Free The Paladin Prophecy by Mark Frost

right now.
    Will felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest as he stared hard at the girl behind the monitor. He’d never tried to push an image into anyone’s head other than his parents’. The girl stopped the belt with Will’s bags in the heart of the machine and leaned in for a closer look.
    A toothbrush. An alarm clock .
    Will concentrated, silent and trembling, and pushed those pictures at her. He felt them land. Toothbrush and alarm clock replaced knife and bird.
    A moment later, the attendant leaned back and advanced the belt. Will’s trays appeared at the far end. Relieved, he turned and came face to face with the redneck TSA guard, who was eyeing him coldly. He asked for Will’s pass. Will gave it to him. The man examined it, then looked at him sharply. The hairs on Will’s neck bristled.
    The guard walked to the other side of the detector and waved Will forward. He stepped through without setting off any alarms. The guard pointed him to the right, toward an area screened and divided by portable partitions.
    “Wait over there,” said the guard.
    Will had just been kicked up to another level of scrutiny. Between the time that he had checked in and now, the people chasing him must have gotten his name onto a watch list. The guard held Will’s boarding pass as if it were a live grenade and walked into the maze of partitions. He showed it to a heavyset African American woman in a blue blazer. She glanced briefly at Will, her sharp eyes veiled with practiced indifference, then nodded the redneck toward a nearby computer.
    He’s about to confirm that my name is on a watch list .
    Will looked back and saw the men in black caps outside security. Looking at passengers. He turned away. The guard leaned over the computer, his face turned ghostly white by the flickering screen.
    Will focused his eyes on a single spot in the middle of the guard’s scraggly unibrow. Will’s pulse slowed. He “saw” his target. Felt a wave of heat shoot up his spine, flow around his throat, and rush up to create the image he wanted to push:
    A picture of the computer screen with Will West erased .
    It landed. The guard scrunched his eyes and blinked a few times. Will pushed another image at him, adding a name where his had been: Jonathan Levin .
    The guard leaned in, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
    Then, for the first time ever, Will tried to push words: That’s right. The guy who just cleared the checkpoint .
    The redneck’s head jerked above the partitions, his neck swiveling like a prairie dog sentry. His eyes shot past Will to the businessman, dragging his carry-on toward the gates. The guard spoke to his supervisor. She lifted a walkie-talkie and issued orders. The redneck and other guards started after the businessman. Will held out his hand. The redneck gave back Will’s boarding pass as he hurried past. Behind Will, police officers stepped in to close off the line to the metal detector.
    Will put on his shoes and slipped his laptop into the bag. He glanced back. The Black Caps were gone. Maybe they hadn’t even seen him. Will picked up his bag and walked away. Twenty steps later, he passed the petrified businessman being manhandled back to the checkpoint by the TSA posse, the side-burned redneck leading the way.
    Will rounded a corner. Exhaustion buckled his knees. His vision faded to spots and dots. The room spun like he was about to black out. He stumbled into the men’s room, dropped his bag, and grabbed a sink, holding on with both hands. He splashed water on his face and neck, which were hot to the touch.
    So the mind pictures still work—stronger than ever—but using them kicks my ass . It took him five minutes to recover. Unsteady on his feet, he walked back into the terminal and bought two sandwiches from a snack stand. His flight had already begun boarding; a line formed at the Jetway.
    He stepped onto the plane and found his seat two-thirds of the way back: window, right