Which was an odd thing to think about a blind woman.
"Excuse me?" she said, voice soft yet hinting at ice.
Which suited the complexion that lay underneath the makeup.
"People like you make a living from ripping off the gullible. It disgusts me."
"And is a thief any better?"
I raised my eyebrows, wondering how she"d guessed. Wondering what else she"d guessed. "At least I don"t make a living on the suffering of others."
She raised an eyebrow. "And you think I do?"
"Well, what else do you call feeding false hope to suckers?"
She regarded me for a moment, her luminous blue eyes seeming to see right through me. Those b.u.t.terflies stirred again, though I had no idea why.
"And you do not believe in hope?"
I snorted. "Hope is a fool"s desire. I deal with realities."
"Really?"
With a suddenness, and an accuracy, that surprised me, she reached out and grabbed my hand. My instinctive response was to pull away, but I checked the strength of it almost immediately. Partly because I was curious about what she was doing, and partly because the minute her fingers touched mine, an odd sort of energy seemed to run over them. It felt like the power that caressed the air right before a summer storm.
She didn"t say anything for several minutes, just gripped my fingers and frowned as the energy of her touch flowed between us.
Then she sighed, and smiled as she released me.
"You will save us," she said softly.
Us? What the h.e.l.l did she mean by that? Her and me? Did that mean she knew about the planned attack? Somehow, I didn"t think so, but before I could ask what she actually meant, awareness surged, p.r.i.c.kling like fire across my skin. With it came the stench of unwashed, unripe flesh.
Jack"s stray vamp had shown up ahead of time.
And he"d brought a couple of friends along.
Chapter Four
There were three of them, all skinny excuses of flesh and bone. The vamp in the middle was the obvious leader-he was two steps ahead of his compatriots, and had one of those perpetual sneers so often found on those who think they"re tougher than they truly arc. His two mates were of Asian descent, though the blue eyes on one suggested there was something else in his mix.
"Well, well," the leader said casually, "look at what we got here, boys."
"Breakfast," blue eyes said, expression alight with antic.i.p.ation.
I slipped off the backpack and placed it in Dia"s hands. "You might have to hold this while I tend to this pond sc.u.m."
"But-"
I held up a finger, realized what I was doing, then touched her arm lightly, and said, "It"s okay."
She fell silent. While these three didn"t look particularly old, they were still vampires, and I was going to need every ounce of concentration against them.
"It case you haven"t noticed, little girl," the leader said, amus.e.m.e.nt rich in his harsh, annoying voice, "there"s three of us, and only one of you."
"Unfair odds, I agree," I said. "You want me to keep one hand behind my back?"
They glanced at each other, then broke into laughter.
That"s when I dropped my shields and hit the minds of the backup vamps, stripping through their meager shields and ordering them to run away, as far and as fast as they could. Their laughter stopped abruptly and their eyes went wide, the whites seeming to gleam brightly in the darkness. Then they turned and retreated into the night.
Even as they ran, pain lanced through my head, needle sharp and fiery hot. I wasn"t entirely sure why, especially given I"d done similar things in the past and hadn"t felt a reaction like this. But right then, I didn"t have time to worry about it. Even as tears touched my eyes, the air stirred, brushing anger and the force of movement past my nose. I ducked away from the last vamp"s fist, letting it skim past my cheek, then dropped and spun, kicking his legs out from underneath him. He grunted as his rump hit the ground, and his look of surprise might have been funny if it wasn"t for the murderous expression that almost instantly followed.
He snarled, then scrambled to his feet and launched at me. I dodged, but his fingers caught my arm, his nails needle sharp and tearing into flesh. I yelped and he laughed, a sharp sound that was quickly cut off when my fist slammed into his mouth. He staggered backward, arms flailing, spitting out blood and teeth as he did so. I followed the force of my punch with another, this time chopping into his throat, crushing his larynx and dropping him to the ground. He didn"t stay down, but scrambled on all fours toward Dia Jones. Blind or not, she seemed to sense his approach, because she gasped and backed away.
I grabbed his leg and dragged him away from her. He struggled like a madman, his kicks landing heavily on my already bloodied arm and bruising the h.e.l.l out of my fingers. A growl of fury rumbled up my throat, and without thought, I dropped my shields again and let him have it. His mind fled before mine like a pebble before a landslide, and just as uselessly. Within seconds, I had him still and unmoving.
But, oh G.o.d, how it hurt.
I dropped to my knees, and, for too many seconds, did nothing more than try to breathe as the pain in my head intensified, and all I could see were pinpoints of bright lights flashing before my eyes. They eased after a few seconds, but the pain didn"t.
Why was this happening? When I"d controlled the two lab-made werecats in Moneisha, there"d been pain, but nothing as intense as this. Even when I"d attacked Quinn, there hadn"t been a backlash like this-had there?
I frowned, and remembered the wash of pain that had briefly hit before I"d picked my panties off the floor and stormed into the other room.
