Page 3 of Professor and the Seer
“Pretty sure Enyo is more than capable of handling things herself.” After all, Mom had her trained as a killer. Because of Enyo, and the money she made as an assassin, we’d been able to buy a three-story building that we retrofitted into apartments for each of us, with the basement as a training area. See, part of our power—and curse—meant we couldn’t be far apart from each other without suffering ill effects. Hence why Dina freaked. We had less than three days before the weakness and vomiting started.
“Being able to handle herself is not the point. She. Was. Kidnapped!” My sister took it as a personal affront, probably because it happened via magic—her specialty—and in our basement—which should have been protected.
“She’s fine.”
“You’ve seen that?”
My lips pinched. “Not exactly. But I mean she’s going to get laid, so obviously she’s going to be okay.”
Dina glared. I knew what that look meant. She wouldn’t budge.
I heaved a mighty sigh. “Fine. We’ll go.” A reluctant agreement that twisted my innards. While I didn’t have agoraphobia, I came close. Leaving my safe place meant being bombarded by visions of the possible futures of people I didn’t give a rat’s ass about.
Decision made, a flood of visions hit. I’d chosen a fork in the “go or stay” future. It took me a second before I said, “Whatever you do, don’t book any 7 p.m. flights.”
My sister didn’t ask why. Nothing too bad. Screaming children for one airline and the alternate leaving at the same time would end up diverting because of engine troubles.
Within hours, Dina had our asses on a plane, me wearing gloves I’d knitted myself to prevent accidental touch, headphones playing ocean sounds, and my body smothered to the gills in clothing. Layers helped me to repel some of the noise I encountered.
Mom used to tell me I’d eventually get a handle on my power enough that I could shut it off at will. Almost forty and I still waited.
Almost forty and I’d avoided the blond man in the mirror, too. As well as relationships. Hard to get serious with anyone when you knew it was doomed for failure. Heck, I’d known the guy I’d lose my virginity to would never call me back, but I’d still done it just to get it over with.
It took eighteen hours to reach my sister in the tropical spot she’d been magically teleported to. Medication meant I’d slept through most of it.
We hired a taxi to take us from the airport to a town two hours away. It cost us several hundred dollars, and when the driver thought to pull over and rob us, Dina quickly disabused him of that notion by putting a magical vise around his balls and murmuring, “I wouldn’t advise doing that.”
The hotel he dropped us off at—before peeling off in a burn of rubber that made my nose wrinkle—appeared nice. Lavish. Not exactly a dark, dank prison cell.
We took the elevator to the top floor and the penthouse. A waggle of Dina’s magic fingers and we entered without making a sound. As to how we knew Enyo’s exact location? Our inner radar—aka the triplet curse—led us to the double doors to the master suite. We entered to find a man sleeping in the bed.
While Dina woke him with threats, I tuned out and tried to figure out why I felt a strange tingle. A prescient feeling that had me turning in time to see Enyo exit the bathroom. But it wasn’t her that had me holding my breath.
Someone entered the room from the living area, blond hair tousled, face still groggy from sleep. “What’s going on?”
I blinked and wavered on my feet, for there, decades after I’d first seen him, was the man from my very first vision.
And when he smiled in my direction, I knew without needing a glimpse at the future I was in trouble.
2
Over the next few days, I did my best to avoid the man who would die at my feet if we became lovers. His name was John, a professor of arcane history and best friends with Bane, aka the Warden.
It wasn’t easy steering, though. Situations kept forcing us together. Like when a lack of Sea-Doos for all of us meant I had to ride, clinging to him like an anaconda, while we made our way to an island. A small island with a castle, where it seemed like every time I left my room, John was nearby.
My sisters informed me of his interest in speaking with me about my gift, and yet he didn’t push me. If I fled the room when he entered, he didn’t follow. At times, I was almost disappointed. After all, in my vision, we were lovers. Or had I misunderstood the situation?
Monster attacks and preparing for an eclipse that would result in my sister’s death kept me busy and focused on things other than how sunlight made his blondish hair glint. My worry over my sister’s imminent demise helped me ignore the fact he was a genuinely nice guy who quickly jumped to act and protect, his wizardly skills of the defense variety.
I’d planned to escape his presence entirely after the eclipse, only a few unexpected things transpired. One, my sister survived because Bane chose love over duty—which was crazy romantic. And two, something happened to me and my siblings when a portal opened during a rare eclipse. Whatever had bound me and my sisters on a magical level had disappeared in the lightning. Meaning for the first time in a very long time, we couldn’t hear each other’s thoughts, and we could finally be apart without becoming ill. But that paled in comparison to the burst of power that hit me, stronger than that which gave me my ability at sixteen. It pushed my gift into overdrive, the visions overwhelming enough that when we escaped the doomed island on the yacht, I found myself spinning emotionally.
I ended up on deck, sucking in fresh air, wanting to cry that even something so simple as the whisper of a storm brought the visions. My grip on the rail showed me the yacht’s fate, as if I cared how many times it would be sanded and painted. Staring at the churning wake made me aware of the turbulence that disrupted the school of fish below, who now scattered from their set path and would be eaten.
It was just too much.
When someone joined me, I didn’t look. Why bother? I knew who it was. A part of me wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to jump overboard and end my misery—and save his life.
John murmured a soft, “For someone who survived hell, you look upset.”