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The pristine, freshly painted walls of the second row house represented Cooper’s idea of open spaces and built-in storage perfectly. Sun streamed through the living room’s open windows, lighting up a space that would serve as a home to a talented family. Or, maybe, to an individual with a roommate. The fresh morning breeze brought the scent of wildflowers from the wild lot across the street inside, a reminder of why they were here, and what they were trying to accomplish.
And now they weren’t alone.
The first reinforcement had arrived. Cooper could hardly contain his excitement. Jared was here, a trusted conspirator from years back. When Jared was around, excitement followed. “Hey, remember that one time we tried to build a teepee in the woods?”
“Yep,” Jared said with a wide grin. “It’s amazing they let us stay out there for a whole week without supervision.”
“How old were you?” Ash couldn’t contain himself with curiosity. Over the last two days, he was doing all he could to find out about Cooper’s childhood past.
“Oh, I don’t know, just kids.”
Jared chimed in. “Ten or eleven. At that point we were allowed to camp outside without supervision. As long as you’re careful with the fires, you know.”
Ash let out a wistful sigh. “I’m jealous. I lived in a pretty populated area. It was also the ’burbs, you couldn’t even bike to the library or to the beach safely because of the traffic. But that’s California for you. And there weren’t many of us out there, either.”
“That’s not surprising.” Jared picked up a sanding pad, and attached it to the hand sander used for detailing the edges of the old, hardwood floors. “I mean, after all, California doesn’t have a lot of groundwater. I wouldn’t expect too many ‘water whisperers’ out there, y’know? I’d expect the fire-born, or, I don’t know, earth-sense, with all that seismic activity. Not water, though. My family got to travel from place to place a lot, and it’s as though people with talents are matched to the environment where they were born. You’ll probably find air-born popping up spontaneously in places where you have the danger of forest fires or severe weather. Kansas, definitely. It’s not that they cause them. The environment simply requires them.”
Cooper realized he was standing in the middle of an unfinished living room floor, as still as could be.
“Wait. Are you saying that... That I have earth-sense because for some weird reason the earth wants me to have it?” He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s backwards. The world doesn’t work like that. We are not being controlled from the outside.”
Jared gave him a side-eye. “Hey, just because I believe in it doesn’t mean you have to knock it!”
There was no missing Jared’s combative stance and the tension his shoulders. Likewise, Cooper sensed the way Ash stiffened and turned only half of the way towards them, as though he wasn’t really part of this, but he didn’t want to miss out on anything either. This here, this was one of those issues that drove talented families apart from each other.
The philosophy that a gift was a talent that had to be trained in order to be controlled – versus the idea that it was somehow given for a higher purpose.
Cooper didn’t believe in a “higher purpose.” He was an engineer and an architect. To him, the world was a compilation of forces and masses, vectors and axes of balance. It was all logical, and tidy, and perfectly explainable.
Except he liked Jared. He had always gotten along with him, and right now, he didn’t want to offend him not just because he didn’t want to cause hurt feelings between them – he didn’t want Jared to stalk off in a huff due to their different worldviews, because they needed him. They needed all the gifted friends and allies they could possibly get. Making enemies based on matters of faith didn’t even begin to make sense when faced with a rogue node.
Cooper tilted his head to the side in a conciliatory gesture. “Maybe you’re right. Now, maybe you’re wrong, but maybe you’re right and neither one of us is going to be able to prove one way or the other. How about we just not worry about it? What we do works. We don’t know why. It’s something we need to deal with on a daily basis – let’s just work off of that, okay?”
Jared set the handheld sander on the ground and wiped his dusty hands on his jeans. He still looked a little prissy, and a lot stubborn. He didn’t look like the kind of a guy who would shut up over things that could be disproven.
Ash turned all the way towards Jared, doing that tall and slightly forward lean which Cooper had seen him employ when he had been trying to convince someone to see things his way. “Look,” he said in his smooth, soft baritone, patting down the air in front of him with the palm of his hand. “I respect your beliefs. Let’s just make sure that we all can get along regardless of how and why we think we are here, okay?”
“So where do you stand in all of this?” Jared was halfway hopeful, halfway defensive.
“Honestly? I really don’t know.” Ash spread his hands and shrugged. “I never really had a chance to think about it, not in these terms. I know what my personal values are, but those personal values would be the same regardless where the gifts came from. What I care about is how people act, not who’s pulling the puppet strings.”
Jared, who was starting to look more hopeful, frowned again. “See,” he said as he walked toward Ash. “When you use a term like that, puppet strings, you imply some kind of an evil intent. So whatever entities gave us these powers, you figure they’re up to no good. And I can’t stand for that.”
Cooper was about to step between them.
He halted.
