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  “What compliment could do you justice?” Jake shot back, slugging the rest of his drink. It burned the back of his throat.

  “Smooth,” Rosa said. She put a hand on Jake’s chest, leaning forward just a little with her lips parted. “I guess if I want compliments, I’m going to have to try a little harder. Another drink?”

  Jake didn’t say no. Just as he probably wouldn’t say no to anything else that night. They both knew where this was leading, the frisson of the chase as enjoyable as the final consummation.

  “You said something about trying harder,” Jake said, and this time his hand made contact with Rosa’s. Her fingers found the inside of his wrist, tracing a small circle there, sending shivers up Jake’s arm.

  “Strictly speaking, since I’m the senior partner,” Rosa said, “you’re the one who should be making an effort. But I imagine you have no problems being… generous, when you need to be.”

  “I’m sure I can keep up with whatever you have in mind,” Jake said.

  Rosa slipped off her stool and edged forward, and suddenly Jake was breathing in the expensive lilac notes of her perfume, feeling the brush of her leg as she pressed up against him. He struggled to resist the urge to kiss her, aware of attracting attention from their boozy colleagues.

  “I don’t want to do this in front of the others,” Rosa whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Jake opened his mouth to suggest his place, but the words wouldn’t come out. Pain shot through the base of his skull, radiating out from the spot where it joined his spine like a firework going off. For a moment, the room swam in front of him.

  “What do you think?” Rosa asked. She looked like she hadn’t noticed the change in Jake. That, or she didn’t care.

  “Sounds like… a good idea,” Jake managed. “Give me a second.”

  He staggered in the direction of the bathroom, certain with every step that he was going to fall, keeping himself upright solely because he couldn’t afford to let the partners see any moment of weakness. Once in the bathroom, he hunched over a sink, splashing water over his face while the pressure inside his skull built.

  Then, as if from a distance, he felt his legs finally give way.

  For an instant, the image of a desert rose in front of him, sun flickering over sand, dunes rolling in waves, heat blurring the air into mirages…

  Then the scene vanished in light-tinged afterimages, leaving only the hardness of the bathroom floor behind. Jake groaned, then reached up to grip the counter. He managed to pull himself up to a sitting position, then stood. The pain in his head had subsided but still throbbed painfully. Slowly, methodically, he straightened his suit and wiped his face with another spray of water. Only when he was certain he looked as normal as possible did he walk back out into the bar.

  Rosa was waiting for him where he’d left her, freshening her lipstick, but Jake felt as weak as a newborn foal and kept his gaze down to head quickly for the exit. Giles stood in the middle of a nearby cluster of associates, busy telling the story of his genius in picking Jake out of the pack.

  “Giles, I have to get going,” Jake said.

  “So soon?” Giles frowned. “We’re only just getting started.”

  Jake nodded, the movement making his head feel like it was filled with lead. “You won’t need me to keep going. Have fun.”

  Once outside he relaxed slightly, and took a few steps in the direction of his office to return to his car. But he soon realized he was in no fit state to drive, so he pulled out his phone and used an app to order a taxi. He leaned against the shop front of a shut café where he sometimes grabbed lunch, then crouched down and waited. The ride home took ten minutes, but to Jake it felt like an hour. He stumbled past his doorman, unable to return the usual greeting, and slumped into the elevator, holding it together long enough to get through his front door.

  Jake sat in a leather chair by the huge windows of his apartment for a long time, staring out while his skull continued to throb, the band of pain around its base ebbing and flowing but not leaving entirely. He got up to drink a couple of glasses of water, then returned to the chair. The pain lessened slightly, and he tried to think logically about the incident in the bar. It had been many years since his last vision, during a period in his adolescence he did his best to forget. Maybe this time the cause was overwork or drinking too quickly, hopefully just a one-off event. Yes, that must be it; all he had to do from now on was to get enough rest and watch the alcohol.

  Jake thought about the few times over the last couple of months when he’d found a hot coffee waiting for him in the morning. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but perhaps he really was sleepwalking again. As a child his sleepwalking had lasted for a year, between the ages of five and six. It cleared up on its own, and he’d long since forgotten it. Maybe the recent pressure and stress had reactivated it, and this had progressed to trigger a full-blown vision. He really needed to be more disciplined about getting enough sleep. Cleaning up his diet and cutting down on caffeine wouldn’t go amiss either.

  He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. In every other post-case celebration, Jake had partied late into the night, determined to prove he could do it and still show up for work. He was always at the heart of it, keen to impress Giles with his stamina and social skills. His boss wouldn’t be happy about him leaving early. Neither would Rosaline Marsh. If the evening hadn’t taken such a strange turn, they might have been together in his penthouse, wrapped up in one another in a way that would have been as complete as it was impersonal. Would she be offended that he’d left without a word? Jake couldn’t imagine a partner like her appreciating being abandoned, even if she heard how ill Jake had been.

  Ill—that was one word for it.

