The Strange Power

by L. J. Smith

Chapter 6

 

  Kaitlyn's heart sank. Gabriel would be in trouble- he might even get sent back to jail. His part of the experiment would be ruined, and he might never learn to control his powers. All because he'd helped her.

  Rob was suddenly looking quite cheerful. "Well, we've got to report it. "

  "Fine. Just give me ten minutes' start," Gabriel said through his teeth.

  "Stop it, both of you," Kaitlyn said. Then she sighed. Being in love wasn't easy. She didn't want to make Rob unhappy, but she had no choice.

  "I have an idea," she said hesitantly. "We could call the police, but not tell them Gabriel was involved. I'll just say I got away from the guy out there. Then nobody would get in trouble, but the police could do whatever they need to. "

  Rob's smile faded. Gabriel was still glaring. But Joyce opened her aquamarine eyes and beamed.

  "Trust you, Kait," she said. "Now, where's a phone?"

  Gabriel didn't stay to hear the call.

  He went into his room and shut the door behind him. And then, tired but too restless to even sit down, he began to pace.

  Images kept floating through his mind. Kaitlyn lying in the moonlight-with some maniac on top of her.

  What if he hadn't come along just then?

  The maniac had been right about one thing-she was reckless. She shouldn't be allowed out alone at night.

  She didn't have the right instincts for danger, she wasn't tough enough to protect herself. . . .

  So . . . what? his mind asked. So you're going to protect her?

  Gabriel flashed one of his best disturbing smiles at nothing. Hardly.

  He was going to keep away from her, was what he was going to do. She was a nuisance-and she was stuck on Kessler. Gabriel could see that, even if Kessler was too stupid.

  Keep away from her. Yes. And he'd bet-he smiled again-that after what she'd seen tonight, she'd keep away from him.

  Two hours later Kait was lying in bed, trying to calm down enough to go to sleep.

  There had been a lot of fuss with the police, who'd gone down into the backyard but had found nothing.

  They'd promised to have a cruiser patrol the area, and Joyce had told the kids to check the door locks and keep a dose lookout for strangers from now on.

  "And I don't want you going anywhere alone," she told Kait firmly. "Especially at night. " Kait was happy to agree.

  But now she couldn't sleep. It had all been too weird, too disturbing. Why would some cult guy from the airport follow her home? Was he some cult guy? If not, why had he been wearing the robes? A disguise?

  A stupid one.

  What did he want?

  And beneath all her other thoughts ran a continuous whispering thread. . . .

  Gabriel was a murderer.

  The others didn't know. Except Rob-Kaitlyn felt sure Rob knew. But even not knowing, they'd treated him pretty badly tonight. No one had said anything complimentary about him saving Kait. Lewis and Anna had kept their distance, as if they expected him to pull a switchblade on them at any minute, and Rob had watched him with steady, smoldering fury.

  Rob-she wouldn't think about Rob now. She couldn't take the agitation.

  Anna was breathing peacefully on the other side of the bedroom. Kaitlyn glanced at her, a motionless shape in the darkness, then very carefully and quietly got out of bed.

  She shouldered into her robe and slipped noiselessly out the door.

  The study was dim. Kait sat on the window seat in the alcove, her chin on her knees. Outside, a few lights shone through waving tree branches. Then she noticed that light was also shining through the curtains in Gabriel's room.

  What she did then was born of sheer impulse. If she'd thought about it, she never would have gone through with it. But she didn't give herself time to think.

  She jumped off the window seat and went to knock on his door.

  A very quiet knocking, in case he was asleep with the light on. But after only an instant the door opened.

  He was wearing a rather sleepy scowl.

  "What?" he said ungallantly.

  "Come into the study," Kaitlyn whispered.

  The scowl disappeared, changing into a dazzling bared-teeth smile. "No, you come in here. "

  He was daring her, Kaitlyn realized. All right; great. She'd prove she trusted him.

  Head very high, back straight, she swept by him. She sat down on the desk chair. She glanced around unobtrusively-the room was as nice as Lewis had said. Huge bed, matching furniture, acres of space. It seemed bare of personal possessions, though. Maybe Gabriel didn't have any.

  Slowly, watching her, Gabriel sat down on the bed. He'd left the door a little ajar. Kaitlyn, motivated by she didn't know what, got up and closed it.

  "You're crazy, you know," Gabriel said unemotionally, as she resumed her seat.

  "I wanted to say thank you," Kaitlyn said. And that I'm not afraid of you, she added silently. She still couldn't figure out what she felt about Gabriel-even whether she liked him or hated him.

  But he had saved her from a very bad situation.

  Gabriel didn't look gratified by the thanks. "And that's all?" he said mockingly.

