Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Novels from Top Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors

by Gwynn White

  He went on as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “I told them you’d seen me,” he said, gruff, combing his fingers through his black hair. “I told them we’d spoken. I told them your friends had seen me, too, and that I was forced to hide you in a fetish club while I assessed a possible threat against you. This was all before everything happened tonight, but I suspect they’re going to be even less pleased with me, when they hear I let you get grabbed right off the street.”

  He gave me a grim look.

  “I requested permission to make the ID permanent, to begin your training. But, Allie…” He shook his head, mouth pursed. “That request was denied.”

  “Denied,” I repeated.

  “Yes.”

  I stared at him.

  For a moment, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I fought to pull my brain out of the quicksand I couldn’t seem to dig it out of, reminding myself I’d been drunk earlier, then drugged, and I was probably still in shock. None of that helped me make sense of what he was telling me. I folded my arms, replaying all of his words again, this time inside my head. I did it again, slower.

  It didn't help.

  Finally, I shook my head.

  “What?” I said, looking up at him. “What are you talking about, Revik?”

  He sighed, again running his fingers through his hair.

  “Allie,” he said tiredly. “You already heard part of this.”

  “Heard part of what?”

  “What they told you. It was true.” He paused, studying my face. After his eyes focused on mine for a few seconds longer, he frowned again. “…Not the part about being a Snake deity. The rest of it. About you being an intermediary. About you being a seer.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Only that part. Okay.” I smiled wanly. “Not the part where I have to die by fire to call down some kind of savior-seer-angel to help humanity evolve and prevent the end of the world by the hand of dark forces?”

  I’d meant it as an off-color joke, but suddenly, I felt my adrenaline spike.

  “You aren’t talking about the sacrifice thing?” I said. “Are you?”

  “No,” he said, impatient. “I meant about your race. About what you are.”

  I just stared at him.

  After another pause where he just looked at me, he sighed again.

  “I still don't understand how those Evolutionists found you,” he said, clicking softly. “I was told identifying your race by genetic markers alone would be nearly impossible. Intermediaries tend to mimic the primary racial characteristics of whatever population in which they are raised. You’ve pretty much always self-identified as human, so the risk of you being found that way seemed minimal.”

  He gave me another grim look.

  “The real risk was supposed to be when you started to display secondaries spontaneously… on your own, I mean. The risk was higher with you, because you wouldn’t even know to hide them, given that you were kept in the dark about what you are.”

  At my continued blank look, he made another of those graceful, shrug-like gestures with one hand.

  “So far, there have only been little things,” he said. “Your light is being monitored constantly by a select group in the Seven. They’ve been shielding you since the human authorities found you under that overpass.”

  I blinked. I didn’t try to speak; maybe some part of me was still trying to wrap my mind around his words. From my perspective, my mind felt utterly blank.

  When he appeared to be waiting for me to react in some way, I blinked again.

  “What?” I said.

  I really was tired.

  “So what are you saying?” I tried again. “You’re saying I’m a seer?”

  “We covered this. Yes.”

  “A secret seer? That no one knows about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Some unusual kind of seer?” I clarified. “Different from you? Different from that woman you uncollared?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. His voice held some relief, as if this conversation were going better than he’d thought it would. “Officially, your race doesn’t exist at all to the human authorities. Which frankly makes a lot of things easier. They don’t know how to scan for your blood type, or any of your other biological markers. You also appear to age more like a human than the way seers like me normally do… again, probably due to that mimicry I mentioned.”

  He indicated up and down my body pointedly.

  “…It’s the only reason we’ve been able to hide you in the human population for as long as we have. That would have been impossible if you were a normal seer. When you didn’t age with the rest of your human peers, you would have been quarantined at once, no matter what the blood tests said. They would have conducted multiple, increasingly invasive genetic and other tests until they figured out what was causing the developmental delays.”

  I just stared at him. I might have blinked again maybe.

  “Sarhaciennes are the breed of seer humans know about,” he clarified. “You know this, yes? You learn this in school? In history? In biology? Sarhaciennes are what humans think of as seer. Like me. And the woman you saw. We have four distinct blood types identified by the World Court, with four or five sub-strains. Yours fit none of these. It is close to one seer sub-strain, but it is the rarest of these, and one that humans already mistake for human in most cases.” He showed me the “H” on his forearm. “I have that sub-strain. It is incredibly useful. It is also why I am classified as human by the World Court. But this is a complicated issue, for I am also classified as seer, only one with a genetic disease.”

  Again, I could only blink at him.

  “A genetic disease––” I began.

  “Not important, Alyson.” His voice held a faint warning.

  Studying his eyes briefly, I nodded.

  Again, my mind wrestled with his words, pulling them apart and reassembling them again. After what felt like a too-long pause, I frowned back at the fire.

  “You’re saying there’s another species of seer on Earth?” I said. “Not just the seers we know about? One that SCARB hasn’t discovered yet? Or any of the other human powers?”

  I turned to stare at him, now openly not believing him.

