My name is Luisa Rennesslaer, and I am running for my life at a black tie and champagne flute party.  My mysterious companion, T. Smith, and I had been invited to go and visit the master of the house.  And T. had responded by smashng the man to the ground, and commanding me to run.

I stopped. Why was I running?  It did not make sense.  And then my jaw dropped.  I had been dazzled, mentally manipulated, enchanted.  Furious, I spun on my heel just in time to see T. Smith get thrown through a wood and plaster wall, and come skidding to a halt on his back next to the dance floor.

His passage knocked down three people, including one fellow who landed on him.  The whole brightly lit room with over a hundred of the movers and shakers of His Majesty’s Ricardo’s Braziliana in residence gasped, or hushed.  The quiet gasped, and the loud grew still which was a nice change from the typical cocktail party.

Then a murmur of worry went through the crowd as the man who had invited us stepped out.  His coat was shredded, and his right arm seemed out of joint.  I looked back, and T. somehow had gotten to his feet while helping the man who had fallen on him to scoot out of the way.

The "inviter" roared.  And everyone near me shuffled back three steps.

And then I heard applause.  One set of hands.  I looked to my right, and there on the curving staircase about five feet above everyone else stood the Master of the House, Mr. De Morrissey.

"Very good. Very good indeed.  No need for alarm.  I just say when you hire the best circus act in Europa to come to your party, they deliver, and boy howdy they do."

The inviter and T. looked a bit uncertain, and then as applause started around the room, they both bowed.  T. was more successful at it, and the inviter left.  Which made T. the focus of questions.

"How did you do it?"  I heard as I edged closer to him in the thickening crowd clot.

"Wires." He murmured, and then he spotted me, and my heart went out to him.  He was to me, and not to these blind fools, so obviously in a great deal of pain.  I pushed up to him, claimed him with a loud "Darling" and shooed the rest out of the way as we made our slow way out of the room.

There by the front door, we met the Master.

"I trust you understand the situation."  He said to T.

"Not all of your inferiors are eager to have the club expanded. And someone got impatient." T. replied, and I wondered what he meant.

"Quite. They will be disciplined at the party.  You can have the first strike."

T. bowed slightly, very slightly.

"Thank you."

"That is if you’re fit…" The Master said with what I took to be an unhealthy interest in T. state of body.

T. chuckled easily.

And we walked out onto the lawn, and past the guard who gave us a weird glance.  Once, there, it was down the street to my three-wheeler, electric of course.  T. spoke a few words which I didn’t recognize upon sitting in the passenger seat.

And then he slumped groaning.

It was awful.

"We have to get you to the hospital, because I know that wasn’t a circus act."

"No hospital. I can’t.  They’ll be watched.  I have to look strong, invincible.  Or I will be attacked again before the party."

"Whats so important about the party?" I grumped as I spun the car about and drove down into the city.

"Every hundred years, on Deadnight, certain powers laid down by the Necromancer Difarge become accessible, if the seeker is powerful, and determined enough."

Difarge. Whew, there was a story and a half.  I’d read several books about him as a kid.  You know, the fiction aisle, but even then, the character had creeped me out.

I looked over at T. and the man had passed out.  For a long second, I considered taking him to the hospital anyways.  But then I thought of my cousin in the French Diaspora, Paul Dumas, he’s my third cousin on my mother’s side, and he’s always had a thing for me even when we were eight.  Anyways, he’s an EMT.

So, I wheeled away from the nice section of town where I lived to the still nice, but not quite so much, with older residences where Paul lived.  I was following my instincts, and they served me well.  He was home.

And he was glad to see me.  I could see him figuring out how to ask me to come in, sit down, and he’d order Cuban take-out for us.

I forestalled this by saying I’d visit him next week, and coujld he help my friend.  He wobbled between being upset, and having a promise of my visit.  But when he saw T. he switched into professional caring mode.

"He cannot see a hospital. He said they would be watched, and he would be attacked."

"Right. Drug informant." Paul said, and my respect for his mind and coolness under pressure rose a notch.  Paul smiled faintly at me.  "I’ve had to drag a wounded person out of a building with bullets cutting holes in the walls, Luisa.  Being an EMT may not pay much, but it makes up for it in excitement."  He finished with a wry grin even as his fingers bounced.

"All right. I have a plan."

And so he took T. and me over to a slightly out of service ambulance at a mechanic’s shop, and used his universal key to open it.  Then he took out a body bag, and stuffed T. in it while making a slit for air.

Me, he had dress up as a nurse, and cover my hair with a baseball cap which was so not going to be good for it.

