Reluctant Psychic

Chapter 6

Chapter SixI take in a calming breath, but it doesn’t work.

The idea of lightning hitting my eyes bothers some primal part of my brain—the place responsible for fear of spiders, falling, and snakes.

This fear is obviously irrational, and likely made worse by the adrenaline that’s been swimming in my system after the encounter with the b-hive. When I had my first-ever awake vision yesterday, lightning streamed from my palms into my eyes. Felix showed me a video that proves it.

Unfortunately, merely knowing that the lightning is harmless doesn’t help. I’ve always been sensitive about things going into my eyes. I’ve even refused glaucoma tests after the first, horrific one, choosing to take my chances with the disease.

Why didn’t Darian say anything about the lightning?

He sure talked a lot about everything else.

For that matter, what does he really want? Why is he teaching me?

I don’t buy the Jubilee gift explanation. I bet it’s all part of some plan of his—a plan that somehow culminates in the two of us together… assuming he didn’t lie about having that vision.

Either way, that vision is not going to come true—not based on my current levels of annoyance and frustration with him.

Then an idea comes to me—one that should’ve occurred to me yesterday.

Worried that I’m too late, I rush to the door to see if the box Darian used to ship me the VCR is still there.

I exhale in relief.

The ripped-up box is where I dropped it last night. It’s a good thing my earlier cleanup wasn’t that thorough—or that my roommates aren’t bothered by junk lying in the hallway.

On the shipping label, right below Darian’s name, is an address.

Unlike on the tape package—which Darian pretended to mail from the TV studio where he may or may not have worked—this address is on the Upper East Side, a mere forty-minute subway ride away.

I enter the address into my phone, quickly get dressed, and head out.

It’s time I asked Darian some very pointed questions.

Surprise, surprise. Darian’s posh building has a doorman with a long-tailed coat, white gloves, and a hat.

“Take the elevator to the fourteenth floor,” he tells me when I explain whom I’m here to see. “Let me get that for you.”

As I follow the man, I nearly jump up and down in excitement. Until this moment, there was a real chance that Darian just put a random address on the package. In that case, the doorman wouldn’t have known who Darian is—but he does.

Now I have to wonder if Darian put his real address there because he wanted me to come.

The building has four elevators but one button. The doorman presses the button for me, and the leftmost doors slowly open.

I get in, press the button for my destination, and the doors close just as slowly.

Then—just like the other day when I was standing outside Felix’s room—lightning bolts explode in my vision.

I’m bodiless in a corridor of a posh building.

Right in front of me is Nero. He’s holding Darian by his throat, easily lifting him off the ground with one hand.

Nero’s free hand blurs into that morbidly familiar claw I saw yesterday, during the orc m******e.

In a voice that would be comically deep and guttural under other circumstances, but is chilling in this context, Nero growls, “You knew the orc would bruise her. And what I would do to them as a result. And that she’d walk in on me while I was slaughtering them. And how she’d react.”

“You wanted to know if she would live if you hired the orcs, and I told you she’d be fine. And she is,” Darian chokes out, his face turning an unhealthy shade of purple.

Nero’s claw flies for Darian’s chest.

Darian squeals, and I fully expect bits and pieces of him to fly in every direction.

But he’s intact.

Nero’s talons stopped right next to Darian’s shirt.

“You screamed,” Nero says, and if I had a body, I’d shudder from the cruelty in that deep voice. “Does that mean you didn’t foresee if you’d live or die?”

“Stop this now,” Darian chokes out, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. “She’s about to step out of that elevator.” His gaze darts to the leftmost doors. “If you kill me now, she’ll see it—and her reaction will be worse this time.”

Nero can tell if people are telling him the truth, so I have to assume Darian was honest because Nero lets Darian fall, looks at the door in question, and growls, “If you come near her again, you’ll die. If you send her another package, be it another tape, or a vinyl record, or an email, or a DVD, or a f*****g carrier pigeon—you’ll die.”

Darian looks like he’s about to say something, but then there’s a bright flash near his face and he stays silent. Does that mean the seer lightning just hit his eyes, and Darian foresaw what would happen if he talked back?

Whatever Darian glimpsed in his vision—assuming I didn’t imagine that flicker of lightning—must’ve really impressed him, because he nods his agreement so vigorously there’s a real chance of whiplash.

“Scram,” Nero snarls.

Darian turns his back to Nero and stabs the elevator button as if his life depended on the speed of its arrival—which I guess it does.

The doors of the rightmost elevator open, and Darian jumps in.

I come back to my senses and look around the elevator car in confusion.

It must’ve been another awake vision.

That means Nero and Darian are about to have that conversation.

I press the fourteenth-floor button forcefully, but that doesn’t seem to improve the crawling speed of the elevator.

Something occurs to me.

Just like the last time, the beginning of the vision felt like I had lightning streaming from my hands directly into my eyeballs—and it wasn’t so bad. Next time I do the meditation, I need to remember how unpainful the unsolicited vision was.

Then again, perhaps it feels different under conscious control.

After what seems like an hour, the elevator stops.

Jumping from foot to foot, I press the open-door button, over and over, but the uncaring doors crawl apart at the pace of a drunk snail.

I leap out of the elevator—and come face to face with Nero.

“Sasha.” He tilts his head to the side. “What are the chances?”

“Don’t,” I hiss and jump back into the elevator.

Pressing the first-floor button as fast as I can, I toggle the close-door button in the hope that the doors slide shut quickly enough to allow me to catch Darian downstairs.

The doors barely move.

Nero stares at me, his piercing blue-gray eyes bringing to mind the myths about snakes being able to hypnotize their prey.

I lift my chin in a wordless challenge.

His limbal rings seem to visibly thicken, creating the illusion that the dark circles are eating away the whites of his eyes and the irises.

