by B. T. Alive
“Totally,” Fiona said. “The jerk.”
“He also actually proposed to me,” Rhonda said. She squirmed and fiddled with the doily. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but if it helps you feel better, Tina…”
“It does,” Tina said.
Rhonda beamed, and then she snuck Glynis a questioning look.
“No,” Glynis barked. “So what? I’m the one he was really going to run off with.”
“Because the rest of us said no,” Fiona said. She crossed her arms and glared back at Lee. “So there you have it, Lee. You’ll just have to kill us all.”
Lee glared back, her once-pretty eyes webbed with red veins and naked with hate.
“I’ve considered it,” she rasped.
She gripped her glass so tightly her knuckles gleamed white; she looked like she might hurl it right at Fiona’s face.
But even without wings or fur or claws, Fiona had an imposing presence. All at once, Lee broke; her grip loosened, her gaze fell, and she sagged back into her chair.
Beside her, Frannie gasped, stricken. “Lee?” she wavered.
“Don’t you dare!” I said. “You killed Dante!”
Frannie gaped.
“Do you deny it?” I demanded.
“Of course,” she blustered. “That’s preposterous!”
“Is it?” I said. “No one else had the means, motive, and opportunity. Let’s take them one by one, shall we? Opportunity.” I thudded the massive album on my lap. “The night he was smothered, all his exes had ironclad alibis.” This was almost true; I flicked a glance at the one exception, Fiona, but she was frowning with surprise and listening intently. “But you? You were at the scene of the crime. Alone.”
“I discovered the crime!” she screeched. She was clutching the arms of her chair and cringing like a cornered animal.
“So you say,” I said. “Next, motive.” I thudded the album again.
“Now, look here,” she said, pointing a quavering finger. “Just because I’ve been outspoken about the man’s faults—”
“You co-signed his mortgage!” I cried. There was a general mutter of amazement. “Yes, you! Frannie Endicott, the Queen of Frugal! You ripped a huge gaping hole in your lifetime financial fortress! You put yourself at the mercy of an debt-ridden bankruptcy time bomb, and you realized you had only one hope of escape…”
I trailed off, because Tina was shaking her head.
“Sorry,” Tina whispered. “I’m not feeling it.”
“She’s all the way across the room,” I hissed. “Try harder.” Raising my voice, I thundered, “Finally, means,” and I gave the album a mighty slam.
“Can I take that album for you?” Elaine said. “It looks awkward.”
“Yes, thanks,” I said quickly. I handed the mighty book across Tina towards Elaine, but as I was still holding the stupid cup of tea, I could only use one arm, and I thought Elaine had it, but she must have thought I did, because oops, it slipped and tumbled to the floor. The enormous album fanned out face first on the carpet, with its thick board pages spread like teeth.
“Sorry!” Tina chirped, inexplicably taking responsibility, and she dove and hoisted up the album by its back cover. As she heaved it all up onto her lap, the back cover flapped wide, revealing the final page and its single, earliest photo.
“Oh my gosh,” Tina breathed. “He’s so young.”
He was. In the photo, Dante couldn’t be more than seventeen, eighteen tops. He was grinning, delirious with both pride and also a happiness that was so innocent it was faintly goofy, a spark he had long since lost.
He was sporting a tux that he must have rented for the prom…. except, no, there was no way the woman with him could have gone with him to prom. She was older, in her mid-twenties at least. But there was also no doubt how she felt about teen Dante. Though she was stylish and imposing, with severe lines to her classy outfit and short, dark hair, she was watching her young man-child with a shrouded look of devotion that was fierce, and vulnerable, and doomed.
She was also quite beautiful, with features that were stark and almost… haunting. Hauntingly familiar. Who was she?
