“Busy?” the mayor repeated. “Doing what?”
The Mistress of Misrule shrugged. That was her only answer.
The mayor huffed. “I suppose we shall have to replace him…” She smiled. “Let us have Mrs. Dunworth!”
The crowd cheered as the troubadours called for Mrs. Dunworth to take her husband’s place. They had to keep calling after the cheers died down to make themselves heard. But after a few minutes, when Mrs. Dunworth still hadn’t appeared, the actors started exchanging worried looks. The mayor whispered something to her Mistress of Misrule and the girl nodded and ran off.
“I suppose we can guess who is keeping Mr. Dunworth busy,” the mayor said, but her heart wasn’t in it. She looked worried.
Frowning, Jeremy left his table and went down into the crowd. It was humming around him like a nervous beehive, people whispering and murmuring, complaining about the delay, and pitying the actors who were so obviously unprepared for this.
There was so much noise he couldn’t make out the mayor’s thoughts. He took the long way around to her throne, taking his time so as not to draw any attention from the already restless visitors. As he drew nearer, he opened his senses and screened through the chaos, looking for the mayor’s consciousness. It took him a while but the impressions became clearer the closer he got.
This was not part of the performance. The mayor had meant to honor Mrs. Dunworth for her services to the town. It was supposed to have been a surprise, which Mr. Dunworth should have played into. But for some reason Mrs. Dunworth wasn’t there.
Jeremy was ten feet away from the stage when the Mistress of Misrule screamed bloody murder.
The crowd turned into a stampede toward her and Jeremy didn’t have a hope in hell of following. He just stood aside and let them through.
On her stage, the mayor rose from her throne but whatever the actress had found was too far to see. She worried her sleeves, waiting for someone to tell her what had happened.
Jeremy went closer to try to calm her but he hadn’t gone two steps before someone grabbed him from behind. An arm came around his neck, cutting off his air, and a hand covered his mouth. Jeremy was pulled off balance by the shorter attacker and couldn’t get enough leverage to fight back. He was having a time of it just staying on his feet as he was dragged away from the square into a side alley.
Jeremy was trained for this sort of situation. He let himself go limp, even though it put more pressure on his throat. The man had to either carry his weight or drop him. At the same time, he forced his way into the guy’s mind to gain control of the situation.
The moment he was in, chaotic emptiness swept him into a strong current he couldn’t fight. There was no substance to latch onto and pull himself out. Only thoughts. Instantaneous; there one moment, gone the next, as if nothing ever … stuck.
For a moment he froze, fear warring with indecision as he sank deeper and deeper with that riptide. Anger swirled with excitement, a monstrous wave that crashed on top of him, driving him down into anxiety, and a feral, almost rabid isolation. There was weight without substance, heat without a source, and darkness that no amount of light could overcome; darkness so all-consuming Jeremy was losing himself in it.
Jeremy felt his eyes roll back in his head. He felt himself getting lost and wished to hell the guy knocked him out at some point because that was the only way he was ever getting out. He couldn’t hope to sever the connection on his own—he didn’t even know where it was anymore. Still he fought, grappling his way through the current of images and sounds, trying to find some sort of anchor, blindly flinging himself this way and that, at times falling through a mirage, at others being battered by one. None of it amounted to anything tangible. Those thoughts could destroy him if he let them. But Jeremy couldn’t influence a single one.
Inside that thick vortex of nothingness, his overstimulated mind caught on an idea. If there wasn’t an anchor, he had to create one. A single point of solidity would be enough to launch himself out of here. It had to work; it was the only hope he had.
Jeremy took hold of anything he could. Some thoughts slipped through his fingers, others dissolved into mist. But those he caught, he slammed together, forcing his captor to dwell on them.
Ten thoughts. Twenty. Fifty. The mounting confusion around him slowed the current almost to a standstill, yet even so thoughts around him kept changing. They winked out of existence as new ones formed. His plan wouldn’t work if those thoughts couldn’t stick together. Already some were fading. Jeremy redoubled his efforts, added more thoughts and the more of them he put together, the steadier the whole became.
