Blood Dreams

Chapter Eighteen

DANI TURNED IN her seat, noting as she did that Marc shot a quick glance at the rearview mirror so he could see the agent's face. A face that was, Dani saw, just a little strained and far more pale than was normal for her.

"I gather that wasn't the non sequitur it sounded like?" Dani said.

Hollis was looking at Dani. Or, rather, her gaze seemed to be probing the space about a foot out from Dani's body.

"No. It wasn't a non sequitur. It was… completely on topic."

"Which topic?" Marc demanded. "On the topic of monsters." Dani forced a laugh. "Who, me?"

"No." Hollis met Dani's eyes finally, her own holding a weirdly flat shine. "Dani, can you shield?"

"A little. Not much, but-"

"Do it. Now. Concentrate."

Dani obeyed without hesitation, closing her eyes and doing her best one more time to remember how she'd been taught to wrap herself in a protective blanket of her own energy. It didn't seem to be getting any easier.

Through gritted teeth, Marc said to Hollis, "What the hell do you see?"

"Something I've never seen before." Hollis's voice was low, tense. "But I believe… it's not a normal aura. It's an attack of some kind. Someone or something is trying to get at Dani. Marc-"

He didn't wait for whatever Hollis had been about to say but instantly reached over with one hand and covered both of Dani's cold and tightly clenched ones, holding on even when he felt a jolt, even when she cried out in such pain that it broke something inside him.

Without another sound, Dani went limp.

Dani looked around, puzzled for a moment because there was nothing but darkness as far as she could see, and silence, and she had the feeling she was alone here. Perhaps it should have frightened her, but oddly it did not.

She couldn't feel a floor or ground beneath her feet. She couldn't, actually, feel her feet, and when she looked down she couldn't see them, because her body just sort of dissolved into darkness.

That probably should have scared her too.

It probably should have scared her a lot.

"No, you were always more comfortable with this sort of thing than I was," Paris said as she mostly emerged out of the darkness in front of Dani.

"I'm the one who tried to run away from it," Dani pointed out, not as distracted as she should have been by the fact that Paris seemed to have a body only from the navel up.

"It was the stuff out there you were running away from, the stuff you couldn't control. People, relationships. Emotional stuff. The psychic stuff was always easier for you."

"I can't control this."

"Oh, of course you can. You always could."

"Bullshit."

"To paraphrase what you said to Marc, that'll fix things-a good, resounding bullshit."

"I didn't tell you what I said to Marc."

"Mmm. Never mind that now. Just remind yourself that you really can control this. Later, when you think about it, when it matters. Don't forget."

"What's happening later?"

"You'll need to know stuff."

"Paris-"

"It's all right, Dani. Some things are meant to happen just the way they happen. We both knew this was one of them, right? We both know that's why you really came home."

For the first time, uneasiness stirred in Dani, cold and deep. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you do."

"No. I don't."

"I wasn't in your vision dream. Right from the beginning. Before you told anybody. Before you came here. Before you did anything at all to affect what you had seen. I should have been there with you, and I wasn't."

"So? It's one of the things I knew would change."

"No, Dani. It's one of the things you knew wouldn't change. That's why you've been so shut inside yourself. Why you've kept Marc from getting close the way he wants to, and why you even shut me out."

"I never-"

"Dani. The only time you let me in was during the dream walk. Not before then. Not since. Because you were afraid. Because you thought there'd be a moment, somewhere along the way, when you could change things. This one particular thing. If you were strong enough. Quick enough. If you tried hard enough. But that's not the way it works, you know."

"Paris-"

"Miranda said it. No matter what we see or what we dream, the universe has a plan. All this was part of the plan."

"I won't accept that," Dani whispered.

"Afraid you don't really have a choice, sis. Besides, you've already accepted it. We both have. That's why we didn't need to talk about it all these weeks while you were letting me cry on your shoulder, and cried yourself, about the end of my marriage. We both knew that wasn't the only ending we were grieving."

"Paris-"

"I'm glad you came back here after the divorce. Have I told you that? How much it meant to me that you came?"

"You didn't have to say anything. I knew."

"We always do, don't we? The best part about being a twin. All the things we don't have to say."

