Intuition (15 page)

Mum's voice still carries worry. “What about the rumors of partition? What if something happens and he's so far away?”

“If there is partition, it won't be violent. Everything will be civilized and constitutional. In any case, he'll be safe there. We have to trust that we're doing the best for him.”

Varun's breathing is slow and steady and I know that neither their conversation nor the smells from the kitchen have woken him. A few minutes later, I hear soft footsteps in the doorway. Mum pauses long enough so that I can smell the perfumed oil she always wears, and I know that my eyes are so damaged from the firecracker that she has no idea if I'm asleep or not.

“I'm awake,” I say quietly.

“You have ears like a hyena these days,” she says. I hear her voice change pitch as she smiles, although I have a feeling that it's more forced than usual. “Food is almost ready.”

“I'll wake Varun,” I say, throwing the covers off. At first I was glad to be staying home while everyone else went to school, but lately I've been missing it. Even Miss Mehta's dreary history class might be worth sitting through if only to get out of this house.

“Thank you, dear,” Mum says. I know that she's wondering whether I've overheard them, but I'm not giving anything away. I'm not sure how I feel about going to a blind school in England. On the one hand, it would be better than staying in the house all day, every day. On the other, it's one of the most terrifying prospects I can imagine. All alone in a strange country, not even being able to see where I am when I get lost. We listened to the war on the radio, and even though Daddy says that they didn't hit that part of England, I still picture myself wandering among bombed-out buildings while airplanes drone overhead like in the newsreels we saw at the cinema. I need some time to think about it, although I know that when Daddy puts his mind to something, it very rarely changes. Varun has been trying to get them to send him away to boarding school for as long as I can remember, but for him, the answer has always been no.

My feet hit the warm tile floor and I feel my way from my bed to my brother's. “Get up!” I shout somewhere close to his ear.

“Stupid!” he says, pushing me backward so hard I fall to the floor, but we're both laughing. As much of an ass as Varun is, he's the only one who's made me feel even halfway normal since the accident. He spent the first few months apologizing daily, crying about how he never should have handed me the firecracker in the first place. I hated it. I'm much happier having my irritating older brother back.

“I'm not stupid,” I say, launching myself onto his bed
. “I'm
going to boarding school in England!”

The three women are almost out of sight now as the world comes back into focus. I shake my head, hoping that it wasn't
obvious. I flash back to the night of the fireworks and the chaos after the firecracker blew up in my face. I'd spent the rest of that lifetime blind. Did I go to England? Did I learn braille? I feel the tips of my fingers and wonder if they'd be able to read braille, like I can speak Italian. If I learned in that lifetime, is the sense memory still there?

“Another memory?” Janine asks.

I look at the ground, a little embarrassed. “Yes. India this time. I've been getting more and more of those.”

“India. That's interesting. I've never had a lifetime in India.”

I glance at her. “I was a boy in India, sometime around World War II. I remember I was blinded. By a firecracker.” I think about the memory I just had. “I think that's where I began to feel things more. My eyes were gone, so my other senses must have taken over. I could hear better and knew what people were feeling by the tone of their voices.”

“It's possible,” Janine says, chewing thoughtfully. “Losing your sight would be a traumatic event. If a person can develop musical skills over many lifetimes, I don't see why you can't develop empathic skills the same way. True empathic skills are simply supercharged intuition, and once you learn to trust in them completely, there's no telling where they might take you.”

“Do you think that was my last lifetime? Before this one, I mean?”

“You said it was World War II?”

“Yes. I heard my dad talking about England and Germany.”

“So that would have made you . . .”

“Eleven. Right after the war ended.”

“Could be.” Janine nods. “Depends on how old you were
when that lifetime finished, but sure, that might have been the one before now.”

“Freaky,” I say, amazed.

“Definitely,” Janine agrees. “But that's enough chitchat.” She rubs her hands on her pants and holds them out to me. “Now, let's see if we can hone those skills into something worth using in this lifetime.”

The minute Drew's foot hits the bottom step of our porch, I'm out the door. It's not that I'm dying to see him again, but I want to get the hell out of here before Mom comes home and I have to explain myself. The vague note I left for her in the kitchen will have to do until later.

“Hi,” Drew says, pausing on the steps. He's wearing a black V-neck T-shirt and a dark brown leather jacket that looks like he either kept it from a past lifetime or picked it up at a vintage store. I hate that a little jolt of something runs through me when I see him, but I just pass it off as a leftover from the other lifetime. He flashes me a smile. “You look nice.”

I glance down at my jeans and black corduroy jacket. I'll never admit that it took me a couple of hours to figure out what to wear; I was going for a cross between looking good and looking like I don't care. Apparently, “don't care” won out. I'm about
to say something about him lying, but at the last second decide to let it go. “Thanks. Where are we going?”

Drew turns and steps onto the sidewalk. “It's sort of a secret. All I'll say is that I promise to get you home safely before curfew.”

I instinctively feel for my phone in the pocket of my jeans. I can always call a cab if I need to go home. If doing what he wants for one night is going to make him go away forever, it seems like a bargain. “Okay.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Really? Great. Don't comment, just keep your mind open and your opinions to yourself for now. My car's over here.” Drew leads me down the block to a low-slung black car with a red stripe down the hood. It looks like it would be at home in a superhero movie or on a racetrack. He walks around and opens the passenger door for me, and I slide into a seat that feels like it instantly surrounds me, adjusting to my every move. The interior is all pale gray leather and totally spotless. I look from the chrome dashboard to the steering wheel with the logo I don't recognize.

“This is your car?” I ask as he eases into the driver's seat. “What is it, a Ferrari?”

