Blood Ties

CHAPTER 13

“AM I RIGHT?” Diana asked her guide. “Is one of the truths I’m here to uncover the truth that Samuel wasn’t destroyed at the church Compound like the report said?”

Matter-of-fact, Brooke said, “He was killed. You know that’s true because your friends were there. Quentin was there.”

“Yeah, but… he—Quentin said the energies there that day were really strange and everybody was affected by them. That there was lightning plus the weird energies plus several psychics using their abilities in ways they never had before. That was where Hollis found out she could heal herself after Samuel tried to kill her. And the little girl—Ruby. She helped the Haven operatives and SCU agents fool Samuel.”

Brooke was silent, merely looking at Diana serenely.

“They did an autopsy before he was cremated,” Diana said. “I read it. I looked at the damn stomach-turning photos. The doctors wanted to know if there was anything different about him physically. Bishop wanted to know the same thing.”

“And what did they find?” Brooke asked.

“His brain was … They said it wasn’t normal. Wasn’t healthy. Not tumors or anything, not cancer, just not healthy. Something about the color of the tissue and the weight of the brain. They said they’d never seen anything like it.” She hesitated. “Maybe because of all the electrical energy he channeled, his brain was… changed.”

Again, Brooke’s reaction was silent waiting.

Diana hardly noticed, thoughts and speculations tumbling through her mind almost too fast to absorb. “But they believed they destroyed his psychic abilities before he died. Burned them out, using a massive blast of pure energy he couldn’t withstand. They were almost certain. He was no threat, no threat at all.” She stared at the grave, seemingly young guide. “Were they wrong about that?”

Brooke countered with another question. “Were they the only ones capable of deception, do you suppose?”

Diana looked around at the grayish but gleaming corridor, endless, stretching both ways as far as she could see, all the doors featureless. Except for the single one with a cross, a shape that seemed now to be scorched into the metal. “He fooled them?”

“What do you think?”

“I think Bishop isn’t easy to fool. Quentin isn’t easy to fool.”

“Maybe it wasn’t easy. Maybe it cost Samuel—a lot.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe he had to learn what everyone has to. That even the best-laid plans seldom go as we expect. Maybe he didn’t have quite the mastery over his own fate that he believed he would.”

Diana frowned. “So he somehow fooled them… but lost control there at the end.”

“Maybe.”

Thinking about it, a very unsettling question occurred to Diana. “Can you kill pure evil? Can you destroy it?”

“What do you think?”

Diana drew a breath and let it out slowly. “He didn’t move on,” she whispered, the realization an icy lump in the pit of her belly. “He was ready for them somehow, ready….”

She returned her gaze to Brooke’s calm face. “He had premonitions. He saw the future. Is it possible he knew what would happen? Possible he knew how they meant to destroy him?”

Brooke pursed her lips, for all the world as if discussing something casually. “Well, premonitions are tricky beasts, and interpreting them isn’t always easy. You can know the fact of something without necessarily knowing how it will come about.”

Diana considered that, her mind still racing. “So he might have known he’d lose. That no matter what it was they meant to do, no matter how hard he was able to fight them, in the end he’d still lose. They’d take his abilities. He might even have known that someone close to him would take his life. And knowing that, he would have planned. He would have found a way… for something of himself to survive.”

“Energy is never destroyed,” Brooke pointed out. “Only transformed.”

“Bishop knows that.”

“Maybe he and the others believed the energy was transformed. There was so much power all around them when they were fighting Samuel, even in them. Changing them. And at the end there were so many broken bodies to mend—and to bury. And Samuel was gone.”

“Maybe,” Diana finished, “they needed to believe that.”

Brooke nodded. “Maybe they did.”

Diana felt a cold so deep her bones ached with it. She had been so cold for so long she wondered if it was possible to ever be warm again.

She looked around once again at the corridor, at the representation of a place where more than one evil soul had done terrible things. “That’s why I keep coming back here to this place. To this… representation. Because this is where he grew so powerful. Where he absorbed so much dark energy his evil creature created. This is where he meant to destroy them the first time. Bishop, the others. Where he tried.”

“Tried and failed,” Brooke reminded her.

