Intuition (26 page)

“It's been great,” I say. I glance at the guy. “Do you know who he is?” I ask, nodding in his direction.

Giselle squints across the room. “That's Will Alvarez. He's a writer—screenplays, mostly. But I don't know the woman.” She looks down at me, a mild look of interest on her face. “Did you get something from him?”

“Yes,” I say, looking back in his direction. “But not like that. It was more personal.”

“Well, your skills are just developing. We can't expect miracles from the beginning.” I know that Giselle is trying to talk in code, but there's no mistaking the condescending tone of that last statement. She takes another sip, and the way she looks away from me tells me that she doesn't think I can do this. That all of the attention I'm getting from the Sekhem is for nothing.

Everyone around us laughs as Sonia finishes another story, and I see an opportunity in the silence that follows. All of the talk tonight has been about mutual friends and other parties in other lifetimes. I see Drew walk into the kitchen and I decide it's time to focus on some current events. “Hey,” I say quickly, before conversation can start again. “Did you hear about the woman they found dead out by the airport last week? I heard she was Akhet.”

The entire group is silent, looking at me and, I'm sure, wondering why I'd bring up something like that. At least that's what most people would think. But anyone who's involved would be immediately uncomfortable. I sit up, alert, watching the faces around me.

“I heard that too,” a woman volunteers. “Veronique something. Not anyone that I knew, though.”

Sonia leans into the group. “Was she Sekhem?”

“Rogue,” another woman says. I watch her carefully, but I don't see any signs of agitation. “I heard she'd been involved in some retaliation earlier this year. Sanctioned by the Sekhem, but what are they going to do about it?” Everyone laughs softly.

A guy near me sips some coffee. “How did she die? She didn't go anen, did she?”

“No. She was killed,” the first woman says. I don't recognize the new Akhet word, but it must mean something like suicide. I wonder how many Akhet choose that option.

“How?” Sonia asks. “I hope not strangulation. That's a horrible way to go.”

“Were you ever strangled?” a man asks her.

“No. But I know someone who was. Dreadful. I prefer
something quick and unexpected,” Sonia replies. “Give me a car crash or a well-placed bullet any day.”

“How about a massive heart attack? Or an aneurysm?” Portia Martin asks.

Sonia waves the thought away. “Too painful.”

“But not for long,” Portia says. “I once had an aneurysm in my sleep—woke up with a headache, and in a few seconds that was it.”

I can feel the conversation picking up now that we're off the subject of Veronique. I don't see anyone who seems even a little bit interested.

“Has anyone gone the lingering disease route?” a blond woman asks, and many people shake their head in sympathy. “I did that last time, and I'm telling you, never again. If I get sick this time, I'm going anen before things get too bad. Hard to believe that in this day and age euthanasia is still illegal. It ought to be a sacrament.”

The conversation turns to everyone's favorite way to die, and I know the subject is lost. Giselle leans down. “Nice try.”

I shrug. I should go circulate a little bit, maybe see if I can find out more about Will Alvarez. I start to stand up but lose my balance and bump into Giselle, spilling her red wine on her white jeans.

“Oh, God! I'm so sorry,” I say, reaching for some napkins on the coffee table. She probably thinks I did that on purpose.

She stands up quickly. “It's okay.”

“Let me get this,” I say, pressing a wad of napkins into the stain. As I touch her, I suddenly feel detached from my body for
a few seconds, and sense something dark, something deep down that Giselle doesn't want anyone to see.

Giselle brushes my hand away and everything comes back into focus. I look up at her, trying to keep my expression neutral. It could have been anything, something about her past that she's not proud of, something in another lifetime that she's trying to suppress. But out of everyone here, Giselle is the only one I've found who seems to be hiding something big.

“I'm going to find some club soda to take this out,” Giselle says.

“Again, I'm so sorry,” I say. I don't think she can tell what I know.

She gives me a tight smile. “My fault for drinking red wine in white pants. Don't worry about it.”

