Age of Power 1: Legacy (33 page)

Pointing to a pair of double doors, she said, “There are some
clothes in my bedroom that should fit you.”

Looking at me, she continued, “Vaughn, go strip and get into a
robe. You can take a shower after Angela is done.”

Then I asked, “What about you?”

She went to the double doors and opened them inward to her
bedroom. She pulled Angela gently in with her, and, as she closed the doors,
she said, “I’m throwing on sweats, turning up the heat, and then making
everyone hot drinks! Go!”

I blinked and looked at BJ taking off his jacket. He was wearing
a t-shirt and black jeans with black leather snow boots. He shrugged and said,
“Welcome to my life. Sis is boss, so go do what she said. Don’t worry about dry
clothes; I have some that will fit you.”

I looked at his slight frame as he walked off toward an open
archway that led to the kitchen beyond. “Your stuff won’t fit me. It’ll be too
tight!”

I face heated up as he looked at me with a leer. “Hmm…”

Then he laughed. He said, “Who said it was my stuff? Go, there’s
an oversized robe hanging inside the door of my bedroom.”

Left alone for a moment, I tried to understand what was going
on. I swear, when I first woke up this morning, my original thought had been
just sludging out on the couch and watching the Invader Zim marathon
on the Cartoon Network. But no such luck. I pushed it off, thinking about
Dana’s house. A distraction, but I needed it, or I’d have to think about my
best friend again. Yasmine had taken him, and I hadn’t been there to stop it.
But how could I have known? Damn, but she’d gotten to me with that attack, I
was thinking in circles.

Waiting for my turn in the shower, I looked around Dana’s house.
The living room was a large, square space. One wall
was
painted
a golden yellow, and the other three walls were painted in an
eggshell-white to offset the goldenrod color, making it more eye-catching.
Accents weren’t my thing, but she did a great job.

There was a long leather couch, also eggshell white, which
complemented the dark-stained wood floor. A matching wood coffee table with a
glass top stood in front of the couch. In the corner was a lamp, which shone
with a soft light, highlighting small pictures framed in an ascending diagonal
pattern on the wall next to the couch.

I looked at the pictures. They were pictures of the ocean in various
states of the weather—calm, foggy, stormy, and the last one was extreme, with
waterspouts splitting the ocean. But the main eye grabber was a large, dark
painting of a wooded area with a circle of men and women in a forest in the
distance. That portrait sat above a plush brown leather chair. The chair didn’t
really fit the room, but it had a worn look to it.
It was
probably a favorite of hers that
had moved from place to place over the
years.

In one corner of the living room was a big plasma screen television
with side-speakers. There were shelves to each side of that with DVDs. I looked
them over. Dana was a fan of old detective movies. The case for the 
Maltese
Falcon
 was open. Huh, we’d have to hang out sometime. I enjoyed those
older movies myself…and I moved past them to check out the rest of the house
before I lost myself in what she had for entertainment. I could be such a geek
at times, I swear.

In the kitchen was a long white linoleum table in front of a bay
window. The far wall was a light blue color, while the rest were the same
off-white as the other rooms. Dana definitely enjoyed her accent colors. The
stove and refrigerator were burnished chrome with a neat stone arch over the
stovetop. The sink and countertops on both sides of the room had a hard dark
stone look that went well with the tiled look of the floor.

Beyond the kitchen was BJ’s bedroom. It was a guest bedroom when
he wasn’t visiting, though. There was a double bed against the far wall, and I
noticed the mismatched dressers, as I got undressed. After I was sure Dana and
Angela had finished their showers, I went into the bathroom. Before I took a
shower, though, I had to relieve myself. While I did, I heard the door open
behind me. Then, a few seconds
later
I heard a
heartbeat speed up and a slight intake of breath. I rolled my eyes.

“BJ, stop looking at my butt.”

“But it’s so cute!”

“BJ!”

