The House (31 page)

“You have seen
into my mind before. Would you like to begin now? The sooner we
start, the sooner you can get back to helping your friends.” It was
a great ploy; learn control and you can find your family. I growled
once and stood up.

“Garden. Ten
minutes,” I said. “And send Hercules back in.” I stood waiting with
my fists clenched tightly to my sides as Hercules poked his head
around my door. He nearly backed out again when he saw my face, but
being the stupidly brave man that he is, he walked into the room,
if a little sheepishly. “How dare you call my grandfather,” I
hissed. “How dare you let that vampyre into this House!”

“I didn’t know
he would bring Jalas. I don’t see what the problem…” I hit him hard
across the face with a closed fist so fast he didn’t have time to
see me move, let alone defend himself. This was beyond even what
I’d done during our fight. Somehow I knew that I could beat him if
I wanted it enough, not with magic but with pure strength and
speed. It felt good to hit him, to let out some of my anger.
Clearly I’d been unconsciously holding back during our fight in the
garden. He wobbled slightly but stayed standing. It looked like it
was a struggle though.

“If you ever
allow either of them inside this House again without asking me
first I will hurt you so badly you won’t even want to look at me
anymore. Understand?” I was standing so close to him that his
slight nod of his head would have connected with mine if he’d been
a few inches shorter.

I left before
I did anything else I was likely to regret. It really wasn’t his
fault that my grandfather had seen fit to bring my worst nightmare
into my home, my room. I’d apologise later.

No, not his
fault, but I would blame him anyway. It felt like our friendship
was tainted now. He had seen what my relationship with my
grandfather was like. He had seen it and he had not cared. He had
allowed him in when I was vulnerable, when I could not fight. There
was a part of me that would forever hold that against him and a
part of me that lamented that I would do so.

A light
drizzle had started outside but I was still unwilling to do our
training inside. I didn’t trust myself enough for that. I had also
put on old clothes after dragging myself out of bed in case I had
to shift. I don’t know why, but sometimes when magic goes a bit
haywire it’s easier to shift than try to control it. It dissipates
the magic somehow. Or maybe it just calls a different kind of
magic. I tried not to overanalyse it. There were plenty of people
more qualified who spent their time figuring it out, they didn’t
need me to help.

Jalas was
standing under the biggest umbrella I’d ever seen; it had to be
nearly three metres across and came halfway to the floor on all
sides. I could only tell it was Jalas because he is the only man I
know, except for my grandfather, to wear formal shoes every day.
Even my grandfather would have put boots on to stand in the mud. I
had to stop myself from smirking. Although I had a feeling that
Jalas had enough shoes not to worry about ruining one pair.

Sighing, I
made my way across the garden to the edge of the trees where he was
standing. I could feel my shoulders hunching up and I was
slouching. I made sure to straighten up before I ducked under the
edge of the umbrella into the dry microcosm within. I couldn’t face
him huddled up or crouched; it was too much like subservience for
my fried brain to handle.

When I stood
up I was ready to face what was coming, at least as ready as I was
ever going to be. I’d had to think through a lot of things on my
way from my bedroom to the garden. I had to trust Jalas, not
something I would ever do again lightly. Then there were the brief
flashes I had seen in the dungeon that had made me question his
trustworthiness even further. At least if I did something terrible
to Jalas it wouldn’t be that bad. Besides, vampyre tend to be
resilient to almost all types of harm.

Jalas stood
facing me and I realised that he wasn’t holding the umbrella. It
was sunk into the ground and anchored with three short ropes and
pegs. There was no way he’d brought the thing with him so it must
have been in the House, but I’d never seen it before. I had to
shake my head to get back to focusing on the task at hand. I was
distracted too easily, my thoughts trailing all over the place.

“You need to
concentrate,” Jalas said, and for a moment the sound of his voice
made a memory wash over me. Of us, together under an apple tree in
the summer. I thought I had forgotten most of our time together,
the parts that had involved friendship and love at least.
“Concentrate,” he said again, this time jolting me back to the
present. I had to remember why I was here; I had to focus on what
was at stake.