I watch her walk into the kitchen, wondering what I'm going to say to Janine. If I'm going to say anything to Janine. I'd hate to look like an idiot if it's nothing.

Next to me, Portia looks at her oversized diamond watch and tosses her napkin onto the coffee table. “Ooh! Look how late! I'd better get going. Early call tomorrow.”

I glance at the clock that Drew has over the mantle. Almost midnight. “Damn. I should go too. My parents are going to kill me.”

Portia smiles. “Ah, curfew. I remember it well.”

I sigh. “Now that my memories are coming back, being treated like a kid is starting to really suck.”

“We all go through it, if it's any consolation. It doesn't last. Soon you'll be able to do whatever you want.” Drew walks across the room and joins a couple of people by the giant windows.
Portia looks him pointedly up and down. “Speaking of doing whatever you want—I think you should definitely be doing
that
.”

I bump her in the shoulder and she laughs. “I'm not going out with Drew,” I say.

Portia leans in close. “Then I think you should tell him that. He's barely taken his eyes off you all night.”

“Why aren't you . . . you know, with Drew?” It would be perfect—the pop star and the handsome young gazillionaire.

Portia looks over at him and seems to be deep in thought, her eyes so dark brown they seem almost black. “We have our own history,” she says. “Sometimes there's no going back.” She looks at me. “You two have a history, don't you?”

I look over at Drew and nod. Sometimes when I see him out of the corner of my eye I get flashes of Connor and the life we had together, and it gets hard to separate memory from reality. “Yes. A few hundred years ago. I only remember pieces of it, though.”

She follows my gaze. “Sometimes it takes more than one lifetime for things to work out as they're supposed to.” Portia stands up and stretches so that I can see her flat stomach and tiny little belly ring. I'm not surprised to see the ankh charm hanging off it. “Promise me you'll come to the show tomorrow night. You two blew me off last week, so you kind of owe me.”

I think about what it would be like to see Portia on stage after talking to her all night at a dinner party. Rayne was dying to go to the show, but it sold out in minutes when the tickets went on sale months ago. “Can I bring someone?” She only got out of the hospital two days ago, but she'd kill me if I let her miss this opportunity.

“Sure,” she says. “As long as Drew doesn't mind, it's fine
with me. I'll see you all backstage at the show.” Portia leans in and gives me an air kiss on the cheek. Usually I hate that kind of thing, but with her, it seems to work. She walks over to say good-bye to Drew, and I stand up and gather a few plates that are left on the table.

“Leave those,” Drew says, walking back toward me. “The caterers will get them.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling useless.

“Did you meet anyone you liked?”

“Everyone was great,” I say. “I do have a question, though. Does ‘anen' mean that someone killed themselves?”

He smiles. “Good catch. Anen is when an Akhet decides to end this lifetime. You won't see very many extremely old Akhet; when these bodies break down, most decide to trade them in.”

I hadn't thought much about that. “I guess you don't worry so much about death, knowing there's another lifetime waiting for you.”

He looks at me with a serious expression. “Depends on what's waiting for you in this one.”

I look away, knowing exactly what he means, a pang of guilt in my chest that I can't return his feelings.

The crowd around us is definitely thinning out. “I guess I should get going.” I reach for my bag hanging on the back of a chair.

“Do you have to?” he says. “It's not that late.”

“Tell that to my parents. They're already mad at me . . .” I was going to say that they were mad about him, but somehow that doesn't seem right. “We already fight about where I go and what time I come home.”

“Sorry,” he says. “They didn't like it that I came to your house that day.”

I shake my head. “No, they didn't. They think you're too old to be hanging around me.” I have to laugh at how ridiculous that is, with everything I know.

His smile is slightly sad. “Under normal circumstances, I'd agree with them. When I turned eighteen, you were only fourteen. If you were my daughter, I'd probably go after the guy with a restraining order. And a baseball bat.”

