Knock, knock...

by Dale Mayer

  There were many people involved in the Foundation. Any one of them could access the information needed to identify people associated with it. But none of that explained how these people had been killed recently. He understood about the energy – well as much as any non-psychic could – but, like Stefan said, the person doing this could be anyone, anywhere and have skills they hadn’t run across before.

  And how scary was that?

  He didn't understand Stefan's explanation about Tabitha hiding on the ethers. Like who could?

  Ronin had spoken to several of Stefan's friends about other cases involving psychic criminals, trying to get a handle on how they dealt with these sorts of things, but the information wasn't helpful. Some had been enlightening in the scope of the crimes and the people who committed them, but it didn't shed light on Shay's issue right now.

  His brother was playing watchdog, and Ronin knew it would take a tank to pry him away from Shay's side. Good thing; as it seemed her attacker could appear and disappear at will. He needed to brush up on his skills if criminals were taking to the ethers.

  Just then his email signaled a new message. He clicked on the link and bent his head to read.

  Finally. They’d found Darren's twin. He read, then reread the message. Shit.

  He reached for the phone.

  "Stefan," he began, "I found Darren's twin. He's in Seattle. In the morgue. He was a John Doe and has only been recently identified. Cause of death...as far as they can tell, heart attack. He's been there for a year."

  Silence.

  "Stefan?"

  "I'm here." Fatigue whispered through the phone line. "I didn't see that coming."

  "No one did. And if he isn't the one causing all this havoc, who the hell is?"

  "I don't know, but we have to find out, and fast. There's an edge of instability here. I don't like it. In fact, I'm working at the children's hospital right now. Trying to strengthen the walls. Just in case."

  "Is it working?" Ronin asked. He'd love to think something like that was doable, but he highly doubted it. He knew Shay's foundation had contributed heavily to the new wing at the hospital and that definitely made it and those who worked there, potential targets. He winced as he thought of the damage that could be done.

  "I hope so. I'd planned to go home and rest, then do more tomorrow. Now I'm not so sure. It's one thing to have a villain you think you know, but it's quite another to have a nasty piece of work that is also aggressive and faceless. While we thought it was Darren's twin, I understood the potential capabilities of this person, now... Now, it's a whole new game."

  Crap. Ronin hung up the phone slowly. "A whole new ballgame? Why is nothing ever easy?"

  He bent over his keyboard and got to work.

  ***

  Enough was enough…

  Too bad Darren was no longer here. They could play his favorite pastime. Murder. The hospital wasn't the best place for games. At least right now. It was however, the right place for real get-away-with-it murder. Everyone there was dying anyway. So who would notice one more?

  And that was the pissy part of tonight. It had been too easy. The old woman hadn't even been scared. It's as if she’d waited for her maker to come. And if that didn't beat all.

  The old woman had started praying as soon as the process had started. And how could she have known that her time had come? And not just praying, but almost chanting. Bizarre. There'd been nothing to it. The old woman had given up on life almost immediately. Almost grateful to end her existence.

  Peaceful. As if she'd been happy to go. And damn, that wasn't the intention at all. The children's ward would have been better.

  And it's not like the plan had been to take out the old woman. She'd just been the closest target to vent my anger after not being able to enter Shay's grandfather's room. The old woman had been the closest target.

  But had Shay gotten the message? Not likely. It wasn't personal enough. She didn't know the old woman. She wouldn't care. She wouldn't suffer from the woman's death.

  That was the whole purpose here. To make Shay suffer. To make her afraid, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone else she loved might die or when she would become the target.

  There was no fun to this game if there wasn't pain caused to someone else. And fear.

  Shay needed to be afraid…because she was going to get hers. And soon.

  Or maybe not soon...

  Maybe now...

  Chapter 25

  Stefan closed his phone and closed his eyes. Damn and double damn. At what point did life get simpler? When did the number of bad guys decline? He'd thought for sure they were dealing with Darren's brother, Danny. Had to be. It made perfect sense. But he'd been dead a year. A whole year. Had died around the same time as Darren. And of a heart attack. Like Darren, like the recent victims.

  A coincidence? Not.

  Stefan knew he was missing something.

  What?

  There was a definite familiarity to the energy, and if it wasn't Darren's twin’s, then whose was it? A parent? A child? But then it would have to be a young child. And few children hated with the degree of intensity required to kill, and kill again.

  Darren hadn't been old. Twenty-eight, maybe twenty-nine and he'd died a year ago. It's possible he'd fathered a child when he was as young as sixteen, but not likely. Still it could mean there might be an eleven- or twelve-year-old out there with his abilities. But it was unlikely a child that age would be a killer.

