Red Rainbow by G Johanson (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

“A less prestigious profession. You wouldn’t be impressed, but he was a good, hardworking man who helped us get to where we are today.” He gave her an answer of sorts designed to shut down further questions on that score. There was no shame in his grandfather’s trade (which had provided for a near Jacob level of sons), but he wasn’t sharing it with her for her to look down on him. Back to business. “I chose to save the name reveal until now as this meeting is a chance to reach an understanding and get to know each other better. You know my name now; you’ve seen my face. It makes things more equal.”

She laughed out loud at this, a totally fake laugh to show how funny she found his statement. Just not funny enough to make her laugh for real. “César, César. You are funny. I prefer dining out much later than this. This damned curfew is a nuisance. Of course, you could bat your eyes at the staff and swing it for us to stay.”

“I don’t know about you, but I can’t dine for five hours’ straight.” Florence’s smile at this made him think she was falling for his charms too before he realised what the smile was in relation to. She could dine continually for five hours, fifty, fucking a million. “We’re here now, let’s eat. That refers only to this menu, Mrs Pascoe.”

“I have a scintilla of self-control. You’re not as filling as some. Your energy is a low level considering your ability. It’s a constant slow trickle, no peaks or troughs. Your power’s passive, isn’t it?”

“If you mean is it performed unconsciously, yes, that is the case.” All three of the supernatural members of his group were the same, involuntarily gifted or afflicted. Patience would be the exception, except the war would be over before her membership was finalised. She was still in the working through shit stage. He’d been there, done that and knew the process could not be timed.

“And constant.”

César nodded, not that she was asking for confirmation, having already decided this was the case.

Florence smiled. “The nature of my ability is morphing in that direction. It began as something I consciously did. It’s becoming natural. I fight it, sometimes, but it is nice not to have to. In fairness, most virtually place themselves on a platter for me.”

“You don’t believe that.”

She lifted up a silver tray from the table and held it up to him. The light caught it wrong, dazzling a diner at the next table and not offering the perfect reflection of the Love Phantom that she fancied she was generating. “What is this, then?” She lowered the tray and continued, “The Love Phantom takes off his mask to wine and dine the target that he wishes to manipulate. I accept you in my lair, but I see it for what it is. My powers grant me immunity to yours.”

“You want me to come home with you, but you’re immune to my charms,” he scoffed. Florence had revealed a lot in that line, surely more than intended.

“The whole city is my lair, that’s what I’m referring to.” Yeah, sure that’s what you meant. The level of umbrage was fantastic to behold, Florence making him out to be a cretin for seeing though the bullshit. The denial stage, such as it was, was only taking place because he’d done her the courtesy of informing her of his power. Without that, she’d have been more malleable putty in his hands. Florence prided herself on her resistance, this internal battle harder than the rest of them and destined to go one way. His way. “Am I bowing down to you?”

“You wouldn’t. Loving someone doesn’t necessarily change your personality. People are toys to you, and that includes those that you love.”

“So what benefit is there to you if... no, I’ll say it, if cruel people remain cruel?”

“I can always break down that armour over time. The cruellest can be the most vulnerable. And love is multifaceted, it’s not all about sexual penetration.”

“Indeed. How did it make you feel when I used my powers on you? The intellect may consider it a violation, but did it trigger anything else? Some feel a connection after.”

This was a strange tactic even for a strange woman, asking her victim if he enjoyed the experience. And it was a tactic rather than just a question, Florence hoping he’d say it was heady, something she could latch onto as justification to give him an encore. She was out of luck as the short answer was that it was tiresome in all ways. But she was getting more than that – just not what she wanted. Her sales pitch needed serious work, though he did wonder whether other young men, more damaged than he was (César had his issues, but he wasn’t that fucking loopy), had been propositioned so.

“We all have our allotted time on this Earth. Having that done to you on a regular basis would make the sands of time flow quicker. Your multiple widowhood certainly makes more sense now.”

“I never killed any of my husbands, not even the one that deserved it. He cheated on me.” She still seemed affronted at her late husband’s gall now.

“It happens.”

“Not to me. Except it did.” She laughed a little at this rule set in stone crumbling.

“It doesn’t always mean much.”

“As if you’ve ever been cheated on.”

“Emotional affairs are worse anyway.”

“This was that too. He said she was kind. I couldn’t compete with that,” she said dryly. Florence finished off his baked snack and passed him back the plate with some crumbs left on. He resisted her scraps and she said, “Talk, César. What’s this about?”

“It’s about 85 dead Germans and 14 dead policemen – and I think your tally may be higher than that.” César continued to give Patience’s account the benefit of the doubt regarding the number killed at the performance. Those two men that survived