The Lapis Chronicles:Psychic Slaughters Two

The Lapis Chronicles:
Psychic Slaughters Two

Copyright © 2002 By Cassandra J. Houston

To:

Lapis Lawrence Stone for the use of the name.

Gabriel for the use of the name and inspiration.

The Schola Scientia



He took a final look at the island where he had lived for the last eight
years with a small smile on his lips. He was leaving today. There was no
graduation ceremony. He would simply move on to his first assignment.

His first assignment. He looked at the manila envelope in his hand. He
hadn\'t seen many envelopes in his time on the island. Almost all the
communication at the Schola Scientia was done through telepathy. The only
time he wrote was when he\'d visited home, and he hadn\'t done that in almost
a year now. He missed Chicago. He hoped that his first assignment would
allow him to go back there, if only for a little while.

\"Lapis!\"

He turned at the sound of his name. Four men were running towards him. His
former schoolmates. He smiled and lifted his envelope to them in greeting.
They all carried one just like it.

The four men stopped when they reached Lapis. \"We were wondering where
you\'d got to, Brewton.\" said Christopher MacFinlay. His accent was
Scottish.

\"Just off by myself a bit.\" Lapis said, grinning.

\"You haven\'t opened your assignment sheet yet.\" The clipped British accent
of Satya Zala commented.

\"Don\'t you want to know where you\'re going to wind up, amici?\" Vincent
Sulli teased, in almost perfect English.

Christopher scoffed, his bright blue eyes snapping. \"He probably already
knows. No telepath can block Lapis.\"

\"He\'ll go to Chicago.\" Vincent said with surety. \"You don\'t have to Read
to know that.\"

\"Then you\'d be with me.\" Satya said, grinning. \"Good thing, I\'m too small
to protect myself in the big bad city.\" and he pulled himself up to his
full height, which was only five foot two inches tall.

Lapis walked up to Satya, his best friend at the Schola Scientia. Lapis
was the tallest person in their class, standing at six foot five. \"Like you
need protecting.\" he said, looking down at Satya. \"You\'re the strongest
Psychoportationist this school has ever trained, I\'ll bet.\" Lapis handed
him the envelope. \"You read it.\"

All of the men fell silent as Satya took the envelope from Lapis. \"You
should read this you know.\" Satya said. \"It is yours.\" but he opened it as
he spoke. He looked at it a moment.

Chris and Vincent grinned as they Read the tiny Hindu. Lapis was also
grinning, giving in to temptation at last as Satya read. Lapis heard each
word from Satya\'s mind half a second before the Hindu read it out loud:

To: Lapis Brewton, Magna Cum Laude, Schola Scientia, Class of 2020

From: Zareb Lannamann, Magister, Schola Scientia and Apsara Zala, IPI,
Chicago

Re: First assignment

Dear Mister Brewton,

Your assistance has been requested at the Midwestern United States branch
of the International Parapsychological Institute, located in Chicago,
Illinois. You will report to Stone Brewton and Apsara Zala, who head that
particular branch. Please report to her on June the 15th at 8:00 am.

Zareb Lannamann

Lapis threw his head back and breathed a sigh of relief. Chris slapped
Lapis on the back. \"You couldn\'t possibly have thought they would send you
someplace else, could you?\" he asked laughing. \"You were born to find
psycho Polleo. Like your father and his father. Brewtons are born
Protectors. Everyone knows that.\"

Vincent came closer to shake Lapis\' hand. \"You can celebrate now.\" he
said, and they all began to walk across the island towards the docks. Their
class had decided long ago that they would ferry to the mainland when they
finished school.

Chris glanced down at Vincent. \"You aren\'t planning on celebrating?\"

Vincent snorted. \"I am going to Moscow.\" he said. \"I wanted Venice. I have
little reason to celebrate.\"

His friends all laughed at him. They were approaching the dock and saw a
group of three women congregated.

