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The reflexive need to lower his gaze was checked when he recalled his ocular gates. He openly studied her, and she him.
“He’s next,” she said, looking at him. “I need to touch him.”
Zodak eyed Nidev.
“She has seeing gifts,” Nidev explained in Zodak’s nomadic tongue. “But it requires her to touch your dominant hand.”
He regarded her again and gave a single nod, holding his left one out to her.
“She’ll need something to draw with,” the man with frigid blue eyes next to her said, openly studying Zodak too.
“Bring more than four,” the woman said, now slowly approaching him.
She looked down at his hand and he unlatched the chains attached in case they troubled her.
“Hi, Zodak,” she said quietly before him. “Sorry if this is all weird for you.”
The one namedSpookcame to stand just behind her, his guardian stance not needing gifts to recognize. He suddenly wanted to remove the gates to see what the look in his ice blue eyes meant. Something a little new to Zodak. He regarded the woman again, still staring at his hand. “Zodak,” she whispered, nodding. “That’s a…very interesting name.” She looked up at him, seeming to peer beyond the gates. “I’m going to touch you now.”
“I am ready,” he assured, when she seemed worried.
All ten of her fingers moved over his hand and palm, feeling-seeing. Zodak studied her face. How very interesting. And how very otherworldly beautiful she was. A full minute later, her brows tugged together as her seeking turned more aggressive. Was she having trouble seeing what she needed to see? He wasn’t sure how to help her but felt the need to assist.
One of the school assistants entered the glass room and gave the husbandpaper and a pen.
Maggiegasped several times, a sound of difficulty. “I need to touch his tattoos. May I?”
He realized she’d asked her husband who now eyed him. “May she?”
His muscles tensed. “They cover my entire body.”
“The ones on his arms,” she hurried, glancing at her husband who nodded.
Zodak realized he should have thought longer about allowing such a thing. Her fingers moved along his skin and the electrical currents under the ink followed her with a curious hunger as if attempting to answer his wonder about her. He’d never experienced it do such a thing. But then he never allowed others to touch him.
“Oh my God,” she whispered as she gradually moved up the biometric ink. Her fingers made it to his neck then continued up, bringing his hands around her wrist.
“Too close al-bah-hee-thah,” he softly admonished in his Arabic tongue, lowering her hand.
She stared right at the gates on his eyes and nodded as he released her. “I’m done,” she said, her brow perplexed.
“Did you see what you needed to?” Zodak asked.
Her head angled as she considered then turned. “I’m…not sure.” She snatched the stack of papers and pen from the husbandand immediately lowered to the floor.
The murmurs in the room ceased as all slowly gathered around the single hand moving over the paper at a riveting pace. She filled up one page in under twenty seconds then moved to a second without pause. Again, she filled up the paper and moved it aside, starting on a third. Then a fourth. And a fifth. At the tenth paper, he raised his gaze to her husband who now paced behind her. He didn’t need to use his gift to see he worried about her. Was that what he'd seen before? Fear for her? Possibly. Partly. Along with something else he couldn’t name.
The mumbles returned as the Kings and the Bayou Brothers discussed what they were seeing on the page.
“What do you think?”
Zodak turned to the Seer now on his right, looking at the drawings. Zodak returned to studying them. “More cryptic messages,” he murmured.
“Wait until she’s finished.”
He regarded Seer’s profile then the girl again. “What will happen?”
He turned a little and again put his hand on his shoulder. “Walk with me.”
