Black Orchid (9 page)

“Delia,
you in here?” Ellie’s voice preceded her appearance in the doorway. “Hey,
friend.”

“Hey.”
Adelaide closed the book she was reading and pushed thoughts of Nate from her
mind. He seemed to occupy her thoughts more and more lately.

But
now was not the time. Tonight was Ellie and Adelaide’s night to work together
on Adelaide’s power control. They’d been practicing every few days for a little
while now, and the extra work was helping. Adelaide sent Nate away each time,
though she had no idea where he went. She was afraid it might be time to send
him away forever. She didn’t really need him anymore… not for the shaking at
least.

She
glanced at the clock. “You’re a little late tonight.”

Ellie
grimaced. “I think training the Vyusher and then practicing here with you is
getting to me. I took a nap this evening and then overslept.” She stifled a
yawn.

“Do
you feel all right? We don’t have to do this tonight.” Adelaide frowned.
Svatura rarely got tired. They needed very little sleep in general.

Still,
Adelaide did need the practice, and Ellie was a great teacher. When she touched
someone, Ellie could control their powers. More than that, she instantly became
an expert, although Ellie claimed it wasn’t always perfect. She was still
learning her own ability, after all. But at the very least, Ellie’s gift came
in handy for teaching. She used it to help others discover and then master the
nuances of their skills faster.

Ellie
waved a hand at Adelaide’s suggestion. “You sound like Alex.”

“I
bet.” Adelaide gave her wry smile.

Ellie
sighed. “I’m fine. Nothing an extra hour of sleep tonight won’t cure.”

Adelaide
swung her feet over the side of the bed. “Okay, then. I’m ready when you are.”

“My,
my. Eager today,” Ellie teased as she pulled her long hair into a ponytail and secured
it in place.

Adelaide
shrugged. “It would be nice to master
something
.”

Ellie
gave her a sympathetic look. “Makes sense. Let’s get going, then.”

They
made their way downstairs to where Charlotte was waiting to pop them halfway across
the world. Selene had insisted that any teaching happen at a place more familiar,
the theory being that they’d be able to guard it better and still be away from
the bulk of the Vyusher. Very few knew about Adelaide’s problems yet.

They’d
decided to train in a field in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, close to her
family’s homes in Estes Park. Adelaide wasn’t thrilled about that. The middle
of the Outback seemed fine to her, and she still wasn’t ready to be around a
lot of people. But she needed the practice, and they kept it to just her family
as guards for now.

Tonight
they popped into Ellie’s house, where she found Griffin and her parents
waiting. After a quick round of hugs, Adelaide opened the window, and both
girls shifted to falcons and flew out into the night air. Adelaide was a little
wobbly at first, but she was getting the hang of things faster now.

It
took them only a short time to make their way to the chosen field. As she had
the last several times, Adelaide looked around at the moonlit landscape as they
landed. She willed her memory to kick in, to let her feel some sense of
recognition or connection to this place. According to Ellie, this was the same
field where her family had battled and defeated the Vyusher when they’d been
under Gideon’s thrall. Gideon, Selene’s twin brother, had been the ruler of the
Vyusher for a long time. He’d used his ability to force his people to do
unimaginable horrors against all other Svatura tribes for centuries. And he’d
come for them.

Ellie
had killed him in this field. But to Adelaide it just looked like a flat, open
space in the middle of pine trees with mountains rising up around them on all
sides.

She
pushed her frustration aside and turned to face Ellie. “What’s your plan for
tonight?”

“Well,
we could continue to work on the falcon shift if that’s what’s going to gain
you some independence.”

Adelaide
picked at a loose thread in her jeans. “Actually, to start with, I’d like to
work on my ability to see relationships.”

She
glanced up and caught Ellie’s small frown. Why would Ellie be worried about
that? Though, now that she thought about it, Ellie had seemed reluctant to help
her much with her relationship power in general. “Is there a problem?”

Ellie
tapped a fingernail on her front teeth, a nervous habit Adelaide had noticed.
“Not a problem, really. Just…”

Adelaide
reached out and gently stilled Ellie’s hand. “Just what?” she asked softly.

Ellie
stopped her tapping and sighed. “Before you lost your memory, you were very
guarded about sharing that particular gift. You worried that knowing future
relationships would influence others to do things they might not otherwise.”

Adelaide
gave a small smile. “Sounds like me.”

