Chapter 16
Channel [ chan -l ] noun
An intangible passage through which a Talent can access power. Only partially formed at birth, its ripening occurs with the onset of puberty and coincides with a Talent’s halos coming in.
– Excerpt from A Treatise on Talents , Third Edition
“The harvesting of wild Talents has gained us access to several Original Houses. Our directed breeding programs should be back on track for the foreseeable future. It’s fortunate. The global demand for what these creatures are capable of has become more lucrative than anticipated. After having such success with the Breaker line’s physicals, we’ve introduced cosmetic enhancements to the others. I have high hopes for the marketability of the next generation…”
– L. Merkel, Head Geneticist,
The Source
Flynn unwrapped another io-bar. They’d crossed the border and were clear of the territory controlled by the Corporation. The storm had already passed through this stretch and had stalled out over the mountains; nothing but clear sailing ahead.
It should’ve felt better than it did.
He sighed around a bite, slowing down to pull off the interway. The sides of the exit to Hamlin were choked with clumps of debris and it was partially blocked by a downed tree. Still too early for a work crew, but a transport had made it passable. Flynn scraped past its frozen limbs, teeth clenching at the noise.
Pulling past it, he put the car in park. There was a thick crust of ice on the ground, and the ramp was slick. He clomped over the terraced, chest-high snowbank to a stand of firs, needing to piss. He stared at the ward Miriam had left amidst the trees while he did. Once he broke it, she’d know he was back, which meant so would Cal…and Lot.
He zipped up. Out of options he never had. Motherf?—
He triggered the damned thing, and went back to the car, stretching out his shoulders. Four more hours in this piece of shit. Kara’s eyes cracked as he crammed himself into the driver’s seat. She looked like she’d been put through the wringer. Wan in the pale morning light, dark shadows smudged beneath her eyes. He ran a thumb over one, and she sighed, limp. Her exhaustion felt wrong.
He drove to the end of the ramp, starting through a long valley. The road at the bottom was shittier than he remembered. To either side, tall mountains were black against the sky. The sun would’ve been just above them if they could’ve seen it through the thick cloud cover.
“What happened?”
He glanced over. Damn, she looked like shit. “The Commandant showed up. Your extra. That’s why they want you so bad, isn’t it?”
“My what?”
“You know, whatever extra thing your talent lets you do. Jester’s an Original House, and you’re a throwback. You must’ve manifested at least one.” She looked at him blankly. “Kara, when I was fixed back there, I couldn’t pull.”
She gave a weak snort and closed her eyes. “Liar. The last thing I remember is your halos blazing. You pulled more talent than I’ve ever seen.”
He ran a hand through his hair, agitated. “But it wasn’t just mine, I was pulling talent from you, through the bond. I couldn’t even touch mine until they were halfway across that bridge. Then I…I don’t know how to explain it. It was like our talent meshed, and I phazed us.”
“What?”
“I phased. Christ, it’s a kid’s story about something my line used to be able to do, but I actually did it, cloaked our mass, twice! That squad went right through us and didn’t have a clue we were there. I just drove through the blockade.” He laughed. “It was fucking amazing.”
Kara stared out the window, that weird numbness over her emotions again. “Nora said it was from the damage Riegel did to my channel when he—Glory… What else didn’t she tell me?”
Flynn winced. “Kara, I?—”
She turned her face away, and he dropped the subject, feeling like a complete asshole. When he glanced over again, she was asleep. Christ, she needed it. He checked the gas. They should have just enough to get them there. Maybe. He’d have to stop at the stash.
Flynn drove another couple hours before coming to the bridge. He found Cal’s emergency can and dumped gas into the tank. All the io-bars he’d been eating sat in his stomach like a brick. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
He wedged himself back into the car and laid a hand on Kara’s forehead. She looked awful. The shadows under her eyes had blossomed into deep bruises, and her cheeks were sunken and waxy. That exhaustion…
Flynn’s stomach dropped, and sweat broke out over his body, certain it wasn’t going to get better on its own.
He’d called her a battery. That thread he’d drawn on so heavily…it was thin as spider’s silk. She’d been drained, and the last of her was trickling out. A blinding wave of panic crashed over him, vomit rising in his throat.
She was dying.
He had to get her to Miriam, and they were still about two hours away .
He got them to the farm in one.
Flynn skidded the car up to the front porch and ran around to the other side of the car.
