The Affliction

by Wendy E. Marsh

  “Aubrie, it’ll be fine, you don’t have anything to worry about. And besides, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I promise. He had grabbed both of my hands in his, looked at me directly as he said these words, and I believed him. Heat flowed from his hands to mine and into my chest as I dismissed the thought that I liked the feel of his touch. I knew that if it came down to me failing, Gabriel would get me out of there alive. He would die for me.

  I breathed too heavy, too fast, but he laced his fingers in mine, massaging the palms of my hands with his thumbs and I wished we were somewhere else, alone. “Do you trust me?” I watched the words form and billow in the air from his frozen breath. Trust him? Of course I did. I just didn’t trust myself.

  “Yes, I trust you.” I felt the power of resolve flooding through me. “Don’t let me fall.”

  As I stepped through the stone flanked gates I thought of the guns I wore, was aware of their weight at the small of my back, the left inside pocket of my leather jacket. Acknowledging their presence allowed me to feel positive that if I failed to live up to the elders’ standards, I could put up my own fight and help Gabriel in our escape. I wouldn’t let him die for me.

  I had asked myself why I couldn’t just see if I would pass or not, but apparently, I couldn’t foretell something that was so dependent on how I performed and what the elders would decide. Without the sight I had gotten used to relying on, I had freaked out a bit. But I made the decision to trust Gabriel and myself…with reservations.

  Moraine had said she thought I was ready soon anyway; would a week have made any difference? What if there was something vitally important that she wanted to teach me at the end? But I couldn’t think of that now, I had to feel confident in my abilities, and in a way I was. I had mastered intuition, telepathy, teleportation, and had a pretty good grasp on telekinesis, which I rarely used, but could. I had to believe that was enough.

  * * * *

  It was almost déjà vu as I walked through the large hall to the elders waiting at the end, only this time the room was much more intimidating, with its baroque architecture crowding in on me from every direction and the assembly of elders watching me approach like a criminal to a judge’s stand. I noted the twin fireplaces, large enough that Cyrus could easily stand inside without bumping his head, and as I passed the second one, I briefly saw what appeared to be shards of glass exploding inside it.

  I shuddered on the inside, but on the outside, I knew I maintained control of my appearance. I wanted to impress upon them an image of confidence and skill. If they had a choice to induct me into the Mystic, they weren’t going to choose a flake.

  I took one last step in front of the man in the center, the same one who had made the decision to put me into training. “Welcome to Headquarters, Aubrie,” Norman said. Okay, test one.

  “Thank you for your willingness to see me. I know you weren’t expecting me for another week,” I sent to the room at large. Some exchanged looks, clearly noting that I had at least managed one other ability besides intuition, which they knew was my predominant skill and had already manifested itself at my first meeting with the elders.

  “You’re welcome. We’ve been quite worried about you, actually. See, when Moraine reported you missing from Chapter C’s Headquarters we didn’t know what your plans were. It is clear that some of us were wrong in jumping to the conclusion that you had escaped with intentions to join the Black Shadow. We will deal with your early arrival later, but first, we must attend to your abilities.

  Last July we ordered that you should participate in training with one of our skilled Sages and we would evaluate if it was appropriate or not to accept you into our society. The fact that we are here only six months later when we expected years, is a promising sign. You have demonstrated that you have learned telepathy. Impress me with this talent.”

  Impress him. The first thing that came to my mind sounded extremely stupid but once the idea was there I couldn’t think of anything else. I chose the ten elders sitting in the front row. They appeared to carry the most influence. “To the ten in the front row, I’ll tell you a color. As soon as you hear it, say it aloud.” I said to the whole room. I wanted all of them to witness the upcoming phenomenon.

  They looked confused, as though this couldn’t possibly display a higher level of difficulty. I concentrated hard, focusing the yellow light that still hovered in my vision and all at once I thought of ten different colors.

  “Red…blue…green…yellow…purple…orange…pink…black…white…brown.”

  In unison, I heard the colors repeated back to me, each elder speaking their own color. It took a few seconds for what happened to sink in and then they realized that they had each been told a different color at the same time and everyone in the room exchanged loaded glances. I knew that this skill was complex for even the most experienced Sages.

  I had purposely picked colors because they were simple. I could not carry on a separate conversation with more than two people simultaneously. Nonetheless, the skill needed to split my thoughts into ten sequelae and send them telepathically to individual receptors was incredible, and I knew it. I could even feel Gabriel’s astonished eyes on me but I didn’t look away from Norman.

  He smirked and gave a small nod. I smirked back. I knew what would come next. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. They were done asking me questions and wanted to see me in a practical situation.

  I was suddenly grateful that Moraine had integrated combat into my training. Strictly speaking, Sages aren’t fighters but we occasionally find ourselves in situations that warrant the use of our skills in offensive ways. This was becoming particularly more frequent as the influence of the Black Shadow grew in our world.

  Gabriel remained at my side but I knew he would move once the test started. His instinct seemed to require him to protect me but he knew the elders would not allow him to interfere with what was about to happen. He also guessed that I could take care of myself. I hoped he was right.