  "Of course. "

  "You're not just a little curious?" When Kaitlyn blinked at him, he leaned forward. His teeth were bared again. "You don't even want to know?"

  Kaitlyn felt distaste pinching her features. "You mean . . . about. . . "

  "The murder," Gabriel said, his dazzling grin getting nastier by the minute.

  Fear uncoiled in Kaitlyn's stomach. He was right-

  she was crazy. What was she doing sitting here in his bedroom? Two days ago she wouldn't have sat in any guy's bedroom, and now she was chatting with a killer.

  But Joyce wouldn't have brought him to the Institute if he was really dangerous, she thought. Joyce wouldn't take that risk.

  Kaitlyn said slowly, "Was it really murder?" Then she looked straight up at Gabriel.

  His expression changed as he met her eyes-as if she'd startled him. Then he seemed to regain his balance.

  "I called it self-defense, but the judge didn't agree," he said. His eyes were now cold as ice.

  Something inside Kaitlyn relaxed. "Self-defense," she said.

  Gabriel looked at her for a long moment, then away. "Of course, the other one wasn't self-defense. The first one. "

  He's trying to shock you, Kaitlyn told herself.

  He's succeeding, her mind whispered back.

  "I'd better go," she said.

  He was very fast. She was closer to the door, but before she could reach it, he was in front of her, blocking it.

  "Oh, no," he said. "Don't you want to hear all about it?"

  Those dark gray eyes were strange-almost fixed, as if he were looking through her. His expression was strange, too. As if he were covering unbearable tension with mockery and derision. Kaitlyn could see the glint of clenched teeth between his parted lips.

  "Stop it, Gabriel," she said. "I'm going. "

  "Don't be shy. "

  "I'm not shy, you jerk," she snapped. "I'm just sick of you. " She tried to push past him and he wouldn't let her. They tussled.

  Kaitlyn found out very quickly how much stronger he was.

  Stupid, stupid, she thought, trying to get a hand free to hit him. How had she gotten herself into this mess?

  Her heart was going like a trip-hammer, and her chest felt as if it would burst. She was going to have to scream-unless he stopped her. Choked her, maybe. Was that what he'd done to the others?

  Maybe he'd used a knife. Maybe he cut them. Or maybe it had been something even worse. . . .

  She and Gabriel had been struggling silently, their faces inches apart. Kaitlyn's mind was dark with imaginings of how he might have killed before.

  And then. . .

  And then it all stopped. Kaitlyn's fantasies were cut off as
if somebody had slammed down a window in her mind. And all because of the look in Gabriel's eyes.

  Grief. Guilt, too, plenty of that, but mainly grief. A kind Kaitlyn recognized, the kind that makes you nearly bite through your lip so you won't make a noise. The kind Kaitlyn could remember from when she was eight years old, when her mother died.

  Gabriel, with his handsome, arrogant face, and his savage bared teeth, was trying to make the tears go away.

  Kaitlyn stopped struggling with him, realizing in the moment she did that he hadn't hurt her. He'd been blocking her, restraining her, but he hadn't bruised her.

  "Okay," she said, her voice loud in the silence. "So tell me, then. "

  It caught him off guard. Actually rocked him backward. For a moment he looked shocked-and vulnerable.

  Then his face hardened. He was taking it as a challenge.

  "I will," he snarled back. He let go of her and stepped away-a hunted, constrained movement. His chest was rising and falling quickly.

  "You've all been wondering what I do," he said. "Haven't you?"

  "Yes," Kait said. She moved cautiously away from the door. "Is that so surprising?"

  "No. " He laughed-a very bitter laugh. "It's what everyone wants to know. But when they find out, they don't like it. " He turned and looked at her with mock bewilderment. "For some reason, they seem to be scared of me. "

  Kaitlyn didn't smile. "I know what it's like," she said flatly to the carpet. "When they're scared of you.

  When they can't look you in the eye and they kind of edge away when you get close . . . " She looked up at him.

  Something flickered in his eyes; then he shook his head, turning away. "You don't know what it's like when they're so scared that they hate you. When they want to kill you because they're so scared that you'll. . . "

  "That you'll what?"

  "Read their minds. Steal their souls. Take your pick. "

  There was a silence. Ice crept along Kaitlyn's spine. She was bewildered-and afraid.

  "Is that what you do?" she said, fighting to keep her voice above a whisper.

  "No. " The cold knot in Kaitlyn's stomach loosened slightly-until he turned around and looked at her with the calm gray eyes of a madman. "It's not as simple as that. Do you want to know how it works?"

  Kaitlyn didn't move, didn't speak. She just looked at him.

  He spoke precisely, as if giving a lecture. "Any time two minds make contact, there's a transfer of energy.

  That's what contact is, the transfer of a certain kind of energy. Back and forth, energy carrying information. You understand?"