  He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Yes,” he said, exhaling in another sigh. Pausing, he amended his words. “…Well, no. Not exactly. Even to us Sarks, the first race is officially extinct. But some of them come back.”

  “Come back?” I refolded my arms tighter. “Come back from where?”

  “Allie,” he said tiredly. He rubbed his face with a hand, then ran those same fingers through his black hair. “I am tired, too.” He met my gaze. “And we really don’t have time to get into all of that now. Really, it’s better if you don’t know too much, anyway. I shouldn’t be telling you anything, really, but I didn't want to scare you.”

  I felt my jaw tighten. Replaying his words, I glanced towards the door. I barely looked, but I saw him notice.

  “You’re not doing a great job then,” I said. “Explaining. Or not scaring me.”

  “Allie.” He met my gaze, his eyes adamant. “I’m not going to hurt you. At all. In any way. I never will. I promise you that, all right?”

  “Then why am I here? You just said you shouldn’t be telling me any of this. Did you invite me up here for the sole purpose of telling me things you shouldn’t be telling me?”

  I saw a touch of nervousness reach his eyes.

  “No.” He shook his head, once. “Not exactly. I haven’t gotten to that part, yet.”

  “So why are you telling me these things, instead?”

  “I don't know,” he admitted. “Because I wanted to, I guess.”

  There was another silence.

  When it stretched, I gave another sigh.

  “So what am I supposed to do with this information, exactly?” I said. “Do I get to learn the seer secret handshake now?” I forced a smile, trying to keep my voice even. “Or is now when you start explainin
g how I need to join this organization you’re in, to help free ‘our’ people? Start by making pipe bombs in some San Francisco basement with you and your pals?”

  He shook his head. “Neither,” he said.

  “Then what? What am I doing here, Revik?”

  He sighed again, clicking a little. “I need to correct my mistake. In order to do that, I’m going to need to make you forget large portions of what happened since you got out of that taxi at San Francisco International. Everything that occurred between you and those cultists…” He hesitated, studying my face. “Everything that occurred with you and me.”

  “Forget?” I swallowed, staring at him numbly again. “Forget, how?”

  “It is something we seers can do.” Still studying my face, he leaned deeper into the couch, resting his arm on the back of it. His eyes never left mine, but I saw the faint thread of nerves there again. “It’s not easy. It’s also not generally permanent. But I think the incident was isolated enough that I can do it so that it sticks long enough for our purposes.”

  At my silence, he tilted his palm in another of those shrugs.

  “You don’t need to forget forever, after all. For the next few decades, at most. I’m assuming less. Far less, if I had any say in it.” He grunted, shaking his head. “Really, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve waited too long to start training you already.”

  “The next few decades,” I repeated. “I need to forget something ‘for a few decades’?”

  “Yes. Well… potentially. As I said. It will probably be less time.”

  “You’re going to mess with my mind?”

  He shook his head, making that soft clicking noise. “It won’t harm you. I already told you I wouldn’t hurt you. I meant it.”

  “Why can’t I just keep it a secret?” I said, frowning. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “No,” he said frankly. “I don’t. You’d tell Jon… or Cass. Likely both of them.”

  “And they’d think I was having some kind of mental breakdown,” I said, frowning. “Look, you must know that even I don’t believe you. I’ve had my blood checked about a hundred times… if not more. The only people who believe in third races are religious nutballs. You may as well claim I’m a space alien.”

  “Look.” He sighed. “The blood part’s complicated. I told you that––”

  “––Then don't explain it, please,” I said, holding up a hand. “My brain can’t handle that kind of complicated right now. My point is, you don’t need to ‘erase’ me, Revik. No one would believe me, even if I did tell anyone. The worst that would happen is, I’d end up in the psych ward of some hospital, and I have absolutely no intention of ending up in a place like that. Even before your weird confessions up here, I’d already planned to soft-pedal the story of tonight when I talked to Jon and Cass. I have my own reasons for keeping quiet about this.”

  He just looked at me for a minute.

  Then he sighed, making that clicking noise with his tongue.

  “You’re missing the point, Alyson,” he said. “Anyone could read you for what happened tonight. Anyone could read you for what I just told you.”

  “You mean any seer.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are the chances I’d run into a seer who cared enough to look? Do you people just wander around reading waitresses and tattoo artists for the hell of it?”

  His eyes narrowed. For a moment he didn’t move. Then he shook his head, looking away with a faint frown on his lips.

  “I have to erase you, Allie,” he said, blunt. “I’m sorry if that seemed like a question to you. It wasn’t. You don’t get a say in security protocol, I’m afraid.”

  “Security protocol? Around me, you mean? My security protocol?”

  “Yes.”

  “So who does get a say in it?” I said. “You? Or are there others?”

  Again, he went on as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “The Council is right, in a way,” he said, staring back into the fire. “…Denying me direct access to you, I mean. They’re trying to keep you safe. Not only from yourself. From other seers, from the human authorities, from anyone who might try to hurt you or sell you.” At the blank look in my eyes, he shrugged again. “Your absolute, best protection is anonymity. Your life in San Francisco has made that easier. You generally don’t do too much to call attention to yourself, which I appreciate, believe me.”

