Last Light (Novella) Read Online Free

within her head, by some route other than her ears.
    His look of astonishment no doubt matched hers. But with a swiftness that suggested the mental reflexes of a perfect predator, his face was subtly reworked by cunning; and in his eyes—gray with green striations—the warmth of an enchanted would-be lover had given way to icy calculation.
    He said, “I didn’t know there were others like me.”
    She wasn’t like him in any way but one. She suffered with the psychic curse that was to this man a treasured gift. He had shaped himself into a nihilistic beast who believed all other lives were his to exploit, a creature with no morals and no limits.
    Almost too late, Makani realized that he might not have seen into her as deeply as she had seen into him, that he might know nothing more of her than that she possessed a power similar to his. If she expressed loathing or fear, if she called him an abomination, he would at once be her enemy, and the calculation in his eyes would become venomous intent. If perhaps he thought she reveled in her wild talent, as he did, that she shared his contempt for ordinary humanity, she could buy time to think of some way to deal with—or escape—him.
    He leaned back in the booth. “That’s why you rocked me so hard when I first saw you, aside from your obvious charms.”
    Surveying the other customers, the busy waiters, Makani said, “Be careful what you say,” as if he and she were conspirators and never could be adversaries.
    “Don’t worry about them,” he said. “I never have. Never will.”
    “Be careful just the same,” she insisted, and she drained the last of her beer. Then she said what seemed to be something she would have said if indeed she had been a cold-blooded specimen like him. “No point in spooking the sheep. I need another round.”
    No sooner had Makani spoken than their waitress appeared as if she had been commanded to attend them, and Rainer ordered two more bottles of Corona with fresh frosted glasses.
    “When did the power first come to you?” he asked.
    “I was sixteen. Two months after you saw me on the beach. How old were you when it happened?”
    “Fourteen. Does anyone know?”
    “Who would believe? Why would I tell? Have
you
told?”
    “Hell, no. It’s like being an adult in a world of helpless children, except that if you pretend to be a child like them, you totally
rule
the playground.”
    She glanced at nearby diners and said, “Quieter, okay? Maybe they’re children by comparison, but children can be as mean as snakes, and they
way
outnumber us.”
    Adopting a stage whisper that probably carried as far as his normal voice, Rainer said, “I’ll be as discreet as a confessor.”
    She glared at him. “I’m serious.”
    “I know. It’s real cute.” Leaning forward, dropping the stage whisper, but speaking no more discreetly than before, he said, “What exactly does your touch bring you?”
    She dared not say that she saw the wickedness in people, their darker and darkest secrets. Because she had read him so completely in mere seconds, she claimed that her gift was what she knew his to be. She spoke softly as she lied. “I see whatever their biggest problem is at the moment, what worries and frustrates them.”
    “With that, you could make yourself everyone’s best friend.”
    She smiled. “They think I’m way sensitive and caring.”
    “You look the sensitive and caring type.”
    “Screw them,” she said.
    “You have a huge advantage in any relationship—especially if in fact you don’t give a shit about them. Sweet, isn’t it?”
    “Sweet,” she agreed. She felt increasingly confident that he didn’t know how profoundly she had read him, and that he had not read her as deeply as he’d been read.
    The waitress returned with two cold beers and frosted glasses. “Ready to order dinner yet?” she asked.
    “Not yet,” Makani said. “Give us ten minutes.”
    “Oh, sure, take your time.”
    “And you?” Makani asked