Jax spoke up. “It’s okay, Mr. Quackenbush. We can try again tomorrow.”
“Now!”
Everybody jumped to make it so. Ill as he was, Avery Quackenbush could still take command if he had to.
Sandwiched between the mirrors, Jax established the familiar mesmeric link with the billionaire. Almost immediately, he could see what Dr. Finnerty was talking about. The PIP was feeble at first, and it took much longer to reach the point where Jax was immersed in the old man’s mind. Even when the imagery surrounded Jax completely, the colors seemed pale and washed out, almost like old photographs that had begun to fade. A broad, flat expanse with a slightly rippled texture.
Waves?
He stood at the edge of a lake, watching two small boats being rowed up and down, each towing three heavy ropes. The craft were moving in a slow, methodical pattern, covering every inch of the body of water.
Jax shivered and realized that his clothes were damp. A heavy blanket was thrown over his shoulders. He was a teenager again. A slender arm stole around him and pulled him close. He recognized Quackenbush’s mother. Yet there was no affection in her embrace. She was stiff and trembling, holding on to him for support and comfort. Jax noticed that he — Avery — was just as tense.
With a shiver of recognition, Jax realized where they were. It was the lake where the two teenage brothers had gone fishing during the Great Depression, hoping to surprise their mother with a fresh trout, a windfall for their sparse table. For all his weeks of travels along the highways and byways of the billionaire’s memories, this was the first time he’d ever returned to a single location. Remembering the tycoon’s description of that afternoon, Jax wondered where Oscar was right then. When I heaved him back into the boat, Quackenbush had recalled the incident, damned if he didn’t have that trout clutched in his arms like a football. We had a real feed that night, let me tell you!
There was a commotion on one of the boats. The occupants suddenly began hauling on one of the towropes, pulling hard as if they had hooked something heavy. As they worked, Jax realized for the first time that the men were uniformed police officers. They labored, pulling hand over hand, until a long, limp form broke the surface and was hoisted over the gunwale into the craft.
Jax was bewildered by the object’s size until he identified what it was. Two arms, two legs — a drowned body. A lifeless white face came into view. Jax stared. It was Liam, cold and dead.
He was aware of how impossible this was — Quackenbush knew nothing of Liam, and Liam could not possibly have been alive during the Great Depression. By this time, Jax’s obsession with his long-lost brother had seeped into every corner of his mind, even spilling into his hypnotic sessions with the billionaire. In spite of this understanding, Jax was struck by a wave of grief that almost flattened him.
And then Liam’s features began to change. The lifeless eyes grew paler, the lips fuller. Jax watched in amazement as the transformation took place.
It was not Liam at all. It had never been Liam.
It was Oscar.
A gasp escaped Mrs. Quackenbush, and she began to weep softly. Jax felt his diaphragm rising, his body racked with sobs. At that moment, he recognized that the devastating grief was not his own, but Avery’s. The family reduced to poverty by the depression; the man of the house who-knew-where, wandering the country in search of work; and added on to that burden, the ultimate loss.
The truth was stunning. Oscar hadn’t made it out of the lake that day with a fish in his arms. He had died then and there — as a teenager — despite his brother’s best efforts to save him. And that meant he was never in the soccer riot, or the burning cabin, or driving too fast on the autobahn, or in any of the dozens of scenarios Jax had been parachuted into during their mesmeric sessions. The tycoon’s mind had created all those moments because of his overpowering guilt at not being able to rescue his younger brother. Jax felt that guilt now — it pressed on him like a twenty-ton weight. It was all he could do to keep from hurling himself into the lake, to share Oscar’s fate. Avery Quackenbush had gone on to spectacular success, wealth, and experience denied to all but a few people. And in some remote corner of his mind, he had brought his brother along for the entire ride. In each place, he had attempted to create the rescue he’d failed to complete on this day in the Great Depression. He’d lived nearly a century, achieving virtually everything within the realm of possibility for a human being. This was the one accomplishment that had always escaped him.
