[X-Files Origins 2] Devil's Advocate by Jonathan Maberry

Author:Jonathan Maberry
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Occult, Young Adult, Paranormal, Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Supernatural, Thriller
ISBN: 9781250119582
Publisher: Imprint
Published: 2017-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 45

The Chrysalis Room

6:17 P.M.

Sunlight led her through a door in a corner of the café, facing the room used by AA and meditation classes. Dana stepped into darkness as Sunlight closed the door and moved past her, but he did not pull back the heavy curtains. Instead he produced a lighter from his pocket and lit a cluster of short, thick candles. Soon, the air was filled with mingled scents of peppermint, sandalwood, and jasmine.

It was very quiet.

Corinda had walked over to the room with them, but Sunlight had stopped her at the door.

“Thank you,” he said, blocking her from entering. “We’ll be fine. Just have Angelo bring me some of the new incense. I’m running low.”

Dana thought she saw surprise and hurt in Corinda’s eyes. And maybe something else, but the other emotion was there and gone before she could identify it. Now, with the door closed and the candles lit, Dana felt enormously awkward.

“That’s normal,” said Sunlight, as if reading her mind. Or, perhaps, actually reading her thoughts.

“What?” she said, recoiling a half step.

He chuckled. “No, seriously, Miss Scully, I understand that you’re freaked out. I get that a lot. It’s a side effect of being who and what I am.”

“And what is that, exactly?” she asked, still standing by the door. There was a knock that startled her, but then the door opened and Angelo came in with a bundle of incense sticks wrapped in coarse blue tissue paper. He threw a quick look at Dana but said nothing to her.

“Corinda said you wanted this,” he said, handing it to Sunlight. “They delivered it this morning for you.”

“Thank you, Angelo. Close the door on your way out.”

The young man lingered for a moment, then glanced around the room, gave Dana a small nod, and left. When he was gone, Dana repeated her question. “What is it you’re supposed to be?”

“I am a psychic. I’m a very good psychic; I’m very powerful. Corinda would say it’s a gift, and perhaps it is, but so far it has been mostly a pain in the ass. Pardon my language. Let’s call it a ‘quality’ instead. I’ve been like this since I was a boy and it has never gotten easier, never became second nature, never allowed me to fit in. I don’t have to be around people very long before they realize there is something not quite right about me. They’re correct. I’m not ‘right,’ by their definition. I am very different. Because other people react to my difference, I tend to retreat from them. When I was young, my parents took me to doctors and they, of course, dismissed any possibility that I possessed special abilities. Instead they diagnosed me as having ‘social phobia.’” He paused, then added, “It’s nothing new. Hippocrates once described it, and I quote, ‘his hat still in his eyes, he will neither see, nor be seen by his good will. He dare not come in company, for fear he should be misused, disgraced, overshoot himself in gesture or speeches, or be sick; he thinks every man observes him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.