Last Enchantment - Chapter #1 - Free To Read

Chapter One

Oliver followed the solid bulk of the head of the Central Agency of Talents, usually known as CAT in London into the observation room and stared through the one-way mirror at the woman sitting at the table in the room beyond.

He noticed her hair first. Dark, almost black, a shocking contrast to the stark white of the isolation room. It gleamed steadily, not moving one iota, because she didn’t move, either. Eyes as dark as her hair stared unseeingly into space, beyond the one-way mirror into nothing. Her clothes, white, like the room, perfect camouflage, simple. That kind of simplicity didn’t come cheap.

Oliver knew her, but not like this. Not with all she was stripped away. Cowardly relief niggled at him that she couldn’t see through the mirror. Even the fleeting illusion of eye contact had him shivering his denial. He didn’t want to look into bleakness, into dead eyes that had nothing left to see. He felt intrusive to be watching her so intently, but he’d had no idea he’d see a Talent in an iso room, much less one he’d worked with before.

She sat in the room like a prisoner, while G stood by his side, speaking to him in a low voice that channeled gravel and sandpaper. “She was raped.”

Shock arced through him like a jolt of electricity. He barely held himself back from jerking in reaction, because he knew G would expect that, and he was nobody’s puppet. “Who did that to her?” He hadn’t meant his voice to come out so menacingly, but it echoed around the small room, mocking him with its intensity. As if he cared about Tegan Gibbs. She’d scared him with her iron self-control and her immaculately polished appearance. But nobody deserved that, even a sorcerer who had so much to lose.

She didn’t look polished as when he’d known her. It was as if she was ragged at the edges. A few flyaway strands strayed from the glossy knot at the back of her head, and her white blouse had a smudge on the cuff, coffee perhaps, since a cup lay not far from her hand.

He shivered again although he wasn’t cold.

G grunted. “I’m waiting for confirmation on who. We already know why.”

Oliver nodded, staring at the still figure in the room. Only a thin layer of glass lay between them, and he could sense the lack of power. Unless he or she were masking their abilities, all sorcerers emitted a power that felt like a crackle in the air, a tingling, sending all the fine hairs on a body bristling. But from Tegan—nothing.

These two rooms, the iso room and the observation room were split off from the rest of the world, but the psi—the parapsychological senses Talents possessed—in one room could be sensed in the other. He could be watching someone ordinary, albeit astonishingly lovely, but no power emanated from her. None at all, not even the usual residual amounts even the most untalented person possessed. She was a blank canvas. That loss must have devastated her.

“She has nothing left, not even an echo? No telepathy?” Everybody had telepathy. To think of a sorcerer without even that ability horrified him.

“Nothing.” G shook his head. “Whoever raped her knew that would happen. They did it to remove her psi powers. More than a rape of her body, they took away what she is.”

“No, they didn’t.” She was still Tegan, still retained that arrogant pride that had once maddened him.

She looked like a miserable Snow White, her dark, dark hair gleaming under the bright lights, her lips red and full, as if defying the nature that made her choose her path in life. She sat in the uncomfortable chair bolt upright, her hands folded neatly before her.

Sorcerers used the iso rooms to interrogate prisoners. They could strip a man down to nothing, remove his psychic layers delicately, like the petals on a rose, until nothing but the stamens remained, useless to combat the powers of the wind and the bees. They could slice through a mind with surgical precision or crush it like a blow from a gorilla’s fist. He’d seen it, even sympathized with the useless shreds of humanity who tried to defy the sorcerers. They didn’t ask the person to confess or give up the information, at least, maybe at the beginning of the session. They didn’t have to. They reached in and took what they needed.

Once Talents came out into the open, the media had pounced on the sorcerers, who, they thought, were the nearest human genus to them. But they weren’t. They looked mortal, they had similar lifespans, didn’t change into an awe-inspiring creature from myths like the shape-shifters or grow fangs and have a thirst for blood like vampires. But sorcerers were the scariest of all, because they worked from the inside out. Most people wouldn’t know they’d been in the area at all once they removed the knowledge from memory. They didn’t need super strength, a badass second self or fangs to defend themselves. They could destroy a man before he got anywhere near them.

Oliver shivered but covered it by shifting from one foot to another. “So why is she in there? It’s not like she can use the room anymore.” Sorcerers also used the isolation rooms for rest sometimes. They were cut off, the walls hiding a myriad of soundproofing and other protection, so the energy the sorcerer emitted in the course of their work wouldn’t leak out and hurt someone else. They used the room to isolate themselves, to recharge.

Oliver turned his head and met the direct gaze of the controller of CAT UK. G’s eyes appeared darker in the dim light, making him even more fathomless and unreadable. He’d never known G to let down his barriers. Never. “She knows we’re here, doesn’t she?”

G shook his head. “She has no way of sensing us anymore. She knows this is a one-way mirror, sure, but she doesn’t know we’re here. She’s been in there for twelve hours. I’m hoping you can help me get her out.”

“Twelve hours?” One table, two uncomfortable chairs, and all that unrelenting white. And the clear, unaccented bright light that didn’t cast a shadow. No place to hide. No place to sleep. And it was nine a.m. “So she sat there all night?”

“Just like that. I don’t know why she wanted to go in there. She doesn’t have a reason anymore. But she came to me and asked.”

Oliver frowned. “When did you last see her?”

“Before yesterday? Six months ago, just after the attack.”

“Where’s she been in the meantime?”

“Her people took her away, and she’s received therapy.”

“So why call me?” He took care not to show his tension. G couldn’t possibly know his near miss with Tegan. “I worked with her once, that’s all.” He glanced back at the still figure. “You think I can get her out?”

“You could try. I think you could help.

“What can I do?”

“She knows who raped her. She remembers that part, although they tried to obliterate it from her mind. A touch, a glimpse, and she knows. She says. But she’s been through so much, I don’t entirely trust the information. I want confirmation.”

“Are you going to tell me who?”

G turned away from the window, put his back to it, and faced him. “Marcus Schofield.”