Cursed Seer Read online

  I get no vision of Talon.

  Birka, smirking, interrupts him by grabbing my arm. "That's not Mark, dear." She laughs easily, sounding totally natural, but I know her well enough now to hear the forced edge to her cheer. "He looks a lot like him, though, doesn't he?"

  I step back, glad to have an excuse to break away from his creeper-hug. "Oh... Sorry. My mistake." I turn my back on him and walk on like nothing happened.

  Birka has to skip a step to catch up to me, and when we're far enough away, she nudges my arm with her elbow. "Sneaky. Why do you need to touch them?"

  "You realized that, did you? I'm trying to get a vision of Talon's death."

  She stops, mid-step.

  I turn around, surprised, and raise one eyebrow. “What is it?”

  "Nothing. Just... Thank you. He's my son. I want him back, too."

  We’re having a moment. How interesting. I can’t help the slight smile that spreads across my face. "He's my friend, one of my only friends. But all I saw when I touched Talon that one time was his view from the inside of that life-sucking monstrosity of a machine. I didn't realize what it was until later, though. The vision was unclear whether he dies from the machine itself, or if he dies at the hands of one of the inner guards. Either way, we must work fast if we have any hope to save him, or...”

  "...Or he'll die," Luka finally speaks, saying what I can't bring myself to say. "Well, then, let's go find people."

  Birka nods at both of us. "I know where they'll be, if they're out anywhere."

  "Who, people?"

  "Yes," she replies. "Where do people go during hard times? Taverns."

  "You mean 'bars'? That's what people call them."

  "Not here, they don't. We have too much money to go to dive bars. Come on, I know one that was always a bit... counter-culture. If anyone is supporting Dawson, they'll be there.”

  “Why would they?”

  “Why does anyone? The people there have never liked my government, so Dawson would likely find willing accomplices, I imagine."

  "What are we waiting for? Lead on." I hold out my hand, indicating the area ahead of us.

  Luka is watching me, but I can't read his expression. I wonder how he feels about all this concern for his friend and romantic rival, but I don't have time to worry about that. When Birka takes the lead, we follow silently.

  The big sign above the double-doors reads "Riley's," but there's nothing particularly Irish about it. Birka was right to call it a tavern, though. It's a classy place, and my clothes make me stand out. We get a lot of looks—particularly me, which is really awkward—but the tavern's dull hum of conversations doesn't dim. That's a good sign.

  Luka and I follow Birka to an empty booth, one of several that aren't occupied at this time of day, but the one with the best view of the room. Smart woman.

  Once we're seated, one of the bartenders-slash-waitstaff comes over with menus in his hand and a kind of scowl on his face. He's utterly polite as he says, "Welcome to Riley's. We're on the lunch menu. What can I get you to drink to start you off?"

  "Whiskey," Luka says immediately.

  Birka is more leisurely as she asks for a glass of white wine.

  "I'll just have a soda, please." I don't want my senses dulled. "And maybe cheese sticks?"

  He actually sniffs, like he smells something unpleasant. "I'll see if we have any in the back," he replies, but I don't think he will. "I'll be back in a minute with your drinks."

  As soon as he's gone, Luka says, "Behind and to your left, Ella. There's a guy wearing a uniform I don't recognize."

  Birka glances in that direction as her hand shoots out to take mine. "Don't look." A moment later, she continues, "That's no uniform I've seen before. It must be one of Dawson’s new troops."

  I purse my lips. I don’t like the cocky look on his face. “Okay, then. Target selected. I guess I'll go get his attention. Can you see enough of my, um, presentation?"

  Both their gazes automatically roam down my shirt's neckline. Luka's mouth twitches up at the corners, but Birka is all business. "Yes, dear. I think you look like just the sort of woman men like to get to know for a night."

  Ouch. That was either a compliment or offensive, but I only care whether she thinks I'll get his undivided attention. "Thanks."

  I scoot out of the booth and head toward the Ladies' Room beyond the uniformed guy, and use the opportunity to size him up. He's large, fit, and handsome, and he fits in here perfectly even with his snappy, quasi-uniform. He looks like just the kind to expect a woman in a bar to flirt with him, so when he looks up as I approach, I flash him my best coy smile and then continue on my way without a look back. I imagine him watching me, and noticing I didn't turn to look back. I only hope he doesn’t notice how nervous I am, because I've never done anything like this and my heart is pounding in my ears and it's suddenly very hot.

