Kicking It(34)

I almost planted a boot in his face.

He was already laughing. “No. That’s not what I was saying.”

“It better not have been.”

He bowed slightly at the waist. “My name is Philippe Angier, and, as I mentioned, I have been expecting you.”

Should I trust him? This was a mystical city, full of twists and turns, so perhaps he could help. Also, he wasn’t awful to gaze at, so I decided to go with my better instincts and accept his hospitality.

He drew the rest of the curtain aside for me, pulled out a chair, and fixed the fabric so that it would block out the rest of the room.

“No,” I said, gripping his wrist, just as I had done with my attacker earlier. “I don’t want any surprises to creep up on me.”

He tilted his head, giving a long glance to his wrist, grinning that grin. I realized that I was still holding on to him when it wasn’t necessary. With my fingers burning, I disconnected from him and sat, but I did it sideways, in such a way that I could monitor the entrance to this rear room. I also managed to scoot the chair so my back was to a wall.

Leaving the curtain open, he sauntered to his seat. “Still on guard, are you? If you hear anything out front, I have an assistant working the counter there, so . . .”

“Don’t fret. I’ll spare her the karate chops.”

He gave me an entertained, touché nod, not at all fazed by my sharp tongue or my sudden appearance.

“You said you were expecting me,” I said, testing him. “Why?”

“A precognitive vision.”

“Really.”

He leaned back in his chair, surveying me again with that gray gaze. Lovely bumps crept up my arms.

“My visions are very real,” he finally said. “In this particular one, I saw that someday soon I would find a . . . different . . . sort of customer hiding near the love potions and herbs. I had time to come to terms with you.”

“Any con man would claim that.” But again, he had known that I didn’t have an identity.

“What if I told you,” he said, “that I sense these clothes you’re wearing are not your type?”

I glanced at the skull-and-crossbones tank, the cutoffs. The boots.

He laughed. “You had a sort of uniform you always wore . . .” His expression changed, from amusement to something serious. “You’ve come so close to death, more than once.”

I didn’t answer, but I thought of the red eyes outside. Had that been one of my near-death experiences?

He was still being vague, but then he narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re so alone in this world. No one to turn to, no one to go home to.”

It was as if he had punched me square in the gut. “I wouldn’t know.”

He leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “Do you trust me to tell you even more?”

No. Yet I wished to hear what he had to say, more than anything. I didn’t have many other options.

Resting his hand on the table—my, he had nice long fingers, didn’t he?—he turned it palm upward. “May I?” He gestured toward my hand.

Psychometry. Some psychics could get readings off objects or biotic things such as skin or hair. I knew that, too, as if it had been a normal part of my life at some time. I was getting the feeling that far stranger things had been a part of my existence as well.

I placed my hand in his, trying not to think about goose bumps or shivers. Trying not to think of how warm his grip was as he closed his fingers over mine.

A few seconds later, he took in a sharp breath.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Today,” he said, “you woke up just as alone as you have been for a while now, cher. In a room you didn’t recognize. You don’t know how you came to be there.”

His gaze softened. Pity. I recognized that well enough, though I suspected I had little tolerance for it.

“And . . . ?” I asked.

“And those boots you wear. They’re especially unfamiliar to you. They make you feel . . .” He seemed to search for words, then only came up with, “Powerful. Is that it?”

I nodded slightly, still reluctant to give too much of myself away.

He gripped my hand harder. “You come from so much darkness. That’s clear.”

“How so?”

“I can’t say for sure, but I see . . .” As he paused, his gaze unnerved me. “Fire. An explosion. Pain. Then, it’s as if . . .”

I must have squeezed his hand this time.

“I’m getting a symbolic reading, so you’ll have to interpret the images.” He furrowed his dark brow. “It’s as if you were shut into a coffin—one made of glass. Then you were freed, but there was still containment. Does any of that make sense?”