“So
I don’t want to violate that rule for you. It was too important. But more than
that, because you never let me access that power, I don’t know that I’ll be
able to do much to help you with it.”

Adelaide
frowned. “But you’re supposed to be an expert at someone’s powers when you
touch them, right?”

Ellie’s
lips twisted. “True. But I’m not an expert at my own powers. So it doesn’t
always work. And what makes yours trickier is the question of how much is the
power and how much is intuition and learning.”

“Meaning?”

“From
what you
have
shared with me, developing your gift meant seeing
different levels of relationships. At first you could only see current ones,
and then you learned to see past connections, and you were just learning to see
future ones. They had to be really obvious for you to see those.”

Adelaide
thought about that. The few times she’d accessed that power since her memory
gap, she’d only seen current associations. So that made sense.

“More
than that. You learned what the lines meant first by understanding the connections
around you.”

“So
you’re saying that figuring out what those lines represent is more a matter of
intuition and learning?”

Ellie
grimaced. “I’m afraid so.”

“So
if I were to ask you what a line that was purple and black meant, you’d say…”

“No
clue. You once told me that the first relationships you recognized were those
repeated around you, like
te’sorthene
with your parents, and Charlotte
and Dexter, and—”

Ellie
stopped suddenly.

“And?”

Ellie
said nothing, just stared into the distance, unseeing.

Adelaide
waved her hand in front of her friend’s face. “Ellie? And?”

Ellie
blinked. “Sorry. Um… and eventually me and Alex.”

Adelaide
had a feeling that wasn’t what Ellie had been going to say. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh.
Yup. I thought I heard something for a moment there.”

Adelaide
had learned by now that Ellie tended to be vague, and her words could refer to
multiple things. “Heard with your ears? Or with the telepathy?”

Ellie
grinned. “My ears. I thought I heard something moving in the woods. But that
reminds me.
You
have telepathy. Reach out to the area surrounding us. Do
you hear anything?”

Adelaide
concentrated, searching with her mind like Ellie had taught her. It took more
concentration than the falcon morph. “Just you.”

Ellie’s
eyebrows shot up. “Really? What was I thinking?”

“You
were watching my face as I concentrated.”

“You’re
sure it was my thoughts?” Ellie asked with a frown.

“Yes.
It was from your point of view, directly in front of me and a few feet away.
Why?”

“I
thought I was blocking you. You must be getting stronger.” She widened her
stance as if it would help her. “Try again.”

Adelaide
reached out again. Again she heard nothing. But this time, where she’d picked
up Ellie’s visual image, now there was a black hole. Not just silence, but absence.

“No.”

“Push
harder.”

Adelaide
focused on that spot. She pictured that scene in a movie Nate had insisted she
watch -
The Abyss
- where the column of water explores the ship.
Imagining her telepathy like that, she tried to tunnel into the blank space
where Ellie stood.

Ellie
made a little sound in the back of her throat. Suddenly it
felt to Adelaide
as though a
balloon popped, and she could see every image Ellie was looking at. She heard
her friend’s mental,
“Ouch.”

She
backed out. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“No!
That was great! Really impressive, Adelaide. I think only Griffin is strong
enough to push past my blocking like that. Good job.”

“But
I can’t pick up random thoughts. And I’m still only fifty percent at sending them.”
Adelaide sighed. Sometimes she had to warn Nate to hide a couple of times, just
to be sure.

Ellie
grinned and was about to say something when a horrible realization suddenly
struck Adelaide. She grabbed Ellie’s arms. Without saying a word, she cast out
her telepathic nets. Only this time, she knew what to look for. And when she found
it, she sucked in a breath.

“Do
you see them?”
she asked.

“See
what?”

Despite
the fear starting to grip her, Adelaide felt a small moment of satisfaction. Maybe
she’d just had some kind of breakthrough? The telepathy seemed to be flowing more
easily now.

“Any
place there’s a hole, that’s a person standing there. They’re blocking the
telepathy. That’s what you felt like to me before I got past your walls.”

Ellie
stilled.

“I
see them. I count at least six.”
She casually glanced over Adelaide’s
shoulder into the inky darkness of the woods.

“There
are ten. Six are close by, watching. There are another four beyond them, maybe
a quarter mile away.”

“They
must have a telepath with them, blocking us. There’s no way Maddox has ten
telepaths in his pack.”
Ellie’s hand’s fisted.
“We need to go. Now.”

“Wait.
This is the first sighting of Maddox’s people in ages. Right?”