“Lucky for you, my dad's not much of an athlete.” I look up at Drew's face. Even though there are the barest hints of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, he seems ageless. He smiles, and I pull my gaze away and look around the room. “Well, thanks for inviting me. I had fun.”

“I'll see you tomorrow, right? Portia said that if we don't come to her show, she'll disown me.”

“Um . . . sure. I told her I was bringing Rayne. Is that okay?”

“Whatever you want,” he says. “Is she well enough to go?”

“For a Portia Martin concert, she'll go if we have to wheel her in on a stretcher.” I smile. “I think she'll be fine, for a couple of hours at least.”

Drew looks around at the small groups of people still left in the living room. “How did you get here, anyway?”

“Bus,” I say. “They're still running. It's a weekend schedule.”

“There's no way I'm letting you get on a bus this late. Give me a second to settle up with the caterers and I'll give you a ride.”

“It's okay, I've—”

“I'm not taking no for an answer. I'll be right back.”

Drew disappears before I can say anything, and I'm left
alone in the quiet room. Music is playing softly on the stereo in the corner and the lights are dim, but the place seems even bigger now that it's almost empty. Giselle is sitting on the couch drinking coffee and talking to some other women. I'm sure she has orders not to leave until I do.

I glance out the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the walls and take a couple of steps toward one. We're so high up that even though I know the other skyscrapers are huge, they look tiny from here. Over to the right I see the Bay Bridge, a river of lights flowing along the entire span. There are a few ships' lights on the water, and it's clear enough that I can see the lights of South San Francisco disappearing in the distance.

I feel Drew behind me right before he speaks. “Amazing, isn't it? Almost like being in an airplane.”

“We're so high up, it feels like one could hit us.”

“No chance,” he says. “We're not in the flight path.”

I take a few steps toward the other window and put my hand on the glass to steady myself. We're at eye level with the very tip of the pointy Transamerica Pyramid a few blocks away, and the lights of Marin blink in the distance. “You really can see everything from up here.”

Drew stands next to me and looks out into the distance. “I love being this high up, looking at the tiny dots of light from the cars and buildings way down there. Makes me feel powerful. Alive.”

He's standing so close I can feel the warmth of his body against mine. I'm startled to realize I enjoy it, that the sensation of him close to me is familiar, almost comforting. My mind pulls away from the dark, empty space I've been nurturing inside since Griffon turned his back on me at the studio.

I think back to another time and another place. A different face with kind green eyes, but the same essence, the same vibrations between us. I remember the taste of his lips on mine and the softness of his touch on the back of my neck. I close my eyes and see the desire on Connor's face as we come together, completely swept up in the moment until time seems to stop except for the feel of his fingers on my skin. The desire that can't be dampened by centuries apart.

“Lovely to see you again, my boy,” Sonia says, coming over to say good-bye. Drew backs away from me just slightly as she gives him a kiss on both cheeks. “It was wonderful to meet you, my dear,” she says to me.

“You too.”

I glance at Drew, wondering what will happen if he gives me a ride home. I can picture us parked in front of my house and me not making the same choice that I made the other night. “Sonia, wait,” I call as she heads for the elevator. “Do you think you could drop me off in the Haight?”

She hesitates, looking at Drew. “If you'd like.”

I turn to him. “It's just easier—there are still people here, and this way you don't have to leave.”

“It's no trouble—”

“I'll just go with Sonia,” I insist, knowing I'm going to get an earful in the car from her. I quickly give Drew a kiss on the cheek, avoiding his eyes and the disappointment I know I'll see there. “I'll see you tomorrow,” I say as I run to the elevator that Sonia is holding for me.

“Can the patient have a cupcake?” I ask, swinging the bag in front of Rayne as she opens her door.

“Ooh, yes!” she says, grabbing it out of my hands. “The patient is so bored she's about to go crazy. Peter was supposed to come over this afternoon, but he's stuck in Berkeley.”

I follow her down the hallway and into the kitchen. “So how are you feeling? Besides bored.”