Forsaken (23 page)

She'd
just changed over to my other calf and I could feel the muscles
relaxing almost against my will.

"Very
good. I think that is as much as I can answer for you right now, but
you're correct in your supposition so far. You know, I'm surprised
you haven't asked me the question I get from almost every one of my
fans."

"Why
you haven't written more books?"

"Exactly.
I wrote three books in less than a year, and while they have never
sold millions of copies, they've been extremely well-received in some
circles. Almost everywhere I go, I get asked when I'll be writing
another book."

I
was feeling whipsawed. The change back to something as mundane as her
job wasn't where I'd expected her to jump next.

"What
do you tell the people who ask you that?"

"I
lie to them. I tell them I've exhausted my store of
creativity, that I'm not sure I have another novel in me. The truth
though is that I've continued to write. I'm almost compelled to
write, but I've never allowed anyone else to read my later work, and
I have no plans of submitting it to a publisher."

Nothing
I'd ever read about her, none of the interviews she'd given over the
years, had even hinted at anything like this.

"But
why?"

The
question had popped out of me without conscious thought on my part,
but it was the question I wanted answered more than anything else at
that point.

"I
don't write for other people. I write to help me remember the really
special people I come across. Normally I wouldn't have even published
those three books, but someone I respect very much, someone I trust
almost implicitly, told me there was a very important reason to publish
those particular books."

She'd
moved up to my thighs now. Her efforts were so amazing that I was
having a hard time staying awake. A part of me worried that
this was all a trick, that it wasn't natural for me to be relaxing
this quickly, especially not with someone I didn't know. Most of me
just couldn't be bothered.

I
managed to get another question past my lassitude though.

"Why?"

This
time she laughed out loud. "Those three books were written for
the purpose of bringing today about. I'm sure they had other
benefits. He...well, he doesn't do anything for just one purpose.
I like to think they have helped the world at large in some small
way, but they were written with you in mind."

I
felt like maybe I'd missed something there. She was working my neck
over, but I couldn't remember how she'd gotten there. Everything from
my shoulders down felt like a puddle though, so she hadn't skipped
anything.

I
managed one last 'why' and I heard her sigh in sadness this time.

"What
would you do if you knew a future was coming in which the world would
be torn asunder? You don't have to answer because I already know;
I've seen it. You would fight with everything you had to try and save
the innocents who would be endangered. I'm doing the same thing. I
was faced with two paths, two ways of bringing about a future where
humanity has a chance of surviving. All I can hope is that I chose
correctly."

Vanessa
turned me over and started on the front of my legs. Being flipped
over should have pulled me out of my near coma, but I just couldn't
manage anything more than passive assistance. I tried to get another
question out but my whole body felt light and energized and my mind
seemed to be shutting down.

I
thought I remembered her touching my face, softly rubbing the scar
that Raphael had given me, but it might have just been my
imagination. When I finally opened my eyes it was nearly morning and
the only evidence that it all hadn't just been a dream was staring
back at me in the mirror.

My scar was gone, and the apartment was empty.

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Kristin
found me in the middle of a picnic of all things. Tasha had barged
into my studio an hour before lunch with a teasing look in her eye
and cajoled me into agreeing to show her more of the estate.

I
suspected she'd already ranged through the entire estate on her own,
but she was right that it would do me good to get out of the house. I
hadn't been painting, not really. I'd actually put my brush to the
canvas, but it hadn't been like before, I hadn't had any vision of
what I wanted to create. I was just playing with shapes and colors.

I
agreed mostly because Tasha had been right. I needed to get away from
the house and spend some time outside. We'd just laid the food out
when Kristin showed up.

"Alec,
we need to talk. Right now."

She
obviously didn't want Tasha in on the discussion, but I'd already
considered leaking knowledge of Kristin's dreams to the rest of the
world. It shouldn't hurt as long as we kept her close by and it might
even make one or two of the challengers reconsider.

"If
it's about your dreams you can tell me now. Tasha may as well know
about that, too."

Kristin
didn't look happy at the order. I felt my beast test its bonds with
a surge of power, but I kept control of it. My beast was harder to
control lately, but that didn't matter. I was a dominant. I
controlled my beast; it didn't control me. It had become my personal
mantra lately, and sometimes it even worked.

This
turned out to be one of those times. I managed to just wait
expectantly until Kristin finally nodded.

"Okay,
yeah. I had another of my precognitive dreams. It was another
challenge match, but this time was different."

Tasha
sat up and leaned forward. She was either doing a very good job of
acting surprised, or we'd actually managed to keep Kristin's
abilities a secret so far. I was betting on the latter. Even Addison
seemed to have finally realized that leaking information
to the world at large was asking for serious trouble.

"How
was it different?"

She
shot me another frustrated look, like she wasn't happy that I was
rushing her, but she waved her hand and shrugged.

"It's
hard to describe. It was like I was dreaming and then suddenly I was
watching two time streams at once. We're going to have a challenger,
a big guy with red fur. You send Ash in first and he gets off a
couple of shots, but they bounce off of something. It was kind of
like an air shield or something."

I
looked over at Tasha, but she shook her head. "That doesn't ring
any bells. When we get back to the house I can pull up a list of
known dispossessed with red fur in their hybrid forms, but I've
memorized every hybrid with known abilities and an 'air shield'
doesn't ring any bells."

I
frowned. I didn't like unknowns generally, but they were becoming
more and more frequent lately.

"So
someone who just manifested a new power?"