  Rob had talked about energy-channeling energy. But maybe that had been a different kind.

  "Go on," Kaitlyn said.

  "The problem is that some minds are stronger than others. More powerful. And if a strong mind contacts a weaker one-things can get out of control. " He stopped, looking at the dark, curtained window.

  "How?" Kaitlyn whispered. He didn't seem to hear her. "How can it get out of control, Gabriel?"

  Still looking at the window, he said, "You know how water flows from a high place to a low place? Or how electricity keeps trying to find a ground for its force? Well, when two minds touch, energy flows.

  Back and forth. But the stronger mind always has more pull. "

  "Like a magnet?" Kaitlyn asked quietly. She'd never been great at science, but she did know that- the bigger the magnet, the stronger it was.

  "A magnet? Maybe at first. But if something happens-if things get off balance-it's more like a black hole.

  All the energy flows out of the weaker mind. The strong one drains it. Sucks it dry. "

  He was standing very still, every muscle rigid. His hands were shoved in his pockets, fingers clenched.

  And his gray eyes were so bleak and lonely that Kaitlyn was glad he wasn't looking at her.

  She said, evenly, "You're a telepath. "

  "They called it something different. They called me a psychic vampire. "

  And I felt sorry for myself, Kaitlyn thought. Just because I couldn't help people, because my drawings were useless. But his gift makes him kill.

  "Does it have to be that way?"

  He flicked a glance at her, eyes narrowing. He'd heard the pity in her voice.

  "Not if I keep the contact short. Or if the other mind is fairly strong. "

  Kaitlyn was remembering. How long? About forty-five seconds. Oh, my God.

  And the Mohawk guy had come out screaming.

  This volunteer is a psychic. Not psychic enough, obviously.

  How strong did a mind need to be to hold up to Gabriel?

  "Unfortunately," Gabriel said, still watching her with narrowed eyes, "even a little thing can upset the balance. It can happen before you know it. "

  Kaitlyn was afraid.

  A bad thing to be around Gabriel. He saw it, sensed it. And it obviously triggered some instinct in him- to go for the throat.

  He gave one of his wild, disturbing smiles. There was bright sickness in his eyes. "That's why I have to be so careful," he said. "I have to stay in control. Because if I lose control, things can happen. "

  Kaitlyn struggled to breathe evenly. He was moving closer to her, like a wolf scenting something it wanted. She forced herself not to cower, to look at him without flinching. She put steel into her neck.

  "That was how it happened the first time," Gabriel told her. "There was a girl at that center in Durham.

  We liked each other. And we wanted to be together. But when we got close-something happened. "

  He was directly in front of her now. Kaitlyn felt her back flatten against the wall.

  "I didn't mean it to happen. But I got emotional, you see. And that was dangerous. I wanted to be closer, and the next thing I knew, we were linking minds. " He stopped, breathing quickly and lightly, then went on. "She was weak-and afraid. Are you afraid, Kaitlyn?"

  Lie, Kaitlyn thought. But she felt sure he could detect a lie. She also felt sure the truth might kill her.

  Nothing to do but take the offensive.

  "Do you want me to be? Is that what you want-for it all to happen again?"

  A veil-like spiderweb seemed to fall over his gray eyes, taking out their dark brightness. He even pulled back a fraction.

  Kaitlyn stayed on the attack. "I don't think you meant to hurt that girl. I think you loved her. "

  He stepped back even farther.

  "What was her name?" Kaitlyn said.

  To her surprise, he answered. "Iris. She was just a kid. We were both kids. We had no idea what we were doing. "

  "And she was there because she was psychic?"

  His lip curled. " 'Not psychic enough,'" he quoted, as if giving Kait the answer she was expecting. Stark bitterness was in his eyes. "She didn't have enough

  . . . whatever. Life force. Bioenergy. Whatever it is that makes people psychic-and keeps them alive. That night at the center . . . by the time I was able to let go of her, she was just limp. Her face was white, blue-white. She was dead. "

  His chest heaved, and then he said deliberately, "No life. No energy left. I'd drained her dry. "

  Kaitlyn wasn't on the offensive any longer, and she couldn't hold his gaze. Her own chest felt as if there were a tight band around it. After a moment she said quietly, "You didn't do it on purpose. "

  "Didn't I?" he said. He seemed to have conquered whatever emotion had possessed him; he was breathing easily again. When Kait looked up, she saw his gray eyes were no longer bitter, or even shielded. They were . . . empty.

  "The people at the center had a different idea," he went on. "When I realized she wasn't breathing, I called for help. And when they came and saw her-all blue like that-they thought the worst. They said I'd attacked her. They said I'd tried to force her, and when I couldn't, I killed her. "

  Kait felt a wash of pure, dizzying horror. She was glad there was a wall behind her,
she let her weight rest on it, and only then realized she'd shut her eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, opening them. Then, trying to find some comfort, she said, "Rob was right.