  I tell myself to calm down. I focus on that thought. I've been a shut-in since I was thirteen, and my only guide has been television and the internet. I guess I'll see soon whether I got his attention.

  Once I get to the bathroom, I only pass a bit of time checking my outfit and making sure my nervousness hasn't made my little bit of makeup melt, and then head back out.

  As I leave the restroom, the first thing I see is the uniformed man turning to look at me with a rather charming smile. I smile back without a thought, and he gets up as I approach.

  "Excuse me, miss, but I believe you dropped this."

  I look down at his outstretched hand and see he has an off-white silk handkerchief in his hand. For a split-second, I'm confused, but then I realize what's going on. He must carry it with him so he can have an excuse to talk to women. I have no idea whether I should be creeped out or flattered—I'll have to ask Ida later—but for the moment, it feels creepy.

  I don't have a choice, though, as it's a perfect excuse, so I reach out to take it from him, smiling.

  Bam. That's what it feels like when the vision hits me, flashing before my eyes in a moment, and then I'm back here in the real world, taking a handkerchief that isn't mine. "Oh. Thanks. I didn't remember bringing one, though. Are you sure it's mine?"

  His smile broadens, but now that I've seen his death, it holds no charm for me. He deserves what's coming to him, and it's that thought that keeps my smile on my face.

  "No, I just couldn't help but look when you walked by, and saw it on the carpet."

  "I don't think it's mine, actually."

  "Sorry. But would you care to join me for lunch? My business partner got held up elsewhere. I'm hoping you won't let me order alone, though, so I don't have to be embarrassed."

  "I'm sorry, I'd love to, but I'm already here with friends."

  "Can I get your number, then? I'd like to make it up to you for the inconvenience." He's still smiling, but after what I saw, I just want to get away from him.

  I let my hand fall away from his. "It was no bother. Enjoy your lunch." I turn and walk away, feeling his eyes bore into me from behind, or so I imagine. It's difficult not to stiffen up as I walk, keeping a relaxed stride as I tell myself to just act natural.

  When I get to my companions, we make our way out, pretending to be in an animated conversation until we're safely outside.

  Birka is the first to get back to business. "Do you have anything to report?"

  I cringe a little at her authoritarian tone, but I doubt she even realizes she does that, or cares. "Yes. I got something solid. That guy back there is going to be with Talon when he dies."

  "What?" Birka half shouts. Quieter, her voice sounding choked up, she asks, "When does Talon..."

  For a moment, I'm confused, but then I hastily correct myself. "Not Talon. That guy dies. He's with Talon when it happens, because Talon is the one to kill him. I didn't recognize the place or see a calendar, but maybe you'll know where it is if I describe it.”

  As we round a corner to get off the nearly empty main streets, she nods and motions for me to go on.

 
"Visions are shifting, cloudy things, but they seem to me to take a lot longer than they actually do, and if I focus, details can become clearer. I saw the floor looked like silver, but it had some sort of gold inlay in lines that made a checkerboard pattern. The squares with inlay had what looked like a big lion's face in gold."

  Glenn snaps his fingers. "I know just the place. Dawson's old warehouse on Robertson."

  Birka audibly sniffs. "I would never frequent such a neighborhood."

  He laughs, nodding. "No, you wouldn't." To me, he says, "It's the ’poor side of town’ by Wraith standards. They only used gold inlay, instead of gold flooring. How droll."

  I have to look away to hide my smirk from Birka.

  Luka frowns, though. "That tells us where, but they could be moving him around. If we knew when, then we could take advantage of whatever disturbance gives Talon the opportunity to kill that guy."

  “That's the problem. I didn't see a calendar.” I dive into the memory, trying to bring into focus anything that could reveal more about that. Something nags at the edge of my mind. A sound... A bell? "There might be something. In the background, there was a bell ringing. But it wasn't a deep sound like a church bell. It sounded sharper than that. A higher pitch.”

