“How did you do that?”
The woman’s voice startled Warren. He drew back quickly enough to collide with the door frame and trigger a new onslaught of pain to cascade through his head.
A thin woman stood at his side. She looked emaciated, and like she’d just crawled out of a bin at a medical examiner’s office.
“Who are you?” Warren asked. The warning itch squirmed like a worm on a hook inside his aching head. He curled his fists, ready to lash out. He’d learned to fight while he was growing up in state-sponsored homes, but he’d never been very good at it. Others had always hurt him more than he’d hurt them.
“Calm yourself,” the woman said. She took a step back and averted her face as if he was shining a bright light into her face. “You are raw, boy. Has no one trained you?”
Warren didn’t know what she was talking about. He backed away from her, toward the stock room where Kelli was.
Upon closer inspection, Warren thought the woman was in her late forties or early fifties. Her skin was pale as milk, but the shadows blended with the tattoos that covered her, making them hard to identify. They looked like the sigils and symbols that had drawn Warren’s attention in the library. Some of them seemed to burn with a green fire. But her most astounding features were the stubby horns that jutted out of her forehead.
“What are you?” Warren demanded before he had a chance to think about what he was going to say.
“A human, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
It was, though Warren didn’t want to admit that.
“My name is Edith Buckner,” she told him.
“Warren,” Warren replied automatically, then stopped himself before he could give his last name. He hadn’t wanted to answer, but his first name was off his tongue before he knew it.
“Well, Warren,” Edith said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Staring at her, Warren noticed the dark, shapeless cloak the woman wore. It also had sigils, but these were sewn in black thread.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Much the same as you are.” She smiled. “Trying to survive in difficult times. But I’m also trying to learn. As you should be. Not everyone has our talents.” She waved a hand in front of him. Yellow highlights dawned in her eyes.
Something coiled and twisted inside Warren. Although the woman wasn’t touching him, he could feel her hands on him. The sensation made him feel uncomfortable, almost sick. Without thinking about it, he pushed back.
The tattoos on the woman’s forehead and cheeks momentarily flamed lambent green. The effect was gone so quickly that he might have believed it was his imagination playing tricks on him. If he hadn’t felt her touch inside his mind.
She staggered back as though struck. Glaring at him, she took a deep breath. “Where did you learn to do that, boy?”
“I didn’t do anything.” Warren turned from her, intending to go get Kelli and get home.
The woman caught his arm. “Don’t turn your back on me, boy.”
Warren yanked his arm from her grip. “Get off of me.”
“You knew you had this power,” Edith told him in a calm, cold voice.
Warren didn’t say anything, but memories of his stepfather and mother flashed through his head.
You’ve been spending our money on that crap again, haven’t you? his stepfather yelled.
It isn’t crap, his mother replied. I have power, Martin. I have the kind of power that they haven’t seen very often.
You’re a stupid, girl, Tamara. Very stupid. People as stupid as you pay for being stupid.
Stay back! Don’t!
The sound of the gunshot that had ended the screaming match exploded inside Warren’s mind again…
“Did you have this power before the demons came?” the woman asked.
Walling off all those painful memories again, Warren ignored her. She had brought that memory to the surface with her mind-touch. He wanted to break her for what she’d done. He hadn’t thought about his parents and that night in months.
“You knew you could turn that demon, didn’t you?” the woman demanded.
Warren hadn’t known that for sure, but he wasn’t going to tell her that, either.
“If you had the power before the Hellgates opened,” the woman said, “the power is only going to grow stronger. If you don’t learn how to harness it, it may well destroy you.”
He felt her fingers inside his mind again, poking, probing.
…the smell of burning flesh and blood…the iron taste of blood in his mouth…the raw burn of power that made him feel ripped apart…his stepfather’s final screams…
“Stay away,” Warren said hoarsely. He pushed against her with the angry force that had resided within him since the night his parents had died.
Staggered, the old woman shrieked and shrank back. She was sick for a moment, throwing up on the sidewalk in front of the comic book shop. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“You need someone to teach you,” the woman said. “Someone to guide you. Before you hurt yourself or someone else. I can help you.”
Warren wheeled on the woman then, standing half a head taller than the tips of her horns. “I don’t want your help. Don’t you understand that? I don’t want anything to do with you or your kind. If you try to touch me again, I’m going to hurt you.”
The woman took a half-step back, obviously afraid of him. “You need us, Warren. You need someone to help you grow in your power before it burns through you like an electrical short and kills you.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t know that. A lot of us have gotten stronger since the demons came into our world. We’re going to get stronger still. You need to know what to expect before you get caught up in it.”
“I don’t want your help.”
Noise came from down the block. More