Ellie
hesitated.
“Yeah.”

“If
we could get just one of them…”

“No.
Way. I can’t put you in danger that way. And you’re not strong enough with your
powers to risk it.”

Out
loud, Adelaide tried to throw off their audience by saying, “No. I still can’t
hear anything. Show me again.”

To
Ellie she said,
“If they get too close, I’ll morph and fly home.”

She
got no response for a moment as Ellie thought through the options.

“Come
on. We can’t pass up this chance.”

Ellie
gave a sharp nod. In seconds they figured out how they’d lure the wolves out
and capture at least one to take home. Satisfied, Adelaide dropped Ellie’s
arms.

“Okay.
You’ve got that. Now let’s try it when I’m in the air,” Ellie said.

Shimmering
waves hovered in front of and around Ellie’s body as she morphed before
Adelaide’s eyes and turned into a falcon. Without a pause she took off into the
sky.

Adelaide
kept her perceptual net open. She couldn’t be sure, but the pits of silence
seemed to slip closer to where she stood. She still couldn’t see the wolves,
not even the reflection of the moonlight in their eyes, but her telepathy told
her that they now stood just at the edge of where the clearing met the woods.

She
looked up in the sky, as though she were concentrating on Ellie, and waited for
the attack to come.

Adelaide
held her breath a few more heartbeats and then started acting lost and
confused. At first she just searched the sky, frowning. Very deliberately, she
turned her back to the wolves in the woods. And then she called out, “Ellie?”

With
a unified growl, six wolves leapt out of the trees and into the clearing.
Adelaide hastily backed up.

“Now,
Ellie!”

But
her friend did not appear. With a menacing growl, the wolves stalked closer.

“Um,
Ellie?”
Adelaide mentally felt through the skies above, but couldn’t find Ellie
anywhere. Was her telepathy failing her? She tried not to let panic set in. She
could always fly away if absolutely necessary.

But
she wouldn’t just sit here and shiver in fear while she held her position
either. Instead she tried to pierce their telepathic walls. She used the same
technique that’d been successful with Ellie just a few minutes ago. But their
telepath was too strong for her, and she couldn’t find a spot weak enough to
get through to any of them. So instead, she opened herself to her other
ability. Instantly, the sparkling strands of light representing relationships
appeared, joining the wolves before her. She studied the lines, looking for
anything she could use. Anything at all.

She’d
expected the thin white line that connected all ten wolves, including those
still in hiding. She saw the same line between the Vyusher. She’d come to
realize it represented the pack mind. But Maddox’s pack relationships looked a
little different. Some patches of the strands were jagged, like a fraying rope.
She’d think more about that later. Right now, she was looking for something to
use against them.

Nothing
was obvious. But as she caught sight of a different relationship, an idea
started to occur to her. “Brothers, I see?” she said, addressing the two wolves
directly in front of her. Their only response was to pull back their lips in a
snarl.

“Too
bad.” She tsked. “I’m sorry to say that one of you will be dead before too
long. I can see it in your future relationship. ” A bluff, of course. One she
hoped they wouldn’t call.

The
two wolves seemed to pull up and look at each other. Then, without so much as a
twitch of warning, they both leapt at her. Adelaide threw herself into the air,
shifting into her falcon as she moved and praying that she held it together. She
felt a whoosh of air as their snapping jaws just missed her.

Damn.
 I shouldn’t have let them get so close.
She still couldn’t rely on her morph
completely. She almost lost it. She’d never jumped right into it like that, but
through sheer force of will, she held it and took off.

Adelaide
quickly gained altitude. She had absolutely no warning before something slammed
into her. Luckily, the massive condor didn’t manage to grab her. Adelaide
tumbled through the air for a few seconds. She breathed, as she did when Nate
helped calm her down, and concentrated on holding her form. As soon as she
stabilized, she pulled her wings in tightly and dove back toward the ground,
the other bird in hot pursuit.

This
must be why Ellie hadn’t come. Adelaide had no idea where her friend was, but
she was now trapped between her enemy in the sky and those on the ground.
Desperation and terror had her using that telepathic probe again. The shaking
started up as she tried to use two powers at once. But Adelaide held the dragon
back. Using her mind, she stabbed as hard as she could in every direction.

She
heard a collective howl rise up from the creatures below her. Encouraged, she
pushed harder with her mental assault while never letting up from her dive
toward the earth. Flaring her wings at the last moment, she tried to land, but
instead she lost control, morphing and hitting the ground hard. Somehow she
managed to hold onto the telepathic attack she was wielding, but just barely.