“I’m trying,”
I replied, and I really was. I screwed my face up in concentration,
trying to block out the many voices. It was useless; they were too
loud, too insistent.

“You’re trying
too hard. I said concentrate, not try.” Jalas had his old mocking
tone back. The one I had so hated when he’d trained me before. The
one that said I was stupid for not getting whatever it was he was
trying to teach me. It made my head pound. “You don’t block out the
voices, that’s too much – it would exhaust you and constantly take
every ounce of your concentration. Embrace the voices, hear them,
and separate them like you used to do with emotions.”

I remembered
the first time I’d had this lesson. I’d started to pick up more and
more random emotions from the people around me. Jalas had spent
weeks trying to get me to recognise the emotions, to accept them,
then dismiss them.

It was a lot
easier with emotions. They weren’t as loud, so I started with that.
Each of the voices came with a kind of emotional signature. I
separated out each individual signature in my head, and for a
moment it was like looking at hundreds of tiny images on a screen,
then I lost it. Everything shattered and the cacophony of the
voices returned worse than ever.

“It’s too
hard. There’s too much,” I whined. I hated whining but I couldn’t
stop myself. I was going to go crazy and I was going to be killed
for it. I think a part of me just accepted that, part of me had
accepted that my days were almost over and I’d given up. I couldn’t
find the motivation to keep going. Before my grandfather had
arrived I hadn’t even thought about what my powers might mean to
the witches, I was too worried about what they were doing to
me.

“Focus. It’s not difficult.” Jalas was stood there, the light
under the umbrella making him vaguely green. Telling me to focus,
telling me that it was easy. It was
not
easy. It was so hard that it
actually hurt to concentrate so much. It felt like my head would
explode with the effort. “Just visualise yourself and see all of
the voices as individuals. A series of people is far less
intimidating than a crowd.”

I knew what he
was saying made sense. I even knew that if I could master it I
might be able to lock onto Marie, Stripes and Shayana. If I could
do it. At that point I was just hoping to be able to function
normally. I couldn’t even begin to contemplate that I might be able
to help except in my wildest of dreams.

I tried again,
this time trying to separate out each signature one at a time. I
started with myself, pulling my consciousness away from the rest of
my mind. I felt what was me; every emotion that I laid claim to, my
memories, hopes and fears. I bundled it all up into one and did the
equivalent of set it aside in my mind. Next, I found a signature I
knew. I found Jalas’ mind, clear and close, shockingly open to me.
Of course, to be a good teacher you have to open your mind – he was
trying at least. The temptation to see into him was vast but I
bundled up his thoughts and put them aside.

The next mind
I found was Hercules, but I was careful not to look too deeply. I
had no wish to risk our friendship further by seeking out his
secrets and throwing them back at him. Eddie was closed off as
always and I could skim over him and set aside his surface
thoughts.

I continued
through everyone else in the House after that. Catherine was scared
like a rabbit in headlights and my heart went out to her. Her heart
was bigger than almost any other I had seen, and her mind was
always open. It left her vulnerable to pain and fear but it also
allowed her to laugh and sing with such joy as I could never truly
experience. I put her aside gently, as if to disregard her thoughts
in my mind would be to harm her.

My grandfather
was not far from the House and I found and catalogued him quickly,
afraid of what I would find in his mind. After that, I spent a
brief moment trying to find Marie. I knew her mind well. She had
helped to shape my training and had opened her mind to me many
times over the years. For a second, the hold I had on the minds I
had already found threatened to slip and I had to stop searching;
it took too much concentration.

I skimmed over
each signature, cataloguing it, and in essence forgetting each
before moving on. It was an arduous process, with some people
clearer than others, and separating out the vague thoughts was hard
work. Enough that I could feel sweat starting to bead on my
forehead. As I went through more and more people it got more and
more difficult to keep them all straight in my head.

