Bright Star (41 page)

“I’m cursed!” Bright Star spat angrily, contradicting his thoughts. Her eyes flashed blue fire at him. She brought her hands up to cover her tummy.

Monk’s eyes widened. “You’re pregnant.”

“No,” she wailed and rocked back and forth as tears started in her eyes.

“You wanted to get pregnant, but you can’t?” Her reply came in the form of a weak nod. Monk wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but realized the dangers that would bring.

“Now it seems I’ve lost my way.” Bright Star moaned. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe you should do nothing,” Monk offered cautiously.

Bright Star only stared blankly at him.

“Yes, Bright Star,” he pressed on. “Do nothing. Maybe you should meditate. Breathe. Wait for him to come to you.”

“I can’t do that,” she declared vehemently. She shook her head. “I won’t do that. We’ve already wasted too much time. No. Today is the day. There will not be any waiting. I need to know now what will change him.”

“That, I do not know,” Monk shook his head wistfully.

“But I believe you do,” Bright Star challenged.

Monk’s eyes bucked but he remained silent. She knew he was different. He could only hope that she didn’t know why.

“Touch me,” Bright Star prodded.

“No,” Monk refused.

“Touch me.” This time it was a demand. She started to ease closer to him, gliding in the air. Her eyes never left his. “I know he’s helping you keep me out. But you can’t keep me out if you touch me. You have to do it. I know you will be able to tell what path I must take now. I am at a loss. I truly don’t know what I must do to get him to realize his potential, to take the mantle of leadership.

“Then search harder inside yourself. Maybe you should go back to that island. Maybe—”

“I will go back, Monk.” She assured him in a shrill, fragile voice, “Just not now. I won’t go back until I can deliver on the promise I made to those people. I won’t go back until I can prove who I am, who he is. I have to give him back to them. I must.”

“I won’t help you.”

“Helping me is not a betrayal, Monk. We believe in the same thing, you and I. Help me.”

When Bright Star realized the man would only continue to refuse, she decided to take the matter into her own hands. Literally. With preternatural force and speed, Bright Star grasped the monk’s hands in her own. She flew backward with the force of the Energy that jolted from his body into her own. It arced and cracked and caused her skin to contract all over.

She was dazed for a moment only before Monk turned and ran from the room. She dashed out behind him.

Death of the Holy

“Do you remember anything?” Rush questioned. He sat in a chair near Jackson’s bed where he had been lying for two hours.

“I’m not sure,” Jackson hedged groggily. “I don’t know what’s a dream and what’s not.”

“Let’s assume that none of it is a dream.”

“How long have I been out?”

“A couple of hours. How do you feel?”

“I feel like I’ve been hit with more Perma-Shift than any one person can take at a time.”

“That would be an appropriate assessment. The only reason you aren’t dead is because of your ‘special’ Talents.” Rush put down the book that had been in his lap. “What did you see?”

“I saw the baby,” Jackson answered finally.

Surprisingly, Rush grinned. “You saw her?”

Jackson nodded.

“She’s wonderful, isn’t she?” Rush asked beaming.

Jackson recalled that light. He nodded again in agreement. “I saw you, too.”

Rush bowed his head. He seemed tired. He always seemed tired lately. “I know. That’s when you blacked out.”

“I don’t remember what I saw,” Jackson stated. “I just know that after the baby, came you.”

“You didn’t see anyone else?” Rush frowned.

Jackson shook his head. “No.”

Rush squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Then he asked, “You didn’t see what she was planning?” The question was asked with hesitance.

“Bright Star?” Jackson raised his eyebrows. “No, I didn’t.” The voice was tentative. There was more.

“What else did you see, Jacks?”

“Nothing more than what I said. But I felt… I felt so much pain. I have never felt pain like what I felt. I don’t know what caused me to black out, if it was that piercing, sharp, throbbing ache or…”

“Or me?” Rush gave a humorless smile.

“Yeah,” Jackson admitted slowly, “Or you.” Rush’s face was expressionless. “But… I don’t think it was you.”

There was a light, an indefinable flicker in Rush’s black eyes. Jackson sensed that the flicker had been relief. “You don’t?”

“No. It was her. It was the pain, but not just the pain.”

Rush continued to watch him carefully, as if he was waiting for Jackson to make a discovery of some sort.

Jackson pushed up in his bed and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed. He had to think. He had to remember. And then it came to him.
Parameters of Shift 101
. He knew that pain, there was only one thing that caused that kind of pain.
Perma-Shift
. Bright Star had given off waves and waves and waves of acute Perma-Shift. But how? She hadn’t been in the middle of a Shift and no one, not even Jackson could stand Perma-Shift for any significant period of time. Still, this pain, it wasn’t new. It felt as if it had been with her for a very, very long time, and it felt as if it was growing. Yes, Jackson was sure of it. The hurt inside of her had been growing, gathering strength and intensity. He could see it surging, hurtling through her body.