“
Meep
!
 Some
clothes are on the bed for you whenever you’re done.” Chuckling, he closed the
door behind him.

I sighed.
Weird boy.
I had a feeling I’d
say that a lot about him.

Dana had a great walk-in shower, but otherwise the bathroom was
too pretty for my tastes with its floral tile.
Far too
feminine.
After washing quickly, I got out, dried off, and found BJ’s
promised pile of clothes waiting for me on the bed.
There was
even a worn but clean jean jacket that was my size too.
Except for that,
I threw on the pants and a heavy
weave type gym sweater
.
Once I slipped into a pair of socks and shoes, I went back out to the kitchen.
Four large mugs of hot chocolate were sitting on the table. I chuckled when I
noticed that the mugs were from Vaughners.

Taking a drink, I walked to the other doorway just past the
kitchen. It wasn’t too surprising to find a library in her house, given her
job. Dana’s place was big for someone who lived alone, but I guessed that she
had use for every room. I saw that the windows were looking out into the
darkness. Of course it was night, I saw that when we got out of the hospital.
Man, my brain was still dealing with whatever Yasmine had zapped me
with
. I was just running through the motions, so to speak,
of dealing with what had happened at the hospital. No, I couldn't deal with
that right now, but I did have to deal with life, and that included the
parents.

Using Dana’s phone in the kitchen, I made a quick call to my
parents. They asked if I’d heard about the odd explosion at the hospital, and I
said no. I wasn’t thinking about much beyond the hot chocolate that was slowly
warming up my insides. They hoped I was having a good time with Dana and BJ. Oh
yeah, I was having such a fantastic time. I chuckled ruefully as I hung up.

The other three came into the kitchen and sat down as I talked
on the phone. BJ was the last to join us, and I noticed that he had brought a
phad with him. Sitting at the table, I looked at the oval shaped thing. I
really wasn’t sure I’d ever want one now, thanks to Paradoxis. Still,
I reached out and touched it. Nothing hit me. Nothing happened.
Just a piece of burnished black plastic.

I glanced up at BJ, and he shrugged. “Forget it. I haven’t been
able to get a hold of her. Something’s wrong. I’m hoping she’s just been busy
with mundane life stuff.”

That brought up another point. “So, the birthday present?”

BJ grinned. “What? Parry was curious about you and Brand. Funny
though, she said you seemed normal clear up until your birthday. Then something
flared in her senses.”

I said, “She kept Yasmine from reading me, I take it? I felt
something while Kular was checking me out in the ambulance, but I barely remembered
it until today, thanks to that attack.”

BJ looked troubled, but nodded. “She can ride people—Yasmine,
that is. She’s able to bounce off her followers 
like
a cell phone signal does with a repeater tower. Think of it as telepathic call
roaming. She did that to a number of the conclave before we caught on.”

Angela’s eyes narrowed. “Then who can we trust in the conclave?
She talked to everyone! Who knows how many she physically visited?”

I looked at them. Even now, it seemed as if they were being all
mysterious. I hadn’t heard any names of people who were in the conclave. Hell,
for all I knew, it was just the three of them—Angela, Alan, and now BJ. And
maybe the conclave, along with Paradoxis, was a cover of some sort. Ugh, now I
was being paranoid. Looking over at Dana, I realized that there had to be
someone I could trust. She’d be it.

And, speaking of trust issues, I asked, “Can we free Brand?”

BJ looked at me and took a deep breath. “I haven’t got a clue.
Maybe, but it depends on how far she went in programming him. Can you handle
that? I mean, it may come down to—”

I held up a hand. “We’ll worry about that when the time comes.
Not right now. Got it?”

Taking my words in stride, he nodded and then sat kitty-corner
across from me as Dana brought more steaming hot chocolate to the table. BJ
looked troubled and glanced at her with a slightly scrunched face. Dana sighed
and went to a small cupboard next to the refrigerator and grabbed a bag of
marshmallows. Tossing him the bag, she muttered, “Brat…”

He smiled.
“Always!”
Then he ripped
into the bag, pouring nearly half of the contents into the mug.

