Blood Dreams (17 page)

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.”

19

I
’M SORRY ABOUT PARIS,”
Hollis said to Jordan as they waited in the conference room for the others to arrive.

“Yeah, so am I.” He shook his head. “Jesus, it was creepy being with her when it happened. Remember when I said I didn’t know if it was a relief or a regret, me not being psychic? Well, I’ve made up my mind. It’s a relief.”

Hollis smiled wryly. “We are more vulnerable to negative energy than a nonpsychic is, and it has been a problem in the past. But attacks like that one—they’re rare. Very rare. We just haven’t found many psychics who can affect other psychics in even minor ways.”

“No Jedi mind control, huh?”

“Afraid not. Or, at least, not that I know of.” She turned her chair to face the board, where photographs of the three known victims in Venture were pinned, and brooded for a moment in silence. “Bishop has always said that if ever a psychic is born who can completely control his or her abilities, the whole world will change.”

Jordan grunted. “Think he ever considered the psychic might be playing for the other team?”

“I never thought about it before, but Bishop wouldn’t be Bishop if he didn’t consider something from every angle he could find. So I’m guessing it was a possibility in his mind from the get-go. Which could explain at least part of his urgency these last years in putting the unit together and co-founding Haven.”

“Building a psychic army?” Jordan suggested, in a tone not quite as light as he’d intended.

Hollis turned her chair around again and smiled at him. “We don’t want to take over the world, honest.”

Jordan felt his face getting hot. “I know that. Seriously, I do. It’s just…seeing what that bastard did to Paris, knowing now it’s possible to attack someone without laying a finger on them or even being within sight, is…scary as hell.”

“Yes,” Hollis said. “It is.” Then she frowned as the trained investigator in her considered the matter. “But…we don’t actually know he wasn’t close enough to see her. You were here in town, right?”

“Yeah. We’d just stopped for coffee after talking to another of the bank tellers. Fruitlessly, before you ask; she wasn’t even working last summer when Karen Norvell may or may not have been followed.”

“Well, it was a potential lead that had to be explored.”

“Even to a dead end. Christ, I hate dead ends. Anyway, we were just coming out of the coffee shop, and I’ll swear Paris was completely blindsided. I mean, one minute she was laughing and running through a string of dumb metaphors for fruitless searches, and the next she was on the ground.”

“She didn’t say anything?”

“Hollis, she was in the middle of a
word
. And then dropped like a stone. I thought she’d been shot and was braced for the sound. But it never came.” He frowned as his own words brought a realization. “Wait a minute. Why would our killer attack somebody like that, even assuming he’s psychic and could? It’s hardly his M.O.—here or in Boston. Way too bloodless a crime for him, I’m thinking.”

“Yeah, that’s been bugging me.”

“Have a theory you want to trot out?”

“Not really.”

Jordan sighed. “I can’t tell you how much I hate hearing you say that.”

“Sorry.”

“Uh-huh.” After a moment, Jordan added, “We’re just whistling in a graveyard here, aren’t we?”

“Pretty much.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

D
ani wasn’t about to leave the hospital without seeing Paris. The doctors weren’t crazy about her leaving at all, but since her vital signs were utterly normal and she politely but firmly insisted she was fine and was ready to leave now, they really didn’t have much choice in the matter.

Once she was dressed, Marc and Bishop stuck close, escorting her to the IC unit, where Paris lay hooked up to the machines monitoring her faint life signs.

Bishop’s “guardian” was already there, sitting in a chair by the bed, and rose to be introduced simply as Bailey. She was unexpectedly fragile-looking, a tall, slender brunette with large dark eyes so calm and deep they were almost hypnotic.

Dani felt a pang of doubt, but that was quickly erased when she and Bailey shook hands. Dani had never been especially sensitive to other psychics, but she could feel this woman’s strength, feel the energy that was like a warm blanket enveloping her.

“Wow,” she said.

Bailey smiled faintly. “I won’t let anyone or anything get to your sister.”

“I believe you.” She glanced at the men, and added, “But if you guys wouldn’t mind, I’d like a few minutes alone with Paris.”

The men exchanged glances and then moved away with Bailey. But only as far as the doorway, Dani realized, where they could still keep an eye on her and Paris.

