Psy/Changeling Free Stories

As the pink light washed over the dark brown of her skin in a haunting pattern created by the droplets of water that streaked across the window, Zuli sent up a prayer to anyone who might be listening that the tubing for the light last another few weeks. Business had not been…good ever since that changeling fox “influencer” –a.k.a. rich trophy fox on a doddering old whale’s arm—had “outed” Zuli as a fraud.

“She’s no more a foreseer than I am!” Foxface had screeched in her upload. “According to my sources, she’s only 2 on the Gradient. A 2! Gawd. I can’t believe I almost fell for all the fake reviews. If I’m shelling out money for a fortune, I want at least a 5.”

As if a Gradient 5 F would be out there trying to earn a living as a street fortune teller. Zuli snorted. 5s were strong enough to be embraced by the PsyClans. And those clans made serious money doing commercial forecasts and the like.

Zuli sometimes wondered what would’ve happened to her had she been born into the famed PsyClan NightStar, the most powerful clan of Fs in the world. Would they have deleted her the instant it became clear that she was only a measly 2? Just barely enough to cling to the PsyNet and be denoted a Psy rather than a human?

Standing behind the glass of her shopfront, she hugged her arms around herself. She knew that in the times of the Council, psychically weak children had suffered convenient “accidents” with alarming regularity. The only reason Zuli was still alive was that her parents were Gradients 2 and 3 themselves. They owned and operated a small grocery store in New York, her mother doing the books while her father took care of front of house.

“I was lucky,” she said, because she needed the reminder. Being a Gradient 2 might have placed her on close to the lowest possible rung of the Psy ladder—only above the poor 1s—but it also meant that no one had much cared what she did with her life, or how her parents treated her.

For one, her Silence had never been the best, but her teachers had continued to pass her on through the grades when it came to the protocol meant to condition emotion out of the Psy. What did it matter if a 2 occasionally slipped into feeling things? Given her meagre psychic reach, she couldn’t exactly pollute the PsyNet.

Being able to do what she wanted with her life? It was a gift.

Back in her very first years at school, she’d been in the same class as a girl named Onyx. She’d had the softest blue eyes, and she’d been kind.

Psy weren’t taught to think in those terms, but children knew—and she’d known this other girl—her friend—was kind. She’d helped Zuli up when she fell during a run in their physical education class, and she’d given Zuli her pencil when Zuli’s broke. They’d eaten their lunch together, and she thought that in a normal world, they would’ve grown up together, friends to the end.

But they’d grown up under Silence.

And one day, Onyx had just been gone.

Zuli had asked their teacher if Onyx was sick. There, she’d been lucky again. The teacher had been an older Psy—old enough that his Silence appeared a thing of perfect ice—yet he hadn’t been hard and cold like so many of their race.

Sighing, he’d shaken his head and removed the spectacles he preferred to wear over getting his eyes corrected. “Onyx is a Gradient 8.7 telepath, Zuli,” he’d said. “The Council has other plans for her.”

It had taken years for Zuli to truly comprehend what might’ve happened to her childhood schoolmate, and every so often, the tiny girl’s image still flashed into her mind. That, she could understand—Onyx’s disappearance had shaken a young Zuli, become a permanent part of her memory.

What she couldn’t understand and had never been able to explain was the other face that haunted her, had haunted her for years—of a man with a square jaw and a crisp military style haircut dressed in a black combat uniform.

He was always walking out of the rain in her dreams, the flickering lights of what she now knew was this dingy corner of Las Vegas behind him. His skin was a burnished brown—she was somehow certain of that even though he never emerged from the shadows in her dreams—and his eyes a pale kind of greenish gold that hypnotized.

The instant she finally met him in real life, she’d recognized him at once—and her memory of their single meeting was as crystal clear today as in the days after it had happened. Hard to forget a man who’d terrified her out of her skin. It had begun with a literal brush of shoulders on a city street, with Zuli so overwhelmed by a sudden vision that she’d committed a cardinal infraction and grabbed his arm to babble out the vision in a gush of words.

He’d been glacial in response, his Silence flawless though he couldn’t have been much older than her nineteen years of age at the time. He’d said, “You should be careful who you grab, Zuli.”

That was when she’d realized she was wearing her uniform from her parents’ shop—complete with a name badge over the pocket.

