by Kay Hooper
DeMarco waited a moment longer, but her even breathing told him she was finally asleep again. He didn’t relax but instead concentrated—as he had been concentrating during the last couple of hours—on keeping his shield extended just far enough to enclose Hollis as well as himself.
It was something of an experiment, since he’d never attempted to use his shield this way before, but he knew it was possible: Miranda could do it, and some of the SCU guardians, like Bailey, could too. And since he was able to project some of his energy outward to dampen the strength of other psychics, he figured—as Hollis had in her attempt to heal Diana—that it was worth a try.
Something he had to try, since he knew damn well that Hollis didn’t have the energy or strength right now to wander around in the gray time. And if that was where Diana’s spirit had gone, if she had opened that door, then Hollis would most certainly be drawn there when she slept and what few guards she could claim—virtually all of them emotional ones—came down.
She was completely defenseless when she slept. He actually had to concentrate to avoid reading her, and even when he did so he could still hear the distant whispers of her thoughts, her dreams.
She was not going to like that. At all.
He wasn’t entirely certain he liked it himself. Not, at least, as it stood now. Just as she had felt she had one foot in the gray time, he felt he had only a partial connection to her, and that one very elusive and uncertain. Not so surprising, considering that they had met only a few months ago and both had been too active in investigations since to have much of a personal life. Still, he knew what he wanted.
DeMarco was a patient man, but he had lived on the edge far too long to have any illusions about the security of one’s life. As Quentin had discovered in a single horrifying moment, time could run out in a heartbeat, leaving the most important words unsaid—possibly forever.
But he also understood what had kept Quentin silent for so many months; being a telepath, DeMarco had picked up information he undoubtedly had no right or business knowing, and the unsought and unwanted insight told him that Diana had more emotional scars than any woman should have to carry in a lifetime.
Rather like Hollis.
One woman kept medicated by doctors and a domineering father since childhood, supposedly for her own good, forced to drift through her own life with no say in her future; one woman brutalized in a horrific attack that had left her terribly damaged, body and soul. And both with powerful psychic gifts they continually struggled to master.
It was no wonder the men in their lives—and the men who wanted to be—faced an uphill battle.
DeMarco allowed that realization to rise in his mind, then dismissed it. He had never walked away from a fight in his life and didn’t intend to start now.
He concentrated on shoring up his shield, his arms tightening around Hollis to hold her securely, even as a thread of his awareness remained focused on that room down the hall where Diana clung to life.
DeMarco was utterly convinced that both women were in deadly danger, and not only from a sniper’s bullets.
Serenade
There hadn’t been time for sleep after all, but at least Miranda and a couple of the others—they divided into shifts for the purpose—had been able to grab a hot shower and change before sitting down to a more than welcome breakfast at the B&B. Jewel and Lizzie, very subdued, served them and then left them alone.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Miranda asked Jaylene.
“Good to go. The medics put in a few stitches and gave me a shot to guard against infection. I don’t even have to wear a sling. I’m fine, Miranda, honestly.” She paused. “How are you? I mean, even with everything we see in this job, having somebody’s head just about blown off right in front of you has got to be traumatic.”
“I imagine it’ll hit me later,” Miranda replied, knowing she sounded almost as tired as she felt. She fleetingly remembered looking into the bathroom mirror before her shower and the shock she’d felt at the blood on her face, but she shoved that aside. Later. Because she didn’t have time right now to sort through her own emotions.
There was so damn much to do.
Dean was still out, supervising agents and deputies in the grimly methodical sweep of the town that had yet to discover any sign of the sniper—other than another mocking shell casing left circled for them to find. Galen was still missing, a fact Tony had to comment on.
“Where is he? Because we could sure as hell use him.”
“We are using him.” Miranda shook her head at his inquisitive look. “Trust me, Tony, he’s where he needs to be.”
Sighing, Tony said, “I guess I should have expected there to be a few things you haven’t told us. God knows it’s become business as usual for the SCU.”
At least he doesn’t sound bitter about it.
Miranda forced herself to eat a few more bites of the food she was sure tasted delicious under other circumstances, fought the surge of queasiness, and then looked at Tony and Jaylene. Longtime SCU agents. Trusted agents. Friends.
Slowly, she said, “Neither of you was involved in the investigation into Samuel and his church, so you weren’t there at the end, when Noah and the others confronted him. Neither was I. But Noah and I are connected, you know that. So, to a certain extent, whatever affects him also affects me.”
Jaylene asked, “How did it affect him?”
“We’re still working that out. But let’s just say it hasn’t been a positive experience for either of us. You may have noticed he isn’t here. And on a case this serious he normally would be.”
Tony said, “He’s been keeping tabs on the investigation, obviously. And as usual, he seems to have a pretty damn good idea where any of the rest of us are at any given moment. Voodoo, I call it.”
Miranda knew he wasn’t serious but said, “It’s always been one of his gifts that when Noah cares, a connection gets formed.”
“Voodoo,” Tony insisted. Then he grinned faintly when she looked at him. “Somehow I find that thought more acceptable.”
