All the Light There Is

by Anise Eden

  Dammit, I thought as warmth prickled in my cheeks. My mouth was still open, but I’d forgotten what I was going to say.

  Ben took advantage of my dumbfounded moment to wrap his arms around my back and slide his hands down lower than they’d ever traveled before, holding me firmly in a way that was borderline indecent for a public hallway. His voice was scandalously low. “You were about to say…?”

  I tried to ignore my increasingly rapid breathing and played our conversation back in my head. “Oh, right!” I whispered. “Don’t even think about telling anyone in our group!”

  One of his eyebrows lifted as his hands drifted down. “You can’t police a man’s thoughts, Cate.”

  Smartass. Part of me wanted to reach up and push him away—but it was doing battle with the part of me that didn’t want his fingertips to move from where they were pressing, just firmly enough to make themselves known. “You know what I meant. Things have a way of snowballing—especially where Kai’s involved. If he got wind that either one of us had even uttered the phrase, ‘double wedding’—”

  “He would do his best to make it happen, and you’d be my wife by the New Year.” The gold flecks in his eyes shimmered. “That’s one of the things I like about Kai. When he puts his mind to something…” Ben tilted his head down, moving his lips a quarter of an inch closer to mine and holding my gaze prisoner.

  The portal between us opened, and his frank desire burst through, bathing my body in a flash of intense heat. I either needed to find a fire extinguisher ASAP, or I needed Ben to take me upstairs so we could finally consume one another. My pulse pounded through my body like the Kentucky Derby. “Which is why we can’t tell anyone,” I said in a small, strangled voice.

  “Hmm.” He tilted his head to the side. He was so close, I could feel the warmth radiating from his lips. “So you don’t want to marry me, you just want to kiss me—unless I’m reading you wrong.”

  Under normal circumstances, I was sure I could have thought up a clever, pithy comeback, but my brain was as overheated as the rest of me, and those two words, “kiss me,” reverberated through my head. Finally, I exclaimed, “Oh, hell!” I jumped up onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips against his with a great shudder of satisfaction.

  Ben’s mouth answered immediately, his audacious tongue exploring as his hands took advantage of my upward slide, gripping the fleshiest curve of my bottom and pressing my hips against his.

  I couldn’t stop myself from wriggling into his hands. Between his grip and his mouth, he was turning me into a human flame. My very bones seemed to melt, and a deep longing arose—a raw desire for Ben to lift me into his arms, carry me to my room, and do all of the things a real fiancé would do to the woman he loved.

  But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The realization hit me like a bucket of cold water, allowing a rational thought to break through. Good grief, Duncan, what is wrong with you? You keep letting yourself get worked up when you know you’re only going to be frustrated.

  Fortunately, before I could scrutinize my self-control any further, Eve popped her head into the hallway, gasped, and retreated back into the room. We broke our kiss as she called softly from inside the doorway, “Sorry, guys! We were just wondering what happened to you.”

  I pushed myself away from Ben so hard that I stumbled. He reached out and grabbed my hand, steadying me until I’d regained my balance.

  Ben leaned towards me and quietly asked, “So, just to be clear—you don’t want me to tell them?”

  In answer, I glared at him and stalked back toward the room. But my body still smoldered everywhere he’d touched me. I took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to cool myself off before we rejoined polite society.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In light of Skeet’s dinner invitation, our group spent the next couple of hours in Kai and Pete’s room putting together a game plan. Eve asked Ben to allow her to go into a trance to see if she could glimpse anything useful about the future. He was hesitant at first, since Eve was still new at using her precog gift, and he worried about the toll it took on her. But she was so insistent, and we had so many unanswered questions, Ben finally agreed to let her try.

  Eve sat cross-legged on the bed and closed her eyes as she began to chant something in a language I couldn’t quite place.

  Seeing my confusion, Ben whispered, “Cantonese—one of her first languages.”

  “From Hong Kong?” I remembered that Eve’s family had moved from there to the U.S.

