by L. J. Smith
I'm so tired…
She opened her eyes. "Are we going to sleep here?"
"I think we'd better," Rob said, his voice dragging. "But maybe one of us should stay up—you know, to keep watch in case somebody comes."
"I'll watch," Gabriel said briefly.
"No." Kaitlyn was appalled. "You need sleep more than any of us…"
Not sleep. The thought was so fleeting, so faint, that Kaitlyn wasn't sure if she'd really heard it or not.
Gabriel was the best at screening his thoughts from the rest of them. Right now Kaitlyn could sense nothing from him in the web, except that he was drained. And that he was adamant.
"Go ahead, Gabriel, suit yourself," Rob was saying grimly.
Kaitlyn was too tired to argue with either of them. She'd never imagined that she could sleep outdoors like this, sitting on the bare ground with nothing over her head. But it had been the longest night of her life—and the worst—and the dirt wall behind her felt amazingly comfortable. Anna was pressed up against her on one side and Rob on the other. The March night was mild and her ski jacket kept her warm. She felt—almost safe.
Kaitlyn's eyes closed.
Now I know what it's like to be homeless, she thought. Uprooted, out in the world, adrift. Heck, I am homeless.
"What city are we in?" she mumbled, feeling somehow that this was important.
"Oakland, I guess," Lewis muttered back. "Hear the planes? We must be near the airport."
Kaitlyn could hear a plane, and crickets, and distant traffic—but they all seemed to be fading into a featureless hum. In a few moments she stopped thinking and was dreaming instead.
Gabriel waited until all four of them were asleep—fast asleep—and then he stood up.
He supposed he was putting them in danger by leaving. Well, he couldn't help it—and if Kessler couldn't protect his girl, that was his own lookout.
It had become painfully obvious that Kaitlyn was Kessler's girl now. Fine. Gabriel didn't want her anyway. He should be grateful to Rob the Golden Boy for saving him—because a girl like that could trap you, could get under your skin and change you. And this particular girl, with hair like autumn fire and skin like cream and the eyes of a witch, had already shown that she wanted to change him.
Almost succeeded, too, Gabriel thought as he picked his way through the scraggly brush poking its way between dirt clods. She'd gotten him in a state to accept help from Kessler, of all people.
Never again.
Gabriel reached the fence and boosted himself over it, clearing the barbed wire. When he came down, his knees almost buckled.
He was weak. Weak in a way he'd never been before. And there was a feeling inside him—a hunger. A burned-out feeling, as if a fire had passed over him, leaving him blackened and parched. Like cracked earth thirsty for summer rain.
He'd never felt like this before. And part of him, a small part that sat back from the rest of his mind and sometimes whispered judgment, said that there was something dangerous about feeling this way.
Something wrong.
Ignore it, Gabriel thought. He made his legs move down the uneven sidewalk, tightening muscles so they wouldn't shake. He wasn't afraid of this kind of neighborhood—it was his native environment—but he knew better than to show weakness here. The weak got picked off in a place like this.
He was looking for someone else weak.
The whispering part of his mind twinged at that.
Ignore it, Gabriel thought again.
The liquor store was up ahead. Beside it was a long brick wall decorated with the remains of tattered posters and notices. Men stood against the wall, or sat on crates in front of it.
Men—and one woman. Not a beauty. She was skin and bones, with hollow eyes and unhealthy hair. A tattoo of a unicorn covered the calf of one leg.
Now there was irony. A unicorn, the symbol of innocence, virginity.
Better this scrawny ratbag than the innocent witch back in the lot, he thought, and flashed his most brilliant, disturbing smile at nothing.
That thought demolished the last of his hesitation. It had to be someone. He'd rather it be this bit of human garbage than Kaitlyn.
The burned, parched feeling was overwhelming him. He was a scorching void, an empty black hole. A starving wolf.
The woman turned toward him. She looked startled for a moment, then smiled in appreciation, her eyes on his face.
Think I'm handsome? Good, that makes it easy, Gabriel thought, smiling back.
He put his hand on her shoulder.