“You’re weird,” Jaylene told him.
“Without doubt.” He sobered. “With things happening so fast, lousy technical communication, and no time for reports, I assume he’s mostly keeping tabs through your link?”
Miranda shrugged. “Some. No matter how much we shut it down, things get through. Thoughts. Emotions. I know he’s been worried; he knows I’m tired. Like that. But there’s… something different I feel in him now. Something darker.”
“Should we be worried?” Tony asked slowly.
“Honestly, I don’t know. Whatever’s going on, he seems to be handling it. For now, at least.”
They absorbed that for a moment in silence. Finally Jaylene said, “I thought he was working on trying to find out who was reporting SCU information and actions back to the Director.”
“He has been.”
“And?”
In a deliberate tone, Miranda said, “Whatever he knows he hasn’t shared.”
Tony was frowning slightly. “Is that why you’ve both been shut down tight as a couple of drums pretty much for weeks now?”
She nodded. “It’s been difficult. For him and, honestly, between us. He’s changed. Everyone there at the church that day was changed by what happened. Literally changed. There was so much energy in the very air around them, and so much of it was dark, negative. Some of the changes have been… unpredictable.”
“In what way?” Tony asked.
“Not following any pattern recognizable to us even after all the years of study and fieldwork we’ve accumulated. Hollis made a quantum leap forward in psychic terms, you both know that. She changed the most and is still changing, probably because she took a direct hit from Samuel and nearly died from it. But Galen also took a direct hit, and despite the fact that he isn’t psychic in the traditional sense, he’s been experiencing some phenomena we can’t explain.”
“Such as?” Jaylene was intent, patient.
“He almost reads as telepathic,” Miranda said. “But not quite. We carried out what tests and experiments we could before he lost patience, and all we were left with was the knowledge that since that confrontation at the Compound, he sometimes, faintly, hears voices.”
“Normal if he’s a telepath,” Tony said. “But not so normal if he isn’t.”
“Exactly.”
Jaylene said, “He seems the same as before to me. I mean, nothing appears to be bothering him.”
“He’s not the sort to show what he feels. But I think we can all assume he’s having a difficult time with the situation.”
“Then why’s he here?” Tony asked bluntly.
Miranda grimaced. “Because one of the voices told him he needed to be here.”
After a moment of silence, Tony said, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Sorry.”
“But… Miranda, if he’s not psychic—”
“I know, believe me. If he’s not psychic, he could be schizophrenic, even psychotic. Tell me, have you seen any signs of either?”
“No. But I’m not a doctor, shrink or medical.”
“Neither am I. But I’ve known Galen a few years now, and I don’t believe there could be such a fundamental shift in his personality without those changes leaving very obvious signs. Or at the very least detectable ones.”
“So you trust he’s mentally healthy?”
“As much as any of us is,” she murmured.
Jaylene said, “Did the voice happen to tell him why he needs to be here?”
“No.”
“Forgive me for sounding paranoid, but do you know that for a fact or only because he told you so?”
“Because he told me. I’m not reading much of anything from anyone right now. Closed down tight as a drum, remember? The fact that Hollis got through—loud and clear, no less—before the bomb exploded says more about her strengthening abilities than about mine.”
“Is she a telepath now?” Jaylene asked.
“Not in the sense we understand. She can’t receive at all, as far as we can tell. But she’s gone beyond simple broadcasting because of the lack of a shield. She can send—and at full wattage, as Quentin would say.”
“That could be a handy little tool,” Jaylene said, thoughtful.
“Yeah, we’re hoping it will be.” Assuming all this doesn’t overload her brain…
“Are your abilities changing?” Tony asked. “I mean, because Bishop was there at the church Compound, and through him, through your connection, whatever happened affected you as well?”
“Yes. My abilities are… changing. And, before you ask, I’m not entirely sure just how they’re changing, only that they are.” Before they could probe more into specifics, she added, “Like I said, the others there that day were changed too. Quentin isn’t aware of it, but he’s developing a secondary ability; Paige picked up on it during the debrief afterward.”
Paige Gilbert was the unit’s “Geiger counter,” as Quentin had dubbed her: a psychic whose specialities were detecting latent and active psychic abilities in others—and defining specific abilities those psychics might be totally unaware of possessing. She was always present at post-investigation debriefs, another tool Bishop used to regularly monitor the condition of his people.
“What kind of secondary ability?” Tony asked.
“She wasn’t sure.”
“Paige wasn’t sure?” With a better than eighty percent accuracy rate, she was one of the strongest psychics on the team.
“No. She said she was, for want of a better definition, getting some kind of interference when she tried to read anyone who was there at the Compound that day. Crackling, like static. And the interference hasn’t cleared up in the months since.”
“I don’t much like the sound of that.”
“Neither did Noah. And neither do I.”
There was a long silence, and then Jaylene said, “Why do I get the feeling you didn’t bring this up just to explain some changes we might have seen in the team?”