She’d stood there stunned after he walked away, her heart thunder in her chest and her breath a roar in her ears. She’d thought that must be it, the reason his face had haunted her since she was a young teen. But the vision had continued to repeat—until one night, she’d looked out of her shopfront and realized this was it, the street where she saw him walking out of the dark.

She’d waited…and waited…and absolutely nothing had happened. Zilch. Zippity do dah. Until Zuli’d had to admit the humiliating truth: that she wasn’t having a grand decade-spanning vision—she’d just convinced herself of that after her single multi-year vision.

“A grand vision.” She snorted again. “All about a man I met exactly once.” With that, she turned away from the window. She had to figure out a way to go forward. Because the one thing that had once given her a small advantage in life was now gone.

Silence had fallen.

Psy could feel as much as they wanted. They could do any job they wanted. Which meant that Madame Zulenka and her two similarly low-Gradient F compatriots were no longer the only game in town.

That massive golden pile in the center of the strip, the one where Foxface strutted with her whale, they had a freaking 4.5 in their lineup as of last week. A 4.5! A fortune teller of that Gradient would’ve been unheard of before the fall of Silence. Because Gradient separation was exponential. A 4.5 wasn’t just over double Zuli’s strength—they were much, much stronger than a 2.

A flicker in her mind, that image of the dangerous stranger walking out of the rain.

Anticipation a chill wave across her skin, she looked over her shoulder through the pink-washed glass of the shopfront, but the street was as empty as before. No man dressed in black who she had no hope of identifying or tracking down—if only to halt her strange obsession.

She had no contacts in the world of high-Gradient power. Even her occasional Psy client was a normal person off the street—an accountant or a cleaner or a house painter. Zuli’s stranger wasn’t part of the normal world. He existed in the same world inhabited by men like Kaleb Krychek and women like Payal Rao.

Talk about power; it all but burned off the screen when those two were on it. But while Krychek gave her the heebie jeebies—a lovely saying she’d learned from a human client—Payal Rao just impressed. The woman was a badass.

The bell at the door tinkled.

Zuli spun around…to see another badass.

“Zaira,” she squeaked, too startled to hold her tongue.

Zaira Neve inclined her head. She wasn’t a fixture on the screen, stayed far into the shadows—but she’d been caught on camera in a spectacular incident when she’d taken down a bigger and stronger opponent who’d already shot and wounded another. The recordings of the incident had been uploaded by stunned bystanders.

Stunned because Zaira hadn’t just taken down the assailant; she’d literally pulverized his bones. They hadn’t known her name then—she’d just been “the female Arrow”. Her identity had come out of Venice some time later, whispered by people who’d known her when she’d lived in the canal city.

So despite the fact that Zuli’s new customer wore faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt, over which she’d thrown a leather-synth jacket in a dark green, Zuli knew exactly who and what this curvy and petite woman was: a member of the Arrow Squad.

A lethal killing machine.

It didn’t matter that Zuli had at least eight inches and fifty pounds on her. Zaira Neve could probably kill her with one pinky finger—while blindfolded.

Zuli gulped and told herself it was fine. Fine. Foxface couldn’t have friends that important, surely? “Um, how can I help you? A fortune perhaps?” She waved a hand toward her table, the bangles on her wrist tinkling merrily and the fake gemstones in her myriad rings sparkling in the muted light.

The soft light set the mood—and saved on her power bill.

“Sure,” Zaira said, and shrugged off her jacket to hang it over the back of the customer chair, which sat on the other side of Zuli’s fortune-telling table. “Why not?”

Zuli blinked, then hurriedly took her own seat in a flow of long skirts and more tinkles from the bells at her feet and in her ears.

Zaira sat patiently while Zuli fussed with her “crystal ball” in order to steady her nerves. Arrows didn’t simply walk out of the night and into the shops of fortune tellers in Vegas. They were Council assassins! Only…the Council was gone, consigned to the Silent past. So maybe…maybe Arrows did walk around in Vegas and go into random shops?

Huh.

Whatever Zaira Neve’s reason for being in Zuli’s shop, she wasn’t being aggressive—and a client was a client. Inhaling quietly, Zuli looked into the other woman’s eyes. In superficial terms, the two of them were similar in appearance. Zaira’s skin was more on the golden end of brown, but her eyes were as dark, and her hair a thing of black curls.

