He crossed the street and opened the door.
“Conthan!”
He sat down on a stool. “How’d you sleep?” asked Alyssa.
“Other than some evil creature trying to devour my soul”—he shrugged—“not too bad.”
“Vanessa told us about her encounter with the Warden,” said Dwayne.
“Meet her yet?” asked Alyssa.
Conthan thought about the angel jumping from his window. Other than Sarah and Jed, she was the first person with abilities he had met. She was different. He wondered if it was because of her physical abilities or being a telepath. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see inside the thoughts of every person around him.
Skits laughed at his deep thoughts. “Yup, he’s met her.”
Alyssa poured a shot of whiskey into a tumbler and pushed it across the counter to Conthan. “It seems drinking makes the crazy easier to hear.”
Conthan took the glass and looked at the amber liquid. He took a sip, letting the alcohol burn his throat.
Dwayne rested his elbows on the bar. “I remember doing this, being one of the new guys. You have a thousand questions, what’s the first thing you want to ask?”
Conthan did indeed have a thousand things going through his mind. If he had to focus on one in particular, he wasn’t sure what stood out most. He looked at his hands and then at the others. “Why?”
“Going to need to elaborate, mate,” Dwayne said.
Alyssa took a seat on the bar next to Skits, both watching his face closely. He made a fist with his hands. “Why save me?”
“We like the rush,” Skits said. “Something about almost dying that makes you feel alive.”
Dwayne waved for her to stop talking. “Vanessa told us you would be at the facility. We try to protect our own and it was obvious you needed help.”
“How’d you know I was…?” He paused. “One of you?”
Dwayne fished into his hoodie and pulled out a sheet of paper. “I was given this letter years ago. Not exactly sure who she is”—he handed the letter to Conthan—“but she was interested in you.”
Conthan recognized the letter the moment it touched his hand. “The woman who wrote it is Eleanor Valentine.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I got one too,” he admitted. “She was a psychic for the president in the early nineties. She attempted to kill the president and was shot. She gave a letter to somebody I knew, who passed it on to me as he was dying.”
Alyssa scooted closer to them. “Do you think she knew about this? Us? I mean, our little posse of powers?”
Conthan nodded. “I think she knew exactly what she was doing.”
Dwayne unfolded a crumpled letter and flattened it out on the bar. He started to read it aloud. Conthan paused as he realized she had included the dates for Dwayne. Conthan gawked at the last line.
“As the Nighthawks gather, continue to protect. Your futures will be a struggle to illuminate a darkness that will fall on future days.” He set the letter down on the counter.
“Nighthawks?” asked Skits.
Conthan smiled. “It’s a painting by my favorite artist. It shows the solitude of individuals sitting in an ice cream bar. Two men and a woman sit together, but all alone, as they deal with whatever demons they must. Behind the counter is a man preparing drinks, concerned by his patrons but accepting the situation because it’s the same every night.”
“Deep,” said Alyssa.
Dwayne smacked his hands down on the counter, startling Conthan. “Nighthawks it is.”
“Dude,” Skits interrupted, “next thing you’re going to suggest is we start giving ourselves code names.”
“I’m not wearing spandex,” Alyssa said.
“I have a lot of questions,” Conthan confessed. He looked down to his hands and flexed them, thinking about the black void he had created.
“First…”
***
The streetlights had stopped shining where Vanessa landed. The building was dark except for several candles in windows. Her foot touched down on the balcony, her wings flapping to slow her approach. She let her wings stretch out and brought them close into her body, nestling them against the fabric of her red robes.
The bar was five stories down and a block away. If she concentrated, their thoughts were loud enough for her to hear. She pulled back, focusing on the chill of the night air. As the voices faded, she took a deep breath, enjoying the silence. From here, words were nothing more than emotions. She smiled as Conthan cheered at the first use of his powers by his own will. She closed her eyes, letting her thoughts drift to the encounter earlier that day. She had been blessed as a telepath, emerging at an early age. Her physical mutations had been a curse, but she spent the better part of her entire life learning her potential. Today had been the first time she had encountered another telepath. The experience was thrilling. The ability to meet a person on the playing field of the mind and wrestle using determination, discipline, and guile was intoxicating. There was fear—the potential within her mind was dangerous. She always knew if she decided to choose a darker path, she would be a force to be reckoned with.
She wrapped her arms around her body and squeezed tightly. She knew this encounter had been a test of skill and a show of talent. Without a doubt she would have to face him again. Ever since she touched the shadows of his thoughts, she could smell him, lingering like a day-old cigar. Worse, she could feel his mind reaching out, spreading its influence like a virus.
“Eavesdropping,” she said out loud.
“Says the woman who can hear my every thought.”
She turned to a man staring at her. His skin was so dark it appeared as if he was emerging from the shadows. He stepped forward and took a bow. “How are you, fearless leader?”
“Do you really need to ask?” she questioned.
His eyes darted over her body and she could hear his thoughts racing at a tempo she couldn’t follow. Unlike the others, whose thoughts were like drips of water, his coursed like a river and she could only hear the deafening roar. His mind was like a hurricane and she was trying to pick out the sound of a single blade of grass moving.
