Sharp

by Alex Hughes

  What do I have in my pocket? I kept my shields down and put the information out on the front of my mind, waiting. I felt him poke around and finally grasp it.

  “A candle.”

  “Good. What color?”

  “White.” He smiled like this was a great game. “Am I right?”

  I fished in my pocket for a small votive candle I’d brought with me, pulling it out along with a couple of quarters. I set the quarters down on the plush tan carpet, and handed the candle to Jacob.

  It was a perfectly normal votive candle, small, with a preburned black wick and mass-produced plain white soy wax in a shallow metal round cup. “You were right.”

  He smiled.

  I calmed my mind and focused on confidence. “Tell the candle to light.”

  Jacob looked at me, then the candle.

  “Honest try.”

  “Okay. . . .” He frowned at the thing. Light, I heard with intensity.

  Of course, the candle just sat there.

  I forced down a laugh. “That’s how I’d do it. No, the little atoms in the wick there. Tell them to move faster, to get hot, really hot. So hot they burst into flame.”

  He looked at me with skepticism.

  “I shouldn’t have laughed. Honest try. It’s not something I can do, but if you can, it should come easily.” The candle was already set to burn, the wick lit once already. It should light when Jacob told it to, I said in my mind. I reached back for confidence and found it through will and necessity.

  Jacob frowned at the candle for at least a minute, his brow pulling down.

  Right before he got a headache, I stopped him. “Good.” I held out my hand as if to get the candle back from him. Put the candle on the floor, I thought, with a small push to take the thought out into Mindspace but not fully in his head. I went back to confidence.

  He put the votive on the floor and shifted to his knees.

  “Very good. Now, can you ask your aunt to hand you that pillow?”

  Next to Cherabino on the sofa was one of those silly pillows that only existed for decoration, round and embroidered with goldish thread, with a ridiculous pale blue bow.

  He turned, and started to ask.

  “Wait just a second.” I looked Cherabino directly in the eye.

  You’ll need to lower your shields, I told her through the Link, which wouldn’t be overheard. Think of the bricks you build falling down and disappearing. Be as calm and accepting of him as possible, okay? He might be clumsy.

  She swallowed, and with visible bravery took the bricks down. I waited, patiently, projecting confidence for Jacob.

  “Okay. We’re ready. Ask her with your mind, like this.”

  I reached out over Mindspace—not the Link—and said, clearly and distinctly, as publicly as possible, Don’t give him the pillow until you hear it in your head.

  Cherabino nodded, braced and ready.

  A long minute passed.

  Jacob turned back to me. “I asked her, honest.”

  “No big deal,” I said, trying for confidence rather than the relief I felt. He was weak enough to get out of the Guild if he wanted. Strong enough for parlor tricks, but weak enough for freedom. It was the best-case scenario for us. “It’s a fact, normal people are harder to read. Their waves in Mindspace are smaller and harder to see. And projecting loud enough so they can hear you is really tough.” I held out my hand, and Cherabino gave me the pillow. I put it on the plush tan carpet between us. “Now.” Can you lift the pillow without using your hands? Up in the air. If it’s too heavy, you can move just the quarters next to it.

  “Up in the air?”

  “Let’s say six inches off the floor. Floating. You’ll have to keep it there against gravity, which will take some concentration.”

  “Okay . . .” Jacob frowned again at it for a long time.

  I held on to quiet confidence through sheer will. No matter how rare the Ability, it was important at this moment that I believed he could do this. And I did, I told myself. “Good try. Can you move the pillow back to the couch? This time try moving it through Mindspace.” When he looked at me like I was crazy, I explained: The same way you talked to me in your head. See if you can move the pillow like you moved your words.

  “I can’t do that. That’s just silly.”

  “Honest try.” I could feel how tired he was getting, so I added, This is the last thing, I promise.

  Okay. . . .

  I could feel his mind trying to get a grip, then . . .

  A whoomp of air and a crack as he suddenly appeared over on the couch, still cross-legged. Cherabino was up and back, reaching for a gun she hadn’t brought in.

  It’s your nephew. Calm down and put your shield up, damn it. You’re scaring him, I told her, fighting down my own startlement. I hadn’t expected . . . but, hey. My ex-fiancée was a teleporter. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been around it. A sinking feeling hit me, though. His freedom had just disappeared in a crack of displaced air.

  After Cherabino stood down and calmed, Jacob had a chance to process.

  “Cool!” he finally said, with a huge smile, and Jumped back. He appeared next to me on the floor with a crack. This time I just shook my head in amusement.

  He Jumped three more times, from the feel of it, upstairs and back, before he ran out of steam.

  Suddenly he was next to me again, and very, very pale.

  “I don’t feel so good, Mom,” he said, in a mumble, and fell.

  I caught him—barely. He was completely limp in my hands and light like a bird. Suddenly I was nervous. “What’s his medical condition again?”

  Cherabino blew out a long line of air. “Brallac’s disease. It’s an autoimmune digestive disorder, a really bad one. His version is drug-resistant too, which is worse. Here, put him in the chair.”