“Miriam!” he roared, throwing open the passenger door and scooping Kara up. He turned, his eyes snapping to his aunt’s scarlet updo. She and Cal had come out onto the veranda.
Gasping, she crossed herself, stumbling as Flynn shouldered past. “Put her in the back bedroom?—”
He rushed down the hall, everything a blur, and laid Kara on the bed. Christ, she looked like shit. Miriam came in on his heels and pushed him to the side, fingers worrying at the crucifix of her rosary.
“I need to be able to see.” She dropped her cat’s eye glasses, scanning Kara from head to toe. “You listen to me close, Laughlin James Scot, you’ve gotten this girl in a very bad way.”
He bit his lip, his aunt cementing what he already knew. Please God, I won’t ask for another fucking thing ? —
“You need to push her talent, but careful now…” She looked at him at a loss, beginning the Our Father under her breath.
Frantic, Flynn took Kara’s hand in his, falling to his knees at the side of the big brass bed. She looked so small…he pressed her cold knuckles to his lips. Push her talent… A frustrated sob escaped him. How the fuck was he supposed to do that? He bent his head, trying to ignore Miriam’s murmured Hail Marys, the click of beads against her wedding band measuring out the moments. Scrunching his eyes tight, he quested for that ethereal thread that ran between him and Kara.
It was there, a shadow of gossamer.
He pulled talent, then hesitated, feeling like he was bringing a firehose to bear on thistledown?—
Shit.
He couldn’t push her talent. But maybe if he offered enough of it up…
Flinging his channel wide, Flynn gorged himself with the stuff. Halos blazing, burning with it, he held it.
Gradually, painfully, so very slowly, the thread wicked talent up, inching it across their diaphanous link, through the metaphysical divide, to her .
Another bead clicked past on Miriam’s rosary.
One of sweat slid down his temple.
Kara’s breath caught. Time skipped a beat.
Then exploded forward.
All at once, there was a greedy sucking. He collapsed against the bed, his lungs robbed of air. His eyes sprang open, the velocity of talent streaming through him to Kara making his insides feel rope burned.
“Glory Be! She’s got it now!” Miriam kissed her rosary, and it was replaced with a towel. She snapped it at Flynn, cracking it against his bicep.
At the sting of it, he inhaled sharply, coughing. He trembled, climbing off the floor to sit beside Kara, brushing her hair from her brow, swearing he’d never siphon another tank of gas as long as he lived. The color bled back into her cheeks with the torrents of talent she was taking up. The reality of how beat to shit she was solidified along with his sense of her. Flynn ran a hand over his eyes, dashing the moisture from them. Christ, he was an asshole.
“What in God’s name happened? They almost died!” Miriam glared at him, hands planted on her ample hips.
Flynn ran a shaking hand through his hair, feeling sick. “I don’t know. I didn’t know what it was. I just pulled, and phazed, and?—”
A disbelieving grunt sounded from the doorway. Cal stood there, obligatory cigarette smoldering below the thwap of walrusry grizzling his upper lip. Miriam frowned at them both and scanned Kara again. Flynn couldn’t remember ever seeing his aunt so pissed. She was a thundercloud of a woman when she was mad.
“You let them take what they need. I want that bond wide open, or so help me—None of that cloaking nonsense, you hear?”
He nodded, only half listening. Kara looked better, her breathing slow and deep. He touched her cheek, bringing his forehead to hers, if he’d lost her…the thought made him wanna puke. He pressed his lips to her brow, then stood to thank Miriam.
Her palm cracked his face to the side. Flynn stumbled back, grabbing his jaw.
Shit !
Miriam glared at him over the rims of her glasses, her wide mouth turned down. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Laughlin James Scot. In the meantime, do not so much as touch that bond or you’ll kill them both. I don’t even want you in this room without me. She needs rest and plenty of it.”
Flynn was about to argue when her words registered. Them. He put a hand out to steady himself.
A kid?
Cal laughed around his cigarette. “When you step in shit, you sure do pick the biggest pile. Congratulations boy, sounds like you’re gonna be a daddy.”
Flynn’s shock morphed into a wide grin.
His aunt pursed her lips. “Come and get something to eat. You look half starved.” She swept out of the simple, butter yellow room, floor-length crinoline skirts eddying around her, the heels of her boots striking the scoured oaken planks like bullets.