“Yes. But he lived to try again. Lived to grow stronger. And that time he was in a place where he felt even more powerful. The closest thing he had to a home. So why am I not there, at the church’s Compound? Why is this place more important?”

Brooke was silent.

This place. Corridors. Shiny and sterile. Endless corridors… A place to move through…

And then she got it.

“He’s here, isn’t he? Here in the gray time. His spirit didn’t… That black and twisted spirit found a way somehow to stay in the gray time all these months. To hide here.”

“Do you think it was in his nature to hide?” Brooke asked neutrally.

Diana’s answer came slowly. “No. No, I read the profile on him. He was all about attention, adulation. Worship. But… it would have been in his nature to wait, maybe. If he had a plan. If he believed there was a way for him to go back.”

“How could he do that? Go back? His body is ashes now, scattered on the wind.”

“He’d need another one,” Diana said automatically. “If he means to go all the way back, means to live again in the flesh. If he finds a way to do that, the power to do that. It’s…just barely possible. I’ve seen it happen before. {see Chill of Fear} But it wasn’t permanent. The struggle of two minds for dominance, the energy of two souls in one body is—”

She broke off, and for one dizzying moment the whole gray time world seemed to spin around her. “He isn’t—he won’t—he doesn’t want my body. Does he?”

Dispassionate, Brooke said, “If that was his plan, I would say two things went wrong for him. Your injuries were far more severe than he’d anticipated, and Quentin refused to let go.”

Diana looked at her numbly, and Brooke nodded. “Whatever his plan might have been, this is the reality. He’s been trapped in this cold, desolate place for a long time, and he wants to live again.”

“But—”

“He wants to live again, Diana.”

Serenade

Miranda was regretting her impulse to answer the insistent questions of the young TV-journalist-wannabe even before she glanced several feet away to see Tony watching with slightly raised brows and Jaylene looking rather pointedly at her watch. Easy to read their expressions without the need for telepathy. They were all exhausted, and if they hurried they might be able to sleep an hour or three before they had to be up and at it again.

So why wasn’t she hurrying?

God knew she was so tired she was responding on automatic anyway, offering nothing useful to the eager blonde with the sharp eyes of some bird of prey that most probably ate its young.

I’m too tired for this. Bound to make mistakes. Time to go.

“… Ms. Welborne, I appreciate that you’re trying to do your job, but I can’t say anything more. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Agent—”

That was when the world blew up.

Miranda was still looking at the younger woman, and even though she knew it was all happening in split seconds, time seemed to almost stop so that she saw every horrible detail.

Naomi Welborne’s face just sort of… split and flopped open. Blood and bits of tissue sprayed Miranda, almost blinding her. The TV reporter jerked to one side and started to go down, still holding her microphone.

Only then did they hear the craa-aack of the high-powered rifle.

After that things happened fast.

Miranda’s instincts and training kicked into gear, and she dove toward the nearest building, hooking an arm around the stunned cameraman to take him down as well. A quick look showed her that her people were also diving for cover, as were the other cops and feds. Even the few remaining media on the other side of the crime-scene tape had the sense to at least hit the deck.

The same glance showed her that Jaylene had been hit in the upper arm and was pretty much being dragged by Tony behind one of the big decorative trash containers on the sidewalk.

Wonder if the bastard meant to get two again… Where the hell is he… has to be using a night scope…

A weird silence fell.

Miranda found her weapon in her hand even though she had no memory of reaching for it. Her dive had taken both her and the cameraman into the shadows of a three-story building; a quick and rough calculation told her she was most likely out of the sniper’s line of sight.

Most likely.

“Jaylene?” she called.

“I’m okay. Just a flesh wound. Tony’s already got the bleeding stopped.” She sounded calm.

Tony called out, “She needs a medic, Miranda.” He, too, sounded a lot calmer than he had any right to be.

From closer to the mobile command center, Dean called, “Shot came from the south, definitely. Angle says he’s in or on a building close by, not farther away or higher up. We’ve got people fanning out.”

“Have them stick close to the buildings,” Miranda responded, barely having to raise her voice in the eerie silence. “Every building checked, Dean, and when they’re clear I want somebody posted at every entrance and exit.”

“We’ll run out of manpower.”