But where Zaira wore her curls in a cut a couple of inches past her ears, leaving part of her nape bare, Zuli’s hair reached halfway down her back. And where Zaira’s curls were soft and loose, Zuli’s were so tight that even her mother—with curls of her own—had been known to threaten a haircut if a young Zuli didn’t stop squirming while her mother did her hair.

These days, Zuli did her own hair, and honestly, she had sympathy for her mother. Much as she loved the curls she’d grown over a lifetime, they took a whole day to get just so. Then she had to protect them from the world. Go out into that rain without protection and all she’d have was a head full of frizz.

And next, she’d be thinking about shampoo.

Get over the nerves, Zuli. This is business. And you have bills.

At that reminder from the pragmatic part of her psyche that she’d inherited from her mother, she went to smile, then throttled it back. This wasn’t a human or changeling client. This was one of the Psy. An Arrow. “How I usually do this is via physical contact. Are you comfortable with that?”

Zaira looked at her with an unblinking stare. “Do you need the contact or is it theatre?”

“A little of both,” Zuli admitted, because she didn’t want to be caught lying to this woman. “My Gradient level means physical contact can help, but the other races also expect it of a fortune teller.”

“Understood.” Zaira put her hand on the table, palm down. “No sustained contact, please.”

Her pulse rate not quite steady, Zuli nodded, and made the barest contact of fingertip to fingertip, holding it for just three seconds before withdrawing her hand. At which point, she turned to the crystal ball. It was more theatre, but might as well give Zaira Neve the full Madame Zulenka experience.

The Arrow sat patiently while Zuli muttered over the crystal ball and made motions with her hands that always got a good response from non-Psy clients. They’d take photos and whisper excitedly to each other about being in the presence of a real F-Psy.

“How exciting to see the whole process,” they’d say. “No one back home will believe us when we tell them!”

Meanwhile, the true reason for the posturing was to give Zuli’s brain time to come up with a vision.

She might be a 2, but she wasn’t a liar. She always told her clients the truth.

Unfortunately, many were less than impressed that all a Vegas fortune teller had to tell them was that they’d lock themselves out of the house next week so should have a backup option to get in, and oh, their dog was going to get out of the gate tomorrow unless they were extra careful with the latch.

“Wow, such exciting news,” they’d mutter, and roll their eyes.

“Madame Zulenka can only tell you what the fates show her,” Zuli would say with a beatific smile. “The more I know a person, the deeper the fortunes I can see.” Not a lie either. Which was why she had a few regulars—the same happy people responsible for the glowing reviews Ms. Hoity Toity Fox had denigrated.

Today, however, she hoped for the most mundane possible vision. Just Zaira walking around Vegas, maybe trying a computronic gambling simulator and winning a few credits. That would be great.

Zuli categorically did not want to see a vision of an Arrow on a mission.

That was when it happened: a prickling at the back of her neck, all the tiny hairs standing up. A whisper of a cold wind on her skin. Her F senses kicking in at the highest possible level. Something that had only happened to her a rare few times in her life.

The first time, she’d been four and she’d foreseen that her father would fall off a ladder in the store and break his spine. She’d screamed and sobbed and clung to that ladder for so long that her parents had given in at last and examined it—to discover that a crucial part had been fitted incorrectly and had been working its way out at incremental speed.

The ladder would’ve collapsed that day had her father climbed it.

The second time, she’d seen her mother throwing up over and over after drinking a glass of water. She’d told everyone around her—including everyone at her school—not to drink the tap water without boiling it multiple times. The teachers would’ve probably ignored her, but her parents had come in to back her up; to this day, she didn’t know how her nonconfrontational and gentle parents had done it, but they’d convinced the school to bring in bottled water for the week.

Forty-eight hours after her vision, the city had announced a contamination of the water supply that could cause severe gastric distress. All residents were advised to boil their water prior to consumption until the city could fix the problem at the source.

The other times had been similar: she’d seen something important.

She did not want to see something important in relation to an Arrow.