  It wasn't impossible for the psychic skills to develop that young, but they usually showed up at puberty. Who knows with this family? But even if they did show earlier, the pattern was they didn't develop the required strength and endurance for several more years.

  More likely the killer was a sibling or a parent.

  Lissa, his ghost friend, appeared in front of him. Gone was the joyous soul he'd come to appreciate. Instead a sense of gravity, of sorrow, emanated from her. She never said a word. Just sat there.

  Waiting. Hoping to help, but like him, not knowing what to do.

  So like her sister Alex…

  Sister? Could Darren have a sister? Or another brother? Damn. He leaned forward and stared out into the dark night beyond his bedroom window. Was that it? Was there any chance there was another sibling? A sibling who might have had lost both their siblings at the same time. Was that possible? And if so, would that be enough to cause such a reaction? To compel him to extract revenge for the deaths of his brothers? Maybe all the family he had in the world.

  Thanks, Lissa.

  She smiled hopefully. I didn't help, but if you have an idea of what to do – good.

  Sometimes you don't have to do anything. Just being you, is great. He smiled at his visitor even as his mind worried on the problem.

  But why focus on connections to Shay?

  Unless this person believed Shay was responsible. And the only way this person could know that is if they knew what happened that night?

  And understood what had gone wrong.

  In that case, were they after revenge? To kill Shay. Destroy her life. Or to make her lose what was important to her?

  Anyone who knew Shay, knew people were more important to her than even her projects, but Darren had always had a major problem with Shay's projects. Shay had shared how much Darren complained when he thought she cared more about them than about him. He'd been right, but that's because he must have realized Shay's heart hadn't been engaged the way Darren wanted it to be.

  Stefan had been able to see that. But Shay hadn't been willing to see it.

  But what about the last victim, the elderly lady in the hospital? She hadn't been associated with one of Shay's projects. Who knew why that target had been chosen? So close to Pappy but not an attack against him.

  Or was the old woman a target for any number of other reasons?

  If the attacker had gone after the old woman out of rage, that meant their anger was unstable. The person unbalanced. When one focused on using negativ
e energy long term it had the effect of destabilizing the energy at the core. That could be what happened. And it would make the attacker very dangerous.

  But now what? What or who would this person target next? Stefan had already considered the children's ward. Was there another vulnerable spot? One that held more meaning for Shay? She’d funded thousands of projects over the last decade through the Foundation. She had many friends with only a few family members to target.

  More of Shay's projects? More of Shay's family? Friends?

  The field was pretty open.

  Stefan?

  He frowned, not recognizing the voice. Lissa had left, so it wasn't her. And this voice was so faint as to be hardly distinguishable.

  Stefan? Help me. Something bizarre is going on here.

  He shook his head, trying to clear it and focused on the voice. Tabitha?

  Yes! I had an ethereal visitor. When it couldn't get in my room it got pissed. Went down the hall. I followed, but it disappeared into the children's ward.

  "Shit." Not there. Please not there. He hadn't finished reinforcing the shell. It took longer than a few hours. Could take days.

  Help. I need help, Stefan! Tabitha screamed.

  He couldn't do this alone. He sent out a massive panicked call to anyone who could help and then he jumped free of his body.

  ***

  Shay bolted upright, her mind screaming awake. A film of fear slid over her skin. She brushed hair back off her face even as she studied Roman's bedroom, looking to find what was wrong.

  And found nothing. She took a deep breath and tried to reassess. At her side, Roman rolled over, snuggling closer. Her heart still pounded with fright, but the sight of the sleeping giant beside her made her smile. He slept like an infant with such peace on his face, his body open and relaxed with sexual surfeit. Just the way he should be.

  So what was wrong?

  The nudge came again. She sent out a questioning response.

  And something exploded in her mind.

  Oh God.

  The hospital. Stefan was calling her to the hospital.

  She jumped free to race through the ethers, her body collapsing, limp on the bed.

  ***

  Stefan took a direct hit. He'd have groaned if he had a voice. Instead, he was so focused on his astral form and keeping a protective bubble over the kids on the ward, a trick that Dr. Maddy had been helping him work out, that that attack blindsided him. Again.

  He was getting damn tired of this. In his world, there was always evil. Working with the police as he did, he'd seen so much, but no one could keep his guard up all the time. And tonight he'd been so far past tired, he'd let it drop.

  And he just hadn't been aware of the attack early enough.

  And he'd been alone. Weakened. Unprotected.

  At his panicked cry, so many friends had come to help – none prepared for what they found.

  Energy blasts.

  Stefan, go stop the attacks. I'll protect the children. Dr. Maddy's voice filtered through his awareness. Send Tabitha my way. She's advanced enough with energy to help.