"There are things we do. Paris-"

"Listen, what Shirley Arledge told Hollis is right: He's tricking you. Look past the trick, Dani. You know the truth, it's there in your vision dream. Just think it through."

"I can't do this by myself."

"You won't be by yourself. A twin is never alone, no matter what." Paris was already drifting back into the darkness. "And you can do what you have to, Dani. When the time comes. You'll know. You'll make the right choice."

"Paris, come back!"

"It's okay." Her voice was faint and fading. "I've got something for you, something you can use. I think it was always supposed to be yours anyway. Come see me before you leave, okay?"

Dani listened as hard as she could, but she couldn't hear her sister anymore.

And the darkness closed in.

Sunday, October 12

Dani resisted opening her eyes for a long time even after she knew she was awake and aware. A part of her wanted to hide, to dive back down into the darkness and search for Paris.

But a stronger part of her knew there was only one way back into that darkness, and willing herself there wasn't it.

She opened her eyes. A hospital room, she thought. Dim and hushed, with machines beeping quietly nearby. There was never a sense of time in a hospital room, Dani had found; there was routine and order, but the nights and the days looked very much alike. Her own internal clock told her hours had passed, that it was probably at least late Sunday morning.

Which meant she'd been out a long time. She wondered with faint amusement what the doctors had made of her.

Somewhere in the building, a medical paper was probably being drafted.

She was distracted from that thought by the realization that there was a shadowy figure in the far corner of the room, but it was the closer presence she was far, far more aware of.

"Dani…"

She turned her head to see Marc beside her hospital bed, holding her hand. He looked incredibly relieved and incredibly weary, older than he had looked yesterday.

We pay such a price.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

Dani considered, then nodded. "Good. I feel good." More than that, really. She felt strong. Stronger than she'd ever felt before, and in a way that was completely unfamiliar to her. It wasn't muscles, it was…

Power.

"Dani… something's happened."

She nodded again. "I know. Paris."

He didn't seem surprised by her knowledge but offered details. "She isn't dead. At least-The doctors say it's a coma. They can't explain it. But they couldn't explain you either." He shook his head. "They're saying she's showing some brain activity, and as long as that continues, there's hope."

Dani knew. She heard the clock in her head ticking off the remaining days-or hours, or maybe just minutes-of Paris's hope. There was so little time left.

Bishop came out of the shadows to stand at the foot of her bed. "I'm sorry, Dani."

She looked at him. "I never thought we'd meet with those words, even though I dreamed them. Sort of. But I get it. You knew he'd come after one of us."

"Yes. Something Miranda saw. But… it could have been either one of you. There was no way for us to be sure."

"Until I started hearing his voice in my head."

Without flinching, Bishop said, "At first I believed he'd choose Paris as one of his victims. When she wasn't a part of your vision dream, not beside you when she should have been, and once Miranda was out of the picture, that seemed the obvious answer."

"You were going to use her. Watch her, follow her. Wait for him to go after her. Bait on a hook."

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "But it seemed our best chance of catching him. It bothered me from the beginning that neither of you really fit his victim profile, but from the beginning here he was veering from that, at least in terms of coloring. I had to assume his ritual was changing in some fundamental way, and that meant it was possible he was choosing victims using some other criteria and then… making them fit. Both of you could be made to fit.

"You were still dreaming, and Paris was still missing from that dream. That vision dream. But then the killer's M.O. began to change in drastic, unpredictable ways, and quickly. Very quickly. That… neon crime scene. Being a little too obvious in stalking and photographing Marie Goode, a previous victim's jewelry left in her home, plus flowers."

"Too obvious," Dani said, half to herself. "Look at me, look what I'm doing."

Bishop nodded. "Not at all in character for the Boston serial. Not a kind of progression, a kind of evolution, I've ever seen before in a serial killer."

"And yet."

He nodded again. "And yet. We were sure this was the same killer even before we got here, positive in our own minds even without evidence to back that up. Since then, Hollis had seen Becky Huntley, later Shirley Arledge; both of them and Karen Norvell were the right physical type, matching the victims in Boston. And you were hearing that voice, a confirmation of our suspicion that we might be dealing with a psychic killer."

Marc said roughly, "How is that any kind of confirmation of anything?"