  Ben nodded. After a few moments, Eve lifted her arms in front of her, palms out, as though she was preparing to catch a ball. She continued to chant, but her voice became lower and softer until there was no sound at all. The room was dead silent and tense with anticipation.

  After a few minutes, Eve sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “It’s like I can open the doorway to the trance, but something is stopping me from stepping through—a sense of doom, almost. And all I can see are dark clouds swirling on the other side.”

  “Well, you gave it a shot,” Ben said. “Thanks for trying.”

  “I’m not giving up yet!” She rolled her eyes at him. “I just need to think of some way to push through the door. Does anyone have any ideas?”

  Vani tapped her finger against her lips. “Well…”

  “Well, what?” Kai asked.

  “Given that we have what appears to be a functioning double kheir…”

  Kai smiled at Vani. “I like where you’re going with this. Maybe if we all support her with our energy…”

  “Or,” Ben said pointedly, “the sense of doom she felt was a warning that should be heeded. I don’t think we should risk it.”

  There was a pause. Then Eve held her hand up. “I’m the one who would be at risk here, and I vote we do it. We need this, Ben.”

  “She has a point,” Vani said. “We need as much information as we can get. And we can monitor her carefully. If things get too intense… Kai, is there a way you can pull her out of there?”

  Kai had walked across the room and was rifling through his suitcase. “Way ahead of you.” He pulled out something wrapped in a black velvet cloth. It turned out to be a small crystal ball on a wooden platform. “Eve, could you try using this ball to go into your trance? I know you usually do this with your eyes closed, but if you can use the ball, then I can end the trance anytime by covering it with the cloth.”

  Eve shrugged. “Sure, I can give it a try.”

  Everyone looked expectantly at Ben. He looked as uncertain as I felt about the wisdom of pinning Eve’s welfare to the powers of a crystal ball. On the other hand, Kai and Vani knew what they were doing, and people who questioned them typically ended up looking foolish—just as I had earlier in my training. Finally, Ben relented. “All right. Eve, if you’re sure, we’ll give it a try. But at the first sign of a problem—”

  “We’ll pull her right out, don’t you worry.” Kai set up a folding tray in front of Eve and put the crystal ball on it, with the cloth to one side. “Okay, everybody form a circle. Come on, hold hands, just like in kindergarten. That means you, too Ben, remember? Mr. Palm?”

  “Oh, right.” Ben placed himself between Asa and me. Only Pete stood off to one side, watching.

  Eve wanted to leave her hands free, so Vani and Kai stood on either side of her with their hands resting on her shoulders. Eve took a few slow, deep breaths, then focused on the crystal ball. She began to chant again, this time with her eyes open, staring into the ball. She held her arms out in front of her again. Then, just like it had the previous two times we’d activated the double kheir, the air in the room began to feel as though it was pulsing, vibrating against my skin and throughout my body, bringing everything into unison.

  “It’s working,” Vani murmured.

  Suddenly, Eve’s arms dropped into her lap. She began to make soft sounds of distress, shaking her head and crying, like someone who was asleep and having a nightmare. She re
ached up and fisted her hair, rocking back and forth. I looked over at Kai, but he was focused on Eve. A glance around the circle told me that everyone else was as concerned as I was—especially Ben.

  Vani spoke again. “Everyone visualize sending Eve some positive energy.”

  I wasn’t great at visualizing, but I did my best. All at once, I felt a crackling surge of warmth shoot from Asa’s hand through my body and into Ben. Asa and I exchanged curious glances, but Ben didn’t seem to register that anything unusual had happened.

  Eve stopped moving and fell silent. We all held our breath. Suddenly, her body jerked as though she was startled by something. Then her back straightened and she stared at the crystal ball, wide-eyed, and howled, “Noooo!” Kai quickly broke the circle and covered the crystal ball with the cloth while Vani hurriedly began rubbing Eve’s arms.

