by S. L. Huang
Pilar hastened to obey me, but as we left the destroyed office, she said, “Cas, what if—I mean, we’ve been assuming—”
I stopped so fast, she almost ran into me.
“We’ve been operating under the assumption that Arthur’s still alive,” she said softly. “What if we’re only going to find him in—in an alley somewhere, or unidentified in a morgue…” The words wobbled.
“Is making that assumption productive?” I said.
“No,” she admitted in a small voice.
“Then stop.”
“I keep thinking I should’ve been here,” she said, glancing back at the shambles of her former workplace.
I didn’t know what to say to that. Especially given what Pilar had shared earlier; between the lines, her main reason for leaving was that she hadn’t wanted to get swept up with me anymore.
Instead, I resumed my hurried jog down through the gathering darkness to the car, assuming Pilar would follow. I wasn’t going to think about any possibility other than getting Arthur back alive. And if Dr. Eva Teplova was connected in any way to his disappearance, well, she was going to end up needing medical attention herself.
six
THE BIMINI Restorative Wellness Center turned out to be a sprawling ranch with acres of land, and the whole thing had a high iron fence around it that was tastefully aesthetic even as it was topped with spikes. The locked front gate had a card reader to buzz in, with a sign overhead that read, “Welcome to the Best Years of Your Life” in fancy script.
On the inside of the fence, the gate had a guardhouse next to it, but it was empty and dark.
Empty and dark and open. That was odd.
“Oh, um,” Pilar said. “Are you breaking in? Because I don’t want to, like, muck up your entry or anything.”
“I don’t think we’ll need to break in,” I said. I slowed the car to a crawl and squinted at the top of the guardhouse. A security camera poked up from the roof like a weather vane, but it had been spun to aim at the sky.
Open, empty guardhouse plus a purposely misaligned security camera—that only meant one thing. And the camera hadn’t been shifted back yet, which meant either a very sloppy burglar or that the B and E was still in progress.
I parked Pilar’s little Yaris illegally on the side of the road, under a line of sentinel palms. If this went south, we’d have to remember to report her car stolen.
“There’s a break-in happening here already,” I said to her. “Are you up for this? I don’t know what we’re going to find inside. Arthur’s been kidnapped by a bomber who’s already tried to kill me, and we either have telepaths involved here or something close to it.”
Pilar had pulled some stale-smelling gym wear from a bag in the back seat and was squirming into it. She tossed her dress behind her, pushed on a hairband, and finished double-knotting her sneakers. “You said we’re looking for files or computer stuff. As long as I’m not going to slow you down, I should be there.”
I was no longer a hundred percent sure it was a good idea, but Pilar was competent enough not to fuck me up, and she and I did have basically orthogonal skill sets. If she still wanted to come, I could use her. “All right,” I said. “Follow my lead.”
We got out of the car and hurried down the street to the gate. I jumped and grabbed, levering against the iron to clamber up and hop over the spikes at the top. I landed on the drive inside, then held up a finger to Pilar and ducked into the empty, inert guardhouse.
A monitor inside was flicking through security camera footage. All it showed was the smudged starlessness of tonight’s sky. I scanned for an obvious button or switch of some sort and found one.
My guess was right. The gate shivered open soundlessly.
Pilar slipped through, and we jogged down a long, curved driveway past a screen of cypress trees. Low buildings came into sight, lit at their outside corners. Scattered patio furniture surrounded glassy pools. On the far side, the lawn sloped up into what appeared to be a golf course.
“There are no lights on,” Pilar whispered.
“What?” I said.
She pointed at the buildings. “Inside. It’s not that late, and this is some sort of residential facility. But there are no lights in the windows.”
I folded my lips together, wondering if we should wait for more intel. On the way over, Checker had described the facility’s website as “the totally generic type of thing you put up when you only ever take clients by referral,” and Dr. Teplova’s virtual presence as “only normal doctor stuff so far.” He was digging deeper but hadn’t yet turned up any connection to D.J. or Pithica, or any other squirming innards.
Who knew if he would, without us getting into the place in person?
I hesitated. Bombs, I had good odds of being able to handle, but I couldn’t help thinking of the last time I’d been up against a psychic. Dawna Polk, aka Daniela Saio, who’d had me completely twisted around and still convinced every thought was my own idea. No way of predicting it or fighting it. No way to know when I’d been influenced, unless someone immune like Rio figured out I wasn’t making sense.
Rio and Simon … they were the only two people who could plausibly fight a telepath. Maybe it was sheer recklessness to try going into a place without them. But if I had to wait for one of them every time I made a move—
Arthur had already been missing for at least a day and a half.
Fuck.
“Watch your back,” I muttered to Pilar. I nodded across at the largest structure. “Looks like the main building. Let’s go.”
We started across the lawn. Forget golf courses and pools—in drought-stricken California, the spongy sod beneath our feet was the height of decadence. There was no cover, but with no lights or security cameras—or people—the place felt so deserted, it was hard to remember to be cautious.
We were about halfway across the lawn when something barked off to our left, and an animal pounded across the grass toward us.
