Acquainted with the Night: An Urban Fantasy Thriller: (Harker & Blackthorn - Book Three) by J.A. Ironside

Author:J.A. Ironside [Ironside, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blue Stone Press
Published: 2021-11-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen – Vantablack

We ended up back in Rebekah’s room with a bottle of whisky. I’d texted Sienna but not received a reply so I assumed she was asleep. The liquid in my glass trembled as I tried to steady my hands. We’d been all business getting the panther out of the woods but now delayed reaction was setting in for everyone. Steve’s glass sat untouched on the table before him. He was hunched over with his head in his hands, hair falling in dark disarray over his face. Rebekah knocked back her second shot of whisky and poured herself a third, which she sipped more slowly.

“What was it?” Steve didn’t raise his head. “It died, but then most things would if thrown head first into an oak at that speed.”

“Yes, you must explain how you can throw things larger than pencils when you get truly frightened, but have trouble the rest of the time, Amy,” Rebekah said.

It wasn’t intended to sound accusatory. I was an ongoing project in Rebekah’s mind, something I didn’t particularly enjoy.

“I can’t explain it,” I said. “It’s still not easy to levitate small things. Mostly, the telekinesis part of the Touch just wants to fry electrical systems.”

“And yet when you’re put under great stress, you manage far more spectacular results,” Rebekah said.

Something Fioled said suddenly made sense.

“That’s how she got away from the monster cat.” I looked up to find both Steve and Rebekah looking at me. “Fioled. She said when she was attacked in ninety-seven, that she couldn’t remember how she got away. It was all just blank. But she has a tiny amount of what she calls the Gleam.” I felt a familiar surge of chagrin, remembering how I’d written her off. “Most people have a tiny bit of the Touch and never know because it’s so small, they never notice when intuition kicks in. But Fioled grew up with a grandmother who knew all about it and I think maybe she once wanted it to be more. A bigger gift than she was given. Whatever she has, she now uses it to read tarot. Maybe having a focus for it strengthens it somehow.”

“How small are we talking?” Rebekah said.

I shrugged. “I couldn’t see it on her when I specifically looked. Steve looked like a searchlight by comparison.”

“And he’s just a sensitive,” Rebekah mused.

“Thanks ever so,” Steve muttered.

“You believe that in a moment of extremis, Fioled did something which drove the cat off?” Rebekah sipped from her glass. “Something that would normally be well outside her normal range of abilities?”

“It makes more sense than the idea that a passing good Samaritan drove off the cat and carried her two miles only to dump her beside the road,” Steve said. “It would also explain why you can perform far greater psychic feats when your life is in danger, Amy.”

Something didn’t quite connect. When it came to what I did, I was missing a piece of the puzzle…

“Why was the cat almost invisible?” Steve said.

“That sounds like a physics question.

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