  After his experience at the bar, though, Jake did feel ill, mentally and physically spent. He really needed to rest, but his nerves felt too overwrought to permit sleep. He continued to gaze at the night sky, staring up beyond the skyscrapers, hoping the faint glow would eventually let him—

  The lights came before Jake could finish the thought, two brilliant ovals appearing suddenly and streaking in shades of gold edged with green across the width of the sky from left to right high above the tops of the tallest buildings. The ovals were far too perfect to be some trick of the weather and shone with an intense brightness against the dimness of the night.

  They hung motionless for a moment at the far right of Jake’s view, then flashed back across the sky to leave afterimages burning on his retinas. The ovals blurred their way from one side of the horizon to the other, swift as shooting stars, speeding and darting for what seemed like forever but must have been no more than a few seconds, before vanishing into the night from where they’d first appeared.

  As the lingering images dissipated in Jake’s eyes, he kept looking at the spot where the lights had come from, both willing them back into existence so he could prove they were real and simultaneously hoping they wouldn’t return. Why was this happening? Could he really be seeing mysterious lights? Perhaps the desert vision and vodka had overloaded his brain and made him hallucinate, because he’d never seen something like this before, and his previous childhood visions had been in his mind’s eye only.

  What were a few lights after a whole desert, after all? Jake shook his head. It wasn’t real. Just his imagination, nothing more. Once he focused on that, it became easier to push more uncomfortable feelings to the side. Even his headache seemed to be fading rapidly. Maybe enough to let him sleep now. Jake got up and wandered toward the square of his bed. His fatigue was so great, not even thoughts of Rosa intruded on the simpler desire for rest.

  Chapter Three

  Jake slept heavily and woke up around nine a.m. He got up and took a quick shower before knocking back a large black coffee and a painkiller. His head still felt sore, but with an important meeting scheduled for later that morning, he had no time to think about the events of last night and instead focused on looking as sharp as possible i
n one of his best suits. From the firm’s point of view, winning cases brought celebrations, but not any kind of pause. The reward for success—more work. It was about what you did the next day, for the next client, as you continued your ascent. An ever more successful cog in the corporate machine.

  He ordered a taxi and checked his appearance in the mirror a final time before leaving. During the fifteen-minute journey, he flicked open the morning paper the driver handed him and found a feature about the water rights case on page two. He folded the paper as the car pulled up to his office, then paid the driver and leapt out, striding quickly into the building and taking the elevator to the seventeenth floor.

  The conference room at the firm contained everything an old-fashioned lawyers’ office needed, yet recreated on a grand scale. It boasted a massive leather-topped table made from the finest Brazilian rosewood, with luxurious leather chairs handcrafted to resemble antiques. Oak paneling on the walls was set off by awards and articles about past victories. All the audiovisual equipment the firm needed to conduct business was discreetly hidden away. The stately atmosphere suggested an office that could have been from a hundred years before.

  Jake entered and saw it was full. He knew the firm had just been appointed by a prestigious new client keen to brainstorm their case and begin litigation. Giles sat at the head of the table, flanked by Alexis Vale from corporate, and James Van Zyl, who handled the firm’s intellectual property and trademark work. Alexis and James had both been with the firm as long as Giles, both well established in their fields and as immaculate and serious as cliff faces. They were heavy hitters at the firm, usually brought in for the most lucrative of clients.

  Representatives of the new client took up most of the room. Yamagata-Evans & Associates were obviously keen to be taken seriously. Along with the elderly Mr. Yamagata and his younger partner Mr. Evans, there were six other suits. Jake had done the research; Joshua Evans was a trust-fund Ivy League dropout who had ended up in Japan while traveling the world. He’d fallen in love with Mr. Yamagata’s youngest daughter, and a scandal had ensued. Financial problems with her father’s business had paved the way for a substantial cash injection from the Evans estate, and over the next few years, Joshua had surprised everyone with his newfound maturity. There was now a grudging mutual respect with his father-in-law, but it was still a strained relationship. Joshua had a smooth, boyish face, while Mr. Yamagata looked dapper despite his advanced years.

  “Jake,” Giles boomed, and checked his watch. “Cutting it fine. Let me introduce you to Mr. Yamagata.”

  Jake walked over the far side of the table where Mr. Yamagata sat next to Alexis.

  “Ah, yes,” Mr. Yamagata said as Giles introduced Jake. “Your protégé.”

  “We heard about you solving GL’s small hedge fund problem,” Joshua said from the opposite side of the table. “Very impressive.”

  “Indeed, so impressive they asked for you specifically, Jake,” Giles said, winking discreetly at him. “They want you to take the lead on this one.”

  Jake shook hands with Mr. Yamagata and sat in the empty chair at his side. Mr. Yamagata smiled and turned toward Giles. “One should make use of talent when it is there. And you have a very talented young man here, when it comes to managing difficult situations without losing face.”

  Jake couldn’t help feeling smug. Partner and now this. He straightened the leather-bound pad of paper laid in front of him, then reached over to one of the two steaming coffee jugs and poured a generous amount into an elegant china cup. He sipped it slowly as Giles cleared his throat and formally started the meeting by asking Joshua to recap the salient points of their predicament.

  Jake listened closely as Joshua leaned forward and began to speak. The case appeared to be a complex monster of litigation. Two years ago, Yamagata-Evans & Associates purchased a small Japanese manufacturing company primarily for the value existing in its patents. One involved a technology designed to improve cell phone download speeds ten times over. An American rival had started marketing a version sufficiently similar to give grounds for a suit.

