The visions I usually received were horror stories. Traumatic events that had etched themselves into objects, like grooves on a record, which could be played back by anyone with the right set of equipment. Like those last night, which I assumed was why Gertie had brought me here.
Touch clairvoyance didn’t usually trouble me much, because I wasn’t very sensitive; some people had to wear gloves everywhere, just to keep from going mad. And because most of the items I touched hadn’t had a chance to absorb anything. A comb was a comb; a glass was a glass, nothing more.
But what if the comb had once belonged to Helen of Troy? Or if the glass had been the chalice that poisoned Alexander the Great? I might have received something from those all right, and last night, I’d been standing in a storehouse full of such items.
But that shouldn’t have mattered, since I hadn’t touched anything.
“I thought it was just painful events that imprinted,” I said, as the dog came sniffing about, hoping for another clam.
Gertie picked up the pail and sat it on the end of the bench.
“When it’s done by accident, yes,” she agreed. “It requires extreme emotion, which is often tragically induced, I’m sorry to say. But this,” she waved the knife around some more. “Wasn’t an accident.”
“Your grandmother made this?” I hadn’t known that was possible.
She nodded. “She was a powerful witch who had just lost her son, and now she was losing me, too. She had emotion to spare.”
We sat there in silence for a moment, Gertie watching the clouds, and me watching her. The Pythian throne exacted a price from everyone, and it was often high. Whether in the form of a shortened life, because of the toll of using the power of a god in a human body, or of broken family ties, or of the constant risk of assassination—there was always something. And, weirdly enough, the power often seemed to settle on the people who wanted it the least, making the price that much steeper.
But, somehow, I didn’t think that was the point that Gertie was trying to make.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know what was. But there was something. She wasn’t the type to just sit quietly, watching the sky, unless she was waiting for me to catch up.
But to what?
What had she said, back in the bedroom? That the first and the third attacks at least were linked? But that didn’t seem likely. The first attack, by the Were, had been because I smelled like a vamp, thanks to Mircea’s spell. But downstairs . . .
Why would vampire abilities help me to see something that was only visible to my clairvoyance? And which shouldn’t have been visible even there, since I hadn’t touched anything? Or had I?
Was a mental touch the same as a physical one? I wondered. I didn’t know, because I didn’t have mental gifts when I wasn’t borrowing them from Mircea. But with them . . . it had sort of felt like my mind had brushed over items in the room, like ghostly fingers. Had that been enough to make their stories visible?
Because if so . . .
“I’m not just borrowing Mircea’s abilities, am I?” I asked slowly. “I’m . . . merging them . . . with my own, creating something new. A touch telepath without the touch.”
Gertie nodded. “The Pythian power always uses the abilities of its host, whatever they are, to further its mission. By taking on this vampire’s powers, you have given it a whole new skill set to play with, and it is busy exploring it.”
I pondered that for a minute.
And then I almost laughed, because what a freaking joke! A master vampire plus a Pythia equals what? A schizophrenic
clairvoyant afraid of her own shadow?
Typical.
“The challenge for you,” Gertie continued, “at least until you manage to get this spell removed, is to find equilibrium again. You must control your new abilities, or they will control you.”
“Yeah, but how do I—” I began, only to be cut off by the sound of alarm bells ringing in my head. Bells I’d heard before, damn it!
My power used to fling me around the timeline, throwing me at anything threating it. But, lately, it had switched to a new method: a clanging alarm in my head, shrieking a warning. One that was so loud it threatened my sanity!
“It seems your vampire is not done playing Pythia,” Gertie said, confirming my suspicions.
I abruptly stood up, and she grabbed my arm. “Remember, he may be a master vampire, but you are Pythia. His power will bend to yours.”
It’ll be the first time, I thought grimly, and shifted.
Chapter Twenty-Five