\"You might just get to say good-bye properly to Atia, if you play your
cards right.\" Chris said, rather wolfishly.

\"Where have you been?\" Lapis said. \"We haven\'t been seeing each other in a
long time. Years. I have who I want, thanks.\"

Chris raised his eyebrows as he swaggered towards the girls. \"Betters my
own chances, is all.\" he grinned.

\"You don\'t get much oxygen up there, do you?\" Vincent laughed. He often
teased Lapis and Chris about their height. Chris had stopped growing at an
even six feet tall. Vincent was in between him and Satya at five foot six.
\"I think I might try my hand at those ladies.\"

\"I wasn\'t talking about Atia and Cia,\" Christopher said. \"I was talking
about Finlay.\"

Finlay O\'Dwyer was a lovely, tall blonde who leaned slightly to whisper
into the ears of her female companions, Atia and Cia de la Greca. The three
of them began to giggle as the four men approached.

Christopher swept Finlay into his arms and kissed her. Vincent turned red
as Cia began flirting with him. Atia turned to Satya and Lapis. Satya took
her hand and kissed it chastely. She flushed and smiled down at him.

Lapis watched as his class boarded the ferry to the mainland. The seven of
them of them all sat together and chatted as the ferry left the island.

The girls were very chatty, which gave Lapis the time he needed to watch
the ocean go by without being bothered. He got what he wanted. He was going
back to Chicago. He\'d hardly dared to assume he would be. His father worked
there, and would have requested him, but if it weren\'t for his grades, he
wouldn\'t have his choice of Institutes.

Finlay said to him, from under Christopher\'s arm, \"I don\'t believe you are
going back to Chicago, Lapis.\" she chastised. \"You could go anywhere.
Everyone wants you. The talented Polleo and drop dead gorgeous son of the
talented Polleo and drop dead gorgeous Stone Brewton.\"

Lapis ripped his attention from the ocean face. \"We are just plain Polleo.
And you make us sound like a couple of sex fiends. What does being cute
have to do with anything?\"

Atia laughed and moved to Lapis\' side. \"No.\" she said, her Latin accent
thick. \"Vincent is cute.\" and she giggled as Vincent blushed. \"Satya is
extremely cute.\" Satya turned two shades darker. \"Christopher is one hell
of a beautiful specimen.\" and Christopher raised his eyebrows at Atia\'s
brashness, although he was used to it after eight years. \"But you.\" and she
leaned even closer to Lapis and put her hand on his hard chest. \"You. With
your beautiful brown eyes and that sexy hair.\" she ran her fingers through
his hair hooking her hands behind his neck as her voice got deeper. \"You
have skin like Adonis.\"

Lapis found himself now flanked on either side by the de la Greca twins.
Cia leaned into his left side. \"Golden brown, tanned all the time, it
seems.\" she said, running a hand on his chest, matching her sisters
movements. \"And so tall.\"

Lapis looked imploringly at Finlay who stood under Chris\' arm laughing.
\"Don\'t look at me. I can\'t save you.\" She said.

The girls were gently moved to the side about a foot, and their contact
with Lapis was broken. \"Hey!\" Atia protested. \"Who did that.\" she said,
glaring at Lapis.

\"I did it.\" Satya said, softly. \"I must do what I can to get the attention
of the sex kittens of the class, don\'t I?\" and he cocked his head to the
side and grinned a winning smile.

The ploy worked. Atia pounced on Satya, almost knocking him into the
water.

\"Take me Satya!\" she screeched, laughing at least as hard as Satya was.

Cia put her arm around Vincent\'s neck and hopped up. He stuck out his arms
and she landed in them.

Lapis was left alone as flirtation reigned all around him. He returned to
his thoughts, chuckling to himself a little.

He would be working with his father, or at least in the same building.
Lapis\' father was Stone Brewton. He too had graduated top of his class at
the Schola Scientia. He had gone to Chicago and married his mother, Rose,
who had graduated Suma Cum Laude. His mother had given birth to him a year
later, at the age of twenty-two. He was told he looked a lot like his
mother, but he could not remember her. She had died when he was only two
years old.

