Afterburn by Karen L. Abrahamson
* * *
In the disintegrating house, Jason was unGifted sand to be washed away in the sea of change. But Vallon could not — would not — leave him to the whirlwind eddies that stole her breath, even if he were no help getting out the locked front door of her house. If she could even reach the door, her jacket.
Almost up to her waist in the syrup-thick floor, the change trapped her movements. Rain through the roof soaked them both, stinging in the swirling, haloed winds.
If she could focus her power on the floor under her she might be able to do it, but Jason’s shoulders and arms thinned when she tried to divide her focus. She couldn’t take a chance. He could be totally lost in an instant—or damaged irrevocably.
She half swam, half waded, toward the wall through nimbus light, dragging Jason with her. If she could get there she might pull them both through. But the walls had shifted first, glowed less than everything else, and looked suspiciously solid. A prison. A death trap.
Meant for her.
Almost there. She stretched out her hand through the abrasive change, the whirlwind of particles. Barely touched—gyprock felt solid, but the coat rack wisped away like Jason.
“No!”She sobbed. She didn’t want to die like this. She shifted toward the more distant door.
A crash stopped her dead. Around her the house contorted and became something new. The ceiling drew up and up, two stories.
Always wanted a vaulted ceiling. Bitter thought. But the rain stopped pelting her head.
Another crash and the floor thickened. Thickened to solid and it was impossible to move, floorboards squeezed in, and her flesh and pelvis groaned.
The crushing pain made it impossible to think. She could barely breathe. She was up to her waist and Jason was caught so only his face was free, though he no longer faded. The agony of failure filled her. It should not be like this. She was better than this.
Another crash and the front door splintered. Darkness and sheeting rain flooded in. She caught a glimpse of Fi’s terrified face and then a dark-cloaked figure rushed in on the wind.
The floor solidified where he strode, tall, dark with soaked, shoulder-length hair that glinted with rainbows in the room’s weird light. He reached her, grabbed her hand, and the floor seemed to release her on command. She stepped up, free.
“Focus,” he growled. “Focus on what this place is supposed to be and I will feed you power.”
“But….” The ferociousness of his black glance bit off her objection. She squeezed Jason’s hand and did as she was told. -Reached- and closed her eyes. Incense-and-cedar-scented power rammed in and joined with her own. She would have gone to her knees except for the dark man’s grip on her arms.
House: two-story. The curve of the corner staircase. The kitchen with its cupboards and open shelves of dishes. Her bedroom with its yellow quilt, the empty frames above the bed and Jason reclining on the bed. She stopped herself, wondering why she would place him there. But her hand was empty when she opened her eyes.
Basement, thus and so, the glittering silver seam there. Her belongings. The living room where they stood. The coat rack by the door. All as she recalled it, and power flooded in, filled her until she thought she would scream at the immensity of it, burst with its foreign-wine taste on her tongue. She felt faint with its humming in her ears, her bones, her teeth, as it flowed in and then out again to sculpt her house out of the acidic licorice power.
More than she could bear.
“You will hold steady,” he hissed into her ear. His hold dug into her arm.
It was all she could do to nod and stand against the licorice power that tore at her, tore at the house, the yard, the huge rhododendron bush outside. Stand against—with—the power he flooded her with. She recognized its taste.
Deep earth.
Then everything stopped. Between one heartbeat and the next the lashing wind ended. The stench of licorice faded in the wet breeze through the open door. Her house—the house she loved—ticked around her and her knees tried to give once more as the damned afterburn washed over her with its debilitating combination of lust and fatigue.
Too-strong hands set her trembling as they guided her to the couch and helped her sit, then handed her clothes that she’d dropped as she fled. Mortification flushed her face as she hurriedly covered herself, and hated his advantage.
She looked up at the owner of those hands. Dark skinned from too many years in the sun. Black eyes that showed too much awareness of her and a full mouth that was, dammit, too dangerously both cruel and kissable. Ink-black hair fell across his brow and in lank strands, but his hawk nose reminded her of mysterious, blue-clad men of North African deserts. Strange, when the rain off his trench-coated shoulders puddled on her hardwood floor. He looked perhaps forty years old.
