The First Prophet (38 page)

Cait wanted that understanding, and it really bugged her that Sarah had gotten it—on
a silver platter, so to
speak. Hard as she’d tried in the last months, Cait hadn’t been able to get past Brodie’s
guards, and he had sure as hell never thrown himself open to her in any way. Not that
she was in the least psychic, but still. He treated her rather like a baby sister—when
he wasn’t coming down on her like a ton of bricks for carelessness or forgetting some
rule or other—and as far as she could tell, that was exactly the way he saw her. As
a troublesome kid.

It was very annoying. And annoying to be working her ass off in the kitchen while
he and Leigh discussed other people she didn’t know and tried to decide between themselves
who they could call on for help.

“We probably don’t have much time,” Leigh was saying as she checked on potatoes fast-baking
in the microwave. “Sarah isn’t going to be willing to wait much longer.”

“I know,” Brodie said. “And that limits our options. If we figure tonight is a wash—and
I sure as hell don’t like the idea of moving against them at night—and that we move
early tomorrow, that gives us only a few hours to make whatever preparations we can.
Murphy can get here by morning. Maybe Nick and Tim. Nobody else I can think of.”

Leigh said casually, “How about Josh? He could get here in time. He could raise an
army in time.”

Brodie shook his head. “No way. Duran’s too close, and I don’t want him to get so
much as a whiff of Josh. No, this time it’s just us. And that isn’t much of an army,
Leigh.”

“No, it’s not. On the other hand, we don’t know what
we’re facing. When Sarah’s rested and eaten, we’ll see if she can give us some idea
of where they’re holding Tucker, and maybe even the number of people holding him.
Surely Duran wouldn’t commit more than half a dozen of his people to this. He has
other irons in the fire, and I would be very surprised if he really knows Sarah’s
potential value to him.”

Brodie frowned. “Now that I think about it, it’s not really like Duran to use bait
to get a psychic to come to him. He tends to favor sending his goons in the dead of
night to quietly remove people. Or to arrange some kind of convenient
accident
for them.”

“Maybe he’s feeling the pressure.”

“Maybe.” Brodie shrugged. “But if the bastard is anything, he’s deliberate; I’ve never
known him to rush into anything.”

“The steaks are almost done,” Cait announced.

“The plates are in that cabinet over there, Cait. Brodie, what about weapons?”

“Compared to the other side, we’re seriously underarmed. Always have been. And we’re
hamstrung by the fact that we don’t have any kind of official status or authority.
We can’t just rush in and start blasting, as good as that might feel to some of us.
Plus, we don’t want the kind of violence that makes headlines any more than Duran
does. The only defense we have if bodies start turning up is not going to be believed,
and our credibility is shot once we start talking about some vast conspiracy we can’t
prove exists.” He shook his head. “No, we have to be very, very careful. In any kind
of a
showdown with Duran and his goons, we are critically handicapped.”

Cait tuned them out, feeling even more frustrated. She had nothing to contribute,
that was the problem. She was still learning how to handle weapons, and she didn’t
have the first idea how to plan for some kind of dramatic confrontation with the bad
guys.

In fact, she felt incredibly useless.

They wouldn’t let her help clean up after the meal, and since by then much of her
energy and all of her anxiety had returned, Sarah found herself moving restlessly
around the living room while they worked in the kitchen.

The need to find Tucker was nearly overpowering now, and with it came the niggling
awareness of something else that was…wrong. She didn’t know what it was, but somewhere,
sometime, she had missed something she should have paid attention to. Information
or an observation…something. Whatever it was, it seemed to be out of reach now; whenever
she tried to concentrate on it, all she got was increasing uneasiness and the urge
to look back over her shoulder.

Watching. Somebody’s watching. But is it me, or Tucker? The uneasiness he felt about
that went with him into his dreams…

That was part of her apprehension, she knew. That skin-crawling sensation of being
watched had been uppermost in Tucker’s consciousness just before his keepers had knocked
him out once again, and even now his
sleeping mind was giving him nightmares with that theme. Eyes watching him. Creatures
watching him.

Sarah wasn’t exactly caught up in the nightmares with Tucker; it was more like listening
to the dim and distant sound of a television in the next room and being aware of what
was going on there. She could push the faint sounds out of her conscious mind by concentrating
on something else, but they were always there just under the surface, contributing
to her uneasiness.

“Sarah?”

She turned to look at them as Brodie, Leigh, and Cait returned to the living room.
“There isn’t much time.”

“Why not?” Leigh asked quietly. “The trap is baited and ready for you; won’t they
just wait for you to come?”

“I…don’t know. I don’t think so. There’s a feeling of urgency.”

“Maybe that’s just you,” Brodie suggested. “Your need to get to Mackenzie.”

She shook her head. “No, this is something else. Somebody’s anxious, worried about
time passing. I’m sure of it.”

Leigh looked at her for a moment, then said, “Let’s sit down. Sarah, do you think
you can sense where Tucker is being kept?”

“If he was awake, I know I could. But he’s still asleep. Dreaming.”

Leigh waited until they were all sitting down before suggesting, “Try anyway. Try
to concentrate on his physical sensations rather than his emotions. You may be able
to shut out his dreams that way.”