I soon realized that I’d been totally sucked in, studying her face for half a minute now while Frannie demanded I retract my charge. Beside me, Tina was just as engrossed… the face was so mysterious, like when you get a tiny snatch of a tune stuck in your head and you know you know the lyrics, but they just won’t come… or when you’re watching an old movie, and you don’t recognize the young actor, but something about him keeps nudging you, this trick in his smile and rhythm in his voice, and you only gradually realize that you’re even trying to figure out where you’ve seen him before, but there’s no way you’ve seen him anywhere, and you’re telling yourself that and trying to let it go and then all at once you shriek oh my gosh, he was the old guy in that other movie thirty years later! That’s what he looked like when he was young! And all at once I saw it and I shrieked—
“Elaine? That’s you? You dated Dante?”
It was so out of nowhere that I wasn’t even thinking… it was just like, holy smokes, Elaine was a fashionista! I looked at her now, all wrinkled and gray and windblown, and leaning in to study the picture herself with a kind of bewildered disbelief, and I thought, no way, I messed up. Except no, those eyes… the cheekbones… it had to be her…
Beside me, Tina had gone quite still.
“Are you seeing this too?” I said.
“The caption,” Tina whispered. “Read it.”
I hadn’t even seen the caption. Written in light pencil, right on the thick cardstock.
My first and best, always…
Alice.
“Alice?” I said. “So it’s not you, Elaine? It’s like, a relative?”
Across the room, Cade’s breath sucked in sharp.
And as goosebumps finally erupted down my arms and thighs, I felt like the stupidest person in the world.
“Oh my God,” I said. “You killed him. You’re Malice Alice.”
Elaine sighed. She sat back from the photo album and rubbed the back of her neck.
“Oh, Summer,” she said, in her flat voice. “Time for Plan B.”
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, furrowing her brows.
And every other woman in the room besides me collapsed.
Frannie, Lee, Glynis, Rhonda… with a soft moan or a wheezy gasp, every one of them slumped back into their chairs, unconscious. Glasses and tea cups crashed to the floor. Beside me, Tina made one tiny mewl of resistance as she sank back into the cushions and was swallowed.
Their mouths gaped, their heads lolled on their necks, and their eyelids were limp and still. They looked not so much asleep as a circle of the dead.
Elaine’s eyes snapped open.
Chapter 39
My mind was racing, staggering under the cascade of memories that now had to be reinterpreted in the light of Elaine being freaking Malice Alice, the telempath.
From the first night I’d come to Wonder Springs, until I’d figured out that Mr. Charm could protect me, I’d been lambasted more than once by crippling panic attacks. My new family hadn’t known known how to find the attacker, only that she was somehow hiding in Wonder Springs in secret, and working for Great-Uncle Vincent, and that her real name was Alice.
Alice. Who, all along, had been Elaine. And was now sitting five feet away from me.
Panic started to curl at the edges of my mind. Wait, was that her, making me panic again? I really should have gotten better at shielding. Or at least brought Mr. Charm.
Or maybe it was just me panicking, staring at a murderous telempath who I’d thought was a harmless neighbor.
“You pushed me,” Cade said, sitting frozen in his seat across the room. I could see from his face that he was doing the same as I was, frantically trying to piece together this new reality. “To come here tonight. You wanted me here.”
Elaine smiled, and I flinched with surprise. Because she smiled like a different pe
rson; all the craven hesitance and stupidity and meanness that had always clung to Elaine like a miasma had now vaporized. She smiled with open confidence… and malice. She really was Malice Alice.
“We can always use an extra Tuner,” she said, and even her flat voice had a new thrill of energy and power.
Behind me, Fiona said, “We?”
Fiona! I’d forgotten she was still behind me, across the foyer at the front door. I twisted so I could see her, but Elaine—Alice—caught my eye and I froze.
“I’m so glad you brought her, Summer,” Alice said, with a nod at Fiona. “This is working out perfectly.”
“The hell it is!” Fiona sputtered. She jabbed a finger toward Alice across the empty foyer. “Listen to me, Elaine or Alice or whatever your name is. I recognize you now, your body shape. You were the one cutting those grapes like a maniac. I bet you saved yourself a little evidence off me too, as a backup plan, just like you did with Adora.”