“Is it over?” she asked feeling small and weak and not liking it. She yanked her shirt down over her head.
He looked around him as if inspecting the house, closed his eyes and—‘sniffed ’?—and she had the strange feeling that something swathed her like a cloak. He glanced her way and smiled. A good smile. One that didn’t look too-often-used.
“It is over for this time, yes. But we must leave this place.” He looked down at her and at the coffee table that somehow she’d remembered to imbue with two cups of half-drunk tea and a box of files. His smile—sardonic, now—flickered across his features and a hint of flame burned briefly in his eyes. Devil-man.
“Not badly done, Agent Drake. A good focus on the details.”
“I’m trained to spot details.” It came out resentful of his help and petulant as a small child. Not exactly how she wanted to represent herself. Not that she wanted to trust him—even if he had saved her and Jason’s lives. His cedar and incense filled her nose. Just how was she supposed to react to this man? She shook her head.
“Thanks for the help. That was one heck of a change.”
A quirk of brow, but he left her, peered into the kitchen, and had the audacity to go to the basement door, flick on the lights and peer down even though she knew the door had been locked. When he was done he returned to glance up the stairs to the second floor.
“Looking for something in particular?” If she weren’t so tired, if the afterburn weren’t so intense in his presence, she might have been less sarcastic.
“Modern methods leave many details unremarked and empty spaces breed all manner of beasts.”
“Like what just attacked my house?”
A hard, considering look this time, but something in the air made her feel safe. Not that she was looking for safety.
“Who am I to say?” His light, not-quite Spanish accent just aggravated his nonchalant words.
“How about the guy who’s been following me and trying to frighten me off?” She struggled to sit up, to find balance to face him, but it didn’t come.
“Is that what you think?” His small hint of a smile looked almost sad.
“What else am I supposed to think?” She staggered up to face him because he had frightened her before, and just because he’d helped her didn’t mean he should be trusted. Especially not when he wouldn’t answer her questions straight. Heck, the man held enough power to wipe her off the face of the earth—easily. “Just who are you, Xavier de Varga, and what do you want?”
That she knew his name didn’t seem to faze him.
“You would not believe.”
“Try me.” She crossed her arms and waited, then decided to start with the easy stuff. “For starters what have you done with Fi and Jason?”
“Your friend is still outside, I believe. Too smart to enter in the midst of such a power storm. The unGifted one? Wherever you put him, I suppose. Upstairs?”
That stopped her. She went to the broken door and checked outside. “Fi?”
A huddled figure stirred from the darkness near the rhododendron bush—she really needed to cut the darn thing back from the side of the house—and skittered across the sodden lawn.
“Vallon—Val? Are you all right?” Her eyes were huge, glassy pools in her face.
“Right as rain. Come on. Let‘s get you in where its dry and warm.” And hopefully stable.
Vallon draped her arm around her friend’s shoulders and brought her inside. Tremors jerked through Fi, and when she tried to push her hair back from her face her hands shook with palsy. Vallon sat her down on the couch, disregarding the potential damage to her upholstery, and turned back to the stranger in the room.
Too close. He studied her intently, and again his gaze showed a flicker of answering flame that made her afterburn surge. Just her type—someone she should be high-tailing it away from.
His eyes showed no sign of afterburn’s dilation, but judging by her pounding heart she was sure hers were. Heck, her heartbeat was so loud she was sure he’d hear it. And he had this damn expression in his eyes that could almost be protectiveness. She didn’t need protection.
“You are well? Your foe was—shall we say—difficult?”
And that was an understatement like she’d never heard. “What do you know about her? Who is she? Why is she doing this?”
Again the raised brow met the ragged forelock of his hair as he stepped up to her. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Gleason, so even though she was five foot seven she was forced to step back or feel diminished. After a step Vallon stood her ground. But damn he smelled good.
“Well?”
“Mea culpa, Menina. Many pardons. I had not thought you would know it was a she.” He shook his head.
And if she weren’t so tired, and if he hadn’t just looked at her in that way, she would have been pissed off. She stepped closer. “So you didn’t think I was skilled enough to get that sense?”
