He halted, thunderstruck. “You think I’d hit you?” he asked, disbelief and pain etched on his face.
“No,” she said, chagrined. “Of course not. I just meant don’t touch me. Not yet, at any rate. I’ve been sensitized again.”
“Damn.” He didn’t look any less angry but his pained expression evaporated. “All right, tell me what happened.”
She gave him what she hoped was a thoroughly professional report. When it was over she expected him to take out his phone and call Fallon Jones. Instead he just stood there, regarding her with an unnerving consideration, as if he had never seen anything quite like her before.
“That trick you used on the housekeeper,” he said eventually. “You said you’ve done it before?”
“A few times.” She unfolded her arms and looked at her palms. “After my mother died, I went into the foster care system. I left it after about six months. I was on the streets for a while. There are some badly warped people out there.”
“No shit,” he growled.
She chose to ignore that. “Some of them are sensitives who have learned to use their talents to manipulate others. There was one pimp, some kind of weird charisma talent, I think. He was able to seduce young girls, make them fall in love with him. They’d do anything for him.”
“So he sent them out onto the streets to turn tricks for him,” Luther said, a savage edge on the words.
“I see you’ve encountered that particular species of sewer rat,” she said quietly.
“Yes.” He did not elaborate.
“I used to hang out with some of his girls at night. I’d use my talent to tell them which johns were safe and which ones to avoid. One day the pimp discovered that the girls were turning down some of the dangerous tricks. He was furious. He decided to beat one or two as examples to the others. I figured out what he was planning. I even knew which girl he intended to beat first, the newest and youngest one. I was there when he came to get her that night. She was terrified. There was so much violence surrounding him you could have cut it with a knife. When he reached for her, I took hold of her arm and jacked up to full strength, overwhelming her aura with my own and forming a kind of barrier to his. The instant he touched her he got fried.”
“Define ‘fried,’ ” Luther said. “Are we talking dead?”
“No,” she said quickly, appalled. “No, I didn’t kill him, I swear it.”
“I wouldn’t give a damn if you did terminate him.”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I didn’t. But something happened when he came in contact with my aura. It was as if his own energy field short-circuited for a few seconds. I can’t explain it. All I know is that he went unconscious for a while. So did the girl. But when she woke up she was okay, just a little shaken.”
“What about the pimp?”
“He was not okay. It was as if he’d had some kind of mental breakdown. He just sort of fell apart. I think something permanent happened to his talent. Whatever it was affected not just his psychic senses but everything else, as well. He became a basket case and just drifted away from the neighborhood. After a while we heard that he’d been killed in a drug deal gone bad.”
“You said there were other incidents like that one?”
“A few,” she admitted. “The technique works against nonsensitives, too. After all, everyone has an aura. But every time I do it, I get sensitized again.”
“Huh.”
She waited but he didn’t offer anything further, just stood there, looking lost in thought.
“What?” she prompted.
“Just wondering. Do you think you shorted out the singer’s aura today?”
“No. She was much too powerful. Fortunately when she lost her cool a lot of her control went with it. And then the elevator started to open and she panicked and ran.”
He watched her very steadily. “What would have happened if the singer hadn’t fled the scene?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose the outcome would have depended on which one of us was the stronger. We didn’t get a chance to finish the contest. Guess you could say it was a draw.”
“The last thing I want is to see a rematch. Got that?”
She shuddered. “Trust me, I’m not eager for one, either. Okay, you can start yelling again now.”
There was another long silence.
“You’re not yelling,” she pointed out.
“Don’t get me wrong, I feel like yelling.”
“But?”
“But you saved the housekeeper’s life. That’s pretty much what a J&J agent is supposed to do in a situation like that.”
She suddenly felt much better. “Thanks.”
“Are you sure I can’t touch you?” Luther asked.
She tensed. “It was a bad burn. It will probably take days, maybe weeks to heal.” Her brief moment of professional pride went out like a light. It was all she could do not to burst into tears. “It’s so maddening because I just got over the last burn.”
“Can I talk you into running an experiment? You said yourself the fact that we’re both auras might have some protective effect.”
She hesitated. “Okay.”
“You do the touching. That way you’re in complete control.”
For a few seconds she did not move. You’re a J&J agent. Take a risk.
She walked slowly toward him and stopped when she was a couple of feet away. He held out one hand, palm up. Gingerly she touched it with her fingertips. There was no shock, no jolt of pain. Relief crashed through her. Deliberately she flattened her hand on his, palm to palm.
“This is amazing,” she said, awed. “I’ve never been able to touch anyone so soon after an incident like the one today. Guess I was dating the wrong kind of men all these years.”
He groaned, grabbed her hand, pulled her close and kissed her hard. When he released her she was a little breathless.
“Don’t tease me like that,” he warned darkly. “I’m still getting over the shock I got when I read that text message you sent. Thought my heart would stop.”
“They’re called Sirens, Mr. Jones,” Grace said into the phone. “The talent is extremely rare. That’s why you haven’t ever heard of them. They crop up so infrequently in the Society’s records that many of us in Genealogy have assumed that they’re more myth than reality.”