Tucker sighed, then asked, “Does Brodie know we’re out here?”
Sarah shook her head. “Murphy’s his official backup, the psychic monitoring the area to make sure if anybody tries to scan him, they hit a wall. Nobody’s going to get past Murphy’s guard.”
“You mean nobody besides Tasha Solomon?”
With a faint laugh, Sarah said, “She did a lot more than scan Brodie. You know, I was in his mind once. For the same reason, to prove I could trust him. But I didn’t go nearly as deep as Tasha did today. I felt his grief and his rage . . . and that was as deep as I wanted to go. As deep as anyone would have wanted to go.”
“So why did she go deeper?”
“She was pulled.”
“Against her will?”
“Arguable, I suppose. Certainly before she could do anything to stop it.”
Tucker shook his head. “I only got some of that. Something about a mocking voice and a weird maze.”
“I think the maze is something their psychics manifest in the mind of another psychic, a representation of the connections psychics make with other people. Every mind they scan or read. Everyone they touch, psychic or otherwise, forms a pathway between them.” She paused. “Tasha Solomon has a hell of a big maze. Hard to know this far away, but she may be able to read nearly everyone she tries to read. And probably quite a few that slip in when she isn’t trying.”
“But she was pulled down into that maze? Why?”
“They were testing her. Duran was testing her.”
“And?”
“And,” Sarah said with satisfaction, “he got an unpleasant surprise.”
—
“Shadows?” Brodie was frowning slightly. “You see them as . . . only shadows? Not human beings?”
Tasha frowned in return. “No, it’s not that. I see people. And most of the time that’s all. Just people. But sometimes in my dreams, or when my eyes are closed and I reach out, the people look normal but they have shadows that are . . . wrong. Oddly shaped, or falling in the wrong direction, or just . . . looming behind them.”
“When did you first sense someone with a shadow like that?”
Tasha hesitated, then replied, “Before I left Atlanta.”
“That’s one of the reasons you left?”
“I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, to be honest. But every instinct I could claim told me to leave, to get away. To find a place where I wouldn’t be alone. So I came here.”
“Have you sensed any of the shadows here?”
Tasha’s reply was delayed since the buzzer announced the arrival of their Chinese supper—complete, as Brodie had speculated, with the security guard, Stewart.
Tasha chatted with both him and the delivery man, didn’t question when Brodie paid for the meal and added a generous tip, and within a very few minutes they were alone again.
Brodie went behind the kitchen island and began to open bags. “We can talk while we eat.”
Tasha sat across from him on one of the bar stools. “Is that one of your duties as Guardian, to make sure I eat?”
He seemed to hesitate, then said matter-of-factly, “My job is to keep you alive and out of their hands. Making sure you eat and rest enough is part of that. Soldiers learn to eat and sleep whenever they have the chance, because you never know when you might have to move without warning. And it could be a long time between meals.”
She thought about that for a minute or two while he got plates and glasses from her cabinets and utensils from a drawer. Clearly, he had familiarized himself with her kitchen.
Looking in her fridge, he said, “This pitcher of iced tea might be smarter than wine.”
Tasha didn’t ask him why; she merely said, “Fine with me. I don’t drink wine very often anyway. And this is the South. Sweet iced tea is the rule, not the exception.”
Despite the utensils, both of them used chopsticks, a fact Tasha noted with some amusement. But she didn’t comment, because with the first bite she discovered that she was indeed hungry, and they ate in silence for some time.
Then she half turned on her bar stool so she could look at him, and said, “You asked if I had sensed any of the shadows here.”
“Have you?”
“Not exactly. I’ve caught a few glimpses of someone from the corner of my eye, slipping away before I could get a good look at him.”
“Let me guess. An otherwise nondescript man in a black leather jacket.”
“Is that one of their . . . tactics?”
“Appears to be. I’ve heard it from nearly every psychic I’ve guarded, and seen a few of them myself. In the distance, of course. I’m guessing they want an . . . identifiable image. So you know you’re being watched.”
“To keep me spooked? Unsettled?”
“Still guessing, I’d say yes.”
“So we don’t have much more than guesses to go on?” She didn’t say it in a tone of criticism, but rather musing.
Brodie nodded. “That’s about the size of it. We extrapolate from their actions, make educated guesses, pool whatever knowledge we have or believe we have. Do our best to make safe contacts who might be able to add to our base of knowledge.”
“What about the psychics on this side? Can’t they learn more details, maybe a few facts by reading someone on the other side?”
“Not so far.”
Tasha looked at him, brows lifting, and waited.
“All I can tell you,” he said, “is what our psychics have told me. Whether it’s a shield or . . . some kind of mental projection they’ve somehow built, all our psychics get when they try to read or scan someone from the other side is shadows.”
“Astrid had them,” Tasha said slowly. “When I tried to sense her, I saw shadows. All around her. I thought maybe they were protecting her, but she said something . . . I don’t remember, but it made me think they were more like a . . . cage . . . than a shield.”