“Use what we’ve got until reinforcements arrive. Have one deputy or agent cover more than one door whenever possible. If we can’t find this bastard, we can at least flush him out and force him to move farther away. This is not going to become his goddamn shooting gallery.”

“Copy that.”

In an almost conversational tone, Tony said, “We have reinforcements coming?”

“We do now,” Miranda replied.

“Great. What about the reporter? Any hope?”

“No. She’s gone.” A whimpering sound drew her attention, and Miranda looked down at the cameraman lying like a log beside her on the pavement. “Are you okay?” she asked mechanically, even as her mind registered the absurdity of the question. There were spatters of blood on one side of his face, and a small piece of what looked like brain tissue clung to the lens of his camera.

He stared at her with huge, unseeing eyes and continued to whimper like a terrified child.

Miranda couldn’t really blame him. Some part of her wanted to curl up somewhere and whimper. But that wasn’t a part she could give in to. She hesitated for only a moment and then reached to activate a small device hidden in her ear.

“Roxanne?”

“Here. Sorry, Miranda—I don’t know how he slipped past us.” The voice in her ear was quiet, but more because it was faint than because Roxanne was speaking quietly. They hadn’t been sure these new coms would work in this area at all, but with the help of the tactical command center’s booster antennas, the signals were at least somewhat effective within a half-mile to a mile radius here in the downtown area.

“Never mind that now. Can you sense him?”

“That’s the thing. We’ve been trying and we can’t. It’s like there’s some kind of interference; both of us have headaches, and we don’t get headaches. Even now we can’t tell you for sure where he was, whether he’s on the move, or where he’s heading. Nothing.”

“Copy that.” There wasn’t much else Miranda could say.

“We were watching Main Street.” Roxanne’s voice was grim now. “Saw what happened. Gabe’s guess of the trajectory is that the bastard was on the roof of that two-story building by the library at the south end of Main Street. But it’s just a guess. We’re headed there now.”

“Watch yourself.”

“Copy that.”

The cameraman was whimpering louder.

Ignoring him, Miranda raised her voice to say, “Tony, can you get Jaylene to the command center?”

“Yeah, I think so. Can you move?”

“Well, since I don’t intend to lie here all day, I’m damn well going to try.” It had been, she realized, no more than five minutes since the sniper’s bullet had killed the reporter.

The sky was lightening as night edged toward dawn; it wouldn’t be long before the people who worked in the downtown restaurants showed up to begin cooking breakfast. And following soon after would be the townsfolk who normally ate breakfast at their favorite spots before beginning their own busy days.

Normal days.

I wonder if this town will ever be normal again.

“Come on,” she said to the cameraman.

“I—I don’t—”

“I don’t either,” she said grimly. “But I think a moving target will be harder to hit than a stationary one, don’t you?”

He gave a choked gasp and then turned onto his belly and scurried like a crab toward the building.

He left his camera. Miranda picked it up and followed him, not scurrying but keeping low. When they were pressed up against the building, she led the way north toward the command center.

Although why I don’t think he’d shoot some kind of explosive shell in there is beyond me.

Because it looked as if someone had definitely declared war in this once-peaceful little town.

The question was, who?

Hollis started awake, emerging from a nightmare filled with blood and fire and screams, her heart pounding.

DeMarco’s arms tightened around her. “Go back to sleep.”

Confused, she realized that they were in bed together. Well, not in bed together, but on a bed together. Not under the covers, certainly, but only their clothing separated them. She was on her side and he was behind her—close behind her, so that she could feel just about every inch of him—with his arms around her.

She was very conscious of his heart beating steadily against her back and his breath stirring her hair.

Okay, how did this happen?

“Your attempt to heal Diana wiped you out,” he said.

“Will you stop that?” Despite her best efforts, her voice was a bit unsteady.

“It was logical that would be your question.”

“Yeah, you always say something like that. I don’t believe you.” She realized they were in a tiny bare room lit only by a dim lamp on a low nightstand in one corner. And the bed was… not large. Still in the hospital? If so, not in a typical patient’s room. Maybe a room where interns and residents napped when on call?

“How did I—how did we—get here?”

“I carried you.”

Carried me?

“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say about that.

“Go back to sleep,” he repeated. “It isn’t even seven-thirty, so you barely got in a nap. And you really need to rest.”