  “Come back, Eve,” Kai said loudly. “You’re done, baby. Come back now.”

  Eve’s breathing was fast and labored, her eyes open but unfocused. She reached out and clutched at Vani and Kai. Asa got her a glass of water and encouraged Eve to take a few sips.

  Meanwhile, Ben hovered in the background, the knuckles on his fists turning white. “Is she all right?” he barked.

  “Yes. She’s fine, as promised,” Kai said pointedly. “You know the drill. Just give her a minute.”

  Ben retreated to the window, looking outside as he raked a hand through his hair. Meanwhile, Pete’s expression was stony, but it was obvious they’d been through something similar with Eve before, and everyone had their roles to play. Ben was so wired, I knew it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to touch him, but I walked over and stood near him. I leaned against the wall and tried to look calm. His grip on the windowsill loosened.

  “Is it always that hard to watch?” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “When someone inexperienced goes into a precog trance, there’s always a risk that they’ll have trouble coming out of it, or that it will harm them somehow. The risk is slight, and we always take precautions. But with that sense of doom Eve said she was feeling… Let’s just say it was especially hard to watch this time.”

  Thankfully, Eve recovered quickly. Kai and Vani helped her off of the bed. She appeared tense, but otherwise fine. “Ben,” she said.

  He was at her side in an instant. She tugged at his sleeve and took him over to sit with her on the couch. She tapped the coffee table. “Does anyone have a pen and paper?”

  Kai produced these, and Eve leaned over the table. We all gathered nearby to watch. She drew a large circle and put several dots on it. “Okay,” she said. “This is the earth, and these dots, these places—they’re toxic, like black mold. This one—” she tapped one of the dots with her finger— “this one is Mercier.”

  My hand flew up to cover my mouth as she continued. “I saw thin lines of black smoke rising from these dots. Most faded into the atmosphere; some connected with each other. But a huge cloud of smoke rose up out of Mercier, and it drew in all of the other thin lines like a magnet. The more lines that connected with Mercier’s cloud, the bigger it grew, until it was covering the whole earth.” Eve shuddered. “I think it was the dark cloud I saw through the door on my first attempt at the trance. It’s bad, Ben. It’s…it’s destructive, evil. It blocked out the sun’s light.”

  “The rising darkness Malcolm warned us about,” Kai whispered.

  Eve nodded. “I focused in to try to see what was underneath the clouds, but it was so thick. I did catch a glimpse of something, though.” She began to draw squiggly lines leading away from each of the black dots. “I heard a bunch of loud pops—like fireworks, or maybe gunshots. Then I could see rivers flowing out of each of these places, but…” She paused and swallowed hard. “The rivers were red.”

  Pete’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, that can’t be good.”

  “Yeah. It didn’t feel good, that’s for sure.” Eve flopped back against the couch. “And then I thought the vision was over, but it zoomed in on Mercier, and—oooh!” She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “It’s okay, Eve,” Ben said. “What is it?”

  She turned and looked at him, taking his hand in hers as though Ben were the one in need of comforting. “I saw you. You were lying on the floor in some kind of shed. You weren’t moving and…and your head was bleeding.”

  A rivulet of tears slid down Eve’s cheek. Ben tucked his thumb beneath the cuff of his shirt and used it to dry her face. Both his voice and his smile were filled with warmth as he said, “Eve, listen. What you just did was incredibly brave. You need to worry about yourself right now, not me—especially because the last bit of the story sounds an awful lot like my paintball accident. I’d wager that your vision ended exactly when you thought it did, and then a frightening memory intruded into your thoughts. But the rest of what you saw is so valuable. Thank you so much for doing that.”

  Eve didn’t appear convinced, but she smiled. “You’re probably right. I hope it helps. Just promise me you’ll be careful?”

  “Always.” He spoke with a depth of conviction that seemed to calm her.

