Powers by James A. Burton

and haven’t been anywhere near that synagogue since you chased me off. No, we’re not the only ones who knew about it, you and me and Allah. I got back here and found a note about the star on my kitchen table. It’s still there, and I never touched it. If you can sense people from objects they’ve handled, you might be able to follow that.”
    “Bullshit.”
    More Western phrasing—from his memory of her ancestral homeland, he would have expected some long and flowery invective that added up to the same thing. Probably including detailed references to his ancestors unto the tenth generation and their kinship with pariah dogs and the undoubted fact that none of the women had kept their noses. And she hadn’t reacted to his blasphemy, one way or the other . . .
    “You don’t believe me, I’ll show you. Let me get up.” He paused, considering her culture and general attitude. “Now I’d like to get dressed, if you don’t mind. I’m feeling a little naked here.”
    The flashlight gestured up, which he took as permission. He stood and turned toward the chair where he’d dumped shirt, pants, and underwear before collapsing into bed. He heard a swish of movement and froze as a needle-sharp point pricked the skin over his right kidney. The rough surface of the cast on her left wrist sandpapered his throat and chin, pressing just enough to suggest he should move with care if he wanted to keep an uncrushed trachea.
    Breath touched his ear, and a whisper. “Skip the clothes. I’m not in any hurry to find out what you hid under your shirt. I’ve seen naked men before. Some of them even uglier than you.”
    Okay, maybe she actually was a seer. Just like with the cane by the stairs, his little habit of keeping weapons scattered around his home included a few close by his bed. Not a knife or gun—a can of pepper spray that wouldn’t be too particular about exactly where she hid behind that light.
    He felt less touchy about clothes than most people, especially when it came to keeping all his internal organs where God or evolution put them. And he did not offer any quotes from the Prophet about modesty and the proper demeanor of women. He was capable of learning, under sufficient duress.
    “The note’s on my kitchen table, like I said.”
    She let him turn, keeping the knifepoint just touching his skin. No sudden moves, they walked like slow-dancers through the darkness to his kitchen. Still nothing sudden, nothing to startle that knife hand, he reached across to the wall and switched on a light. Blinding brightness. She spun him away with a kick to the back of his knee that stole his balance. He fell, smacking nose and cheek against the refrigerator. He leaned there blinking, stupid, mixing dazzle and dizziness. Feeling warmth oozing down his upper lip. More blood? He licked it. Salty.
    He groped at the counter, bracing himself. His hand bumped something chilly and hard, cylindrical: a can, a full can of sour cherries. He’d thought to make some strudel in the morning, in memory of the bakery window that had betrayed him into a photograph. Maybe make it after he’d slept the clock around again, to have the energy and patience.
    His fingers closed on the can and he spun and threw, aiming for the sound of her breath, at the shadow of her head forming in his dazzled eyes. Vertigo took him and he sagged back against the cold door of his refrigerator, blinking. He heard a dull thud, the sound of can against flesh and bone rather than a wall or the floor.
    When he could focus again, she was on the far side of the kitchen table, staggering, her gun replacing the knife in her right hand. The hand jerked, the gun jerked, and he saw the orange flash of half-burned gunpowder at the muzzle, felt the boom of a large-bore pistol in a small room, saw the dull gray lead and shiny copper jacket of a bullet. His brain traced a straight line from the bore to his chest and knew he was about to die. But she’d said the demon said she