Kay Hooper - Blood Dreams

The stairwell was already lighted.

"Bingo," Roxanne said.

Useless to warn them. We all know it's a trap. Why are we just walking into it?

Wait.

I know this. The trap was the whole idea.

It wasn't about killing women. Not here, not in Venture. That was only… window dressing.

That was the first part of the trap, to lure … us .

Us. Bishop because he's the threat and had to be… disarmed. Paris because he wanted her ability. And now he knows it's mine, so the trap is for me.

This trap was always for me.

Roxanne shifted her weapon to a steady two-handed grip and sent Dani and Marc a quick look. "Ready?"

Dani didn't spare the energy to wonder how anyone on earth could ever be ready for this. Instead, she just nodded.

Marc squeezed her hand, then released it and took a half step closer to Roxanne, saying to Dani, "Stay behind me. You're the only one of us without a gun."

"She doesn't need a gun," Roxanne said.

At least I know now why I don't need a gun. If she means what I think she means.

"Maybe not, but I still want her behind me," Marc said in a tone that not many would have argued with. "Let's go if we're going."

Roxanne had only taken one step when a thunderous crash sounded behind them and a new wave of almost intolerable heat threatened to shove them bodily into the stairwell.

The roof was falling in.

They exchanged glances and then, without emotion, Roxanne said, "Close the door behind us."

Oh, shit.

It always ends this way.

Dani gathered all the courage she could find, and if her response wasn't as emotionless as the other woman's, at least it was steady.

"Right," she said, and closed the door behind them as they began their descent into hell.

Monday, October 13

8:30 A.M.

"THIS IS ONE MORNING when I definitely need more than donuts, with or without sprinkles," Hollis said with a yawn as she climbed out of Jordan's cruiser in the parking lot of a small, moderately busy cafe one street back from Main in downtown Venture. " I just can't pull all-nighters like I used to."

"Join the club." He shut the door on his side and stretched to ease stiff muscles, then glanced toward the cafe and groaned. "Oh, hell, here comes Matt Condrey."

"Friend of yours?" she asked, amused as she watched a sturdy bearded man about the same age as the chief deputy weaving among cars to quickly make his way toward Jordan.

"It's a myth that men don't gossip," Jordan said, mostly from the side of his mouth. "Because here comes the worst gossip in Prophet County. Bet you ten bucks the first words out of his mouth will be to ask why we haven't arrested anybody for the murders the public isn't supposed to know about yet."

"I don't think I'll take that bet. Meet you inside."

"Yeah, leave me to my doom. Thanks very much. You're a cruel woman." He raised his voice to add, "Hey, Matt. Something I can do for you?"

"Jordan, you and the sheriff have got to do something about those teenagers parking out at my place every weekend. I mean, I understand hormones, but…"

I should have taken the bet . Still amused, Hollis set out on her own wandering path among the cars and around the building to the side entrance. It was not the most obvious location for a "front" door and was in fact one that would have hurt most businesses, but Jordan had told her this place made the best biscuits and gravy in four counties-and in the South, that was saying something.

Customers find your door when they really, really like what you're selling them, even if you make them walk around overgrown shrubbery and wedge themselves in between improbably placed stacks of lumber, presumably for some reno project as yet unstarted.

"Ow!" And get stung by bees-

Hollis stared at the object she found sticking in her thigh and for an instant was aware of nothing except total incomprehension.

Then she got it.

She had time only to wish with all her heart and soul that she had taken the bet with Jordan and remained with him back at the car to collect her winnings.

And then the world spun wildly on its axis, and everything went black.

Dani turned off Marc's portable phone and set it back on its base, seeing her fingers tremble. "Dammit. Bishop said Hollis and Jordan had gone out to get breakfast. Jordan called in not two minutes ago. Somebody stopped him in the restaurant's parking lot to ask about something totally unimportant. Hollis went on. When he got inside, she was just… gone. No evidence of a struggle. Nobody saw anything."

"It never fails to amaze me how nobody sees anything when something completely extraordinary happens," Marc said, handing her a cup of coffee. "And yet how many UFOs do you suppose get reported every year?"

Dani appreciated the effort but refused to be sidetracked. "Why the hell didn't I see this coming? Oh, yeah, I forgot- I did ."

"Don't be so hard on yourself."

"Marc, I should have known how it would go. The vision kept changing, and every time the signposts were all but jumping up and down to get my attention. The different watches, warning me from the very beginning that time was important, that there was less of it than I thought. The baited trap, inescapable, unavoidable, waiting for us at the end of this. The sequence of potential victims baiting that trap, shifting easily no matter what I did, as if it hardly mattered which of them was there, Miranda or Paris or Hollis-"

"What?" he asked when she broke off.

"That was the biggest signpost of all," she said slowly. "And I kept missing it."

"Dani, what are you talking about?"

"The bait. It was Miranda even after Bishop made sure she was out of reach, even though it never felt right to me. That was bait for him, to keep him in this-and separated from Miranda. His half of the trap. That's why he always leaves us in the vision dream, why he always goes alone into one side of the trap."

"Separated from everybody else," Marc said. "Weakened strategically."

"Exactly. That's partly what the trap-what this whole setup-was designed to do."

"And the other part? The other side?"

"The side with the teeth. The side intended to capture prey for a psychic killer with his eye on someone else's abilities."

"Why a trap at all?" Marc said. "Why not just take what he wanted? The attack on you and Paris was nearly successful, so why not try that again?"

She frowned. "I think… I feel… his abilities are limited, just like every psychic's are. So for him to be able to steal someone else's abilities, maybe the conditions have to be right. Electromagnetic fields. Energy. That's how he was able to try to take Paris 's abilities, because there was a storm threatening, and he was able somehow to tap into that. He needed the energy.

"And that explains the storm in my vision dream. It's part of the trap. He needs energy outside himself in order to attack any of us."

"It makes sense," Marc admitted. "Must have frustrated the hell out of him that the weather didn't cooperate. He leaves Boston knowing the hunters are on his trail, comes here to take Paris 's abilities-and can't. You know, that could have been what triggered your first vision dream. He tried to get at Paris."

"And wasn't strong enough to register with either of us-consciously," Dani agreed. "But my subconscious got it. And my abilities took over, trying to warn me. While he was figuring out what he needed, I was dreaming about a trap."

"Maybe that's why the murders here were so vicious," Marc offered. "That was him, just pissed. No rain for weeks, no storms-no energy to attack in the way he needed to attack to get what he wanted."