  It didn’t calm me, though. First of all, I knew that Ben put his own safety pretty far down on his priority list. Everyone else in that room came ahead of him, as far as he was concerned—along with his mother, our patients, and innocent bystanders, for goodness’ sake. Secondly, in Eve’s vision, he was lying on the floor of a shed, not moving, bleeding from the head—none of which had happened when Ben got shot with the paintball. Cold dread wound its way through my body.

  We talked about the significance of what Eve had seen and how it fit in with what Malcolm’s spirit had told Kai and me. Whatever this rising darkness was, it was scattered around the earth, but Mercier—the head of the snake—was the center, and was going to draw in the rest somehow. The meaning of the cloud blocking out the sun’s light wasn’t as clear, but we connected it with Malcolm’s pronouncement that our group had been given stewardship over the “gifts of light,” or paranormal abilities. Kai guessed that somehow, by stopping whatever was happening at Mercier, we would be protecting sensitives, or at least keeping gifts like ours from becoming weapons of evil. And we all agreed that only something truly evil could make the rivers run red, even if that image turned out to be just a metaphor.

  The whole room fell into a torpor. There was a long silence as everyone felt the weight of the responsibility we suddenly bore. It was too much, too big—almost paralyzing.

  “All right,” Ben said, breaking the spell. He stood and began pacing the room. “What else have we got? Any new information?”

  Vani went first. She had been quietly reading as many auras as she could. She sensed that Michael and Liv were excited to be a part of Team Forward, but assuming their drug use was part of Skeet’s research, there wasn’t anything unscrupulous about them, aside from perhaps a willingness to overlook suspicious events if it meant getting a bigger paycheck. Skeet was more complex. Vani said his aura revealed genuine passion and feeling, both for his work and for the people he cared about. He was also concealing a lot, and had been infected with some dark energy, but it hadn’t yet penetrated to his core. She got the sense that his morals had stretched to fit whatever corrupt activities he was involved in, to the point that he really didn’t believe that he was doing anything wrong.

  Hencock and Tucker were another matter. Vani said that their auras were so full of rot that she couldn’t bear to read them for long. She was able to tell that they were the reverse of Skeet—corrupt at the core, but with well-developed exterior shells of civility and charm. Like most people, she said, they weren’t entirely evil; on some level, they had convinced themselves that whatever they were doing was right. But they were mistaken, and the evil had formed such deep roots that she warned us to assume the worst and not to trust one word that came out of their mouths.

  Asa didn’t have much to report, since Ben had put him under strict orders not to use his telepathic skills. Unless Kai put him into an
elaborate trance, reading minds gave Asa serious migraines. Asa did say that Skeet, the other owners, Team Forward, and the security staff all must have donned telepath-blocking devices, because he had done some preliminary probing, and their minds appeared to him like closed books. However, he had spent some productive time with Michael, who had been quite happy to share some techniques for reading minds without getting headaches. Asa had been practicing a little—“just on Owen, and he’s easy to read, so don’t get mad, Ben”—and he was getting better at it. Asa offered to jump in and help “when things go sideways. I mean if,” he added quickly. Asa had proven to be a valuable asset in dicey situations in the past, so Ben said they’d discuss later how he might put his new skills to use.

  Then Pete gave us his update. He’d been making some plans with our contacts outside of the lodge to keep eyes on Ben and me during our yacht trip. The muskrat trappers, Lonzie and Clayton, said they and some of their waterman friends would be scattered throughout the area, keeping us in their line of sight while we were on the water.

  “Just out of curiosity, what’s in it for them?” Kai asked.

  “They know something shady is going on in Mercier,” Pete said. “This is their backyard, remember, so they want to find out what exactly the deal is just as much as we do.” He tipped his hat back and rubbed his hairline. “Of course, even though they’re helping us out for their own reasons, they’re also doing us a favor, so it’s only right that we should show our appreciation. I managed to strike up a conversation with one of those Opretec bodyguards at the bar downstairs. Turns out they’re into those ushanka hats, and would love to get their hands on some muskrat skins wholesale.”