The more of them he got, the clearer the picture became. It was like putting tiny pieces of a mosaic together and he couldn’t distance himself enough to see the entire image.
But he felt it.
He touched the grooves and contours, and felt the design. It was so much bigger than Jeremy; bigger even than the man himself. It dwarfed them both, this idea that held more importance than anything else in the guy’s mind, including himself.
Hailey.
Everything this man thought or imagined, no matter how brief or seemingly insignificant, centered on her. She was the reason for all of it, the grand design that gave meaning to his life. She was his god, his fate, his entire world. She was his savior, and he’d appointed himself hers in return. And everything he did, he did for her.
Jeremy was horrified at the depth of this obsession. It had managed to penetrate the guy’s madness and give it focus; had altered the pathways just enough for him to latch onto Hailey as the only thing of interest in the universe. He defined himself by her and rarely even thought of his own name. But he had one…
Arthur Glenn.
Jeremy braced himself on the mural he’d created and used Arthur’s mind, everything he had at his disposal, to send out one signal like an atomic explosion. He prayed it would reach someone who would know what to do with it.
Arthur screamed from the pain of it, opening a bright window into the outside world and Jeremy launched himself toward it. Arthur’s voice, louder than the blast of a foghorn inside his own mind, became completely lost among those of the crowd outside of it. Those who had found poor Mrs. Dunworth’s lifeless, mutilated body.
Almost there. Almost out.
The window shuttered, plunging Jeremy back into darkness as a furious wave swept him sideways, away from his salvation. It was consciousness turned inward. Focused, yet still perceiving the world outside. Jeremy had no more strength to fight it.
Arthur raised his arm and clubbed him over the head with something hard and heavy. He felt the pain as if from a distance.
Jeremy had never been so relieved to pass out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was classical music day. Normally a snooze fest but today a balm on Hailey’s ears. Much easier to deal with than the brain-pounding rock she’d tried to put on earlier. That didn’t work at all in her current condition.
And the classics made Amelia all happy, too. She hummed along while she checked Hailey’s vitals, swaying to the rhythm as if she was imagining someone dancing with her. Hailey wished she could compartmentalize like that. Here they were, the good doctor Chase administering to her dying patient, and she was smiling. For the first time since Hailey had entered this lab, Amelia had a gentle, dreamy smile on her face as if she was somewhere completely different.
Let’s see, where would I go? The beach. Or maybe a really great party.
Or more likely to a clearing at the foot of a mountain range with a freezing cold creek and a smoking hot telepath.
Hailey sighed grumpily and dipped her head a little farther into the blue, waterlike solution she was floating in. Just enough for it to cover her ears and dull the worst of the drums. Any small upset to her inner ear now made her feel like she was drunk and trying to drive a shuttle that hadn’t been tuned in a decade.
To you I’m just a last-minute hot fuck. What the hell had that meant? Though bits
and pieces of last night’s dream had been coming back to her all day, she still only had a vague recollection of what had happened. The harder she tried to remember, the more futile it became. And why did she remember that Jeremy had been pissed at her but not why? Had her mouth run away with her again? Had the cat done something to embarrass her?
She had no idea.
It was probably just nerves getting to her. It wasn’t as if she always remembered her dreams in perfect detail, especially when the telepath was involved. But there was an annoying suspicion that worried her. Maybe it wasn’t just the normal way of dreams. Maybe it was her brain starting to shut down little by little.
Hailey wiggled her toes to make sure she still could. She felt them moving but without looking she couldn’t tell how much. She didn’t dare look.
An electric shock passed through the solution, making her muscles twitch. That happened every few minutes now and seemed to help with the dizziness. Sort of … rewiring her brain a little. Who knew electroshock therapy could actually be helpful? Now if it could help her remember, she might consider making it a daily ritual.