A kid. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. Cal grabbed him by the arm and steered him stumbling from Kara’s bedside into the kitchen, sitting him down at the long farm table. He wet a rag from the tap and threw it at him. It barely registered when it smacked up against his shirt, his heart too big for his chest.
A kid!
“Clean yourself up. Looks like you got in a fight with a cat and lost. Why do I have a vivid recollection of telling you to keep your dick in your pants?” his grandfather asked, rolling another cigarette. Miriam clucked her tongue loudly at him. Cal didn’t spare her a glance.
The words cut through Flynn’s euphoria, and he bristled before tamping it down. Hanging his head, he tossed the rag between his hands a couple times, then meet Cal’s eye.
“Because you did, and I swear I tried, but let’s be honest, you sent me to get Kara knowing I wasn’t gonna be able to leave her alone. How I was stupid enough to think I was out of all this and wouldn’t end up doing exactly what you and Mom…” His voice cracked and he couldn’t finish.
“No, I sent you out there because I knew you’d find her.” Cal lit another cigarette and blew out a long plume of smoke. It billowed into the kitchen, eating up the savor of whatever Miriam was cooking. “And the only way out of your obligations is the grave. From what I gather, you gave that your best shot. God’s got other plans for you, and so do I. You clue Kara in?”
Flynn pulled his beanie off, running a thumb over the wolves. He didn’t want to talk about it. His grandfather grunted. Fuck him.
Miriam came over and took Flynn’s chin between her plump hands. “Oh, Laughlin, you shaved and let someone fix your nose! Now everyone can see how handsome you are!” Her dark eyes welled up, and he pulled away. Christ.
“Don’t get used to it.”
Her mouth crinkled, then she turned, fanning at Cal with her towel. “If you want to speak to the boy, take him out of this kitchen. I don’t want you smoking those things in here!”
“Woman, this isn’t even your house, never mind your kitchen.” Miriam’s glare intensified, and Cal snorted. “Fine, let’s go to my study. I’m sure this she devil’ll let you know when there’s food.”
She turned back to her stove with a satisfied humph. Flynn shook his head, following the lanky old man from the room. It was like he’d never left. Goddamned place should be encased in amber.
Cal strode down the shadowed hall with an easy saunter, belying his age. His study was cavernous. Where the windows didn’t run floor to ceiling, it was lined with bookcases. They were stuffed with the odds and ends of a life that spanned centuries, with no thought to aesthetics, or the accumulating ash. Cal was solely responsible for that, though he blamed the cast iron stove burning in the hearth nine months out of the year. Flynn looked over at the wood bin behind one of the overstuffed leather chairs, catching himself calculating how long the remaining logs would last. His thumb ran over the thick callouses crossing his palm.
All that was over now.
Shit, he was really going back. The smell of nicotine and scotch seeped into his pores along with a pervasive sense of dread. That more than anything else made it real. The feeling got worse when Cal roosted in his chair like a gargoyle, smoking and just looking at him.
His grandfather shook his head, stubbing out his cigarette in the big crystal ashtray at his elbow. Three old butts fell onto the floor, joining a handful of others. Miriam hadn’t bullied her way into the room recently; the place was filthy.
Cal crossed an ankle over his bony knee, his green eyes boring into Flynn’s.
“Report.”
Suddenly he was twelve years old again, parroting back what had happened during Assembly to the old man. He put his hands behind his back and widened his stance by rote, beginning with the drive back from Lyden. When Flynn had finished, a half-dozen more butts had fallen to the floor.
His grandfather ran his hands through thick grey hair. It just brushed the collar of his white button-up. “Jesus H. Christ. I don’t believe half of it. You phazed? Twice?”
“I think that’s what almost killed her. That first time, I must’ve held it for a good ten minutes. She said her channel was damaged. I don’t think she can control her extra.”
Cal grunted, rolling another cigarette. “Then I suggest you leave it the hell alone, but you’ll take that as you will, just like everything else.” He motioned to the other chair. Flynn tried not to let his surprise show. He’d never been allowed to sit in here before.
“I suspect I should treat you like a man, since you’ve decided to act like one.”
Flynn sat, taking the backhanded compliment for what it was.
“So I’ll tell you, as a man, that Lot’s on his way down. He’s been eager to speak to you, making a real pain in the ass out of himself. Assembly gets out in another hour or so, and then he’ll be on the next train. Plan on seeing him at dinner tomorrow.”
Flynn drummed his fingers on his thigh. That gave him some time to think at least. “They’re not letting people shift?”