“Fiona,” Alice said. “Please. For you, we have much better plans.”
“You? Plans? For me?” Fiona barked.
“Easy,” Cade cut in, his voice taut, with a wary glance at the circle of women around the wide living room, who were comatose and silent as the grave. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“Neither does she,” Fiona snapped. “Not if she thinks I’m taking orders from some telempath who killed her old boyfriend.”
But she flicked a glance at Cade as she said this, and she tensed, but the did not advance.
Alice smiled again, brighter. “Believe it or not, my problem with ‘Dante Radcliff’ was strictly business. He wanted to move back to Wonder Springs. I’ve aged wretchedly here, but it was only a matter of time before he’d recognize me, and that would have interfered.”
I realized what she was saying. In the end, she’d killed Dante so he wouldn’t blow her cover.
I’d just blown her cover.
Alice darted me a quick look, her face flickering with the fear I was feeling. Oh crud, I’d forgotten. She wasn’t only a telempath who could make you feel things, like Uncle Barnaby and Dante. She was also an empath, like Tina and Uncle Helen. That was why she could work alone, honing in on her targets by empathically sensing their feelings, and then blasting them.
Which was terrifying.
And even as I thought that, her face flickered again, with such a subtle nuance of my deepening terror that I almost felt I was watching my own face. I couldn’t believe she had masked this all this time, the depth and delicacy of her sensitivity to feelings. It was like watching someone play the harp. She made Tina look like a kid banging on a toy xylophone, with a tiny range of notes.
She was a master. And she probably wanted to kill me.
“Summer, calm down,” she said, and her face went still in a mask of calm. “I have no desire to hurt you. You are far more valuable as an asset. One of my primary assignments here in Wonder Springs.”
Across the living room, Cade spoke. His voice was dry and strained. “She’s not going anywhere,” he said. “You’re with Vincent.”
“I think that’s up to her,” said Alice.
“Work for Great-Uncle Vincent? Are you kidding?” I blurted. “So far your Super Psychic Boss has had you people burn down my apartment, try to give me skin cancer, threaten my precious cat, torture me with panic attacks, and nearly run me off the road!”
Yes, Team Vincent and I had a history. They’d tried to kidnap me months ago, to prevent me from even coming to Wonder Springs. Remembering all that made me forget my fear; I was so sick of these creepy malevolent psychics who were obsessed with turning me to their side.
“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” I said. “We’re holed up in this little tourist trap! We’re not hurting anything.”
“On the contrary,” she said. “Your aunt and your uncle up in their tower are very prone to… interfere. Besides, the way you’re wasting your potential is, frankly, criminal.”
“I don’t need career guidance from a bunch of murderers!” I sputtered.
“Two words, Summer,” Alice said, utterly unruffled. “Kelvin Shain.”
Cade frowned.
At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. But as I worked it out, my skin began to crawl.
“When I first ran into Adora and Kelvin, at the fountain,” I said. “You were there. You… you made it so we could touch? That’s why later, when you weren’t around, I zapped him like anyone else?”
“Zap! I love it,” Alice said, with a jarring girlish chuckle that sounded like the old Elaine. “Yes, Summer. Exactly. I admit, I lucked out on that chance meeting. But he’s a handsome devil, and I seized the opportunity.”
“But how?” I said. “Did you give him some kind of shield?”
She nodded. “Remote shielding is… challenging… but I’ve gotten very good at shielding during my sojourn in this rotten town. My compliments to the Shield; it’s incessant. I swear I’ve aged an extra ten years.”
“But why would you mess with me like that?” I said. “Why would you fake it so I could touch?”
Alice frowned, her mask of mild amusement sharpening with impatience. “Think. You’re missing the point.”
“What point?” I said. “I’m standing there with this married stranger dude and out of nowhere I get this huge crush rush. Wait… you made me feel all that?”
“Bingo,” said Alice.
I turned to Cade. “I told you it didn’t mean anything!” Then, to Alice, I said, “But what about the other times I saw him? You weren’t even there. Were you still messing with me?”