So we took our DOA into the hospital by the back entrance, and then once inside, we hustled him up to some rooms that were not being currently used.  They were off the beaten path, and with the help of a chair under a door handle, the gate to the path was closed.

Now I know we should have gotten a doctor, but Paul felt capable of diagnosing internal hemmoraghing, and broken bones, concussion.  And I felt a heaviness on my spirit whenever I thought of getting a doctor.  It was like a protective spirit saying "No, thats not a good idea."  Which is nonsense, of course, but then again, I don’t know any way for some psi to throw a man with their hands through a wall.  You read of such things in popular fiction, but thats all it is.  Psi doesn’t work like that.

I should know.  I am a psi after all, and know about a dozen of other psi’s on a personal level.

So I was in deep water over my head, and just hoped that that ‘feeling’ was my esper instinct for lucky decisions appearing in a new form.

Paul examined him on a table.  He raised an eyebrow.

"His vitals seem good.  Blood pressure, lungs sound clear, not concussed."

An X-ray told another tale.  T. Smith had fourteen broken bones.  Paul was frankly surprised that he could walk, although when I said he was a powerful esper he nodded. 

"He must have overrode the pain impulses.  But still, walking with a foot broken in three places."  Paul shuddered theatrically. 

And then he tapped the ends of T. Smith’s fingernails.  They were solid black on the hi-quality x-ray.  Suddenly fingernails of gleaming metal sprang out and jabbed Paul in the hand.  Wincing he leapt back.  Swearing, he let me bandage the inch long cut.  It had been deep, almost to the bone through the meat of Paul’s thumb.

"What is this guy? What are those?"  Paul wondered, and I did too.  So, I didn’t object when Paul reached for his wallet.

Inside was a licence made out to "Tadeusz Smith."  Problem was it was a joke license from something called the New American Colonies, and it was for operating a hyperspace transport.  The money ranged from Brazilianan marks to a "Cashcard" to a leather triangle with "RUSA" burned into it.  And then my fingers, guided by esper instinct found a catch, and popped open a whole other section of the wallet.

In here were over  a dozen identity cards with different names.  Many of them were completely nonsencical referring to things like Bear State Republic; Yukonian Confederation; and the United States of America.  As if the squabbling principalities of the underdeveloped North could ever unite for any reason.  But one said clearly "Internal Security of His Majesty’s Braziliana."

I felt reassured until Paul pointed out that it looked like it had been faked up.  Then the other permits started to worry me.

He had four permits to use high explosives, one permit to operate a fusion reactor, one permit to transport toxic waste of Class D type (whatever that was), and one permit to carry a laser rifle.  Granted they were all insane since fusion reactors don’t work, but still the whole overall feel was very scary.  After all, I didn’t see a permit to grow roses among the group.

"Who are you?" I whispered to his left ear.

"Tadeusz, the Sledgehammer of…" He whispered back, paused and I felt suddenly tired, realizing that I had just compelled a man with my esper abilities.  And then I saw he was mumbling on in his sleep.

And suddenly I felt that presece again, only this time it was furious.  It drove me back from the table, and toward the door until it relented.  I saw nothing, but I could feel a personality, a will in that room that was Other.

Even Paul who is not a Sensitive looked uneasy.

And then T. Smith, or Tadeusz sat up.

"I said, no hospitals." He spoke mildly wondering calmly why I had dared defy him.  So I babbled out my defense and the precautions took, and then he held up his hand.

"You did well. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time."

Blinking as I realized that was the end of that conversation, I watched him ease himself off the table.  Paul objected,and tried to bar his way.

"The bones are not broken." Tadeusz said softly.  Paul’s response was fervent, and despite T.’s efforts, he finally gave in, and just let Paul take another X-ray.

Not a bone was broken, although you could see a few spots where they were knitting.

"Okay, whats going on?" Paul and I shouted at the same time.

"I can’t tell you. I really can’t." T. said. 

"You can’t take her." Paul said with great conviction.  I blinked wondering what he meant, and then my brain cleared.  Paul was trying to protect me by keeping me from T.’s presence.  This was not what I wanted.

T. shook his head sadly.

"I’m afraid I have to."

"Why?" Paul said even as I thought it because I didn’t like that sad look.

"They think she’s my sacrifice tonight."

Paul and I gaped, and then Paul stepped closer shaking his fist, and roaring out a denunciation.

A blur, a crack, and then T. was catching Paul and lifting him gently onto the table.

"He will be fine. Let’s go."

"What if I don’t want to go?"

T. just stared at me, and for the first time I felt true fear in his presence.