10 Fatal Strike

by Shannon McKenna

  Lewis looked nonplussed. “Ah . . . it was considered a very positive statistic, considering the—”

  “Tell that to the remaining thirty-five percent. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard. This is our legacy, Lewis.”

  “Yes, sir, of course,” Lewis said hastily. “We will try—”

  “Yes, you will most certainly continue to try, if you know what is good for you. I am pleased with these results. We will move on to Phase Three next week. Any questions?”

  Dead silence met his query. Shifty eyes. He almost laughed. His staff was getting cold feet. Ridiculous, considering that they were already inoculated against the experimental organism. Which was, in any case, entirely benign, even health-promoting, as the trials had clearly demonstrated for years now. And they weren’t even releasing an airborne version of the microbe yet. That happy day would come next year, after observing the results of Phase Three.

  Greaves was a cautious man. Methodical, responsible. If this was to be done, it would be done absolutely right, in every particular.

  “Moving on.” He turned to Silva and Chrisholm. “You two. Explain how two professionals at the height of their careers managed to fumble the matter of Matilda Bennet.”

  Chrisholm’s throat bobbed. He touched livid scratches on his neck, as if he wanted to hide them. “Sir, she had a can of pepper spray—”

  “I did not ask for excuses. I asked for an explanation. A woman of seventy-three, with no professional training outside of secretarial school, and somehow she found us. By following you, Chrisholm, from the museum at Blaine. By following the sales of Lara Kirk’s sculptures to you. And then she followed you here, to our doorstep. It is pure, dumb luck that she told no one about this facility before she died. One hopes, anyway. And no thanks to you.”

  “Sir, please,” Silva pleaded. “We—”

  “If you open your mouth out of turn one more time, I will make an example of you. You would not enjoy it. Although at this point, I would.”

  Silva sputtered. “Ah . . . I . . .” He cut himself off.

  Greaves turned to Chrisholm. “I suggested that Bennet have a tragic domestic accident,” he said. “An elderly lady, living alone, multiple health problems. And look what I got. Massive news coverage. A statewide manhunt. Your skin beneath her fingernails.”

  Chrisholm leaned forward. “Sir, I promise, we—”

  He shrieked as his body rose into the air, chair flung back by his own wildly kicking legs. He hung, suspended over the long, gleaming mahogany conference table, gurgling and flailing. Plucking his throat.

  It was hardly fair, to make an example of only one of them for the sins of both but, pragmatically speaking, he could not afford to lose two highly trained staff members right now. And Silva’s talent for coercion was more useful than Chrisholm’s rather mediocre telepathic abilities. So Chrisholm it was.

  “The time for promises has passed,” Greaves said. “Silva. Open the French doors, please.”

  Silva stared openmouthed at his floating colleague, whose face had gone purple. Chrisholm’s eyes popped. Sweat and saliva plopped down, spattering, marring the perfect sunlit swathe of fine-grained wood.

  Silva got up, walked stiffly to the French doors that led onto the terrace. It overlooked a deep canyon. A plunge of three hundred feet onto jagged rocks and trees. He opened it. “Sir, please. We only—”

  “Would you like to take his place?” Greaves’ voice was only mildly curious. “I could switch the two of you out. If you preferred.”

  “I . . . I . . .” Silva plucked at his collar, blinking frantically.

  “I thought not,” Greaves murmured.

  Chrisholm’s twitching form floated to the back of the room, then sped forward as if flung from a catapult. Out the open window, over the railing. Legs scissoring madly.

  Cold wind swirled into the room, making Lewis’s notes fly up into the air. Lewis groped for them. Paper crinkled in the silence.

  Greaves contemplated the open window, saddened. But a leader could not hesitate when an unpleasant task had to be done.

  He made a gesture toward the window, and the presumed mess below. “Deal with that,” he said, and turned his gaze on Anabel and Hu. “Bring me the girl. I’m ready for her now.”

  Lara sat on her cot, crosslegged in the dark, in a state of profound concentration. Today, her coping technique was a mental walk through room after room in the Uffizi, the art museum in Florence, looking at the works of the great Italian masters. She’d paused at Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, dredging up every remembered detail when lights jolted on.

