The Dark River

The Traveler unzipped the top half of his sleeping bag and sat up. Illumination from a streetlight leaked in through the whitewashed windows, and he could see Hollis Wilson lying on a folding cot six feet away from him. The former martial-arts teacher was breathing steadily, and Gabriel decided that he was asleep.

It had been twenty-four hours since he had learned that the people of New Harmony were dead and his father was still alive. Gabriel wondered how he was supposed to find someone who had disappeared from his life fifteen years ago. Was his father in this world or had he crossed over to another realm? Gabriel lay back down on the cot and raised his left hand. Late at night, he felt receptive to the attractions-and dangers-of his new power.

For a few minutes he focused on the Light inside his body. Then came the difficult moment: still concentrating on the Light, he attempted to move his hand without consciously thinking about it. Sometimes this seemed impossible; how could you choose to move your body and then ignore that choice? Gabriel breathed deeply and the fingers of his hand twitched forward. Little points of Light-like the stars of a constellation-floated in the shadowy darkness while his physical hand was limp and lifeless.

He moved his arm and the Light was reabsorbed by his body. Gabriel was shivering and breathing hard. He sat up again, pulled his legs out of the sleeping bag, and placed his bare feet on the cold wood floor. You’re acting like an idiot, he told himself. This isn’t a party trick. Either cross over or stay in this world.

Wearing a T-shirt and cotton sweatpants, Gabriel slipped through a gap in the tarps and entered the main part of the loft. He used the bathroom, then walked over to the kitchen area to get some water from the sink. Maya was sitting on the couch near the women’s sleeping area. When the Harlequin was recovering from her bullet wound, she had spent most of her time sleeping. Now that Maya was able to walk around the city, she was filled with restless energy.

“Everything okay?” she whispered.

“Yeah. I’m just thirsty.”

He turned on the cold-water tap and drank directly from the faucet. One of the things he liked about New York City was the water. When he’d lived in Los Angeles with Michael, the public water always had a faint chemical taste.

Gabriel walked back across the loft and sat beside Maya. Even after the argument about his father, he still enjoyed looking at her. Maya had her Sikh mother’s black hair and her German father’s strong features. Her eyes were a distinctive pale blue, like two faint dots of watercolor floating on a white background. Out on the street she concealed her eyes beneath sunglasses, and a wig covered her hair. But the Harlequin couldn’t disguise how she moved her body. She walked into a grocery store and stood in a subway car with the balanced posture of a fighter who could take the first punch and not be knocked off her feet.

When they first encountered each other in Los Angeles, he thought Maya was the most unusual person he had ever met in his life. The Harlequin was a modern woman in many ways-an expert in all aspects of surveillance technology. But she also had carried the weight of hundreds of years of tradition on her shoulders. Maya’s father, Thorn, had taught his little girl that Harlequins were Damned by the flesh. Saved by the blood. Maya seemed to believe that she was guilty of some fundamental error that could only be corrected by risking her life.

Maya saw the world clearly-any foolishness and clutter in her perceptions had been destroyed years ago. Gabriel knew that she would never break the rules and fall in love with a Traveler. And right now, his own future was so unclear that he felt that it was equally irresponsible for him to change their relationship.

He and Maya had their defined roles as Traveler and Harlequin, and yet he was drawn to her physically. When she was recovering from the bullet wound, he had picked her up and carried her from the cot to the couch, feeling the weight of her body and smelling her skin and hair. Sometimes the tarp wasn’t fully closed and he saw her talking to Vicki as she pulled on her clothes. There was nothing between them-but there was everything. Even sitting beside her on the couch felt both pleasant and uncomfortable.

“You should get some sleep,” he said gently.

“I can’t close my eyes.” When Maya was tired, her British accent became stronger. “The brain won’t stop.”

“I can understand that. Sometimes it feels like I’ve got too many thoughts and not enough places to put them.”