Jax felt a surge of sympathy for the tycoon that he never would have believed possible. Quackenbush had countless billions, worldwide fame, a gigantic estate complete with servants, and a private medical research team working on a treatment just for him. None of it had relieved the burden he had carried for eighty long years. Even today he still wasn’t free of it. A very real part of him had perished alongside his brother in these cold, dark waters.
And then, at this moment of total clarity, the scene around Jax shattered, the lake disintegrating into a million tiny shards. It was an explosion of spectacular violence, yet it took place in complete silence. Whatever form and color remained began to fade until the world was bleached clean. Jax was —
He was —
Where?
He was no longer teenage Avery; he was himself again, suspended amid a featureless landscape, watching the light fail all around him. He knew a moment of uncertainty. These sessions had taken him to many unfamiliar locations, but they had always been real places, with 360-degree scenery and solid ground under his feet. But this was nowhere; he might as well have been floating through deep space.
He was able to move, although he wasn’t quite sure how he was making it happen. It definitely wasn’t walking; it felt a little like swimming, but his arms and legs were immobile. Propelled by pure thought, he navigated a tangle of tunnels, desperately searching for a way out.
What’s going on?
The past weeks had prepared him for the unexpected, but even the unexpected had always resembled reality. This was something much, much weirder. It wasn’t even something; it was more like utter emptiness. Whatever it was, he was trapped in it.
Panic rose from his belly up into his throat. He tried to call for help, but no sound came out. It wasn’t a failure of his voice. Sound didn’t exist here. Nothing did — only Jax and these endless tunnels. Time itself seemed to stand still. How long had he been wandering? And how long would he wander? There could be no answer. He was lost in every sense of the word. Lost in space. Lost in time. It was as if he had ceased to exist.
Just as he was about to surrender to this limbo, he spied a distant figure at the end of a long foggy corridor. In desperation, he made for it, although how he was moving he could not quite understand. But it was working. He was making progress, his destination growing larger like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. He fixed his eyes on it, and tried to focus all his concentration on getting there.
Profound shock: The person was himself, seated at the antique table in the billionaire’s bedroom suite.
This isn’t the way out! It’s just a mirage!
He tried to back away, but apparently his motor mechanism had no reverse. Either that or the figure was holding him here, fixed like a fly in amber.
He was close enough to see his own irises darkening through blue into amethyst, confirming that he was in a deep mesmeric connection. Perhaps this was what Quackenbush saw during their sessions.
Or what I saw reflected back and forth in those mirrors.
The solution that fought its way up through the layers of Jax’s confusion was amazingly simple. He had hypnotized his way into this; he had to hypnotize his way out.
He locked his eyes on his image and summoned every ounce of mesmeric strength he could muster. He had no idea if it was even possible to bend your own reflection — if, in fact, this was a reflection. For all he knew, the figure was the real Jax, and he was the illusion. In this un-place, anything was possible.
He blinked back his doubts and doubled the intensity of his gaze. This would work; it had to work. He gritted his teeth, clenching so hard that his jaw began to ache. Where was the PIP? There was no question in his mind that, if he failed here, he would be stranded forever.
An enormous burst of acceleration took hold of him, flinging him forward at dizzying speed. The blackness of the void was replaced by a blizzard of light and color. He braced himself for a devastating collision.
It didn’t come.
Axel Braintree made it a point to do one hundred deep knee bends every day. It was a routine he’d kept up without fail since his time in prison — a must in his personal exercise regimen.
Until today.
He sat on his small bed in the attic, too upset to worry about his health and deep knee bends. Not even the continuing disappearance of his sandmen was as alarming as what he had glimpsed inside Jax’s mind.
It was his fault entirely. He alone had understood the importance of keeping Jax safe from Elias Mako. He had left New York and devoted his life to protecting and training the boy.
How could he have dropped the Frisbee this way? He had allowed himself to become so distracted that he’d barely noticed the disturbed state that was overtaking his pupil. How could he gamble with the mind that might one day wield the greatest mesmeric power in history?
