Kay Hooper - Blood Dreams

"Apparently. Seems like every case I'm on brings a fun new toy for me." She eyed him. "Your aura is surprisingly calm, mostly blue and green."

Jordan had no idea what that meant and decided not to ask. He had a hunch he was better off not knowing.

Dani was saying, "I caught just enough of a glimpse into his mind to know two things: He's brilliant, and he's powerful. And I got the sense that he's been planning this for a long time, months at least. Probably even before Boston."

"Planning what?" Hollis asked again.

"To get more powerful. And to get rid of an enemy he views as very dangerous." Dani nodded toward Bishop.

"Bishop made an enemy," Gabriel murmured. "Fancy that."

"Gabe," his sister said warningly.

Bishop shook his head. "No, he's right. I make plenty of enemies."

"Then what makes this one different?" she asked.

"Ask Dani."

Dani didn't wait to be asked. "All I can tell you is that his plan is somehow focused on Bishop-and the SCU. And that we're all here because he wants us to be."

Gabriel scowled. "I don't much like being a puppet."

"Then we have at least one thing in common," Bishop told him.

Jordan said, "Okay, maybe a dumb question. Granted, we need to find this bastard before he has time to do any more damage. What does the timeline have to do with Paris? Afraid he'll come back and try to finish the job?"

"I'm afraid he has to."

"Why?"

"Because she has-or had-something he wants. And I think he made his first real mistake in believing he could get what he wanted from her and attack me at the same time. It took more energy than he planned and left him without enough to get the job done."

"I'm still in the dark," Jordan complained.

"He wanted something he could use as a weapon," Dani explained. "Not many psychic abilities can be used that way, but Paris had one of them."

Gabriel sat up straighter. "Her secondary ability?"

Dani glanced at Marc, then nodded. "Yeah. And not so secondary anymore, at least not for me-as we discovered at the hospital. I think the doctors were much more happy about me discharging myself after I shorted out two of their machines."

"Say what?" Jordan's voice was a bit faint.

She hesitated, then held up her right hand, thumb and index finger touching. As she rubbed them together, everyone in the room could hear the crackle of energy, very obviously intensifying with the friction she was creating. When she abruptly separated the two fingers, a visible thread of electricity arced between them.

"I seem to be a better conductor than Paris was," Dani said absently, watching the little light show. "She couldn't sleep with an electric alarm clock on her nightstand, because it would short out while she was sleeping. When she was awake, the only thing she occasionally affected was the odd touchy computer or something like that."

"Wow," Jordan said.

Dani looked at him, then shook her hand slightly. With a couple of pops and crackles, the energy dissipated. "Most of us carry around a static charge at one time or another; the human body is filled with electrical energy. My mind just knows how to channel it now. Focus it, direct it."

"Ah. An honest-to-God weapon. Like a laser?"

"Not that focused."

"Not yet," Bishop murmured.

Without looking at him, Dani said, "It's an ability I'd just as soon have temporarily and give back to Paris as soon as possible. One of Bishop's guardians is at the hospital watching over her, but I think all this guy needs is time to… recharge his own energy before he tries again."

Roxanne said, "So you think he targeted Paris deliberately? Because he wanted her ability?"

"I think so."

"How did he find out about it?"

"I don't know for sure. But-"

Marc spoke up, saying, "Paris's ex-husband likes to drink. And he tends to rant about Paris, to anyone who even pretends to be listening, when he drinks. All about Paris, especially the things that spooked him. I'm thinking maybe Dan said the wrong thing to the right person. In fact, I'd bet on it."

Roxanne lifted her brows at Dani. "Your twin married a man named-"

"We pondered the subtext of the names, believe me," Dani told her wryly. "Probably something Freudian about it. Or just unlucky chance-all the way around."

"Moving on," Gabriel murmured.

Dani nodded. "Thank you. Moving on-the point is that I think this guy will try again, and as soon as he regains his strength."

"How do you know he lost it?" Jordan asked.

"Bitter experience. Every psychic I know is drained to some extent when they use their abilities. An attack like that one required an enormous amount of energy, especially since he wasn't in physical contact with Paris or apparently even close to either of us. I was out nearly eighteen hours, and that was after he expended most of his energies attacking both of us; I'm betting he's still out."

Gabriel pulled at his earlobe briefly. "So you're saying that Paris's ex did his drunken-rant act in a bar where our killer happened to be? I love a good coincidence, but-"

"Not so much of a coincidence when you think about it," Marc said. "Dan worked for a company in Atlanta. We're a bit far out to be a true bedroom community, but we have more than our share of commuters who live in Venture-and his job involved a lot of travel. All up and down the East Coast. He passed through Boston at least three times last summer."

"All kinds of things lining up now," Roxanne said. "So this serial was laying low in Boston, maybe keeping an eye on the investigation into his murders, maybe just having a scotch between victims, when he heard a drunken salesman in a bar talking about his very talented ex-wife. And it seemed like a good idea to get out of the spotlight up there and head south."

"I think it was a lot more deliberate than that," Dani said. "I can't prove it, because so far there's nothing anybody would consider to be evidence-but I know the sense I got from that voice in my mind. That other personality. He was already focused on Bishop, on the SCU. He was planning on a fight. Maybe he intended to make his stand there in Boston, or maybe he was already on the verge of moving on. Either way, hearing about Paris brought him to Venture. Because Paris was here, and she had a very cool ability he wanted for his very own."

"He's a psychic vampire," Jordan guessed hesitantly, half afraid someone would laugh at him.

But this wasn't a group to easily dismiss the seemingly fantastic.

"There are plenty of energy vampires in the nonpsychic world," Bishop told him. "You probably know at least one yourself. They wear out their friends just having a normal conversation, suck the energy right out of the room."

Jordan frowned. "Actually, I know two people like that. But this guy-am I right in thinking he'd have to have some kind of specialized ability? I mean, to steal another psychic's abilities?"

Listening to the clock ticking louder in her head, Dani said, "Probably. To be honest, I don't really care how he does it. Or why. I just want to find him, and before he has the strength to finish the job he started. He'll go after Paris again, and, guardian or not, he could kill her before he ever realized she no longer has the ability he wants so badly."

Jordan nodded quickly. "So we go back to the warehouses."

"And," Marc said, "start checking property records for the last couple of months. I'm betting he likes his accommodations to be a little more comfortable than a warehouse, wherever he does his dirty work. I doubt he's stayed at one of the motels all these weeks, because it would have been noticed. A rental or a lease is more likely. But we'll send deputies out to check the motels anyway."

"Which will also be noticed," Bishop said.

"It's the weekend and getting late, so maybe not so much. In any case, I figure we've got maybe forty-eight hours max before the news breaks wide open." He eyed Bishop. "And speaking of news, shouldn't you be in Boston, all visible for the Director?"