Dani looked at him. "I knew," she said simply. "I kept trying to tell myself that I wasn't really hearing an alien voice in my head, that it was just some… weird psychic fluke, a leftover echo from one of the doom dreams I couldn't remember anymore. Anything. Anything but the truth. That he was real. That he was here. And that he had found a way to connect with me."

"Which," Bishop said, "caused me to believe that you, not Paris, were his intended target."

"I kept walking into his trap," Dani said. "In the vision dream, no matter what else changed, that never did. I knew it was a trap, always, every time, and every time I walked into it."

"Yes, another sign that you were the one he was focused on. We didn't leave Paris unprotected," Bishop said. "But I thought he'd come after you."

Marc, his voice still harsh, said, "If you knew the bastard was psychic, why didn't you expect this kind of attack?"

"Because this kind of attack, a psychic attack, is more rare than hen's teeth," Bishop told him. "It just doesn't happen, especially when there's no blood connection. And he hadn't shown any sign that he had even attempted such a thing before."

"There was no way for you to know," Dani said, her fingers tightening in Marc's. "If our abilities worked that way, we'd have all the answers."

"I'd settle for just one or two I can hang my hat on," Marc told her. "Dammit, Dani, you nearly died. Nothing touched you, nobody laid a finger on you, and you nearly died."

There was more than anxiety in his voice, and she heard it and wished she could wrap herself in it and in him and just stop everything else. For a while. Just a while. But the clock in her head refused to stop ticking, and even though she squeezed Marc's hand again, she forced herself to concentrate on what Bishop was saying.

"Which is why an SCU guardian is on the way here to keep watching. Over you."

"I don't need a guardian."

"Dani-"

"But someone else does, if I'm right. This guardian of yours, what's his ability?"

"Her ability. I choose guardians carefully; among other things, she has a shield she can extend around someone else."

"Psychic protection. Good. Then I need her to stand guard over Paris."

Bishop was frowning but nodded immediately. "Done."

He thought he owed her, Dani thought. And she wasn't at all sure he wasn't right about that.

She looked at Marc. "I have a hunch you won't be getting too far away from me for the duration, right?" It was more than a hunch.

She knew.

Marc was nodding. "Bet your ass. But I'm no psychic guardian, Dani. I can't protect you from another attack like this one."

She wasn't so sure about that, but all she said was, "I think he went after Paris a lot harder than he did me. And I think I know why. I'm not sure about the timing of everything, but I get the motive. I think. Anyway, unless the vision dream changes drastically the next time around, I'm there at the end. Paris… never was." She looked back at Bishop. "Like you said."

He was silent.

"But Miranda was there. Or, at least, I thought she was, even if I never actually saw her. Which, I suppose, should have told me more than it did." Dani didn't pause to explain that, instead asking, "Is she safe?"

Bishop nodded. "I took the threat very seriously. She's as safe as I can possibly make her. She has exceptionally strong shields and is guarded around the clock by other psychics with strong shields. We have several guardians in the unit."

Dani remembered something else. "You're connected, the two of you. Telepathically."

Bishop didn't hesitate. "Yes."

"I'd close that connection, if I were you."

"Easier said than done." He shrugged. "We can narrow the link, but the only thing we've found to shut it down completely severs it."

"Death?"

"Death."

She made a mental note to ask for specifics on that story if they all survived, and said, "Well, my advice is to narrow the link as much as you can. He used the one between Paris and me to attack both of us, and I have a hunch he didn't use all his strength to do it. Hollis warned me just in time, and I was able to deflect him at least a little. But even though my connection with Paris is as much blood as it is psychic, it's also an old one; it hasn't been active in any real sense for years. If yours and Miranda's is as… deep as I believe it is, he could use it against the two of you. He knows you're here, so all he has to do is follow the connection back to Miranda."

Half under his breath, Marc said, "You make it sound like a road."

"It is, psychically speaking," Dani told him.

Bishop's mind was moving along a different pathway. "Dani, what do you know about this killer that I don't know?"

She drew a deep breath, and said, "If I'm right, I know the one thing he really, really doesn't want you to know. We're not just dealing with a vicious serial killer who's psychic. This enemy is your enemy. This trap I've seen from the beginning? The one we all walk into even knowing what it is? It's a trap set for you."