“Maybe they are. Maybe that’s one way they keep their psychics in line. Any of our psychics who get close enough to try to scan or read one of theirs always reports those shadows.”
“Misshapen, falling the wrong way, looming sometimes?”
Brodie nodded. “Only not people, just shadows. And they talk about how the shadows . . . feel. Cold, slimy, unnatural. Threatening, and frightening.”
Guessing herself, Tasha said, “That’s how you’ve been able to identify some of them. Because despite how they look, your psychics have tried to scan them and saw only the shadows.”
“So far, yeah. With one exception. Nobody’s been able to scan Duran. No shadows with him. Nothing with him. No sense of personality or thoughts or emotions. It’s like he’s not even there, according to our psychics.”
Tasha thought about that for a while as she finished her wonton soup, then said, “Astrid. Was she ever on this side?”
“No, they got to her early on. Really early, before my time. She’s one of their strongest telepaths, and Duran seems to favor her whenever he has a . . . psychic job he wants done.”
“You mean like scanning another psychic? Like following another psychic into someone else’s mind?”
Brodie just looked at her.
“That’s not normal,” Tasha told him. “That’s not a telepath. Or it’s . . . more than a telepath. She was there, Brodie. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her and feel her. But not in your conscious mind. Not even in your subconscious mind. It was deeper than that. Deeper than I’ve ever gone, to a place I didn’t recognize.”
“That maze.”
Tasha nodded. “It was inside your mind, but . . . at the same time it wasn’t. Maybe just an image meant to symbolize something to us, but . . . it felt like something real but alien to you, something artificial that had been placed there, in some deep part of your mind.”
Brodie grimaced. “Do
n’t much like the idea of artificial things being put inside my mind. How would they even do that?” She was confirming for him what Murphy had suggested earlier, and that made it even more real for Brodie. More real—and more uncomfortable.
But, more than that, it was new information for him, something else to add to the list of things he knew about how the other side operated. And that sort of information was always good to have.
“I have no idea how they’d do it. But they’ve done it before, to others. I’m sure of that. Some kind of test they’ve constructed, used. There was something familiar about the way Astrid was there, a . . . comfort she felt in that place.” She shook her head. “I’m willing to bet if I read you now, I wouldn’t find that maze no matter how deep I went. Because it was only there for a while. Only there while she was there.”
“As a test for you.”
“Exactly.”
“A test you passed or failed?”
“I think . . . it was a result that surprised Duran. I know it surprised Astrid.”
“Surprised her how?”
“That you were able to help me. Able to reach into the maze and strengthen me, help guide me out. How did you do that, by the way? Not being psychic, I mean.”
“No idea.”
“Seriously?”
Brodie shrugged. “I can tell you it’s never happened before, not like that. And not just the maze part. I’m usually aware of being scanned, read, but it tends to be a surface thing. Thoughts, strongest memories. With you, it was definitely something different. You weren’t just reading thoughts, you were feeling emotions. My emotions.”
He didn’t, she noted, seem especially disturbed by that.
“So why am I different?” she said slowly.
“It was new for you?”
“Feeling your emotions, no. That happens, but usually only when I’m trying to scan or read only one person. When my focus is narrow. If it isn’t narrow, if I’m just . . . looking around in a psychic sense, I usually just get surface thoughts, and bits and pieces of those. I can gauge emotions from the thoughts sometimes, but I don’t actually feel the emotions unless it’s those of one person. And never before so strongly.” If it didn’t bother him, why should it bother her?
“Do you think you might have had help?”
Tasha was more than a little startled by that question, and answered honestly. “You made a comment before about me being aware of an alien voice in my head, and I have been, from time to time, a voice that made me uneasy, even frightened me, and I got the sense that was the whole point of it. But the last few days . . . it’s been different. It’s felt different. Almost like a debate or argument going on in my head, me and someone else, someone different, new. As if that someone else were communicating with me. And I believe someone was, even though it took me a bit to catch on.”
“Their side or our side?”
“Well, I was more than a little rattled by it,” she admitted, “but I didn’t sense anything negative or frightening. In fact, it was more like whoever it was, was trying to help me. Do we have anyone on our side capable of that?”
“I can think of one psychic I know of,” he replied slowly. “But that person shouldn’t be anywhere near here.”
“Where should she be?”
When he stared at her, Tasha found herself saying apologetically, “Sorry, but there seems to be an open connection between us. As soon as I asked you the question, I saw her face. And her name. Sarah, right? Sarah Mackenzie?”
—
“Any luck?”
Sarah Mackenzie replied to the voice on the phone without hesitation. “Duran wants Tasha Solomon. Badly. And he suspects there’s more than one psychic from our side watching out for her and Brodie.”
“Since nobody we know can read Duran, should I ask how you obtained that information?”
“Oh . . . just a little out-of-body visit.”
The cell was on speaker, so Tucker didn’t hesitate to say, “I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s convinced Duran will go to bloody extremes to get his hands on Solomon.”
