Hold Back the Dark

by Kay Hooper

  Someone had told her once it was because she was wholly a receiver, her own energy not the sort that would blast outward and interfere with electronics of any kind.

  Whatever. As long as it gave her an edge.

  She keyed in the single preprogrammed number and leaned back in her chair, staring at nothing as she waited for him to answer.

  “Bishop.”

  “Hey, there, it’s Reno. Funny thing happened at brunch today,” Reno said. “Thought you might be interested.”

  TWO

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7

  “Oh, God.” Special Agent Tony Harte groaned, holding his head with both hands. “What the hell was that?”

  His boss, Special Crimes Unit Chief Noah Bishop, shook his own head slightly, then grimaced and lifted a hand to rub his left temple, where a rather exotic white streak stood out starkly in his thick black hair. He was far paler than normal, and his sentry-sharp pale gray eyes were darker than Tony had ever seen them, like tarnished silver.

  “Vision?” Tony demanded. “Because I’ll swear I saw colors I’ve never seen before. I didn’t pick up all that from you, surely?” He was a clairvoyant, though not a particularly strong one; even so, he had been known to easily pick up information, experiences, and even emotions from other SCU agents, especially if they were “broadcasting” for some reason.

  Bishop looked down at the legal pad lying before him on the conference table in the room at Quantico where the SCU teams usually met to discuss cases, and where he and Tony had been, in fact, going over several cold cases, as they regularly did, as evidenced by a dozen or so folders scattered on the table.

  “Not a normal vision,” Bishop said finally, characteristically answering only one of the questions asked. He looked at the pen in his right hand with a brief frown before dropping it into a cup of pencils and pens nearby on the table.

  “That’s an oxymoron,” Tony said, scrabbling in the first-aid case he had located in a cabinet. “Normal vision. Our kind, I mean. If we’re out of aspirin, I’m gonna kill somebody.”

  Special Agent Miranda Bishop, walking rather carefully, came into the room just then, a legal pad beneath one arm, holding something in that closed hand and a large bottle of OTC painkillers in the other hand. She caught Tony’s eye and tossed him the bottle.

  “Try these.”

  “Thanks.”

  Miranda sat down beside her husband at the conference table and held out her closed hand, opening it to reveal several capsules. “Here, take these.” And before Bishop, notoriously unwilling to take anything that might blunt any of his senses, could shape a refusal, she added, “I know exactly what your head feels like. Take them. We both need to be able to think clearly.”

  Bishop looked at his wife’s startlingly lovely face, now unusually pale, her electric blue eyes dark with pain, and he swallowed the capsules.

  Beloved?

  I’m all right. Getting there, anyway. Was worried about our connection since I couldn’t . . . feel you there for a while. But as long as that’s all right, then we’re all right.

  Yes, love. We’re all right.

  You couldn’t feel me either, though, could you? While it was happening?

  No. But we’re fine now. Whatever that was . . . I don’t believe it intended to damage us.

  Noah . . . What’s coming . . . Can it be stopped?

  If it can be stopped, we’ll do all we can to stop it. We’ve been warned, and a heads-up from the universe is . . . rare.

  We weren’t summoned. Not us, not directly.

  No. But we were shown enough that I can’t help believing we’re meant to help those summoned. We have resources. Experience. Knowledge most of those summoned can’t possibly have.

  But we can’t interfere.

  Not once it really starts. Once they’re in place and it all begins to evolve. But I think we have a little time before that—otherwise, why the warning? Time to gather, to plan. Which means what we do in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours is critical.

  Yes. Darling . . . if we fail, if they fail . . .

  Then the world will see evil in forms only we’ve seen until now. Forms none of their armies can fight, none of their weapons can destroy.

  It should have sounded melodramatic. It did not.

  Her hand found his, beneath the table, their fingers twining together on his upper thigh. Because sometimes the physical connection of flesh to flesh was more comforting even than the very deep and very intimate psychic one.

  Tony, a handful of painkillers in him now and oblivious of the mind talk that Bishop and Miranda tended to limit with others around so as to avoid confusion, looked at the other two. “What was that?” he asked again. “I’ve never felt anything like it in my life.”

  Miranda looked at him. “What did you feel? Besides the pain, I mean.”

  “Dizzy and sick, and like the skin was trying to crawl off my bones,” he replied succinctly. Then, going even more pale, he pushed himself back away from the table as he had before, rolling his chair rather than standing, and reached for a landline phone on a nearby shelf. “Shit. Kendra.”

  While he checked in with his very pregnant wife, who had only just gone on maternity leave, Miranda looked at her husband. “If that affected the whole unit . . .”

  “They’ll start calling in.” One of the few ironclad rules in the SCU was that if any agent experienced anything out of the ordinary that could even loosely be connected to their psychic abilities, they were to report in to base—meaning Bishop—ASAP. It was always his cell number, though most agents knew that wherever he happened to be, which could be literally anywhere in the world, he made sure he had close access to a landline or satellite phone, and that was where the call would be forwarded.

