Hold Back the Dark

by Kay Hooper

  Having not looked into the living room once, he moved away from the feds toward the phone.

  Hollis braced herself, something no one but her partner would have known since there was no betraying outward sign, and then the two of them moved just inside the living room.

  There was, really, no way to brace the mind and senses against anything in that room, and it was emotionally devastating as well. Even for strangers who hadn’t known the family.

  The photos, horrific though they were, had not really shown the truly shocking amount of blood and the utterly senseless, brutally twisted slaughter. The scene was literally an assault on more than the senses.

  They both stood just inside the room, near the door but to one side, moving no closer to the bodies than necessary to see what they needed to see. Because they didn’t want to disturb the scene Jill and her assistant would minutely examine and photograph. And because neither of them needed to get any closer.

  After a moment, quiet, Hollis said, “First time I’ve had to study the scene of a multiple homicide. Just realized that. Or kids.”

  “Makes it worse that it’s a family with kids,” DeMarco said. “Not something you’ll ever get used to.” His voice was steady with the kind of control Hollis understood and shared.

  “Not something I’d ever want to get used to.” She glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Archer was still using the phone, then lowered her voice. “Are you sensing anything?”

  They were both shielding, but DeMarco was using only half his double shield, and Hollis’s shield was still a bit undependable.

  “Just what we both felt from the time we reached the valley,” he replied just as quietly. “My skin’s crawling faintly and there’s a sense of pressure. It’s bearable right now, not really a distraction, but if the effect gets stronger or is cumulative . . .”

  “You should probably use both shields,” she told him.

  “I’d rather not just yet.”

  She looked at him and managed a faint smile. “I’m fine. If it comes to that, you can extend your shield to cover me too. But in the meantime, one of us needs to use all the protection possible. This . . . isn’t sane. Whatever’s behind it. We need to make sure we have at least one sane and protected mind on our side. Just in case.”

  “It’s the just in case that bothers me,” he told her. “If we’re right about at least part of what happened here, what’s continuing to happen, it’s also possible, maybe even probable, that neither one of us is immune, shields or not.”

  “Reese, we need to know if the connection is still there even through both your shields. Just because it worked on the island doesn’t mean it’ll work here. Especially with all this damned energy, never mind the horror of all this.” She resisted an impulse to rub her arms. She wasn’t cold, but her skin was faintly tingling, crawling, just as DeMarco had described. It was a distinctly unpleasant sensation.

  He nodded reluctantly, and a moment later she was more relieved than she wanted to admit to hear a familiar mind-voice.

  Okay. Both shields. My skin isn’t crawling anymore. I’m aware of that faint pressure, but just barely. Normal senses seem to be working. And I can still feel our connection. It feels strong to me. How about you?

  Yes. Thank God. Your other senses really are okay?

  Seem to be.

  Telepathy? I mean outside our connection?

  Some static, but I can read Archer clearly enough.

  Panic underneath the horror?

  You’re getting that through me?

  Yeah.

  Better than I expected, then.

  Same here.

  Archer stepped back to the doorway, keeping his gaze on them rather than looking into the room. “The doctors have stopped trying to wake Leslie Gardner. They said it was probably best to wait and see anyway. They’re baffled as hell, that’s clear.”

  Without looking at him, Hollis said more than asked, “All her vitals are normal, I take it.”

  “Yeah. By every measurement they know, she’s asleep.” He waited, watching the two feds as they stood only a few feet away and studied the room. As far as he could tell, neither one of them had a queasy lump of horrified sick fear in the pits of their stomachs.

  It might have been easy to resent their control, their seeming indifference to this scene of slaughter, except that they exchanged glances just then—and he could, for a brief moment, see the sick emotions that training and experience hid beneath control.

  They felt it too.

  Agent Templeton looked at Archer steadily. “Normally—if I can use that word—we’d want to check out the entire house. Look for signs of behavior to explain this. Profile the scene.”

  “But not this time?”

  “No. We don’t believe doing that would help us to understand what happened here. Why it happened.”

  “Why not?” he asked, mostly because he couldn’t think of another question.

  “You had another violent death today, a suicide,” she said, maybe answering his question. “Sam Bowers?”

  “Yeah. Nice, ordinary family man blew his brains out with a shotgun this morning. Just sat down on a couch in the basement, dressed for work, put both barrels of his shotgun under his chin, and . . . In the basement, with his wife and kids upstairs.” Archer drew a breath and let it out slowly. “What’s left of him is at the hospital morgue, waiting for Dr. Easton. The local doc I called to the scene said he wasn’t up to the job. I didn’t blame him. He’ll assist her if needed, but the last time I saw him, he was throwing up everything he’d ever eaten in his life.”

  “I can relate.” She nodded, then immediately added, “Bowers didn’t leave a note?”

  “We thought he didn’t. Looked for one in the basement, the rest of the house. None of us were too eager to touch the body, and there didn’t seem to be any question as to who he was, so his body wasn’t searched at the scene. But then when he was lifted to go into the body bag, the doc heard something. Paper. It was in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. It’s at the station now. Bagged.”

