They found their table, which they shared with eight other guests, including the mayor of Banff and the editor of the
Banff Crag & Canyon
newspaper. Rhys brought a bottle of champagne and poured her a glass.
“I don’t usually—“
“Tonight, I insist.” He pushed the glass towards her with a smile. “Drink.”
“So long as you’re driving.” She picked up her glass.
Rhys lifted his a little. “Long life.”
She drank and enjoyed the tickle of bubbles on her nose.
Time for a lesson
. He put his glass down and sat back, watching her.
Now? Here? With all this noise and people listening?
He looked around.
No one is listening to us. No one can hear us.
Jenna frowned, feeling her brow wrinkle, and glanced around.
There’s noise. Talk.
Exactly.
He lifted his glass up towards her again. “Can you think of another toast?” At the same time as he spoke, she heard his mental whisper:
and reach to me this way, too.
She lifted her glass. “To…” and tried to push a thought to him at the same time, but couldn’t do it. She could either speak, or push. She laughed a little.
Hell, who’s going to want to listen to two different things at once, anyway? Especially with all this noise.
It wasn’t particularly noisy—this was a very elegant crowd—but there was a lot of chatter around them and the music added its own filter.
The practice is useful, anyway
. He picked up her hand where it lay on the table and threaded his fingers through it.
I’ll need more sugar.
He tapped her glass.
Carbonated sugar
.
But her gaze drew to the back of his hand, at yet another scar there. It looked like an old burn. She ran her finger over it.
So many battles. Do you have only enemies? No friends, no peace?
There are many watchers. I know a lot of them.
His other hand came over hers, halting her finger from tracing out the scar and he gave her a quick glimpse of another party—far more rowdy and congenial than this elegant affair.
It had been filled with old friends and trusted companions. Although the glimpse gave her no overt clue she had the distinct impression it had been in England, some time ago.
Do you see your friends often?
She felt his mental head-shake.
I move around a lot.
How do you contact others? How does word pass?
Email. Fax. Telephone. The usual ways.
His mental laugh was a warm breeze through her mind.
She pushed her annoyance at him and showed him an imaginary computer screen, an email form and fingers typing out ‘slew two of the enemy today…lots of blood’.
There were ways before the electron was discovered, surely?
We are as limited as the rest of the world over long distances, but the fields tell us much. I knew where to find you, didn’t I?
But not specifics.
She took another sip of her champagne.
Are we not talking specifics now?
How far apart can we be to do this?
He shrugged, a physical shrug and shook his head a little.
Who knows? Some can only manage a quarter of a mile. Others, especially those who are bonded, can reach much further. And I have a feeling that you, Jenny, will out-reach all of us.
The diner on her left passed the bread basket to her and she passed it on to Rhys, along with her next question.
Someone must train the new watchers. There has to be some organizing body that runs the show.
Rhys tore his bun open and started spreading butter.
There is a council that oversees the general direction of our affairs and they act as the adjudicating body, too.
Over all? Over people like Hine, too?
Only for us.
The good guys?
She mentally rolled her eyes.
They are the only watchers who accept the binding principals and ethics.
Then your enemies operate under no laws at all!
The laws of physics limit them as they do any watcher.
Rhys picked up his knife and cut into his steak with a sharp jab.
They can be killed. Maimed.
The woman on Jenna’s left leaned towards her. “You two are such a quiet couple! I hope this table of oldies hasn’t scared you into silence?”
Jenna smiled and shook her head. “We’re just listening,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the rest of people at the table, all involved in conversations.
“And watching,” Rhys added.
* * * * *
Just as she finished her meal, Jenna felt a mental jerk, something like a silent inarticulate shout. There was a quality of surprise and pain in it, but that was all she caught before it faded. And she knew something else from the contact:
It wasn’t Rhys. The touch had been unmistakably feminine.
She glanced around, looking for him. He stood at the bar getting more champagne for them both and clearly, he had felt it too, for his head was down as he concentrated, ‘listening’ with every fibre.
Jenna stared at him. Had he not been able to distinguish where it came from? The direction had been unmistakable.
For the first time she really appreciated that she had skills Rhys did not share with her. Her sensitivity seemed to be more acute than his.
The shout had come from outside the function room and the doors were a few short paces away from Jenna’s table. The bar was on the far side of the dance floor. She rose and picked up her new evening purse. It had been the only place she could hide her knife, for the tight velvet sheath barely gave her breathing room. The washroom facilities were just outside the function room doors. There was a good chance most people would think she was simply heading there.
She turned left instead of right once she was outside the doors and hurried down the wide corridor. There were function rooms throughout this level of the hotel and she paused at each door, mentally sampling the space beyond.