But the visions waited for no one, and this one rushed over her like a hurricane…only, it was a quiet vision. So quiet and peaceful. A man sat on a stone bench surrounded by lush green grass, children’s laughter in the distance, and a violin on his shoulder. As she watched, he lifted the bow to the strings, set it, then drew the bow to release a sweet if shaky melody.

She smiled…just as he looked up.

And the vision telescoped into a pinpoint of black.

Blinking, she swallowed hard, her skin chilled then hot.

“Do you need some water?” Zaira was already moving to pour her a glass from the pitcher on the table even as she spoke. “Here. Drink.” It was an order given by a woman used to having her orders obeyed.

Zuli picked up the glass with trembling fingers, drank.

After putting down the glass, she made herself meet Zaira’s dark eyes once more. “The man I once met on a city street, the man with the greenish-golden eyes of a puma, the man with a mark on the back of his left hand—a tattoo or scar, I couldn’t tell which—will play the violin. Badly.” She rubbed her own hands over her skirts to hide their tremor. “But he’ll play…and he’ll smile.” The shock of that smile at the end, it had made her heart thunder as no living man had ever done.

Zaira didn’t tell her that she didn’t know such a man, and that even if she did, she wouldn’t care if he played the violin. Instead, she settled back in her seat. “Well,” she murmured, “that’s interesting.”

Zuli considered her words, said to hell with it. “Not sure I want to be in the vicinity of an Arrow when things are ‘interesting’.” Hands back under control, she hooked her fingers in air quotes.

The faintest smile from Zaira. “Touché.”

But the Arrow’s smile faded as quickly as it had come, her face pensive. “Do you know Alejandro, Zuli Anne Flowers?”

The fact this deadly woman had done a run on her jolted her, but not enough to cut through her compulsion to get to the heart of her vision. “Is that his name? The man in my vision? Tall, square jaw, brown skin of a shade that falls between yours and mine, those hypnotic puma eyes, black hair that was soft and thick when I met him, but was in my vision buzzed too close to his skull.”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“I don’t know him,” Zuli said. “But I had a vision about him once before. Years ago. I told him.”

A piercing look. “A long time to hold onto a memory.”

“It was one of my rare powerful visions—like today’s.” She rolled her lips inward, shrugged, then admitted the rest. This night was strange enough; nothing seemed impossible. “He terrified me, but I also have eyes—the man was beautiful. Hard to forget.” Especially for a woman who’d passed the Silence protocol by the skin of her teeth—and the disinterest of her trainers.

Zaira didn’t say anything to that, her next words unexpected in the extreme. “You’re a qualified violinist, yes?”

Zuli flushed even though music was no longer illegal for Psy. They were allowed to create art, to fly on the wings of notes, and to step into storybook worlds. “Not qualified, no,” she said. “I learned on my own.”

No way was she admitting that her parents had, after catching a six-year-old Zuli crying as she listened to their neighbor play, paid that same neighbor under the table to teach her all they knew—after which, Zuli’d improved and improved using online resources and a cyber teacher.

Zuli would be nothing without her parents. They might never be able to tell her they loved her, but she knew. And she was loud in her own declarations of love now that Silence had officially fallen. Half the time, Rex and Eugenia had no idea what to do with their exuberant daughter—but they would die for her all the same.

“Will you play for me?” Zaira asked as Zuli’s heart swelled with emotion for the two gentle people who’d raised her. “A piece that showcases your skills.”

Zuli froze. Of all the things she might’ve expected… But it wasn’t as if her place was hopping. Why not? “Let me get my instrument. Could you lock the door and turn the store sign to closed?”

Zaira moved with fluid grace to do so while Zuli went out back and retrieved the instrument she kept in the shop because she practiced it here. One of the few high-tech elements of this little shopfront was the soundproofing—it had previously been used as a drum studio. And so, even when the Psy were meant to be Silent, music a breach of the protocol, Zuli had been able to play here.

No one could hear the stolen sounds of her strings.

Her violin wasn’t the best—she couldn’t afford that—but she treated it with reverence, giving the warm golden wood of it a gentle stroke as she lifted it out with careful hands. Her heart ached. Oh, what she’d do to make a living as a player, to be part of an orchestra, one note in a soaring crescendo.

Swallowing hard, she shut away that dream. No Psy played in orchestras. The humans and changelings had far too much of a head start. But perhaps another Zuli born today would have the opportunity. Tonight, however, this Zuli had an audience and she’d play to that audience.