“Okay,” Amelia said. “A couple more minutes and we can get you out of there. How’s your stomach feeling?”
Since she’d thrown up the fruit she’d had for breakfast? “A little better.” Actually, it was in knots from the electric shocks and growling for sustenance, but the thought of food made her nauseated. Amelia had her on an IV for some nutrient cocktail, which was fine for a human, but the leopard inside her salivated for a chunk of raw meat to chew on.
Major ick.
The song ended, smoothly segueing into a soft aria as Amelia helped Hailey out of the minipool. Hailey felt as if she were leaving her spine in there. She dried herself off and put her clothes back on. The temperature in here was now ninety-five degrees. Amelia was working in her tank top and shorts, her lab coat hung over the back of her chair.
And Hailey still shivered.
The computer on the right beeped and a drawer unlocked. Amelia took out the tray and brought it to the gurney where Hailey sat. She wasn’t weak enough yet to have to lie down but she figured it was better to reserve what strength she had and not stand around needlessly.
“The patches are ready,” Amelia said. “Lift your hair up.”
The patches were thermochemical. Something new Amelia had just cooked up that would probably make her rich through retail sales. They were small, round bandages that adhered to the skin and, through some scientific mojo Hailey wasn’t bothering to comprehend, regulated the body’s temperature.
Meaning, if someone was in fifty degrees below zero they could slap on a couple of these babies and be nice and toasty for twenty-four hours. And if someone had a fever, the patches would bring it down to a safer temperature.
Hailey was the first guinea pig for them.
Amelia peeled one small white circle off the tray and placed it on Hailey’s nape, right at her hairline. The next one went lower on her spine, between her shoulder blades, and the third at the small of her back. Within seconds Hailey felt the patches warm as they sucked the heat out of her. Her body cooled by degrees until the room’s temperature began to feel about right, and then even more until she was feeling hot in her jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt.
Both of them watched the portable monitor for any signs of distress to the body. Hailey’s fever was down, her chemistry remained unaltered, and when Amelia checked Hailey’s back, she concluded, “No sign of skin irritation. The patches seem to be working.”
Another one for the record books.
“How’s my blood looking?” Hailey asked. One of the computers was running continuously, extracting information out of the blood sample Amelia fed into it every half hour. Hailey had so many pinpricks on her fingers she’d stopped counting them.
Amelia typed a few commands to display the results. “Looks like your white cell count is a little high, but that’s to be expected. I don’t see any degeneration of the red cells; that’s a good sign.”
“And the virus?”
Amelia shook her head. “It’s too early to tell. We won’t know if it worked until you get your last injection.”
“But it should already be doing something, right?” she persisted. “I mean, I haven’t had the full dose, but some changes should have already occurred if it worked.”
“Possibly,” Amelia said. “The trouble is, we don’t know which parts, and to what extent.”
“Then let’s test it. I can change my toes and if they don’t fall off, great. If they do, well, I just won’t wear sandals.”
Amelia glared. “If something changed, and I’m not promising that it did, there’s no reason to think it would be your toes.”
“But missing toes are much easier to conceal than missing fingers,” Hailey said reasonably.
“You’re not going to risk missing anything. We do it by the book this time. You wait until after your final injection. Once you stop feeling sick from the virus, we’ll see.”
The computer beeped again and Hailey winced. Sharp noises felt like needles through her eardrums now. “I thought you programmed the stupid thing to stop doing that.”
“Appointment reminder,” the automated voice said. “Appointment for Hailey at Amberley Patio. Two pm. Current time. Twelve thirty pm.”
“I didn’t program that,” Amelia said. She was smirking.
“What is this, third grade?”
“Hailey and Jeremy, sitting in a tree,” Amelia teased. When Hailey glared, she cleared her throat. “You’re right. I should go fix that.”
Hailey sighed and pushed her sleeves up to her elbows. “You can also turn down the heat while you’re at it.”
Amelia waved from behind the console.
