Page 39 of Seer
Greg sucked in a breath, both hands clutching his chest. Fuck, was he having a heart attack or something? I shoved my chair back and got to my feet.
“Greg?” Delphia asked.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded, running around the table. I held my hands out to the side, ready to help if he needed me to.
Greg’s eyes met mine. “Monster,” he gasped. “Thomas Baird. He’s dead.” His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed.
“Shit!” I shouted. I managed to get my hands under Greg’s shoulders before he hit the ground.
“Put him on the couch.” Edgar pointed toward the living room. He picked up the phone. “Hang on, Delphia. It looks like one of Greg’s Wonders passed away suddenly.”
“Sorry,” I muttered to Greg as I lifted him in my arms bridal-style. If this limited amount of contact offended his mate-avoiding sensibilities, he’d just have to deal with it.
Except on the way to the couch I realized exactly what all the resonating bullshit was about.
ON THE TEXAS ADVENTURERS DISCORD SERVER
MONDAY, MARCH 27
Delphia_Leader_TWISTMarch 27 at 1:14pm
@wonders, some of you are already aware, but Thomas Baird from the Central District passed away a little while ago. This will be frightening to hear, but we have reason to believe he was murdered, and that he’s not the first Wonder to be killed in the past few weeks. Please *do not go anywhere alone*and let your DM know if you see anything suspicious. I’m sorry I don’t have any more information right now. I will share more when I have it.
CHAPTER 11
GREG
I blinkedup at Cal and Edgar’s concerned faces. I’d been a little out of it for a few minutes, but I hadn’t been unconscious. Which was a pity, because now I absolutely knew two things. First, being held—andcarried—by Cal was exactly as intoxicating and comforting as I’d imagined, dammit. And, second, Cal and I resonated like a fucking bass drum in an empty concert hall.
But I’d deal with that later.
I sat up, waving off their protests. “I’m fine. We need to go. Thomas—” I squeezed my eyes shut. The pain wasn’t only emotional. Wonders died, of course. But if they went peacefully in their sleep or after a long illness, there was very little feedback to the DM other than the absence of the former connection. But if they went violently like Thomas had, the fear and pain reverberated through the connection and lingered. Not to mention the echoing horror from the other Wonders who’d also been connected to Thomas. My phone would blow up in a few seconds.
Edgar sat next to me on the couch and put his arm around my shoulders. He was still holding my phone with my mom onthe line. “Just breathe through it, my boy. I’m guessing this was a violent death?”
I nodded rapidly.
Cal sank down onto the chair perpendicular to the couch. He said, “Hi, Delphia. It’s Cal. This morning I had a vision of one of Greg’s Wonders getting murdered by... something.” He grimaced and waved a hand. “Luckily from my description Greg was able to identify the Wonder and warn her before she went to the place where she’d be killed.”
I nodded again, leaning into Edgar and letting his magic wash over me and soothe my agitated senses. I would’ve rather been held by Cal, but that wasn’t happening. I only had to look at his stained t-shirt to remind myself why.
My phone vibrated in Uncle Edgar’s hand. No doubt the first of many Wonders trying to find out what happened to Thomas. I took the phone from Uncle Edgar and clicked the option to stay on the line with Mom and send the new call to voicemail.
“Mom,” I said. “I need to talk to my Wonders about Thomas. And Cal and Edgar and I need to go see where he died.”
“You think he was killed by the same person as in Cal’s vision?” she asked.
“Yes.” I grimaced as another call came in. I sent it to voicemail, only to have a text message come through.
Cal said, “Delphia, I saw this thing kill another Wonder—I’m pretty sure—in a vision last week. I didn’t get a look at it, but whatever it was, it covered the area around the Wonder in fog. The same thing happened in my vision about Annie, the Wonder we were able to warn this morning. Do you know of any Wonders who can create fog, or are there legends ofanybody being able to?” He looked at Edgar with a hopeful expression.
Edgar frowned and shook his head.
My phone chimed with more texts. I sat up, ready to prepare to leave.
“No,” Mom said slowly. “But let me ask some of the older Wonders here while you go see what happened to Thomas.”
Cal said, “Greg told me you have a Discord server for Wonders. Delphia, can you post something and ask them to try not to be anywhere by themselves for a while until we figure out what’s happening?”
