“The Lonely King. He’s attacking again. He’s got another victim with him right now – I can feel it. Get back here so we can figure out what to do next. So we can stop him.”
I nodded, the move so tight I could have torn my neck muscles. Then, realizing he couldn’t see me, I stuttered out an, “Okay.”
He hung up, and a second later, I did the same.
I slid the phone into my pocket as a truly cold sensation raced down my back. Suddenly the fact I was completely drenched in water struck me as a frozen feeling spread through my chest, high into my shoulders, and hard down my back.
Finally, I acted, plunging my phone into my pocket, tearing my keys out, and jerking towards the car.
Suddenly Bridgette’s warning flew from my mind as I concentrated with all my might on what Max had said.
There’d been another murder, and another was taking place right now.
Right now.
Those words echoed hollowly in my mind. They shuddered through my brain as horror descended into my heart.
I may have lied to Max this morning –I may not have been trying to develop my powers – but that didn’t matter. Because as the cold sunk deeper and deeper through my sternum, I started to sense something. Just at the edge of my awareness, just beyond the reach of my five senses.
The hint of sparks. Flickering bursts of light at the edge of my field of view. The more I paid attention to them, the more they collected, blinking in and out like stars on a cloud-free night.
Suddenly, I faced a set of options. A fork in the road.
Follow the sparks, or turn from them. Follow them, and according to Bridgette’s warning, they would cost me something. If I didn’t follow them, the curse could be activated in full.
And so it struck me. The curse appeared to be the perfect way to ensure us McLane seers always used our powers.
But to what end?
I didn’t take long to decide what to do.
Because I didn’t take long to remind myself that out there someone’s life depended on me.
Grinding to a stop on the street, reaching a hand out, clutching a lamp post for support, I closed my eyes. And I followed them. I willed the sparks to spread through my vision. That was all it took. The fireflies sparked brighter and brighter, spreading throughout my vision like fire over dry wood.
And I started to see. The scene opened out before me in snippets. At first, they were like fragments of photographs drifting through the wind, but all too soon those fragments coalesced together as I saw someone being chased through some kind of factory.
My heartbeat reverberated through my chest, and my breath bucked so hard in my sternum it felt like an army pounding on my torso.
The scene was happening so fast as the victim ran from their attacker, twisting through the strange factory, pounding up metal stairs, desperately rushing past odd-shaped machinery.
Finally, the scene opened out, and I realized what I was staring at. A foundry.
The desperation of the victim pounded through me, their aching fear, their adrenaline-fueled frenzy.
It scoured my body, gouged through my torso, made me feel like my heart would explode.
I threw myself forward, opened the car, and jammed the keys in the ignition. I pulled out right before a taxi, almost collecting it on the side. It slammed on its brakes and skidded, blaring its horn.
I didn’t even bother to mutter an apology under my breath. I slammed my foot on the accelerator and shot off down the rain-sodden streets.
With my phone still locked in one hand, I diverted half my attention to it as I scoured the city for foundries. It didn’t take long to find one, didn’t take long to program it into my phone’s GPS. Then I drove. It was one of the most hair-raising experiences of my life. Because the vision was still there – still overlain over half my sight. As I darted down city streets, the car screeching through wet turns, I watched the fireflies play through my field of view.
Somehow I managed to keep it together. I didn’t slam into any buses, didn’t plow headfirst into any buildings. I followed the directions of the GPS while begging the man in my vision to hold on.
Maybe now would have been a great time to call Max, but I didn’t have a spare phone, and I knew the victim in my vision didn’t have long.
So I drove until finally I reached the foundry. I skidded to a halt, riding up the pavement, yanking on the handbrake, and lurching out of my car. I fell onto the slippery, rain-soaked streets, a rough section of asphalt tearing a hole in my jeans. I didn’t stop. I planted my hands onto the street, pushed up, and shot towards the half-open gates of the foundry. I didn’t even bother to close my car door.
As the rain drove down, it stuck my hair to my cheeks, flattening my fringe over my eyes, and made the world nothing more than a gray haze.
But my vision was still there. Pulling me forward. Telling me what to do next.
So I followed.
And as I did, I didn’t question. Bridgette’s warning slipped from my mind as I threw myself headlong into my vision of the future.
Chapter 4
I’d never been to a foundry before. Hello, not too many opportunities for fake fortunes there.
It looked like it was straight out of an action movie.
The yard outside was cramped full of metal rounds, old 44-gallon drums, fencing wire, and mysterious clunking, rusted machines whose use I couldn’t even begin to guess.
I had no time. No time. That driving refrain beat through my head and
