Final Hour (Novella) Read Online Free Page A

thoughts, he would have been embarrassed. He wanted to be just one of the guys. As special as he was, he truly saw nothing special about himself. If he hoped to be admired for anything, it was his surfing skills. He rode hurricane waves, quaking monoliths, tore them up with style, allowing himself no fear, hooting with delight even when he realized he was skating across a hydrocoffin that would collapse and hammer him off his board.
    He would have been mortified if she told him that his humility only made him more desirable to her—to any woman with half a brain.
    “The blond psycho’s name is Ursula Jean Liddon,” Makani said. “She’s keeping her twin sister in a windowless room, tormenting her, starving her. She’s going to kill her soon.”
    Pogo sat up, swung his legs off the lounge chair, sitting knee-to-knee with Makani. “What room? Where?”
    “She lives in one of those gate-guarded communities in Newport Coast.”
    He frowned. “Doesn’t seem like a place where that kind of thing happens.”
    “Where
does
seem like a place such a thing happens? We’ve got to figure it’s her house until we search it and rule it out.”
    An anonymous tip to the police would not be taken seriously, especially when the accused was a person of means and, ostensibly, enjoyed a spotless reputation.
    Makani dared not reveal her paranormal ability in a bid to gain credibility. She could read the darker secrets and desires of the police, thereby convincing them of her gift—but at what risk? She would be thought a freak…and a dangerous one.
    As always, it would fall to her to do what needed to be done. And now, to her and Pogo.
    “Tell me the rest,” he said.
    She told him.
    He shook his head. “She’s a lunatic, all right, turning you down like that.”
    “She’s not into girls, and if you’ll think about it, you’ll remember that I’m not, either.”
    “That’s no excuse,” Pogo declared. “I mean,
look at you.
”
    Makani wanted to kiss him. She hesitated.
    With each kiss, each touch, she risked reading him. Although she never saw in him any meanness or unworthy desire, he was human, and the possibility that he would one day disappoint or even shock her was not remote.
    The heavier burden was his, because he knew that, for her, every kiss or touch might be a window into his mind, into the soul that dwelt there. With her he could keep no wicked secrets, conceal no corruption, conduct no fraud undetected, cloak no fault. He could never mislead or deceive her—unless what he intended was a surprise born of kindness or love, for she could read in others only their darker passages.
    Pogo reached out, as did she. He held her hand, surrendering his privacy, and the sunny day was not shadowed by any disclosure that rose from him to her along the telepathic bridge that her terrible gift laid down between them.
    She dared a kiss, and so did he.
    Gulls flew in a bath of sunlight. Fish swam in the coolness of the harbor. The distant laughter of women was so musical floating across the water that it might have been from celebrants on one of the many boats—or in this moment of quiet magic, perhaps it was the delight of mermaids.
    One kiss, and then she said, “One thing I saw that I didn’t tell you, and I should…This Ursula Liddon creature would cut out my eyes if she had a chance.”
    “We won’t give her the chance.”
    “So we’ve got to do it.”
    “Oh, yeah,” he agreed. “Got to kick some butt.”
    “Or die trying.”
    “There’s always that.”

4
Where She Walks, the Earth Is Scorched
    The highway pavement is dark. The land it splits is bright, and the September sky is brighter still.
    The retracted roof allows sunshine to caress her face, arms, bare legs. The hot light celebrates her flawless skin.
    Ursula Liddon wonders if there exists another, like her, that the light of the sun adores so passionately. Its warmth is as erotic as a lover’s touch, but it is better than a lover, because it wants