Last Light (Novella) (3 page)

When a surfer came over the top of a wave, using its velocity to remain ahead of the curl, he was “taking the drop,” and ahead lay either a sweet ride or a wipeout, depending largely on his skill and on the steepness of the curved face of the wave, between its crest and trough. If the drop went wrong, rider and board could go into free fall down the face and either wipe out or recover just well enough to claim a tie with the ocean.

In a sense, Makani was taking the drop when she accepted Rainer's hand, and the wave down which she plummeted in free fall was storm-dark and menacing and strange. In the few dreadful seconds that followed the touch, surging out of the darkness at the man's core and into her mind were faces of women and men, of children, mouths open in silent screams, eyes wide with terror, plus treasured and well-remembered patterns of blood in the gallery of his memory, because blood was art to him, blood his passion, blood his money, too, and in his mind the images of spilling blood were confused with thick gouts of hundred-dollar bills gushing from the wounds of his victims, murder for money, murder for pleasure, murder for murder's sake. She saw herself, too, an object of intense desire, imagined in multiple poses, naked and vulnerable and chillingly submissive. During this deluge of shocking images, she sensed as well that he was in some way like her, that by touch he discovered his victims and learned why he would profit by the killing of them.

The contact was far more intense than any she had previously experienced, as if she had grasped a cable through which surged a powerful current, so that she couldn't easily let go. When she snatched her hand from his, the disconnection stung, produced a snapping-sizzling sound that arced within her head, by some route other than her ears.

His look of astonishment no doubt matched hers. But with a swiftness that suggested the mental reflexes of a perfect predator, his face was subtly reworked by cunning; and in his eyes—gray with green striations—the warmth of an enchanted would-be lover had given way to icy calculation.

He said, “I didn't know there were others like me.”

She wasn't like him in any way but one. She suffered with the psychic curse that was to this man a treasured gift. He had shaped himself into a nihilistic beast who believed all other lives were his to exploit, a creature with no morals and no limits.

Almost too late, Makani realized that he might not have seen into her as deeply as she had seen into him, that he might know nothing more of her than that she possessed a power similar to his. If she expressed loathing or fear, if she called him an abomination, he would at once be her enemy, and the calculation in his eyes would become venomous intent. If perhaps he thought she reveled in her wild talent, as he did, that she shared his contempt for ordinary humanity, she could buy time to think of some way to deal with—or escape—him.

He leaned back in the booth. “That's why you rocked me so hard when I first saw you, aside from your obvious charms.”

Surveying the other customers, the busy waiters, Makani said, “Be careful what you say,” as if he and she were conspirators and never could be adversaries.

“Don't worry about them,” he said. “I never have. Never will.”

“Be careful just the same,” she insisted, and she drained the last of her beer. Then she said what seemed to be something she would have said if indeed she had been a cold-blooded specimen like him. “No point in spooking the sheep. I need another round.”

No sooner had Makani spoken than their waitress appeared as if she had been commanded to attend them, and Rainer ordered two more bottles of Corona with fresh frosted glasses.

“When did the power first come to you?” he asked.

“I was sixteen. Two months after you saw me on the beach. How old were you when it happened?”

“Fourteen. Does anyone know?”

“Who would believe? Why would I tell? Have
you
told?”

“Hell, no. It's like being an adult in a world of helpless children, except that if you pretend to be a child like them, you totally
rule
the playground.”

She glanced at nearby diners and said, “Quieter, okay? Maybe they're children by comparison, but children can be as mean as snakes, and they
way
outnumber us.”

Adopting a stage whisper that probably carried as far as his normal voice, Rainer said, “I'll be as discreet as a confessor.”

She glared at him. “I'm serious.”

“I know. It's real cute.” Leaning forward, dropping the stage whisper, but speaking no more discreetly than before, he said, “What exactly does your touch bring you?”

She dared not say that she saw the wickedness in people, their darker and darkest secrets. Because she had read him so completely in mere seconds, she claimed that her gift was what she knew his to be. She spoke softly as she lied. “I see whatever their biggest problem is at the moment, what worries and frustrates them.”

“With that, you could make yourself everyone's best friend.”

She smiled. “They think I'm way sensitive and caring.”

“You look the sensitive and caring type.”

“Screw them,” she said.

“You have a huge advantage in any relationship—especially if in fact you don't give a shit about them. Sweet, isn't it?”