  Anabel and Hu burst in, as if propelled. She had to scramble to keep her feet beneath her when they yanked her into the corridor.

  Something was up. Something different, big. They hustled right on past the usual torture chamber and into the tiny elevator. Lara’s eyes skittered away from her reflection on the metallic wall. That hollow-eyed girl with the big snarl of dark hair could not be her.

  The elevator rose two floors, and opened onto a different world. The place they kept her was dank, ugly. Stained concrete floors, cinder block walls, exposed insulation. This floor was plush. Bland, neutral colors, like a luxury hotel. Hu opened a door. Her eyes stung, dazzled.

  She’d been sitting in pitch darkness ever since the last drug trip, breathing stale, fetid air. In here, cool air swirled, smelling of trees, earth, sky, sun. French doors were flung wide, to the same view she got from her chain-link hole. The horned hill. She stared at it hungrily as she sucked in lungfuls of scented air, and sensed a person behind her.

  She turned. The man had positioned himself in a ray of sunlight. His snow-white hair glowed like a halo. He wore a white shirt, perfectly pressed gray trousers. His teeth were insanely bright. He hurt her eyes.

  Behind her, a server scurried in with a tray. The rich, buttery smell assaulted her nose. Anabel and Hu kept pulling, but her feet were rooted to the ground. They yanked. She thudded to her knees.

  “Anabel,” the man chided, his voice velvety and deep. “No need to be rough.”

  Lara struggled up, onto wobbling legs. “Who the hell are you?”

  Whack. Anabel hit the back of her head, knocking her onto her knees again. “Speak when you’re spoken to, you snotty bitch.”

  “Anabel, that will do. Go stand next to the door.”

  “Sir, be careful,” Anabel told him. “She’s unpredictable. Just two weeks ago, she bit Hu’s hand when we were—”

  “Do you really think that I need protection?” His voice was gentle, but Anabel gasped and stumbled hastily back, clutching her throat.

  He turned to her. “Lara. So glad to meet you. I’ve been following your progress. Please, sit. Coffee? Some scones?”

  Progress? Scones? She gaped at his angelic smile, his beckoning hand. “Your timing’s off,” she said. “After all this time sitting in a hole, your good cop/bad cop routine is not going to work with me.”

  “I would be disappointed if it did,” he said serenely.

  She stared at the open window, the canyon beyond. That attractive expanse of beautiful, empty air.

  “Ah, ah, ah.” The man shook his head. “Don’t even let the thought form in your head. You would not get a single step.”

  Right. Probably not. She breathed down the crazy urge.

  “Sit. Lara. Really,” he urged.

  She simply could not play party games with this asshole, whoever he was. Fuck his coffee and his scones. “So you’re the big boss?” she asked. “I have you to thank for my quality of life these past few months?”

  “Not exactly,” he replied. “I inherited you, you might say. Your abduction was a choice I would not personally have made, but it was made, and there it is. We have to live with the consequences. Harold Rudd, the man who abducted you, did so to control your mother.”

  “So I was told,” she said. “They said her death three years ago was faked. That she died just a few months ago.” Her gaze flashed to Anabel and Hu, and bac
k to the white-haired guy. “I don’t believe it. My mother would never have let me think she was dead for three years.”

  “Not if she had any choice.” The man’s tongue clucked. “So sad.”

  Her ears were starting to roar. “So you did to her what you’re doing to me?”

  “No. Not me,” he said, his voice soothing. “Calm down, Lara.”

  “Hah.” She was breathing fast, face hot, hands clammy. “How stupid is that, to drive me out of my mind, and then tell me to be calm. So it’s true, what they said? That my father was murdered, too?”

  His face was impassive. “Yes, Lara,” he said. “I am sorry. It is true. He died the day after your mother.”

  She believed him, for some reason, though she had no idea who this self-important bozo was. She had no reason to doubt Anabel and Hu, either, but she’d still been hoping on some level that their jibes were just psychological torture. That Dad was alive and safe, smelling of pencil dust and Scotch. Still loving her. The last one around who did.