And now that he was back on track, he was very much afraid that it might be too late.
He tore off a quick set of ten knee bends, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Downstairs, he could hear Monica Opus heading for the broom closet. Pretty soon she would be knocking on the ceiling. He couldn’t even be mad at her, so badly had he failed her son.
The doorbell rang. Muffled conversation followed, the voices of at least two men. One of them spoke the name “Jackson Opus.”
Braintree stiffened. No one in Haywood knew that name. It was Jack Magnus who lived here.
Mrs. Opus repeated the letters: “FBI.”
He eased the attic door open a crack in order to eavesdrop more efficiently.
“… your son’s involvement in the creation of a computer virus linked to election tampering …”
That was enough for Braintree. He was a law-abiding citizen now, but no good could possibly come of this. Jax would never be able to explain the video virus to the FBI’s satisfaction. And even if he could, the investigation would expose him to Mako, which was even worse.
There was only one course of action: Jax needed to disappear again. His parents would be able to join him at some point in the future, but Jax had to go now — before returning home to be scooped up by these agents.
Braintree had already scouted an exit strategy for just such an emergency. He opened the dormer window and climbed out onto the sloped roof of the small house. That left him only seven feet of slanted shingles to scramble across before he reached the drainpipe. A few seconds later, he’d shinnied down to the driveway. Good thing he’d kept himself in such top physical shape.
The unmarked FBI car was parked behind his Dodge Avenger. He had to drive across the neighbor’s lawn to get around it. That was okay, he reflected as he bounced onto the road and roared off. It wouldn’t be the first flower bed he’d flattened in his Connecticut driving career.
Jax had told him the location of the Quackenbush mansion, but he wasn’t quite sure of the twists and turns of the trip. He had to get this exactly right.
He couldn’t fail Jax again. The stakes were too high.
Jax came back to himself on the couch in the sitting room to find Dr. Finnerty bending over him.
“You’re awake,” the doctor said, his relief evident. “How do you feel?”
“It was the weirdest time yet!” Jax explained urgently. “The connection broke and everything went dark, but it was like I was trapped there.” He paused. “How long was I out?”
“Long enough to give me a scare,” Finnerty replied honestly. “About an hour after Mr. Quackenbush —” His voice caught in his throat.
Jax sat up. “What?”
And then he knew. Of course he did. He should have known the instant it happened. The broken link; the darkness. He had lost the connection because there had been no one on the other end.
Avery Quackenbush was dead.
Emotion flooded through Jax. He wasn’t sure exactly how he felt — just that he felt it a lot — to an extraordinary degree. This was no tragedy. The ninety-six-year-old hadn’t exactly been cut down in his prime.
Perhaps it was this: Jax had been trying to prolong this man’s life — a life that he had virtually shared during their many sessions together.
And he had failed.
He leaped to his feet. “I want to see him!”
“It might not be good for you.”
“I don’t care,” Jax shot back. “I have to see him one last time — to apologize!”
“Apologize?” Finnerty echoed.
“I was supposed to keep him going until the treatment was ready. I should have been able to save him!”
“Nothing could have saved him,” the doctor said firmly. “His body just gave out.”
“I could have done something!” Jax was babbling now. “I could have planted a hypnotic suggestion that his treatment was ready ahead of time and he was going to be just fine! At least he could have died happy!”
“You’re a very kind person,” Finnerty told Jax, “but your work here is finished. You did a good job. He liked you.”
Jax shook his head. “He didn’t like anybody. Except his brother, and he died eighty years ago.”
“Come and say your good-byes, then,” the doctor invited soothingly. “After that, I recommend that you put this part of your life behind you.”
The billionaire’s body had been established in his elaborate canopy bed. Jax blinked. It was the first time he’d ever seen Avery Quackenbush without an obscuring curtain of wires, tubes, and IV poles. Jax had never been in the presence of a dead person before, but if he had to describe it, he would have used the words “not awful.” The billionaire seemed relaxed, relieved of all the tension that his last battle had built up. Jax was in a position to understand, since he’d experienced more of that tumultuous life than anyone except the tycoon himself.