He raised his hands, but carefully avoided touching her. “Desculpe-me, Menina—sorry. I think no such thing. Only I was not prepared for you to know. It seems I underestimate you.”
“Damn straight.”
He quirked a nice grin. “You are my—how do you say?—favorite? Favorite.”
“Well ain’t that nice. Here I have a guardian angel who watches over me, but who’s prepared for me to be a little slow and a tad behind the times. So is that why you stepped in? You thought I couldn’t handle whoever she was—is?”
“Could you?”
The fact she couldn’t answer in the affirmative just aggravated the raging heat in her veins. The trouble was, just looking at his rugged features was like smoothing a cat’s coat. She wanted his touch and knew she didn’t dare. She gave one ragged shake of her head.
“At least you can tell me who you are.”
“Would it be enough to say, a friend?” He eyed her. “I suppose not. I am, as you named me—o Guarda—a guardian.”
“Guardian of what? From where? And why?”
“So many questions. I guard all things. It is a large job. Most tiring.” Another rakish grin. “I am sorry, but other than that I cannot say.”
She rolled her eyes at his attitude and his deflecting answer, and yet she definitely liked this man. No way was he going to give her what she wanted to know, but no way was she going to let him off so easily.
“Vallon?” Fi’s quavering voice broke Vallon’s attention. “I’m really sorry about what happened. I—I got scared when he came.” She looked nervously at de Varga and then at the door. “Then the other one came and I couldn’t stay. Something. I felt it in my toes, Vallon. All the way down in my toes and….” She shook her head. “I tried to stop it, Val. Really I did.”
A gust of rain blasted in from the doorway, sending raindrops skittering across the floor. Not rain—hail. Vallon fought the broken door back into the jam, afraid that Fi would cut and run. The door listed in the wall, a huge crack splitting the wood in two.
“I never wanted you to leave, Fi.” She turned back to de Varga.
“Fi, this is Mr. Xavier de Varga. He tells me he’s our guardian, which means you can call on him for help anytime. Right Mr. de Varga?” She half meant it as a taunt, a test.
“To be sure.” He half bowed in a manner so old-school she doubted her estimate of his age. His actions and speech suggested he came from the old courts of Europe, not modern-day Madrid or some such.
She planted her hands on her hips. “Good. Then now that we’ve got your role down, tell me. Who is she?”
“That, Senhorita, is one of the facts I have been trying to ascertain.” A shake of head. “It is not so easy. She is well guarded.”
Fi looked from one of them to the other, her expression strange. Her gaze returned to Xavier again and again, and she shivered.
“Here, sweetie, let’s get you out of those sopping clothes and I’ll check on Jason.” She looked at Xavier. “You. Don’t go anywhere.” She stopped herself. “Please?”
Another slight bow. “If I go, it will be at your side.”
His smile sent a frisson of goose-flesh across her skin. It was worse than anything she’d felt before. The attraction she’d felt for Jason was a pale thing by comparison. But then Xavier’s face went serious.
“You must hurry. We must leave. Already I feel the power build again. It will not be long and she will strike anew. We must get some place safe.”
That stopped Vallon on the stairs. She was tempted to -reach- to check his facts, but…. “Is there such a place?”
“I know of one or two.” That smile that sent sweet daggers into her chest.
“I’ll just bet you do,” she said to herself as she dragged Fi up the stairs. Because how the heck had she missed him when she was on the desk. A Gifted as powerful as he was would stand out like a bonfire on a dark night in the Seattle topography, and yet she’d never noticed him before.
But abandon her house and go with him? She knew nothing about him except he had stalked her. He could be an axe murderer for all she knew.
Except he had saved her house, her lover, and her; and his smile, his scent of incense and cedar of Lebanon, all made her weak in the knees. She rubbed her nose, trying to rid herself of the scent. A vision of dark faces over dark robes and awnings of red and blue shadows under sun-flared blue sky.
There was no help for it but to try to keep him near. Perhaps she could take advantage of his interest in her to learn all he knew. Landon would expect it, even if it weren’t her main job right now.
Come on Vallon, quit kidding yourself. You want to know more about him. She shook her head. God help her, it was true.