"Possibly,
but my money would be on someone who's had a power for a while but
has kept it quiet so far. It occasionally happens and isn't a bad
idea. If your power isn't strong enough to serve as a deterrent then
you're better off holding it in reserve as a surprise. If he were to
challenge and win while displaying a new power, it would probably buy
him some time before the stream of new challengers started back up.
Nobody would be eager to go up against a complete unknown like that."

I
sighed and turned back to Kristin. "Okay, there's nothing else
we can do about that right now. What happened next?"

"I
think Jasmin and Isaac were still hurt. I think I saw them there with
us, but they weren't moving like normal and you didn't send them into
the fight."

"Okay,
so the challenger is going to arrive sometime in the next day or two.
It makes sense; your visions haven't ever predicted more than a day
or so in advance."

"Right,
that's what I figured, too. Anyways, Ash took a couple of shots at
this guy and then when the bullets ricocheted off, James jumped in.
James got his butt kicked. It was almost like having to fight a guy
with three arms. James would find an opening and go for it but the
air shield would pop back up right where he was going to attack and
deflect the blow."

I
wasn't liking the sound of anything she was telling me, but I started
making a list of questions to ask once she was done. I needed to know
whether or not the 'air shield' could be used offensively, too.

"So
James was trying really, really hard, but he kept getting blocked and
then the other guy tore into him. That's when the future kind of
diverged. In one future, you jumped in and attacked the challenger
right after he sank his claws into the left side of James' chest. In
the other timeline, you just sat there and let James keep fighting."

I
nodded, trying very hard to keep my frustration in check. It was
obvious Kristin was having a hard time processing everything she'd
seen in her dream. It was understandable; I doubted that
the human mind was meant to be able to see two things at once like
that.

"What
happened after that, Kristin?"

"In
the first one, the one where you jumped into the fight, you...you
died. It happened too fast for me to see all of it, but it seemed
like he blocked you so hard that you missed a step. He...he got
around behind you a split second later and killed you within a couple
of minutes."

A chill washed through me. It wasn't every day you had someone
predict your death in quite such specific detail.

"What...what
happened in the other timeline?"

Kristin
stared at me blankly for a couple of seconds and then shook herself
slightly. "The blow to James' chest missed his heart, assuming
you guys actually have a heart. He fell backwards, but the other
hybrid didn't follow up, almost like he was expecting you to attack.
James pulled himself up to his feet and kind of looked at you for a
second like he was expecting you to jump in, too. You told him to get
back in there or Dom would suffer."

My beast tried to break free again. It wasn't the kind of thing we
would have done, and my other half wanted to challenge Kristin's
version of the future. Again, I managed to keep it in check despite
the torrents of power running off of me. Tasha unobtrusively slid
back slightly, putting a little distance between us, but Kristin was
too deep into her memories to notice my internal battle.

"James
got angry then and attacked again. He clinched with the challenger,
and they tore at each other for a couple of seconds and then I saw
James lose control of the challenger's left hand. He took another
pretty bad wound to his chest, but then you joined the fight. You did
something with your foot, it was like you trapped his foot and
then flipped him around. You killed him a few minutes later."

I
took a couple of deep, calming breaths as my beast finally backed
down fully and then nodded to Kristin.

"Okay,
thanks, Kristin. You can go now. I appreciate your warning."

Tasha
held up a hand and shook her head. "You should keep her around,
Alec. We still need to plan how you're going to handle the challenge
when it shows up."

"No,
there isn't anything else she can tell us. I know about both of those
time streams, which means I should be able to avoid them when the
actual fight happens. Her dreams interfere with the future she sees
just by their very nature. I'll tell James what to expect from this
guy, and he'll do a better job in the fight than he otherwise would
have."

I
got the feeling Tasha was just giving me enough rope to hang myself
with, but she gestured for me to go on.

"Once
James has worked this other hybrid over a bit then I'll jump in and
use the technique Kristin just described to end the fight."

Tasha
gave me a look like I'd just failed some kind of verbal exam and then
she turned to Kristin and started asking questions.

"In
the first vision Alec died, but James was okay because the blow
didn't get his heart. Did James die in the second vision?"

Kristin
shook her head, but the motion didn't communicate very much certainty
to go along with her answer.

"I
don't think so. At least, he wasn't dead when the dream ended. There
was a lot of blood, but the last injury was to his right side."

Tasha
nodded. "And the challenger, in the second version was his leg
injured? The one that Alec used to knock him down?"

Kristin
shrugged. "I don't remember. There was a lot of blood, some of
it his, some of it James'. James might have injured his leg, I just
can't be sure."

"Okay,
last question for now. In the second version, the one where Alec
survived, how injured was he?"

Kristin
started to answer and then stopped and looked at me. I nodded for her
to proceed, which earned me a frown.

"He
was pretty hurt. Again, it was hard to tell how much of the blood was
his and how much was the challenger's, but he was hurt pretty bad."

"Thank
you, Kristin. You can go now."

She
shot me another unhappy look as she left, but she left. Tasha waited
until she was out of hearing range and then turned back to me.

"Don't
tell James anything. Right now you need to try and avoid changing the
future any more than you already have. The best scenario is for you
to do exactly as Kristin described in the second timeline. Send Ash
in, then send James in, and keep him in there until he takes the
second serious injury to his chest."

My
beast was back, and he wasn't happy with what she was proposing.
"You're asking me to send James in blind, and then to leave him
in the fight longer than I should and risk him dying."

"Kristin
just told you he'd be fine. What I'm asking you to do is to follow
the timeline you know will let you survive this fight. You recognize
that Isaac and Jasmin still aren't at one hundred percent yet, but
you seem to have forgotten that you're still not quite back to normal
either."