Stone Brewton had not begun dating again until Lapis was ten years old.
Not even Lapis could deny that his father was, as Atia had so bluntly put
it, drop dead gorgeous. Women were fawning over him all the time. But Stone
had never remarried.

Lapis had lived with his father until he was thirteen years old and had
taken the entrance exams for the Schola Scientia, which he had passed with
ease. He had then moved, with six others like him, to the island he was
watching decrease in size as the ferry progressed. There he spent almost
eight years studying and sharpening his mental skills. His specialisation
was the Kinetics. Pyro, Hydro and Psycho. His second speciality was
Psychoportation. And he had now graduated top of his class and was
returning to his father in Chicago.

\'To my father, also.\' Lapis corrected himself mentally.

Lapis sighed. It was not just his father he wanted to go back to Chicago
for.

The ferry approached land and his classmates all settled down and prepared
to disembark. The bunch of them immediately headed for the nearest bar.
Lapis and Satya watched as their former classmates boozed it up. They were
paired off within hours and soon began to leave the bar for points unknown.
Lapis watched them with half a smile on his face.

\"You two better be careful.\" Vincent teased, as he groped at Atia, who was
feeling no pain. \"Someone might think you\'re together.\"

It was a favourite joke among the four men as they grew up at school
together. Neither Lapis nor Satya had been involved in any sort of serious
relationship. Satya swore he would not take a woman until he was married.
Lapis had other reasons.

\"And what makes you think we\'re not?\" Satya said, grinning.

Vincent was too inebriated to really think about this statement much. He
just shrugged and dragged Atia out of the bar.

They watched them go. Lapis sighed and paid the tab for both himself and
Satya. They would be sleeping in a nearby hotel before they flew to Chicago
in the morning.

\"You will see your lover soon,\" Satya whispered in Lapis\' ear when Lapis
bent down to grab his trunk. He opened the door for him. \"And you\'ll find
nothing has changed.\"

Lapis grinned at his best friend. The only person in school who knew his
secret.

\"I hope so, Satya.\" He whispered back. He stood and entered the room.

Lapis sighed as he lay on the hotel bed, his legs hanging off the edge. He
adjusted himself so that he was diagonal across the bed. He just was not
comfortable. At his father\'s house and at school he\'d had a mattress
specially designed for his tall frame. Here there was no such luxury. He
gave up and got off the bed and went to look out of the window. He pulled
up a chair and sat staring out the window, thinking of his school years and
his lover.

Lapis loved school. He was finally with kids like himself, and it had been
a dream come true for him. He\'d made many friends while at this school.
And, besides finding the Kinetics and Psychoportation, which he was a
natural at, he also found all the normal things all teens find. Sex.

He\'d lost his virginity to Atia while they were in their Third year. She
had had a crush on him since they first met and campaigned to get him to
have sex with her. He finally gave in to her. He didn\'t know if fifteen was
a good age or a bad age to get involved in sex. Lapis was a very sought
after conquest, as it turned out. He was tall and handsome and everyone
knew his name because of his father. He eventually had sex with many of the
girls in school. But that first time was the most difficult thing he ever
went through. But he quickly figured out how to get over his impotence
problems. Fantasy.

He did not fantasize about girls when he was with one. He fantasized about
guys. And he found that his strong ability to block his mind from other
telepaths came in very handy. It was also this ability that was one of the
things that made him so attractive to the girls of the school. They never
knew if he wanted them or not.

His first experience with a guy was with his best friend, Satya. Satya and
Lapis had shared a room from the beginning of school to the end and it was
lucky for them that they had become such good friends. Satya had guessed at
Lapis\' preferred sexuality by their second year of school and had offered
himself to experimentation.

