"That"s not what I meant and you know it."
"Fishing?"
"Well, I haven"t seen anything about us. I was hoping you and Miranda might have."
"Sorry."
"Sorry you haven"t seen anything? Or sorry you can"t tell me what you"ve seen?"
"The former. We"ve been a bit preoccupied by this investigation, remember? Andthe visions have been few and far between lately."
"Ah. I wondered why you wanted me along on this one. Not like you to bring in more than one primary, as a rule. Not from the early stages of the investigation, anyway."
"Precogs are in short supply, and if there"s anything here to be seen ahead of time, I want that edge."
"If you and Miranda haven"t seen anything, I"m not likely to."
"You might."
"I"m stronger with Diana around," Quentin pointed out.
"Yes. But she can"t be here; she"s a medium. A very powerful medium. Hollis wouldn"t be here if it wasn"t crystal clear she"s meant to be. For whatever reason."
"I"m not arguing, not about Diana. Butno visions? At all?"
"Not in a while."
Pushing aside the personal ramifications of his unanswered question, Quentin said, "I really don"t like the sound of that. It"s one thing if some of the rest of us are affected psychically by Samuel or his peopleor whoever the h.e.l.l is generating some of these weird energy fields strong enough to scare away the wildlifebut you and Miranda have been solid and stable for a long time now, no matter what we"ve investigated. If this is affecting you guys"
"We don"t know that it is." Bishop hesitated, then added, "We don"t know that it isn"t. One reason why I have to be hereand Miranda stays away."
"And if it turns out part of Samuel"s plan is to eliminate you? To try a little more divide-and-conquer where you and Miranda are concerned? You"re not exactly making it harder for him."
"Miranda"s shield is holding, and we"ve managed to amplify it recently. I shouldn"t read as psychic; in the lab, our strongest team members couldn"t pick up even my presence."
"In the lab."
"Yes."
"I guess it"s useless to remind you that fieldwork tends to explode a lot of the theories and beliefs we develop in the lab."
"It"s all we have, Quentin. We have logic, and we have our theories, until experience proves us wrong."
"Yeah, that"s what I"m afraid of. That experience will prove us wrong this time. Because it so often does. And if it does, it"ll be a little late to adjust our theories."
"No choice. We have too many people at risk. Besides, if Samuel even knows I"m anywhere nearby Well, let"s just say if he"s that powerful, it wouldn"t make much difference where I was."
Half under his breath, Quentin muttered, "This just keeps getting better and better."
"We have good people on our side, Quentin."
"We have too many rookies. At best, they get distracted from the job, from the mission, the way Sarah did. At worst, they can be an active liability."
"Sarah did what she thought was right."
"I know. And I don"t blame her for it. h.e.l.l, I might have done the same thing. But it cost her her life. And it cost us a valuable set of senses on the inside."
"I know."
Quentin shot his boss a sharp glance. Then he sighed. "I know you know. Look, I like Tessa, I really do, but she"s under a h.e.l.l of a lot of pressure, and I"m not at all sure she won"t buckle."
"Tessa will do her best. Which is all any of us can do. And Hollis is with her."
Quentin finally stopped pretending to study the map. He straightened and c.o.c.ked an eyebrow once again. "Sort of had to reconfigure your plan when she showed up, didn"t you?"
"It was unexpected," Bishop allowed.
"A sign from the universe? A not-so-gentle nudge to remind you that whatever you know or think you know, none of us is really in control of our destiny?"
"Maybe. But after Venture I didn"t need the reminder, believe me. I"m taking nothing for granted, not this time. We"ve already paid too high a price."
After a moment, Quentin looked down at the map again and said slowly, "Judging by all this I"m thinking the cost so far may turn out to be only a down payment."
Chapter Nine.
TESSA HADN"T PLANNED on returning to the Compound so soon, but when Ruth "just thought I"d stop by" on Thursday morning to check on her, Tessa allowed herself to be convinced to pay a second visit to the church later that day.
Hollis emerged as soon as the visitor had gone, saying, "I"m not sure going back so soon is a good idea, Tessa."
"Why not?"
"Because yesterday drained you, because you hardly got any rest last night, and because you"ve been up since before dawn," Hollis answered frankly. "I look like h.e.l.l?"
"You look tired."
"Good. That"s the way they"re supposed to see me, remember? Tired. Unsure. Vulnerable."
"Yeah, but it"s supposed to be a pretense. When you"re tired, there"s a danger your shields will weaken and leave you exposed to another psychic. In this case, a psychic we"re reasonably sure can, at the very least, steal or siphon off abilities from someone elseand possibly kill with his own."
"Reasonably sure. But no evidence we"re right."
"I wouldn"t bet your life on the sliver of uncertainty, Tessa."
"No." Tessa drew a breath, trying to contain the impatience she felt even as she acknowledged the strangeness of it. "No, of course not."
"All I"m saying is that you have to be careful. Samuel has shown a lot of interest in bringing latents into his church, maybe because he"s figured out their brains produce more electromagnetic energy than nonpsychics and sees them as another potential energy source. But we don"t know how he deals with active psychics on the insideunless we a.s.sume from what happened to Sarah."
"Can we a.s.sume from that? She reported her belief that at least one of Samuel"s people is a powerful psychic, right?"
"Yes. But strongly shielded."