  I'm here. Tabitha's strained voice arrived ahead of her teal energy. Stefan, if you can, get this bastard.

  Even Lissa's energy moved frantically at his side, trying to send Stefan away.

  Maddy was already protecting the children. Her powerful healing energy was a bulletproof casing around the little ones in the room. It's not as if the attacker could get through that. But they'd seen so many people capable of so many horrible things, Stefan no longer believed in certainties.

  Others were there to receive the black energy, sucking it out of the ward. The person they sought appeared to have connected to the universal energy – it wasn't possible to run out of that. And right now, that was majorly bad news.

  Stefan could sense the chaos on the earthly reality too, as people panicked, searching for answers to what they could only sense, but not clarify. They tried to contact him, looking for help. But he couldn't help anyone.

  Stefan could only hope they were doing what they could.

  Because whoever this asshole was, he had serious skills.

  And serious mental issues.

  This wasn't a cold, calculated act. This was murderous rage.

  With the flavor of revenge.

  And there was no end to this attack in sight.

  Stefan needed Shay. Where the hell was she?

  ***

  Panicked, Shay arrived at Dr Maddy’s hospital in astral form to see...energy... God, she didn't know what was going on...but thick turbulence filled the space. More than one person, more than one fight. At the center of it all – Stefan in a battle of wills. Only she couldn't tell with whom...or what.

  The large, open communal space was dark and silent – as in the aftermath of a grenade going off. There should be noise, voices, conversation. Instead there was a complete absence of sound.

  Shay spun in a slow circle, trying to sort through the impressions bombarding her. Silence. Shock. Pain and destruction. Her view was filtered through a smoky, charcoal-smelling haze. Tables were overturned, chairs tossed, toys strewn on the floor and paper floated through the air to land gently on the ground like leaves falling in the wind.

  Her arrival had come in the aftermath of a massive blast.

  An energy grenade.

  She'd heard of them. Had never seen one.

  And she was grateful to have missed this one too.

  The energy listed and shook as the particles came together. The blast had disturbed time – making everything move in slow motion. She searched through the oddities, her instincts more useful than her eyes. She had to see through the wrongness to what was really happening.

  Deep, dark colors bombarded her as wave upon wave of energy slammed into her. Waves from the energy bomb? Surely not?

  A psychic attack? At this magnitude?

  She couldn't make sense of anything. She was also too busy protecting herself. The more walls she put up, the more the waves increased. She was forced to throw walls higher and higher in an effort to keep safe. Someone incredibly powerful was blasting her. And with their continuous waves, she couldn't gain the upper hand; she couldn't find her footing in this horrific reality.

  She was losing the battle.

  Another wave slammed into her, lifting her off the floor. She would have dropped to the ground, but she floated in a world with no gravity – no ground.

  No longer in the physical plane, the rules were different here. No physical senses, no physical touch, no Newton's laws. Nothing she could use to re-center herself.

  In her mind's eye she could see the destroyed center of the room. But she could see a deep, dark black off to the left, and opposing it off to the right, a deep midnight blue. She'd landed in the middle of some kind of war.

  And she had to pick a side and fast.

  But who was where?

  Shay, duck!

  She ducked. But too slowly. The blast lifted and tossed her on her virtual butt.

  Again.

  There would have been a trickle of laughter, but it arrived on Stefan's panicked cry, Another one’s coming your way.

  She gasped as the blast hit at the tail end of Stefan's warning. This wave was weaker. Barely skimming over her body. Better.

  Thanks for the warning, and what the hell is going on?

  The ward is under attack.

  She snorted. I got that much. But who’s doing this? And why?

  I don't know! I can't spare the energy to find out. I need your help. I need everyone's help. This is bad, Shay. I'm trying to protect the kids at the same time. There are too many of them for me to guard. Maddy's also protecting them now as I'm spread too thin. Help. I can't spread out any more, that's your specialty, not mine. We never got to you teaching me that trick, remember.

  Damn it. What trick? What do you want me to do?

  Disperse completely. Become one with the universe!

  Shit. Ask for something easy why don't
you?

  Taking a deep nonexistent breath, Shay thinned her energy down to a misty vapor. It helped her disappear into the ether as she dealt with the waves of energy still pouring her way. And now she was harder to target.

  Following the success of her first attempt, she thinned her energy further, and was no longer solid enough to be hit by the energy attacks. Instead, she filled the room with her very essence. She spread out to the far corners, including the ceiling. She could see other energies in the battle, and the children's energies. They were silent, still, but she could see their energies pulsing in strong healthy waves as they slept.