Misty Falls

by Joss Stirling

  ‘I want to emphasize,’ said Victor, ‘that none of the victims were able to send a distress call before they were killed. This means that either the murderer is able to block telepathy or the victims went to their death without suspecting him or her.’

  Paul took the floor again. ‘I’m sorry that we had to cast this cloud over the start of camp but you can understand, I’m sure, that the stakes couldn’t be any higher. Please learn as much as you can this week and make sure you practise it when you go back to your usual routines.’

  ‘I’ll be here for the first two days to see small groups of you for mental defence training,’ said Victor. ‘Other volunteers from the Savant Net will be arriving tomorrow to help you with your gifts.’

  Summer raised her hand.

  ‘Yes?’ Victor’s expression brightened with interest as his gaze fell on my friend. ‘Summer, isn’t it?’

  She gave a flustered smile. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You’ve got a gift similar to mine so I’ll be working with you one-to-one.’

  ‘Oh, um, cool.’ I could tell Summer was alarmed at that news. I wish I could tell her Victor was all bark and no bite but I couldn’t lie. He was more all bite and no bark if his reputation was anything to go by. There were hundreds of criminals behind bars who had not seen him coming until he seized them: think swimmer in water and Jaws.

  ‘You had a question?’

  ‘Yes.’ Recalled to herself, Summer regained some of her usual poise. ‘You said that the killer was one of us.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘How do we know then that we can trust the people we are training with this week?’

  Victor smiled approvingly. ‘Good question. You can’t absolutely.’ Victor was never one to offer false comfort. ‘I’ve called in people I know I can trust so if you can extend your faith to me then I’ll vouch for them.’

  ‘So, are you sure?’ Summer pressed.

  ‘I’d stake my life on it as I’m related to half of them. Four of my brothers and three of their soulfinders will be spending the week here. Misty knows them too if you’ve questions about them. They’ve just finished at the summer camp in California so will arrive tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Oh wow, the fabulous Benedict brothers are coming our way,’ whispered Angel to me, patting her heart. I had told her about my aunts’ new relations and shown her the wedding photos from Venice.

  ‘Who’s coming?’ I asked.

  Uriel took over the briefing. ‘Your aunt, Diamond, and Trace are leading the team.’ He turned to address the whole room. ‘Misty’s aunt is an expert in conflict resolution; my eldest brother, Trace, is a police officer but also a tracker. Also with them is Will—he senses danger and will be running the personal safety briefings with Vick. The younger team members are Yves, Phoenix, Sky, and Zed.’

  You’ll love Phoenix and Sky, I told my friends. They’re such fun.

  ‘They all have very different gifts but both Sky and Phoenix have experience of being trapped by a stronger savant so will be able to give you survival tips. Our hope, of course, is that you’ll never have to use them. However, as our killer often strikes more than once in the same country within weeks of taking the previous victim, Mia’s murder means the UK is now our priority.’

  A chill ran down my spine: a strange sense of foreboding that someone in this room would be the next to die.

  ‘Everyone clear on what’s happening?’ asked Paul. ‘Now for the moment of truth! Lara, please hand round the sheets giving details of who is working with whom.’

  Angel shrieked when she got hers. ‘Oh double wow, I’ve got Yves.’

  ‘Don’t let Phoenix hear you say it in quite that tone,’ I joked weakly, struggling to shake off my premonition.

  ‘I know they’re devoted to each other, but, oh my!’ She pretended to swoon.

  ‘I suppose they think your ability to manipulate water is close to his gift to control energy.’

  ‘I don’t care what they think; I just like the result.’ She gave me a cheeky grin.

  I opened my paper. Zed. I couldn’t think how my truth gift was like his skills: as seventh son of a seventh child, Zed had a little of all his brothers’ gifts as well as his own one for foreknowledge. Putting it bluntly, he was the whole circus whereas I was a one-trick pony.

  Why Zed for me? I asked Uriel, using telepathy so I didn’t set off a whole round of demands for explanations from each student.

  Because he has to control input from all of us when we combine our gifts. Victor thinks that’s a little like your grip on truth—so much sensory information that it gets away from you.

