“What—”
“Sorry this is so sudden.” His voice was deep, calm, pleasant. “We’ve never really figured out the best way to make contact. You all tend to be wary at least, sometimes scared. So all we really know for sure is never to come to you in the night, the darkness. Because that’s when the goon squad usually shows up.”
Tasha sat very still, watching him as he sipped a large coffee she was willing to bet was just black, nothing fancy.
He had the sharpest eyes she’d ever seen, eyes that seemed to see her with uncomfortable clarity. And as lazily comfortable as he looked slumped down in his seat, as unthreatening, she could also see that he had to be physically powerful. Very powerful.
“Your name is Tasha Solomon. My name is John Brodie. And I’ve been sent to help you. To protect you.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said slowly.
Are you the voice I’ve had in my head?
No answer to that.
“Yes, you can,” he said matter-of-factly. “Training, good instincts, the ability to think on your feet and make good choices. You’ve chosen a building with outstanding security, and you take care never to be alone unless you’re securely locked inside your condo.”
“Have you been watching me?” she demanded.
He answered readily, if inexplicably. “Yes, for the last couple of days, but I’m not the one you felt watching you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not psychic. And because psychics generally don’t pick up on me unless I let them. And because you know very well I’m no threat to you.”
“How would I know that?”
“You feel it. You always feel when you’re being watched, when there’s a threat nearby. And sometimes, I’m guessing, there’s an . . . alien voice in your mind that scares you. Something you know doesn’t belong to you. Something that isn’t natural.”
“So that’s common among the psychics you’ve found?” Tasha said, admitting nothing.
“Not all, but some.”
“Who does that voice belong to?”
“We aren’t sure. About that inner voice that feels unnatural to you psychics. Though sometimes we try to make contact telepathically, and I’m told that inner voice feels entirely different to you. I’m not sure just how.”
“You aren’t sure of much, are you?”
Brodie didn’t take offense. “Unfortunately, no.”
“So why do I need you?” She was still speaking slowly, studying him, still conscious of no threat from him. And still feeling relatively safe with people all around them.
“Because the other side wants you. Badly. And unless you have a better idea of just what’s going on and what you’re up against, the best training and instincts in the world can’t keep you safe.” He paused, then added deliberately, “Just like the arguably best security in your building couldn’t keep them out when they wanted in.”
—
Bishop emerged from the bedroom of the small apartment and offered a grim shake of his head when Miranda lifted her brows questioningly.
“No sign of Katie at all,” he said. “No sign anyone’s lived here. No books on the shelves, nothing personal on the walls, all the closets and drawers empty. It’s clear the apartment super has this place ready for a new tenant but hasn’t rented it yet.”
“It’s been recently cleaned,” Miranda offered. It was her turn to frown. “Odd, though.”
“What?”
“Well, cleaning services usually leave a place smelling of lemon or pine or something to signal to anyone coming in that it’s been recently cleaned. I don’t smell that. I feel the place is clean, but it isn’t because of a scent. Not, at least, a scent I recognize.”
With a sigh, Bishop said, “Right now, I’m wishing one of us were either clairvoyant or had some psychometric ability.”
“Spider senses?”
“You know as well as I do they’re difficult to use at full strength when we have our connection closed down. And I’ve never been especially good at picking up an energy signature except from a person. I even tried touching Katie’s bed, but I’m almost positive the bed in that room is brand-new. Or at least the mattress is.”
“They think of everything.”
“Apparently. Her boss says she resigned by letter, this apartment is empty of any sign she ever lived here; the keys were left on the kitchen counter, all utilities paid up—and she didn’t ask for her security deposit. Even her car has vanished. Probably to a chop shop, its parts being shipped all over the country by now.”
“You think they work that fast?”
“I think . . . by now they’re a well-oiled machine when it comes to disappearing people. And all without making the authorities the least bit suspicious.”
Miranda brooded for a moment, her electric blue eyes tracking slowly around the living room of the small apartment. “Always psychics, and almost all of them living alone. They really don’t take people with family, do they?”
“Usually, no. There are a few cases I turned up where an entire family died in a house fire or car accident—including a psychic. Or a body made to resemble that psychic well enough to raise no question of identity.”
“But cases like that are rare.”
“Extremely rare. I don’t know what Brodie and his people have turned up, but I’ve been tracking psychics long enough to feel pretty sure that most of those who disappear have no family or significant other to worry and pester the police. Though there often is a recent or fairly recent breakup of a marriage, engagement, or romantic relationship.”
“Being psychic can be hard on relationships,” Miranda noted wryly. “We’ve seen that play out more than once. Especially if only one of a couple has abilities.”
“That’s certainly true. And in most of the breakups where I could find a cause, it was easily traced back to a freaked-out significant other. Some were recent enough that they noticed someone they’d once loved had gone missing, but others just seemed to accept whatever the official determination ended up being. Assuming a report was even filed, there are virtually no investigations into the disappearances.”
