Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

“So you trust he’s mentally healthy?”

“As much as any of us is,” she murmured.

Jaylene said, “Did the voice happen to tell him why he needs to be here?”

“No.”

“Forgive me for sounding paranoid, but do you know that for a fact or only because he told you so?”

“Because he told me. I’m not reading much of anything from anyone right now. Closed down tight as a drum, remember? The fact that Hollis got through—loud and clear, no less—before the bomb exploded says more about her strengthening abilities than about mine.”

“Is she a telepath now?” Jaylene asked.

“Not in the sense we understand. She can’t receive at all, as far as we can tell. But she’s gone beyond simple broadcasting because of the lack of a shield. She can send—and at full wattage, as Quentin would say.”

“That could be a handy little tool,” Jaylene said, thoughtful.

“Yeah, we’re hoping it will be.” Assuming all this doesn’t overload her brain…

“Are your abilities changing?” Tony asked. “I mean, because Bishop was there at the church Compound, and through him, through your connection, whatever happened affected you as well?”

“Yes. My abilities are… changing. And, before you ask, I’m not entirely sure just how they’re changing, only that they are.” Before they could probe more into specifics, she added, “Like I said, the others there that day were changed too. Quentin isn’t aware of it, but he’s developing a secondary ability; Paige picked up on it during the debrief afterward.”

Paige Gilbert was the unit’s “Geiger counter,” as Quentin had dubbed her: a psychic whose specialities were detecting latent and active psychic abilities in others—and defining specific abilities those psychics might be totally unaware of possessing. She was always present at post-investigation debriefs, another tool Bishop used to regularly monitor the condition of his people.

“What kind of secondary ability?” Tony asked.

“She wasn’t sure.”

“Paige wasn’t sure?” With a better than eighty percent accuracy rate, she was one of the strongest psychics on the team.

“No. She said she was, for want of a better definition, getting some kind of interference when she tried to read anyone who was there at the Compound that day. Crackling, like static. And the interference hasn’t cleared up in the months since.”

“I don’t much like the sound of that.”

“Neither did Noah. And neither do I.”

There was a long silence, and then Jaylene said, “Why do I get the feeling you didn’t bring this up just to explain some changes we might have seen in the team?”

“Maybe because neither one of us believes in coincidence. There’s been something off about this case from the very beginning, and so far the only thing that keeps turning up, in one way or another, is Samuel.”

“But Samuel’s dead,” Tony said slowly.

“Yes. He is. But how many times have we faced the certainty that, in our world, dead doesn’t necessarily mean gone?”

BJ ACTUALLY ENJOYED the cat-and-mouse game, amused by the notion that all those searching the town for him believed he was the mouse.

Idiots.

But by the time the sun was well up and the locals began to cautiously emerge from their homes, he decided he had better things to do with his time than to play with the cops and feds. Especially with the media nosing around and mostly getting in his way.

Killing one of them had not, apparently, discouraged the rest. In fact, there were more of the creatures around now that it was light. Maybe that gave them courage. Or maybe they were just dirt-stupid.

He considered that idly, pausing before abandoning his post to put the crosshairs over first one face and then another, wishing he could take them out. It would be so easy.

Boom.

But this wasn’t the time. So he withdrew from the downtown area, smoothly and easily, all according to plan.

I’m out .

Good, Go check on him .

He would have preferred to do almost anything else, but he knew very well what his assigned roles were in the plan. So he merely sent back an affirmative and continued on his way. Once out of the more congested—in a rural sense—downtown area, the houses and businesses were farther and farther apart, and it was easy for him to travel through them unseen.

He used the usual tricks to make certain the dogs they’d finally set on his trail would find no trail to follow, amused yet again as he wondered what those experienced trackers would make of their failures.

Not that he cared.

At last he reached an old but well-kept farmhouse set in the middle of considerable acreage, its white-railed pasture dotted with a few beef cattle and a couple of lazy horses. He slipped up the long, winding dirt drive, taking care even though he knew there was no one around to see him pass.

When he got to the house, he used the key that was always underneath a flowerpot on the wide front porch to let himself in, reasonably sure that the house’s occupant would be too preoccupied to hear the doorbell.

He usually was.

Sure enough, BJ could hear sounds coming from the basement. His mouth twisted. He carried his gun and pack to the kitchen and left them on the table, planning to clean the former and replenish supplies in the latter before he went back out.

With the closed basement door so near the kitchen, the sounds coming from down there were even louder, rising and falling like the plaintive cries of some terrified night animal.

Ignoring them, BJ went to the fridge and studied the contents for a moment before deciding he didn’t feel like cooking eggs. Instead, he got out the makings of a sandwich. He fixed a generous one, found a beer in the fridge and chips in the pantry, and settled down to eat his meal.

One especially loud shriek from the basement, ending in a wet gurgle, caused him to pause for a moment, but then he resumed eating. When he was finished, he cleaned up after himself meticulously, checked his watch, then got another beer and set about cleaning his rifle.

He needed sack time before the next stage of the plan, but knew only too well he wouldn’t be able to sleep with all the noises in the basement. So he kept himself busy for the duration, checking his watch from time to time and more than a little surprised that this one was taking so long.

He’d been in the house nearly two hours before the sounds finally faded into silence. And about damn time too.

Check on him. Clean up .

Dammit.

Ah, shit, I don’t want to do that. Place’ll look like a slaughterhouse, at least until he has his toy ready for me to take out of here. And, besides, you know he likes to clean up himself. It’s part of his fun .

We don’t have time for that, BJ, not if you were planning on a nap anytime soon. Don’t think you’re getting any sleep until you make damn sure he’s out too. Give him an injection .

Okay, okay. I’ll take care of it .

Just take care of him. You know what’ll happen if you don’t .

It wasn’t so much a threat as it was a promise, and BJ knew better than to argue. Still, he paused long enough to remove his boots and socks, grimacing slightly as he thought about what he would undoubtedly step in during the process of cleaning up. Easier and simpler later to clean his feet rather than his boots, but still not a pleasant thought.

His idea of up close and personal was what he saw through the scope of his rifle.

He opened the door to the basement and started down the stairs, automatically breathing through his mouth.