Raw elemental power coiled around Ash like a thick and lively snake. Had the day not been sunny outside, Ash would have been giving off sparks, like a stroked cat before a storm. The energy he bore shimmered in the air around him, giving him a menacing look. Ash didn’t look like a guy Jared should tangle with.
“Sometimes – no, most of the time – it’s the society that pulls the puppet strings. Look around yourself! Look at all organized religions in the world, and tell me it’s not people who’re causing all the trouble! Every single religious war, every jihad or crusade, every muddy legislation that’s taking away yet another individual right? All of that’s done by regular, somewhat misguided people. And even if those people think they’re good, their strong beliefs don’t necessarily make them right.”
The coils of power around Ash swelled and began to spread, with a shimmering wall of energy pushing its way out like an inflating balloon that had no intention of bursting. Ash was exerting influence of the most unusual kind. It wasn’t anything Cooper had ever seen with his own eyes, and now as Ash forced Jared a step back, then another, his festering discomfort propelled Cooper forward.
“Hey, Ash.” Cooper strove to make eye contact, but Ash had his gaze locked with Jared.
Jared kept backing up.
“Ash, I need you to stop.” A few quick steps brought Cooper to Ash’s side, barging through a wall of force that wasn’t supposed to exist.
Except Cooper did feel it, and he did recognize it.
“Ash, you’re feeding off of the ley line!”
Cooper grabbed Ash’s elbow. A tingle skittered through him, as though he’d been sitting on his hand and had just begun to feel his nerves again, nerves that vibrated all the way down to his feet.
The tingle became a live current of raw power that came in pulsating waves, and now Cooper was its conduit.
And that bubble? It burst.
Cooper both saw and felt raw power drain from Ash into his own hands, and through him, into the structure of the house.
Into the earth.
He knew which pathways it took as though he could clearly see it on a diagram. Wending its way between rocks, seeking the path of least resistance along little fault lines. Down the old foundation cracks and into the sewers where the ever-present trickles of water neutralized it, carrying it into the river.
Ash shook his head, as though somebody had stunned him and he was just coming to. “What happened?”
“You’ve been drawing power off the ley line,” Cooper choked out. The room around him began to wobble. “You tried to use it against Jared, and I tried to stop you, and...”
“He was like a lightning rod,” Jared said in a hushed voice. “I saw it. I can see the currents, and the power was all boiling up and honing in on him.”
Ash looked from Cooper to Jared. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize I was doing that.” He gave Jared an apologetic, tense smile. “I didn’t mean to do any harm. I... I don’t know where all of that even came from!”
He shifted his gaze toward Cooper. He eyed the ground stone, and his eyes widened.
“What?” As soon as Cooper said it, he felt intense heat, then scorching pain. “Ouch!”
“Lean forward,” Jared said.
Cooper did – and his ground stone dangled away from his body. He wished he could take it off, but he didn’t dare. Not after what he had witnessed, and what he had experienced. He stuck his finger under the cord and straightened slowly, keeping it off his chest.
“Babe.” Ash stared. “Your stone pendant? It must’ve absorbed a lot. It left the burn mark on your shirt.”
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ASH WRAPPED A protective arm around Cooper’s shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I guess.” Cooper’s voice sounded spacey, like he’d suffered a head blow and wasn’t quite with it yet. “What the hell happened? Why were you using that energy?”
Ash shook his head. “I wasn’t using... well. Maybe I was.” He ran his hand over his face. “I don’t know. I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I... I was upset. Defensive, I guess, and that’s my fault.” He knew he’d fucked up royally. He’d endangered his lover and their guest, and for what? Didn’t they argue over some bullshit metaphysical concepts? Did any of that really matter, and would it have killed him to give an inch and just let things slide?
Yes, these ideas did matter in the end, but right now, he was the one in the wrong. He’d caused harm by allowing something negative, something powerful, to come between them. Sure, he had known he wasn’t immune to the ley lines’ energy, but at least those were supposed to be fairly tame, and he had never expected the power to seek him out, instead of vice versa. Now he knew it wasn’t just the node that posed a problem.
“Jared,” Ash asked carefully. “You said you can see these things. Can you tell me what happened?”
Jared gave a dry, brittle laugh. “The energy down there? It wants to be used. It will take any excuse to get out. In fact...” Jared lowered himself to the floor, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. “Gimme a minute... Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“What’s the matter?”
Cooper and Ash spoke over each other, then stopped, watching Jared for a long, breathless moment.
Time seemed to have stopped.
Beads of sweat just about halted their even descent down Cooper’s forehead.
“It’s... it’s stronger, guys,” Jared said. He opened his eyes, stood up, and shook himself off as though he was a wet dog. “I don’t know what’s going on, or where, but someone’s feeding it extra power and there’s a lot more than even just few hours ago. It’s like a big steam tank, boiling over, and using the ley lines as a pressure release valve!”