“He will,” Sarah affirmed. “I’m not sure if it’s because she’s just plain powerful or whether he has some idea of exactly what she’s capable of doing.”
“Which is?”
“She has an incredible range, able to read nearly anyone she wants to read. But it’s more than that. She doesn’t know it yet, but I believe it’s just a matter of time before Tasha finds out that she can see them.”
“You mean as something other than shadows?”
“Yeah. I think she’ll eventually be able to see what they really are. Not the shadows they project, but them. The first of us able to do that. Assuming, of course, that we can keep her alive and out of their hands long enough.”
“You think Duran will try to kill her or take her?”
It was Tucker who said, “We think he’s already shown his hand there. He could have arranged an accident any time in the last few months. When his goons visited her condo, he could have made sure there would have been a gas explosion later that night. A dozen different things Sarah and I have both thought of. Bottom line, if he wanted her dead, she’d be dead. He was on to her before we were, before Brodie could be put in place to help protect her. She was a hell of a lot more vulnerable, even with all the precautions she’d taken instinctively, yet he didn’t move against her when the odds of success were very much in his favor.”
“So he wants her alive.”
Sarah said, “He needs her alive.”
“Any idea why? That’s one question we’ve never been able to answer.”
“I’m still not sure why, because I can’t read Duran, either, and the others are still shadows to me when I try to see past the surface of them. I could only hear what they said, and we all know Duran rarely says much, even to his own people. But I’m convinced that Tasha Solomon, alive and in his hands, is vital to Duran’s plans.”
“Okay. Not really a surprise there.”
“No, but one thing surprised me. We all know Duran doesn’t show what he’s feeling, assuming he feels anything. Cynical amusement seems to be all he generally allows to escape. That and the cold anger when somebody screws up that definitely scares the shit out of his people.”
“Yeah. And so?”
“I caught a glimpse of something just now. Maybe I’m reading more into it than is there, but I get the sense that Duran is feeling pushed, rushed. I think something has happened, something’s changed. Just sending Astrid to look for a second psychic here to watch out for Tasha shows he’s suspicious, but I think it’s more than that.”
Tucker asked, “Has anything changed recently? Something that might have put Duran off his game?”
There was a brief silence, during which they waited patiently, and then she spoke slowly, “We have a new ally. A very powerful psychic. Inside national law enforcement.”
“That,” Tucker said, “would certainly give him pause.”
“He shouldn’t know about it, not this soon. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
She was once again silent for a moment, then said, “We aren’t the only ones monitoring psychics, Tucker. And neither are they.”
Tucker looked at his wife, brows rising as realization dawned. “I’ll be damned. An ally in national law enforcement who monitors psychics. I know who it is. There’s nobody else it could be, not with those credentials. He’s in federal law enforcement, right? As in FBI?”
“Let’s not mention names.” The voice was quiet even through the phone’s speaker. “Not out loud, anyway.”
Sarah was nodding. “I got it when Tucker realized. And, yeah, I’d say Duran would be worried about that ally if he knew. A very powerful psychic, but beyond his reach. Somebody he can’t disappear, somebody who won’t play for his side, and who commands almost un
limited resources. Somebody who has spent years learning to understand and control psychic abilities, his and those of his team. Somebody who cares about psychics, deeply. And if a psychic or two that ally is or has been monitoring suddenly disappeared . . .”
“That might bring him here even though he’s supposed to be a background source for us. And, if we’re right about newly abducted psychics being read by Duran’s people, they might have given away more than they intended, even calling out in a psychic sense for help.”
Sarah said, “So whether he’s close or not, Duran could easily know about him by now. And if there’s anyone with the kind of connections to make Duran very nervous, it would be him. Law enforcement at the highest levels—and a formidable psychic.”
Tucker said, “Why do I think this war of ours just moved into an entirely new arena?”
—
“What do you know about Sarah?” Brodie asked Tasha.
“What you do.” She shrugged. “Sorry, but it’s . . . sort of automatic with you. I have no idea why.”
“Can you turn it off?” He didn’t sound especially bothered, but his face was more than usually expressionless.
“I guess I could recite multiplication tables in my head or something, but otherwise—”
“Never mind.” He sighed. “Who knows, it might come in handy. I’m thinking I won’t have to explain nearly as much whenever we talk.”
“There is that.”
“Okay, well, then we’ll learn to live with it.”
“You mean you will.”
He eyed her, then slid off the stool and began clearing up in the kitchen and putting away leftovers. “I mean we will. Most people don’t filter their thoughts, and I’m usually no exception. I can project a kind of shield if I’m concentrating, but that tends to be short-lived. I tend to have more important things on my mind than the need to guard my own thoughts. You may pick up things that make you . . . uncomfortable. Memories triggered that flash into my mind without my conscious volition. Emotions that flare up before I can tamp them back down.”
Tasha was making a concerted effort not to pick up anything at all, but the instant he said that, she saw something she wished she hadn’t. “Oh, God. You had a partner, a young woman. She—”