  She nodded again. “What did it say?”

  “It didn’t make sense,” Archer told the two feds. “It was . . . crazy. The same sentence repeated over and over, all down the page, with the handwriting getting worse and worse. All it said was . . . Just me, not them. Over and over again. Just me, not them.”

  EIGHT

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8

  Galen had come into Prosperity separately from Hollis and DeMarco and a bit earlier, in an ordinary light-colored sedan that didn’t scream fed or anything else to attract attention. As per orders, he drove around the town of Prosperity and surrounding neighborhoods, seeing what he could see in the daylight that was rapidly becoming twilight.

  His psychic ability—if it could be called that, and he had often doubted so aloud—was not one that required any sort of mental shield. But in his work for the SCU, he was most often cast in the role of watcher or guardian, and both suited his innately guarded, watchful nature, all of which had built or intensified a pretty impressive shield.

  He was, other psychics had told him, buttoned up tight.

  But that natural shielding had failed him during the SCU’s extended investigation of a deadly, charismatic cult leader more than a year before, and though not another soul blamed him for what went down, he still blamed himself for the terrible toll taken when everything hit the fan, the loss of innocents, and the blows dealt to the SCU.

  No matter what Bishop said to the contrary.

  Galen had taken time away from the SCU after that, time he’d badly needed to come to terms with what had happened because the blows to him had been both unexpected and deeply personal. And time he’d needed to also come to terms with his own once-latent and now-awakened abilities.

  Bishop hadn’t said anything about that, about new abilities, a
nd neither had Galen. All Bishop had said, mildly, was that Galen’s natural shield had developed into one that was “nearly seamless.”

  Seamless or not, Galen’s shield had not stopped the blast of sensations that had summoned other psychics to Prosperity. Even though he had not been summoned himself. And yet he had been. Galen hadn’t explained it to anyone, least of all himself; all he knew was that he needed to be here. That he had a part to play as well in whatever would happen here.

  And once in the valley, he had felt the energy. His skin wasn’t crawling, but he was nevertheless aware of it. The longer he drove around, minding the speed limit and not otherwise calling attention to himself, the more aware of it he became. It was . . . pressure. Something bearing down on him.

  And on Prosperity.

  It was not pleasant.

  At first glance, both citizens of Prosperity and obvious tourists looked and seemed perfectly normal. But Galen looked closer, and he observed signs that virtually everyone he saw was both a little tense and almost imperceptibly distracted. He noted a few arguments breaking out here and there, nothing violent but . . . tense. Unusual sort of thing to see out in public in a small town like this one.

  Then again, he was also aware by the time he had completed a very thorough exploration inside the town limits of Prosperity and around the periphery that details of the morning’s inexplicable suicide had gotten out, that details of this same day’s multiple homicide were also spreading rapidly, so it was no wonder people appeared tense.

  They were quite likely scared shitless.

  Galen had not contacted Base or the team of Hollis and DeMarco in order to learn about the multiple homicide; there was a single radio station in town, and even though the local news report had been interrupted frequently by bursts of static, Galen heard what he needed to over his car’s radio. He’d already tried his cell, but, as Hollis and DeMarco had suspected and warned Base before coming into town, it proved to be useless. There should have been a strong signal given the four very tall cell towers he’d seen well placed in the valley, but on his cell the bars indicating signal strength were literally dancing up and down, from absolutely no signal to a full-strength signal—the entire end-to-end dance lasting for about three seconds. Not nearly long enough to even attempt a call or text.

  He turned it off and tossed it over his shoulder to land on his go bag in the backseat.

  Then, having explored as much as he could before darkness made that a fairly useless proposition, he turned his car toward the sheriff’s department to meet up with Hollis and DeMarco, as previously agreed.

  His timing was perfect. He pulled into a parking slot beside the newly arrived hulking black SUV before its brake lights could go off.

  Getting out of his car, he spared a long moment to study the Foxx County Sheriff’s Department. He found it to be a newish, fair-sized two-story building two streets back from Main and occupying most of a block if you included the sizable parking lot beside and behind the building.

  It looked more than adequate, especially since Prosperity was the only town of any size in the county.

  He joined Hollis and DeMarco on the sidewalk in front of their vehicles. “Local radio reported the multiple homicide,” he said.

  Neither of them appeared surprised that he hadn’t bothered with a hello.

  Hollis said, “Yeah, we heard the report on the way over here, even if the SUV’s radio was crackling with static. How’s your shield?” she added, not bothering to lower her voice because there was no one within earshot.

  “Pressure,” he replied.

  “Nothing else?”

  Galen shook his head in a slight movement.

  Hollis eyed him for a moment, then looked at her partner and said dryly, “It’s a good thing you’ve started to be more talkative. Otherwise I’d mostly be talking to myself.”

  “I thought you did that anyway,” Galen said.

  Refusing to take the bait except with a brief narrowing of her eyes, Hollis merely said, “The medical examiner is someone we’ve worked with before, Jill Easton. She’s clairvoyant, one of those Bishop wanted but didn’t get—except occasionally as part of the state networks of docs trained to serve as MEs. She’s still at the scene of the multiple. We only had a minute to warn her to shore up her shields, but she seemed calm enough before the warning, so maybe she won’t be adversely affected. Hopefully, anyway.”