  What Joyce is doing is important for the world. We all need to learn how to control our powers. "

  Gabriel's face twisted. "You believe that country-boy stuff?" he said with utter contempt.

  Kaitlyn was taken aback. "Why do you hate Rob so much?"

  "Didn't you know? The golden boy was there, in Durham. They practically worshiped him-everything he did was right. And he was the one who figured out what had happened to Iris. He didn't know how I'd done it, but he knew her energy had been tapped, like blood if you cut an artery. They hunted me, you know. Like an animal. The center and the police and everyone. " His voice was dispassionate.

  But that wasn't Rob's fault, Kait thought. It wasn't. Aloud she said, "So you went on the run. "

  "Yeah. I was fourteen and stupid. Lucky for me, they were stupider. It took them a year to find me, and by then I was in California. In jail. "

  "For another murder," Kaitlyn said steadily.

  "When the world is so stupid, you take your revenge, you know? People deserve it. Anybody that weak deserves it. The guy I killed tried to mess with me. He wanted to shoot me over the five dollars in my pocket. I got him first. "

  Revenge, Kaitlyn thought. She could picture the parts of the story Gabriel hadn't told. Him running away, not caring what happened to him, not caring what he did. Hating everything: the universe, for giving him his power; the stupid weak people in the universe, for being so easy to kill; the center, for not teaching him how to control his gift-and himself. Especially himself.

  And Rob, the symbol of someone who'd succeeded, whose powers brought only good. Who was in control. Who still believed in something.

  "He's an idiot," Gabriel said, as if reading her thought. He did that too much; it bothered Kaitlyn. "Him and those other two, they're all idiots. But you

  have some common sense-or at least I thought you did. "

  "Thanks," Kait said dryly. "Why?"

  "You see things. You know something's wrong here. "

  Kaitlyn was startled. "Something wrong? You mean, at the Institute?"

  He gave her a look of knowing contempt. "I see. That's how you're going to play it. "

  "I'm not playing anything-"

  He flashed a disturbing smile and turned, walking to the center of the room. "After all, if you leave, you don't stand much chance of getting him. Can't reel him in from Ohio. "

  Kaitlyn felt herself flush with anger.

  It was over-the confidences, Gabriel's almost-decency, his letting down of walls. He was going to be as nasty and objectionable as possible now, just so she wouldn't get the wrong idea about him. Like that he was an okay person.

  Well, I won't rise to it, Kaitlyn thought. I won't even dignify that with an answer. And however it sounds, he can't really know what Anna and I talked about behind closed doors.

  She pushed herself off the wall and moved one step toward Gabriel. She said, very formally, "I'm sorry for what happened to you. It was all terrible. But I think that you should start thinking about what you can do to change things from now on. "

  Gabriel smiled silkily from behind his walls. "But what if I don't want to change things?"

  Two minutes ago, Kaitlyn had been dizzy with sympathy for him. Now she wanted to kick him in the shins.

  Boys, she thought.

  "Good night, Gabriel," she said.

  You jerk.

  He widened his eyes. "Don't you want to stay? It's a big bed. "

  Kaitlyn didn't bother to answer that at all. She went out with her head very high, muttering words that would have shocked her father.

  One thing was fortunate. For a while there, she'd felt quite close to Gabriel-and that could have meant trouble. Imagine her, Kaitlyn the cold, falling for not just one but two boys. But he'd taken care of that.

  He'd pushed her away, and she felt certain he wouldn't let her ever get close again.

  No, thank God, she wasn't in any danger. She found Gabriel interesting-even, in a weird way, heartbreaking-and he was certainly gorgeous. But. . . well, anyone with the bad luck to fall in love with him would have to disembowel herself with a bamboo letter opener.

  She wouldn't tell anyone what he'd told her about his power. That would be betraying a confidence. But she thought she might talk with Rob about him someday. It might change Rob's views, to know that Gabriel could feel regret

  Strangely, when Kait got back to bed, she fell asleep at once.

  The next day Joyce took them to San Carlos High School. They were already registered for classes, and Kait was delighted to find that she shared sociology and British literature with Anna and Rob. In fact, she was delighted with everything. She'd never dreamed school could be like this.

  It was different from Ohio. The campus itself was bigger, more sprawling, more open in design. Instead of one big building, there were lots of little ones, connected by covered paths. Ridiculous if it snowed

  -but it never snowed here. Never.

  The buildings were more modern, too. Less wood, more plastic. Smaller rooms with more crowding. No brick, no peeling paint, no wheezing furnace.