“Sweet,” she agreed. She felt increasingly confident that he didn't know how profoundly she had read him, and that he had not read her as deeply as he'd been read.

The waitress returned with two cold beers and frosted glasses. “Ready to order dinner yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Makani said. “Give us ten minutes.”

“Oh, sure, take your time.”

“And you?” Makani asked Rainer when the waitress had gone. “What comes to you with a touch?”

“Same as you. Their biggest problem, the thing obsessing them. Maybe she has a filthy-rich husband she despises, she needs him gone forever. Or maybe it's the rich husband, he has this much younger wife who was a mistake, and she pumped out a baby he never wanted, and a divorce will cost too much. I'm their problem solver.” As he tipped his bottle and poured beer into the glass, he said, “What's
my
biggest problem, Makani? What did you see when you took my hand?”

She told part of the truth now that it served her to do so. “You're unique. You have no problem. At least I didn't see anything that's troubling or frustrating you.”

“And you saw that I have the power.”

“Felt it, knew it, more than saw it. Almost like an electrical shock. It would've knocked me down if I'd been standing. Like you, I always thought there was…only me.”

“Neither of us should ever have a problem, a frustration,” he said. “With the power, I'm king of the world. You're a queen among billions of clueless commoners.” He leaned forward, regarding her with desire that earlier she had welcomed and that now sickened her. “Before you took my hand, before we touched, I asked if you believed in destiny. You said sometimes you wonder. Well, now you know. That we should meet, that we should want each other even before we knew we were alike…that's the very definition of
destiny.
”

She would have to kill him. She was shaken by the realization. Sickened. But she would not bed him, could not abide him. Seduction was quickening toward consummation. If her previous interest in him did not gain heat, even as his was going from embers to full flame, he would suspect that she was deceiving him. She didn't have a gun. He was bigger than she was, stronger. When they were alone, while he still thought their kingdoms would combine, she would need a knife and a moment when he turned his back.

Makani was surprised that she could conjure a lascivious smile. “What will it be like, us two, all your power in all of mine?”

“We'll shake the walls,” he said. “But one thing worries me. I have no problem, but you do. And your problem, as I saw it, is that you hate the power you've been given.”

“But I don't,” she lied.

“But you do.” Sadness was not in his nature, so he had to craft a sad smile. “With the touch, I read you no less than you read me. I know what I saw. And I know what you saw. So many murders. And so many more to come—starting with you.”

Having announced his intention to kill her in a conversational tone of voice, Rainer Sparks said, “Oh, should I have whispered such an incriminating threat? Have I endangered myself? Well, actually, no, I haven't. Do you know why?”

She would not show fear. She said, “I'm sure you'll tell me,” and took a sip of her beer.

“Pretty Makani, being so brave. You didn't read as deep as you thought. For eleven years, I had only the power to see their problems with a touch. But five years ago, another trick sprouted from the first. Don't know why or how. Don't need to know. I can't become invisible, none of that hokey H. G. Wells crap. But when I want people around me—in a room, on a street, in a park—to leave me alone, all I gotta do is
think
my disinterest at them. Then they become disinterested in me. It started on a beach. Two skanks were coming toward me, a pair of sevens on a scale of ten, neither of them up to my standards. Would've been tedious, getting rid of them without a scene. I thought,
Just leave me alone, little bitches,
and damn if they didn't stop fifteen feet away, confused, looking around like they didn't remember where the hell they'd been going, like
they didn't even see me anymore,
and just wandered away. I'm totally good at it now.”

He wanted her to react.

When she didn't, when she met his stare in silence, he said, “They don't see me
or hear me
—except when I want them to. Or maybe it's more accurate to say they see and hear but don't compute what they see and hear. As if I've hacked their brains and edited the flow of sensory data. I can edit you out of their awareness, too, Makani, even lovely you, or anyone who's with me. Would you like a demonstration?”

He had nothing to gain by lying. “I believe you.” She already grasped the greater threat that he now posed and was trying to anticipate what he might do next.

He gave her the demonstration that she didn't need. Raising his voice, he said angrily,
“You lied to me, you bitch, you've done nothing but lie to me!”
As he spoke, he snatched up his half-empty glass and threw the remaining beer in her face.

Less because of the beer than because she thought he would throw the glass after it, Makani startled, flinched—then surveyed the restaurant. No one seemed to have heard Rainer's outburst or to have seen what he had done. Conversations continued uninterrupted. Waiters glided through the room, carrying trays of drinks and food, as overhead the sharks hung unmoving in their hunting postures.

