The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [57]
“Valentine!” There was no response. Skinner tried to project her clairaudience outward, but recoiled as soon as she got past the door. The sound of the maddening snow and wind of the psychestorm had lashed out at her, for a brief instant transforming all the sounds into smells. There was a second of disorientation as she pulled her mind back, reeling with the synaesthasia, listening to the acrid, bitter sound of the storm. “Valentine!” She called out again.
Another flash of lightning and a deafening thunderclap, and she turned her head straight up and could see the man crawling across the roof now, while the thunder slammed against the inside of her ears. He was slithering down the eaves of Raithower House, head-first. The thunder rang insistently in her ears, the thought of it demanding her full attention.
“Nnf,” Skinner muttered, as she tried to get to her feet. Her thoughts were distorted, her hearing still disrupted by the synaesthasia from the storm. She sent out a wave of white-sound knocks, which came back all manner of strange red and gold colors, and the man, she’d seen a man on the roof. “Valentine!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, certain now that the man was making his way towards an upper story window.
She could not risk projecting her clairaudience out to listen, but she was certain she could hear the faint scratching of fingernails against the green-copper shutters. The creaking sound of hinges as he threw them open, the shattering of glass as he crawled inside…
“Skinner?” Valentine’s voice drifted towards her from the hall, and she could hear his footsteps now, roughly textured like the sound of burlap. The synaesthasia cleared, and the sounds were sounds again, as Valentine entered. “Skinner? What’s wrong?”
“There’s . . . there’s someone on the roof. Trying to get in.” Skinner heard Valentine draw his pistol.
“Where?”
“Third storey. I think, second window in from the right.”
“All right. I will be right back.” His footsteps rang on the stone floor.
I’m blind, I’m not a child. I’ll be fine. As a gesture of goodwill, Skinner chose not to snap her acid remarks after the young coroner. She took a deep breath, and tried to project her clairaudience again.
The disorientation was immediate as the information that reached her ears was scrambled, but not unbearable. She tracked her hearing up to the third floor, into a large room on the east side. Her telerhythmia scattered a wave of white-hot knocks, and the shiny, acrid-colored echoes returned. They gave her a picture of a room only a little larger than the one she was in, with a few cabinets, a desk, and a chair.
Valentine’s sharp-edged footsteps clattered into range. The wind of the storm eased for a moment, and Skinner’s hearing began to return to normal. “Skinner? Can you hear me?”
She rapped twice on the floor by his feet.
“I don’t see anything here, Skinner. Is this the right room?” The wind blew hard again, making his voice red and blue. The clairaudience shifted suddenly, as though it had been dislodged by the heavy wind, and shook her mind about, threatening to cast the sense out into the street.
She screwed up her face and tried to concentrate, keeping her clairaudience under control. She rapped twice again. Yes, that’s the right room.
The icy sound of Valentine lighting a match actually made her chilly. She threw another wave of knocks out against the windows. They burned when they came back, their echoes painful in her ears, but the copper shutters were still closed.
Hallucination, Skinner told herself. It’s the storm, it’s screwing all of my senses up.
“Skinner, I’m going to open a shutter.”
Three raps. No. It was hard enough to keep her mind together behind the copper shutters. If Valentine opened one…
“I need to see if someone’s outside.”
Three raps again. No.
“I think there’s someone there.” No. “Can…can you not hear that sound?”
Skinner paused, and fear fluttered in her stomach. Instinctively, she responded with the complex double-rap she used to communicate with Beckett. What