  “An alarm?”

  “No, it reminded me of an alarm, but that's not quite right." I furrow my brow as I try to remember it with greater clarity.

  Birka says, "That's the old Johann's Bell, perhaps."

  Glenn looks up sharply. "You think? It could be. That's a solid lead, at least."

  We're just getting back to the hideout, after walking a circuitous route to make sure we aren't being followed. I’m the only one in the dark, it seems, so I ask, "Who was Johann?"

  Even Luka looks at me askance, then, but I ignore them and head inside. It's not my fault I don't know much about Wraith history.

  Luka plops into a chair. "Even I know that story. He was an early Wraith general, back at the dawn of the Wraith-Shade schism. Back then, the newly-born Wraiths were struggling against their new rivals, the Shades. We had the Wraith queen surrounded, but her best general refused to give her up. Instead, he held off a dozen Shades long enough for the queen to get away to fight another day. Without him, the war would have ended an age ago."

  Birka purses her lips—I imagine it's because Luka's version and hers differ widely—but rather than jumping in with the Wraith version of events, she says, "It isn't important right now. What is important is that we have something to go on. That bell rings once a year—five days from now, at dusk. We have until then to save my son, so let's get to planning. Anyone have any ideas to consider?"

  As they all talk at once, I have a sudden realization: This is what our lives have become. We're no longer Shades and Wraiths, but guerrillas against Dawson. He may have unified them, but he destroyed their very essence in the process. And we've stopped complaining about that, and started working together to resolve it.

  Even more striking, I've stopped accepting my visions as fated. Somewhere along the way, I committed myself to figuring out how to use my visions to change things everyone says aren't meant to be changed. Birka has stopped ruling and started leading. Glenn is becoming responsible, despite his best efforts, and Ida is coming out of her shell even when she's talking to someone other than Glenn. And Luka? He's gone from being the only one in my heart to being my source of confusion.

  For better or worse, this is our "new normal."

  Chapter 2

  Glenn pushes me back. "No, Ella. Not until we know it's clear of any of those lunatics."

  I wish I could shoot daggers from my eyes. "You do remember that we changed hideouts, right? They can't find us now, and I'm tired. Can we go inside? It's been a long day."

  He shakes his head, but his iron expression softens just a little. "I know you're tired. We're all tired. But ever since the gutter-dwelling transients found out you can foretell their deaths, more and more keep showing up. It's hard to lay low when a horde of homeless people form a mob around you. We were lucky to get away unseen."

  "Luck? That's one way to put it. The guy you hit with the car wouldn't call it luck." But that's not really a fair comparison. Being spotted would have blown our whole plan, and doomed Talon, leaving Glenn few choices. "Sorry. I know you did what you had to, and you hit him as gently as you could."

  From behind, a woman's cries out, "It's her! She's here." Answering cries ring out, each closer than the last.

  "Crap," Glenn says, understating it. "You just had to take pity on that one guy, didn't you?"

  I did have to, but now I almost regret it. I don't know whether Glenn means I should regret it because the guy was a Shade, once upon a time, or because of the hassle it has been bringing us ever since. Probably both. It can be hard to tell with him.

  But now isn't the time to dig into that issue, so I shrug. "Let's go, then. Birka and the others will meet us at the rally point when we don't show up in the next five minutes."

  I turn and run, Glenn on my heels. The woman who cried out, a sun-burned homeless woman, tries to follow us, but we pull ahead quickly.

  A block and a half later, we've run through winding, twisting alleyways to escape. I'm reasonably sure we lost her and the ones she drew to us, so I slow down to avoid drawing new attention our way. Wordlessly, we both angle north again, toward the rally point.

  It's not long before the colorful hot dog cart comes into view, in its usual spot across the street from the Eagles Sports Bar & Grill. Inside the bar, I remember with a wan smile, there's only one working TV, which is forever posted to the Weather Channel rather than to any sporting events. The rest of the place is dimly lit and full of at least two kinds of smoke and a couple of pool tables. Whatever classiness it might have had as a sports bar is long gone, and it now matches every dive-bar stereotype I've ever heard. Odd to see something like that here in Mortals Landing.

