Huntress by L.J. Smith

Author:L.J. Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse

CHAPTER 12

Jez kept one hand on the kid as they walked up the stairs under the dirty fluorescent bulbs. She could only imagine what Iona must be thinking as they shepherded her to the top.

They came out on the roof into slanting afternoon sunlight. Jez gave Iona’s shoulder a little squeeze.

“See—there’s the garden.” She nodded toward a potted palm and three wooden barrels with miscellaneous wilted leaves in them. Iona glanced that way, then gave Jez a sober look.

“They’re not getting enough water,” she said as quietly as she said everything.

“Yeah, well, it didn’t rain enough this summer,” Morgead said. “You want to fix that?”

Iona just looked seriously at him.

“Look, what I mean is, you’ve got the Power, right? So if you just want to show us right now, anything you want, be my guest. It’ll make things a lot simpler. Make it rain, why don’t you?”

Iona looked right at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m just saying that there’s no reason for you to get hurt here. We just want to see you do something like what you did the night of the fire. Anything. Just show us.”

Jez watched him. There was something incongruous about the scene: Morgead in his high boots and leather jacket, iron-muscled, sleek, sinewy, on one knee in front of this harmless-looking kid in pink pants. And the kid just looking back at him with her sad and distant eyes.

“I guess you’re crazy,” Iona said softly. Her pigtails moved as she shook her head. A pink ribbon fluttered loosely.

“Do you remember the fire?” Jez said from behind her.

“Course.” The kid turned slowly around. “I was scared.”

“But you didn’t get hurt. The fire got close to you and then you did something. And then the fire went away.”

“I was scared, and then the fire went away. But I didn’t do anything.”

“Okay,” Morgead said. He stood. “Maybe if you can’t tell us, you can show us.”

Before Jez could say anything, he was picking the little girl up and carrying her. He had to step over a line of debris that stretched like a diagonal wall from one side of the roof to the other. It was composed of telephone books, splintery logs, old clothes, and other odds and ends, and it formed a barrier, blocking off a corner of the roof from the rest.

He put Iona in the triangle beyond the debris. Then he stepped back over the wall, leaving her there. Iona didn’t say anything, didn’t try to follow him back out of the triangle.

Jez stood tensely. The kid’s a Wild Power, she told herself. She’s already survived worse than this. And no matter what happens, she’s not going to get hurt.

I promised her that.

But she would have liked to be telepathic again just for a few minutes, just to tell the kid one more time not to be scared. She especially wanted to as Val and Raven poured gasoline on the wall of debris. Iona watched them do it with huge sober eyes, still not moving.

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