Stealing Phoenix by Joss Stirling
Annoyed at the idea of other girls being on the receiving end of those kissing fireworks, I made to pull away, which seemed only to amuse him.
‘Don’t. That was before I knew you. With you, I’m completely different. I need you like I need oxygen. No kiss has ever affected me like that one. You know, socks blown off.’ He grinned and I couldn’t help but smile too. ‘The first kiss of many, I hope. Look, Phee, we don’t have a choice about being together; we just have to work out how to clear away the obstacles.’ He muttered a curse. ‘That came out wrong. I meant to say that I want to be with you—it’s not just the soulfinder thing speaking. I know you’re thinking I’ll be fine without you; that might have been true last week, before I met you, but not today. If you care even a tiny bit for me, you have to give me a chance to prove I can help you.’
‘No one can help me.’ But I began to hope, to pray, that I was wrong.
‘That’s not true. At least let me try.’
We stayed like that for a few minutes, his arms wrapped round me, holding me close, his fingers shifting through my hair, massaging the back of my neck. All the tension wound inside me began to ease. I couldn’t deny what he was saying, as I felt it too. With him I was no longer desperate and alone. Too often, I experienced life like a heart patient who has undergone surgery and been left with an aching hole in the centre of my chest; in Yves’s arms, that gap was filled, leaving me cared for and complete. How could I think of giving this up if there was even a slither of a chance that we could have a future together?
‘Feeling better now?’ he asked, reading the signs my body was broadcasting, no longer held at the point of taking flight.
‘Yes. Much.’
‘Tell me why we are here.’
I traced the pattern on the front of his T-shirt with my fingertip. ‘I was sent to get you. I’m bait.’
He didn’t pull away. ‘Go on.’
The Seer’s mind virus stopped me saying that I knew about the Savant Net or the threat to me. ‘My leader wants to talk to you. He’s going to be in the Tate.’ I pointed to the factory-like building at the southern end of the bridge. ‘He won’t be alone.’
‘What does he want to see me about?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
He was shrewd. ‘Can’t.’
‘What would happen if you did say?’
Could I tell him that? The Seer had not ordered me to keep quiet about his skills; he hadn’t even imagined I’d want to confide that to Yves. ‘It would hurt me. A lot.’
Yves dropped a kiss on the top of my head. ‘OK, I get it. We’ve met guys like him before—the ones who can do sick, twisted stuff to brains like some sort of computer bug. I don’t want you hurt. How long have we got?’
‘About an hour. The gallery opens at ten.’
‘Have you had breakfast?’
We had a meeting with the Seer in prospect and he was thinking of breakfast? ‘Er … no. But shouldn’t we, like, make a plan or something?’
‘We can plan while we eat.’ He took a step back but kept hold of my hand, tugging me towards the southern end of the bridge. ‘Come on.’
‘What?’ I stumbled after him, not sure if I should laugh or cry.
‘I have my soulfinder to myself for an hour; I’m intending to make the most of it.’
We found a little kiosk café on the Embankment and sat down at one of the metal tables. Red and white parasols flapped in the light breeze, rippling like fête bunting. A seagull balanced on the top of a lamp post, lord of all that he surveyed with his pebble-black eye.
‘What do you want?’ Yves cracked open the laminated menu. ‘Coffee, coffee, more coffee, tea, tea, another kind of tea. Buns. Oh, you’ve got to have buns—that sounds so English.’ He had the delighted expression of someone making a gold strike.
I smiled, trying to reign in my errant thoughts at all this talk of buns. ‘OK, I’ll have tea and a hot-cross bun.’
He winked. ‘So will I. I’m now living out one of my dreams.’ He slapped the menu back on the table, weighting it down with the sugar bowl.
‘You dream about hot-cross buns?’ I teased.
He took my hand and kissed my knuckles. ‘No, I dream about having my soulfinder to myself, somewhere in the sunshine. I didn’t know it was going to be London, but I’ll settle for that.’
‘All right, love, what’ll it be?’ With ninja skills, the motherly waitress pounced, making us both start.