  We shuffle into an alleyway on the hot dog cart's far side, unseen by the vendor or his customer, keeping them between us and the dive bar itself. Thankfully, we don't have to wait long before the others show up. Birka is the first, but Ida comes in a close second, while Luka staggers in last. He looks pale and haggard, but his head is held high and his gaze meets mine steadily, despite his obvious exhaustion.

  Birka is the first to speak, unsurprisingly. "So, why didn't you show up at the rendezvous?"

  Glenn replies, "Obviously, we had to ditch that plan."

  Birka's nose rises in the air ever so slightly, but I can tell she's reaching the edge of her patience, which scares me a bit because, when times get really hard, people fall back on their own training and experiences rather than thinking things through. This is the time for thinking, not trying to rule our unruly group.

  So, I put my hand on her shoulder, gently. "Ignore Glenn. We are all under stress, including him. Tell me, what has you so upset?"

  She snaps immediately, "We had to dodge a Shade recon team on our way here, and I'd just as soon not get that close to one of those teams again, thank you very much. The less time we spend on the street now, the better. Why did we have to come here, instead?"

  Glenn lifts one hand toward Birka's arm like I did, but he hesitates and then lets it drop to his side. "Whoa now, my queen. It's not like she did it on a whim. We had a damn good reason, and I'm just glad you all remembered the rally point."

  Luka sniffs loudly, but says nothing. Of course he’d never forget a detail like that.

  Birka, on the other hand, says, "And what good reason could that be?"

  I can almost feel Glenn’s eyes, begging me to be the one to tell her what's going on. Now I regret not telling her sooner.

  I take a deep breath to steady my nerves. "The reason is that the local homeless population has heard of my miraculous gift, and a small following is... following me."

  She cocks her head to one side, one eyebrow raised high. "The what? Homeless? Don't be ridiculous."

  "Why?" I snap at her, "Just because they'r
e homeless, you think they can't figure it out for themselves?"

  Birka's other eyebrow goes up to join the first one. "No, I mean, what homeless people? The poorest Wraiths live in Mahogany houses, not cardboard boxes."

  Ida actually laughs out loud, a giggle, surprising coming from that quiet one.

  I shake my head slowly. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but Mortals Landing has changed. A lot of you folks relied on what Talon called 'multiple streams of residual income' from the mortal world, but Dawson had the U.S. government seize the accounts and assets of everyone who didn't rush to join him, even those who had no interest in rebelling, much less speaking out against him."

  Glenn cuts in before Birka can reply. "And now they're too afraid to speak up, much less rebel. But if they know how they die, and it isn't at Luna's or Dawson's hand, then..."

  "Then perhaps they'd find their spine again," Ida finishes, grinning. "Even my queen must see the wisdom in that strategy."

  A vision comes on so hard and fast that it feels like a physical object smashing into my head. I stagger, the vision taking over reality, revealing Ida standing in an alleyway with me just as she is now, everything identical. I move one hand and, one subjective second later, I wave my hand in the vision, too. I'm suddenly frantic to figure out what is about to happen, looking within the vision for any clues—

  In the vision, Ida's head snaps back, and the wall behind her is abruptly painted in crimson and gray matter. I scream.

  Purely by reflex, I leap forward to tackle Ida before the vision even clears.

  Something hot buzzes by my ear.

  The sound of a gunshot rings out.

  We land on the pavement together, she on her back and me landing on both arms. Fire shoots from my elbows—that's going to leave a nasty bruise, but it’s better than a nasty bullet hole.

  Around me, my friends have already moved out of my line of sight. Panic rises as I whip my head around to find them, blinking rapidly to clear the vision's cobwebs from my eyes. I find them facing off against half a dozen people, three Shade males, two Wraith men, and a Wraith woman, judging by their clothes and tattoos and even their haircuts. Shades typically wear their hair short and neat, while Wraiths are practically nonconformists about their hair. It gives away their origins now—and I recognize one, a Shade. I don't know from where, but I've seen him before. He stares at me with eyes narrowed, baring his teeth at me as another Shade grabs at the man's weapon, forcing the barrel downward. "Stop, you idiot! You could have hit the other woman. She's not the one we want."