  Most powerful psychics could seldom carry a working cell phone for any normal length of time; with few exceptions, the more powerful the psychic, the quicker cell phones went dead, despite all the attempts by various brilliant scientists both in the FBI and elsewhere to figure out a way to fix that sometimes dangerous problem.

  Bishop leaned forward and reached out his free hand to the multi-lined conference phone on the table, keying in the preprogrammed command that would forward any call made to his cell number to any of the six separate lines shared by the conference phone and three other landline phones set up permanently in the room. The phone Tony was using was one of them; two more phones sat on small desks on either side of the door leading out to the hallway. The spacious room’s other door led out to the SCU bullpen, visible through three large glass panes along that wall.

  The bullpen was currently occupied only by administrative staff, since all other SCU agents save those in the conference room were either away on leave, inactive for whatever reason, or else working cases scattered across the country.

  “We’ll need a fourth agent to help man the phones in here,” he said almost absently. “At least. Preferably SCU, and not administrative.”

  “Galen’s here today,” Miranda said.

  Bishop looked at her.

  She nodded. “He’s been in and out the last couple of weeks, while you were on the St. Louis case. Still closed down tight as a drum, but I think he’s getting restless. I heard he’s run the trainee course several times, and he’s been at the shooting range half a dozen times. So, though he hasn’t gone anywhere near his desk, he’s been . . . around. Just about every day. Making small talk, which we both know is hardly his way. This thing could be what it takes to bring him off official leave and back to the unit. Because if this is . . . as bad as we saw, then we may need a Guardian in the worst way, an experienced Watcher. Especially given who’s been . . . summoned. And always assuming they answer the summons.”

  She had placed her legal pad on the table before them when she’d joined him, and now she pushed it toward him a few inches. On the pad were written—rather
shakily, with her normally clear handwriting showing severe stress—three names: Olivia Castle, Logan Alexander, and Reno Bellman.

  Bishop barely glanced at the names, for the moment far more concerned about his wife.

  It hit you harder than it did me, beloved.

  I wonder why.

  My guess would be your connection with Bonnie. Your instinct is always to reach out and protect her, especially when something unusual and potentially threatening happens. It’s instinct, deeper than thought. That moment of reaching out left you vulnerable to the sheer power of . . . whatever this is.

  Bonnie was Miranda’s younger sister, currently on track to graduate early from the University of Virginia, where she lived on campus with her longtime boyfriend, Seth, who was in medical school there. And though both Miranda and Bishop did everything they could to provide a normal life for her and keep her far from the difficult and dangerous life’s work they had chosen, Bonnie was a born medium-healer, exceptionally powerful, and she possessed a very strong psychic connection to her sister, something not uncommon among blood siblings, especially in a family that had produced psychics for generations.

  And most especially when they had only had each other for too many years after their family had been devastated.

  She’s safe, I feel that. Not among the summoned, thank God.

  And I believe I know why. We’ll find out soon enough about our own people, but my guess is that psychics with specific individual abilities were summoned with, perhaps, some others with similar abilities not summoned because they’re intended to be held in reserve.

  In case the first line of defense fails?

  If this warning is due to some kind of attack or something we’ve never before dealt with, yes. We won’t know until everyone checks in or is located, but . . .

  “I think most of them will at least call in,” he said out loud. “Especially if they experienced some version of what we saw and felt.” Bishop pushed the legal pad on the table in front of him toward her until it touched hers. On his legal pad were written the names Sully Maitland, Victoria Stark, and Dalton Davenport.

  Leaning an elbow on the table as she absently rubbed the back of her neck, Miranda studied the names on his legal pad. “Not the same names I got, but all of them are high on the ‘maybe one day’ list, some for years. People you’ve kept a close eye on. And the abilities of these six run the gamut and then some. But why untrained people, lacking experience as well as unwilling, or unable, for one reason or another, to be feds, cops, or other kinds of investigators?”

  “There’s always a reason,” Bishop noted.

  “If we can only figure it out. Or if they can.” Her gaze was still on the legal pads. “Medium, telekinetic, seer and clairvoyant, empath— Did we ever come up with a definition for Victoria’s ability?”

  “No,” Bishop replied, adding rather cryptically, “and I’m still not convinced she has only the one.”

  “I remember she refused to be tested.”

  “Repeatedly. And since she has exceptionally strong shields, none of us could read her. Those shields could help protect her. But we can have no idea of her control, or how her ability could change in the field.”

  “That’s true of all of them, really.”

  Bishop nodded slowly. “We always gain the best and most useful information on most psychics involved during multiple investigations over time. But these psychics haven’t been tested in the field; they’ve been tested in trying to live ordinary lives, which was all most of them could cope with, and even that gave most of them problems. With the possible exceptions of Reno and Sully, I wouldn’t say any of them lives normal lives. But . . . in the field on this, it could all be so much worse for them . . . The situation is already radically different from anything we’ve encountered, and we barely know anything about it at this point, nothing about what’s going on or could be starting in Prosperity. How to fight it, what the cost could be. We can’t predict anything unless there’s another vision, can’t extrapolate from data because we don’t really have any.”