“Bugatti,” he says, patting the dashboard. “It's a great car for driving around town. Or to Vegas.”

“We're driving to Vegas?”

He glances at me as the engine roars to life. “I thought about it, but I figured you didn't have that kind of time.”

I look around the obviously expensive car, really more cockpit than interior, and try to decide whether he's kidding or not. “So if we're not going to Vegas, where are we going?”

“You agreed not to comment.”

“Fine. I'll just sit here and shut up.”

“That'll work,” he says. We turn toward downtown, but as much as I want to ask more questions, I sit back and look out the window. The driver of every car we pass turns and does a double take at the Bugatti, but Drew doesn't seem to notice.

I feel the leather seat under my hand. “So your parents are insanely rich?”

Drew settles back in his seat as the car shoots forward. “They are now. I help them out. When I was a kid they were just your average, middle-class couple living in Sydney. Dad's an engineer and Mum stayed home with us.”

“Now I totally don't get it. What was all that talk about arriving in San Francisco with just a duffel bag? Kat said that you're a jewelry designer. She didn't say anything about race cars.”

“I only design jewelry for fun. As far as most people are concerned, I'm a jewelry designer with an unknown source of family money, and that's fine,” he says, almost apologetically. “Even Francesca doesn't know anything close to the truth.”

A shadow passes across his face as he says her name that makes me think something's going on there. “So what is the truth?”

“Have you been told anything about the Iawi? About Alexandria and the catacombs?”

“I know that the Iawi are really old Akhet. That's about it.”

Drew nods slowly, and I can tell he's measuring out the information he's going to give me. “The first formal organization of Akhet took place in Rhakotis. It's now called Alexandria.”

“In Egypt,” I say, connecting some of the dots. “Which is why everything has an Egyptian name.”

“Right. When people first began to realize that they were remembering their past lives, they wanted a safe place to store valuables to make their next lives easier. We found that in Rhakotis. Some Iawi keep things in other places too, but Rhakotis is the only sanctioned place for safekeeping.”

I look up at the lighted windows of the high-rises as we pass through the Financial District. “What kinds of valuables?” I finally ask.

“Small things, mostly. Jewels, gold, things like that. Although the past few centuries have brought more opportunity to save things in other places and go back for them in the next lifetime. We've gotten more savvy about what types of things people find valuable over the years.” He leans forward with a smile. “Do you have any idea how much a Honus Wagner baseball card is worth these days? I can buy a couple of Bugattis for the value of one little baseball card.”

“That's it? You just sell baseball cards for a living?”

“No. Every lifetime is more expensive than the last, which is why you always need to build on the money you've put aside. Some Akhet skills can come in extraordinarily handy for that. Picking the best of the stock market, knowing which tech companies will probably thrive in the future.” Drew laughs. “It's pretty simple, really. I have money. Companies need money in order to start up or expand. I give them what they need, and they give me a cut of the profits.” He shifts hard with his right hand. “Raising money is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. We all do it. I'd imagine even your Sekhem friends aren't hurting for cash.”

I remember Griffon saying that money wasn't a problem when he had the right-handed cello made for me. But he and
Janine live in a pretty regular house, and he drives a motorcycle. Not a race car. Although Janine does seem to know a large number of powerful and wealthy people.

“They don't live like this.”

“I'm sure they could if they wanted to.”

I look over at Drew, and he's got a broad smile on his face.

“Why are you so happy?”

His smile is instantly replaced by a more serious face. “Sorry, I forgot. No fun around Cole.”

I frown. “That's not true. I'm plenty fun.”

“We'll see about that.” He reaches into a space behind my seat. “But I did get you a little something. Just for fun.”

“I don't want anything else from you,” I say. I already feel a little guilty about the earrings I shoved back into his hands after he went to all the trouble of making them for me.

He holds a bag out to me. “Why not? I already said that money's not an issue. It's not a big deal.”

I take the bag and place it in my lap. Inside is a black dress and a shoebox. I lift out the dress and the box—I recognize the designer, because Kat is always going on about their stuff. Inside the shoebox is a pair of high-heeled black platform sandals with red soles. Everything is exactly my size. Suddenly, my face feels hot. I shove it all back in the bag and tuck it behind his seat. “I can't take these.”

He looks defeated. “Why not? I just saw them and thought about how great they'd look on you.”

“I don't want them.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you,” he says. “I just thought you'd like them.”

“I'm not something else for you to purchase,” I say, anger rising inside me. “I agreed to go with you one more time and that's it. I'm just fulfilling my end of the bargain.”

He looks so hurt I almost feel like apologizing. “Honestly, I didn't mean anything. You used to love it when I got you things before. I just thought you still would feel that way.”

“Well, I don't,” I say. “I'm not Allison anymore.”

He parks the car near a row of warehouses by the piers and turns his steady gaze on me. “Trust me, I know that.”

Drew grabs my hand as he helps me out of the low-slung sports car, but I pull it away and manage to climb out myself. Drew glances back at me, but doesn't reach for my hand again.

I look around at the alleys full of trash bins and burned-out streetlights as we approach a plain gray door. “Where are we?”

“San Francisco.”

“Funny.” I glance at the nondescript brick building with the rickety-looking fire escape climbing up the side. There's no sign out front or over the door. I hear sirens in the distance, but other than that, it's disturbingly quiet out here. I feel for the phone in my pocket. Just in case. “I mean, what is this place?”

“It's a club,” he says, ringing a bell that's almost hidden on the right side of the door frame.

“What kind of a club?”

The door opens and we're ushered into a dark hallway by a man in a suit. “A private club,” he answers.

“Good to see you again Mr. Braithwaite,” the man at the door says.

“Thanks, Max,” Drew says. “Anyone special in tonight?”