It’s pain, oh mighty one.
Sarcasm does not become you, Evangeline. Besides, that’s impossible. You know you can’t be injured.
Not physical pain. This is different. Emotional.
Oh?
Interest filtered through. The concept of emotional pain, of pure, human heartache, had always fascinated her bosses, since they never experienced it themselves. It had been a very long time since she’d felt that kind of pain, but she remembered, and the memories were more vivid than any recollection of mere physical discomfort.
She tightened her fingers around the pendant as she went on.
I can’t find the source. It’s so overpowering, I can’t even determine a direction.
You’ve always been very sensitive in that area.
Her brow was furrowed now.
I still can’t pin it down. How can I accomplish my mission if I can’t even find my mission?
She could have sworn she heard a sigh. Hopefully not the same way you usually do.
She would have blushed if they hadn’t removed that capability, as well. She knew they were referring to her sometimes reckless approach, and tactics that had caused them much stress on more than one occasion. Then, before she could come up with a suitable—or even unsuitable—comeback, they gave her an answer that puzzled her.
Actually, you shouldn’t be sensing pain from your target. He’s not feeling pain right now, emotional or otherwise. The boy is much too angry.
Then what am I getting? It’s awful. Like someone whose soul is caving in on him.
Him?
She hesitated before going on.
Yes, it is a man. I can tell that much. He must be my mission. He’s in agony.
No. It’s the boy. You know that, we sent you all the information.
I know, it’s just that—
No, Evangeline. Please, for once, tend to business.
But—
No.
It was flat, it was determined, it was an order, and if she hadn’t known it was impossible for them, she would have said they were tired. She gave up for now.
I understand, she sent.
The connection faded. Quickly. Maybe they were tired, she thought. Of her, she added glumly. As if it was her fault people sometimes didn’t react the way she thought they would. Well, if they didn’t like the way she did her job, then they could fire her. After all, she hadn’t asked for this, they’d come to her. Of course, she hadn’t had many options at the time....
Now that the communications link was gone, the pain came rushing back. It seemed to roll over her from her left, and instinctively she looked in that direction. And saw again the single light glowing in the window over the repair garage.
She had taken several steps before the stern order she’d been given brought her up short. She stood there in the dampness, not really feeling the chill. It didn’t take her long—it never did—to rationalize it out. She obviously couldn’t function through this haze of pain, so she had to find the source, didn’t she? Maybe it was something she could fix quickly, and then get on with her work, as ordered.
She started off again, then hesitated again. They had been angry with her, the last time. She’d half expected them to pull her after that one. Not that it had been her fault that dying little girl’s brother had been so awful. And she’d thought the punishment she’d doled out to him moderate enough—why shouldn’t he spend a week hearing in his head what everyone was thinking about him? Besides, it had all come out right in the end.
And she couldn’t bear this. She truly couldn’t. Besides, she hadn’t really said she’d give it up. She’d said only that she understood they wanted her to. She started toward the light.
Three Oaks Garage.
She stood looking up at the faded lettering over the high, roll-up door. The place looked old, as did most of the buildings of this small business district that was centered around the plaza where the three spreading old trees the town had been named for stood. She had no doubts now that she was in the right place; whoever was sending off those waves of anguish was here, close by. No doubt in the room with the light; no one who was feeling like this would be sleeping much.
She tilted her head back, staring up at the rectangle of light. She spared a second to hope that the bosses weren’t monitoring her power usage, then closed her eyes and concentrated.
The darkness behind her eyelids seemed to swirl, then lessen, fading to gray. Slowly the image formed, wavered, then settled.
It was a small room, teetering on the edge of shabby. There were few furnishings; a narrow, neatly made bed against a far wall, a single armchair in front of a small television, on top of which was the only new touch in the room, an inexpensive VCR. Across a side wall was a sink, a small two-burner stove, and a waist-high refrigerator. Next to that was a door that led to a tiny, pocket bathroom.
The carpeting was worn to the threads in spots, and the curtains that hung at the single bank of windows were old and faded by the sun. Yet the room was painfully clean and tidy, with none of the clutter of day-to-day living. No dishes, no glasses, no newspaper casually tossed after reading. The atmosphere of the room was beyond austere, it was almost Spartan.
This visualizing was the hardest of her powers to maintain, and she knew she would be drained if she kept it up much longer. Still she concentrated, raising her fingers to her temples and pressing in a way she’d found helped her sharpen the images.
She sensed him then, sitting at a plain wooden table against the wall beneath the windowsill, and she shifted her concentration. She saw his hands first, strong, work-roughened hands with long, supple-looking fingers curled around the pen he held, an end gripped in each clenched fist. Gripped so tightly, as he stared at the sheet of paper in front of him, that his knuckles were white with tension.
Even as she watched, the plastic of the pen gave under his fierce grasp, snapping in two with a sharp, cracking sound. His head came up then, and he stared at the ruined pen in his hands with eyes that were full of rage, pain and, oddly, resignation. It was a combination so powerful she had to suspend the vision for a moment, for fear the pain would swamp her.
Resignation. The thought came to her suddenly: as if he’d expected nothing less from his own hands than destruction. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she couldn’t tell if the flash of intuition had come from the outside, as usual, or from within her. It had seemed different, but she hadn’t had to rely on her own instincts for so long, she wasn’t certain she would recognize them anymore.
Just as she wasn’t certain about the odd feeling that flooded her as she looked at the man whose suffering had drawn her here. His hair was dark, long enough to brush over his shoulders, and somewhat shaggy. It gleamed in the light of the single lamp, as meticulously clean as the room he sat in. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and he looked a bit too thin for his size, although there was no lack of muscle in the arms bared below the rolled-up sleeves of a faded chambray work shirt.
She looked again at his face, at the lean, strong jaw, the high, almost aristocratic cheekbones, the straight line of his nose. And she saw the scar, although it was nearly concealed by the thick fall of his hair over his forehead. It was a jagged, wicked mark, running from his right temple up into the hairline above his right eye.
Those eyes. She made herself look at them again, bracing herself for a flood of that incapacitating pain. There was so much darkness around this man that it almost startled her to realize his thickly lashed eyes were green, shadowed now, but a vivid green nevertheless.