In the guest bedroom, she helped Fi out of her soaked clothing. In only her grayed bra and panties she was thin—too thin. She’d obviously been on the street a long time.
“I’m going to find you something else to wear. I’ll be right back.” Surely in her closet there had to be something that Fi might make do with. But Vallon had always been bigger—taller—than Fi, and now the bone-rack of Fi’s body said she would swim in Vallon’s clothing.
No help for it. She left Fi fussing in the bathroom and went to her room, hesitating before the closed door, still feeling the strange muffling of her senses. She’d assumed she’d find Jason here, but what if he weren’t? What if he were just gone, as most non-Gifted were gone when things changed?
During a change, reality shifted. Non-Gifted didn’t remember the change and also didn’t remember the people who were lost—at least that was what the AGS research had shown so far. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the Gifted did remember, the accuracy of their recollections dependent upon the level of their power. And with the number of Gifted in the population, it meant dramatic changes could bring about a national crisis if two segments of the population remembered things differently.
She inhaled and yanked open the door. Light from the hallway streamed in to illuminate the yellow bedspread, tangled sheets, and a patch of smooth skin. Suddenly she found herself holding her breath.
Dead or alive? She stepped inside and touched his shoulder and Jason—truly Jason - sighed and rolled toward her, his café au lait features caught
“Vallon,” he pulled her down beside him. “Why’d you leave?” A kiss that momentarily stole her breath and sent the afterburn surging, and yet she stiffened because he was downstairs.
Yet she opened her mouth to Jason’s tongue, allowed him to ease her down next to him, the afterburn flashing and glittering inside her, demanding release.
The memory of Xavier’s hands on her sent her upright on the bed. Not Jason’s hands.
Broad, spatulate hands on her arms as power poured through her like an intoxicating symphony of music-color-scent. She remembered it now. Intimacy that left her breathless as his power found her deepest core.
He had known it, too. Thus the smile as if he waited for her to realize he knew more than simply the visual curves of her naked skin.
“Vallon? What is it?” Jason’s hand stroked down her arm, came around her to cup her breast as he nuzzled her neck and kissed her there.
She leapt up, shivering at the feeling she was trapped here. “Get up. Get dressed. We have to leave.”
“You’re sure?” He stretched like a jungle cat and sent a heavy-lidded look in her direction. “Wouldn’t we have more fun here?”
She shook her head impatient with his bedroom banter. “It’s too dangerous. He says we need to find some place safe.”
He rolled out of bed, puzzlement on his face, but beautiful in his nakedness. He tried to grab her again. “He?”
She ducked away, leaving him to grab clothing that shouldn’t be there.
“Xavier de Varga is downstairs right now. We were—attacked. We need to leave my house.”
“Attacked?” He stepped into his boxers, then turned to her. The broad V of his chest sent the afterburn keening. But now was not the time and Jason Bryson was no longer the figure of her desire.
Tucking his shirt into his trousers he came up to her, ran his hands up her arms so she shivered. “This isn’t over, Vallon. I intend to do more than have sex with you.”
“Really? My name isn’t Cheryl, and I’m not about to get involved with someone who’s so obviously still grieving.”
The café au lait color rouged in the hallway light.
“That was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened.”
“The whole darn thing was a mistake.”
He used his thumb edge on her jaw, her lip. “So say you.” He leaned down to plant a kiss, but she was too quick for him.
“Go on downstairs. Xavier’s there. I’ve got to find Fi some dry clothes.”
She flicked on the bedroom light and felt his gaze on her as she ransacked her closet for the smallest pair of jeans and t-shirt she could find, as well as an oversized sweatshirt, underwear, and bra. She bundled them together and stood. He was still there, puzzlement on his face.
“I remember.”
She almost dropped the clothes. “What do you mean?”
“You said we were attacked. I remember—some of it. The house fading away and I was—stretched, I suppose is the best description I can come up with. And then I don’t remember anything until just now when you woke me.”
She didn’t know what to say, because she was an idiot for letting slip that they were attacked, and it was frigging impossible that he could remember anything.
She pushed past him because she just couldn’t have this conversation. Gleason would have a bird. “You’re talking crazy.”