  That hope withered and died when this man spoke. She hated him for it. Tears flooded her eyes. She forced them back. “If you’re not the monster, then why didn’t you let me go?”

  “It’s complicated, but it will all be made clear. Sit down.”

  “Complicated, my ass! I want answers! Who the hell are you?”

  He let out a sharp, frustrated sigh. “My name is Thaddeus Greaves. I am your host. And I want. You. To. Sit. Down.”

  Lara gasped, muscles seizing up as her body moved. Not of her own volition, but as if she were a doll. She clamped down on the rising panic, fighting to keep her legs beneath her. When she was near the table, the chair he’d indicated floated up, did a quarter turn, and settled, feather light, behind her. A shove at her waist, another behind the crook of her knees, and flop, down she sat. Hard and graceless.

  “Sorry about the bump.” Greaves stirred a small lump of sugar into his coffee. “Gravity’s a bitch. Sometimes she just can’t be reasoned with. Hope I didn’t scare you.”

  She fought for control of her voice for a few moments. “Not at all,” she finally managed. “I prefer it when the thumbscrews are out there for me to see. I like to know where I stand.”

  Greaves pushed the plate toward her. She stared at the heap of hot, golden pastries, the pats of butter in a dish, the little silver knife.

  They looked amazing. She hadn’t put anything that tasted good into her mouth since they had captured her. After months of stale, gummy food that she had to muscle past her gag reflex, her salivary glands were going nuts. Her hands shook.

  But anything this attractive had to be a trap. She shook her head.

  “Lara,” Greaves chided. “They’re delicious. Why not?”

  She kept her voice carefully even. “I will not voluntarily ingest anything you offer me.”

  He looked affronted. “If I wanted to poison or drug you, I would have Anabel shove a needle into your throat. Please, relax.”

  She stared at the plate, at him. He smiled.

  It was his smile that did it. It sparked flesh-creeping dread, just like the sting of the psi-max needle, and she caught her breath as the pit yawned suddenly, the double vision. This world and the swirling visions, somehow coexisting. Then the sickening dip in blood pressure, the deep, hard suck . . . a vortex, dragging her.

  She fought it, jaw locked. Resisted that sucking pull . . . rooted to the ground . . . fighting with everything she had.

  She wasn’t strong enough. It launched her into the dream world.

  Foggy, overgrown forest. Park benches were choked with vines, shrubs, weeds. A dry fountain was visible in the distance, beside it the lifelike bronze statue that she’d seen many times before, eternally poised in the act of snapping a picture with a cell phone. Eerie in the drifting fog.

  She spun at the silent summons that prickled at her nape. Her little friend, the ghostly blond boy, dressed in ragged, filthy child’s pajamas. He seemed younger than the other times she’d seen him.

  “Hello,” she said. “Could you help me find the Citadel?”

  The little boy shook his head violently. His eyes were wide with fear, fixed on something behind her. He backed away, turned and sprinted into the mist. She opened her mouth to call after him, but the cry never left her throat as the thought-probe stabbed, tearing her mind apart.

  The shock jolted her violently back to the bright, airy room, and waking consciousness. Her thudding heart slowed. The darkness before her eyes cleared. She panted. Sagging in the chair. God. She’d gone off on a trip. Right in front of this creepy guy, and they hadn’t even injected her. Not for ten hours, and the effect had never lasted that long before.

  “. . . amazing!” Greaves was saying, jubilantly. “Finally, we might have a viable formula! Your psi took off spontaneously. Excellent. What did you see? You came back before I established contact.” Greaves knelt by her chair, tipped a cup into her mouth. She sputtered, choked.

  He jerked back. Not fast enough. His shirt was splattered with coffee. “Do it again,” he said. “I want another look.”

  “I can’t,” she said, shakily. “I can’t control it.”

  He stared into her eyes. “You will learn,” he said softly. “You will train with me. Rigorously. This is so exciting, Lara. To actually glimpse the future. I’ll come along with you, on your next trip.”

