Sleight (23 page)

“They stay here as well. As much as I believe Miss Winters should be returned to her parents, the reality is that she isn’t safe until we deal with Sonja. In fact I think that all of us are treading on thin ice as it were.”

“Why’s that?” asked Sawyer, who was back to wringing his hands.

Kenwoode stood up slowly. I swear I could hear his bones creaking. “Because if my local colleague has been compromised, then anyone I’ve made contact with lately is at risk too. Especially those of you who are from out of town.”

KENWOODE AND BROCK walked out of the room with no other words of direction or encouragement. Sawyer looked lost. I was feeling left out. Marginalized.

“I gotta get on the stuff he asked me to do if they’re going to head out in the morning,” groaned Sawyer. “Sorry I pressured you into going downtown.”

“No way, man. I’m glad we went. Justine might be dead if we hadn’t.” I clapped him on the shoulder and he offered me a tentative smile.

“You were starting to say something at the restaurant when we saw Justine. What was it?”

He shook his head, not making eye contact. “Nothing. Hey,” he said looking at my scalp. “What happened to your head wound?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

His forehead creased with a confused look. “When we were at the condo, right after we...took out Silver, your head was covered in blood and like looking pretty gnarly.”

I hesitantly ran my fingers through my hair, expecting sharp pain. Nothing. Huh. “I guess it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Besides, I rinsed my head in a fountain. Got rid of the crusty blood.”

He shook his head again. “I guess. Glad you’re okay. It looked pretty bad.”

A sneaking suspicion chattered in the back of my mind. “Yeah, well you know what they say about head wounds. Lots of blood even from a small cut. Hey, there’re a couple of things I need you to do too. The favors you agreed to before we went downtown.”

“Sure, who needs to sleep? What is it?”

I told him. He sighed, and rolled his eyes.

“That’s all? You sure there isn’t anything else? Like doing your laundry, making your bed?”

The look on my face must have made him feel a little guilty. He held up his hands. “Kidding, dude. Kidding. Shouldn’t be a problem. I owe you.”

He offered his closed fist to me and we bumped knuckles.

“Cool,” I said. “Thanks.”

We both headed off to our respective rooms.

I closed my door and immediately went to the mirror above the chest of drawers opposite the bed. I pulled back my hair where I’d been grazed by the bullet. There was a patch of pink skin and it looked like I was missing a chunk of hair but there was no open wound, and no pain. I remembered Justine reaching up to touch my head, slurring her words, wanting to help. Had I felt a tingling in my scalp or had that been my imagination?

Voices from the hall carried into my room and I cracked the door to see who it was. Constance and Breno were walking toward Mr. Goodturn’s room. Constance had her arm around Breno’s back and he was bobbing his head in rhythm to their stride. Seeing the two of them together made the hair on the back of my neck tickle. I waited for them to enter his room and then I stepped out into the hall.

I quietly crept up to Mr. Goodturn’s bedroom door. Hushed voices came from inside. Breno’s deep voice sounded nervous or scared. Taking in a deep breath and invoking my camouflage, I knacked the lock carefully so that it made no noise, and slipped into the room. Peering around the short entrance wall that screened the door from the bedroom I almost let out a gasp of surprise.

Constance was standing by Mr. Goodturn’s bed, one hand on his chest, the other gripping one of Breno’s hands while
his
other hand hovered within an inch or two of the three monkeys clock. Their eyes were closed and Constance’s brow was furrowed. As I watched, a soft red-orange glow began to form around the clock, the monkey’s glass eyes shining. The warm glow intensified and enveloped the entire clock. Within the glow a second current of energy coalesced into a thread of gold light that spun rapidly around the clock and then coursed up Breno’s arm. His entire body began to glow and the golden thread raced along his shoulders to his opposite hand, and up Constance’s arm.

My skin broke out in gooseflesh as I watched the tiny strand of golden light travel over her body, circle her heart and speed through her hand into Mr. Goodturn’s chest. His body was immediately suffused with an amber colored glow that reached down to his toes, which shone brightly beneath the bedspread.

His chest heaved and a sigh escaped his lips. Constance’s eyes opened and a tired smile lit her face. She slowly removed her hand from Mr. Goodturn’s chest and the glow that had turned him into a human light bulb faded quickly. Letting go of Breno’s hand she quickly put her arm around him and drew him to her. He pulled his hand away from the clock and all of the red-hued energy winked out as if it had never existed. Breno rested his head on her shoulder as she held him.