It wasn’t a dog, or any other sort of creature I’d ever seen before. And that was the last coherent thought I had before the pure static of absolute terror eclipsed every sense.
No. Not terror. Panic. Strangling panic, sucking out any logic, any thought, until my brain didn’t have a hairsbreadth of space to question why the fuck I was panicking.
My Colt bucked against my hand as I fired my entire magazine into the animal as fast as I could pull the trigger. Someone else was firing next to me, and the creature’s body twisted as the bullets pummeled it. Screams pierced the air, loud and long and soul-wringing. The world seemed to exist only in the strobe-lit flashes of the gunfire.
The thing that had been charging us slumped and fell with an agonized whine, its hideous snout plowing into the grass. I reloaded and emptied another magazine into its skull. Then I did it again, and again, until I ran out of ammo, and then I pawed for the revolver I remembered in a pocket and emptied that too—
The fur had turned to a bloody mass. It was dead. But I still needed to fight it. The urge was primal, untamed. This thing was dangerous and I needed to fight it—the panic flooded my synapses, clogging my thoughts, paralyzing me.
I’d hit my knees on the grass at some point. The dark lawn seesawed before me. And emerging out of it, the figure of a man.
His silhouette yawed and split into an army before snapping back into a single, advancing menace. He was tall. His shoulders were square, his hands at his side, large and empty and grasping.
And he was familiar.
His face sent a wedge shivering into my brain. Both known and not. Both remembered and not. And, like the animal, more than the animal, igniting every fear center in my brain, electrifying every nerve, until nothing remained but gross murderous need.
I groped for my guns without knowing what I was looking for. My hands clenched the ground, my nails snapping back against dirt and clay. I tried to rear up, to fight him, the only instinct I had shouting to kill, but my consciousness zigzagged.
A shap
e lurched in front of me, eclipsing him. Another human. Someone dragged at my arm. Shouted at me. I barely managed to stumble up and make my legs move in some sort of semi-coordinated way. Someone was pulling me across the lawn.
Glass shattered, and my feet hit a door lintel. Then my body smacked against a wall, and I half-collapsed to sit against it. Floorboards against my hands. Walls, ceiling. We were inside the ranch.
My breath sawed in and out of my lungs, sandpaper against my throat. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Pilar,” I finally got out. I groped with one hand and found her next to me. She grabbed my wrist and squeezed it hard enough to cut off circulation.
We had to get up. The man. He was out there—we had to stop him—destroy him—
Oh, God. Oh, fuck …
I tried to move. Unreasoned, smothering panic suffocated me at the first impulse. My throat closed, my insides rioting.
He’s coming he’s coming he’s coming
The man’s face split into a different one, a younger one, unremarkably different and yet changed in every way that mattered. I saw my own hand reaching out to clasp his …
No no no, not now! I struggled away from the errant memory, if that’s what it was, its barbs skipping against my consciousness. The only sure knowledge was that he was going to kill us, he was coming, I needed to fight …
Time slid against itself. Beside me, Pilar was mumbling something through hyperventilating sobs, the same words over and over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry … I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
We had to get up. We had to move. If not to fight, then to escape—
The fear exploded in me again like a supernova, contracting every muscle, tightening my joints into a wad of useless contortion.
After what felt like an eternity, I managed to struggle for my phone. My fingers felt numb, lacking any tactile sensation. I couldn’t see. I leaned into the simplest of mathematics, the geometry of the number array. Eight. One. Eight …
Simon picked up almost right away. “Cas?”
“Help,” I whispered. The phone was on the floor, but that was okay, because I still was too, contorted on my side. I’d lost track of Pilar again. “Help…”
For once in his life, there were no questions, no pussyfooting, no moral objections. “Cas, listen to my voice,” Simon said. “You’re all right. Relax. Try to think about why you’re afraid. Not what you’re afraid of, but why.”
Why …
My eyes stopped rolling in their sockets. The knots in my muscles started to unkink.
“Find the edges of your fear, and step outside of it. Like it belongs to someone else. You’re just watching. You can analyze it without it controlling you.”
As he said it, I found I could do it. Recalling the monsters on the lawn, both animal and human … it was still draining, but no longer sent me into a black hole.
“Remember what you’re capable of,” Simon continued. “And that you have people who will help you. You’re all right. Now talk to me. How do you feel?”
“Better,” I managed. My hands had curled into talons. I uncurled them. “Better. I have to…”
“Are you hurt anywhere? Is there any threat against you right now?”
“Yes—” I shoved myself up to sitting. The hallway we were in was dark and deserted. A French door across from us stood ajar with a broken pane, a breeze whispering through it.
I scrambled up, clutching the phone, but outside the door, the lawn stretched empty and placid into the night. The grass ruffled slightly in the night air.
Nothing else moved.
What—?
From here, I couldn’t see where we’d fought the creature … animal … thing. Part of me gibbered in gratitude at that. But the man was nowhere to be found either. He easily could have overtaken us here, the state we’d been in.
But he hadn’t.
“Cas?” Simon asked.
“I’m here…”
“Are you all right? Are you in danger?”
“No, we’re … we’re alone.” For now. “Keep talking. Fast, please.”
