Blood and Talent

by Jamie M. Boyd

William Bird was sweeping up at the end of the day when a white man barreled into his barbershop like a runaway stagecoach. The man carried a mess of a younger fella in his arms and cried out, “Help, he needs the Touch!”

When Bird saw the gaping stomach wound, his first thought was another mining accident. He motioned to the cot in the back, raised his hand and tried to staunch the flow of blood with his mind. Energy drained from him like water and traveled into the young man. It crackled and branched and–oh.

Bird went cold as his eyes flew open. He could feel the lacerations, trace them where they were too blood-saturated to see. And this was no gash made from explosives. It’d been inflicted by magic. (Continue Reading…)