“How are you feeling?” the man asked. “I hope I didn’t injure you too badly?”
To be honest, Max had no idea how he’d even gotten here, or what the man had done to him. Now that he thought about it, there was a big gap in his memory.
He could vaguely recall returning to the B&B, sitting at the table in the oddly cold kitchen, and wondering whether Poppy deserved better… and then, movement. Not the movement of someone else, but movement of himself, slamming into the wall behind him without ever being touched. A few more slams, and then… nothing, until he woke up a few minutes ago.
Well, that explains the whole ‘hit by a sledgehammer’ thing, I guess.
What it didn’t explain was how the hell he’d gotten slammed into the wall in the first place, given that there had been no one else in the room.
“Ah, is it coming back to you?” the man said gaily, his apparent enjoyment of pointless brutality at odds with the classycut of his outfit. “Have you never been on the receiving end of a telekinesis blast before? No, I suppose you would not have been.”
Not that Max wanted to admit it, but the man was correct – he never had been slapped around telekinetically before. He didn’t know any shifters with that power, and in any case, he’d spent his life lying low. None of that helped him now, though.
Although, now that he thought about it, this might be a situation where his powers would come in handy. If he could just make the guy forget about him for a while, he might be able to free himself.
He concentrated on becoming unnoticeable, projecting mediocrity for all he was worth. For a moment he thought it might have worked, as the man blinked – but then his attention focused in on him even further.
Dammit,Max thought. Either his powers were on the fritz again, or else the man was just too fixated on him for them to be effective. His powers always worked best when the person hadn’t been paying much attention to him in the first place, or if there was something else around to serve as an additional distraction, such as other people, or animals, or a television or something. It was part of the reason why he did so well in restaurants – there was always something going on, and staff had a million other things they were thinking about.
Clearly this guy was focused on Max, and Max only.
He racked his brains, trying to work out how to approach the situation. As much as he didn’t want to, he might have to keep the guy talking. It was the only way he was going to get enough information to potentially escape. He didn’t know where he was, or how long he’d been gone, or what the guy wanted. The only good thing in all of this was that Poppy hadn’t been with him at the time of the initial attack – he could only hope that she was safe.
Time to exercise those rusty social skills,he thought with an internal sigh.
“No, I’ve never seen someone use telekinesis before,” he said, trying to sound like he was genuinely interested in whatever this weirdo had to say. “I’m just sad that I don’t actually remember what happened. It must’ve been pretty impressive.”
“Oh, it was, it was,” the man said delightedly, and Max hoped that he’d chosen the right approach – clearly the guy was enthusiastic when it came to talking himself up.
The man took off his pristine coat, draping it over the back of a chair. “I’m also sad that you do not recall it. Would you like a demonstration now?”
Max froze. He really didnotwant to get thrown around the room.
“Uh… you don’t have to if you don’t want to. I believe you. Oh,” he went on weakly, as the man suddenly levitated himself up off the floor. “You can, ah, telekinese yourself. That’s pretty cool.”
“Isn’t it just?” the man said as he hovered above Max, before walking up the far wall and along the ceiling. He paused, looking at Max from his upside-down vantage point, his face slowly turning a dusky pink in the dimness of the room.
Apparently satisfied with his demonstration, he performed a slow, gentle flip back to the ground.
“Very nice,” Max said inanely. What else was there to say?
The man bowed. “Thank you – it does mean a lot that you would say that. Unfortunately I was unable to float you out of the window of your residence quite so gracefully. You are quite tall, and the window was quite small. There was some knocking of limbs against windowpanes.”
Max grimaced.
Fantastic. This day just gets better and better.
… And why the hell didn’t he just levitate me out the front door, like a sane person? There was no one else there to see!!
“So,” he said. “May I ask… just whydidyou feel the need to knock me out and float me through the window? And where are we now?”
He held his breath, wondering if he’d pushed too hard too fast. But, it seemed, the man was very happy to talk.
“To answer your final question first: we are in some kind of shack in the forest, which I have made some, ah, additions to.” He made a flicking gesture toward the chains holding Max to the wall, and they clanked in response. “There was originally a lock on the door, but human locks are no match for telekinesis.” He tilted his head, expression confused. “Honestly, I am not sure why they even bother.”
Max tried to keep his expression neutral. Finally, some useful information: this guy wasn’t human. That explained a lot. Max still wasn’t getting any real shifter vibes off him, though – they tended to come across as regular humans, whereas this guy was weirdly stilted.
Maybe he was a warlock? His affectwaskind of similar to Margot’s, though in her case it felt more like a lack of regular human social graces, while this guy was just…off. And anyway, Margot was presumably human, odd though she was. Most witches and warlocks were.