  I felt my jaw tighten. Shaking my head, I fought to make my voice lighter.

  “Yeah, well… to be honest, I think I’ve heard about enough for one night about just how ‘insignificant’ my life is. My anonymity is what almost got me killed by those fanatics, so pardon me if I’m not feeling it’s my finest attribute.”

  He smiled, but the look in his eyes remained serious.

  “Allie,” he said, his voice gentle. “You should enjoy this time. Your life is going to get a lot more complicated once you’re awakened for real. The longer you can stay anonymous, the longer things will stay relatively easy for you.”

  “Easy?” I snorted, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. “You call tonight easy?”

  He shrugged. “Tonight was an anomaly. Normally, your life is pretty uncomplicated.”

  “Pointless, you mean.”

  “Human, I would have said.” His eyes remained still, like glass. “Normal. A civilian’s life. You have no idea how many seers would envy you such a thing.” He grunted, looking back into the fire. “Including me. It isn’t an option for most of us. Not anymore.”

  The silence between us deepened.

  Through it, I watched fire lick around the fake logs behind the glass partition.

  I found myself thinking about him, though. I found myself trying to imagine him, imagine any seer, in a normal life. I wondered what that would even look like for them.

  He grunted, giving me a wry smile when I looked over.

  “Surprisingly not that different from how it looks for a human,” he said. “We marry. Have babies. Work. Fuck. Feed ourselves. Make music and art. Sleep in on weekends. Eat brunch.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that, either.

  Thinking about everything I’d seen in the last twenty-four hours, and that cop and those tourists watching while that seer was beaten in broad daylight on the street, his words made me a little sad, though.

  Maybe more than just a little.

  26

  Pain

  I looked between him and the fire through the silence that followed, fighting to stay focused on the now, on what I needed to do with the information he’d just shared, along with all the things he wasn’t telling me. I still didn’t believe him exactly, but my brain was struggling to come up with an alternate story.

  I told myself I was tired. That I wasn’t clear enough for this.

  Even so, I found I still wanted to know more about his story. I wanted to know more even as I told myself I didn’t believe any of it.

  “You weren’t just going along with that guy,” I said finally. “You really think you’re some kind of guardian over me.”

  “I don’t just think it,” he said. “I am. I was assigned to you formally. By the Council.”

  “I see.” I frowned, still studying his angular face. “So how long has this been going on? This guardian thing. With me.”

  He frowned, as if thinking. After a pause, he looked back at me. “Nineteen… no. Twenty. Twenty years. Plus roughly three months.”

  “Twenty years,” I repeated numbly.

  “Yes.”

  “And I never saw you? Not once in all that time?”

  “You did.” He gave me a faint smile.

  I just stared at him, not comprehending his words. Then I felt my throat tighten.

  “You’ve erased me before?”

  “Once. Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer, just stared at me with that unwavering look.

  When I didn’t speak, he sighed, clasping his hands as he looked back at the fire.


  “There was one other time,” he said. “A time I didn’t erase you. You were about nine years old. I wasn’t around enough to worry about you remembering me in a relevant way, so I never told the Council, and I let you keep the memory.” Grunting, he shook his head, clasping his hands together tighter. “…stupid, really. I told myself it was unlikely you’d make the connection with someone who looked the same fifteen years later, but any seer could have seen your memory of me. It still could have raised questions.”

  I ran this through my mind again, blinked.

  “You’re saying you look the same now as you did when I was nine?” I said.

  “We age differently than you,” he reminded me. “I know I look fairly human, Allie. That’s part of why they gave me this job. I can pass. But I’m not human. I’m seer.”

  “And I’m seer, too,” I repeated. “A non-Sark seer who is officially extinct.”

  His eyes narrowed, looking from one of mine to the other.

  “Yes,” he said, wary. “Approximately, yes. That is right.”

  “And you’re going to erase my memory?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “All of it?”

  “No.” He gave me a puzzled look, clicking softly. “No, Alyson. Why would I do that? That’s not even possible.” He continued to look at me with that semi-bewildered expression. “No, only portions of your memory of the last thirty-six or so hours. I’ll have to erase most of tonight, since you said the leader of the cult approached you in that club––”

  “Ponytail guy.”

  Revik nodded, conceding this with a gesture.

  “Ponytail guy. It also means,” he added. “That I’ll need to erase your boyfriend’s memory of me. And your brother’s. And your friend, Cass’s. For one thing, I’ll need their memories to synch up with yours. Also, if something happens that forces me to get close to you in the flesh again, it will complicate things considerably if they recognize me.”

  “You’re going to erase Jaden, Jon and Cass?” I said, bewildered. “How?”

  He waved off my concern. “They’ll be easy. You will be much harder. You’re seer, even if untrained. You also have significantly more memories to suppress.”