“No. Anyone in or out of the city gets processed through the station or the Intelligencers are up their ass. There’s been problems with the Sons,” Cal said, lighting a cigarette.
“They’re up there?” Their reach had drastically expanded if they were in Glynfyls.
“Yeah. Constabulary pushed them out of the city, but there’s a group in town. Now I know why they’ve been so damn agitated since yesterday. You need to stay out of sight. If Kara wasn’t so beat to shit, I’d have your ass on a train tonight, your father be damned.”
That was going to happen in either case. “You know what he’s so hot to talk to me about?” Flynn asked more calmly than he felt. If the Sons were up here, they needed to move as soon as Kara could travel.
“Oh, I’d imagine any number of things. I expect the majority of it’s a moot point now, but there are some things that are what they are. You best finish washing up.”
Flynn rose, knowing a dismissal when he heard one. He went back to the kitchen. A couple of egg salad sandwiches and a hot mug of tea were waiting for him.
Miriam took his face between her hands again, laughing as he jerked away. “I haven’t seen that face in close to twenty years, Laughlin. You better believe I’m gonna get my fill before you cover it up again.”
He added a big dollop of honey to his mug— never gonna hear the fucking end of this .
“Cal says Lot’s on his way.” Miriam took a half-step back. He couldn’t blame her for expecting him to lose his temper, but shit had changed. Christ, he’d changed. “Any idea why?”
She clucked her tongue. How the woman could make a noise saying ‘eyes on me, I told you so’, and call you an idiot at the same time…
“Just like that man to drop a bomb and walk away, I could just kick him. It’s the succession of course.” She wiped her hands, sitting on the worn pine bench across from him. That bustled skirt of hers fluffed up, taking up twice the space she should. What was Kara gonna look like in them? He smiled, hoping corsets were still a thing.
“Your father tied himself into a pretzel finalizing a contract with House Glass, and now you’ve gone and salted the soup waltzing in here with your pregnant wife. You never could do anything halfway?—”
“He contracted me to Regina?”
“No, Marilla. ”
Flynn choked on his sandwich. “She’s got to be twelve years younger than me and rounder than a melon!”
“I wouldn’t think age’d be an issue.” Miriam sniffed. “You’ve got several years on that girl in there, and it’s not like women with enough talent for you to conceive an heir with are just falling from the sky. Marilla’s no throwback, but she does have quite a bit of talent.”
“It’s because she’s got quite a bit to cloak!” Flynn sputtered.
Miriam glared at him, her generous mouth turning down. She got up and went to the stove. Flynn winced. He’d forgotten how sensitive she was about her own weight. Damn he was an asshole…but he might as well get into the rest since she was already pissed at him.
“I saw Graham and Leo. They said Julia’s been riling up the Assembly.”
Miriam kept stirring one of the steaming pots, but her back went ramrod straight. “That was a bad bit of business on your part, Laughlin. I have never been so ashamed.”
Flynn grunted around his second sandwich, unable to argue. She put down the spoon.
“You broke that poor girl’s heart and humiliated her. Julia’s never been strong. She kept to her estate for almost a year after you up and left. That might’ve been the worst of it, you just disappearing without a word to anyone. Eight years I’ve lit a candle for you every Sunday. We didn’t know if you were alive or dead!” Her towel cracked against his bicep.
Fuck, he deserved that.
“She came back a different person. Started acting as proxy for her father; Anton’s very ill from what I understand. Julia’s been the main voice in the Assembly pushing for this incursion against the Source. At one point she may’ve thought you’d been taken by them or the Sons. Lord knows both thoughts crossed my mind enough, but I don’t know anymore.”
“What? She never had interest in any of that.”
“She’s not the same person. That sweet girl who used to come and help with the harvest every fall is gone. The one up in Glynfyls now? I don’t know what she’s gonna do when she finds out you’re back, but I can guarantee you’re not gonna like it. Finish your sandwich, and I’ll let you see Kara before you shower and shave.” He rolled his eyes. She was picking right back up where she’d?—
“You could use a haircut, too. You look like some kind of recluse instead of the heir to our House and line. It’s not respectable.” Flynn snorted, shooting a glance at her cherry-red dye job. She ignored him. “There’s fresh clothes in your room, though I don’t know that they’ll fit. How you got broader and skinnier I can’t fathom. I’ll be dipped if you’re not taller than I remember, too. What on earth have you been doing down south?”