“What about Diana? Did I help her at all?”

“I think so. The nurse who ran us out said Diana’s vital signs were more stable than they’d been all night.”

“We were run out?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She waited a moment, then prompted, “Why were we run out?” It wasn’t the only detail about which she was fuzzy. She remembered making the attempt to help Diana heal, remembered the hot pulse of energy that seemed to well up inside her own body, and then… nothing. It was as if she’d fallen into a deep black hole of silence.

DeMarco said, “Visiting an ICU patient without permission at five in the morning generally raises the ire of the nursing staff.”

“Oh.” She seemed to keep falling back on that useful syllable.

There was a big part of Hollis that wanted to just relax and enjoy the warmth and odd sense of security she felt lying there with him, but another part of her felt wary to the point of having to fight not to stiffen up. The battle was a rather subdued one, however, since she was so tired she could hardly think straight anyway.

“You need to rest,” he repeated.

“I’ve been resting. Apparently.”

“You’ve been unconscious. Big difference.”

“I feel fine,” she lied.

“Hollis. You need to sleep.”

She hesitated and then, because it was easier when she wasn’t looking at him, said, “I think I’m afraid to sleep. Afraid I might get drawn into the gray time when I’m not strong enough to pull myself back out again.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I think I had one foot in there earlier. Or… something a lot like it.”

“And I think you’re in a hospital holding a lot of pain, where a lot of people have died, and you’re a medium. They looked more real to you because that sense was wide open, and your other ones were all but shut down from exhaustion.”

Hollis thought about that and decided she liked his explanation better than her own. Because his explanation enabled her to give way to the weariness and begin to relax again. And once she began to relax… “Or it could be my eyes,” she said, blinking sleepily, trying to keep the little lamp in focus.

“Your eyes?”

“Well… these eyes. They aren’t mine, you know.”

“Of course they’re yours.”

“I mean I wasn’t born with them.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you? Did you read my file or my mind?”

“Go to sleep, Hollis.”

She closed her eyes finally but murmured, “I see differently with them, you know. Through them.”

“Do you?”

“Uh-huh. Hard to explain. Colors are different. Sometimes… my depth perception is … off. And there are… lions. I mean lines. Extra lines around things. Some things. Sometimes. Plus … the auras… around… living things. It’s… weird. I think… I’m weird….”

DeMarco waited a moment longer, but her even breathing told him she was finally asleep again. He didn’t relax but instead concentrated—as he had been concentrating during the last couple of hours—on keeping his shield extended just far enough to enclose Hollis as well as himself.

It was something of an experiment, since he’d never attempted to use his shield this way before, but he knew it was possible: Miranda could do it, and some of the SCU guardians, like Bailey, could too. And since he was able to project some of his energy outward to dampen the strength of other psychics, he figured—as Hollis had in her attempt to heal Diana—that it was worth a try.

Something he had to try, since he knew damn well that Hollis didn’t have the energy or strength right now to wander around in the gray time. And if that was where Diana’s spirit had gone, if she had opened that door, then Hollis would most certainly be drawn there when she slept and what few guards she could claim—virtually all of them emotional ones—came down.

She was completely defenseless when she slept. He actually had to concentrate to avoid reading her, and even when he did so he could still hear the distant whispers of her thoughts, her dreams.

She was not going to like that. At all.

He wasn’t entirely certain he liked it himself. Not, at least, as it stood now. Just as she had felt she had one foot in the gray time, he felt he had only a partial connection to her, and that one very elusive and uncertain. Not so surprising, considering that they had met only a few months ago and both had been too active in investigations since to have much of a personal life. Still, he knew what he wanted.

DeMarco was a patient man, but he had lived on the edge far too long to have any illusions about the security of one’s life. As Quentin had discovered in a single horrifying moment, time could run out in a heartbeat, leaving the most important words unsaid—possibly forever.

But he also understood what had kept Quentin silent for so many months; being a telepath, DeMarco had picked up information he undoubtedly had no right or business knowing, and the unsought and unwanted insight told him that Diana had more emotional scars than any woman should have to carry in a lifetime.

Rather like Hollis.