Dropping my hand, Yves quickly placed the order.
‘You want jam with that?’ She tapped her pad. ‘Or are you sweet enough?’
Yves gave her a sheepish smile and said that, yes, we would like jam. I found it cute how the adoration of women of all ages embarrassed him so easily.
‘I do like Americans,’ she declared to me. ‘Always so polite.’
As she bustled off, I touched Yves’s cheek. ‘You’re blushing. What is it about you and older women? They all flirt with you.’
He trapped my hand against his skin. ‘Do they? I didn’t notice. I’m only interested in one girl flirting with me.’
I grinned. ‘Good recovery.’
‘Glad I’ve not lost my skills.’ Yves checked his watch. ‘OK, Phee, you’ve got an hour to tell me everything about yourself.’
I pulled my hand back, ashamed of my shabby life. ‘What kind of things?’
‘I know there’s a lot you can’t tell me but there’s so much I don’t know about you, surely you can share some of it? You’re vegetarian. Why? You like reading. Do you have a favourite author? What makes you laugh? Cry? Do you prefer the old Star Wars films to the ones they made later? What kind of music do you listen to?’
I held up my hand, relieved none of these questions went to the heart of my situation. ‘OK, OK, I get the message. Right, um … I don’t like killing animals so I won’t eat them. That makes me cry too.’
He nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
‘I like all sorts of writers. I never had anyone tell me what to read so I guess my list is a bit odd. I kinda grab things off the library shelf.’
‘Tell me who you’ve grabbed then.’
‘Isaac Asimov and Jane Austen—see, in libraries you start at the As.’
He tapped his chin with a forefinger, eyes sparkling. ‘Interesting—Pride and Prejudice in space—has possibilities.’
We stopped talking as the waitress returned with our order. When she left I continued. ‘Willa Cather, Agatha Christie, George Eliot. So many that I would take the whole hour just listing them.’
‘That’s fine by me.’ He sliced open the bun and slathered on the strawberry jam from the dinky pot the waitress had given us. ‘Bite.’
Obediently, I took a chunk out of the half he held for me.
‘You know, I’m going to get a lot of pleasure from feeding you up. Xav thinks you are undernourished.’ He took a bite from the same place I had eaten from, keeping his eyes on mine the whole time. I found it so sweet that he was flirting with me—no one had bothered before.
I changed the subject, not liking the reminder of where I had come from. ‘Not seen them.’
‘Not following.’
‘Star Wars. Not been on at a cinema when I had a chance to sneak in.’
He rolled his eyes in mock-horror. ‘We’ll have to fi x that immediately. Lots of popcorn and a DVD fest.’ He suddenly got embarrassed. ‘Not that I’m a Star Wars fan or anything.’
I giggled. ‘I don’t believe you. I bet you go to those conventions all dressed up.’
‘I’d better hide my light sabre before you come to my house, then, or my credibility will be ruined.’
‘Too late: you’re rumbled. What was your last question?’
‘Music.’
‘Oh yes. I don’t know. I haven’t got anything to listen to music on.’
He put down his mug of tea. ‘You haven’t … er … acquired an MP3 player, or an iPod?’
‘I don’t keep the stuff I steal,
Yves brushed the back of my wrist, a gesture to say he understood, but he didn’t really. Would Mr Strait-laced-and-Respectable really understand that I’d liked being a very good thief?
‘I hear stuff in shops though; I’m not completely out of touch. So,’ I said with false brightness, ‘what about you?’
He stirred his tea. ‘This very unnerdy person’s view on Star Wars is that the new ones are best—I go for lavish special effects and the acting doesn’t bother me. Could never get past the Princess Leia hairstyle and the teddy-bear creatures to like the first three, though I have to admit that Harrison Ford is uber-cool.’ He started counting his replies off with a wave of the teaspoon. ‘I eat meat but would be happy to try the vegetarian way for you and it would be better for the environment so maybe I should do it anyway. I read but mostly non-fiction. My favourite novel is My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok.’
‘Whoa, sounds learned.’ I was glad I hadn’t admitted to my soft spot for popular romantic literature.