"Even so, if Sarah picked up on it, Samuel must have."
"My guess is, that person is a psychic Samuel controls. Someone he"s able to dominate. But he couldn"t dominate Sarah. She was on the inside, she was looking for information, and she was getting some of those kids out. And now she"s dead. I say it"s a safe a.s.sumption she posed a threat to Samuel, either because she was a psychic he couldn"t control or because he figured out she was working against him."
"Hollis"
"Either way, you"re at risk. Especially when you"re tired."
Tessa heard the concern in the other woman"s voice and appreciated it. Nevertheless, she brushed it aside. She also pushed aside the guilty awareness that she probably should have told Hollis about the previous day"s nosebleed. Or should now.
She didn"t.
"That energy you saw a few hours ago, my aura with the connection to something or someone else. Do you still see it?"
"Barely. It"s just a thread now. Why?"
"Let me guess. It looks taut, not loose like before. As though something is pulling at it."
Hollis frowned. "That"s what you"re feeling?"
"So strongly I keep expecting to see a rope."
"Tessa, that isn"t necessarily a good thing. In fact, it probably isn"t a good thing. This could be Samuel pulling you back there. Or doing his d.a.m.nedest to."
"I never even saw him yesterday."
"You dreamed about him last night, with all the vivid detail of a true vision. And, besides, trust me when I say you don"t have to see him to be touched by him."
That reminder gave Tessa pause, but after only a moment she shook her head. "You said it yourself. Whatever is going on out there, it"s getting worse. People are dying, Hollis. And all these extra senses of mine are telling me to get out there. Today. As soon as possible."
Hollis eyed her thoughtfully. "You"re a lot more confident and certain than you were earlier this morning."
That was true enough, and Tessa knew it. However "I can"t explain it."
"I really wish you could," Hollis said.
"Look, one thing I"ve learned is to trust my instincts. Or intuition, or clairvoyance, or whatever it is that nudges me to do something when my rational mind tells me it"s a bad idea. That"s why I"m here, right? Because John and Bishop believe my abilities can help investigate this case?"
"Yeah. That"s why you"re here."
"Okay, then. I have to go out to the Compound. Now."
"You told Ruth it would be later today."
"I"ll give her ten minutes" head start, and then I"m going."
Faced with that clear sense of urgency, Hollis stopped arguing, but she did offer a further word of warning.
"We know you"ll be under observation most of the time you"re there; if you do manage to do any exploring on your own, don"t forget that. Someone will be watching. Count on it."
Ruby It was very early on Thursday morning, and Ruby had found her attention wandering from her lessons. That clear voice in her mind brought her head up with a jerk and made her go suddenly cold.
She dared not answer; the four friends had decided weeks ago that it was dangerous, that Father could probably hear them if they practiced the abilities that had bloomed in them since October.
Ruby had cheated a bit on that agreement, though not with her friends. She had cheated because she needed to protect Lexiebut that was her cheat, her risk. If Father discovered what she had done, she"d be the only one in trouble.
In trouble. That was almost funny. Because if Father found out what she"d done, what she was still doing, the "trouble" she"d be in would be very, very bad.
And there was a good chance he would find out. He could do so much; surely, Ruby thought, he could mind-talk too. And if he knew she and her friends could do it People able to do things with their minds had a habit of disappearing from the Compound. Or else they becamedifferent.
Ruby didn"t want either of those things to happen to her or to any of her friends. And she knew they didn"t either, knew that none of them would have even tried to reach out to her unless something was wrong. Very wrong.
She tried to be patient, and as soon as her mother became occupiedas usualwith her latest embroidery project, Ruby slipped from the house, driven by an overwhelming urge to go to whichever of her friends was in trouble.
But who was it? There had been no sense of ident.i.ty, and the communication had ended so abruptly that she felt only the faintest idea even of the direction she should go.
She knew her friends were supposed to be at their lessons and were unlikely to be out openly roaming the Compound at this time of morning, and she knew her own roaming, if noticed by just about any of the adults, would likely end with her being escorted back homewhich was one reason she dared not approach any of the houses in broad daylight.
She also knew better than to approach the church; she had watched and listened, and n.o.body had to explain to her that cameras just about everywhere made sure that Mr. DeMarco or one of the other men knew when anybody got close to the church.
Besides, that wasn"t where she needed to be.
She followed whatever it was urging her on, and when she realized that she was nearing the barn in the west pasture, her heart sank. This was the side of the Compound nearest to the road to town, the shortest way out of the Compound.
Escape.
"Brooke, no," she whispered, her steps quickening. All she could think was that her friend had gotten this far in her escape plan and then panicked, maybe remembering that there was a fence and more cameras between here and freedom.
But somethinginstinct or her five senses or one of the extra oneswarned Ruby not to just go into the barn as she usually would. Instead, she worked her way around to the back, where a split plank provided a narrow, secret view into the barn.
At first, Ruby wasn"t quite sure what was going on in there. She saw Brookejust standing there, a few yards from Ruby"s position, in the wide hall between rows of now-unoccupied stalls.
It took a moment for Ruby to make out that Brooke was shaking visibly.
It took another instant to see why.
Father.
Ruby caught her breath and instinctively put extra effort into making sure her sh.e.l.l was hard and thick, imagining herself encased in something unbreakable. So he wouldn"t know she was there.