “He grounds me out, guys. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s like the Void.”

  “Yeah?” Hank leaned forward. “I have the Void. That is, I can take the elemental energy other people generate, and send it... well, away, and since we don’t know where it goes, we call it the Void. Have you tried doing it to energies other than just electricity?”

  Cooper, who was observing the discussion with fascination, was amused to see that having electricity be downgraded as just one of many different elemental forces didn’t go over well with Russ. He frowned, then he rolled his lips in and out, thinking. “I don’t think other energies really exist. I mean, electricity is documentable by science, right? I’ve never heard of stuff like earth-sense or water-whispering, or whatever. How do you know it’s real?”

  “Because we learned that we aren’t crazy,” Cooper said resolutely. “Look, I’ve been where you are, and it’s not fun. But what we have does affect the world around us. We’re an essential part of it. We can fix things, do things.” Cooper gesticulated wildly in a vain effort to find better words. Rocks were easy to talk about. So were houses. This was hard, this came way too close to him sounding like a special powers nut of some kind.

  “Cooper had triggered an earthquake by accident,” Ash said quietly. “I can make it rain. I can pull water out of thin air. Ellen summons the wind, and Mark...” he gave Mark a dubious look. “Mark is hard to classify.”

  “I work with sound waves,” Mark added quietly.

  Ellen yawned. “Look, guys, since Russ is staying, can we just go to sleep? I’m bushed. We can talk about this later, can’t we? We could go on till morning. And we’ll have to call Uncle Owen.”

  Cooper saw a shadow of concern pass over Paul’s face. “Owen?”

  “He’s teaching us how to ground and center,” Cooper said. “He helped me a lot. If that makes any difference, you seem to cancel out Paul, but you have no shields of your own. Once you build up good shields and learn to use them, you won’t see the colors everywhere.”

  “Really?” Russ laughed, grateful and amazed. “You mean there is a way?”

  “There’s a way,” Hank said, but when he fixed his steel gaze on Cooper, Cooper knew they were far from done. “How do you know all this? Jared was the one who could see energy patterns. Not you, though.”

  Cooper shook his head, still standing over them all, trying to bring the night to some kind of a conclusion. “Not me, no. But remember how Jared disappeared? There wasn’t a body, or a trace, or ... or anything. And then we found the sword.” He took a deep breath. “When I hold the sword and do a real technique, you know, like with intent to do something, do a cut or parry another cut, I start seeing things. I remember Jared and how he’d see power, but he could never manipulate it.” He exhaled on a deep whoosh, trying to steady his nerves,
fighting to keep the prickle of tears out of his eyes. Russ was a newcomer, and Russ didn’t need to know that Jared had been his favorite cousin, and his most trusted childhood friend.

  Ash wrapped his arms around him, his chest pressing into Cooper’s back, and the warm puffs of Ash’s breath comforting under Cooper’s ear. “I got you,” Ash whispered.

  Cooper had been so wrought up, he had not seen Ash get up and tiptoe behind him. Now he leaned into his embrace gratefully and blinked the incipient tears out of his eyes. “What I’m trying to say,” he finally croaked out as they all waited for his words to come, “I’m trying to say that when I hold the sword, I can see what I think Jared used to see, ‘cause he used to talk about it. And I think when he used power for the first time ever, and dematerialized, and we didn’t know what happened to him–“ he lifted his arm and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, “I think Jared’s stuck in that sword over there. I think he’s trapped inside, and when I use the blade, I get to use his gift.”

  Low murmurs from the others, comments and questions and awed exclamations, built up like the buzzing of an agitated hive. It was too much – the people, the company, the new discoveries of the day.

  Ash stepped up next to him, his arm still wrapped around Cooper’s waist. “Settle down, everyone. It’s late, and we won’t answer all these questions tonight.” His voice rang out next to Cooper’s ear in that entitled way, as though he was in charge and everyone else simply accepted it.

  Which he was, and they did.

  “Hank, you said Russ could use your guest room, right?” Ash kept on organizing.

  And so it was that Russ ended up in the old bedroom where Cooper had been recovering from his worst backlash headache ever, and their living room slowly cleared out.

  “Are you okay, love?” Ash asked him ten minutes later, when only the pizza boxes and used cups had reminded them of what had transpired earlier.

  “Yeah,” Cooper mumbled. “Just... it’s so much, and it’s happening so fast. And I thought I could use the sword and see what everyone looks like, power-wise.”