  Galen nodded.

  “We’re supposed to meet with Sheriff Archer and his chief deputy inside. Unless the plan’s changed or something happens along the way to change it, Bishop’s sending Victoria and Logan in tonight, and the rest tomorrow.”

  “I know Victoria’s supposed to have a strong shield,” Galen said. “But Logan?”

  “We think it’s a good idea to find out how a medium reacts to the energy in this valley.”

  It was Galen’s turn to eye Hollis. He had a couple of questions but asked only one. “You don’t already know?”

  “Afraid not. My primary ability, but not my only one, so I can’t really be sure. I’m trying to keep my shield up, but my skin’s crawling a bit. My guess is that what I’m feeling isn’t spiritual energy, but Logan’s the only one who may be able to tell us that for certain, because that’s definitely his whole focus. And it’s something we need to rule out—or rule in. To help define this energy.”

  “Have you seen any spirits?”

  “No.” She frowned suddenly. “Though, to be honest, I haven’t been looking for them. Maybe my shield is stronger than we thought. Or maybe this energy is interfering.”

  DeMarco said, “Probably both. You said the spirit who told you we had to come here was . . . different somehow.”

  “Yeah. Sort of . . . wavery. Sort of like heat off pavement. But since she was crying I was too busy trying not to cry to figure out what else might be going on.”

  Galen said, “The downside of multiple abilities.”

  “One of them,” she agreed ruefully. “And the empath thing is newest and was triggered in a different way, so it’s giving me more trouble. This whole valley is filled with freaked-out people. And not just spooked, but scared and tense and irritable as hell. A state of affairs I expect to get worse before it gets better.” She drew a breath and added calmly, “So if I start snapping at you guys, don’t take it personally.”

  Galen glanced at DeMarco and noted that Hollis’s partner was a bit tense himself, something he rarely showed. “Both shields?” he asked.

  “Yeah. And holding. A sense of pressure, apparently what you’re sensing, but it’s not bad.”

  “Then she’s the one you’re tense about?”

  “She is standing right here,” Hollis snapped. Then she closed her eyes briefly, lifting both hands unconsciously palm-out in a “hold it” gesture. Then she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket, settled her shoulders, and stared at Galen. “Sorry. Since we don’t know just how this energy is going to affect us, especially over time, we thought at least one of us should be as protected as possible. That means Reese keeps both shields up. But he’s still aware of how I’m feeling. Which, yes, is very tense.”

  “Got it,” Galen murmured.

  “So, right now, you and Reese are as protected as any of us are likely to be from this energy. And from whatever it’s doing to people. We hope. We also hope Victoria’s shield will be solid here, and will protect her.”

  “And Logan?”

  It was DeMarco who said, “Risky as hell, but we need to know if this is spiritual energy. If it is, he should know quickly enough. And even though he hasn’t been able to shut out spiritual energy, Bishop believes he does have a kind of shield.”

  “A kind of shield?”

  “His words, not mine.”

  “And,” Hollis said, “Logan was summoned. They all were.”

  “By some . . . force . . . we know n
othing about,” Galen reminded them. “I don’t like it when I get invited to a party by somebody I don’t know. It stinks. I still say it could be a trap.”

  “Of course it could,” Hollis said. “But considering that only eight psychics were summoned, it seems like an odd way to go about setting a trap for only a handful of us. There are a hell of a lot more than eight just here in our country, quite a few arguably quite powerful. And why invite us here at all?”

  “That’s true of this whole damned thing. Why are we here?”

  “What we’re here to try and find out,” she reminded him. She began to turn toward the walkway to the front doors of the sheriff’s department and stopped as though she’d run into a wall, her slender body racked with a sudden, visible shudder. Even in the deepening twilight, it was obvious she went pale.

  “Hollis?”

  She looked at her partner, for a moment almost blindly, then said in a very steady voice, “We need to hurry.”

  Neither of the two men asked questions.

  * * *

  • • •

  ARCHER MET THEM just inside the sheriff’s department, in the lobby, which was fairly spacious and contained a couple of benches for anybody who needed to wait and a high desk, behind which sat a very alert deputy. Glass doors opened on either side of the lobby, both, as typical of most law enforcement buildings given the current troubled times, guarded by coded locks, the number pad beside each mute evidence of security measures.

  Hollis introduced Galen, aware by the fact that the sheriff looked no worse than he had at the Gardner home that news of another event had not yet reached the station. But she knew it was coming, and soon.

  She had felt it, two sharp bursts of pain tangled with shock and confusion. And then nothing. Whatever she’d felt wasn’t close, she thought. At a guess, whatever had happened had been on the outskirts of Prosperity. At another guess, they were beyond help.

  She knew Reese was aware of what she had felt, but they had decided on the way from the multiple homicide scene that the mind talk that was so much a part of their connection now should be used only when they were alone or needed to communicate something privately. Otherwise, things were apt to get confusing.