Hostage

by Kay Hooper

  “I don’t know. They just are.” Hollis refused to laugh, even though she was beginning to feel the need to.

  “So in your math problems, the imaginary trains are circus trains.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your way of making the exercise interesting?”

  “I guess.” She thought about it. “It means more to get it right.”

  “So the people and animals don’t die?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t mean as much with freight cars. A mess, I suppose, and maybe fire or a chemical spill or something like that.” She thought about it some more and felt a flicker of concern. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want a chemical spill. Almost as bad as circus cars.”

  “Bad enough.” DeMarco cleared his throat again. “You’re really tired, aren’t you?”

  She actually had to think about that, which pretty much answered his question. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Why am I? Other than walking around the place and talking, it’s not like I’ve done anything to get tired. And God knows I’ve eaten enough for fuel.”

  “Opening a door for spirits takes a lot out of you.”

  “But I haven’t,” Hollis said slowly, only then realizing. “Not since the other night with Jamie Bell and her message to Owen. Not since . . . Brooke warned me to be careful.”

  “All these spirits, and you never opened the door once?”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean . . . they were here already. I felt them almost from the first, and after Jamie, after the next morning, they were all around me, and I could see them.”

  “After you opened the door for Jamie.”

  Again, slowly this time, Hollis shook her head. “I didn’t consciously open the door for her. I was irritated by Owen, and—and she was just there.”

  “You weren’t in control.”

  “No.” Hollis had lost all desire to laugh.

  “But you were tired afterward.” He paused, then added, “Drained, really. Much more so than usual for you. I thought it was just the long travel day topped off by Owen’s attitude, and then Jamie Bell. That the combination took more out of you than usual.”

  “I thought so too.”

  Reese took her hand and turned to retrace their steps to the main part of the house. “I think we need to call Bishop,” he said.

  Hollis was surprised. “It’s not like you to want to check with the boss about anything short of a crisis,” she said.

  “I’m beginning to think we’re in the middle of one,” he said, rather grim now.

  “Because I see all these spirits?”

  “Because you aren’t in control—and see all the spirits. Dammit. I was so busy thinking about what you were seeing that I missed the signs I should have been seeing.”

  “Signs of what?”

  “Signs of a vortex.”

  * * *

  “THEY’RE RARE,” BISHOP said. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense,” DeMarco replied.

  The phone in the foyer had no speaker, and there was no extension nearby; Hollis was sitting on the foyer table, both because she was tired and because she was better able to comfortably share the phone’s handset with her partner.

  “Spirits everywhere, Bishop,” she told their unit chief. “I didn’t let them in. Even trying to contact Daniel Alexander, I haven’t really been doing anything except . . . looking for him in the crowd. I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing until Reese made me see.”

  DeMarco said, “Old house, remote location, down in a valley with a hell of a lot of granite all around us, and at least a dozen old mine shafts in the area, radiating out like spokes on a wheel. Some on the maps and some not. The family’s been here a long time, much longer than this house, and the history they had printed mentions that before the house was built, there was almost a small town here. Even had a church at the other end of the valley, complete with graveyard.”

  “The church isn’t there now?”

  “No. Gone before this house was built. There’s Internet access via a satellite dish, so I was able to do a search, even if it was slow as hell. Seems there was a very wet winter followed by an unusually rainy spring one year, and the result was one hell of a mudslide. In fact, witnesses reported that it looked like half the mountain slid down into the valley. Trees, boulders, everything. Took out the church, covered the graveyard in mud and debris so deep no one even suggested they try to uncover the graves. Before the mudslide, this valley was a mile longer than it is now.”

  Hollis said, “But it was so long ago you can’t really see any evidence of a mudslide. I mean, a geologist probably could, but not us. There are trees growing down at that end of the valley, big ones. Well, I mean, over a hundred years . . . mighty oaks can grow.” She felt more than saw DeMarco give her a look, and added to Bishop, “But isn’t a vortex some kind of whirlpool?”

  “In water, yes. In this case, it would be a whirlpool of energy. Spiritual energy.”

  “And nobody saw all the spirits until I got here? But I didn’t do anything, seriously.”

  “You’re a powerful medium, Hollis. You see auras. You can heal. And if what Reese described is accurate, you can do what only one other psychic I’ve ever known can do: look into time.6 See pieces of the past, maybe the future as well. All that indicates tremendous power. And that power is attracting what was spiritual energy that was probably a lot more diffuse, unfocused, before you arrived.”

  Hollis began to rub her forehead. She had a headache. “Please don’t tell me I’m precognitive. That’s one psychic tool I definitely do not want.”

  “No, this is something else entirely.”

  “What is it?”

  Bishop sounded unusually tense. “It doesn’t really have a name. Hollis, you’re . . . rewriting the book when it comes to psychic development. All I know for sure is that, given the right place, the right physical conditions, and the right circumstances, your presence alone could become a focal point for energies. And not just spiritual energies, but other kinds as well.”

  Hollis was almost afraid to ask.

  She was afraid to ask.