  I nodded, pleased. Zed was a bit scary but I knew the way to neutralize him was to get Sky on my side and fortunately she and I were mates. Thanks.

  ‘OK, if you’ve all got your packs,’ said Paul, ‘I suggest you dump them in the cabins and come back for dinner. We are not going to give this evil individual the victory of spoiling your holiday, so put it away for now. We’ll start on the protection agenda tomorrow.’

  Grumble though we did about being given ‘work’, it was more just for show as we were all behind the new regime. We had caught the chill of fear. In fact, the morning exercises proved to be the best part of camp. Will, the middle-in-age of the Benedict brothers, in his early twenties, had the square-shaped face and broad shoulders that read as dependable in my book. He also had a sweet sense of humour and came across as gentler than his intimidating brothers. We were all a little surprised to find that he ran the personal security sessions with Victor taking a back seat. Victor only came to the front when asked to act out the baddie in the scenarios Will created. That was an astute strategy because it meant that Victor remained aloof from us, making his pretend attacks almost as scary as the real thing, or so I imagined.

  ‘Come on, Misty, build a wall against him,’ urged Will as for the fifth time my attempt to rebuff Victor’s mind probe crumbled like a flaky chocolate bar.

  I ran my hands through my hair in frustration and squeezed the roots. Angel and Summer looked on patiently. They had both mastered this particular skill on the first attempt. ‘OK, Victor, sock it to me.’ I screwed my eyes shut and threw everything against his mind-grab. I thought for a moment I had succeeded, but he then projected an image of himself eating said chocolate bar while lying on a sun lounger.

  I opened my eyes and looked down at my feet. At least my toenails looked pretty in their shell-pink varnish; it was the rest of me that was a disaster.

  ‘How did she do?’ asked Will.

  Victor shook his head.

  ‘I offer about as much resistance as a wet tissue,’ I admitted.

  ‘It’s odd.’ Victor patted me briefly on the shoulder as he went back to stand with Will at the front of our little classroom in one of the cabins. I think he meant it as a comfort but I’m never quite sure with him. It could also have been an ‘arrest this one’ gesture. ‘I’ve not met a mind like hers before. She’s completely unguarded. That made me wonder if we’re asking her to do something that her gift won’t allow.’

  My gaze lifted. ‘You mean, it might not be my fault?’

  ‘I never said it was your fault.’ Victor rubbed the side of his jaw, reviewing what he knew about my gift. He was looking at me as if I were a problem to solve. ‘We can all see you’re trying but I guess that putting up a wall feels like a lie to your subconscious—it’s a trick, a diversion, not a real wall.’

  ‘Great. So my nothing-but-the-truth brain won’t even relax the rules to protect itself?’

  ‘That’s how I read the situation.’

  ‘So I’m screwed if anyone picks on me?’

  ‘Now that I don’t know. Nothing about being a savant is one-size-fits-all. It’s just a question of adapting your strengths to find a new way of defending your boundaries.’

  ‘My strength being … ?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I’m good at table tennis,’ I offered.

  Will laughed. ‘I
don’t think that’s what my brother had in mind, Misty. He means your gift.’

  That’s a very short list. ‘I know a liar, I suppose. And people can’t lie around me if I let my control slip.’

  ‘Then your best defence is to expose anyone with bad intentions before they get to you—build the barrier further out in the truth zone where you are queen.’ Will’s dark eyes sparkled with amusement. He projected a playful little telepathic image of me wearing a tiara walking over villains in a Lady Gaga-style dance routine.

  ‘Thanks, I like that—me being queen.’ Yet the problems were obvious. ‘But if I go around with my truth force field active, won’t I just annoy a lot of innocent people?’

  ‘That’s a judgement call and one you’ll have to make on your own,’ said Victor. He never softened the truth, or thought we were too young for the full facts; I admired him for it even if it was unsettling. ‘If you’re suspicious of someone, do your own version of a mind probe and expose their motives. A few bruised feelings are a price worth paying to stop becoming this killer’s target.’

