Page 1 of Seer Prophet

Chapter1

Macau

Ilooked down and my hair fell forward, blinding me, bringing a flush of panic.

I stepped off the edge of the small ferry anyway.

It was too late to pull my foot back. I would fall if I tried to correct.

I hung in space for the barest instant…

…only to have my hand grasped, my body steadied by a strong grip.

Relief flooded through me. I placed my first six-inch heel on a wooden platform leading to a private dock covered in white, fairy-like lights.

My heart thudded in my chest.

Without looking directly at the people to either side of me, I forced a smile.

My eyes traveled up and past my seer escorts, who all wore white dinner jackets and gloves. I focused instead on the sharp colors of the city skyline. It shimmered out of the dark behind them, as if made of tightly clustered stars.

I hadn’t seen anything like it in months?maybe over a year by now.

Definitely not since the C2-77 plague wiped out most of human civilization.

The last time I remembered seeing this many lights was back when I truly lived in New York City. That was before we left the first time, to rescue Jaden and the other List humans from San Francisco, and to get our people out of South America.

It was before… well, everything.

All the things that happened once the plague really hit.

So much had happened since then, I could scarcely wrap my mind around all the changes. To the world. To the nations that used to occupy that world. To all but a handful of human cities. To all my friends, my husband, my family. Hell, I hadn’t even begun to catalogue all the ways in which the last year had changedme.

As I stared, images flashed on long flatscreen monitors that covered buildings and walls.

Most were bordered by Chinese script, both Mandarin and Cantonese.

Directly in front of me, holograms crawled up the twin buildings of a massive hotel and casino, trailing light like three-dimensional ghosts.

I watched one of those holograms leap between the two towers, a winged monkey wearing red trousers. He threw balls of purple and green light at a hologram of a woman with a fish’s tail, who basked in moonlight on top of the opposite tower. The purple balls enveloped her in a colorful aura, making her smile with white teeth.

Just then, a scarlet bird with flaming tail feathers screeched, swooping up over the top of both L-shaped buildings. Its sudden appearance made me flinch.

Then, unlike the stoic, blank-faced seers around me, I stared up with wide eyes.

I must have hesitated too long.

Before I could make my way over to the next railing and the pier, I found myself guided by the waist by a white-gloved attendant. He led me to the edge of the platform, only to have yet another set of hands?warmer and much more familiar hands?encircle my waist and bring me the rest of the way over the railing.

The relief that flooded through me made my heart hurt.

Gaos.I still could barely stand to be away from him.

Even for that handful of minutes, it stressed me out.

Before I could catch my breath, Revik pulled me closer, almost like he heard me.

Glancing over his shoulder at the white-gloved seer who escorted me to him, he gave the male a hard stare. Without looking away from the blank-eyed attendant, Revik pulled me in front of him, positioning himself deliberately between me and the landing platform.

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