The ocean hissed and spat among the rocks. The sky was an uneasy color, more metallic violet or grayed lavender than real gray, Kaitlyn thought. She was standing on a narrow rocky peninsula. On either side of her was the ocean. Ahead the peninsula stretched out like a bony finger into the water.
A strange place. A strange and lonely place…
"Oh, no. Here again?" Lewis said from just behind her.
Kait turned to see him—and Rob and Anna, as well. She smiled. The first time she'd found them in her dream she'd been confused and almost angry. Now she didn't mind; she was glad of the company.
"At least it's not so cold this time," Anna said. She looked as if she fit into this wild place where nature seemed to rule without human interference. The wind blew her long dark hair behind her.
"No, and we should be glad to be here," Rob said, his voice full of suppressed excitement. He was scanning the horizon alertly. "This is where we're going, remember—if we can find it."
"No," Kait said. " That's where we're going." She pointed across the water to a distant shore where a cliff rose, black with thick-growing trees. Among the trees, shining in the eerie light, was a single white house.
It was the white house Kaitlyn had seen in a vision at the Institute. The one in the photograph shown to her by a lynx-eyed man with caramel-colored skin. She knew nothing about the man except that he was an enemy of Mr. Zetes, and nothing about the house except that it was connected to the man.
"But it's our only chance," she said aloud. The others were looking at her, and she went on, "We don't know who they are, but they're the only people who even have a chance to help us against Mr. Z. We don't have any choice but to try and find them."
"And maybe they can help us with"—Lewis changed to telepathic speech in midsentence— this thing.
Maybe they'll know how to break the link.
Anna spoke quietly. "You know what the research says. One of us has to die."
"Maybe they can find some way around that."
Kaitlyn said nothing, but she knew they all felt the same way. The web that tied them together had brought them very close, and there were some wonderful things about it. But all the same, in the back of her mind there was always the pounding insistence that it had to be broken. They couldn't live the rest of their lives like this, welded together this way. They couldn't…
"We'll find the answers when we get there," Rob said. "Meanwhile, we'd better look around. Examine everything about this place. There must be some clue as to where it is."
"Let's walk up there," Kait suggested, nodding toward the end of the peninsula. "I'd like to get as close to that house as possible."
They kept a close watch as they walked. "Same old ocean," Lewis said. "And back there"—he gestured behind them—"same old beach with trees. If I had my camera we could get a photo to compare to other things. Like, you know, pictures in books or travel brochures."
"There's just not enough to distinguish it from other beaches," Kaitlyn said. "Except—look, does it seem to you that there are more waves on the right side?"
"It does," Rob said. "That's weird. I wonder what would cause it?"
"And then there are these," said Anna. She dropped to one knee beside a pile of rocks, some long and thin, some nearly square. They were stacked like a child's blocks, but much more whimsically, forming an irregular tower that had appendages sticking out at intervals—like airplane wings.
The piles w
ere all over the peninsula, resting on the huge boulders that lined either side. They ranged from small to gargantuan. Some, to Kaitlyn's eye, looked like crude depictions of people or animals.
"I have the feeling I should know this," Anna said, her hands framing the stack, not quite touching it. "It should have some meaning to me." Her face was troubled, her full lips pinched, her eyes clouded.
"Never mind," Rob said. "Keep walking and maybe it'll come to you. Is it a place you've seen before?"
Anna shook her head slowly. "I don't think I've seen it. And yet it's familiar—and it's north, I'm sure of that. North of California."
"So we look at all the beaches north of California?" Lewis muttered, with unaccustomed bleakness. He kicked at a rock pile.
"Don't!" Anna said quickly—with unaccustomed sharpness. Lewis ducked his head.
At the end of the peninsula Kait tilted her face to the wind. It felt good and it was exhilarating to have the ocean crashing around her on three sides, but they still weren't much closer to the white house.
"Who's giving us these dreams, anyway?" Lewis asked from a little way behind her. "I mean, do you think it's them, in that house? Do you think they're in there now?"
"Let's ask," Rob said, and without warning he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across the water. "Hey, you! You out there! Who are you?"