“You won’t make it,” his eyes appear to say. “And even if you do, I’ll kill him if he talks to you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” my own eyes reply. “If you kill him, I—”

The doors finally close, stalemating our staring contest.

The ride down feels even longer than the ride up.

Can’t the people in this uber-expensive building spring for a better elevator? It might be more useful than a doorman.

The elevator stops.

The doors begin to crawl open again.

In the distance, I see Darian’s back. He’s running out of the building so fast his soles are flashing.

As soon as I can fit through the crack between the opening doors, I do so—and launch into a sprint.

The doorman watches me in puzzled fascination.

Darian is outside, hailing a cab by the time I reach the door.

I rush out of the building.

He gets inside the cab.

I run to catch him, or better yet, to get into the same cab.

With a screech of tires, the cab jolts forward just as I grab for the door handle.

Darian stares ahead, refusing to look at me.

I try to hail a cab, desperate to follow him, but Murphy’s/Chester’s Law is at it again—the next three cabs already have passengers.

By the time one stops, I lose track of Darian completely.

“Let’s go home,” I tell the cabby in frustration.

“And where would home be?” the guy says with a gap-toothed smile.

I give him my address and sit there sullenly, processing what just happened.

Nero doesn’t want Darian to train me, or even speak with me. It might be because Nero has plans for me, or because he still sees himself as my Mentor, and Cognizant rules state that it’s a big sign of disrespect to teach someone else’s Mentee.

Or maybe it has something to do with me telling Nero about the future Darian allegedly foresaw—the one where Darian and I become lovers. But that would imply that Nero is jealous, which would in turn imply that he has human feelings—something that seems farfetched.

Whatever his reason, Nero has just made sure I can’t ask Darian for any help.

As confusing as Nero’s motives are, there are other questions just as big.

How did Darian get caught by Nero in the first place?

He’s a seer, a powerful one, yet he let himself get into a situation where he was dangling in the air by his throat.

Was that part of some scheme, or did his seer abilities fail him in this, just as they did when he kissed Kit (a.k.a. fake me) at the club the other day?

Maybe he knew he’d get off with a warning due to my timely arrival—which wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t written his address on the package.

Perhaps this encounter was actually the best-case scenario for Darian. After all, only his pride was hurt in the end. For all I know, Darian might’ve glimpsed a multitude of futures and chosen the one where Nero’s assault becomes a catalyst for something bigger. Hell, that something bigger might simply be my attitude toward Nero.

Perhaps Darian wanted me to see Nero at his most ruthless to eliminate what he perceives as romantic competition.

No wonder people hate seers so much. All these plots within plots are exhausting.

Then, the most important question of all hits me like a sledgehammer.

How did Nero know about the VCR and the tape Darian sent me? I got both of those items in the mail and watched them in my room yesterday, all by myself.

With a sinking feeling, I recall the theories about Nero having cameras around the fund—theories that explain how Nero knew about the bruise the orc gave to me.

Is it possible that Nero has similar surveillance in my apartment?

In my bedroom?

Blood leaves my face as I recall all the times I’ve gotten naked in that room, or worse, my encounters with Copperfield—my Hitachi magic wand massager.

No. Even Nero wouldn’t be so—

I stop myself. Who am I kidding? If the last few days have proven anything, it’s that Nero is capable of all sorts of horrible things.

Was this what Darian intended? To expose Nero as a peeping perv?

Getting out my phone, I text Felix.

When are you getting home?

His reply arrives a few moments later.

Finished my workload, just about to figure out this phone number thing for you.

I debate if I should tell him to drop everything and come home, but the phone number issue is important, so I reply with:

Thanks! Please let me know what you find out.

Felix texts back with an affirmative, and for the rest of the cab ride, I practice breathing for seer meditation—which has a nice bonus of calming me down as well.

I definitely need that.

I’m walking into our building when Felix’s text arrives.

I figured out who that number belongs to. Or more accurately, which business. It’s Izbushka Na Kurih Nojkah. It’s not their main number, but it’s theirs nevertheless. I wouldn’t answer it if I were you. I’m going home now. Talk soon.

In a haze, I enter the elevator.

When translated from Russian, Izbushka Na Kurih Nojkah means “a hut on hen’s legs.” It’s the name of the restaurant that belongs to Baba Yaga—the witch who helped Fluffster remember his last owner, Rasputin, in exchange for, and I quote both the witch and the Godfather, “…someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service…”

Looks like that “someday” is today, the day after our meeting.

Great.

Now that I’ve had more sleep and no near-death encounters for a few hours, I’m certain that agreeing to grant Baba Yaga a favor was a bad idea. Not that I had much choice last night, but still. I stipulated that she not ask me to do something illegal, but with my mind now clearer, I can easily think of a number of unpleasant things that wouldn’t be strictly illegal, like, say, eating tapeworm larvae.

On that cheerful thought, I enter my apartment.

Fluffster prances over and mentally says hello.

“Hey, bud.” I bend down and rub under his chin. “You hungry?”

“I could eat,” he says, so I give him some organic hay in my room.

Despite the earlier thoughts of tapeworms, my stomach rumbles as Fluffster dives into his dish. I make my way to the kitchen, toast a couple of bagels, and garnish them with cream cheese and lox.

As I’m doing that, an idea forms in my mind.

Taking out my phone, I text Felix again.

Let’s have a little picnic in Battery Park.

The reply from Felix is a single character—the question mark—so I text back, It’s time for me to feed you for a change.

Once we settle on a particularly picturesque location, I pack the bagels and a couple of water bottles into a big brown bag and put on my shoes.

Just as I open the front door, the now-familiar, but no less unpleasant, dread overcomes me, and I get the phone out.

As expected, the infernal device rings a few heartbeats later.

It’s Baba Yaga.

Again.