“They're not like you and me,” said Rainer Sparks. “We're deep, and they are not. We
know,
and they don't. They're pawns, and we're power. We could have been so much to each other. Tragic that you find me so despicable.”

He wanted to see her shrink from him in fear, perhaps even bolt for the door, but she would not give him the satisfaction of her terror. She had ridden twelve-foot behemoths in Waikiki. She'd night-surfed quaking monoliths at Pipeline, a crazy-girl adventure with a storm coming and thunder at her back. She'd been in Newport Beach when a hurricane, tearing up the Mexican coast, had pushed ahead of it monster waves that perhaps ten percent of the surfers in the world would dare. She rode them and survived the Wedge. Maybe Rainer would kill her, maybe she had no hope, but she would never cower or beg for her life.

She picked up her napkin and blotted her face. Finished, she folded it neatly and returned it to the table before she said, “So will you kill me here and now?”

Whatever reaction Rainer expected, this was not it. He cocked his head, and his thick golden hair fell over one eyebrow. His grin was quizzical. “Do you have a death wish?”

“Sometimes I've wondered about that. When beaches have been closed 'cause there were great whites in the water, I've paddled out anyway, if there was even just barely decent wave action. I've surfed in thunderstorms when the sky was full of fire and the sea danced with its reflections, on lonely stretches of coast where no one would have been there to help if I'd been struck by lightning. But, no, it's not a death wish. I figured that out a few years ago.”

“You did, huh?” He assumed that he was being played, but he was not sure of her game. “If it's not a death wish, what is it?”

“Confidence. I belong here. I have this gift—this power, as you call it—for a reason. There's a purpose I'm meant to fulfill before anything too bad will happen to me.”

He smirked, an expression that transformed him from a handsome man into a snarky adolescent. “What purpose would that be—building the coolest hot rod ever?”

“Maybe. But I'm pretty sure it's way bigger than that.” She took a sip of beer. “Fact is, sometimes I think there's someone important I'm meant to save. Like, maybe I'll touch her and see her problem or her darkest secret, and I'll know right away what to do. I'll save her life or maybe turn her away from a destructive path, and she'll go on to make a huge difference in the world.”

His soft laugh revealed less amusement than contempt. “You're gonna save the world, are you?”

“No. Just maybe one person more important than me. You haven't answered my question. Are you going to kill me here and now?”

“I'd love to. Except for the security cameras. I can't work my mojo on them. Don't know where the digital video is stored. And even if it's on a recorder somewhere here, they probably back it up in the cloud. So it'll be another time and place. Besides, half the fun is in the chase. And I want to pin you down and spread those pretty legs before I cut your throat.”

Makani wagged one finger at him, as if to say he was being a naughty boy. “Won't happen. Instead, you'll rot in Hell, and I'll sing a little song of celebration over your grave.”

“You
are
refreshing. A spunky little thing. What next—gonna pretend you can go to the cops?”

“I could prove my gift just by touching them, reading them.”

“Then what kind of a life would you have? You'd be a freak. The mind reader who knows things nobody wants known. They might not stone you to death, but in time they'd be lining up to shoot you in the head. Face it—you're more alone than any girl has ever been.”

She shrugged. “Anyway, I don't need police. Don't need anyone. Hasn't it occurred to you? My first power might have sprouted another, just like yours did.”

“I would have seen it when I read you.”

“I didn't see yours. Maybe you didn't see mine.”

He studied her, looking for a tic or tremor that would reveal her bluff.

“Best be careful,” Makani said. “I've got the islands and the Irish in me. It's a dangerous combination. Let me go my way, and I'll let you go yours. The world's big enough for two of us.”

Reaching across the table, he said, “Take my hand.”

She threw half a glass of beer in his face.

Startled, he gasped, inhaling some of the brew, and coughed explosively.

At nearby tables, diners turned to look. Rainer's spell over them had been broken.

When he saw them staring, he got control of his coughing and wiped a hand over his dripping face. Everyone who'd been interested in him looked puzzled, frowned, turned their attention elsewhere, and seemed to lose interest in the lovers' spat or whatever it had been.

As soon as she'd thrown the beer, Makani had slid out of the booth. She stood looking down at Rainer Sparks. “I won't warn you again,” she said, and she walked out of the restaurant, under the torsional forms of the dead sharks swimming the air overhead.