  Silence spread through the room and a chill crept up my spine. There were eyes on me that shouldn’t have been and I knew then that they had contracted a Silencer to fight me. Odd. Gabriel sighed and moved back unwillingly to the edge of the room.

  I embraced the yellow light, my intuition, and my instincts. I couldn’t hear her footsteps as she entered the hall, couldn’t see her as she used the detail in the wall to climb to the ceiling and spring silently to one of the unlit chandeliers like a giant cat. But I did know when she would attempt to drop from it onto my unprotected back.

  I waited precisely three and a half seconds from the time she touched the wall and then I teleported a foot to the left and faced her as she dropped to the floor where I had stood an eighth of a second before. She straightened up and swiped at me but she couldn’t make contact as I teleported another foot backward.

  I laughed and the sound echoed back to me in the tense silence. I didn’t wait for her to make another move. I wanted to end this swiftly. I gathered the yellow light and my body disappeared from where I had stood, destined for the inside of the fireplace but only ten feet into my travel it felt as though someone had grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me backward. I reappeared far short of my destination and landed sprawled on the floor, the tall dark-skinned girl rushing towards me with a predator’s hunger in her salient eyes.

  I looked at the long wooden table in front of the elders, and suddenly it appeared in between me and the girl, Michaela, shoving her out of the way and startling everyone but myself. She flew across the room and slammed into the wall where she left an imprint of her body in the plaster.

  She jumped up and ran across the table towards me but I had taken advantage of her distraction and teleported to the fireplace before she could hold me back again. As it was I had to fight to make it there. The elders surrounded themselves with the best and an invitation to live and work in the Capital was a high honor. Michaela was no different, a lethal force of stealth and retribution.

/>   “You can’t run forever,” she said in a powerful, intimidating voice.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you win.” I stood seemingly helpless inside the fireplace as she approached, dark hair flying behind her, almost a blur, but I knew where she would be and when.

  I looked up at the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and hoped I could make them travel even though they were screwed in tightly. The first one disappeared and reappeared in the air above her head but she dropped into a somersault on the floor and kept on charging, the chandelier smashing to pieces behind her.

  I improved my precision with the second, more confident now, and a couple of feet in front of me chandelier and girl crashed to the floor of the fireplace in a spray of crystal and glass. Though the chandelier knocked her down she still had me bound from teleportation. I jumped as high as I could over the mess, landed in a half kneel, scraping my hands on the rough floor. I gritted my teeth and braced myself, holding in a deep breath of air. I closed my eyes and felt my body shudder with the effort I exercised.

  Suddenly there was a shriek of tortured metal, hinges screaming in protest as they ripped apart and then the room shook as concrete blasted to pieces and showered the room in a cloud of dust.

  I opened my eyes and sighed in appreciation of my masterpiece. The angel and rose gate was wedged perfectly in the opening of the fireplace and Michaela was trapped, unable to scale the smooth walls of the chimney.

  “I can get out,” she contradicted the thought she must know was in my mind. I laughed again knowing that she couldn’t, but getting ready to install one last effect of the show to ensure her demise. I was not sadistic, I just enjoyed the feeling of using my skills against such a talented opponent, and one I knew wouldn’t kill me.

  Flames erupted around her, flames I had seen burning in a lounge on our way in. Thank goodness Moraine had taken the pains to teach me how to transport elements like fire and water. The first time I tried I had set my own feet aflame.

  “Enough.” Norman’s rough voice said as he quenched the fire and an Exterminator walked over, ripped the gate from the grate and threw it across the room, iron screeching against the floor.

  “Impressive,” I said to her as she stepped out, tight black pants almost artistically singed, blood seeping from multiple cuts from the chandelier.

  “As are you,” she replied, holding out her hand with a friendly smile on her face. “Good job, I didn’t go easy on you.” I shook her hand and knew we would be friends.

  Relief washed through me as I returned to stand in front of the elders. I knew I had not only passed but exceeded their expectations and I smiled brightly as Gabriel rejoined me, a look of wonder in his eyes.

  “Well done, Aubrie,” Norman said, his smile producing crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes. “We have ALL been impressed with your performance, and I am happy to tell you that you are now officially a member of the Mystic. You may return to your chapter and begin fulfilling assignments immediately. You will receive your instructions from Adam and must inform him of your completed missions.”

  I was overjoyed, to say the least. I had been anticipating that moment since Gabriel told me about the society. I had dared to hope that I could enter into his world and it had almost seamlessly turned out better than I had imagined.

  Of course, my happiness couldn’t remain complete. A piece of darkness, my persistent storm clouds, crept into my thoughts and must have shown on my face as I saw the expression I thought I wore mirrored in Norman’s change in attitude.

  “You feel it, too,” he observed and I knew that the Sages there were also burdened by apocalyptic premonitions. I nodded. “Explain why you are here a week before Moraine scheduled you to meet with us and why you insisted on running here like a criminal.”