One woman kept medicated by doctors and a domineering father since childhood, supposedly for her own good, forced to drift through her own life with no say in her future; one woman brutalized in a horrific attack that had left her terribly damaged, body and soul. And both with powerful psychic gifts they continually struggled to master.

It was no wonder the men in their lives—and the men who wanted to be—faced an uphill battle.

DeMarco allowed that realization to rise in his mind, then dismissed it. He had never walked away from a fight in his life and didn’t intend to start now.

He concentrated on shoring up his shield, his arms tightening around Hollis to hold her securely, even as a thread of his awareness remained focused on that room down the hall where Diana clung to life.

DeMarco was utterly convinced that both women were in deadly danger, and not only from a sniper’s bullets.

Serenade

There hadn’t been time for sleep after all, but at least Miranda and a couple of the others—they divided into shifts for the purpose—had been able to grab a hot shower and change before sitting down to a more than welcome breakfast at the B&B. Jewel and Lizzie, very subdued, served them and then left them alone.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Miranda asked Jaylene.

“Good to go. The medics put in a few stitches and gave me a shot to guard against infection. I don’t even have to wear a sling. I’m fine, Miranda, honestly.” She paused. “How are you? I mean, even with everything we see in this job, having somebody’s head just about blown off right in front of you has got to be traumatic.”

“I imagine it’ll hit me later,” Miranda replied, knowing she sounded almost as tired as she felt. She fleetingly remembered looking into the bathroom mirror before her shower and the shock she’d felt at the blood on her face, but she shoved that aside. Later. Because she didn’t have time right now to sort through her own emotions.

There was so damn much to do.

Dean was still out, supervising agents and deputies in the grimly methodical sweep of the town that had yet to discover any sign of the sniper—other than another mocking shell casing left circled for them to find. Galen was still missing, a fact Tony had to comment on.

“Where is he? Because we could sure as hell use him.”

“We are using him.” Miranda shook her head at his inquisitive look. “Trust me, Tony, he’s where he needs to be.”

Sighing, Tony said, “I guess I should have expected there to be a few things you haven’t told us. God knows it’s become business as usual for the SCU.”

At least he doesn’t sound bitter about it.

Miranda forced herself to eat a few more bites of the food she was sure tasted delicious under other circumstances, fought the surge of queasiness, and then looked at Tony and Jaylene. Longtime SCU agents. Trusted agents. Friends.

Slowly, she said, “Neither of you was involved in the investigation into Samuel and his church, so you weren’t there at the end, when Noah and the others confronted him. Neither was I. But Noah and I are connected, you know that. So, to a certain extent, whatever affects him also affects me.”

Jaylene asked, “How did it affect him?”

“We’re still working that out. But let’s just say it hasn’t been a positive experience for either of us. You may have noticed he isn’t here. And on a case this serious he normally would be.”

Tony said, “He’s been keeping tabs on the investigation, obviously. And as usual, he seems to have a pretty damn good idea where any of the rest of us are at any given moment. Voodoo, I call it.”

Miranda knew he wasn’t serious but said, “It’s always been one of his gifts that when Noah cares, a connection gets formed.”

“Voodoo,” Tony insisted. Then he grinned faintly when she looked at him. “Somehow I find that thought more acceptable.”

“You’re weird,” Jaylene told him.

“Without doubt.” He sobered. “With things happening so fast, lousy technical communication, and no time for reports, I assume he’s mostly keeping tabs through your link?”

Miranda shrugged. “Some. No matter how much we shut it down, things get through. Thoughts. Emotions. I know he’s been worried; he knows I’m tired. Like that. But there’s… something different I feel in him now. Something darker.”

“Should we be worried?” Tony asked slowly.

“Honestly, I don’t know. Whatever’s going on, he seems to be handling it. For now, at least.”

They absorbed that for a moment in silence. Finally Jaylene said, “I thought he was working on trying to find out who was reporting SCU information and actions back to the Director.”

“He has been.”

“And?”

In a deliberate tone, Miranda said, “Whatever he knows he hasn’t shared.”

Tony was frowning slightly. “Is that why you’ve both been shut down tight as a couple of drums pretty much for weeks now?”

She nodded. “It’s been difficult. For him and, honestly, between us. He’s changed. Everyone there at the church that day was changed by what happened. Literally changed. There was so much energy in the very air around them, and so much of it was dark, negative. Some of the changes have been… unpredictable.”

