Industrial Magic

The Curse of Clear Vision

"When Edward attacked Dana, he said he was doing it for someone," I said. "Someone she heard as 'Nasha.'" I looked at Benicio. "Something stopped the Nasts from putting an office in Cincinnati. A problem that needed to be cleared up first. Would a local pair of serial-killing vampire immortality questers count?"

He gave a slow nod. "A Cabal always investigates the local supernaturals before building a new office. If they have minor concerns, they usually persuade the offenders to relocate. But in a case such as this, on this scale, particularly one that involves vampires… the solution would be a permanent one."

"Kill them."

"Let me make some phone calls," Benicio said. "Before we jump to any conclusions."

"So now you think the Nasts will tell you the truth?"

"No, but with this much detail to prompt their memories, I know people who will."

A half-hour later Benicio confirmed our suspicions. The Nast Cabal had learned of Edward and Natasha's murderous hobby, and decided they wouldn't make good neighbors. According to Benicio's sources, the original plan had been to kill both, but the vampires had outwitted several assassins and fled the country. Unwilling to accept failure so easily, the Cabal sent out one last hit man, who'd managed to behead Natasha. The Nasts then made a mistake. They decided not to spend any more money chasing Edward around the globe. By killing his mate, they'd taught him a lesson he'd not soon forget. And he hadn't.

"They killed Natasha, and he wants revenge," I said. "Understandable… when it comes to attacking the Nasts. But what do the other Cabals have to do with it?"

Lucas looked at his father. "A vampire asked for a private meeting with you in July. The Nasts executed Natasha at the end of August. Presumably, if several assassination attempts had been made, the Nasts had been chasing the pair for at least a month. I would say that the timing of that request wasn't coincidental."

"Edward wanted to speak to the Cortez CEO?" I said. "But why?"

"Presumably to request sanctuary," Lucas said. "That's not uncommon. If you are pursued by one Cabal, the best place to go for help is to another Cabal. If the Boyds and St. Clouds were being honest with us, I suspect they'd admit to similar requests."

"In other words, he went to each of the Cabals for help, and they each turned him down, wouldn't even find out what he wanted. And that pissed him off enough to start killing their kids? This doesn't make sense."

"No," Cassandra said, her first words since we'd begun. "It wouldn't. Not to you."

She moved to the window and opened the blind. For a moment, she just stared outside. Then she turned back toward us.

"You have to see this from a vampire's point of view. Do I think such a slight is grounds for killing someone's children? Of course not. But I can understand why Edward might. What is the life of those children to him? No more than those bodies in his field. A means to an end. Is he killing them because he wants them to die? No. He's killing them because he wants to cause pain, to hurt those who hurt him. They killed his life partner. I don't think you really understand what that means."

"They'd been together a long time," I said. "Obviously, they-"

"Obviously nothing. What do you consider a long marriage in your world? Twenty-five years is a cause for great celebration, isn't it? Edward became a vampire when Queen Victoria took the throne. He'd been one for less than a decade when he went to Russia and met Natasha, who had just become one herself. They have never been apart since. One hundred and fifty years together, with no one else: no parents, no siblings, no children, no friends. Nothing but each other."

"Now she's gone, and he wants revenge. He'll keep killing until he's repaid every Cabal for her death, by killing children from each."

"No, he'll keep killing until he's dead," Cassandra said. "Nothing else will stop him. I have no idea what his plan is, and he may very well have one, but he won't stop when he reaches the end, because he won't feel avenged. How could he? No hurt he inflicts on the Cabals will match his own."

"Okay," said a sleepy voice from the other seat. Jaime opened one eye. "I get the whole 'eternal love' thing and, as weird as it sounds, I think you're right that my spook is this Natasha chick, but that leaves one big question. Why the hell would she want to help us catch her man?"

"Does she?" Lucas said. "I'm not certain that would be a correct interpretation of her actions to date. The only clue she's given us is the vampire lead, which was undoubtedly meant not to tell us that our killer is a vampire, but that she is."

I nodded. "Maybe figuring that if Jaime knew she was a vampire, she'd know the right way to make contact."

"So what does she want?" Jaime asked.

We all looked at Cassandra.

"I don't know her well enough to answer that," Cassandra said. "The only thing I can say, with some certainty, is that she wasn't a passive or unwilling partner in anything Edward did."

"In other words," I said, "she's not suffering a sudden attack of conscience and wants to help us stop Edward before more kids die."

"Definitely not," Cassandra said. "She may be seeking the same thing they sought before her death: protection from a rival Cabal, offering to help you find Edward on the condition that the Cortezes protect him from the Nasts. Or she may be hoping to feed you false information and lead you away from him."

"Doesn't matter either way," Jaime said. "Unless she learns how to carve words in my flesh, she's not telling us anything. Wherever she is, it's out of necro calling range. She's trying her damnedest to change that, but it's not working."