“I can’t hold
them all in my mind at once,” I told Jalas. His face was passive
and unreadable. I hated trying to make sense out of his
expressions.

“Then don’t.
When you have found them stop listening to them.” It always sounds
so simple when he tells me to do something but I can never actually
do it. Stop listening, he said. How? It was like trying not to hear
when you’re in a room full of people shouting at you.

I focused on
the people I had already separated and tried to push their voices
away but it only made them louder. I stopped when I realised that I
was losing the control I had gained so far. It was exhausting
having to think about so many things at once. Multi-tasking was one
thing, but holding hundreds of different things in my mind all at
once was going to destroy me.

“It’s
impossible,” I whispered. It felt like if I spoke too loudly then I
would lose every bit of progress I had made. Not that my progress
was going to be helpful, since it was taking all of my
concentration to keep from going mad.

“It is not
impossible, it has been done before. This is no different to
ignoring the emotions you pick up, and you have been ignoring these
voices for years. This power could not have suddenly manifested.
Your power has been growing – an impossibility in itself – but it
has grown gradually.” Jalas sounded logical and intent but I was
having trouble concentrating.

Gradually, I
thought to myself. It didn’t happen gradually. A few hours, maybe a
day, and I had gone from hearing only when I looked and
concentrated intently to hearing everything.

Then I
stopped. A few hours, yes, but a few hours after Eddie had thrown
me from his mind. Looking into someone else’s mind can be
dangerous. A person who is very strong-willed can actually damage
some part of you if they resist. I hadn’t protected myself when I
entered Eddie’s mind; I hadn’t thought I needed to. I had been
wrong.

I let go of
all the conscious minds I had found so far in a rush. It wasn’t the
people I was hearing that I needed to concentrate on, it was
myself. It still wouldn’t be easy, in fact I had a feeling it was
going to be distinctly difficult, but I didn’t have any other
option.

“Jalas, help
me,” I whimpered like I was in pain, and in a way I was. It felt
like my head would split open. Letting go of the control I had
gained had left me worse off than I had been before, and I was fast
running out of energy reserves. I could not do this exhausted.

“I cannot help
you.” Jalas said in the same calm voice.

“Something
went wrong when I looked into Eddie’s mind. I need you to help me
find it. I need to look into my own mind and I need yours.” My
voice faltered and cracked but I managed to get the sentence out,
just.

“Very well.”
Jalas gripped my upper arms so suddenly I gave a cry. It was not a
bruising grip, although he was capable of it, but there was a kind
of pain there anyway. I could feel him so close – his mind, his
conscious being open to me. I took it; I had no way to be gentle so
I tried to be quick. His face hardened and I knew that, even if it
had not hurt him, the sensation of having your mind ripped from you
was not pleasant.

I took his
mind and wrapped it around a small part of me. Then, with a deep
breath, I plunged into my own mind. It was not something that I did
lightly, and I would have given much to have it be Marie and not
Jalas along for the ride. But Marie was not there and I had to do
this if I had any hope of helping her. I just prayed that it would
work.

It was
difficult, and I had never done this with Jalas before; I had never
allowed him into my mind. In fact, I did my best to stay out of
his. This would bind us together in a way that was not wholly
undoable. If there had been another choice...but there was not.

We rushed
through memory after memory and I kept myself shielded from them,
from my own mind. If I did not, I would never recognise what had
gone wrong. Jalas, however, was fully immersed in every memory. I
fought to guide our path to safer ground; memories that included
him I wanted to avoid. We had been together and you never really
want your former lover to look upon your memories of you together.
I didn’t know what he would see in them.

I found the
day that I had searched Eddie’s mind. There was a huge mental block
in there and the memory of it was astonishing. I thought now that
at least I should be able to help him more if he ever let me into
his mind again. But I had to concentrate on myself in that moment.
I could feel it; something was wrong, just out of place like a
joint that needed clicking. It was just about finding the right
part and hoping I could fix it. Some joints refused to click on
their own.