The Seer's Choice: A Novella of the Golden City (17 page)

Genoveva settled in the cab at Rafael’s side, wishing Medeiros would fall into the river. No, she didn’t wish that. The man was simply upset that she hadn’t chosen
him
. Nevertheless, it was long past time for Medeiros to bow out and leave her alone.

“He has bad timing,” she noted once the cab was moving.

Rafael laughed. “Yes, he certainly does. I am sorry.”

“I have lived with gossip all my life,” she said. “I simply wish he would leave you out of it.”

“I wish he would leave
himself
out of it,” Rafael countered.

That was the actual problem, wasn’t it? Genoveva peered at Rafael’s face, hoping he wasn’t upset by the potential gossip. “You lie to a Truthsayer very well.”

“I’ve worked with Anjos long enough,” Rafael said, “that I understand the way their gift works. That wouldn’t have fooled Anjos, but Medeiros lacks his grasp of subtlety.”

“Do you regret. . . ?” She didn’t have the right words to ask what she feared. Or words that wouldn’t sound crass.

“No, not in the least.” He touched her cheek. “I still worry though. Until we catch Duarte, I won’t feel you’re safe.”

No, she didn’t think she would, either. She just wanted this over with so they could move on with their lives. “Will we catch him now?”

He closed his eyes, concentrating. “It’s still indefinite.”

“That we’ll catch him? Or that we’ll marry?”

“I’m beginning to believe that one depends on the other.”

Genoveva touched his cheek. “Is
that
why you were concerned something might happen to you?”

“Something might happen to me any day of the week,” he said, his eyes lowered to their joined hands. “Duarte or not.”

The cab rolled to a stop at the Rotunda da Boavista, waiting to join the traffic.

“I love you, Rafael,” she told him. “I wanted you to know that now, in case something does happen.”

He smiled, took her hand in his own and pressed it to his lips. “And I love you, Gena.”

The cab’s door wrenched open, the hinges breaking with a scream of metal. A hand reached in, grabbed her arm, and dragged her out of the cab before she could even cry out.

She landed on her knees on the cobbles, Duarte’s grip tight on her arm. She turned her head and saw that Rafael was at the door of the cab, about to jump out. Duarte yanked her to her feet, wrapped an arm about her, and pointed the gun in his hand at Rafael.

Genoveva tried to get her hand on the gun, but then remembered that she had a better weapon. She laid her free hand on Duarte’s chest, but before she could draw his strength out of him, the gun went off and the whole world seemed to catch fire about her.

R
AFAEL HIT THE COBBLES
hard, face first. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder.

Genoveva was gone. Duarte was gone, a wide hole in the cobbles showing that he’d gone in the same manner he’d left before. Rafael stared at that hole, mind reeling.

The man had taken Genoveva, just as he’d taken the floorboards and the stone from the quay.

Where?

“Are you injured?” Gaspar had jumped from the second cab, several vehicles back in traffic.

Rafael blinked, trying to decide what to do. His cab had pulled out into traffic, stalling it, the horses likely skittish from the gunshot. The detached door still lay in the road. Rafael stepped around it to reach the cab. “We have to get to the cemetery.”

“Are you injured?” Gaspar repeated from right behind him.

Rafael shouted instructions at the terrified driver and climbed back into his cab despite the absent door. Gaspar jumped up behind him. The cab started moving again, faster this time.

“You do realize he shot you, don’t you?” Gaspar asked.

Rafael clenched his jaw. The burning in his shoulder helped him focus. What was Duarte doing to Genoveva? Had she even survived being yanked to wherever he’d gone? “It’s just my shoulder. I don’t have time for that.” He rubbed his good hand across his forehead. “How did he run us down?”

“He didn’t. He appeared directly outside your cab,” Gaspar said. “I saw it. Very interesting.”

Rafael shot the inspector a frustrated glance. “What does that mean?”

“That means he’s controlling it better, able to use his finding and his ability to move at the same time. He can come and go at will now. He can go directly to wherever he finds her.”

That meant Genoveva would never be safe anywhere. Rafael shifted, and pain burned through his shoulder with the action. “We have to kill him.”

The cab went around the rotunda and turned toward the cemetery, the hooves of the horses clattering on the cobbles. “We have to
catch
him,” Gaspar said instead. “How is he doing this? How is he developing abilities he’s never had before? Abilities no one has ever had before?”

Rafael closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. He didn’t care. He closed his eyes and asked his gift—pleaded with it—for any answer as to Genoveva’s health. And then he could breathe. She might be hurt or frightened, but she wasn’t dead. Anything else they could work through once he found her. “She’s alive,” he said aloud. “He didn’t kill her.”

“Good,” Gaspar responded. “Now we need to find them.” He added, “The Jesuits would love to study him.”

The pain in his shoulder was beginning to spread. Rafael clenched his jaw and pushed it away. Whatever else he’d done, Duarte had been a police officer. He’d lost a son in the service of the throne. He deserved better than to be experimented on. “We can’t allow that.”

“No,” Gaspar said. “We can’t. We have to pacify him. We have to control his behavior, but to do so, first we have to catch him.”

Rafael drew in a shuddering breath. He wasn’t going to commit himself to any plan until he knew what had happened to Genoveva.