Paris…

Dani stood by her bed and looked down at her twin for a moment, then took one limp, cool hand in both of hers. “You said to stop by,” she said. “At least, I think this is what you meant. Don’t worry, Paris. I—”

It was just a tingling at first, barely enough to get her attention. But when Dani stared down at the hand she held, she saw Paris’s fingers tighten around hers, and the tingling became something else, something much more powerful.

Dani’s first instinct was to pull away, but she fought that and held on, watching her sister’s face, hoping to see some flicker of consciousness there.

Nothing. Paris’s face remained completely relaxed and without expression, even as her fingers clung to Dani’s.

Clung and…

When Dani realized what was happening, she tried to pull free of her sister’s grip, but it was impossible. There might not have been much more than a spark of consciousness left in Paris, but it was enough to do what she meant to do.

I’ve got something for you, something you can use. I think it was always supposed to be yours anyway.

It lasted only a few seconds, and then Paris’s fingers relaxed. Dani was afraid for a moment that it had been her sister’s vital life force that had passed from Paris to her, but the machines monitoring her continued to beep quietly and steadily.

Dani watched her sister breathe for a few moments longer, thinking, remembering, then gently tucked Paris’s hand beneath the covers and stepped back away from the bed.

Bailey was there almost instantly, pausing before reclaiming her chair to eye Dani and say calmly, “Try to keep your distance from the machinery in this place.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Don’t worry, I’ll watch over Paris. Anything that goes after her has to come through me first. And I don’t give way without a fight.”

“Thank you.” Dani didn’t understand what she meant about machinery. But Bailey was right. She found out.

H
ollis and Jordan sat companionably silent in the conference room of the sheriff’s department, their solitude broken only when Dani, Marc, and Bishop arrived—with two newcomers.

Gabriel and Roxanne Wolf were so clearly brother and sister that the information didn’t even have to be provided—though Jordan found out later that they were, in fact, fraternal twins. He was tall, lean but obviously powerful, and had shaggy pale-blond hair; she was also tall, slender without being thin, and had pale-blond hair cut shorter than her brother’s. They were around thirty, were clearly athletic, and shared eerily identical green eyes of the very rare sort: a bright, almost primary shade that seemed iridescent.

After introductions, the group settled in around the conference table, and Hollis was the first to say, “Dani, I’m sorry about Paris. I hope she pulls out of this.”

“I hope we can help her do that,” Dani responded.

Jordan said, “You know we’re willing, Dani. Anything we can do, say the word.”

“It’s a question of time.” She looked around the table. “I know we’re all committed to finding and stopping this monster as soon as possible, before he gets his hands on another woman, but the attack on Paris and me has…altered the situation.”

“Altered it how?” Gabriel asked.

“Several ways. For one thing, when somebody reaches into your mind with theirs, you get a sense of identity. Or, at least, I did, especially since it wasn’t his first visit. And one thing I’m sure of now is that whoever attacked us psychically has more in his game plan than killing women.”

“Like what?” Hollis frowned. “By the way, now that I’m seeing auras, yours looks a little weird. Almost…metallic.”

“I’m not surprised,” Dani said.

Jordan was staring at Hollis. “You see auras?”

“Apparently. Seems like every case I’m on brings a fun new toy for me.” She eyed him. “Your aura is surprisingly calm, mostly blue and green.”

Jordan had no idea what that meant and decided not to ask. He had a hunch he was better off not knowing.

Dani was saying, “I caught just enough of a glimpse into his mind to know two things: He’s brilliant, and he’s powerful. And I got the sense that he’s been planning this for a long time, months at least. Probably even before Boston.”

“Planning what?” Hollis asked again.

“To get more powerful. And to get rid of an enemy he views as very dangerous.” Dani nodded toward Bishop.

“Bishop made an enemy,” Gabriel murmured. “Fancy that.”

“Gabe,” his sister said warningly.

Bishop shook his head. “No, he’s right. I make plenty of enemies.”

“Then what makes this one different?” she asked.

“Ask Dani.”

Dani didn’t wait to be asked. “All I can tell you is that his plan is somehow focused on Bishop—and the SCU. And that we’re all here because he wants us to be.”