  DeMarco did it. “For instance?”

  “That depends on what’s on the other side of the vortex. Hollis, these spirits have auras?”

  “When I concentrate and look for them, yeah. Why?”

  “Auras that vary in intensity and color? As they do with living people?”

  She had to think about that, and it made her head hurt more. “Um . . . now that you mention it, I didn’t see a whole lot of variety. And the glow was . . . fainter.”

  “Colors?”

  “Dark. And . . . not really colors. I mean, not black, but just . . . dark. I thought it was just the house, but even outside, when I saw them, the auras were dark. What the hell does that mean?” Even as she asked, Hollis had the strong suspicion that Bishop knew these answers, had been expecting the questions, and knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on than he had so far revealed.

  Which was something she should have been used to by now.

  “It means we’re leaving,” DeMarco said.

  “No,” Bishop told them, “that’s the last thing you should do.”

  Oh, yeah, he knows stuff. Dammit.

  “Bishop, she’s getting weaker. Just in the last hour, I’ve almost seen the energy draining from her.”

  “Isn’t that wrong?” Hollis asked, pushing her mad aside for later and trying her best to think clearly. “I mean, if I’m at the center of this, shouldn’t I be getting stronger?”

  “You didn’t open the door, Hollis. Right now, all that energy is rushing around you. Pulling at you. You aren’t in control.”

  “That’s what Reese said.”

  “And it’s what you have to change.”

  “Brooke said to be careful.”

&n
bsp; And then vanished. I thought she was going to help. Why isn’t she helping?

  “She was right. This energy is very powerful, and you’ll feel the pull of it trying to draw you toward the center, more and more, especially once you start. You’ll need an anchor, a lifeline, and that’s Reese. You know the drill: physical contact, and be very sure that isn’t broken. For the duration, Hollis.”

  She thought fleetingly of the possibility of more nights spent here, from now on with the necessity of constant physical contact between her and DeMarco.

  A kind of shotgun wedding.

  Oh, great, that’s just great. Can’t I do anything in my life normally?

  Bishop asked, “Where do you see the most spirits?”

  Hollis hauled her wayward thoughts back into line and realized she really didn’t have to think about that. “Inside the house. Outside, close to the house. The farther away, the fewer spirits. Out at the barn complex, I didn’t see any. At least, I don’t think I did.”

  “Fewer spirits upstairs than on the main floor?”

  “Now that I think about it, yes.”

  “You haven’t been in the basement?”

  “No,” DeMarco answered. “It’s a huge house; we haven’t explored the basement or the attic.”

  “The center of the vortex is likely to be below ground level, so I’m guessing the basement. There aren’t only mine shafts in the area, there are unexplored caves as well, and some of them run for miles underground, originally formed by prehistoric rivers. They would provide a natural geological opening for that side of the vortex, and a physical channel for the energy as it moves. The true center has to be somewhere in the basement, and I’m betting you’ll find either a sunken place in the basement floor or else an actual door, perhaps leading down into a cave the builders or original owners had a use for.”

  “Bishop—”

  “You’ll need to stay away from the center of the vortex when you open the first doors; it’s what’s draining your energy now.”

  “Wait, I have to open and then close more than one door?”

  “It’s necessary to divert some of the energy and weaken the vortex before you close the final door. There are five specific doorways. North, south, east, and west. Then center. Center has to be the last one you face, and that one you don’t try to open wider. That one you have to close. And seal.”

  “What? Bishop, this whole thing sounds—”

  “Hollis, with everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve experienced, why does this seem so unbelievable to you?”

  She didn’t know. She really didn’t.

  “I’m just tired. Tell me what to do so I can fix that, will you?”

  With uncharacteristic promptness, Bishop told her exactly what she had to do.

  * * *

  LUTHER WASN’T SURE how badly Callie was wounded until he got her quilted jacket off, and by then the small hole just below her left collarbone wasn’t terribly reassuring, because he knew she had lost a lot of blood; there was an exit wound almost identical to the entrance wound in her back, slightly lower than the entrance wound, which he automatically noted as evidence that the shooter had been on higher ground—or on his feet when Callie had been crouched or kneeling, something like that.

  He pushed all that aside for the moment, because Callie was his first priority, and he was not happy that she had been forced to use far too many of her first-aid supplies earlier patching him up.

  He used a clean bath towel, folded over her shoulder, using both hands to put pressure on the entrance and exit wounds and stanch the bleeding.

  “Through and through,” she murmured. “At least you won’t have to dig for a bullet.”

  “Lucky you.” His voice was grim. “What the hell happened?”

  “Wrong assumption, remember?” She was watching him, half lying on the couch, slightly propped up as he had been only a few days before. Her jacket was lying in a heap on the floor nearby, and he had exposed the wound in her shoulder by simply tearing her sweatshirt open from the collar down her arm and through the left wristband.

  “I didn’t hear any gunshots,” he said.

