Page 47 of Soothsayer

I was ready to let those horses ride free, actually, ready to let them trample all over Bobby and this fucking game he was playing. Just then the ground split about a foot away from Bobby’s back door, spilling Sören into the air and coalescing again with a grinding murmur.

I ran over and helped him stand up, brushing the dirt away as best I could. He was covered in it, his pale hair as ruddy as a sunset, every inch of skin and clothing coated with dust. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me and shivered, and I felt like my brain might just boil out of my skull. I would pay Bobby back for this. I would show him. I would find his future, and I wouldtwistit even if I had to—

Fuck. I took a deep breath and then asked Sören, “Are you okay?”

“This land is much stronger than I am,” he whispered. His voice sounded dry, as barren as the rocks out back. “I don’t want to stay here any longer.”

“We’re going, we’re gonna go, just wait one second.” I turned and looked at Bobby coldly. “What was the point of that?”

“Just a demonstration,” he said easily. “Fighting, that’s not going to win you a place here. Land has to be empty before it can be filled. I can help you to settle, once you find a suitable place, but I can’t clear the land by force. None of us can do that.”

“Well, what clears land apart from a city?” I asked.

“It has to be some sort of use. Biggest use out there today?” Bobby shrugged. “Drilling for oil or natural gas. That takes from the land but doesn’t replace the way people living there do. Find a site where the oil wells have dried up, and see what you think of it.” He stood up and inclined his head to Sören. “Please forgive our forcefulness, sacred one.”

After a long, tense moment, Sören nodded back. That was all the cue I needed to get this show on the road. “Bobby, I’m going to be taking you up on that offer,” I said. “Be ready for my call.”

“I’ll be happy to help, as long as you find the right place. Take some Slim Jims for the road, boys.”

I didn’t take any, but Sören spitefully grabbed the entire container before marching out to the car.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sören didn’t talk to me at all after that, even though I kept asking if he was all right. It had to have been a terrifying thing for him, to be swallowed up by a force so much greater than he himself was. Like Jonah and the whale, only if the whale was just as smart as Jonah and they both knew it. Hell,I’dhave been scared under the circumstances. I’d been scared just watching it.

Bobby was kind of a bastard, but I took his meaning. Sören wasn’t a big fish in America. I needed to find him somewhere to put down roots—literally and figuratively—that wouldn’t chew him up and spit him out. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t blame Sören for not wanting to stick with me, because everyone needed a home. Just because I didn’t know exactly where mine was didn’t mean Sören had to suffer along with me. Fortunately, I knew someone in the oil business who I could talk to about that.

But first I had to take care of Sören, who was curled up in the passenger seat, still clutching a fistful of Slim Jims but noteating them. He was filthy, but he hadn’t been amenable to me touching him after the initial brush down. Which, yeah, I could understand him wanting some serious autonomy right now.

I pulled up outside of a La Quinta hotel and said, “We’ll get a room, and you can get cleaned up.”

“No.”

Well, fuck. Of course his first word in an hour would be No. “Why not?”

“I’m not getting out of the car.”

“You can’t just stay in the car like this, Sören.”

Purple eyes glared at me. “And you can’t tell me what to do.”

It was like having a toddler as my copilot. “Explain this to me, okay? Why don’t you want to get out of the car? I’m not trying to make this hard for you. I genuinely want to know.”

“Because I don’t want to step on the ground.”

So this was sort of like the camping issue. “Why not?”

“Because this ground is aggressive now. It’s reaching for me, disrupting my energy. Ihatethis place.”

“What do you mean, reaching for you?”

“I mean that it’sreachingfor me!” he hissed. “How can you not feel it?” Suddenly he reached over to me and grasped my face in his hands. “I will show you.”

“Wait—” Reading Sören when he was like this didn’t work the same way. I didn’t see the future in his eyes, but apparently if he wanted me to, I could get a really good grasp on the present. The sensation started as an itch at the base of my spine and then began a slow crawl up and down my body, like a wave of pinpricks stabbing my flesh. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it was definitely uncomfortable. “What the hell is that?”

“Magnetism.”

“Magne—how?”

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