Genoveva picked herself off the soft earth, her whole body damp with sweat. Her breath came short. She forced it to calm, adjusting the flow of energies in her body until the excess heat had drained away, seeping into the soil about her. Slowly the world came to rights. She smelled grass and earth, and heard birds chirping.
What happened
?

Duarte lay on the earth a few feet away, sprawled on a grave and gasping shallowly. Scattered bits of wood and stone lay about them, a messy clutter in an otherwise tidy cemetery. Duarte had snatched her, just as he had those floorboards.

She swallowed, trying to decide what to do.
What happened to Rafael
?

If he’d hurt Rafael she didn’t know what she’d do. That had to be what Rafael’s gift hadn’t been able to predict: the chance that Duarte would hurt Rafael. Or kill Rafael. Or her.

Genoveva rubbed her hands together and saw the gun Duarte had used lying on the other side of the grave. Only a few steps and she could have it in her hands. She could hold the man at bay with it. If he’d killed Rafael, she
should
shoot him. She took a step in that direction and then stopped. She gazed down at the man who’d brought her to this place, a man who looked to be in pain, old before his time.

I’m not going to shoot him.

That decision brought a calm to her that she’d missed sorely over the last few days. Duarte was clearly in distress. She should try to help him instead.

She didn’t want to touch the man.

But she was a healer. God had given her that responsibility, and she wasn’t going to shirk her duty. So she knelt at his side and laid one hand on his throat, feeling it flex under her fingers as he swallowed. She felt for his energies, checked each of his centers of power, and discovered that they were all wrong. His drive was far too strong, provoking him to attack, making him fearful. It overrode his normal compassion—she could sense that. He wouldn’t have pursued her if not for that imbalance.

She closed her eyes, trying to sort out what was causing that problem. After a moment, it was clear. She sat back on her heels.
The poor man
. Even now his energies were gathering, prompting him to attack her although it would take him a while longer to gather his strength.

She didn’t have much time.

Genoveva considered drawing on that strand of energy, quieting his drive. She didn’t want to hold it inside her, though. She didn’t want to have an impression of this man inside her own heart as she did Rafael’s. So she tugged on that strand of energy and fed it into the soil next to the grave. The grass about them turned brown and withered, and Duarte relaxed.

He grabbed feebly at her hand, as if funneling away his drive had taken his physical strength as well. Or perhaps using his gift had done that to him. “I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?”

Had
he hurt Rafael? “I don’t know.”

“I didn’t hurt
you
, did I?” he whispered.

“I’m fine,” she promised him. “Do you not remember what happened?”

“No. Nothing since . . .” He swallowed and his jaw clenched. “I don’t know why I’m angry.”

The name on the grave was
Enrique Duarte
—a young man her father had murdered. Perhaps that was all Duarte had wanted, to make her
see
what her father had done. She wasn’t certain she blamed him for that desire. She touched his forehead instead, directing his energies to calm.

“I’m sorry,” the man whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“I know. I can keep your anger at bay for a time, but not endlessly.” His eyes weren’t focusing properly, so she took his hand so he would know she was there. “I know my father was a monster,” she told him. “I know he killed your son, and many others. I will work my entire life to make up for his crimes. Please believe me.”

The man’s hand squeezed hers feebly.

“Gena!” a voice called from a distance.

Relief flooded through her at the sound of that voice.
He’s alive!

Letting Duarte’s hand go, she pushed back up to her feet. She spotted Rafael at the gates of the cemetery and waved one arm. “Rafael,” she called, “I’m here.”

He came running to her and dragged her into his arms. “Thank God,” he whispered against her ear.

At the touch of his cheek against hers, she could sense the pain running through him. She stepped back. “What’s wrong?”

He insisted that he was fine, but she persisted in trying to find the source of his pain, too alarmed to calm herself and sense it properly. It was his shoulder, she decided after a brief survey. “Take off your jacket.”

He shrugged it off with a grimace, revealing a bloody shirtsleeve. “It went through the muscle,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse.”

Rafael was grimacing down at Duarte. Inspector Gaspar had arrived and knelt at the man’s side now.

“This isn’t his fault, Rafael,” she whispered, leaning close. “He’s dying. He has a tumor in his brain, and it’s . . . it’s throwing his body out of balance. He has too much drive. That’s what’s causing his anger and his inability to talk sometimes. When he brought me here, that ate up a lot of his energies. I think that’s why he can’t remember what he’s doing.”

Rafael didn’t seem to be listening. He closed his eyes, so she set her hand on his shoulder to assess his injury. The bullet had torn through the outer part of the muscle, but had gone through with relative neatness. She concentrated on slowing the bleeding, and had the sudden insight that she could do more than that if she had the strength.

Duarte was dying anyway. She could take the last of
his
strength—his life force—and use it to heal Rafael.

Genoveva stepped back, appalled at where her mind had gone. How would that be any different than shooting the man? Was this how her own father had started down the path of using his gift to kill?

She licked her suddenly dry lips. She could never do that, not even for Rafael. She
must
never do that. She had a grasp now of how difficult life must be for Mrs. Anjos, who knew exactly how much power she could take, but had sworn never to do so again.

She closed her eyes and prayed for strength. When she opened them, Rafael was gazing at her with a tired smile on his face. “Are you better?”

She nodded quickly. “We need to get you to a doctor.”

Rafael came and set one palm on either side of her face. “It’s over.
We’re
fine. Do you understand?”