Forever Young - Book 2

by Daniel Pierce

  “Not quite the worst,” she admitted with a little grin. “But it wasn’t great. It’s only been two months since you showed up with water powers in the first place, Jason. I get that you’re pretty amazing, and I get that you’ve got more of a fire under your feet than any Ferin we’ve had here before, but you still can’t expect to master two Ferin abilities in such a short time. It’s not rational. It’s not possible.”

  “I have to.” I clenched my jaw. “I don’t want to hurt you or Kam.”

  She brushed her lips across mine. Even that little bit of contact made me relax, if only a little. “You won’t. Every time it’s come down to it, the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve been able to pull it all together and make it work. I don’t know how, but you’ve done it.”

  I forced a weak smile onto my face. I wished I shared her confidence.

  “I do think we should talk to Kamila, though. She might have some suggestions.” She ruffled my hair. “Let me get dressed first.”

  She threw on some jeans and a T-shirt, and we padded over to Kamila’s room. Kamila was already up, most likely because of Tess’s screaming. Daisy was in her guard pose, but she relaxed as soon as she saw me and Tess.

  The dog leaned against my legs, tail wagging and eyes bright. She was an affectionate little critter, and it would be almost impossible not to love her. I scratched behind her ears and under her collar, exactly where she liked. Dogs are the psychologists of the animal world, and her nose nudged me in a way that made me relax even further. We don’t deserve dogs.

  “What in the hell was going on over there?” Kamila asked. Her lips twitched, and it looked like she was trying to suppress a smile. “It sounded like someone was about to be killed.”

  “If he thinks about trying to wake me up that way on purpose, someone just might be.” Tess tossed her head. “Jason decided we both needed a cold shower to really start the day off right.”

  I knew she was teasing, but it still stung. “I was going for more of an ice bath. I thought you’d strained your neck, with all the complaining you did.”

  She pretended to be affronted, but she slung her arm around my shoulders. “Yeah, okay. Sure. Anyway, he’s learned a lot here, but…”

  “But he’s probably learned all he can from these folks.” Kamila sighed. Her eyes grew far away for a moment, but then she grinned. “I have to admit, this whole partially underground living thing is getting to me too. I’m not a big fan of communal living. Too crunchy. Too close to reliving the 60s, and ain’t no one going to make me go through that kind of hairstyle again. Tell me, Jason. What’s going on with you? What were you thinking when you lost control of your power?”

  I pressed my lips together. I didn’t like to think about it like that. After all, I hadn’t ever really lost control of my fire powers, had I? “I was just… you know. Worrying.”

  “He’s obsessing about Ginger back in Twin Falls.” Tess rolled her eyes. “Again.”

  “It’s a big deal, all right?” I stepped away from her so I could look her directly in the eye. “I don’t want to be the reason either of you gets hurt.”

  Daisy barked once and wagged her tail.

  “Or you,” I added quickly. “And I was wiped out after the fight with Chilperic. There has to be some way to keep everything that happened in that fight from happening again.”

  “What, you mean like winning?” Kamila arched an eyebrow. “Look. I get it. You’re worried. We’re all worried. The bloodsucker said a lot of scary things to you, and you know there’s a grain of truth in what he said. You know you’re the Lifebringer. You don’t know what that really means, but you do know he was messing with you. But, Jason, you can’t let it eat at you like this, or you’ll go mad.”

  “You’ll lose control,” Tess said, looking pointedly at me. “And everything you’re afraid of will come to pass. I’m not saying you need to just sit back and wait for things to happen, but you need to stop letting the ginger douchebag live in your head without paying rent. It’s not good for you, and it ultimately won’t be good for the war effort either.”

  I ground my teeth but nodded. “Fine. You’re right. It’s easier said than done, though.”

  Kamila nodded slowly. “That’s true. And I don’t think you can do what you need to do while you’re here with the water Ferin. They’re good people. Don’t get me wrong. I think they’ll probably have our back when the time comes. But you need more training than they can give you.”