She walked back out to find Zaira waiting patiently.

Lifting the violin into place against her shoulder and chin, Zuli placed her fingers in position, then took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a heartbeat, and put bow to string.

And soared.

~

The last note yet lingered in the air when she slid away the bow and put the violin on the table. She didn’t want to look at Zaira—apart from her parents, this was the first time she’d openly played for another one of her race, and she was afraid to see blankness, a lack of any kind of a reaction. But when she could delay no longer, it was to see that Zaira’s eyes were wide, a sheen to them.

“I see now.” A huskiness to the Arrow’s voice. “I never understood what the difference could be between two players of the same technical skill, though a teacher of music in the valley once tried to explain it to me. Now I know. When you play, I feel it.”

“Thank you.” Little bubbles of happiness in her at having been given the chance to play for an audience that had enjoyed her music, she said, “What’s the valley?”

Zaira’s response was simple. “Home.” A single word that held a powerful resonance.

Zuli had so many questions, knew instinctively that Zaira would answer none of them. So she said, “Not many people know that I learned the violin.”

“Last week,” Zaira said in answer, “a group of us were seated in a communal area talking while the comm played an entertainment news show, and a fox changeling came on talking about fake F-Psy.”

“I am not a fake!” Zuli’s shoulders came up, her cheeks blooming with heat.

“I know.” So calm it was like a blade, cutting her off at the knees.

Zuli collapsed into her chair. “You do?”

“I’ve seen your Gradient reports.” The cool calm of an Arrow. “2.3 F, 1.1 Tp.”

Though she winced inwardly, Zuli drew back her shoulders and held up her head with pride. “I might be low-Gradient, but I’ve helped people.” Just because she had a tacky shopfront in a dark corner of Vegas didn’t mean she didn’t take her gift seriously.

“I know,” Zaira said again.

That was when Zuli realized that it was very hard to be offended at or by an Arrow. They were just so…calm and practical. “What Gradient are you?” she blurted out, even though that was rude. Still… “Since you know all about me, it seems only fair I know about you.”

A faint smile. “9.8 combat telepath.”

“Oh.” If you didn’t count her fleeting encounter with Alejandro, Zuli had never in her entire life met anyone above a 7. She just didn’t move in those circles. As for a freaking combat telepath who could turn her brain to soup with a thought…

When Zuli stayed silent, Zaira picked up the thread of her story. “So, the fox was talking about fake F-Psy and the report flashed to an image of your shopfront. They also had footage of you entering your shop.”

Zuli’s stomach twisted. She knew about that report, about the way they’d shot it so she looked her worst. Haggard and like a drunk. “I hadn’t slept for three days,” she found herself saying; she didn’t want Zaira, so strong and capable, to think badly of her.

“Nightmares. Of fire and water and death.” She exhaled. “That’s the worst part of being a low-Gradient F. Sometimes, I see pieces with zero context and I have to live with the knowledge that I can’t change any of it.”

“It takes incredible mental strength to survive that kind of pressure.” Zaira’s gaze was direct. “As it does to make your own way in the world, quite apart from the machinery of the Psy race.”

Zuli shrugged. “Not much choice for low-Gradients.” She chanced a grin, since Zaira didn’t seem a hundred percent Silent herself. “I wouldn’t change that part, to be honest. I like the freedom.”

Another smile, this one igniting a spark in the combat telepath’s eyes. But when she spoke, it was to pick up the thread of her story once again. “No one was much paying attention to the comm except peripherally. But right as you appeared onscreen, Alejandro said, ‘Zuli’s not a fake. A long time ago, she told me I’d be lost one day, but that I could find my way home if I followed the notes.’”

Zuli stared at Zaira, the past unravelling at hyper speed inside her head. “I did tell him that.” It came out a whisper. “I never understood what I meant, but I knew I had to tell him no matter how much he scared me. His power was a cold burn against my skin.”

Heart thumping at the memory of that beautiful, deadly man, she searched Zaira’s expression. “Is Alejandro lost?” A silly question, when Zaira had obviously seen him recently.

But Zaira inclined her head. “What I’m about to tell you is classified Arrow business. You either keep it a secret or you’ll meet one of us on a dark night—and you’ll never see us coming, never know what stalks you.”