“Didn’t you say Katie had recently broken up with a fiancé?”
“Yeah. She’s not a born psychic; her telekinetic abilities were apparently triggered when she was thrown from a horse and suffered a head injury just about two years ago. She struggled to control what she could do, and it was a real struggle for her. I gather the fiancé more or less freaked out during an episode in which Katie lost her temper and most of the pictures in the room went flying off the walls. The fiancé left half his stuff behind when he packed up and left, she told me, he was in such a hurry to just get away from her.”
Miranda shook her head. “That poor girl. We could have helped her.”
“I tried to convince her of that. But it was still too new to her, something she had to deny existed.”
“And that made her vulnerable to them.”
“If they’ve found as few telekinetics as we have, a couple of bitter entries about psycho supposedly psychic girlfriends on Facebook would have alerted them to what she could do.”
“The fiancé, I gather?”
“Trying to hide the fact that anything paranormal had actually happened. Claimed she rigged the room just to scare the shit out of him so he’d leave.”
Dryly, Miranda said, “There are easier ways to break up.”
“Oh, yeah. But everything has to be dramatic these days, especially on social media and among certain age groups. And way too many people, especially young people, share way too much personal information online with strangers.” Bishop shook his head. “Although it does help us. We have programs running to flag certain words and phrases used in social media, and people to monitor and check them out; this enemy Brodie has described has to have the same kin
d of arrangement or something very like it, especially to be able to move this fast.”
“I wonder if they meet as many kooks as we do,” Miranda murmured.
“Probably. Maybe why they hang back and watch for a while. The six-month window Brodie mentioned for new psychics is probably just allowing them the time to watch and find out if the psychic is genuine and what he or she can do. I’m betting Katie wasn’t on their radar until that Facebook post got shared by a few thousand friends—and it was just about six months ago.”
“After you’d already talked to her.”
“Which makes me wonder if my . . . spy network . . . is actually better than theirs.”
“You spent years building it. And you have an awful lot of people from all walks of life on the lookout for potential psychics. People who really know what to look for and who report to you pronto.”
Bishop frowned again. “Brodie seemed convinced that the enemy in all this makes use of at least some psychics to search for others.”
“Well, we have psychics who serve the same function. Even if that wasn’t how we found Katie, we do find psychics that way. Which is why we have our connection shut down and are both behind the shield.”
She always referred to it that way, as the shield rather than hers, even though it was one she had built to safeguard herself and her sister years before, after a serial killer had destroyed the rest of her family and left her and Bonnie in hiding.
In hiding in more ways than one.
It was a remarkable thing, her shield, and unique; Bishop completely trusted the protection it afforded them. But it did have its drawbacks, and one of them was leaving both of them with diminished senses.
Including their extra ones.
“We’ll find her,” Miranda said quietly, able to read her husband accurately despite that.
“Brodie said they’d never been able to recover a psychic once he or she was taken.”
Miranda Bishop smiled. “That was before we joined up.”
SIX
“Sir, Brodie has made contact with Tasha Solomon.” Alastair knew better than to sugarcoat it. Or add any unnecessary details.
There was a long, silent moment, and then Duran turned away from the window, with its view of downtown Charleston, and went to sit behind the big desk.
“When?”
“Just now. At the coffee shop.”
“She was receptive?”
“Seemed to be. Guarded, tense, but listening.”
Duran didn’t check his watch, but said, “It’s early.”
“Yes, sir. And the location is very public. So unless they move, we’ll have no chance of getting close for the duration.” He paused, then added, “Best-case scenario for us is, of course, if they go to Solomon’s apartment. But she may be too wary for that.”
Duran was silent for a minute or so, the long fingers of one hand drumming almost silently on the surface of the desk. Then he said, “She sensed a threat and took action. She’s been cautious since then. But she hasn’t used her abilities under pressure.”
“Not so far as we know,” Alastair agreed.
“Maybe,” Duran said, “it’s time we all found out just what Tasha Solomon can do.”
—
“Why should I trust you?” Tasha asked Brodie.
“No reason I can think of,” he replied wryly. “Except that I’ve been in this a long time, I know a lot of the players, and my job as Guardian is to make sure you stay alive and out of their hands.”
“What would they do with me if they got me?”
“We don’t know. But the psychics who have . . . caught glimpses into their operation say it’s not something pleasant. At all. At best, you’d be their prisoner, possibly for the rest of your life, theirs to use.”
“What makes you believe that?”
“Because psychics have been disappearing for years, decades if our research is accurate, and so far none we’re reasonably sure were captured by them have ever turned up again. Alive.”
She blinked, the only outward sign of disturbance. “Have any turned up not alive?”