  I felt my composure slip for a few seconds, knew that they noticed. What was I going to tell them when I didn’t know myself entirely why I had acted as I had? I could feel each second ticking in my chest like I had a clock implanted there and the elders stared at me in torturous silence. I took a deep breath and plunged into what I hoped would stand as an accurate summary and make some sort of sense.

  “Yesterday morning something happened. I was at Headquarters, as usual, thinking about how I was supposed to come here in a week.” I wasn’t going to tell them about my personal struggles, about the pain the separation from Gabriel caused me. “I had a powerful burst of intuition and I just knew I had to come here. It was as though an invisible force was beckoning me here and I couldn’t resist it. It wasn’t until I arrived in London that I started to feel the darkness.”

  I stopped there. They knew the rest and I had just confirmed the piece of the story they hadn’t understood before. “What’s coming?” I asked them, wondering if they would respond. Norman sighed and his own composure melted.

  He answered me in a strained voice, “But of course the Black Shadow, my dear.”

  Everyone seemed to recoil from his words, fear spreading in the air like poisonous gas.

  “When, when are they coming?” I choked out.

  “Well, you see, that is where the problem lies. The Black Shadow has been attempting to deteriorate the society for a number of years now, but just recently our Sages have begun to feel an increase in the threat, almost of apocalyptic proportions. But they can’t see anything, the Black Shadow Guardians have delved too deep into dark powers and we can’t seem to penetrate the cursed walls they have put up against us.”

  “So shouldn’t we be doing something to prepare for what’s coming? Like gathering all our members together to fight them?”

  “Hmm, yes, in the next few days we will begin calling everyone here to the Capital to make a stand for the attack that may result in the society’s demise. We have existed for hundreds of years, protectors of this earth. We won’t give in easily now.”

  I felt marginally better. They had a plan and we would fight the Black Shadow, something that had seemed inevitable to me since I first became aware of their existence in that small hospital half of a year ago.

  Chapter 29

  Gabriel closed the door behind us and I walked into his bedroom, my heart pumping fire instead of blood, my soul recognizing the life destined for me. I had never felt so alive.

  Pieces fit themselves together as Gabriel’s careful wall crumbled under my influence. I was stronger than ever and he found it harder and harder to resist my probing. Besides, he was about to reveal everything he had artfully kept hidden from me since his decision to move to the Capital.

  Heat from the orange flames flickering in the small fireplace comforted me as I removed my coat, hung it on the chair by the hearth, and laid my Beretta on top of it. Gabriel chuckled, still hesitating by the door. “And you were worried about them killing you? I’ve never seen a Sage with such an accurate shot. And where in God’s name did those talents come from? Making the gate and the fire transport, and teleporting; you kind of have a tendency to underestimate yourself.”

  I pretended to concentrate on the incandescent white-hot coals while I silently acknowledged the truth in his words. I hadn’t been a failure all my life. I had a sturdy list of accomplishments even before the Mystic, but I had never developed a solid sense of self-confidence. No accomplishment was ever enough to earn anything and I constantly expected rejection despite any success.

  “You’re just saying that because you have this ridiculous idea that I’m more than I really am, that I’m special or something,” I finally said, still avoiding his eyes.

  I felt him tense and then breathe out in exasperation.

  “Aubrie, you have no idea how I see you. You couldn’t possibly or you’d never have this doubt. I hope you don’t actually think it’s ridiculous, because you are special, to me. You mean more to me than anything.”

  I was scared then, knowing that what I did next would determine my entire future, that once I took the first step it would feel similar to stepping off the edge of a cliff. I wouldn’t have the stren
gth to climb back to where I’d been before. I stood for a few minutes assessing the distance and what waited for me below the cliff top.

  The decision I had made back at Headquarters, sitting on the fountain with so much resolve and courage boiling up in me, had led me there. I had fled to the Capital in a frenzy, not considering how testing it would be to enact on such a whim once I arrived. True, I had overcome the challenge of pleasing the elders but I was more afraid of myself than them. More afraid of the failure and loss I was prone to enduring.

  I closed my eyes and could almost see the flames swirling through my arteries and veins as I inhaled deeply and found strength in the fire inside, leaping away from my past and embracing the future.

  My stomach momentarily dropped out but I knew Gabriel would catch me, and what lay at the bottom would immediately surpass what I had left behind and remove it from my reason for existing.

  I felt him walk up slowly behind me and my skin seemed to ripple with excitement as he placed his hands tentatively on either side of my waist. I took a small step backward, leaning back into his solid body, and heard him exhale, in what, relief? “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” he whispered. My heart rate raced and my skin tingled.

  His lips wisped over my ear and he kissed lightly down my neck, moving his hand up my back to my shoulder, where he pulled my shirt to the side and continued kissing. I shuddered, breath uneven, as jolts of incomparable pleasure struck throughout my body.

  He wrapped both arms around my waist and pulled me closer. I didn’t have a thought of resisting…I wanted to be as close to him as possible. I turned into him, looked into his smoldering eyes and I knew we were made for each other, something he had known already and tried to keep me from seeing all those months apart.