  I bowed my head. “I knew I couldn’t handle both fire and water.”

  She stroked my face with her hand, warming me through. “That’s not it at all, sugar. Margaret and Mort didn’t send you to me because you weren’t capable of learning. They sent you to me because you had more talent than they knew what to do with. You’ve already learned everything the good people here can teach you. Christ, Jason, you jumped into the bay and played with the crabs yesterday. Doesn’t that strike you as something a little extraordinary?”

  Tess got behind me. She wrapped her arms around my waist and rested her head against my back. “We’ll find you someone. I’m not sure where or who, but we’ll find you someone who can help you learn how to manage your talents. It’s the right thing to do with someone as talented as you are.”

  I squirmed. I didn’t feel talented. I felt useless, a failure. “Are you sure? Maybe this whole thing is just a great big mistake and I should quit while we’re ahead.”

  “No.” They guided me back over to the bed. “Close your eyes and relax, Jason. It’s time to rest now. We’ll figure it all out in the morning, but for now, you need to get some sleep.” Kamila stroked my hair, and I obediently closed my eyes.

  Much to my surprise, I fell asleep right away. I dreamed too. I didn’t realize I was dreaming at first because I was surrounded by warmth and light on all sides and it felt amazing.

  Little by little, the light ebbed. A dark figure approached, and it seemed to absorb the light into itself. When it got closer, I recognized it. The figure was none other than my charming ex-wife, Linda. Her lip was permanently curled into a sneer of contempt, much as I remembered her from the last few years of our marriage, and she looked around at the small room like it was a foreign space to her.

  “You know, I knew you’d fallen far since we split up, Jason, but I had no idea you were squatting like this. I didn’t think I was being unreasonable in taking the house. You could certainly afford a decent apartment.”

  I scoffed. “I see you still cut your hair with a chainsaw.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Jason,” Linda snapped. Her face colored enough to make the dream even more real.

  I looked around, lifting my eyebrows. “I couldn’t afford anything nice. Not while I was stuck paying your health insurance, you fucking vampire. But hey, no harm, no foul. And this is a lot nicer than it looks.”

  “It can’t be worse.” She made a face. “All that you could have been, and you settled for insurance middle management? Pathetic, really. And now you’re not even that. You’re homeless, running from place to place like some kind of vagabond. Shouldn’t you just give up?”

  “You first.” I didn’t know what this thing was, but Linda would definitely never invade my dreams. She hadn’t cared about them when we’d been together. She wouldn’t care about them now. I prepared a fireball, but then I remembered about the water I’d accidentally summoned. I hadn’t been dreaming, but my thoughts had become real.

  Instead of firing off an offensive weapon at my ex or her image, whichever it was, I imagined myself gathering up all of the love, comfort, and affection around me. The light and warmth I’d felt before returned, magnified. Whatever had been causing her to absorb the light in my dream space kept doing so, but it overloaded.

  It was like hooking a pump to a balloon. Linda’s image distorted, becoming something vaguely demonic before exploding. I didn’t wake up again until much later, refreshed and content, with Linda’s sneer a distant memory.

  3

 
When I got up the next day, Kamila and Tess were waiting for me. A gentleman should never keep a lady waiting, and I strived to keep my ladies feeling well taken care of, even though at heart I was still struggling with the concept of being gallant. They understood just how sleep deprived I’d been, though, probably better than I did. We washed up together and headed down for breakfast. Over coffee, we sat and talked about our next steps. The atmosphere was unified, and even hopeful.

  “So I spoke with our hosts.” Kamila took a sip from her coffee cup, every inch of her a country girl. Every once in a while, though, she did something to remind me she wasn’t from this era. The way she drank her coffee was so dainty, so delicate, I couldn’t help but envision her in the stiff clothing of the early colonial days.