Across from me, Angela sighed. “
This
 is the
co-leader of the conclave of the Empowered? God help us all…”

Dana blinked and looked at Angela, then met my eyes with a look
of disbelief. Then she looked at BJ, who was pointedly looking at the tabletop
while drinking from his mug.

She grunted and said, “Uh huh.
The conclave of
the…Empowered?”

“Um, the name just kinda came up,” he said after a moment.

Dana sighed. “Well, at least now I know how this conclave knows
about my coven.”

She glanced at Angela. “We don’t use the Internet. We talk
directly to each other, and none of us keeps our information on computers.
They’re too easily hacked by people we would prefer not to know about us. So
when you said you knew about my circle, I had my suspicions.”

BJ looked at his mug. It was obvious to me that he didn’t want
to
be yelled
at by Dana. And right now, I really
didn’t want to see any arguing. Frankly, I ached too much to deal with family
squabbles.

So I said, “So, in a few months’ time we went from perfectly
normal to perfectly 
not
 normal; at least, by the current
standards of civilization.”

BJ snorted and said, “If you can call civilization ‘normal’…I
guess…”

Dana said, “To a point, it is.”

“Not quite, I still haven’t had the question answered about how
psi-powers work in the first place. But the neural physics behind them aren’t
relevant right now. They exist, so what
’s done
, is
done. I’ll ask the ‘how’ questions later,” I said to her.

Dana looked away, as did BJ. Yeah, they knew how things worked.

Angela glanced at the two and then at me. “Vaughn, where is this
going?”

“Um, I’m not sure. I mean, obviously I’m not a big fan of
physics, but Alex didn’t just pop out of thin air. Nobody just pops up with
superhuman abilities, Angela. It’s been bugging me as much as my having these
powers
have
.” I answered.

I noticed BJ looking at his mug and putting in even more
marshmallows. He glanced at me and then looked away. I just looked at him.
Dana noticed his reaction and her eyes narrowed.

She said, “BJ, I know that attitude. What are you hiding?” BJ
was very focused
with drinking his hot chocolate. Dana
looked at him pointedly.
“BJ?
Did you know what Alex
could do?”

BJ looked away from the two of us for a moment longer before he
sighed and gave a nod. “He’s…he was a catalytic telekinetic. He powered me up
while we were still with each other.”

Dana stared at him. She said, “What? And how is that possible?”

BJ shrugged and answered, “He said it was an accident. Something
happened when we had sex and my normal shields ramped up.”

Looking at me, he said, “I think it was a part of his normal
power set. He showed me his telekinesis, and he told me that Dana was helping
him. But honestly, Vaughn, if he did empower you and Brand, then I
think
it was an accident. He really did seem shocked by what
happened.”

Dana shook her head, anger showing in her eyes once more. “Damn
you, BJ! I was his trainer! Did you even consider telling me this? It
might have made…”

Dana choked, unable to finish. She was still dealing the loss of
Alex. And now, to add to it, she had to wonder if BJ might have contributed to
this mess. I think he had, but not in hiding the bit about Alex’s catalyst
talent. No, BJ had done something even more idiotic. But that was something we
would deal with later.

Looking at her, I said, “Dana, Alex didn’t die from trying to
wake potential psi-gifts in people. He went full power and stopped a massive,
world-destroying asteroid. I’m no scientist; I don’t know jack about how
psychic energy works, but I do know that if you push yourself to the max for
too long physically, you’re going to collapse. Alex went all the way with a
power he barely understood. It killed him. He stopped Yama, but it took
everything he had.”

Dana sighed. “I just wish I had known about the other thing. To
have the ability to activate psi-talents in humans—”

Angela said, “Not to interject, but whatever else he did, Alex
Shaw saved the world. I hope no one is going to forget that point.”