“It’s like Cheryl’s grave, isn’t it? Like what happened to Agent Lamrey?”
She stiffened and marched into the guest bedroom.
“Fi? You decent?” No answer. “Fi?” She pushed inside and the bedroom lay empty. Went to the bathroom and found Fi crouched on the floor, a white towel half-wrapped around her, her long wing of matted dreads covering her face.
“Fi? What is it honey?”
Terrified eyes looked up at her. “She looked at me.” Fi’s soft voice echoed off the white tiled walls. “I looked in the mirror and saw her.”
Fi’s quavering voice died in the room and she rocked against the sink vanity. Vallon knelt beside her and opened herself but there was no stench of licorice.
“It’s okay, Fi. She’s not here. It’s only me and you, just like old times. See?” She pulled Fi into her and smoothed her hair back from her face, motioned around them. “See?”
A nod into her chest, but the shivers still ran through Fi.
“I found some clothes that might fit. You interested?”
A slight nod and Vallon helped Fi to her feet and led her out into the bedroom.
“Here’s the stuff. It’ll probably be big, but it’s the best I can do.”
“Still good.” Fi held the clothing up to her emaciated figure and a slow smile of old delight flickered a moment. “Good taste, I see.”
“I had a good teacher.”
There was a fleeting sense of concern on Fi’s face.
“You, Fi. I meant you. Remember how you were always showing me what was in style?”
Fi’s expression steadied and her gaze grazed over Vallon’s rumpled attire of jeans and t-shirt. “You have your own style now.”
After dressing and Fi finger-combing her mass of hair back from her face, Vallon led her downstairs to find Jason and Xavier eyeing each other like two roosters across the opened box of files. Her stomach clenched. She flipped the box shut.
“Detective Jason Bryson, Xavier de Varga, the man in black and apparently my guardian angel. Xavier de Varga, Detective Jason Bryson. In case the overload of testosterone stopped you from introducing yourselves.”
“Aah, the charm of Senhorita Drake. But then, you have noticed.”
Vallon frowned in Xavier’s direction. His face had gone predatory again, now-dilated eyes tracking Jason as he stood to offer Vallon or Fi his seat. Vallon waved the offer away.
“If we’re leaving, now’s as good a time as any. I just need to get Maggie.”
“Maggie?” Xavier frowned.
“Maggie the Magnificent,” Fi offered, smiling.
“More like Her Majesty, Maggie,” Vallon said.
“Her cat,” Jason explained, a tinge of petty triumph in his voice that he knew and Xavier did not.
Something Vallon needed to nip in the bud right now.
“She’s usually inside at night.” The horrifying thought crossed her mind that Maggie might have been lost in the change. She felt a stab of guilt that she hadn’t thought of her cat when she was trying to save the house.
“But she came outside with me, Vallon,” Fi said. “I had to chase her home. We’re good buds, Maggie and I.”
And that was probably true. “You probably gave her more attention today than I usually do in a week. She’d be your slave for life, for that and an extra meal.”
Fi’s bright gaze faded. “Wasn’t I supposed to feed her?”
All Vallon could do was shake her head. “Of course you could feed her. She’s the world’s biggest con artist. I’ll bet she had you thinking I starve her.”
“Well….”
Vallon draped her arm across Fi’s shoulders and felt the other woman tense. Either she felt Vallon’s afterburn or else she wasn’t used to being touched. “So let’s find my little manipulator and then blow this pop stand.”
“We should not wait. The power builds, Vallon. Look and you will see.”
In one stride Xavier was across to her, grabbed her hand. It wrenched her out of her body as he drew her against him. Down, down through the earth’s crust, the soil shimmering around her. Down deeper—too deep, and it burned her blood, her flesh. About to ignite, she fought him. Drove a fist into him, but not before he forced her to see.
Something. A fissure in the earth, growing and glowing, a space where three of the lines of the earth web met to become a glowing mass of barely contained power.
She fell back into her body and staggered back from Xavier. “What the hell was that?” she panted. Jason came up beside her, bristling with an apparen
“Your fate, Senhorita. Unless you leave here quickly.”