“You’re worried about your encounter today,” he said. “You’re fearful he is capable of following us here.”
“It bothers me that you know me so well, Dav5d,” she said.
“You provide far too many contextual clues for me not to know,” he said. “Besides, I’m the closest thing you have to a fellow telepath.”
“You are,” she said. But after meeting the real telepath earlier, she was astonished by how different it was. Like the rest, Dav5d was a Child of Nostradamus. Where the others had outward-facing abilities, his brain was his gift. “You can predict the outcome of a million equations, but there is an embrace of two telepaths that even your powers can not mimic.”
His brain worked like a computer. He analyzed her timbre, the way her hips shifted or the pace at which she blinked. His senses collected data while his abilities made sense of each component. She could hear him attempting to process the information, but found his abilities stumbling when attempting to analyze emotions or unexplainable feelings. “I will have to take your word on this.”
He reached out and touched her shoulder. Both their powers flared with the contact. She began to see his mind more clearly while it processed data her senses were acquiring. He was aware of the rough texture of her hand as she squeezed his. He intentionally ignored the sensation and looked out to the city before them.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“Someday,” he said, squeezing her calloused hand, “you will have to explain.”
“Someday,” she repeated.
They were standing on the balcony of a church that overlooked several converging streets. Lights flickered, illuminating the solitude below.
There was a twinge of sadness as he looked at the emptiness surrounding them. This was their home and he would be forever grateful, but he
couldn’t help but know it was a wasteland abandoned by the masses. He was glad his people had a place to survive, but what had once been a magnificent city had been reduced to a hundred and now to only a dozen individuals.
“We’re a dying breed,” she said.
“They’ve become efficient at killing us,” he replied. “Or worse, capturing us for research.”
He was a tall man. Despite the lack of light, she could see his dark complexion, partly with her eyes, partly with her mind. He had a worried look on his face, something she wasn’t used to seeing. She wished she could pry into his thoughts as easily as the thoughts of everybody else. “You know what is coming?”
“Since my powers developed I’ve been able to quantify and calculate life. I see the world as a complex math problem. Each action causes another, and at my best, I can foresee the consequences and alternatives before they happen. Through probability I can predict the future. I wonder if this is what psychics experience when they foresee the future. I wonder if my power is an evolution of psychics. What if I simply follow the lines of probability to a determined outcome, what psychics call the future?”
The wind brushed his cheek. Based on its direction and the humidity in the air, rain was going to hit them in roughly twenty-seven minutes. He spoke softly. “Eleanor Valentine has proven a challenge. Analyzing the intent of a woman almost forty years dead is more difficult than it may sound. What could she have seen to cause her to interfere in our lives? With each pen stroke, she was confident her messages would reach us and bring us to this apex in time. Her involvement has required more meditation than I have ever had to apply to a problem. I haven’t felt stymied intellectually since I was a child.”
“I can’t begin to imagine the complexities involved,” she admitted.
“Her predictions are converging,” he said. “The letter to rescue Conthan and your letter to find Dwayne’s sister prove Eleanor wanted our lives to intertwine. Some of us, I believe, happened upon this operation as fate intended, but what if Skits was never meant to be found but for her interference? And without that letter, Dwayne would have never stayed, which would have resulted in Alyssa moving on. Conthan would be dead and it would only be you and I.”
“You assume that the future is malleable.”
“If it isn’t,” he said, “then Eleanor simply played a role she was destined to play. Her decisions would have never altered the future.”
“Then our lives are not our own.” They both paused at the immensity of the philosophic discussion before them. “For a man who believes he quantifies the entire world, I’m glad to see that you have faith.”
“What do we do with this knowledge?”
She raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t often he asked questions unless he was collecting more data. “What does your data tell us?”
He let out a loud sigh. “Going forward, my predictions are limited.”
“The darkness Eleanor spoke of.”
He nodded. “We’re converging on something and it bothers me that my powers aren’t helping decipher what lies before us.”
A shout came from behind them. Where there had only been empty space, Dwayne tumbled to the ground. He shook his head, sitting up on the stone balcony. “Conthan’s powers suck.” He shivered despite the thick hoodie he wore. “It’s like going through a meat locker and then landing on my head.”
Both Vanessa and Dav5d stepped back as they saw the small charges of electricity jump from his hands to the ground. Dav5d knelt next to Dwayne. “You’re going to need to discharge in the next two hundred and nineteen seconds before your powers surge.”
Dwayne rolled his eyes. “Precogs,” he mumbled.
The electrified man held up his hands and let his muscles relax. The small sparks began to pick up and as his hands began to glow brighter. Electricity began to pour out of him. The bolt of lightning dissipated over the buildings, but not before the loud crack and smell of burned ozone filled the air.
He let out a deep breath and looked to the other two. “So, Conthan is able to access his powers. He obviously sucks at them, but he’s able to use them.”
“Good,” she said. “We’re going to need him.”