"And where exactly is she?" I said. "Stuck in limbo? Or a demon dimension? Or some separate vampire afterlife? Maybe if we knew…"

"We can look into that," Lucas said. "But we may never find the answer. The important question right now is not where is she, but where is he?"

We knew Edward was almost certainly in Miami. Why go elsewhere when all the Cabals were right here? But where to find him? At this point, we might as well grab a map of Miami, start tossing darts into it, and conduct our search that way.

Benicio left shortly after that to start working the Edward angle with the Cabals-or the Cabals that weren't already working it. Presumably, the moment the Nasts heard the words "vampire suspect" they'd known exactly who was killing their kids and had started searching for him. Of course, it would have been nice if they'd shared that information, but that would also mean sharing the glory when he was caught-and accepting full blame for letting him slide from their grasp in the first place.

"The only way you're going to catch him is when he goes for his next victim," Cassandra said as she settled onto our hotel sofa. "And the best way to do that is to set a trap."

"Not a bad idea," Jaime said. "One possible target-or two of them-are your nephews, Lucas. I'm sure your dad won't want us using them for bait, but he's got the firepower to make sure they're safe. If you're there, it wouldn't be too bad for the kids. They know you-"

Lucas shook his head. "They don't know me."

"Well, maybe not very well, but you're their uncle. They see you at Christmas, family picnics, whatever. They-"

"I mean, quite literally, they don't know me. We've never met, and it's unlikely they know I exist. Not only do my nephews not know me from a stranger, they barely know my father-that's Hector's way of punishing him for his succession choice."

"Okay," Jaime said. "But, still, this guy's going to go after those kids sooner or later. Hector knows that. I'm sure he'd help if it meant his kids would be out of danger for good."

"Not if that help also meant helping me, or an investigation he considers mine."

Jaime shook her head. "Man, and I thought my family was looped. Well, maybe we can use someone else. What about the older Nast boy? The one who came here?"

"Sean?" I said.

"Right. Sure, he's a bit older than the rest, but I bet he'd be willing to do it. And Ed sure as hell wouldn't turn down the chance to knock off another Nast."

"Perhaps," Lucas said. "But I wouldn't know where to find Sean. Thomas removed him and Bryce from Miami the day Stephen was killed. Every Cabal family member under thirty has been evacuated."

"And it won't take long for Edward to figure that out," I said. "When he does, we won't just need to search Miami for him. We'll have a dozen possible victims, in a dozen different cities, to worry about."

"We need to move fast," Lucas said. "To that end, I do have an idea. An instrument of last resort. A clairvoyant."

"Great," Jaime said. "Only one problem. Finding one of those would be tougher than finding Ed himself."

"Not necessarily. I have one among my contacts:"

"Seriously?" Jaime said. "Who?"

"Faye Ashton."

"She's still alive?" Cassandra shook her head. "I'm glad to hear it, but I can't see how she'd be much help. Quite mad."

I shivered. "That's what usually happens, isn't it? To real clairvoyants. Their visions drive them insane. Like the really good nec-" I stopped myself.

"Necromancers," Jaime said. "Don't worry, Paige, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. By the time my Nan died, she was hardly the picture of mental stability. It's worse for the clairvoyants, though. If this Faye is well, fey, how can she help?"

"She can, with effort, clear her thoughts temporarily," Lucas said. "I have an open invitation to use her powers, but given the strain it would place on her already fragile condition, I've never accepted her offer. I haven't visited her at all this trip, knowing that she's likely heard about the case and would want to help."

"She's here?" I said. "In Miami?"

Lucas nodded. "In a private nursing home, a Cortez-run mental-health facility."

"So your dad's looking after her?" I said.

"He should. He's the reason she's in there."

The dictionary defines a clairvoyant as someone who can see objects or actions beyond the natural boundaries of sight. That's a near-perfect description of a true clairvoyant. With the right cues, they can see through the eyes of a person miles away. A good clairvoyant can go beyond mere sight and pick up a sense of their target's intentions or emotions. It's not mind reading, but it's as close as any supernatural can get.

A clairvoyant is also the closest thing the supernatural world has to a soothsayer. None of us can truly foresee the future, yet a clairvoyant can make educated guesses about a person's future actions based on their current situation. For example, if they "see" a person nursing a sore tooth, they can "foresee" that person visiting a dentist in the near future. Some clairvoyants attune this deductive skill to the point where they appear to have the gift of prophecy.

I'd never actually met a clairvoyant. Even my mother met only one in her long life. Like spell-casting, it is an inherited gift, but so few people carry the gene that there are only a handful of clairvoyants born each generation, and they learn to hide their gift right from the cradle. Why? Because their powers are so valuable that anyone who finds a clairvoyant, and reports it to the Cabals, would reap a lottery-size reward.