Finally, she reached the door. She knew it was the one. The room beyond held the right space-shape and density. She couldn’t have explained it in words. It was just
right
. She pushed the swing door open enough to slip inside and stopped.
She blinked in the thick darkness. Ahead lay a gleam of diffused light. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she realized she looked at a very low light gleaming on a polished wooden stage. She was in a theatrette.
Twenty five or so rows of plush red chairs marched towards the stage, all of them empty.
She took a breath to calm herself. The tension curling through her she knew all too well, for she had been in these situations before. Keeping her breathing steady, she walked silently towards the stage.
Halfway there she heard a soft whimper of pain and froze. The sound had come from somewhere toward the back of the stage. She reached into her purse and pulled out the knife, but didn’t trigger the blade. Silently, she crept forward once more and climbed up the steps to the stage itself, using the sides and edges of the steps, where there was less chance of them creaking.
Ahead, a blur of white lay on the stage close to the back wall. Jenna moved towards it and found a woman lying in a pool of blood. She bled from the nose and mouth and her hand moved feebly against the floor, as if she were trying to ward something off. Jenna mentally touched her and felt an echo of something, enough to tell her this was the woman who had shouted.
Suddenly, he came at her.
She triggered her knife, whirling to fend him off. He came out of the wings, raising a lethal-looking police baton, ready to bring it down on the back of her skull if she had not been hyper-alert and heard his approach.
The fight was swift and ugly as only knife fights can be. Jenna dodged the falling baton, spinning aside like a bullfighter as he staggered past her. She kept turning so that she faced him again and now his back was to her. She grabbed his hair and yanked backwards, exposing his throat.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Suddenly, she was pushed aside by an invisible force. She staggered sideways, off-balance, until she came up against a solid brick wall. She spun around and saw his features for the first time. It was the man with the crooked bow-tie who had been watching her when they arrived at the party tonight.
Jenna glanced at the woman lying very still on the floor a few paces away. Yes, it had been she who had given him the drink and sat down beside him.
Jenna sampled him. She pressed back against the wall when she felt the roiling malevolence in the contact.
Evil and malice and directed at her. She felt a sick, dazed horror. “You did that to her. You killed her, just to bring me?”
His mouth turned down. “They said you wouldn’t move from Avaon’s sphere, but I knew you couldn’t resist a bit of suffering. And here you are.” He threw his hand up towards her and Jenna could almost feel the buffering wind of something passing her. Something invisible.
“Fuck!” He screamed it like a thwarted school boy. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had stamped his foot. She realized that he had…what? Thrown something at her. A force. Power.
And it had not touched her
.
From among the ferocious thoughts in his mind she plucked his name. “Blennie.”
He looked at her and she saw his fear grow. It took a few short seconds before it pushed him into physical action. He charged at her, screaming, his baton lifted high.
She stepped forward to meet him, her hand catching his wrist as it began to descend, the other pushing the knife into his gut and wrenching upwards. She pulled the knife out and stepped away, feeling the sick sadness that always touched her at such times.
It was magnified this time by her contact with his thoughts.
He fell to the floorboards with an impact that shuddered through the whole stage.
Had he forgotten she held a knife? No. He had deliberately baited her into killing him.
The theatrette doors flew open. “Jenna!” Rhys ran down the aisle and jumped onto the stage, his tuxedo jacket flying aside. He cupped her face then stepped back to check her quickly. He saw the knife and the tell-tale blood splatters and trail and turned to look at the body of the woman.
Then he walked over to Blennie. He pushed the baton with his toe.
“Blennie.” He turned back to face her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. He killed her, to get me to come.”
“And it worked, didn’t it?” Rhys’ tone was dry.
“Excuse me?”
“You did exactly what I told you not to do. You moved away from me.”
She stared at him, bewildered. “But…she called….”
Rhys pulled the knife from her hand and a kerchief from his pocket.
He rubbed hard at the handle of the knife with the kerchief.
Then he placed the knife in the woman’s outstretched hand and curled her fingers around the handle.
He pressed her fingers in a hard grip for a second or two, setting the prints.
He pushed Blennie’s body closer to her and extended the man’s arms out.
He stepped back to study it. “He hit her, but she held on long enough to stab him. He died trying to reach her again. It’s rough, but it will have to do.”
Then he caught her arm in his hand and pulled her towards the back of the stage and the fire door there. He hit it with his hand, shoving it open.
He pushed her through. “Move it. We can’t be caught up in this. I don’t know how long it will take for them to be discovered and we can’t be found anywhere near here.”