“A teleporter would make extractions easier,” Dwayne admitted. “We could have been in and out of the prison with no problem.”
“Agreed,” she said.
They could hear a voice shouting from the street below. “You win the dare!”
Dav5d chuckled. “He’ll fit in.”
“So what’s next?” asked Dwayne as he patted the smoldering edges of his hoodie.
Vanessa turned to him. “I need to meet with the Outlander council again. We need to make sure we’re still on amicable terms. I have a feeling that they will be less than cooperative after today’s events.”
“I’ll go with you,” Dav5d interjected.
“No,” she said flatly. “Part of our alliance has been discretion. They’re at ease around the angel of the Outlands. After meeting Dwayne, Alyssa, and Skits, I am painfully aware they view us as potential threats. And with the death of Outlanders, they’ll be looking for somebody to blame.”
“And us?” asked Dwayne.
“Train Conthan,” she said. “We have all discussed this darkness looming over our futures. I have faith his heart is pure.” She looked down to the three standing outside the bar. “If he is somehow connected to it all, I want him as an ally.”
“When do you leave?”
She gazed off into the distance. “In the morning,” she said. “I have a feeling time is not our friend.”
They all grew quiet as they watched Conthan open another void in the air. Vanessa smiled at the confidence she could see building in the man. She knew for him, this was a form of playing hero. She worried about when reality caught up to him and he saw none of them were the heroes of comic books. For now, she was happy to see he felt as if he belonged.
Chapter Thirteen
May 18th, 2032 10:07AM
Are you all right, Twenty-Seven?
I am.
“I am,” she said.
There was a pause. Twenty-Seven watched as people rushed back and forth, yelling for medical supplies. Since they had returned from the raid, there had been little rest. She had played medic until a small child had been brought in. Unlike the wounded soldiers who participated in the raid, the kid had died from radiation poisoning. His small body had admitted defeat and given up, shutting down organ after organ.
I can feel the guilt washing over you.
I saw a child die today.
“I saw a child die today,” she said aloud.
She rested her face in her hands, trying to remove the image of the kid’s scarred face from her mind. Two more people ran into the makeshift trauma ward with supplies and began barking orders. A man was going to lose his leg. There was a surgeon who lived with them. He was capable, a volunteer who came to the Outlands like it was a third world country in need of saving.
I am sorry.
Twenty-Seven didn’t know how to respond. She was a housewife torn from her home for standing up to an abusive husband. She didn’t expect to be thrust into the middle of a fight between opposite sides of the fence. Worse, she didn’t expect to watch a child die. She covered her face while she cried.
I am coming.
What can you do?
Twenty-Seven dropped her hands, and instead of seeing the red carpet of the hotel, she saw pavement speeding by. She gasped. She could feel the wind blowing in her hair and the sharp turns as a person dodged and weaved through abandoned cars.
What’s happening?
I am coming to you. Right now you’re seeing what I see.
How are you doing this?
I assume all telepaths have the ability to enter another person’s mind. I’m unsure if they have the ability to call someone into their own.
The hotel was visible, but as if it were a distant memory. Instead, in that moment she was flying down the interstate at breakneck speed
s. There was a calm about her despite the potential disaster. The hair on her arms stood on end as it responded to the phantom sensation of wind crossing her skin.
Vanessa’s robes flapped in the wind as she leaned the bike to the side, darting around a tractor trailer. She quickly reversed the lean to dodge a car. She gripped the accelerator and turned it further, watching the gauge on the bike push ninety-five miles per hour.
You’re riding a motorcycle?
My wings make riding in a car difficult. I have never been a fan of confined spaces.
Twenty-Seven was amazed with how fast the woman reacted to oncoming cars. There was something freeing about the potential for danger at every turn. There is no danger, she thought. At the first sign of losing control, her wings would carry her to safety. She wondered if the angel had always been so in control of her world, riding the fine line between reckless and secure.
All good observations.
Twenty-Seven could feel the woman’s smile on her own lips.
There was a long pause before she asked, We’re going to die. I mean, me, I’m going to die here, aren’t I?
Vanessa considered the question. She had always avoided thinking about the longevity of the Outlanders. Their ranks rarely increased unless she brought individuals banished by law enforcement. If the bandits that ran rampant in the Outlands didn’t kill them, the radiation would ultimately end their lives prematurely.
See? said Twenty-Seven from her perch on a hallway couch.
This is the first time somebody has been able to hear my thoughts. I apologize, child. I am on my way. I believe I have a solution for all in the Outlands. I will be there shortly.
Twenty-Seven blinked and was again in the hotel. She took a deep breath as her body adjusted to the lack of wind cooling her skin. A man holding blankets dropped several in front of her. She reached down and grabbed them. “What can I do to help?”
***
They entered through the large mahogany doors. A grand staircase, made from a stone he could not identify, led them to the second floor of the museum. His synapses were firing, recalling lectures from art history. Each vase they passed up the stairs reminded him of long-forgotten cultures and how they used the vessels.
Nighthawks (Children of Nostradamus Book 1) Page 14