“This fear isn’t logical.” I didn’t know how Simon knew that. Maybe because I did, deep down. “Tell me about what caused it. It will help.”
“There was—a monster,” I started. Its menacing shape rose in my mind’s eye. I did as Simon had instructed, and stepped outside the fear, observed it. “No. ‘Monster’ is inaccurate. A creature of some sort. I don’t know what it was.”
All I knew was that it had made us afraid.
“You’re a person of reason,” Simon said. “Science can explain this.”
Yes. Science.
“We killed it, and then…” And then there had been the person behind it. Equally monstrous, somehow, equally fear-inducing … and, I was sure, someone I knew.
I was starting to think I had dreamed that part. It wasn’t like my past didn’t dig its teeth into my waking reality every so often.
I was supposed to talk to Simon when that happened. Let him help me lock it all away again. It was also the last thing I wanted to do right now. If he thought I was slipping, he’d push me to scrub the mission, to delay finding Arthur …
“I need you to talk to Pilar,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Of course. Put her on.” He spoke after just enough of a pause that I knew he’d caught onto my caginess, but he didn’t press. Yet.
Pilar was curled on the floor next to me. I poked at her, trying to get her to take the phone, but she almost seemed catatonic. Finally I wedged it under her cheek. I could hear Simon’s calm questions. Pilar only made monosyllabic responses, but as long as she could hear him, I knew she’d be okay.
Having a telepath around was good for some things.
And if it took a telepath to counter … what the hell was all that? An animal wouldn’t have the decision-making capability to act the part of a psychic—would it? Could it have been the man who’d been influencing us and not the animal at all? But why hadn’t he pursued us? And the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t seem like the scalpel of telepathic influence at all, but an indiscriminate, panic-inducing blast from man and beast both. What the hell was going on here?
I kept one unnerved eye on the empty lawn while I took stock. My Colt was on the hardwood floor a few feet away, empty, with its slide locked open. After scooping it up, I cast about for the revolver but couldn’t find it. I vaguely recalled dropping it when it had run out of ammo. Or … I had thrown it at the corpse of the animal? While shouting? I couldn’t remember.
Pilar was sitting up now, the phone to her ear. Her workout gear stuck to her in damp patches, her hair plastered to her face and neck and her makeup in wet streaks of black and tan.
I probably should have thought to offer the revolver to Pilar, but apparently she hadn’t needed it. Her CZ was locked open on empty too, but she’d hung on to it—the hand not holding the phone was still around the gun in a death grip. The side of her palm was bleeding, but it didn’t look serious.
My extra magazines were all missing, probably dropped at the scene while reloading. I hit the slide release and stuck the empty gun back in my belt. I was feeling reasonably coherent as long as I didn’t think too hard about … anything we had seen. But it was striking me as more and more eerie that after all that, we were still alone in an empty hallway. Everything about this place was all wrong.
I crouched down next to Pilar. “Can you move?”
“I’m all right.” She said the words both to me and into the phone, then added to Simon, “Yes. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Bye.”
She handed the phone back to me, and I hung it up before I could second-guess myself.
“I think he wanted to check in with you,” Pilar said.
“Too bad.” I hesitated. “What did you see out there?”
“I—I don’t know. An animal.” She shivered. “What do you think it was?”
“Did you see a person?”
“No, just—whatever that thing
was, but I—why?” The rattled look in her eyes got a little worse, her pupils dilating out more. “Did you see someone?”
“No,” I lied.
Pilar had fallen facing the other way from me, hadn’t she? She’d reared up between me and the man, when she’d pulled me out and saved both of us. She wouldn’t have seen in his direction.
Or I’d invented him.
Another flash in my head, someone who looked like him but different, holding a stopwatch and saying “go—”
“Cas? Are you okay?” Pilar asked.
“Yeah. Come on.”
Pilar scrambled up with a little help from the wall, and like me, hit the slide release on her weapon before stowing it away. Then she pulled off her soft fabric hairband and wrapped it around her bleeding hand.
For a split second, I juggled the decision of whether to abort and regroup. Running wasn’t my style, but with both of us shaken and out of ammo, and a possible enemy lurking who could take us down without a word or a strike …
No. We were here. Clues to Arthur might be too. Whatever strange luck had granted us a lack of pursuit, we should take advantage of it.
I led the way down the hallway, my stride firmer than I felt.
The inside of the ranch was all varnished wood and airy architecture. In sunlight, with people, the building was designed to be bright and pleasant with a kiss of rustic warmth. Now, it was like a movie set made out of lifeless props: ghostly and out of place without its intended purpose.
Pilar ran a finger along a windowsill and frowned at the track she made in the dust.
“Don’t touch things unless you need to,” I said. I was never as cautious about fingerprints as I should be myself, but Pilar probably cared more about not having a criminal record.
“Right,” she whispered back, and scrubbed out the finger trail with the edge of her sleeve.
I’d noticed the dust too. A little over five months’ worth, by my calculations. The grass outside had been the soft type that didn’t need mowing and was probably automatically watered, but here inside, we had evidence of five months without anyone cleaning the place.