“In what way?” Tony asked.

“Not following any pattern recognizable to us even after all the years of study and fieldwork we’ve accumulated. Hollis made a quantum leap forward in psychic terms, you both know that. She changed the most and is still changing, probably because she took a direct hit from Samuel and nearly died from it. But Galen also took a direct hit, and despite the fact that he isn’t psychic in the traditional sense, he’s been experiencing some phenomena we can’t explain.”

“Such as?” Jaylene was intent, patient.

“He almost reads as telepathic,” Miranda said. “But not quite. We carried out what tests and experiments we could before he lost patience, and all we were left with was the knowledge that since that confrontation at the Compound, he sometimes, faintly, hears voices.”

“Normal if he’s a telepath,” Tony said. “But not so normal if he isn’t.”

“Exactly.”

Jaylene said, “He seems the same as before to me. I mean, nothing appears to be bothering him.”

“He’s not the sort to show what he feels. But I think we can all assume he’s having a difficult time with the situation.”

“Then why’s he here?” Tony asked bluntly.

Miranda grimaced. “Because one of the voices told him he needed to be here.”

After a moment of silence, Tony said, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Sorry.”

“But… Miranda, if he’s not psychic—”

“I know, believe me. If he’s not psychic, he could be schizophrenic, even psychotic. Tell me, have you seen any signs of either?”

“No. But I’m not a doctor, shrink or medical.”

“Neither am I. But I’ve known Galen a few years now, and I don’t believe there could be such a fundamental shift in his personality without those changes leaving very obvious signs. Or at the very least detectable ones.”

“So you trust he’s mentally healthy?”

“As much as any of us is,” she murmured.

Jaylene said, “Did the voice happen to tell him why he needs to be here?”

“No.”

“Forgive me for sounding paranoid, but do you know that for a fact or only because he told you so?”

“Because he told me. I’m not reading much of anything from anyone right now. Closed down tight as a drum, remember? The fact that Hollis got through—loud and clear, no less—before the bomb exploded says more about her strengthening abilities than about mine.”

“Is she a telepath now?” Jaylene asked.

“Not in the sense we understand. She can’t receive at all, as far as we can tell. But she’s gone beyond simple broadcasting because of the lack of a shield. She can send—and at full wattage, as Quentin would say.”

“That could be a handy little tool,” Jaylene said, thoughtful.

“Yeah, we’re hoping it will be.” Assuming all this doesn’t overload her brain…

“Are your abilities changing?” Tony asked. “I mean, because Bishop was there at the church Compound, and through him, through your connection, whatever happened affected you as well?”

“Yes. My abilities are… changing. And, before you ask, I’m not entirely sure just how they’re changing, only that they are.” Before they could probe more into specifics, she added, “Like I said, the others there that day were changed too. Quentin isn’t aware of it, but he’s developing a secondary ability; Paige picked up on it during the debrief afterward.”

Paige Gilbert was the unit’s “Geiger counter,” as Quentin had dubbed her: a psychic whose specialities were detecting latent and active psychic abilities in others—and defining specific abilities those psychics might be totally unaware of possessing. She was always present at post-investigation debriefs, another tool Bishop used to regularly monitor the condition of his people.

“What kind of secondary ability?” Tony asked.

“She wasn’t sure.”

“Paige wasn’t sure?” With a better than eighty percent accuracy rate, she was one of the strongest psychics on the team.

“No. She said she was, for want of a better definition, getting some kind of interference when she tried to read anyone who was there at the Compound that day. Crackling, like static. And the interference hasn’t cleared up in the months since.”

“I don’t much like the sound of that.”

“Neither did Noah. And neither do I.”

There was a long silence, and then Jaylene said, “Why do I get the feeling you didn’t bring this up just to explain some changes we might have seen in the team?”

“Maybe because neither one of us believes in coincidence. There’s been something off about this case from the very beginning, and so far the only thing that keeps turning up, in one way or another, is Samuel.”

“But Samuel’s dead,” Tony said slowly.

“Yes. He is. But how many times have we faced the certainty that, in our world, dead doesn’t necessarily mean gone?”