“This will be the last time Breno. You’re so brave. Harald chose you well and you’ve saved him, just as he’s saved each of us at one time or another,” she whispered in his ear.

I tasted salt and realized that I was crying.

EVEN THOUGH THERE hadn’t been anyone else in the hall I kept my camo in place until I’d snuck back into my room and closed the door. While the core secret of the three monkeys eluded me it was obvious that something in the clock, combined with Constance’s knack, had been restoring Mr. G’s health. It was another layer of mystery in my benefactor’s amazing life.

Exhausted and feeling drained I fell onto the bed and was out within moments. I was having a nightmare about getting mugged in an alley by Sonja when I was dragged back to wakefulness. Looking around the darkened room I wondered what had woken me when someone knocked. Brushing my hair with my hands and still half asleep I stumbled to the door.

I figured it was Sawyer with some questions on what I had asked him to look into, so when I opened it and found Constance there I was a little surprised.

“Hi, is Justine okay?” I asked, my voice thick with sleep.

“She’s fine. Resting, which she needs badly. May I come in?” she cocked an eyebrow at my wrinkled clothing. I thought I detected a new set of fine lines around her eyes.

Standing back so she could enter I shut the door. She looked around and then took a seat in the chair by the window.

“I thought we should have a talk and discuss a few things.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and faced her. “Okay.”

Her hands fussed with the material of her slacks and she offered me a tired smile. “I think you’re in deep here Benjamin. You need to know more if you’re going to be able to make a decision on how much you want to be involved based on fact instead of emotion or...what someone else tells you.”

I nodded, wondering when she ever got rest, considering what I’d seen her doing earlier.

“I have some good news for you but I wanted to give you some insight first. Your friend is going to be okay. I think. There’s something about her physical health that begs a question, but it certainly isn’t threatening. Her ability is similar to the one possessed by the rogue you’ve all been describing. But with a significant difference.”

“What’s that?” I asked, trying to get comfortable.

“She’s a healer too. Often we Naturals have two gifts. Each is usually the opposite of the other. Her gift can siphon off energy from another Natural, but in her, it is more naturally disposed to heal.” She bowed her head. “I have the same gift, but not as strong, and mine does not have the mirror ability attached to it.”

“Is that why you became a physician?” I chose to keep what I thought Justine had done to my scalp wound to myself.

“Maybe. I’m not sure, because I wasn’t consciously aware of my talent until I was enrolled in medical school. It could have been a subliminal influence. The danger, to me, is that every time I use it there is a price. There’s an impact to my cell structure and I don’t know how much or how often I can use my ability without causing severe damage.”

I swallowed, remembering how tired she had looked when I’d arrived. “And Justine has this too? Is that true of all knacks? This damage?” I resisted the temptation to touch my magically repaired scalp.

She gave me a wry smile. “Yes and no. The same deleterious impact may affect her every time she uses it. I don’t know whether it will be worse or not due to her gift’s strength, but she’ll definitely need to be careful. However, the negative effects I incur when I use my abilities are not usually true for others.”

“If she has the other side of this knack, can she also replenish herself by drawing on someone else’s knack?” I was afraid to hear the answer.

“Possibly. The siphoning aspect of her...gift...is used to repair physical musculature, skin, bones, most of the visible effects of aging. I don’t know how far that extends to the cellular level.”

“And you wanted me to know this because she’s my friend,” I said.

“Partly. But you should also know why Preston was so eager to locate and help her.” The hardness in her voice made me nervous.

She went on. “Preston’s other ability is incredibly dangerous and very rare. It takes a huge toll on him every time he uses it.” She paused, watching my reaction. “His stiffness, slow movements and the obvious pain he’s in are all a direct result from his use of his gift. Or curse, which particularly in his case, is a more accurate description.”

I felt pretty sure I could see where this was going. I was also remembering Kenwoode’s hiding from me that he could hear telepathic communication. There seemed to be more things about him that invited distrust than just his bossy nature.

“So he wants Justine to what? Fix him?” I asked.

“He hasn’t said, but I believe so. He has a code of honor. He won’t force her, but he’ll ask, or coerce, and he’s not above picking an opportunistic moment to make the request,” she said.

My jaw muscles tightened. “He’s asked you?”

Pursing her lips she nodded jerkily. “Yes. More than once. And initially I helped him. I didn’t know at the time that my gift might be shortening my life. I was naive.”

“But you stopped. And you think that he’s going to pressure Justine into helping him,” I said.