He laughed. ‘It’s a great story—very deep. But I like a good murder-mystery too, and sci-fi. As for music, I like classical but I also go for lots of other styles.’
‘Like what?’
‘R&B for a start. You know, songs like ‘Billionaire’—great lyrics, very funny.’ He sang the first few lines in a rasping tone.
I smiled. ‘You, a billionaire?’
‘Don’t take it literally. But, hey, don’t you think I’d make a great lead singer?’
‘Sorry to break it to you, babe: you might have the looks, but you don’t exactly have the voice.’ I patted his hand consolingly.
‘Bang goes my dream of stardom. I’ll have to settle for being an environmental scientist instead.’
I giggled. ‘The world of geo-whatsit will be much the richer for it.’
‘And everyone else very relieved?’
‘You said it.’
We laughed together. I couldn’t believe this: we had an hour out of ordinary life and he had managed to make it a golden time. I hardly remembered all the things hanging over us, caught up in just enjoying his company with no yesterdays or tomorrows to spoil the moment.
‘What about your family?’ I sipped my tea.
‘You’ll meet them soon, I hope.’ He grimaced as he tasted his own drink. I have to admit it was a bit strong even for me.
‘You should’ve ordered coffee.’
‘But when in London …’
‘Londoners drink coffee too these days. We’re not all “corblimey, mate, have a cup of Rosie Lee”.’
He gave a bark of laughter. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know, cockneys, EastEnders. Rhyming slang.’
He cupped my cheek and brushed a thumb across my nose. ‘I don’t know—we don’t have “Rosie Lee” in Colorado—but I look forward to you teaching me all about it.’
I blushed, afraid I was making a twit of myself.
‘No, you aren’t. You’re cute.’
I frowned at him. ‘Stop picking thoughts out of my head.’
‘No need. It was written all over your face.’ He demolished the last piece of bun and set about buttering the second. ‘My family. I have six brothers as I told you. You’ve met numbers two and five.’
‘Do you like being called by your numbers?’
He looked up, interested that I had picked him up on this. ‘No. In fact, we hate it but it makes it easier to explain. I think all of us just want to be ourselves, not defined against each other. That’s natural in big families like mine.’
‘I see. You could never be anything but Yves to me—not number six.’
‘Good to know. I knew there was a reason I liked you.’ We shared a smile. ‘Eldest is Trace. He is a cop in Denver and has a gift for sensing the background to objects when he touches them. He’s one hell of a tracker and never, ever cheats, unlike other brothers I could mention. Uriel is most like me, I guess, in that he is academic. Quiet and thoughtful compared to the rest. He’s doing post-grad in forensic science at college and can connect to the past, something like having glimpses of the future but in reverse.’
I couldn’t stop a sceptical snort. ‘I get the past thing, but like anyone can really tell the future. The ones I’ve met who said they can have been fakes, even in the Savant world, not much above a palm-reading gypsy in a caravan at the fair.’
Yves offered me another bite. ‘Then you haven’t met my mom and my youngest brother, Zed. They both see fl ashes of what’s to come. They also have an uncanny gift for knowing what you are thinking.’ He winked.
‘So do you.’
‘Minor. Not like them. I’m better with energy.’ He snapped his fingers and a flame appeared on his palm.
I clapped my hand over it to snuff it out before anyone noticed. Yves folded his fingers over mine, keeping me close.
‘Will is tuned to sense danger, like my dad. He’s really laid back but great to have at your side if it comes to a fight.’
I could hear great affection in his tone and guessed he had a soft spot for this particular big brother. ‘You’re lucky to have so many to love.’
‘Yes, I am.’ He stroked my hand absent-mindedly. ‘I love them all, though Zed and Xav can get really annoying.’
I sensed he didn’t mean it. He was clearly devoted to them.
‘They seem to think I’m not macho enough, just because I prefer science to sports and talk to girls about books and ideas. And I think they are idiot jocks, so we get on fine.’
‘But you’d do anything for each other.’
‘Goes without saying.’ Yves signalled for the bill.