Zaira paused, as if to let those frigid words sink in. “Do you still wish to know, or would you prefer I leave? There is no consequence to the latter. I’ll go without argument and you’ll never again see me.”

Every hair on Zuli’s body was now standing up, fear in her every breath, even as, in her mind flashed an image of that shadowy man walking out of the rainy dark, an echo of his smile as he played the violin, the memory of his mouth shaping her name on a New York street. And she said, “Yes. I want to know.”

Zuli could keep secrets. She’d kept her music a secret for a lifetime.

And so Zaira Neve told Zuli Anne Flowers about a small boy who’d been turned into a ruthless Arrow, how that boy had survived brutal training to become “one of the best of the best”…and how he’d been given a drug meant to turn him into an unthinking machine.

Only, they’d overdosed him. Broken him.

“Parts of his neural network are no longer connected.” Zaira’s words might’ve been flatly scientific, but her presence burned with dark fire. “He’s childlike at times, a full-grown adult at others. He’s also imprinted on me to the extent that he follows my orders without question—six months ago, I could’ve told him to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger and he would’ve done it.”

Rage and pain and a sense of loss burning her throat, Zuli forced herself to think. “Six months ago? What about now?”

“That’s just it. His neural pathways seem to be redirecting themselves, finding new routes. Yesterday, I asked him to pass me a weapon while we were doing a stock take and he paused and considered my request before fulfilling it. A small thing, but a thing he wouldn’t have done six months earlier.”

“He’s coming back.”

“We hope so. Which brings me to the reason I’m here.” Zaira sat back in her seat. “When Alejandro saw you onscreen, he also told me one other thing—he said, ‘Zuli plays the violin. It’s a secret. I’d like to hear her again.’”

Zuli jerked. “How does he know?”

“My guess is that he was curious about the F who gave him a prediction out on the street, and went looking for more information about you. Maybe one day, you can ask him.”

Zaira continued on while Zuli was still processing that. “Our neurologists and other medical consults have often suggested that learning an instrument could help with Alejandro’s recovery,” Zaira added. “But he’s never shown any inclination toward it. He listens to music, to the children singing, but this is the first time he’s indicated a preference for any instrument.”

“I’ll play for him,” Zuli said at once. “Of course I will. Any time he wants.” She hated the idea of the powerful, dangerous man she’d met being broken by the cruelty of those who would’ve used him.

“And will you teach him?”

Zuli’s answer was immediate. “Anything he needs.”

“Excellent.” Zaira rose. “I’ll ask him tonight and message you once he confirms. The lessons will take place here—we’ll reimburse you for the time you’ll have to shut your shop.” A pause. “The valley is a secure location and you haven’t yet been fully vetted.”

“I have no problems with that.” Zuli stood, too. “To be honest, I don’t know if I like the idea of being surrounded by high Gradients.” She shivered. “You guys probably teleport as easily as taking the subway.”

A surely amused look in Zaira’s eyes. “My teleport assist is waiting around the corner.”

That kind of life was just alien to Zuli, but Zaira wasn’t. Not anymore. Zuli had the thought that the two of them could even become friends. “I’ll wait for your message. As you can see”—she spread her arms—“it’s not like I’m overrun with customers. I can fit Alejandro in anytime.”

Zaira put her hand on the doorhandle. “You know, Zuli, your true talent isn’t in being an F. Your true talent is the violin.”

Zuli twisted her fingers in her skirts. “I can’t play as well as the humans and changelings. They’re far more accomplished.”

“Are you certain?” Zaira waved a hand before Zuli could answer. “They may have had more time to practice, more teachers, but Zuli, you’re the only one who plays with a yearning born of Silence. It comes through in every note. I’m only an Arrow, with little to no knowledge of music, but such a knowing has deep value to a race long mired in Silence.”

Then she was gone, the door open to the cool night air, but her words, they lingered.

When Zuli picked up her violin to put it away, she paused, hesitated…then put bow to strings once more. And created a haunting melody that whispered out the door and into the rain, into the shadows where Zaira’s teleport assist stood in silence and listened, the striking puma gold of his eyes glittering in the spilled light from a bar across the road.

© 2021 Nalini Singh