  “That’s because . . . the bastard didn’t use a gun. He used a bow. Probably a compound bow, to have so much power. And an arrow with a . . . blunt end. Forget what they’re called. Meant to go all the way through game animals, like deer or elk. Pierce vital organs without doing . . . much damage to the hide.”

  “Jesus. What, he used up all his ammo shooting at me?”

  “Maybe so. Doubt he expected to do much shooting if . . . the plan was to lay low. Hell, maybe I just caught him starting out on a hunting trip.” She sucked in a breath, the first real sign of pain, then said, “Hey, when you get me to stop bleeding like a stuck pig . . . get Cesar cleaned up, will you? He just about carried . . . me back here.”

  Luther glanced over his shoulder to see the Rottweiler sitting near Callie’s jacket, his gaze intent on his mistress—whose blood definitely stained his normally glossy coat. The other three dogs were still and quiet, not quite as tense as before, but not relaxed.

  Probably the smell of blood, he thought.

  “I will, don’t worry. Just try to stay still.”

  “He tried to warn me,” she murmured. “Cesar. He was bothered, but didn’t . . . seem to know why. Just anxious. Wanted to come back here. But I had to see that blood again. And . . . you were right. That’s where . . . the bastard had me in his sights. I didn’t see him. Cesar was worried and . . . I sort of leaned over just a bit to touch him. That’s when I got hit. If I’d been standing straight . . .”

  The arrow probably would have gone through her heart.

  “No warning shot this time,” Luther said. “He meant to kill you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the energy?”

  “I could feel it. I’m almost positive . . . it’s in him. Maybe is him. Whatever he is now.”

  “You felt it through your shield?”

  Callie nodded. “Pressure. And something dark. Weird to feel something . . . dark. But that’s how it felt. I pulled the arrow out . . . knew it hadn’t hit anything . . . vital. And hard to stay . . . low and move with the damned thing . . . sticking through me. I held on to Cesar and . . . stayed low. Let him guide me. Hell . . . almost carry me.”

  “Do you think Jacoby followed you?”

  “I think he’s not done. Better get me patched up as soon as you can.”

  “He’s not going to put an arrow through this cabin,” Luther said, with a nod toward walls constructed of actual logs. “Only two small windows, and those are curtained, plus blocked from most angles by the roof over the porch. No shot.”

  “He could burn us out,” Callie said. “If all he wanted was the two of us dead. But . . . that’s not what he wants. What it wants.”

  “You sensed more even with your shield up?”

  “Yeah. Hunger. For strength, for power. Negative energy takes. Remember? It takes. This thing takes. More than memories.”

  “Callie—”

  “Your abilities have more power than you know, Luther. But he knows. It knows. It got a taste earlier. And it wants more.”

  “More?”

  “Its plan. Its end game. I don’t know what that is, but I know there’s a goal. And it needs your strength and power to reach that goal.”

  The memory of coming back to himself holding a knife to Callie’s throat was enough to spur Luther, but all he said was, “Listen, I know some rough-and-ready first-aid, but nothing close to your skills. All I want to do is get the bleeding stopped, pack the wound and bandage it securely, do what we can to ward off shock, and get you to a real doctor as fast as I possibly can.”

  She leaned her head back against the pillow. “It’s a long hike off this mountain.”

  “It’s a shorter one to Jacoby�
�s cabin. And his truck.”

  “If there’s any reason in that thing, any ability to think about tactics—and with a goal it has to have that—it’ll know. I’m wounded, you’re not fully recovered, and Jacoby is probably the one who disabled my Jeep, before he totally lost control. Before the dark energy became so . . . palpable. I think he could have gotten that close without us knowing. Without even Cesar knowing.” She caught her breath, clearly in pain, then added, “It’s narrowed our options.”

  “And maybe set a trap. Yeah, the thought had occurred.” He checked her wounds, still bleeding but sluggishly now. Time to do what he could to dress the wound so that Callie could be moved. It made his stomach drop to realize he could do something to make her condition even worse, but he had been on too many battlefields not to be a realist.

  Do the best you can and move on. Survive.

  Still watching him, Callie said, “Either way, we’ll have to get past him. Or go through him.”

  “I’m not picky.”

  “He got in your head before. What makes you think he won’t do it again the first chance he gets?”

  “Because this time I have an edge,” Luther said.

  “What?”

  “This time, I know what he can do. And I’m ready for him.”

  * * *

  “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” Bishop asked.

  It was DeMarco who replied, his voice almost as impassive as it usually was with most people. “We understand, Bishop.”

  “Not so sure I do.” Hollis’s voice was fainter over the speaker in the conference room, as if she were a bit farther away from the phone on their end. “I mean, concentrating on closing a door the way I concentrate on opening one, I get. I think. I visualize an actual door, and then see myself opening it. Or closing it. But I don’t understand why the four points have to be opened and then closed before we can do what we’re supposed to at the center. Just to release some energy and then narrow access to it all?”

  “In part. You also need to replenish your own energy, and once you’re away from the center and can channel some energy from the other doorways, you’ll accomplish two goals. Closing down everything but the center, and gaining enough strength to seal the vortex permanently,” Bishop replied.