  “You?” Her stomach was in free-fall, but his words weren’t a surprise, not after that agonizing mind-stab. Worse than Anabel’s. “You . . . you’re—”

  “A telepath? Among other things. I can’t wait to put you through your paces. You’ve been giving Anabel trouble with that shield of yours, but I’m a different proposition. We’ll see if you can get behind your shield with me in the saddle.”

  His tone made the words seem horribly lascivious. “I thought . . .” She cleared her throat. “I don’t block anyone on purpose. I—”

  “It doesn’t matter. You don’t block me. I have many gifts, Lara.” His eyes slid down her body, assessing. “As do you. I look forward to discovering them. In fact, after your next dose, I think I will take you back home with me.”

  A steel band seemed to squeeze her throat. “Home?”

  “We’ll have privacy,” he said. “If you are with me, there’s no need for locks and bolts or restraints. I will keep you absolutely secure.”

  As he spoke, she felt her wrists and ankles squeezed, as if hot, greedy hands clutched her there. Her guts lurched.

  “I’m sorry for how painful these past months have been,” he said. “I look forward to making it up to you. And I’m curious about your shield.”

  She flinched. God forbid he get anywhere near the Citadel. He’d find some way to twist it, pollute it. “I don’t know where I go when they drug me,” she said. “It’s a nightmare, and I just endure it until it stops.”

  He scrutinized her. “There’s no place for lies here.”

  It wasn’t entirely a lie. That was how it had been, until she found her Citadel. That was where she had stashed what was left of her sanity. If she lost her safe place, she was so done.

  She dragged air into her tight chest. “How did my mother die?”

  He brushed his fingertips over the coffee spots on his white shirt with distaste. “I wasn’t there,” he said. “Ask Anabel.”

  “Anabel killed my mother?”

  He made an impatient gesture. “Lara, please. I’m very sorry about your mother, and I was very angry about how that was handled. I claim no responsibility for it. I understand how you feel about your parents, but it’s done and gone. You have to look to the future.”

  She let out a bitter laugh. “What do you want, Greaves?”

  He smiled flirtatiously. “Besides the obvious? I want to save the world. To make it a better place. I am absolutely committed to that.”

  Laughter jolted out of her throat again, hard, and suddenly she was doubled over, wheezing and shaking. Eyes watering, as her chest convulsed. It was so stupid to la
ugh at him, it went against every instinct of self-preservation, but she could not stop.

  “I see we have a great deal of work ahead of us,” Greaves said.

  She shook her head. “Why don’t you just strangle me telekinetically right now and save yourself a lot of time and bother?”

  His gaze was fixed and hard. “Where’s the fun in that? Anabel, Hu, take our guest down to the testing room. My patience has ended.”

  Anabel and Hu were at her elbows, hauling her to her feet.

  “Sir,” Hu said, his voice vibrating. “Sorry to inconvenience you—”

  “Then don’t, Hu,” Greaves suggested, pleasantly.

  Hu gulped. “It’s still too soon now, after her last dose. Her blood levels will still be—”

  Greaves cut him off with a sharp sound. “How long must we wait?”

  “Uh, twenty-two more hours would be the optimal—”

  “Split the difference, make it fourteen hours,” Greaves said briskly. “We’ll meet in the testing room for the final dosing at six

  A.M. tomorrow morning. Take her away, please. I need to change this shirt.”

  Hu cleared his throat. “Sir? About that testing . . . at six . . .”

  Greaves looked back from the door he was opening. “Yes?”

  “My wife is having a serious operation tomorrow morning, at Good Samaritan, and I was hoping—”

  “You want to take personal time now?” Greaves’ voice was soft with disbelief. “At the culmination of your most important assignment ?”

  “. . . a tumor removed,” Hu said desperately. “From her esophagus. It’s a delicate operation, and I need to—”

  “You need? Hu, is it possible that your wife does not understand the importance of your work? Is she that selfish, that small-minded?”

  “I . . . of course she . . . ah . . .” Hu’s mouth worked.

  “Because if she doesn’t, maybe you should find a different wife. Maybe one who doesn’t have cancer. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” Hu’s voice was impassive. “I’ll be there.”

  “Excellent.” Greaves shut the door sharply behind himself.