  Summer laced her fingers with mine. ‘But how is Misty to know who to test?’

  ‘Instinct.’ Will folded his arms across his chest, biceps attractively displayed by the short sleeves of his black T-shirt. ‘My gift is sensing danger but really that’s just a souped up version of the gut instincts we all have for survival. Listen to what your intuition is telling you. It’s there for a very good reason.’

  Pay attention, Misty. Stop looking at muscles.

  ‘Yeah, the poor schmucks who didn’t have that instinct dropped off the evolutionary tree,’ said Angel.

  Will flashed her a grin. ‘You’re right. I’m sure you all know what we’re talking about—it’s one of the primal senses we all share. Go with that and you’ll be OK.’

  But every generation produces a few schmucks, I thought gloomily. I always considered myself a candidate for that title with my numerous Misty moments. I just hoped I could hang on to my twig.

  On arrival back at our cabin, I found an answer to my text to Tarryn.

  Should have checked earlier. Sorry—didn’t think.

  Couldn’t blame her for not thinking: we were as unlikely a match as a capybara and a leopard: we might live in the same jungle but that was it.

  Alex’s DOB? 12 December, same year of birth. Puts him just outside your range. Possible match?

  Hardly, but it was worth asking. The bad news was, now I knew his date of birth, I could also work out that he was a closer potential match for at least five other girls I knew in the Savant Net, one of whom was Summer. Oh boy. I didn’t want to tell her but I had to. I could see them fitting really well together: organized, brilliant Summer and charming, sophisticated Alex. My jealousy made me a very mean dog-in-the-manger Misty.

  OK, Misty: whistle up better self and confess.

  ‘Hey, Summer?’

  My friend was sitting in the sun chairs outside our cabin reading a novel.

  ‘Yes?’ She looked up, lifting her sunglasses on to the top of her head so they held back her hair in movie-star-on-Rivera style.

  ‘That Alex guy … ’

  Angel stuck her head out of the bedroom window. She was halfway through applying a face pack gorgeous Lara had recommended and it was cracking into a thousand bits. ‘You’re a possible match—I just knew it!’

  ‘That’s not a good look, Angel. As I was saying, Summer, before I was rudely interrupted by Swamp Monster here, on the date of birth, he’s an outside chance. His birthday is twelfth December. So unless I was late and he was a little early … ’

  ‘Or maybe he was born premature. We don’t take enough notice of that kind of thing in the Savant Net and loads of babies are preemies these days.’ Angel was more eager about this than I was, having decided he was too stunning to let pass. ‘Get him to ask his parents.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Why?’ Angel gave up on the face pack and started to wipe it off her cheeks.

  ‘Complicated.’

  Meanwhile, Summer had been doing her maths. ‘My birthday is first December.’

  ‘Yes. He’s closer to you in age than me.’

  ‘You should ask your aunt Crystal,’ said Angel.

  ‘No soulfinders before you’re eighteen,’ Summer and I chanted, having heard Crystal on the subject numerous times.

  ‘But, come on, this is an emergency!’

  Summer raised a brow. ‘In what way is it an emergency, Angel?’

  ‘I’m dying of curiosity.’

  ‘You’ll have to limp along on life support until November. Alex is coming to Cambridge. Summer, if you come over to visit one weekend you can meet him—see if you get the vibe.’

  ‘What about you? Didn’t you get the vibe?’ Angel solved the problem of being half out of the building by climbing onto the sill and dropping down beside us.

  There were vibes all right but they had felt oddly like hitting a raw nerve. ‘I don’t know. I got something but it was messed up by the incompatibility between our gifts. I didn’t even think to try telepathy.’

  ‘It does seem too personal with someone you don’t know well.’ Summer understood me without me having to explain. ‘I’m like that too.’

  ‘Let’s be honest, soulfinders are supposed to build up each other’s powers, not undermine them.’ I dug deep. ‘And Summer, you and he are the same kind.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Summer put her novel on her lap.

  I pointed to her copy of The Woman in White. ‘You read intellectual books—old ones with a million pages.’