Satya was a very scientific type. His own specialities were Metamorphosis
and Psychometabolism, although he never used these gifts on himself. He was
fortunate to be very confident in himself. But he was very curious about
sex and who had it with whom. He was fascinated by his roommate, so tall
and broad and closed. That he could not break down Lapis\' barrier was truly
fascinating to Satya. He had to work to get into his friends mind.

Satya and Lapis experimented with sex together in their room at night.
When Lapis was taken by Atia, he told Satya about it. Satya took one look
at his friends face and said. \"You are not meant to be with women, Lapis.\"
as if the idea of Lapis having sex with a woman was ludicrous.

Lapis tried to fit in. Satya tried to help him by denying him sex and
trying to get Lapis to just accept that he was gay. Lapis had one miserable
relationship with the girls in his school after another. Then Lapis met the
one. It was at the beginning of his Fifth year. The first day of school,
September the eighth. Lapis\' eighteenth birthday.

At Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth years, all advanced students took
their specialities together. And he met Gabriel.

Gabriel Kinlan was in his Seventh year, transferred from the UK Schola
Scientia. He was top in his class in the UK and there was no change with
the transfer. Lapis had dropped several books when he had first set eyes on
Gabriel. He\'d stopped dead in his tracks and stared.

Gabriel seemed to pick up on something, not unusual at the Schola
Scientia, and glanced over at Lapis. Their eyes locked for a moment before
Lapis\' attention was diverted by Satya, who was chastising him for dropping
his books.

One of the most attractive things to Lapis about Gabriel was his height.
Gabriel was the only student in the school, the only person on the entire
island for that matter, who was taller than Lapis.

They began hanging out together. Gabriel specialised in Farsensing and the
Kinetics. They became fast friends, growing closer by the day. And then it
happened. And it was Satya who brought it about.

Satya took Lapis and Gabriel to a remote corner of the island that was
uninhabitible enough that hardly anyone ever went there. Satya sat them
both down on a rocky cliff next to each other and faced them.

\"Lapis, I want you to let down that brick wall of yours.\" he said,
frowning at Lapis. \"Then I want you,\" he looked at Gabriel. \"to Read him.\"

Both Lapis and Gabriel stared at him.

\"Just do it.\" Satya said, a hint of menace in his voice. \"Or I\'ll Move you
into the ocean somewhere. You\'ll just appear at about ten thousand feet.
Maybe I can even wrangle up a shark or two.\"

Neither of the young men needed to be told that Satya was a good enough
Psychoportationist that he could probably do exactly as he threatened.
Lapis took a deep breath and stared into the water, freeing himself of the
walls he\'d built over the course of his life to keep other Polleos, those
who were Able, from sensing him using either farsensing or telepathy. And
he felt Gabriel as the older student gently probed his thoughts. And
Gabriel discovered exactly how Lapis felt.

After about a minute, Satya said. \"Switch.\" and they did. Lapis Read
Gabriel. Gabriel opened his mind to Lapis as he\'d never opened his mind to
anyone. And Lapis learned exactly what Gabriel was feeling at that moment.

Satya nodded curtly, although neither Gabriel or Lapis noticed. \"There.\"
he said with finality. \"Now you both know what I have known for three
months now. I hope you can deal with it.\" and he turned around and climbed
off of the cliff, leaving Lapis and Gabriel alone.

Gabriel spoke first. \"I didn\'t think.\" he began. They had both closed
themselves again. \"It seems you have been with every girl in this school.\"

Lapis grimaced. \"Not every one. But I\'ve been with a lot of them.\" and
they both laughed. \"And most of them were dying to get you, too.\" he
shrugged. \"I can\'t say I blame them. You are the most magnificent creature
I have ever seen.\"

Gabriel leaned over and kissed Lapis for the first time. They did not have
to tell each other, \"I love you,\" but they did.

\"Four and a half years now.\" Lapis whispered to himself. He put his feet
on the narrow window sill and went to sleep in the chair, looking forward
to his flight back to Chicago.