Kaitlyn's heart jolted at the first bellow. But the shout had a good sound, a sound to combat the ghostly violet sky and the vast stretch of moving water. This was a big place, and big sounds fit here.
She cupped her own hands around her mouth. "Whooo are yoooou?" she shouted, sending her voice across the ocean as if she really expected someone in the white house to hear.
"That's it," Anna said, and she threw her head back and gave a long-drawn-out cry that sent gooseflesh up Kait's spine. "Whooo are yoooou? Where are weeee?"
Lewis joined in. "Thiiiis suuucks! Talk to us! Can't you be a little clearer?"
Kaitlyn choked on laughter, but kept calling. The racket caused a pair of gulls to soar upward, alarmed.
And then, amidst their own clamor, came an answer.
It was louder than their shouting voices, but it was a breathless whisper nevertheless. As if, Kaitlyn thought suddenly, a thousand people were whispering at once, almost in chorus but not quite. A thousand people crowded around you in a small, echoing room.
It shut them all up immediately. Kait stared wide-eyed at Rob, who had grasped her shoulder in an automatic impulse to protect her.
"Griffin's Pit! Griffin's Pit! Griffin's Pit!" the urgent whispers said.
Kaitlyn's lips formed the word "What?" but no sound came out. The cacophony of sound was beating at her from all sides. She could see Lewis grimace. Anna had her hands to her head.
"Griffin's Pit Griffin's Pit Griffin's Pit…"
Rob, it hurts…
Then wake up, Kaitlyn! It's your dream; you have to wake up!
She couldn't. But she could see that the pounding noise was hurting Rob, too. His face was tense, his golden eyes dark.
"GriffinsPitGriffinsPitGriffinsPit—"
Kaitlyn gave a jerk and the peninsula disappeared,
She was staring into the night sky. A lopsided moon was dipping toward the horizon. A single airplane roared slowly among the stars, red lights winking.
Rob was stirring beside her, Anna and Lewis sitting up.
"Everybody all right?" Kaitlyn said anxiously.
Rob smiled. "You did it."
"I guess. And we got our answer—I guess." She rubbed at her forehead.
"Maybe that's why they didn't try to communicate in words before," Anna said. "Maybe they knew it would hurt us. And what they were saying wasn't too clear, anyway."
"Griffin's Pit," Kaitlyn said. "It sounds—ominous."
Lewis wrinkled his nose. "Griffin's— what? Oh, you mean Whippin' Bit."
" I heard something like 'Wyvern's Bit,'" Anna put in. "But that doesn't make much sense."
"Neither does Whiff and Spit," Rob said. "Unless it's some kind of combination perfume and tobacco factory…"
"C'mon down to the Whiff and Spit; snuff it up and cough it out," Lewis chanted, giving it a catchy rhythm. "But, look, if none of us heard the same thing, it means we're back where we started."
"Wrong," Rob said and twisted Lewis's cap down over his eyes. He grinned; Kaitlyn could tell he was in a good mood. "We know there's somebody out there, and they're trying to talk to us. Maybe they'll get better. Maybe we'll get lucky. Anyway, we have a direction to go—north. And we know what to look for—a beach like that. The search is on!"
His enthusiasm was infectious. His smile, the lights dancing in his golden eyes—all infectious, Kaitlyn thought.
Kaitlyn had a feeling—wild, inappropriate, but consuming—of hope. All her life she'd wanted to belong somewhere, wanted it with a deep-down, gut-wrenching ache. And she'd always had the strange conviction that she did belong somewhere. That there was a place where she fit in perfectly—if only she could find it.
Since Gabriel had locked them into the web, she'd found people to belong to. Whether she wanted it or not, she was bonded for life to her four mind-mates. And now—well, maybe the dream was calling them to a place to belong. The place she'd sensed in the back of her mind all along, the place where all her questions would be answered and she would understand who she really was and what she was supposed to do with her life.
She smiled at Rob. "The search is on." She scooted closer to him, knee to knee, and added in a private message, And I love you.
Strange coincidence, Rob's voice said in her mind.