  His mom was terrified, her hands wringing in her distress. As soon as I settled the boy in the chair, she was pulling out a clear bag attached to a tube, sliding up the boy’s sleeve, attaching the tube to a port in his arm, hanging the bag on a hook on the back of the chair. A low whirring sound came from the chair as its feet slowly rose and a blood pressure cuff settled in around the boy’s arm.

  Cherabino’s mind was open, and I saw if the nutrient drip didn’t work, they’d have to take him to the doctor—preferably his physician, but the hospital if they couldn’t get him on the phone—and run tests.

  “It’s time for you to leave,” Nicole, the boy’s mother, said.

  I complied without a word, and waited by the car for a long time. I waited and watched the carnivorous bushes eat insects, while inside Cherabino waited, heart racing, to see if the drip would take.

  The minutes wore on, and my energy deserted me. I sat down on the ground behind the car, head leaning against the bumper, eyes closed. That much focus, and my night last night . . . I couldn’t teach Jacob, at least not now, not even in telepathy. That much was clear. Less than an hour and I was wiped. I’d be upset with myself if I wasn’t so tired.

  I opened my eyes and pulled myself up, bones aching, as Cherabino opened the door to come out. Tears were running down her face—tears of relief. She wiped at them surreptitiously, I tried not to fall over as I stood, and we both pretended we hadn’t seen.

  * * *

  Cherabino parked outside a chicken and waffles restaurant a few miles away and turned off the car. It was lunchtime—well past it, actually—but she was violently not hungry and I could wait on food if it would help. I did have dehydrated food in the apartment. Maybe I could do that and go to sleep early. I could put the cheap couch in front of the door so the teddy bear guy didn’t come back.

  I waited for her to speak first.

  She blew out a breath and finally, unexpectedly, laughed. She laughed until her chest hurt with the force of it, until tears ran down her eyes. She laughed with
the heavy irony of something horrible, and I stared, taken completely aback.

  Finally she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Of course. Of course. The only thing in the world to make it harder for Nicole to take care of him. The only thing worse than telepathy and the Guild and the whole nine yards. Oh, Jacob is going to be such a handful.” She settled her head back on the seat’s headrest and made a breathy sound. “Of course he can teleport.” She considered being angry at me for teaching him a new trick, but she couldn’t build up the energy.

  I rubbed the back of my aching neck. “If it helps, he would have figured it out on his own sometime in the next few years. Maybe at an inconvenient moment—or a dangerous one.”

  She didn’t move from the headrest, her eyes closed.

  “That doesn’t help, does it?”

  “Not really.” She took a breath that made her chest expand and drew attention to her very nice breasts, cur-

  rently separated by the seat belt. “No checking out my boobs,” she said tiredly.

  “Sorry.” I looked away. I hadn’t actually meant to admire them where she could overhear through the Link. I should at least pick a time when she was distracted—or shield better. But all that focus with Jacob had eroded my focus in the real world, clearly.

  We sat, her thinking, me trying not to fall asleep, for a minute.

  “So,” she said, in the tone of voice of someone deliberately changing the subject, “Jacob. I take it he’s probably going to show up on the Guild tests.”

  “That’s right.” I paused, not sure how much detail she wanted.

  “How strong is he? They homeschool him, but he’ll have to go in for standardized testing eventually and I’m told the Guild gets a register.”

  “He’s at least a four on the telepathy scale, and very reliable and controlled for the age. It wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up at least a light five, which is strong. The control is the bigger deal, though, especially at that age. You have a big family, right?”

  “Twenty or more when we all get together. Just adults. He has two sisters, but they go to regular school when they can and live in a different part of the house. He’s not at the big groups often, but . . .”

  I felt like I wasn’t focusing. “Does he seem distressed in the big groups?”

  She thought about it. “He did when he was younger. Now he’s quiet, but he just kind of sits back and takes it all in. He always seems to know the gossip, but with the way my sisters talk . . .” She gave a mental shrug.

  “Maybe that’s where the control comes from. That’s a big group for a telepath, especially in a family setting where everyone is feeling open.” I thought for a second, trying to make the ideas crystallize. “He doesn’t go to normal school?”

  She frowned, as if the edge of my exhaustion was coming through despite the barrier she’d built. “No. Not for years. They just don’t want him in the same pool as all those germs. They’ve mostly got the digestive issues under control, but you put him in a group of normal kids, normal exposure to germs, and he’s going to get a lot worse, quickly. He hasn’t had one of those attacks in months. I think you scared my sister.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I was watching him. . . .”

  She sighed. “He’s okay, at least for now. If he goes popping all over the house like that again, I don’t know what my sister’s going to do.”

  “With a normal kid, he’ll build up endurance. The mind learns to be more efficient with the energy it uses. But the teleporters particularly eat like crazy their first few years.” I paused, trying to make it make sense for her. “Um, they lose weight, most of them, and a lot, if they don’t work at it.” Kara had been known to eat a jar of peanut butter a night, back when she was doing courier work. On top of normal food and healthy portions. Even so, she’d lose five pounds or more in a heavy weekend, and start getting dizzy, even with all her training. Once she’d even fainted, coming down hard on a concrete floor, narrowly missing a concussion. I couldn’t even remember the number of times I’d made her an extra protein shake and pleaded with her to eat it. Or the number of times she’d gotten so excited about gaining weight that she’d danced all over the apartment, and me too. I wondered if she danced now, on desk duty. I wondered if she ever remembered those days.