“Yes, and that’s why I’m telling
you
this, instead of her. She doesn’t know me. She’s new at this and her talent is still raw. She can’t control it yet. That’s why Preston asked me to come here. One of the reasons.”

“Why would you agree to that? When you know what it could do to her.”

She raised her head slightly, lifting her chin, as though I’d insulted her, and I guess I had. “I wanted to be able to influence the end result. I wanted to be sure that this young woman had all the facts. If I didn’t I’d have no way of knowing that she would understand who or what she was and what wielding her talent could do to her.”

I felt embarrassed at my implying that there was a lack of concern on her part. She had agreed to come out of a noble desire to heal Mr. Goodturn and to protect someone she didn’t even know.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But you said that you helped Kenwoode more than once. You didn’t know it could hurt you, but then you found out somehow. What happened that made you stop?”

“I didn’t stop because I knew it was hurting me. I stopped because our relationship changed. Or at least I discovered that our relationship wasn’t what I thought it had been.”

A sick feeling wiggled around in my stomach, like a snake. “What changed? What was he to you?”

“We were in love. I was. I found out that Preston had cultivated our relationship because he knew what I could do.”

“He used you?” She winced. Me and my choice of words.

“He claimed that he hadn’t. But when I found letters he’d received from another woman, l knew that I wasn’t as important to him as I had thought. The difficult part was that he knew from the beginning.”

The snake started taking a tour up around my heart, and I saw her eyes glisten. “He knew what?” I asked.

“He knew the very first time, that every time I healed him that it was shortening my life. And he let me do it anyway. Then he let me believe that we were going to be...a couple. Married. Until it became obvious that had never been the plan.”

Seeing her face in pain, so much like my mother, hurt me. My gut churned. How could Mr. Goodturn trust Kenwoode enough to ask him to come to his rescue? And if Kenwoode’s history with Constance was any indication of his morals I had a pretty good idea as to why he and Mr. G had had a falling out in the first place.

I bit back a curse. “You said you had some good news too. This all sucks big time. What could you possibly have to tell me that would sound good at this point?”

She gave me a wry smile. “The other reason he asked me to come, which was just as compelling, was to help Harald.”

Bobbing my head, I asked, “And?” She’d been risking her own health to do that, of that I was sure.

“I have. With some help from your friend Breno.” Her smile morphed into something brighter, pride and happiness mixed within it.

“He’s much better. And he’s asked for you to see him.”

My heart, run through the wringer a dozen times during the day, leapt to my throat. “He asked for me? You’ve been helping him even though it might cost you? Why?”

Her eyes brimmed over and two perfectly symmetrical tears ran down the face that was a mirror image of my mother’s.

“Because he means that much to me, and with Breno’s help it wasn’t quite so dangerous for me.”

“Why? What did he have to do with it? Did it hurt him?”

She gave me a reproving look. “I wouldn’t even consider putting someone else at risk. You need to know that.” I felt guilty again, and blushed.

She stood up and I followed her out into the hall. We went to Mr. Goodturn’s room, me trying not to run.

He was still in bed and pale but his eyes were open and his head turned toward us when we entered the room. Wisps of his red hair stood out from his round head like an halo. He’d put on his glasses and his eyes stared owlishly at us.

“Ah, Benjamin,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

I stumbled to the side of the bed and got down on my knees. He opened his hand and I placed mine in his and he gave it a weak squeeze.

Choking back tears, I said, “I thought we’d lost you. I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.”

His eyes crinkled in a smile and he looked up over my shoulder at Constance who was standing behind me. “I owe a debt to the good doctor. Without her presence it’s hard to say whether I would have recovered as well, if at all. And thanks to you as well for bringing Breno back and helping him.”

“Mr. Goodturn so much has happened and I have so many questions. But I don’t want to tire you. I’m just glad that you’re back with us,” I said.

Taking his hand from mine he patted the bedspread and winked at me. “Sit here beside me my young friend.” He glanced at Constance again. “If you wouldn’t mind Constance, Benjamin and I have a few things to discuss that require a little privacy.”

Stepping up to the bed she laid a hand on his shoulder. “Of course. Take it slow Harald. The old ‘spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’ thing applies here.” She drew away and left us, closing the door behind her.

Mr. G looked at me and his eyes disappeared into the folds of another smile, but this one had a more serious quality to it. “We’ve much to discuss. My fatigue might force us to leave some subjects for another day, but there are several things you should know. And I’ve waited too long to tell you.”