Three seconds later, a high-pitched screeching sound resonated through the lab. It brought Hailey to her knees, screaming and covering her sensitive ears. It didn’t help. It was as if the sound was inside her head.
“Oh God, what did I do?” Amelia yelled, frantically pushing buttons and typing commands.
Finally the noise stopped. Hands shaking, Hailey pulled herself back onto the gurney. “What the hell was that?” Whatever it was, it had just ripped ten years out of Hailey’s already troublesome life span. She was not amused.
“I don’t know,” Amelia said.
The noise started again, a chainsaw cutting Hailey’s head open and rearranging her brain. “Turn it off!” she screamed, but couldn’t make herself heard. Her ears felt like they were bleeding. She would kill somebody.
If she ever recovered enough to stand up.
Amelia ran to the doorway and broke the glass covering the fire alarm. Everything shut down, all the doors opened, and the rooms flooded with cool mist. It contained a fire retardant that was strong enough to douse a fire, but gentle enough not to destroy the equipment.
Blessedly, the noise stopped. By then Hailey was so shaken all she wanted to do was lie down and sleep.
But in the darkness she heard running footsteps in the hall.
She didn’t have time to warn Amelia before someone ran into the room yelling, “What the hell took you so long!”
Hailey saw Amelia feel around the wall for the fire alarm again. The same button restored normal functionality. The lights came on a second later, and both Hailey and Amelia stared at the teenage girl with red hair and wide, bright blue eyes. She was panting and sweating, sickening fear rolling off her. Hailey breathed down a wave of nausea. She had nothing left to throw up, and dry heaving would just hurt too much.
“I’ve been trying to call you forever!” the girl said, bracing her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She was unsteady, clearly worn out and running on fumes and adrenaline.
Why did she look so familiar?
Wait… “Pixie?”
Jeremy’s baby sister, now much older than the tiny little girl Hailey had seen in her vision, turned on her and grabbed her hand. “Come on, we have to go.”
“Whoa,” A
melia cut in. “She can’t go anywhere.”
“No choice. Jer’s in trouble.”
“She can hardly stand!”
“Listen, Doc,” Pixie yelled. “I don’t have time for this. Dara’s in labor, Tristan won’t budge an inch from her side, and a psychotic killer has my brother! I need Hailey’s senses to find him and you’re not stopping me from taking her.”
Hailey’s head spun. “Back up. Who has your brother?”
Pixie pulled. “There’s no time. Move!”
Hailey cast Amelia a look and ran out, pulled along by the redheaded teenager. She sensed the girl’s weakness. There were no hovering vehicles or horses around when they came out of the lab; she must have run the whole way. “I need you to tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Pixie said. “One minute I’m trying on a dress and the next I’m on the floor with a jumbled mess in my head. I dropped the dress, ran here.”
“Did you see who took him, or where?” It was far easier to run over grass than over hard rock, Hailey decided. Even if her knees buckled every few steps from the strain. She wasn’t even winded. But the girl wouldn’t last much longer. “Wait, stop.” She pulled Pixie to a halt. “Just tell me what you know. I can take it from there.”
Her leopard was already stirring, pacing, thirsty for a good hunt. Hailey’s fingers and toes itched, her eyesight shifting rapidly, but she didn’t even notice through the dizziness. She wanted to run. She wanted to scent the air, lock on to a target and track it.
And when she found it, she would make it hurt.
Pixie’s eyes filled with frantic tears. “I don’t know! Everything is such a mess I can’t sort through it. I see Jer, I see you, and everything else is just chaos. And so much anger. God, I’m drowning in it!” She clutched her head, pulling on her hair. She’d tear it out by the roots soon.
Hailey covered the girl’s hands with her own. All the power in the world contained in thought.
Pixie gave a wet snort. “Hunt’s so full of shit.”
Hailey smiled crookedly. “I thought so too. Now I need you to focus for a minute, okay? I want you to show me what you saw.”
Blood Trails Page 25