Changer's Blood (Balancer's Soul cycle) (58 page)

“I remember vaguely because I was trying to stay
awake. So what do you want to attempt
?”
He
leaned back into the backrest.

“Let me see how far I can go
into your mind.” Sarah said quickly because she
started
becoming anxious.

He
though
t
about it, then nodded.

Connor
felt her mind reaching for
his
.
He
took down
all of
his
mental barriers, allowing her full access. Her mind had the feeling of a slow moving current that was not o
nly refreshing, but all encompassing
. The more she
immersed herself within
his
mind, the mo
re of her mind mixed with
his
.

Something didn’t feel right.

Then he
figured out how to make it work perfectly.

“Sarah, wait.” He
said normally and instantly her mind
began
retracting from
his
. She waited patiently until
he
could find the righ
t words. “When you push your
consciousness
into mine, you
’
r
e
only in my mind. We have been only able to communicate while we entered the other’s mind.
We have to reach
together
or else it won’t work.
” Sarah nodded in understandin
g and her focus
became
completely concentrated on
him
. “I think we should each enter our minds simultaneously.
Ok, now let’s do this together
, slowly
.”

On three they
tried entering each other
’
s mind. As
Connor
projected
his
mind into Sarah’s
, he
felt her mental tou
ch
just as he felt the familiar touch of her thoughts
. At the same time he
pushed further in, so did Sarah with the
exact
same
amount of
force. It felt like two streams going in opposite directions
and lasted
for
well
over a minute
.
T
he
n the
feeling
and
the
pressure
changed dramatically
and suddenly
. When
they
were as deep
into the
others
mind
as
they
could manage
,
the straining of opposing forces ceased. Now the two opposite streams
of individual thoughts
became a slow moving whirlpool.
Their
minds
began
circling eac
h
other.
It wasn’t just
him
or her
anymore, but
them
.
Connor
felt like
him
self and someone else at the same time
.

“Connor, this feels so…” I
t was
Sarah’s voice, but it felt as if it were
his
lips were
the ones
that
parted and moved
.

He
saw
his
eyes going wide
,
from her
exact
position
.
He
could see Sarah sitting before
him
yet
he
could see
him
self from where she sat.
Connor
couldn’t control
her
movements
, but as she
gingerly
raised her arm
,
it felt like it was also
his
that moved
.
He
moved
his left
hand and Sarah’s eyes looked at
the
hand from
his
perspective
and also her own
.
He
saw
the
tattoo that was seared on
his
ches
t from Sarah’s eye
s and it really did look good from her
perspective
. Everything they
did would be felt by the other as if they were the one who did it.
There was also one more thing; with
their
mind within each other,
Connor
wasn’t focusing to stay connected with her. It was
as if
his
telepathy found a hold within Sarah and latched on
to it
. A miniscule amount of power
, nearly nonexistent,
was used to stay connected, but it was as easy to sustain as breathing.

He
spoke aloud. “Sarah
,
how do you feel?”

Sarah instantly started to giggle. I
t was almost like he
did
it
too. “This is definitely a new experience.” She blin
ked and for a single moment
and
Connor
only saw from
his
perspective.

“Looks like we have a new special trait.”
At the same time he
spoke w
ith
his
mind,
he
heard
him
self again in
Sarah’s mind. It was weird hearing your own thoughts from another
’s mind
.
It
i
s like an echo
in an empty hall
.

“I think,”
Sarah’s eyes we
nt wide for a moment as she experienced
what
he
just did. “we should keep this to ourselves for now.” She spoke the rest of her thoughts aloud. “Now let
’
s go back to normal.”

Pulling
his mind back
became
easier now that he
knew the feeling of the whirlpool.
Pulling the hold from his
princess
’
s mind was easy. The moment the contact
disengaged
, the whirlpool feeling stopped.
It felt good to be back within
your
own mind. It wasn’t as disorienting.

“Connor, how did you think
to do that?” Sarah smiled at the
successful test.

“Somewhere deep inside me said that we were trying
to do
it the wrong way.
You pushing
alone,
without me doing anything wouldn’t
accomplish
anything. I just knew it
somehow
.
T
here would need to be a trick.
Suddenly it dawned on me how it should work. We needed to balance each other. You know, like working with two halves of an object and then put them together.”
He
couldn’t come up with a better analogy
at the moment
.

“It was
really
something else wasn’t it? Didn’t it feel weird breathing both as yours
elf and me?” Sarah shot him
a shy smile.

They
started laughing and explaining what it felt like to
be
each other.

Connor
put on
his
sleeveless black shirt and hiking boots before
leaving
home.
By the time
they
made it to the rocky clearing it was a
bout noon and
quite
warm out.

A
pillar of black smoke
could be easily spotted
a few minutes before
they
came into the clearing. Looking for the source of the smoke
behind the cover of forest
,
Connor
spotted a shimmering form in front of a roaring bonfire.

Sarah tightened her grip on his
hand as
they
walked slowly to
wards
the shimmering figure. “About time you kids showed up.” The s
himmering form walked towards them
and
turned out to be
Sarah’s father.
Jack
was shirtless and wore only shorts and boots. His
moonlight,
shoulder length hair flowed behind him as he walked.

Connor
said “Jack, don’t you think the smoke will give away our position?”

He had a boyish grin spread across his face
as he disregarded the
question
. “Son, you need to try out your experiment you mentioned yesterday.”

Remem
bering the diner conversation, he
looked down at
his
beautiful mate as she had that hint of a
successful smile on from the
earlier experiment.
A moment later she rem
oved her hand and walked with him
to the blazing inferno.

Jack stood by Connor’s
side as Sarah
positioned herself
to
his other. Connor
focused
,
keeping
his
eyes open
,
over
his
left forearm. In
his
mind
’
s eye
he
called upon the element Fire and pictured a circular fire shield that spun just above the skin of
his
forearm. Calling
his
energy to accomplish the task and using instinct to direct the flow; a rotating flame shield appeared.
The
shield
showed it had grown larger since
the
first time
he
demonstrated its
unique
capabilities.

The shield spun faster than normal because of the
surrounding
heat.
Connor
twisted
his
arm and directed the shield towards the flames. The shield spun even faster as it absorbed even more of the
radiating
temperature. Taking a step closer to the inferno
Connor
pushed the shield
directly
into the flames. The rotating speed became a blur, even to
him
, as the flames were sucked in. The more heat
the
shield absorbed, the more energy flowed into
him
.
New strength grew and fortified his system.

Just before extinguishing the flames,
Connor
stepped back. The rotation started slowing down again as soon as
he
walked away.

As the fire began
burning back to life, Jack
’
s grin
broadened
. “It work
s
, just like you imagined.
It does give us a supplement if we ever run out of food.
If something terrible happens I can absorb flames and transfer energy to Jillian. We’d still need water to drink, but that’s her department. If push came to shove and we needed to hide from humanity we could survive anywhere…
” Jack finally said
with confidence
.

“That it does
,
Jack.”
Connor
cut the flow of power to
the
shield and it disappeared. “It will work for us if there is ever a need.”

When the flames were roaring again, Sarah made her
own
rotating
shield.
Even the size of her shield became larger in diameter. Before it
revealed itself to be the size of a
small Targe, but now it
had grown to
the size of her torso. When Sarah completely extinguishe
d the flames she came back to their
side.