Amazing how he could make her feel. Safe in a vacant lot, warm in the middle of the night. Just being this close to him, being able to touch his thoughts and feel his presence, was comforting—and dizzying.
I like being close to you, too, he said. The closer I get, the closer I want to get.
Kaitlyn was floating, drowning in the gold of Rob's eyes. She began, I wish we could be like this forever—
She was cut off. Anna, who had been sitting with her chin on her knees, now suddenly raised her head.
"Wait a minute—where's Gabriel?"
Kait had forgotten about him. Now she realized that the rampart of earth across from them was deserted.
"He must have gone to check on something," Lewis said hopefully.
"Or maybe he's gone for good," Rob said—and there was a sort of grim hope in his voice, too.
"Sorry. No deal." A shower of earth fell from the dirt wall, and Gabriel appeared, wearing a rather chilling smile.
And he looked—well. Refreshed. Not tired anymore.
Kaitlyn felt the shadow of alarm. She brushed it away before anyone else could notice it. Of course Gabriel was all right. There was nothing wrong with him looking so… rejuvenated. He'd had a chance to rest, that was all.
"It's getting light," Gabriel was saying. "I checked around; there's no activity out there: no cops, nothing.
If we're going to get out, now's the time."
"Okay," Rob said. "But first, sit down a minute. We have to figure out what the plan is, what we're doing next. And we have to tell you what happened to us tonight."
"Something happened?" Gabriel looked around sharply. "I was—only gone for a few minutes."
"It wasn't anything real; it was a dream," Kaitlyn said, and she tried to quash her alarm again. That hesitation between "I was" and "only gone for a few minutes"—Gabriel was lying. She couldn't feel it in the web, but she knew.
Where had he been?
Rob was telling him about the dream. Gabriel listened to the whole story, looking amused and slightly contemptuous.
"If that's where you really think you're going, I don't care," he said when Rob finished. His handsome lip was curled. "All I care about is getting away from the California Youth Authority."
"Okay," said Rob. "Now, we ought to take stock—what have we got with us here? What're our assets?" He gave a rueful grin. " 'Frai
d I don't have anything but my wallet and these files."
For the first time Kait consciously realized that neither Rob nor Gabriel had their duffel bags with them.
Lost in the fight with Mr. Zetes, she guessed.
"I've got my bag," she said. "And a hundred dollars in my pocket"—she checked to make sure—"and maybe fifteen in my purse."
"I've got my bag," Lewis said. "But I don't think any of my clothes are going to fit either of you guys." He eyed Rob and Gabriel doubtfully—they were both several inches taller than he was. "And about forty dollars."
"I've only got a few dollars in change," Anna said. "And my bag of clothes."
"And I've got—oh, twelve-fifty," Rob said, flipping through his wallet.
"Jeez, only a hundred and fifty-something—remind me never to run away with you guys again," Lewis said.
"It's not even enough to buy bus tickets—and then we have to eat," Rob said. "And it's not as if we have just one destination—we've got to look for the place, so we don't really know where we're going.
Gabriel, how much—"
Gabriel had been shifting where he sat, noticeably impatient. "I've got about ninety dollars," he said shortly—without, Kait noticed, mentioning that he'd gotten it from Joyce's purse. "But we don't need bus tickets," he added. "I've taken care of it. We've got transportation."
"Huh?"
Gabriel shrugged and stood, brushing crumbs of dirt off his clothes. "I've got us a car. I hotwired it and it's ready. So if you're finished talking…"
Kaitlyn leaned her head into her hands. "Oh, God."
She could feel the golden-white blaze of anger beside her. And now Rob was standing, moving up to get right in Gabriel's face. He was absolutely furious.
"You did what?" he said.
CHAPTER 4
Gabriel gave one of his wildest smiles. "I stole us a car. What about it?"
"What about it? It's wrong, that's what. We are not going around stealing people's cars."
"We stole Joyce's," Gabriel said musically and mockingly.
"Joyce was trying to kill us. That makes it—not right, maybe, but justifiable." He got even closer to Gabriel and said with deadly anger, emphasizing each word, "There is no justification for stealing things from innocent people."