BEFORE LEAVING, Ryan formally introduced all of them to the mutie mystic, explaining a little about where Mildred and Doc came from.
“So that’s it.” The golden eyes opened wide. “Doc, I can see things about your past life, but they’re faint, like a whisper etched on water.”
“I must confess that I often feel like that about my past. Though I lived it, much of those years seem an enigma shrouded in mystery.”
“I feel that about yesterday, Doc.” Mildred grinned. “When I get to your age, if I live so long, I suspect that I’ll forget everything up to five seconds ago.”
“Where are we going to go now?” Emma asked.
“Don’t you know?” Dean said cheekily.
She smiled at him, the only time since they’d first seen her that Emma’s stony mask had cracked. “My brain would explode if I held a permanent visual map of everything that’ll happen to everyone in the future. Even for myself.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.
Emma patted the eleven-year-old on the shoulder. “Other thing is that it tires me out. Like trying to do mental math for ten hours straight.”
Krysty nodded. “I can see a little, sometimes. But I also have the Earth power, taught to me by Mother Sonja back in Harmony ville. I can draw on myself and, briefly, have paranormal strength.”
“But it drains her so much she’s good for nothing for a day or more afterward,” Ryan added.
“That’s right, lover. It sucks all my soul to do it. It frightens me a lot that I might try to use it one day and I’ll simply die.”
The doomie’s smile had gone, faded like the frost on a spring meadow. “Not so bad for me. But bad enough.”
“How do you see going with us?” Jak asked. “Got any feelings about that?”
“Told you. Death, Jake. Strong feeling of death if I travel with you.”
“Live with death at shoulder every waking hour,” the albino replied.
“All right. But what are we going to do?”
“Look around,” Ryan said. “Look around is all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Though the center of Washington, and all of its immediate inner suburbs, had been totally vaporized in the first seconds of the skydark, the pattern of damage around the outer rim of the city was irregular.
Some of it was down to inconsistencies in the terrain. Nukeblast normally went in fairly straight lines, so land in a hollow would generally be less damaged than higher ground. And the same applied to buildings.
Ryan walked under an overcast sky into a shallow basin. The edges were clear of any sign of civilization, scoured away by the missiles’ blast. But ahead of them there was a scattering of buildings, mostly roofless and windowless.
It was midafternoon.
Emma Tyler, for all of her mystic mutie skills, was no great walker. She’d hiked the long black cotton skirt up over her knees, pinning it into place. Her low-heeled sandals were badly worn and patched, and she often stumbled on the uneven trail that they were following.
“Can we take a break, Ryan?” she asked. “I got blisters on top of blisters.”
“Sure. Mebbe find a little shelter ahead. You don’t seem like you’re much used to covering ground.”
He realized at that moment that Emma had handled their earlier conversation with some skill. He had told her a lot about themselves. In exchange, the woman had told them virtually nothing about herself.
She smiled gratefully, kneeling for a moment to remove a sharp piece of crumbled dirt out of her shoe. “You always go this fast?”
“Moving target’s easier missed,” Jak said, sitting beside her.
She looked at him, eyes narrowed. “I don’t know, Jak,” she said, so quietly that Ryan was the only other person to hear her speak.
“Know what?” the white-haired teenager asked. “Didn’t ask nothing.”
“Not out loud. I just gave you an answer to the question you were thinking about me.”
“Oh.” Just for a moment, Ryan actually thought that Jak’s bone-white face flushed around the cheeks. But at that moment an odd shaft of errant sunlight broke through the looming clouds over them. So it could have been that bringing a touch of rosy color to Jak’s narrow face.