  “They agreed with me,” she said. “You’ve learned everything they can teach you. They like you a lot. They just haven’t seen anyone with power like yours before, and none of them have met a Lifebringer. Most of them haven’t even heard of a Lifebringer. They’re not sure how to help you get control, never mind how to help you quickly enough to be useful for what’s to come.”

  Tess put a hand on my back. “They’ll stand with us when the time comes, but you need more than they can give.”

  I forced a smile. It wasn’t exactly news that the New York crowd had done what they could with me. Also, I was worried about getting them into trouble. So far, every Ferin I’d encountered had met a grisly end, with the possible exception of Mort, who was still in the wind.

  “The biggest problem I can think of is that, right now, I’m a danger to myself and others. Half-trained powers are like a loaded gun in the hands of a toddler. Sure, they might not kill you, but are you going to take that chance?”

  Kamila gave me a playful swat on the arm. “Don’t talk about yourself like that, Jason. You’re making more progress all the time. And as a matter of fact, yes. I’m willing to take any chance. I’d rather stand by your side than sit back and wait for the bad guys to come find me. As it happens, though, I think I know a way to mitigate those risks.”

  “You do?” Tess and I spoke at the same time. We looked at each other and laughed.

  “Yes, I do.” Kamila smiled at us. We must have seemed like children to her. “I knew a woman once, a long time ago. She’s a… well, she’s a magic expert. I’ve never met someone who knows their way around water the way she does. She’s a little bit like me in a way but with water instead of fire. Her name is Zarya.”

  “That sounds interesting.” I moistened my lips, trying not to be obvious about it. “Can the world handle more than one Kamila, though?”

  “Probably not. That’s why she lives all the way down in Belize.” Kamila’s eyes danced as she spoke. “It’s probably been at least a hundred years since I saw her, but I can’t imagine why she’d move. She lives on an island called Deadman’s Caye.”

  I almost jumped off my chair. “That’s not an auspicious name, Kamila.”

  Tess laughed at me. “Look at you, being all Captain Superstition. It’s a name, not a prophecy.”

  “Says you.” I wrapped my hands around my coffee. “People name places things like Deadman’s Caye for a reason. I come from New England. We respect local names like that. Down in Massachusetts, there’s a place that translates as the Devil’s Swamp. In other places, they’d pave over it, drain it, build on it, and wonder why they all died from malaria or got eaten by bears or something. In New England, we find out the place is called the Devil’s Swamp, and we give that place a wide berth. We’ll even make environmental laws just to force people to respect the hell out of that place. People didn’t call that island Deadman’s Caye because it sounds cool.”

  Kamila snickered. “Do you think it might have something to do with a powerful water magician wanting her privacy? Zarya can do things with water you or I couldn’t imagine. It’s a small island, far enough from the mainland that she can be as isolated as she wants to be. It’s close enough for her to get to the mainland and get a taste of human company if that’s what she wants. I think it’s the biggest mistake I made in my little country getaway—getting into town was a pain in the ass. Of course, her water powers make the boat trip into town a hell of a lot shorter.”

  “And she can just drown anyone who gets too curious. Convenient.” Tess sat up a little straighter. “We can’t drown, though. And neither can the vampires.”

  Kamila waved a hand. “A vampire or two shouldn’t be a problem for someone like Zarya.” She sighed. “Getting there will be a bit of a hike, but I’m sure we can do it if we put our minds to it. It’s not like we can just hop onto a plane and fly to Belize.”

  “We’ve got passports,” I pointed out. “Not for nothing, but we did get passports when we got our fake IDs.”

  Tess tilted her head just a little and gave me a pissy look. “Oh, come on now. They’re good fakes. Don’t get me wrong. They’re not the kind of good fakes that’ll get us into a foreign country on a plane, without papers for the dog, after paying a large sum of money in cash. No way. I’d think we were smuggling drugs.” She took a sip from her coffee and frowned down at the table. “Hell, after listening to myself, I’m not positive we’re not smuggling drugs.”

