Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

Brooke nodded. “Maybe they did.”

Diana felt a cold so deep her bones ached with it. She had been so cold for so long she wondered if it was possible to ever be warm again.

She looked around once again at the corridor, at the representation of a place where more than one evil soul had done terrible things. “That’s why I keep coming back here to this place. To this… representation. Because this is where he grew so powerful. Where he absorbed so much dark energy his evil creature created. This is where he meant to destroy them the first time. Bishop, the others. Where he tried.”

“Tried and failed,” Brooke reminded her.

“Yes. But he lived to try again. Lived to grow stronger. And that time he was in a place where he felt even more powerful. The closest thing he had to a home. So why am I not there, at the church’s Compound? Why is this place more important?”

Brooke was silent.

This place. Corridors. Shiny and sterile. Endless corridors… A place to move through…

And then she got it.

“He’s here, isn’t he? Here in the gray time. His spirit didn’t… That black and twisted spirit found a way somehow to stay in the gray time all these months. To hide here.”

“Do you think it was in his nature to hide?” Brooke asked neutrally.

Diana’s answer came slowly. “No. No, I read the profile on him. He was all about attention, adulation. Worship. But… it would have been in his nature to wait, maybe. If he had a plan. If he believed there was a way for him to go back.”

“How could he do that? Go back? His body is ashes now, scattered on the wind.”

“He’d need another one,” Diana said automatically. “If he means to go all the way back, means to live again in the flesh. If he finds a way to do that, the power to do that. It’s…just barely possible. I’ve seen it happen before. {see Chill of Fear} But it wasn’t permanent. The struggle of two minds for dominance, the energy of two souls in one body is—”

She broke off, and for one dizzying moment the whole gray time world seemed to spin around her. “He isn’t—he won’t—he doesn’t want my body. Does he?”

Dispassionate, Brooke said, “If that was his plan, I would say two things went wrong for him. Your injuries were far more severe than he’d anticipated, and Quentin refused to let go.”

Diana looked at her numbly, and Brooke nodded. “Whatever his plan might have been, this is the reality. He’s been trapped in this cold, desolate place for a long time, and he wants to live again.”

“But—”

“He wants to live again, Diana.”

Serenade

Miranda was regretting her impulse to answer the insistent questions of the young TV-journalist-wannabe even before she glanced several feet away to see Tony watching with slightly raised brows and Jaylene looking rather pointedly at her watch. Easy to read their expressions without the need for telepathy. They were all exhausted, and if they hurried they might be able to sleep an hour or three before they had to be up and at it again.

So why wasn’t she hurrying?

God knew she was so tired she was responding on automatic anyway, offering nothing useful to the eager blonde with the sharp eyes of some bird of prey that most probably ate its young.

I’m too tired for this. Bound to make mistakes. Time to go .

“… Ms. Welborne, I appreciate that you’re trying to do your job, but I can’t say anything more. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Agent—”

That was when the world blew up.

Miranda was still looking at the younger woman, and even though she knew it was all happening in split seconds, time seemed to almost stop so that she saw every horrible detail.

Naomi Welborne’s face just sort of… split and flopped open. Blood and bits of tissue sprayed Miranda, almost blinding her. The TV reporter jerked to one side and started to go down, still holding her microphone.

Only then did they hear the craa-aack of the high-powered rifle.

After that things happened fast.

Miranda’s instincts and training kicked into gear, and she dove toward the nearest building, hooking an arm around the stunned cameraman to take him down as well. A quick look showed her that her people were also diving for cover, as were the other cops and feds. Even the few remaining media on the other side of the crime-scene tape had the sense to at least hit the deck.

The same glance showed her that Jaylene had been hit in the upper arm and was pretty much being dragged by Tony behind one of the big decorative trash containers on the sidewalk.

Wonder if the bastard meant to get two again… Where the hell is he… has to be using a night scope…

A weird silence fell.

Miranda found her weapon in her hand even though she had no memory of reaching for it. Her dive had taken both her and the cameraman into the shadows of a three-story building; a quick and rough calculation told her she was most likely out of the sniper’s line of sight.

Most likely.

“Jaylene?” she called.

“I’m okay. Just a flesh wound. Tony’s already got the bleeding stopped.” She sounded calm.

Tony called out, “She needs a medic, Miranda.” He, too, sounded a lot calmer than he had any right to be.

From closer to the mobile command center, Dean called, “Shot came from the south, definitely. Angle says he’s in or on a building close by, not farther away or higher up. We’ve got people fanning out.”

“Have them stick close to the buildings,” Miranda responded, barely having to raise her voice in the eerie silence. “Every building checked, Dean, and when they’re clear I want somebody posted at every entrance and exit.”

“We’ll run out of manpower.”

“Use what we’ve got until reinforcements arrive. Have one deputy or agent cover more than one door whenever possible. If we can’t find this bastard, we can at least flush him out and force him to move farther away. This is not going to become his goddamn shooting gallery.”

“Copy that.”

In an almost conversational tone, Tony said, “We have reinforcements coming?”

“We do now,” Miranda replied.

“Great. What about the reporter? Any hope?”

“No. She’s gone.” A whimpering sound drew her attention, and Miranda looked down at the cameraman lying like a log beside her on the pavement. “Are you okay?” she asked mechanically, even as her mind registered the absurdity of the question. There were spatters of blood on one side of his face, and a small piece of what looked like brain tissue clung to the lens of his camera.

He stared at her with huge, unseeing eyes and continued to whimper like a terrified child.

Miranda couldn’t really blame him. Some part of her wanted to curl up somewhere and whimper. But that wasn’t a part she could give in to. She hesitated for only a moment and then reached to activate a small device hidden in her ear.

“Roxanne?”

“Here. Sorry, Miranda—I don’t know how he slipped past us.” The voice in her ear was quiet, but more because it was faint than because Roxanne was speaking quietly. They hadn’t been sure these new coms would work in this area at all, but with the help of the tactical command center’s booster antennas, the signals were at least somewhat effective within a half-mile to a mile radius here in the downtown area.

“Never mind that now. Can you sense him?”

“That’s the thing. We’ve been trying and we can’t. It’s like there’s some kind of interference; both of us have headaches, and we don’t get headaches. Even now we can’t tell you for sure where he was, whether he’s on the move, or where he’s heading. Nothing.”