‘Not where I come from. Families don’t work like that.’
‘You’ve not had a family, Phee, not for a long time. From what I’ve heard, you’ve had no one.’ His expression took on a determined cast. ‘But that changed yesterday. You now have a whole family of annoying brothers to look out for you—and a sister in Sky, my brother’s soulfinder. And just you wait until my mom realizes you don’t have your own mother. She’s always wanted a daughter and I think you’ll fit that description perfectly. She’ll be taking you shopping and doing all that girl stuff before you know it.’
I smiled sadly. ‘Sounds lovely.’
‘It will be, you’ll see.’ Yves passed the waitress the bill folder with a ten-pound note tucked inside, once again not waiting for change. This time I didn’t protest. ‘Let’s talk about our plan.’
We got up from the table and I linked my arm through his. We began to walk slowly down the wide pavement of the Embankment on the Thames, moving aside to let a skateboarder weave past.
‘Do you have strong shields?’ I asked, feeling a bit sick now we were heading towards the Tate.
‘Sure. If you live in a family of Savants who can read your mind, you develop them double-quick.’
‘Don’t let our leader get inside your head. He does this thing where he plays with the switches in the mind. I’m not even sure what he’s planted in my brain but I guess he’s protected himself against any of us turning against him.’
‘OK. I’ll make sure he can’t get at me. I can help you with yours too if you let me.’
He sounded too sure of himself for my liking. I wondered if he realized that his intellectual skills, which took him to the top of the class in most of the places he hung out, were useless when it came to my world. I watched a water taxi beetling its way towards Greenwich, churning the water to leave a white wake. The roar of the city drowned out most other noise; I could barely hear the boat’s engines. ‘How can you do that?’
‘I can grab energy from the environment and feed it to you so you can reinforce your shield.’
‘Really? That sounds brilliant. But my defences have always crumbled really quickly when I face him.’
‘They won’t this time. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had to learn to control my own gift to stop me blowing up stuff that annoys me
‘Except around me.’
‘Yes, well, I’m working on that. Give me a break—it’s only been a day.’
I sighed. ‘He won’t like me resisting him. Perhaps you’d best not try anything today as he’ll find a way of punishing me if I put up a struggle in public.’ I touched the scratch on my arm, recalling yesterday’s demonstration of power.
My movement brought Yves’s attention to the cut. ‘He did this?’
I shrugged. ‘Indirectly. I wasn’t lying when I said he had no problem hurting us to make us obey.’
Yves struggled with his outrage before clamping down on it by taking a deep breath. ‘OK. Let’s just take this slowly. When the rest of my family arrive we’ll have reinforcements to help you resist. Today we’ll just find out what he has to say.’
‘You won’t like it.’
He swung me round so my back was to the embankment wall and rested his chin on the top of my head. ‘No, I don’t suppose I will.’
‘So we go in. You hear what he has to say and then you leave.’ I spoke to his chest, not wanting to come up for air.
‘Yes, except there’s one little correction: we leave.’
‘He won’t allow that.’
‘We’ll see.’
I was scared for him, my sweet, intellectual soulfinder. He didn’t know what he was facing and I had to protect him from underestimating his enemies. I felt I was leading my beautiful leopard right into the range of the hunters’ guns. ‘Look, if it’s a choice between you leaving without me or a fight, please just go. I’ll be fine.’
He looked hurt that I didn’t think he could stand up to them alone. ‘Phee, don’t try to put yourself between me and danger; I won’t allow it.’
‘So what are you going to do? Beat your chest and go all caveman, swinging your club at anyone who threatens me? I’m not a little woman you need to defend.’
His face hardened. ‘That’s exactly what you are: you’re my little woman and I’m not having you sacrifice yourself for me.’
‘Back at you, mate, though I’d have to substitute “big man” for the “little woman” dig.’ We were being ridiculous and, deep down, I suspected we both knew it. I took a moment to calm myself. ‘OK, OK, I get where you are coming from because it is the same place for me. Let’s just agree not to risk each other, share the burden.’