To a Cabal, a clairvoyant is a prize beyond measure. They are the living equivalent of a crystal ball. Tell me what my enemies are plotting. Tell me what my allies are plotting. Tell me what my family is plotting. A Cabal CEO with a good clairvoyant on staff can double his profits and cut his internal problems in half. And the Cabals fully acknowledge the clairvoyants' value, treating and rewarding them better than any other nonsorcerer employee. So why do the clairvoyants go to extremes to avoid such a dream job? Because it will cost them their sanity.

Good necromancers are plagued by demanding spirits. They're taught how to erect the mental ramparts but, over time, the cracks begin to show, and the best necromancers almost invariably are driven mad by late middle age. To maintain their sanity for as long as possible they must regularly relieve the pressure by lowering the gate and communicating with the spirit world. It's like when Savannah wants something I don't think she should have-after enough pestering, I'll negotiate a compromise, knowing that will grant me a few months of peace before the pleading starts again. Clairvoyants also live with constant encroachments on their mental barricades, images and visions of other lives. When they lower the gate, though, it doesn't quite close properly, and gapes a little more each time.

In effect, the Cabals take the clairvoyants and use them up. The power, and the temptation to use it, is so great that they force the clairvoyant to keep "seeing" until the gates crash down and they are swept into a nightmare world of endless visions, seeing everyone else's lives and losing sight of their own.

That is what Benicio did with Faye Ashton. Lucas's grandfather had taken Faye as a child, then put her aside for safekeeping until she came into her full powers. By then Benicio was CEO. For twenty years, Faye had been the Cortez clairvoyant. A long life span for a clairvoyant, which may suggest that Benicio tried to conserve her powers, but the end result was the same. She went mad, and he put her in the home where she'd lived for the last decade.

Along with some of her powers, she'd retained enough of her sanity to never let Benicio near her again. Lucas, though, was another matter. Not only had she known him since he was a child, but she never turned down the opportunity to help anyone who fought the Cabals. So she'd given Lucas carte blanche to use her powers. Yet he never had. Although she assured him that the occasional "seeing" wasn't going to damage her already ruined mind, he'd always been unwilling to take the chance. Now, though, we had nowhere else to turn.

The nursing home was a century-old manor in a neighborhood where most homes had long since been converted to medical and legal offices, as the cost of maintaining the monstrosities overshadowed their historical value. From the street, the nursing home appeared to be one of the few still used as a private residence, with no signage and a front yard that hadn't been converted into a parking lot.

We parked in the driveway, behind a minivan. At the door, Lucas rang the bell. A few minutes later, an elderly black man opened the door and ushered us inside. When the door closed, it was like stepping into Cortez headquarters. All street noise vanished; I suspected the house had first-rate soundproofing, probably to keep the neighbors from realizing this wasn't a private home.

Inside, nothing disturbed this veneer of domestic normalcy, not a reception desk or nurse's station, not even the usual hospital stink of disinfectant and overcooked food. The front door opened into a tastefully decorated hallway with a parlor to one side and a library on the other. A woman's laugh fluttered down from the second level, followed by a low murmur of conversation. The only smells that greeted us were fresh-cut flowers and fresher-baked bread.

Lucas exchanged greetings with the caretaker, Oscar, and introduced me. As Lucas had explained earlier, both Oscar and his wife, Jeanne, were shamans, a race whose reputation for compassion and stability made them excellent nurses for the mentally ill. This was a long-term care facility, and none of the eight residents were ever expected to leave. All were former Cabal employees. All were here ostensibly because of excellent employee benefits packages, but in reality because the Cortez Cabal was responsible for their madness.

"It's good to see you," Oscar said, patting Lucas on the back as we headed down the hallway. "Been over a year, hasn't it?"

"I've been-"

"Busy." Oscar smiled. "It was an observation, not an accusation. We all know how busy you are."

"How is Faye?"

"No better. No worse. I told her you were coming, so she's ready. Woman's got the strength of a bull. She can be completely catatonic, but the moment I say someone's coming to see her, she pulls it together." He grinned over at me. "Well, unless she doesn't want to see them, in which case she plays possum. I suppose you two are here about those kids being killed."

Lucas nodded. "Does Faye know about it?"

"The damn woman's clairvoyant, boy. Course she knows. We tried to keep the news from her, but she sensed something was up and badgered one of her outside friends into spilling the beans. Been pestering us to get hold of you ever since, but we said, no, Faye, if he wants your help, he'll come get it."

"Has she… seen anything?"

"If she had, I'd have tracked you down. Everyone's been careful not to give her any details. That way she won't start fishing around that big psychic pond and strain herself."

"We can provide her with sufficient details to avoid that," Lucas said. "Yet, if you feel it would still be too great a strain-"

"Don't you answer that," called a strident voice. A small, white-haired woman wheeled herself into the doorway. "You send him away, Oscar Gale, and I'll make your life hell. You know I will."

Oscar smiled. "I wasn't going to do that, Faye. You'll be fine. You always are."

Faye reversed her wheelchair, vanishing into the room. We followed.