Sarah was hesitant, wary of his nightmares, but she closed her eyes and tentatively
reached out toward Tucker. Instantly, gooseflesh rose sharply along her arms and she
shivered in a wave of coldness. It was very cold here, and very damp; there was water
dripping somewhere. And another sound, very faint. Breathing. Someone’s breathing.

She was lying on her side on something not quite as hard as the floor, and it was
dark when she opened her eyes. It should have been too dark to see, but she thought
she could anyway, though more with another sense than with her eyes. She got up cautiously,
vaguely aware of leaving something behind her and hating that, but intensely aware
that she had to see what she could of this place.

She moved soundlessly several feet and then stopped, abruptly. Someone was right beside
her. She couldn’t see him, but she felt him. She almost touched him.

Shadows.

Gooseflesh spread all over her now, and she found herself flinching to the side, drawing
into herself. He hadn’t touched her, didn’t know she was there, and she had to make
sure not to betray her presence. She didn’t know how she knew, but she was convinced
that if he knew she was there, he would instantly kill Tucker.

Cautiously, moving with exquisite slowness, she eased past the shadow in the dark.
There was a doorway she went through, and it puzzled her a bit because she was almost
sure the door had been closed. And locked.

She had the overpowering sense of space around her,
above her, cavernous and empty. No, she realized. Not empty.

Shadows.

They were all around, though not close. Watching, she realized. Waiting. Waiting for
her to come. Whispering among themselves…

Sarah moved slowly through the darkness, listening intently and trying to get a sense
of her surroundings—and avoid those lurking shadows. There were other doorways, and
stone or concrete walls and old, old timbers. The air was musty and damp, the dripping
of water somewhere an incessant sound.

She was so cold.

With fingers that were slowly going numb, she reached out to touch the walls around
her. After several minutes, she touched a ledge or narrow table and upon it found
rows of pillar candles connected with the wispy, sticky threads of cobwebs.

She jerked her hand back, wiping it fastidiously against her thigh, and for a moment
had to stand perfectly still and breathe evenly. It was all right. Nothing here could
hurt her. Because she wasn’t really here, was she? She was…well, she was somewhere
else. So nothing in this place could hurt her.

But it could scare the hell out of her.

She forced herself to go on, searching the darkness with every sense except sight.
The cavernous sensation had diminished as she had grown accustomed to the dark, and
she was aware now of a roof of some kind not many feet above her head. In one small
room, she found
stacks of old furniture, the wood splintered and smelling of rot. In another, she
found the tattered remains of some kind of cloth in moldy piles against the cold earthen
walls. In still another, she found shelves and cabinets containing dusty, rusted objects
she tentatively identified by touch.

She kept going, and after she passed through what she thought was the back of a closet,
she found herself in a low-ceilinged corridor that felt like a tunnel. It was leading
her away from the rooms and the place where she had gotten up from the floor, and
though the air around her lightened and she was aware of climbing as though out of
a pit, it disturbed her to get so far away from what she had left behind.

It was important, though, so she kept going. Until, finally, she pushed her way through
heavy brush and found herself standing only a few yards from a rocky shore. The ocean,
she realized, watching waves lapping against the rocks. She turned to look back at
the tunnel’s entrance, finding that it was cut into almost solid rock with a cliff
rearing steeply above it.

She lifted her gaze beyond the tunnel, beyond the cliff. And in the twilight, etched
sharply against the sky, she could see a cross.

Behind her, something tugged sharply.

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then bring her out of it, dammit.”

“She has to find her own way back. If we disturb her now, she could lose the connection.”

“Look at her. Her skin’s like ice, she’s barely got a pulse—and she’s been like this
for nearly an hour. What the hell is going on?”

“I told you. She’s out of body.”

“Christ. I thought she was just going to reach out to Mackenzie, not go visit him.”

“She did reach out. And since he was unconscious, it seems this was the only way she
could find out where he is. By going there.”

“There must be a better way.”

“I don’t think so. My God, Brodie—she is the one!”

“She’s going to be the dead one if we don’t get her back soon. Sarah? Sarah!”

“Brodie—”

“Sarah!”

“What?” She opened her eyes, abruptly and completely awake and aware, and found three
pairs of eyes staring at her. Their expressions varied from Cait’s half-fearful fascination
to Leigh’s excited interest. Brodie just looked relieved.

“Jesus. Don’t do that again.”

Sarah shifted a bit in her chair and found herself a little stiff, but curiously refreshed
and no more tired than she’d been before. Either this was getting easier, or she had
borrowed some of Tucker’s strength. Or else this new thing required much less energy.
But her hands were very, very cold. She rubbed them together. “How long was I gone?”

“You realize you
were
gone?” Leigh asked.

“Sure,” Sarah replied, absently stretching her arms out before her to ease the stiffness.
“How long?”

Brodie glanced at his watch. “Since you closed your eyes, an hour and five minutes.
You became a zombie about ten minutes into the procedure.”

She smiled at him. “A zombie?”

“Soulless,” he explained frankly. “A body with a beating heart. Creepy as hell.”