Gabriel scowled. “I don’t much like being a puppet.”

“Then we have at least one thing in common,” Bishop told him.

Jordan said, “Okay, maybe a dumb question. Granted, we need to find this bastard before he has time to do any more damage. What does the timeline have to do with Paris? Afraid he’ll come back and try to finish the job?”

“I’m afraid he has to.”

“Why?”

“Because she has—or had—something he wants. And I think he made his first real mistake in believing he could get what he wanted from her and attack me at the same time. It took more energy than he planned and left him without enough to get the job done.”

“I’m still in the dark,” Jordan complained.

“He wanted something he could use as a weapon,” Dani explained. “Not many psychic abilities can be used that way, but Paris had one of them.”

Gabriel sat up straighter. “Her secondary ability?”

Dani glanced at Marc, then nodded. “Yeah. And not so secondary anymore, at least not for me—as we discovered at the hospital. I think the doctors were much more happy about me discharging myself after I shorted out two of their machines.”

“Say what?” Jordan’s voice was a bit faint.

She hesitated, then held up her right hand, thumb and index finger touching. As she rubbed them together, everyone in the room could hear the crackle of energy, very obviously intensifying with the friction she was creating. When she abruptly separated the two fingers, a visible thread of electricity arced between them.

“I seem to be a better conductor than Paris was,” Dani said absently, watching the little light show. “She couldn’t sleep with an electric alarm clock on her nightstand, because it would short out while she was sleeping. When she was awake, the only thing she occasionally affected was the odd touchy computer or something like that.”

“Wow,” Jordan said.

Dani looked at him, then shook her hand slightly. With a couple of pops and crackles, the energy dissipated. “Most of us carry around a static charge at one time or another; the human body is filled with electrical energy. My mind just knows how to channel it now. Focus it, direct it.”

“Ah. An honest-to-God weapon. Like a laser?”

“Not that focused.”

“Not yet,” Bishop murmured.

Without looking at him, Dani said, “It’s an ability I’d just as soon have temporarily and give back to Paris as soon as possible. One of Bishop’s guardians is at the hospital watching over her, but I think all this guy needs is time to…recharge his own energy before he tries again.”

Roxanne said, “So you think he targeted Paris deliberately? Because he wanted her ability?”

“I think so.”

“How did he find out about it?”

“I don’t know for sure. But—”

Marc spoke up, saying, “Paris’s ex-husband likes to drink. And he tends to rant about Paris, to anyone who even pretends to be listening, when he drinks. All about Paris, especially the things that spooked him. I’m thinking maybe Dan said the wrong thing to the right person. In fact, I’d bet on it.”

Roxanne lifted her brows at Dani. “Your twin married a man named—”

“We pondered the subtext of the names, believe me,” Dani told her wryly. “Probably something Freudian about it. Or just unlucky chance—all the way around.”

“Moving on,” Gabriel murmured.

Dani nodded. “Thank you. Moving on—the point is that I think this guy will try again, and as soon as he regains his strength.”

“How do you know he lost it?” Jordan asked.

“Bitter experience. Every psychic I know is drained to some extent when they use their abilities. An attack like that one required an enormous amount of energy,
especially
since he wasn’t in physical contact with Paris or apparently even close to either of us. I was out nearly eighteen hours, and that was after he expended most of his energies attacking both of us; I’m betting he’s still out.”

Gabriel pulled at his earlobe briefly. “So you’re saying that Paris’s ex did his drunken-rant act in a bar where our killer happened to be? I love a good coincidence, but—”

“Not so much of a coincidence when you think about it,” Marc said. “Dan worked for a company in Atlanta. We’re a bit far out to be a true bedroom community, but we have more than our share of commuters who live in Venture—and his job involved a lot of travel. All up and down the East Coast. He passed through Boston at least three times last summer.”

“All kinds of things lining up now,” Roxanne said. “So this serial was laying low in Boston, maybe keeping an eye on the investigation into his murders, maybe just having a scotch between victims, when he heard a drunken salesman in a bar talking about his very talented ex-wife. And it seemed like a good idea to get out of the spotlight up there and head south.”