  All clear-cut enough, except there were also accusations of industrial espionage floating about. Calls for the protection of American businesses being threatened by the Japanese. Declarations that everyone in the field had been working on the technology all along.

  No, Jake had been wrong. Not a monster case. A soap bubble. It could be coaxed and blown into growth, but it could also burst with even the slightest wrong move. It would be as much about perception and presentation as the actual facts. Exactly the sort of case he excelled in. No wonder Yamagata had—

  The pain was as sudden and intense as the previous night. He lurched forward and grabbed the back of his neck. Again, it started at the base of his skull in a band that constricted and crushed his spine. As agony shot through him, it took an almighty effort to get out of his chair and stagger toward the door. He couldn’t risk collapsing unconscious on the table, and he didn’t even have enough time for an apology as he made his abrupt exit. Once safely out of the room, he leaned against the wall of the corridor, breathing hard.

  A moment later, Giles rushed out, following behind less like a mother hen than like the military chasing after a deserter.

  “What the hell?” Giles demanded, his face red with anger. “What do you think you’re doing, walking out on a client like this?”

  Jake shook his head, which only made the throbbing worse. He tried to focus on Giles, but the swaying and blurring of his vision made him feel nauseous.

  “First last night and now this?” Giles pointed to the conference room. “You think clients want a lawyer who will walk out on them at the drop of a hat? Mr. Yamagata is very traditional about these things.”

  Giles straightened up and adjusted his tie. “Be in my office in twenty minutes. I’ve got to get back in there to try to smooth this over.”

  Giles hurried back inside, not even asking if Jake was OK. Probably just as well, because Jake couldn’t describe how he felt right then. He slouched down further and hung his head as the subtle ribbed lines of the gray carpet began to swirl before his eyes. Then the color and texture changed, mutating into a brown and beige pattern that looked strangely familiar. With a grim fascination Jake realized he was looking at the carpet of his adoptive parents’ home. He peered at it, and then through it, into a vision of his childhood. There they all were, sitting on the worn living room sofa watching TV. Jake and his mother and father.

  He tried to resist by twisting his head, but it made no difference. Vivid memories flooded back. Jake was eleven when the visions had begun. He saw his adoptive parents reacting with expressions of disapproval, even worry, when he’d first told them. He relived the day his father had called him a daydreamer and liar, because he’d talked about seeing things that later came true. He’d soon learned to keep those experiences to himself and suffer in silence. The visions had become more frequent as puberty approached, and then he’d discovered how to push them away by concentrating with all his might to squeeze them from his mind.

  Jake gritted his teeth and focused. The pain increased dramatically, but he clenched his temples, determined to squeeze the childhood scenes away. They faded as the pressure in his head subsided and the corporate gray carpet returned to line the corridor. Jake breathed deeply and stood up straight, grateful for some semblance of normality. He could go to the bathroom and freshen up before his meeting with Giles.

  Jake was usually relaxed in Giles’s office. He’d spent more than enough time there since he’d joined the firm, working closely with Giles on cases and also going to him for advice. He’d gotten used to the feeling of the hard chairs and the pictures of Giles’s moments of legal glory contrasted with luxury vacations displayed on the wall behind his desk.

  He scanned the room and sat in one of the client chairs before reaching up to gingerly touch the back of his head. Even though the pain had lessened, pressure remained, and he kept clamping down on it to prevent it
from rising up again. Every time he stopped concentrating, stopped fighting it, it felt like the world started to shift around him, becoming more penetratingly real than it should have been. It felt like he was slipping through that reality, through a flimsy gauze screen covering another dimension.

  Jake couldn’t allow it to happen. Giles was right: he’d just abruptly walked out of a meeting with a major client who had tapped him to be the lead attorney. Jake had enough credit in the bank to avoid being fired, but it was hardly the type of behavior befitting a new partner. He took out his phone, trying to force his brain back along its usual lines by reading work e-mails.

  “So,” Giles said when he finally burst through the door, red tie swinging. “Please enlighten me. What just happened?”

  Jake took a breath and forced himself to smile. “Nothing. Just a blip.”

  “Just a blip. Right.” Giles didn’t go around to the other side of his desk; instead, he perched on the near edge, close enough to his in-box that a wrong move would have mixed up affidavits from a dozen cases. No longer Giles the vengeful boss, but Giles the father figure. Jake almost preferred the former.

  “First you walked out of the bar, and now a pivotal meeting,” Giles said. “There has to be something going on.”

  Jake cracked his knuckles. What could he say to him? No way could he talk about visions and strange lights. At best, Giles would laugh at him. At worst, it would get him drug tested by the firm’s doctors.

  “It’s just a couple of bad headaches,” Jake said. “I got them a few times as a kid. Apart from today and last night, I’ve been fine.”

  “Except for the half a dozen other times in the last couple of months,” Giles said, looking straight at Jake. “Do you think I haven’t noticed when you’ve zoned out in the middle of my saying something? The times when you’ve been staring off into the distance?”