Flynn mumbled something unintelligible. He wolfed down the last few bites of his sandwich and bolted across the hall. Miriam had gotten Kara into a frilly nightgown he was sure she’d hate. The dark shadows around her eyes were the same, but she was resting easier. Her eyelids fluttered as his weight settled on the bed.
“Hey, we’re at the farm. You’re safe.” He ran a thumb over her cheek. She drifted off again, and he kissed her forehead, breathing her in. When he looked up again, Miriam was standing in the doorway. “Thank you.”
She nodded with tears in her eyes and held out her arms.
“Welcome home, Laughlin. We’ve missed you.”
Titus pushed away the terms for Ielle’s transfer with a snort. As expected, the price Kasham was demanding for the Talent was exorbitant. It had also come too late. She had indeed located the Jester girl’s blade, but it was beneath a smoldering heap.
And his operative hadn’t faired any better.
He glanced over the surge data from the vector positioned at the border again, cursing the international treaties that prevented him from moving it farther north. That she’d been holding a significant portion of her talent back during her trials there was no doubt, but why? He tapped a finger against his lips, more certain than ever Albanach was playing some deep game. The fact that she’d been able to stave off a tenured combat Talent led Titus to believe his rival was more aware of his plans than was healthy .
But none of that currently preyed on his mind.
It was the unidentifiable surge that’d ended the man. That it was talent was indisputable, but which… Titus hadn’t a clue. The Fixer’s body hadn’t been found to sample, and his erstwhile companion was missing as well. If the Jester girl had been able to hide the extent of her ability, what else was she hiding?
Sipping at his drink, he inspected the signature following the abnormal surge. A massive void, easily a hundred times larger in magnitude than the one present at the bonding. Then it faded, only to escalate again right at the checkpoint. No one had seen or heard anything except Ryker, who’d reported feeling something go right through him. The normally stoic Breaker was so shaken by the incident, Marcos had recommended him for sabbatical.
There was no question they’d slipped his net, but until he was positive the girl had been impregnated, it was an acceptable delay. He knew where she would turn up, and her extraction of no-never-mind. His cell in Glynfyls would keep him apprised of the situation. All that remained was to send up someone particularly suited to the task. Titus hit a panel and a communications orb popped up.
A nondescript little man answered. “Sir?”
“Attend.” The orb winked out, and Titus sat staring at the door. It would take precisely six minutes for Barton to make it up to his office. He’d timed him on several occasions, and the phenomenon was eerily repeatable.
“Sir?” Barton inquired again, arriving as predicted.
“I’ve a fugitive situation I need you to rectify.” He tossed him a cube with everything he had on Kara Jester. Barton caught it and licked his lips quick, like a lizard. He was one of the more intriguing twists Titus’s stable had created, a Finder/Fetch, and utterly implacable when given a target.
“Condition?” He also had several nasty habits he’d been allowed to indulge in. No doubt he was expecting the same with this commission.
“It is of utmost importance that the target is bred when you acquire her and remains so. Otherwise, the packaging is of no concern.” Titus flicked his hand, dismissing him.
Barton exited as soundlessly as he’d entered .
Titus turned back to his holos, itching for more data. Reluctantly, he pulled up a tech report from one of the other Patrons. Though he hated the man, Orin had been crowing about some development in his nanobot research that’d looked promising…
A communications orb sprang up, and Titus absently accepted the call. The sphere pulsed with a shrill disembodied voice.
“The board wants to know what your status is. They’re becoming difficult.”
He cringed, Rache’s outpouring cutting through him like arcfire. “I’ve hit a setback. I won’t know how bad it is for a day or two. They’ve waited this long, they can wait a little longer.”
She clacked furiously on her keyboard in the background. “The loss of that Talent is bringing share prices down. We’ll have to layoff genetics workers if the trend continues. Our prospectus?—”
“Bill it as a restructuring, and do what you have to do. I’ve got six months until year-end close, and a lead on something that, if it pans out, will set us up for the next century.”
The clacking stopped, and the sphere pulsed to show an enormous blonde woman wearing a headset. “Are you being straight with me?” She riveted him with very blue eyes, deep set within her puffy flesh.
“That I am.”
She stared at him a moment longer before the orb winked out. Titus sighed, flicking open another holo. The graph showing the Source’s share prices began to climb. He smiled grimly. Now he just had to deliver.