  “You’re thinking about Kara.” Cherabino sat straight, actually looking at me with a sad expression.

  I tried to piece together some decent shields. “That shouldn’t have happened. I’m just really tired.”

  “It’s all right.”

  We sat.

  She still had that edge of sadness to her, but now she was thinking. “He’s double trouble, isn’t he? What you called Bradley?”

  “I’m afraid so.” It was vanishingly rare to have both telepathic skills and teleportation. Rare and valuable.

  “And the speech you gave me about how the Guild should be watching his every move, how the Guild should have killed him long before he got to us . . .”

  “Yeah. They’re not going to want him to go anywhere except directly into the Guild system. Even with his health problems. If the Guild-trained medics can’t fix his illness, they’ll hire the best doctors in the world, and spend the next ten years figuring out what his practical limits are.”

  “They’ll get him treatment at least?” she asked quietly.

  “The Guild uses its assets, Cherabino.”

  “He’s not an asset. He’s a little boy.”

  “He’s an asset to them. A rating and a skill level. That’s what we all are.”

  She stared me straight in the eye. “That’s why you and I are going to figure this out. We are going to . . .”

  “Going to what?”

  “Going to save him. We have to.”

  “Sure,” I agreed, but deep inside, deep behind my own set of blocks and exhaustion, I knew it might not be possible. Jacob would need training, and a lot of it, soon.

  * * *

  The buses were running behind Wednesday morning, so I was about ten minutes late to my coffee shop meeting with Swartz. With all the parent-teacher conferences he was doing, we were off our usual day, but that was okay.

  When I walked in the door, as expected, he was already seated at the worn faux-leather and old-wood booth, the ugly pot of steaming licorice coffee in front of him, one cup poured, one cup empty and waiting for me.

  The owner, a large grizzled man with a faded navy tattoo, nodded to me from the bar as I came in and turned to brew another pot of coffee. Swartz and I had been meeting here once a week for years, at what once had been a pub before this guy’s grandfather had gone into AA. The old bar now held old ladies with newspapers and cups of tea, long booths with ancient sports memorabilia and young patrons, and likely half the city’s Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous groups at battered tables near the back. The owner knew most of us by name—and the rest by face and preference.

  “Cherabino has a nephew,” I told Swartz as I slid into the booth.

  “Good morning.” He nodded solemnly.

  “This nephew has Ability. And she wants me to help her figure out what to do.” I thought about telling him more about the Ability and why it was an issue, but my warning from before still echoed in my ears. The fewer people who knew, the better, and it wasn’t my secret to spill. “Bottom line is it’s a lot of pressure. And I’m still not sure how to solve the problem.”

  “Why is it a problem?” Swartz’s voice brought me back to him. “More to the point, why is it your problem?”

  “It’s Cherabino,” I said, like that explained everything.

  “And?” Swartz put another spoonful of sugar in his licorice coffee.

  I blew on my own cup, letting the strong smell of licorice and coffee beans warm my nose up. “And . . . and, well, she’s finally being nice to me again. Bringing me on the team. I think it’s in exchange for this thing—not that she
’s not really letting the rest of it go—but it’s like a test. If I come through, I’m on the good list and maybe she stops freaking out about me being in her head. If I fail . . .”

  Swartz took a sip. “If you fail, what?”

  “Well, maybe she doesn’t put me on the good list.”

  He put the cup down. “I don’t think your partner is Santa Claus. I don’t think there’s a good list and bad list.”

  “She’s not technically my partner.”

  “Even so. Have a little faith in human nature, son. You’ve given her the space she asked for. You’ve kept what secrets of hers have wandered over into your head. And you’ve proven trustworthy. Keep doing that, you’ll be okay. Now. Three things.”

  I took a deep breath and thought. “My job. Cherabino. And the way the air smells after it rains.”

  “You’ve already said Cherabino.”

  “Have I?”

  “But you’re on the right track, kid. I’ll let you use her name again. Listen, I have something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

  Swartz pulled out his battered copy of the Big Book, but instead of turning to the tenth step, the normal October reading, he turned to Step Nine. Making amends to those whom you have wronged.

  “You’ve been getting lazy about restitution,” Swartz said. He held up a hand to forestall objections. “I’ve been letting you do it. I know you’ve had some trouble. But today—today it’s time for us to tackle it head-on. Finding your student’s killer is a start, but I’ve been thinking, you need to make a more solid effort with the last one, Tequila, was it?”

  I took a breath. This was the last thing in the whole world I wanted to talk about. But Swartz was implacable, and, well, when Swartz said dance I did a jig. “Her name is Tamika. I saw her at the funeral.”

  He waited, patiently, as I took another sip of the coffee. “And?” he prompted.

  I looked at the table. “I apologized again. She wasn’t happy.”