Mona Lisa Eclipsing

EIGHT

I WAS OPERATING blindly in so many ways, I should have been terrified. And if not terrified, then exhausted and drained, as I usually felt after expending so much energy to compel another’s will. But I was none of those things. I was flying on fear and adrenaline instead of crashed out on the floor in a weak and helpless puddle, not at all tired, even though I’d held the compulsion for more than five minutes—by far the longest I’d ever done so. A lot of things, it seemed, had changed in those six months of lost memory.

I changed back into my own clothes, which Maria had neatly mended and washed. Grabbing my passport and money, I left with Carlos before the additional guards Roberto had called in to protect the house arrived. Moments later, I was in the car, being driven by Carlos to wherever Roberto had taken the prisoner—a friend whose name I didn’t even know yet—to be questioned. Or, in franker terms, to be tortured and then killed.

I looked nervously over at the swarthy bodyguard behind the wheel.

With a final flexing of will, I had implanted in Carlos the false impression that we were fleeing an attack on the house. Things seemed to be going well so far—no suspicious glances at me yet. I didn’t know how long the compulsion would last. In the hospital in New York, I’d used my ability only in short spurts, to provide quick comfort. Not for anything as elaborate as what I was doing now.

“How much farther?” I asked.

“Just ahead.” He seemed to mean it literally as he turned into a driveway and pulled in front of an old house that would have looked quite ordinary were it not for the two men posted outside armed with small machine pistols. A rapid flurry of Spanish was exchanged between Carlos and one of the guards, the other bodyguard who had been in the shoot-out, and I wondered for the umpteenth time if what I planned to do wasn’t just crazy but maybe sheer suicide. Then I was inside, with Roberto walking toward me, frowning fiercely. Two other armed men, new guys, followed behind him wielding more of those nasty-looking weapons.

“Thank God!” I cried, throwing myself into Roberto’s very surprised arms. “The big bandit attacked the house and may have followed us here.”

At Roberto’s sharp command, the two guards rushed outside.

“This is not acceptable,” I said, words that at my implanted suggestion caused Carlos to slump to the ground sound asleep. In a flash of speed and strength, I slammed the silver bullet I was holding into Roberto’s back, embedding it deep in his flesh, somewhere he would have a hard time reaching.

The silver rendered Roberto weak and slow, just as it had done to his captive. I stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth and secured it with Roberto’s own silk tie, all done in the blink of an eye. In the next ticking second, both of his arms were cuffed behind his back, the handcuffs borrowed from the sleeping Carlos.

“That should do it for you,” I said, satisfied. Not bothering to secure him further, I pulled Roberto’s gun from its holster and dashed outside. It was almost unfair how easy it was to knock out the two guards with careful, restrained blows to the backs of their heads. A quick hunt for the other two men, who were checking the perimeter, and it was over by the time Roberto stumbled outside, enraged sounds coming from his gagged mouth. I threw the automatic pistols, one after the other, into the surrounding forest.

“Join me,” I said, pulling Roberto back inside. He struggled but in his weakened state was no match against greater strength. I followed the smell of blood and the sound of a slow heartbeat, even slower than mine, to the basement.

I ended up carrying Roberto down the stairs with me—easier to do that than get him to voluntarily walk down them—and set him back on his feet at the bottom of the steps. Tugging him behind me, I threw open the door to the room where that single slow heartbeat thudded.