Always the Vampire

I scowled and turned my back on her. The cool, whirling sensation of energy had receded after the healing but erupted like a geyser as soon as I touched it with a thought. The three steps, lift, fly method of take-off Jo-Jo the Jester had taught me became three steps, lift, zoom. I nearly cracked my skull on the branch of one of those ancient oaks at the edge of Cosmil’s circle before I veered away.

Then I began to get the hang of flying, and I let my worries fall away. I flew far, all the way to the ocean where I took a left and headed north. I flew high, over my beach house where I was tempted to dip down to check on Lynn, David, and Ken, but restrained the impulse. At one of the tallest condos on the beach and Dondanville Road, a trailer and cell phone–antenna installations stood atop the building. How a trailer got on the roof of the condos baffled me, but I dismissed the thought as I cleared them with room to spare.

En route back to the shanty, I noticed my vertigo wasn’t as severe as it had been. To test myself more, I practiced soaring at different heights, cutting around electrical poles, and weaving through power lines. A couple of miles from the compound, I gradually reduced my speed and altitude, and landed in the circle where everyone was gathered without stumbling a bit.

Saber crossed to catch me in his arms the second I touched down. “God, Cesca, you’ve been gone over thirty minutes. I was worried.”

“Sorry, but if I fly too fast, my face gets splattered with bugs.”

He gave my ponytail a teasing tug as Lia stepped closer.

“Where did you go?” she barked in her drill-sergeant tone.

“I flew to the coast. Wow, that sounds jet-setting, doesn’t it? Then I followed the beach to Dondanville and looped back here.”

“How high were you able to fly?”

“Roughly twelve stories.”

“Good, good. That’ll do for tonight. Now let’s all of us go inside to practice hiding and revealing your thoughts.”

All of us turned out to include Pandora, and we gathered around Cosmil’s coffee table. Lia’s method of teaching the thought-shielding exercise reminded me of the children’s gossip game. The difference was, instead of whispering phrases or sentences to each other, we started with single words.

We took five turns each, and reading the words projected to me was a piece of wedding cake. I was five for five when Saber, Triton, and Pandora had their turns, four for five when Lia and Cosmil projected their thoughts. None of the team had trouble revealing to one person—or feline—at a time while shielding from the rest of us.

Except for me. Revealing my words to only one player at a time proved to be more difficult than wrestling a gator. I used the submerge-my-thoughts-in-water technique Lia had suggested, but every time I let my word of the moment come to the imaginary surface of the water, everyone read it.

“Focus, Cesca,” Lia admonished yet again.

“I am,” I snapped. “I need to tweak my technique.”

And then it hit me.

“Lia, the point of this is to communicate during our confrontation with Starrack, correct?”

“Yes, though shielding has other applications.”

“I’m sure it does, but it’s about our intent to broadcast to each other.”

She tilted her head at me. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Okay, let me try this again.”

I pictured my word submerged in murky depths this time, and willed the water to clear only for the person to whom I sent the thought.

“Tube,” Saber said.

I grinned. “That’s it. My turn again.”

I repeated the exercise, clearing the waters for random players to read my random words, sometimes clearing for the same person back-to-back. And, except for leaking word-thoughts to Pandora, the new method worked.

“Let’s go for phrases now,” I suggested, riding the high of success.

“Let’s not,” Triton countered. “I’m beat.”

Cosmil shook his head, but a smile played at his mouth. “You are missing Lynn, are you not? Would you like to peek in on her?”

“Peek in how?” I asked.

“In modern technological terms, I believe it would be called video feed.”

“Via crystal ball,” Lia added.

“This I have to see.”

“I don’t want you to see too much, Saber.” Triton glanced at his watch. “What if we catch her in the shower?”

Cosmil patted Triton’s shoulder. “I will connect the call, so to speak, and you may look at the image alone first. If she is occupied, we will wait.”

The wizard set his crystal ball on the stainless steel island, did his conjuring, and rejoined Lia on the sofa so Triton would have privacy. After a moment, he motioned Saber and me closer to see the real-time image of Lynn playing Charades with Ken and David, fully clothed, of course. At least, we surmised that was the game from the scraps of paper on the beach house coffee table and Lynn’s gestures. David must’ve guessed the right answer first, for he and Lynn high-fived, and she did a victory dance that made both the vamps laugh.

“She’s having a good time,” I said. “Everything is fine.”

“So long as she doesn’t get attached to those two.”

“Trade in a hotshot shifter like you? Never.” I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “Have you asked Lia about the skinny on Lynn?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”