The Perma-Shift was caused by High Energy. Bright Star was harnessing High Energy. His mouth dropped open.

Rush pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“What is it, Rush? Tell me. What is she going to do with it?”

“Think, Jackson. What could she do with it?”

Jackson went still. Fleeting pictures of Bright Star dying skittered through his mind. He could see the twisted, mangled car of the train she had persuaded the Followers to crash. He could see the phalanx of dead bodies, bloated by ocean water following Monk, then burrowing into the ground. He could see the bodies of Destroy and Harm.

He thought of the barely leashed Energy. Bright Star could do anything.

Anything.

“Where is she?”

*

“Where are you going?” Jackson demanded as he watched his brother pull on a loose jacket.

Rush looked over his shoulder at him but did not respond.

“I’m coming, too,” he added.

“No, you’re not.”

“You’re going to find her. She’s been masking her High Energy since dinner. I know because I’ve been trying to find her. Whatever she’s going to do, she’s going to do it now. You know it, so you’re going to find Bright Star. You’re going to stop her.”

Rush said nothing.

Jackson reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “I know you are.”

“It’s time,” Rush answered.

“I have to do something.”

“It’s too late for you,” Rush assured him.

“I have to try.”

“It’s too late,” Rush countered again.

“If I get to the Service…” Jackson’s voice trailed off as he remembered the last time he had been there. He remembered that he had been acknowledged as Rush’s brother. He remembered the guards whose names had changed, who had started speaking like the parish that inhabited his home.

“It’s too late,” Rush explained to him again, slowly this time. “It has to be me.”

“I should have listened.”

“You never would have, Jackson. You couldn’t have. This was as much fated as anything could be.”

“You don’t believe in fate.”

“Bright Star,” Rush breathed. “Bright Star has a way of making anyone a believer.”

“Is this why you have always hated her?”

“I never hated her, Jackson, just like I never hated you. I couldn’t. I don’t think I can make you understand because I can’t understand it.” Rush smiled and grimaced at the same time, his eyes spelled irony. “I don’t want her. Why would any man want her?” He said the words with a pointed humor. His voice was punctuated by a flashing blaze of his eyes. A yellow light the same as Bright Star’s blue one passed quickly over Jackson. Air rushed into Jackson’s lungs, he could not head off the surprised reaction. “But whether I like it or not, she is mine—a part of me. She was made for me. She made
herself
for me. So we are parts of the same whole.”

A man in a yellow and white robe appeared down the hallway. His identity, or rather his religion, was obvious. Rush called to him. “Monk, come and keep an eye on my brother.”

Jackson rolled an exasperated eye. “I don’t need him to keep an eye on me. Wherever you’re going, I should be going, too. I can help you find her.”

Still, before his eyes, Rush disappeared. His body, his mind, his spirit were now just as masked as Bright Star’s. Jackson couldn’t follow even if he wanted to.

Monk neared Jackson warily, though his first words were congenial and conspiratorial. “All-powerful and yet he runs from us.”

“You and your Followers?”

“They aren’t my Followers.” The monk returned gathering his robes around him. His robes still looked remarkably like stolen hotel sheets. Still, they were startling again his dark skin.

“He isn’t running from me. He thinks he’s protecting me,” Jackson countered.

“He is protecting you, Jackson. I’m glad you finally realize it. He’s protecting us all.” Jackson knew that he had not imagined the contempt in the monk’s voice.

“Do you know what Bright Star is going to do?” Jackson asked. The monk merely closed his eyes in accord. “You have something to say, Monk?” Yet Monk was silent. Jackson huffed out a labored breath. “Why did you stop?”

“Dying?”

“Yes. Dying.”

“Before they came for me—Bright Star and Point—I had always known there was something more. Perhaps I had been one of those out there who had that propensity toward High Energy that just never really amounted to much more than passive Talent. You know, a precognitive moment here, an impressive ability to draw a perfect circle there. It was nothing. I could never have affected a Shift back then. Not like you. But they came for me, and it started something inside of me. Even before I was touched by Rush, my High Energy grew solely because I finally understood and accepted what it was. Bright Star was my guide in blindness. She led me to light.”

Jackson acknowledged that this was possible. Monk continued, “The first time… that time in the train… I don’t know how to describe it. I didn’t die that day. No one did. But we came so close. So close. Have you ever been that close to death? Don’t answer. We both know you haven’t.” Monk cleared his throat, then shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you it’s exhilarating, because it is not. I had a broken metal rod stuck through my chest. My head was smashed between two seats because I, like a coward, tried to take cover at the last minute during the crash.” He took a long breath. “I had never felt that much pain before in my life, and I haven’t felt as much since.