"He's drugged," he said, his voice angry. "It'll probably kill him, whatever it is. It's the practice for willing martyrs. They drug them so the death isn't prolonged...so he'd be mostly, if not completely dead before the fire killed him...or at least in a lot less pain..."
"What is he talking about?" I said. "What does that patron crap mean?"
"I don't know," the man muttered. "But I intend to find out."
I watched him stare down at the bound man, his eyes slightly out of focus. It went on for a number of minutes. Longer, frankly, than my frayed nerves could handle at that point.
"What are you doing?" I said.
"Reading him," the man said.
I stared at him, then down at the man tied to the log. It took another span of seconds before his words made sense to me. But I hadn't heard him wrong.
"You're a seer?" I said incredulously. "A fucking seer?"
The black-haired man turned, giving me a hard look.
"Yes. Now will you shut up? Even your thoughts are loud...and he's dying, doped to the gills and there's some kind of block in his light. I need to concentrate..."
Falling silent, I nodded.
I just stood there as he leaned over the man again. I couldn't stop staring at him. I realized now, why I hadn't heard him talking to that woman...they'd probably been talking from mind to mind, as seers. That explained how he knew that seer sign language, too. I found myself looking at his neck, and the complete lack of a collar around it. As far as I knew, all privately-owned seers had to be collared in public places. New York had been the first city to pass that law, if I remembered right, and the penalties had to be stiff, given that it was supported by the World Court. Which meant this guy either worked for the Feds or SCARB, or he was totally off the grid. If the latter was true, he would be officially classified as a terrorist, no matter what his reasons for being in the States.
I couldn't help but put that together with why he'd cut the collar off that woman. I thought he'd just done it so she could get home to her owner, who would have the legal collar for her, along with ownership papers and whatever else. But maybe he'd just set her free. Maybe she'd go from here to the docks, hop a ship for the mother country.
I couldn't exactly get worked up with outrage over that, though. If she got away, more power to her. I'd never liked the seer codes, but after today, I hated them.