The
wolves around her writhed in agony. Adelaide’s soft heart throbbed. She hated
to hurt any living thing, even if they were her enemies. Clenching her teeth,
she persisted. Her own survival, and maybe Ellie’s, were at stake here.

The
bright light cast by the full moon was suddenly thrown into shadows. Adelaide
looked up to see the hulking form of a dragon plummeting toward her. Thrashing
and twisting in the air, Ellie clearly wasn’t in control of the fall.

“Adelaide,”
she barely
heard Ellie’s pained whisper in her mind.

With
a sharply indrawn breath, Adelaide realized that using her telepathy like a
scalpel in the wolves’ minds was affecting Ellie too. Why wasn’t Ellie blocking
her?

But
Adelaide stopped her probe immediately. She watched as Ellie spread her immense
wings and slowed her descent. With a small scream, Adelaide flattened herself
on the ground, throwing her arms over her head, as Ellie’s form bore down on
her. Then she had to scramble to avoid rocks and brambles as the force of the
wind generated by the dragon’s wings tumbled her across the ground.

When
her body came to a halt, she staggered to her feet. Brushing her hair and dirt
away from her face, Adelaide looked up to see the midnight-black beast taking
to the air, a wolf clutched in each monstrous claw.

“Follow
me,”
she heard Ellie call.

“But
the condor—”

“I
knocked him out of the sky on my way down.”

Seeing
that some of the remaining wolves around her were regaining their feet,
Adelaide needed no further urging. She quickly morphed and followed Ellie into
the night.

“Ellie,
where were you earlier? And why couldn’t you block the pain I was causing with
my telepathy?”

Ellie
took so long to answer that Adelaide wondered if her question had gotten
through. When Ellie finally did reply, her voice was tinged with worry
. “I
don’t know. At first, I couldn’t force myself to go dragon, and then I couldn’t
get out of it when I was falling. And I couldn’t reach you, although I could
hear you.”

“Has
that ever happened before?”

Another
long pause.
“Not like that. My powers have been… a bit sketchy lately. But
only in little ways so far. Nothing so dangerous”

“Does
Alex know?”

A
deep sigh echoed across their telepathic connection.
“Yeah. It’s partly why
he didn’t want me to come tonight. But we’ll have to deal with that later.
Right now we’ve got to figure out what to do.”

Adelaide
glanced at the struggling forms clutched in Ellie’s great talons.

“Where
will we take them? Your house is in a subdivision. There’s no way we can hide
wolves there, let alone a dragon.”

“Your
parents’ house. I’ve already contacted Charlotte. She’ll meet us there and take
us to Selene, where there are cells to lock them in. She’ll come back for your
parents and Griffin.”

Adelaide
struggled to keep up with Ellie. Falcons were fast, but by sheer size alone,
dragons were much faster. She could tell Ellie was trying to go slowly, but it
wasn’t enough. 
“You should go on without me.”

“No.”

“I’m
only slowing you down. I’ll go back to your house. You meet Charlotte and get
those wolves to the Vyusher. I’ll be with the others by the time she comes back
for us. Can you hold your morph?”

Ellie
was silent a moment.
“I’m sure I can. Can you make it home on your own? What
if they attack you with something else?”

“I’ll
hit them with that mind- stabbing thing again if they try to come near me,”
Adelaide
assured her friend.
If I can,
she tacked on to herself. She didn’t add
that she could still feel the shaking that’d started earlier. She had it under
control—at least for now.

“Okay.
But you be careful. And keep your guard up.”

“You
too,”
Adelaide answered softly. Catching a current of wind, she tipped her wings and
headed off.

As
she flew, she thought through the fight. Before she’d attacked the wolves with
her telepathy, Adelaide had briefly considered attacking the weak spots in
their relationship lines. But something had stopped her – a series of
disjointed images had flared and flashed in her mind in rapid succession. The
deep red relationship line of
te’sorthene
. Then flashes of that line
fading and growing weaker over time. And, finally, of it snapping in half.

A
sharp pain had ripped through her with the last image. It’d all happened in the
span of moments. Now that she had a second to really think, she wondered what she’d
actually seen. Had those been memories? And whose
te’sorthene
line had
weakened and then broken?

Something
deep inside her told her that she really didn’t want to know.