“It’s debatable. Bodies have been found, the apparent victims of accidents, fires, drownings. Shallow graves far off the beaten path. Bodies too . . . damaged or decomposed to positively identify.”
“DNA,” she offered.
“Now, yes, we have that tool. But we seldom have access to bodies found, and they clearly do. DNA can be planted, records altered. They seem to be good at that.”
“And what is your . . . side . . . good at?”
“Protecting those psychics we manage to locate before the other side gets to them. There’s nothing official about us, Tasha. Nothing public. We don’t have badges or any kind of law enforcement credentials. We do have a few allies inside various law enforcement agencies, and sometimes they’re able to get valuable information for us. But we still work . . . out of view, behind the scenes. Trying our best not to draw attention to ourselves. That limits what we can find out.”
Tasha wondered if he had carefully avoided saying that they worked in darkness and secrecy, avoided using those words, because it sounded far too like how the others, the “them,” worked.
“So you have no idea what they would do with me if they ever got their hands on me. What about you? Your side? What are your plans for me?”
“I told you. I’m here to keep you safe.”
“For how long? Does whatever your side offers also mean the rest of my life?”
“That depends on you.”
“In what way?”
“I won’t lie to you, Tasha; there are no guarantees. In the past, there have been psychics we believed were safe who were taken virtually under our noses. There have also been . . . psychic deaths.”
Tasha had a strong feeling he wasn’t repeating himself. “Psychic deaths. You mean deaths of the mind?”
His brows lifted slightly, as if in surprise, but he answered readily. “One thing we’ve learned is that if psychics push their abilities past their limits, past what they can control, especially if they’re panicked or afraid, the effort sometimes damages their abilities. And in a few rare cases we know about, psychics have been destroyed. Physically alive, but the mind, the personality, is gone. The body usually doesn’t survive long after that, even with medical intervention.”
Tasha heard something in his voice and tilted her head a bit unconsciously. “You’ve had personal experience with a situation like that, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. “A young psychic in my care died that way. We were cornered by soldiers from the other side, but in a safe place, and help was on the way. She panicked. She was one of the ones who said she knew, felt, what they would do to her if they got her. And it terrified her in a way I can’t even describe. Before I could stop her, she . . . unleashed her abilities.”
“And it killed her?”
“Her particular ability, a very rare one, involved channeling energy. Electrical, magnetic, whatever. I’m not psychic, so I can’t be sure exactly what she did, but whatever it was, it killed one of the other side’s soldiers and seriously damaged the eardrums of at least one more. They were wearing headsets, presumably to communicate with each other as they were moving to surround us.”
“So she used her abilities as a weapon.”
“She tried. She was even effective. But it cost her her life, Tasha. It destroyed her mind, and a few weeks later her body succumbed.” For the first time, he leaned forward, toward her, and rested his forearms on the table. “That’s not what we want, Tasha. We aren’t trying to assemble weapons, build an army, even a defensive one. There may come a time when the psychics we help are able to fight that way, but so far attempts have been mostly unsuccessful and sometimes fatal.”
“So how do you fight them?”
??
?Since we don’t know what their ultimate goal is, why psychics are so important to them, even who they really are and who’s behind them, all we can do is search for information and keep as many psychics as possible protected from them.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a strategy.”
“Some of us would like to do more,” he admitted frankly. “It’s a war, and we’d like to fight it like one. Openly. And there have been a few battles between our side and theirs.”
“Gun battles?”
Brodie nodded. “But only when it was absolutely necessary and we had at least a decent chance at controlling the fallout. Because until we have a better idea of their resources, their power, we have to be careful. Going public could do nothing except destroy our organization.”
“It’s an organization?”
“More or less. No name, not even an acronym. Formed around cells, a bit like the French Resistance during World War Two. The cells, made up of differing numbers of people, work independently, gathering intelligence in specific areas, sheltering and protecting psychics, recruiting allies. Reporting information to only one contact outside their cell and without any knowledge of who he or she reports to or who makes up other cells.”
“So if one cell is . . . compromised . . .”
He nodded. “We don’t all come crashing down. Very few in our organization know the whole setup.”
“How many are you?”
Brodie shrugged. “I actually don’t know, not for certain. Hundreds, at least. Maybe more.”
“Psychics and nonpsychics?”
“We’ve discovered that having nonpsychics in the cells makes us less vulnerable in some ways.”
She was quick to add, “And more vulnerable in others.”
“Well, most nonpsychics never learn to shield our minds, so if the other side uses any of their psychics against us—”
“You mean people they’ve captured? Psychics working for them?”
“Not sure about the former, but definitely the latter. He controls at least some psychics, and he uses them. Why they allow it, whether out of desire, belief in whatever their cause is, or fear, we don’t know. Duran is careful to keep their psychics under wraps, protected even when he sends one out to use them against us, so we haven’t been able to . . . debrief . . . any of them.”