Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"Why would he do that?"

"Because he's probably worried about his own ass. He's been in her bed too."

It was characteristic of the blackouts that Nell woke abruptly, without the drowsy sensation that usually accompanied waking from a true sleep. One moment she was out cold, deep in an utterly dreamless unconsciousness, and the next her eyes were open and she was completely alert.

So when she woke, her first very clear realization was that she was in a strange house.

She was lying on a comfortable bed, fully dressed but for her shoes and jacket, and was covered by a thin blanket. A couple of open windows brought in the light of a dying day as well as a cool breeze. And the muted sounds of voices.

Nell threw back the blanket and slid from the bed. A glance at her watch showed her she'd been out for a little less than an hour, which was usual. It was just after five. She looked around the room, studying the gleaming dark wood furniture, the beautiful old rug covering much of the wood floor. There were no photographs she could see, but several very good oil landscapes lent the room a peaceful, old-world quality.

And, faintly, she could smell Max's cologne.

"Oh, hell," she muttered beneath her breath, more unsettled than she wanted to admit even to herself.

She went to one of the windows, standing to one side to carefully peer through the gauzy curtains. This second-floor room was at the front of the house, so Nell found herself looking down onto the front drive and a neat, well-cared-for yard.

A sheriff's department cruiser was parked in the drive.

The two deputies stood on either side of the car, both facing Max, seemingly relaxed and casual in that deceptively unthreatening posture most cops had when they were intent on not looking as tough as they actually were. And Max stood near the front of the car, not quite blocking their access to the house, arms crossed over his chest in body language that was guarded at best — and hostile at worst.

The murmur of voices was indistinct at first, and Nell concentrated, focusing on sight and hearing so she could channel a bit of extra energy to enhance those senses as she'd been taught to do. Bishop was the best at it, using what Miranda had long ago nick-named his spider sense, but he had taught most of his agents to use a form of the same ability. And it did come in handy at times. Like now.

"… so we're not picking on you, Max," Deputy Venable was saying matter-of-factly. "Sheriff's got us checking on everybody in the area."

His partner, the gorgeous Lauren Champagne, added in the same tone, "The whole town is jumpy, you know that. So we're providing the most visible police presence we can muster."

"And visiting every house individually?" Max demanded skeptically.

"The outlying ones, sure." It was Lauren who answered, smiling faintly. But her dark eyes were watchful. "And we're asking everyone to report anything they consider odd, no matter how insignificant it seems."

"Most of us are pulling double shifts so we have more patrols out at all times," Kyle Venable added. "Just give us a call, and we can be here within minutes."

"Okay. I'll do that. If I notice anything odd."

Nell grimaced, recognizing a dismissal that couldn't have been more blunt unless he'd told them flatly to get the hell off his property. The two deputies exchanged glances again, then shrugged in tandem and got back into their cruiser.

Without waiting to watch them leave, Nell went into the adjoining bathroom to splash water on her face and finger-comb her hair into its usual unfussy style. She wanted to avoid even glancing into the mirror over the vanity, but in the end stared somewhat grimly at her reflection. She was aware that she was too pale but was far more disturbed by the faint purple shadows beneath her eyes.

They hadn't been there yesterday.

And today, for the first time ever, she had blacked out twice, the second time with a warning of only a minute or two instead of the twenty or so minutes she was accustomed to.

What was happening to her?

Like most of the other psychics she knew, Nell lived with the knowledge that the very sensitivity to and ability to interpret electrical energies and magnetic fields that was genetically hardwired into her brain might eventually damage that brain. Especially if she pushed herself and those abilities, used them too often, or for too long at a time.

No one really knew what might happen, but the possibilities were scary.

And for the psychic members of the SCU, there was also the awareness that the very work they had chosen to do could well increase their risk of, as Nell had flippantly put it to Max, waking up one day with their brains fried. Unlike psychics not involved in law enforcement, they didn't have the luxury of allowing their abilities to control them , of waiting around passively and merely allowing the abilities to come when they would.

No, the SCU psychics struggled always to master and use every ability they possessed, often under extremely stressful and dangerous situations and frequently pushing themselves to their limits — and beyond — because that effort could mean the difference between catching the monsters they hunted and allowing those animals another day, or week, or year of freedom in which to destroy more innocent lives.

For some of the psychics, it was likely there would be a heavy price demanded sooner or later. Certain psychic abilities required a great deal of physical stamina, for instance, while others appeared to actually create increasingly powerful electromagnetic fields within the brain itself.

Nell belonged to the latter group.

She had been matter-of-fact and cool about the risks to Max, but the truth was that Bishop kept an unusually close eye on her simply because her abilities were unique even in his considerable experience of the paranormal, and nobody could even hazard a guess as to how much sheer electrical energy her brain was capable of producing — and capable of surviving.

It was beginning to look like she was closer to her limits than she had ever been before.

Nell watched the haunted-looking woman in the mirror bite her lip, then turned away with a muttered curse. Worrying about it, she knew, wouldn't change a damned thing. All she could do was try to get to the bottom of these murders as quickly as she possibly could.

She found her shoes and put them on, then picked up her jacket and fished her cell phone out of the pocket.

"Yeah." His voice was, as always, calm and curiously implacable, like something deeply rooted and utterly certain of itself and its place in the universe.

She envied him that.

"It's me. Are you nearby?"

"About a hundred yards from the house. Close as I could get without being seen. I was going to give it another fifteen minutes and then come in after you. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Just woke up."

"Two blackouts in one day is not fine, Neil."

"Okay, maybe I overstated that." She tried to make her voice amused and unconcerned. "But I'm up and functional."

"I don't like this."

"I'm not crazy about it either. But it's the only game in town and you know it."

"Yeah, well, there's something else I know. Word from on high is we'd better all watch our backs. That shadow on the photograph is just what we thought it was."

"Shit. I was hoping we were wrong." Nell tried to ignore the chill crawling up and down her spine. It was becoming a familiar sensation.

"No such luck. He's watching you, Nell, or at least was that once. And we have no way of knowing why."

"But we have to assume he's on to me somehow."

"That's the general consensus. He either knows who and what you are or else doesn't know but perceives you as a threat. Maybe because he's psychic. If you've encountered him casually since you got here, he could have gotten some sense of your abilities and realized you might be able to stop him."