Jax spoke directly to the deceased. “You kept Oscar alive by remembering him. And now I’ll remember him for you.” He backtracked to the door. “Bye, Mr. Quackenbush.”
Zachary stepped forward. “I’ll give you a ride home now, Mr. Jack.”
As the Bentley tooled along the rural roads, Zachary reached over the partition and handed Jax an envelope. “It’s a cashier’s check for five hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Quackenbush always pays his debts.”
Jax pocketed the envelope without even examining the contents. He’d almost forgotten the deal that had convinced him to sign on with Quackenbush in the first place — money to replace the careers his parents had to give up when the Opuses went into hiding. Now he had that money in his hand. What was missing was the family. His parents had betrayed him, keeping him in the dark about Liam, his own flesh-and-blood brother. Worse, they were depriving him of his rightful place — alongside Liam and Dr. Mako — in mesmeric history. The money was supposed to be their future, but he had no future with Ashton and Monica Opus — and not with Axel Braintree either. For everything Braintree had taught him about hypnotism, he had passed on at least ten lies. Sentia was not the enemy; the enemy was living under the very same roof as Jax himself.
In that instant, Jax knew exactly what he had to do. Why should he return home to that place that was not home? To go through the motions and continue that sham of a life? No, he had already wasted enough time in ignorance. It was time to start building the real Jackson Opus. And he would do it with his brother at his side — at Sentia, where they both belonged, learning from the great Dr. Mako.
“Is it okay if you drop me off in town instead of at my house?” Jax requested. “I want to go to the bank and deposit this check.”
?
??Good idea,” Zachary approved. “Mr. Quackenbush always said you had a head on your shoulders.” He peered back over the partition with a sad smile. “He didn’t say that about everybody, you know.”
Jax knew. He also knew that he wasn’t going to be making any deposit that day. The bank was located next to the train station. New York was less than two hours away.
Jack Magnus was dead. Long live Jackson Opus.
He was going home.
Spicy food always made Felicity hyper.
That was why she was sitting in the window of El Rancho Pancho with a basket of tortilla chips and their famous habanero salsa. Her parents had her on a strict diet of mild-to-medium. So when they were both working late, El Rancho Pancho was the spot where she could treat herself to something a little more incendiary.
There she sat, her tongue on fire, watching the businesspeople swarm off the commuter trains at the station across the street. At this hour, the open-air platform emptied out quickly. Only one figure was waiting for a train to take him from Haywood rather than the other way around. A blob of salsa dripped onto the knee of her jeans. It was Jack Magnus, and he was pacing like he was about to start running down the track, rather than wait for the train.
She tossed some bills onto her table, ran out of the restaurant, and crossed the street to the station.
“Jack! What’s up! Where are you going?”
He looked frantic. His face was pale, and his eyes, which never seemed to be the same color twice, were eggplant purple. His hands were shaky, and when he recognized her, he quickly jammed them into his pockets.
“Hi,” he said in somebody else’s voice.
“You’re taking a train now?”
He nodded vigorously. “I’m going to New York.”
She was mystified. “Is there some big concert tonight?”
He was tight-lipped. “I’m going to find my brother.”
“But you’re an only child!”
The story that she heard next had her head spinning — and it had nothing to do with the habanero peppers in the salsa. Jack had a secret brother who his parents had been hiding for all these years. Liam lived in some kind of research lab in New York. Jack wasn’t too clear on what his brother was doing there. Had Liam been committed to an institution? Maybe, but sometimes it sounded more as if Liam was the privileged son, and Jack had gotten the short end of the stick by being taken to Haywood with his parents and uncle. One thing was obvious: Jack was beyond furious with his family, and upset to the point where he wasn’t thinking clearly. His plan, as much as she could decipher it, was to join Liam at this institute, which was a wonderful place, run by a great man named Dr. Mako.