She smirked. “Sometimes. But once those initial triggers were set, you didn’t need me there. In fact, you’re still missing the point.”
“Then just say it,” I said. “Why would you make me feel that?”
She fixed me with a steady gaze, staring like a cobra. “Because anything I can make you feel, or anyone can make you feel, you can do for yourself.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
She groaned with sudden impatience. “What do you think you ‘need’ people for, Summer? In the end? To feel good. So if you can learn to make yourself feel good, you don’t need anyone. You’re free.”
Free.
A tingle of excitement skittered through me.
Or was that just Alice messing with me again?
“You lie!” Fiona roared. She leveled her pointed finger at Alice with her entire arm ramrod straight, like some accusing angel. “Real feelings make us human! God, I hate you telempaths!”
“I assure you,” Alice said coldly, “the feeling is mutual.”
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Fiona barked. “The least we can do is gag you until this storm clears and we can haul your butt to jail.”
In a swift, startling rush, she swooped across the foyer toward the seated Alice, moving so fast it was like she still had wings.
But Alice raised her hand.
And Fiona froze.
She stumbled and crashed to the carpet, her body shaking. She staggered up onto her knees, and I gasped. Her face was pale and twisted with terror.
“Now,” Alice said. “Can we work together?”
Fiona was hugging herself, her fingers digging into her arms as she clutched. She was shaking so hard with fear she looked freezing. Through chattering teeth, she grunted, “Go to hell.”
Alice gave a tight smile. “Charming.”
She twisted her hand, like a conductor cueing the woodwinds. Fiona shrieked, and she tumbled forward. She lay on the floor, her long legs folded up and gripped in the fetal position, and she rocked and babbled nonsense sounds of fear.
Cade crashed up from his chair. “Leave her alone!” he yelled. He lunged across the living room towards Alice, but she darted up her other hand and curled her fingers toward his face. With a wrenching yell of terror, he crashed down onto one knee. He groaned and clenched his teeth, veins bulging in his temples. He shuddered, immobilized, but he did n
ot cry out again, and his glare burned across at Alice like a lion from his cage.
Seated and calm, Alice was breathing ever so slightly faster. With one deliberate, slow, breath, she lowered her hands, and she turned toward me with a smile. As Cade, still crouched, grunted with the effort to keep his sanity against her attack, and Fiona moaned with fright on the floor, and I myself sat pinned and numb by my own shock, Alice spoke to me as if we were out getting coffee.
“I’ve been watching you, Summer,” she said. “And I think you’re smart. I truly do believe you can do great things on our team. I did want more time to persuade you, but this whole damn thing went sideways, partly because you’re so smart, and you’re just going to have to decide now. So. Let’s do your job interview.” She gave the panting Cade a curt nod. “Zap him.”
I cringed. “That might be a bad idea,” I said, my voice thin and dispassionate. It didn’t even sound like me, I felt like I was listening to someone else, far away. “Zapping really messes him up. He starts shifting. Out of control.”
“Yes, I know,” she snapped. “You Wonder Springs Merediths really are appallingly ignorant of the science involved, aren’t you? Or maybe they’ve just been keeping you docile.”
I didn’t answer. This was a nightmare. I couldn’t believe Fiona could be making those noises.
Alice huffed, impatient. “He’s a Tuner, Summer. He’s extraordinarily sensitive to morphic fields. All creatures tune to their own morphic fields; morphic fields give you form. Genes just code for proteins, they’re only a tiny submodule in what makes you a human instead of an ape, or an amoeba, or a blade of grass. And you don’t just tune to one field; you’re a galaxy of interlocking fields for systems at every level, from individual brain cells up to your stomach and arms and thoughts and memories.” She eyed me. “They really haven’t explained this, have they?”
“Kind of,” I said. Aunt Helen had tried, but she used different words and I didn’t really get it. She talked a lot about “quantum” stuff and the “observer effect”, and she made it all sound more mystical.