  “It could be a good way to keep our funding up, but maybe we should leave that kind of thing to the professionals. Anyway, getting there will be a helluva journey, but there are ways. Besides, I don’t mind getting out of New York for the winter.” Kamila rubbed her upper arms. “They’ve got great, efficient heating in this place, but I like the real heat, you know?”

  “Well, we’ll get the real heat in Belize.” I sighed.

  I’d never been out of the country. Up until Chilperic attacked me and left me for dead, I’d never been out of Maine. I hadn’t been keen to leave either. I didn’t mind seeing more of the US, but going into Central America gave me pause. “Is this the best idea? I don’t know much about Belize, but I know here in the States we’ve got some protection. The vampires can’t get to us in public, for example. Outside the US, things don’t work quite the same way. I’m not positive it’s the best idea to go charging into a foreign country when we’re worried about fighting a war.”

  Tess hooted. “Look at you, letting your bias show. It’s adorable, really.”

  “We shouldn’t have any problems in Belize we don’t have here, Jason.” Kamila gave Tess a look that was probably intended to get her to stop making fun of me. It didn’t work. “And we can get away with using silver bullets down there. It’s harder to get away with up here, depending on where you live.”

  “All right, then.” I shrugged. “I guess we’re going to Belize.”

  Kamila and Tess went out to arrange for our travel. They had connections. I had no connections. I was just a guy, except when I set things on fire or accidentally doused people with water.

  I tried not to feel bad about that. I was young compared to everyone else in this compound, and I had a specific job to do. I didn’t necessarily understand my role yet, but I’d get there. My primary mission was the war, not to somehow create a network centuries in the making overnight. I went for a run with Daisy instead, keeping my body and my mind sharp for whatever was to come.

  It was about all I could do under the circumstances, but at least I could manage to do that much.

  Gateway Park had plenty of space for me to run. Some people gave me funny looks because the weather wasn’t the sort people usually found suitable for outdoor exercise, but it wasn’t so unusual I worried about truly standing out. There were a couple of other diehard runners out there too. They didn’t have the advantage of a personal fire deep inside of them to help them stay warm, but maybe they didn’t need it. Runners are another species, and winter runners are from another galaxy.

  When I’d gotten Daisy good and tired and worked my own nerves into a relaxed state, I headed down to what I now thought of as my bench. Getting sloppy. I shouldn’t be forming predictable habits like this. We were leaving soon, but it didn’t hurt t
o get into the right habits of having no discernible patterns. I got up and took both of us to another bench about a mile away, where we could still view the water.

  Kamila had taught me a trick once with fire. If I had a flame in front of me—a birthday candle would do—I could find anyone I wanted who was likewise near a fire and eavesdrop. It was almost like watching TV, if I wanted to watch through a flame-colored screen. Who was to say I couldn’t do the same thing with water?

  I looked out at the bay and tried to think of someone, anyone, who I might want to spy on. I didn’t have anyone whose whereabouts I was particularly concerned about in the moment. I was worried about the vampires, of course, but I’d need someone specific to find. I could try to find just any vampire who happened to be near water, but it was the middle of the day in New York, and listening in on a random vampire in Japan probably wouldn’t be much help to me.

  I could check in on Tess and Kamila, and I did that pretty quickly. They were easy to find. Kamila was in New York Harbor, talking to a handsome man with curly blond hair. Tess was down near the river, negotiating with an Asian man for something I probably didn’t want to know about. Everything about her body language said felony in progress.

  I couldn’t hold the images for long, and I felt weird about violating their privacy. I let go, and my mind drifted. There wasn’t anyone I particularly cared about who wasn’t right here. I hadn’t been all that close to my parents in a long time. I’d been friendly with my co-workers, but not close. There was Linda, of course.

  Just the thought of my ex-wife brought her image into the choppy waters of the bay. She wore a skin-tight suit that made her look desperate and more than a little old. I took some small pleasure from that, since her string of affairs gave me the moral high ground. I looked and listened with intent, and her image cleared before me.