  Miranda knew her husband too well not to know that he was deeply troubled by this unprecedented situation and the extreme, if undefined, threat they both knew it represented, but she also knew that only time and a successful resolution to . . . whatever this was . . . could really ease his mind.

  Assuming a successful resolution could be achieved.

  Calm, she said, “I have a hunch we’ll have a lot more data once our people and the others begin checking in.” She kept her eyes on the legal pad, adding, “And rounding out the list is a telepath. When was the last time you talked to Dalton?”

  “Six months ago.”

  “How was he holding up?”

  Bishop made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Not at all happy to hear from me. He was still living in Alaska. About as far away from people as he could get without going out into the wilderness and totally off the grid. And wary as he is, he doesn’t want to be that alone.”

  “So not quite ready to sacrifice civilization,” she noted.

  “No. He has ties whether he’s willing to admit it, ties he isn’t able to completely sever, and he’s holding on to the phone when he could have tossed it, so not willing to disappear.”

  “But you’re sure he was summoned? Like these others?”

  “I’m sure he got the call, just like you’re sure the people on your list got the call. Just not entirely sure if he’ll answer it with anything but a grim no, at least initially. He spent most of the twenty-five years since he was a kid medicated to the gills, institutionalized, thinking, if he was able to think clearly at all, that he was crazy, and listening to doctors telling him almost daily that he was delusional. It really is amazing that he emerged from that sane.”

  “I know you hoped Diana could reach him, since she’s the only one in the unit with a past similar to his.”

  “Similar,” Bishop said, “but not the same. Diana’s mediumistic instincts kept themselves alive and functional at a subconscious level from her childhood on in spite of all the meds and so-called therapy, and her father’s determination to fix her—or just control her. And she wasn’t institutionalized.”

  Miranda said, “You’re right. It’s almost impossible to imagine how Dalton came through that sane.”

  “I’m not at all sure he believes he’s sane.”

  “Well . . . neither did Diana. For a long time.”

  “Yes. And she wasn’t locked away completely from anything like a normal life, or surrounded by people with real, serious mental illnesses for years on end. At least her father never subjected her to that.”

  “True. And her abilities were exceptionally strong at the subconscious level.”

  “Yeah. But Dalton’s a telepath; in him, the meds dulled and blunted all his senses, including the basic five, so none of them could function properly, and he never got the opportunity to build a shield. With all the drugs out of his system now and all his senses really awake and functional for the first time, he’s like one giant exposed nerve. Even after nearly three years with no meds. They’re out of his system, but . . . he still has so much baggage to drag along behind him. No wonder he wants to stay put.”

  “I know you took Diana with you to see him about a year ago, when he’d been off the meds. For a while.”

  Bishop nodded. “Yeah, but she couldn’t help him, bad as she wanted to, except to tell him she’d found her way through it and he could too. That he wasn’t alone, not that the knowledge seemed to cheer him any. I couldn’t help him except to offer the meditation and biofeedback techniques we’ve developed, and given the state he was in, I doubt he was even capable at the time of being able to concentrate and focus.”

  He shook his head, rather carefully since the painkillers hadn’t completely kicked in. “He didn’t want anybody close enough to touch him, but even though I couldn
’t read him, I got the distinct impression he thought we were all freaks, himself included. And he was pretty definite about not seeing anyone else, most especially an empath. Probably because of his extreme emotional strain. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man that close to the edge. It all takes time and practice to learn how to cope, and it’s an individual thing, we know that. What works for one psychic is no help at all to another. He still didn’t have a handle on it six months ago; I have no idea if things are any better for him now.”

  Miranda half nodded and looked across the table as Tony hung up the phone. “Kendra’s okay?”

  “She didn’t feel a thing,” Tony replied. “Matter of fact, I woke her up from a nap. She asked if she should come in, but I persuaded her to go back to bed. Figure if she didn’t feel anything, she’s not meant to be a part of this. Whatever this is.”

  Miranda nodded again, unsurprised. “Probably left untouched by this because of her pregnancy, and since I’ve never thought of the universe as particularly benevolent, I’m guessing it’s purely a matter of those called or otherwise affected being able to concentrate fully on this . . . situation without fluctuations in hormones or other nonpsychic distractions.”

  “Makes sense,” Bishop agreed.

  “I’m also guessing there may be a few more of our people as well as Haven’s who weren’t affected, for one reason or another. Many if not most of them likely felt . . . something . . . but not a summons. Something that powerful clearly directed out in numerous directions had to produce a spillover of energy, and it likely affected most psychics to some degree. And probably latents and nonpsychics as well, even though they won’t have a clue what happened.”

  “A summons?” Tony rubbed his head, frowning. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on? I have a hell of a headache that came out of nowhere, but I didn’t hear anyone—or anything—calling me, if that’s what you meant by a summons. I didn’t get anything like that.”