  ‘Wilkie Collins does run on a bit,’ she admitted with a smile. ‘Great page-turner though.’

  ‘I think Alex would really like that about you.’

  ‘Don’t run yourself down: you read poetry and novels.’

  ‘Yeah, but not your sort of novels. Mine are YA romances and chick lit.’

  ‘Don’t diss chick lit. They are relationship novels that publishers belittle with cutesy covers. Did you know that women make up well over half the book-buying public and there are more female published authors? And what do they do? Makes us into a minority—a subset!’ Summer stroked the cover of her paperback as if soothing it.

  Summer is very even tempered about most things but this was her red-rag-to-a-bull subject. I could tell she found it easier to talk about than the delicate issue of Alex. She must have guessed I had a softer spot for him than I had admitted and was trying to build up my confidence that I was good enough to be a match.

  ‘O-kay. I read relationship novels. Thanks, Summer.’

  ‘I think we should bring in a new term for guys’ stories. How about bloke books, testosterone tripe, or macho-mush?’ Angel looked to us to vote.

  Summer gave her a nod of approval. ‘Any of them will do—make as much sense as chick lit. Anyway, go on, Misty. Why do you think he and I might be soulfinders and not him and you?’

  I hesitated, remembering how Alex moved among other people as if he was touched by something special. ‘You know that bit at the end of Peter Pan?’

  ‘When Tinker Bell sprinkles the ship with fairy dust?’ asked Angel. ‘Love that film.’

  ‘Yes. Alex is like that ship—sprinkled with, I don’t know, let’s call it Gorgeous Dust.’

  ‘Hot Dust?’ suggested Angel.

  ‘That sounds like something emerging from a malfunctioning hoover. No, let’s stick with Gorgeous Dust.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ asked Summer, her brow furrowed.

  I glanced at Angel. She doesn’t know.

  That makes her bearable, replied Angel.

  ‘I have to break it to you, Summer, but you are the female equivalent.’

  ‘Yep, you are shiny with GD,’ agreed Angel.

  Summer blushed and put her sunglasses back down on her nose, hiding her pale jade eyes. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘It’s true.’ My saying that ended the discussion because they both knew I meant it. I d
idn’t do flattery.

  Summer looked sweetly flustered. ‘So you think that … maybe … he and I?’

  I shrugged, trying to appear neutral on the subject. ‘It’s worth finding out.’

  Angel cocked her head sideways. ‘Which weekend in November is he in Cambridge, Misty?’

  I told her the dates.

  ‘OK. I’ll be there.’

  Summer bit her thumbnail. ‘You’re inviting yourself, Angel?’

  ‘Of course! There’s a chance that one of you might, you know, score big time. I’m not going to miss that.’

  ‘You do get that the chances are still very slight?’ said Summer, but I could see I had started a very pleasant chain of thoughts in her mind. I predicted that the first thing she would do post-conversation was revisit my photos on Facebook.

  ‘Slight-schmight.’ Angel snapped her fingers. ‘This is epic! Summer and Alex: I like the sound of that already.’

  I didn’t. Part of me was howling that he was my find, my possible.

  ‘He could still be Misty’s,’ Summer pointed out reasonably.

  I love Summer.

  ‘But she’s met him and nada.’

  Angel, on the other hand …

  ‘You, Summer, are still in with a very strong chance.’ Angel did a little hip wiggle dance to finish that sentence.

  ‘It wasn’t exactly nada,’ I muttered, but Angel was off on one of her flights of enthusiasm. We expected at least two of these a day so we were due.

  ‘Misty can introduce you, then oh-so-subtly leave you to … you know … get friendly.’

  ‘Anyone else thinking “eggs before hatched”?’ asked Summer.

  ‘I’m thinking “counting eggs before even buying the hens to lay them”,’ I agreed swiftly.

  ‘Oh, come on, guys! It’s like Christmas: the anticipation is way better than the day itself.’

  Summer smiled ruefully at me and checked her watch. ‘Well, go anticipate somewhere on your own. I’ve got a lesson with Victor.’