Jason tried to put an arm around her and she jerked away.
“Would you both just stop? I don’t need anyone’s protection.” Even if it might not be true.
Both men raised their brows and suddenly this place was just too crowded.
“Listen, pick a place and you two head out. Fi and I’ll get Maggie. We’ll meet you there. Okay?” She motioned to the file box.
“But we need to talk,” Jason said.
“We’ll talk there. Please. I just need some space for a moment. Now where?”
Xavier and Jason eyed her, neither of them looking particularly happy.
“There is the danger,” Xavier began.
“I’ll be fast. Just catch Maggie and be gone.”
“How about Denny’s on Broadway,” Jason offered. “You know where that is.”
“Denny’s. Fine. I’ll see you there. Now scat.” She herded the two men to the door. She needing space to get the raging afterburn under control or there was going to be a threesome on the floor pretty darn quick. She shoved them both outside, and then turned to Fi.
“Let's find Maggie.”
Vallon motioned for Fi to get the file box and ran into the kitchen to pull Maggie’s soft-sided carry case out of a cupboard. She went to the back door and Fi followed, carrying the box. The door opened onto the rain.
“Maggie!” Softly, so she wouldn’t disturb the neighbors.
No sign of her, and Vallon’s stomach turned. “She couldn’t have been changed. I wouldn’t let that happen to her.”
But the doubt was there. She’d never been good at holding onto anybody. What made her think she’d be able to save her cat?
She reclaimed her shoes and jacket from the front door and Fi donned her camo jacket and the two stepped out into the back yard.
“Maggie! Maggie!” Hopefully loud enough the cat would hear.
“Vallon, there!”
Vallon turned around to where Fi stood in the rain near a splash of light from the kitchen window. Rain beat a tattoo on the branches of the cedar and juniper that grew under the kitchen window. A small white snout protruded from under a black mask and two glowing eyes.
“Maggie.” Vallon knelt down and held her hand out to coax her cat. “Come on, puss, puss, puss.”
Maggie backed further under the brush.
“Come on, girl. Kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Bright little eyes stared out at her in clear satisfaction that she was nigh-on unreachable, backed in as far as she was among the cedar boughs. Vallon sat back on her heels. Her knees were soaked from kneeling on the sodden grass. Her hair hung in lank lengths around her face. She was going to have to get down on her belly to get the cat, and she was going to have to do it soon. The scent of licorice was growing in the air, almost overpowering the cedar scent.
“Vallon?” The stage-whispered male voice brought Vallon up off the ground in one smooth movement to face Jason where he came through the rear gate.
“I thought I told you to leave?”
“Shh.” He held his finger to his lips. Crossed the grass to her. “Xavier and I were on our way to our cars when we spotted a black van parking a few blocks down. Eight men climbed out and they’re heading this way. I recognized one of them. Saw him heading into the AGS while I was working up the courage to go in.”
Vallon set aside her need to comment that the men could set aside their differences when the mood suited them, and whirled toward the front of the house and
-reached-. Up the block came the flare of power that could only be Xavier.
Then she swept her awareness downhill, wondering why Gleason would be sending men after her now. But there was no flare of Gifted power.
Which meant it wasn’t the AGS coming for her. “Dammit. We have to get out of here.”
“Isn’t that what I was saying?” He went to grab her hand.
“Get Fi out of here. I have to get Maggie.”
Jason shook his head. “You take Fi. I’ll get Maggie. Don’t try for your car; they’ve marked it. Xavier’s at his suburban up the hill and around the corner. I’ll meet you all at Denny’s.”
It wasn’t how she wanted it, but there wasn’t much she could do. “If you see—feel—anything, anything out of the ordinary happening with the house, you get the heck out of here, understand?”
He nodded and she leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks Detective Bryson. Your wife was a lucky woman.”
And then she was running across the sodden yard, Fi’s hand in hers. She stopped to check the lane and heard Jason swearing at the cat. When she looked back he was belly-down under the bush.
Then she slipped out of the yard, dragging Fi with her from shadow to shadow, up the hill past garbage cans and locked garage doors, praying they wouldn’t be seen.
Chapter 19—Bells Rung Underwater