“Maybe because neither one of us believes in coincidence. There’s been something off about this case from the very beginning, and so far the only thing that keeps turning up, in one way or another, is Samuel.”
“But Samuel’s dead,” Tony said slowly.
“Yes. He is. But how many times have we faced the certainty that, in our world, dead doesn’t necessarily mean gone?”
* Chill of Fear
Fourteen
BJ ACTUALLY ENJOYED the cat-and-mouse game, amused by the notion that all those searching the town for him believed he was the mouse.
Idiots.
But by the time the sun was well up and the locals began to cautiously emerge from their homes, he decided he had better things to do with his time than to play with the cops and feds. Especially with the media nosing around and mostly getting in his way.
Killing one of them had not, apparently, discouraged the rest. In fact, there were more of the creatures around now that it was light. Maybe that gave them courage. Or maybe they were just dirt-stupid.
He considered that idly, pausing before abandoning his post to put the crosshairs over first one face and then another, wishing he could take them out. It would be so easy.
Boom.
But this wasn’t the time. So he withdrew from the downtown area, smoothly and easily, all according to plan.
I’m out.
Good, Go check on him.
He would have preferred to do almost anything else, but he knew very well what his assigned roles were in the plan. So he merely sent back an affirmative and continued on his way. Once out of the more congested—in a rural sense—downtown area, the houses and businesses were farther and farther apart, and it was easy for him to travel through them unseen.
He used the usual tricks to make certain the dogs they’d finally set on his trail would find no trail to follow, amused yet again as he wondered what those experienced trackers would make of their failures.
Not that he cared.
At last he reached an old but well-kept farmhouse set in the middle of considerable acreage, its white-railed pasture dotted with a few beef cattle and a couple of lazy horses. He slipped up the long, winding dirt drive, taking care even though he knew there was no one around to see him pass.
When he got to the house, he used the key that was always underneath a flowerpot on the wide front porch to let himself in, reasonably sure that the house’s occupant would be too preoccupied to hear the doorbell.
He usually was.
Sure enough, BJ could hear sounds coming from the basement. His mouth twisted. He carried his gun and pack to the kitchen and left them on the table, planning to clean the former and replenish supplies in the latter before he went back out.
With the closed basement door so near the kitchen, the sounds coming from down there were even louder, rising and falling like the plaintive cries of some terrified night animal.
Ignoring them, BJ went to the fridge and studied the contents for a moment before deciding he didn’t feel like cooking eggs. Instead, he got out the makings of a sandwich. He fixed a generous one, found a beer in the fridge and chips in the pantry, and settled down to eat his meal.
One especially loud shriek from the basement, ending in a wet gurgle, caused him to pause for a moment, but then he resumed eating. When he was finished, he cleaned up after himself meticulously, checked his watch, then got another beer and set about cleaning his rifle.
He needed sack time before the next stage of the plan, but knew only too well he wouldn’t be able to sleep with all the noises in the basement. So he kept himself busy for the duration, checking his watch from time to time and more than a little surprised that this one was taking so long.
He’d been in the house nearly two hours before the sounds finally faded into silence. And about damn time too.
Check on him. Clean up.
Dammit.
Ah, shit, I don’t want to do that.
Place’ll look like a slaughterhouse, at least until he has his toy ready for me to take out of here. And, besides, you know he likes to clean up himself. It’s part of his fun.
We don’t have time for that, BJ, not if you were planning on a nap anytime soon. Don’t think you’re getting any sleep until you make damn sure he’s out too. Give him an injection.
Okay, okay. I’ll take care of it.
Just take care of him. You know what’ll happen if you don’t.
It wasn’t so much a threat as it was a promise, and BJ knew better than to argue. Still, he paused long enough to remove his boots and socks, grimacing slightly as he thought about what he would undoubtedly step in during the process of cleaning up. Easier and simpler later to clean his feet rather than his boots, but still not a pleasant thought.
His idea of up close and personal was what he saw through the scope of his rifle.
He opened the door to the basement and started down the stairs, automatically breathing through his mouth.
“Rex?” he called.
“Hey, BJ. When did you get back?” As always, Rex sounded cheerful. And looked it, his eyes bright and the big smile on his pleasant face marred only by the blood smeared across one cheek.
“Couple hours ago. You were busy.” BJ reached the bottom step and stood there for a moment, gazing around the brightly lit basement. There were no windows, since it was totally underground, but a combination of big, well-placed lights and a lot of white tile and stainless steel more than made up for the lack of natural light.
Still, BJ was always faintly surprised when he came down here by the modern… sleekness… of the place. There should, he thought, be iron and old leather and blood-soaked wood, because that was what a torture chamber was supposed to look like.
Not like an operating room.
The thought, as always, was fleeting, especially when BJ saw what had kept Rex occupied for far longer than expected.
On one of the two long stainless-steel tables lay a hunk of bloody meat only vaguely recognizable as a human being. BJ couldn’t even tell if it was male or female, not by looking, though he knew it had been a man because he had delivered the guy to Rex early the day before, all trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.