Maybe it was a simple matter of being too angry to even notice just how bad the pain actually was.
A hand touched my elbow, helped me to my feet.
"We must go," Dia said. "Before he recovers enough to attack again."
He wasn"t going anywhere until I released him, but given the blinding pain, that was probably going to be sooner rather than later. I stumbled along after Dia, guided more by her touch and the sound of her footsteps than my own sight, which was at best blurry, and filled with heated white spots that danced about crazily. A situation that wasn"t helped when the control I had on the vamp snapped. The pain of it rebounded through me, as sharp as gla.s.s. I gasped, stumbling and almost going down. Dia"s grip tightened on my arm, and with almost inhuman strength, she kept me upright and kept me going.
Of course, Dia Jones wasn"t exactly human, so inhuman strength wasn"t exactly surprising. What I really wanted to know was how the h.e.l.l she was moving so surely when she couldn"t see and hadn"t even a cane or a guide animal to help her.
A car loomed through the blurriness ahead. A man in a dark suit opened the rear door of a car that seemed to go on forever, then I was being shoved inside. I crawled across the soft leather, then leaned my head back against the thick seat cushioning and closed my eyes. Doors slammed shut, twin sounds that seemed to reverberate through the silence, through my head, then the car was moving.
Silence reigned for several minutes. I could feel Dia"s gaze on me-it was a weight that was at once both curious and cautious-but she didn"t touch me. Of that, I was glad. I had a feeling that she might learn far too many secrets if she did so right now.
"Telepathy is new to you, isn"t it?" she said eventually.
I opened my eyes. Even though the limo was dark, the glare of the streetlights as we pa.s.sed them were a brightness that was hard to stand. My eyes watered, and the ache in my head briefly intensified.
"What makes you think I"m telepathic?"
She smiled. "While I am not telepathic myself, I am sensitive to the use of psychic power. Generally, it feels like the caress of a warm summer breeze that swirls across my skin-something I can sense, but never catch." She paused, tilting her head slightly to one side, her amazing blue eyes seeming to follow even my slightest movement. How was that possible? This woman was blind-I was certain of that, if nothing else.
"With you tonight," she continued, "it was not a breeze, but a cyclone. An overuse of power if ever I felt one. Has no one ever taught you control?"
"I shield. I can protect myself. What else is there to know?" And Jack had been coaching me, but I couldn"t exactly admit that.
"Power of any kind should be treated similar to an onion. There may be many different layers, but you should only ever strip away as many as you need to get the job done." She smiled as she reached forward and took a small cloth from a compartment under the seat opposite, then handed it to me. "The only time problems generally arise for the trained is when the power is still new, or it increases in strength for some reason."
I wrapped the cloth around my bleeding arm. "How would either of those cause problems?"
She shrugged lightly. "You cannot control something when you do not know its boundaries."That made sense. But was that what was actually happening? I"d been telepathic most of my life, and the last test done at the Directorate had not indicated any increase in psychic output.
Of course, those tests had been done several months ago. Who knew what the result would be now.
"But psychic strength doesn"t alter." At least, it generally didn"t with normal people. "You get what you"re born with, don"t you?"
"Sometimes. But p.u.b.erty has been known to set off wild changes in psi-skills."
"p.u.b.erty? Do I sound like an adolescent to you?"
But even as I said the words, I had a feeling she"d hit the nail on the head. Thanks to the fertility drugs that had been forced into me by past mates, I"d recently begun menstruating for the first time in my life. Which in turn meant I was going through a form of p.u.b.erty-if p.u.b.erty was defined solely as going through the change and moving from a child"s body to a woman"s. Not that anyone would ever accuse me of having a child"s body. I"d been D-cup since I was sixteen.
"No, you don"t sound adolescent. But that doesn"t alter the fact your power seems very uncontrolled. You are extremely lucky you caught those vamps unawares. Lucky, too, that none of them were particularly strong psychics."
"Why"s that?" I rubbed a hand across my forehead. The needles were beginning to ease, but my brain still felt like it was on fire.
If I didn"t get some pain relief tablets soon, I was going to have one doozy of a headache.
"Because by dropping your shields as totally as you did, you left yourself wide open for a counterattack."
"Oh." I hadn"t even thought of that. Not when I"d attacked Quinn, and certainly not when I"d attacked those vamps. Quinn might have been too much of a gentleman to attack, but those vamps certainly could have.
She tilted her head on the side again. The brown hair fell to one side, revealing slivers of silver running underneath. She wasn"t wearing a wig, because the silver and brown ran into each other. It was almost as if someone had dyed her hair, but only done half a job. Odd, to say the least. "Did your parents not teach you to use your gift?"
I snorted softly. "My mother was a wolf groupie who considered the half-breed she gave birth to little more than an inconvenience to her s.e.x life."
"And your father?"
"She never knew for sure who he was. I certainly don"t."
"Sad."
"That"s me," I said sarcastically. "A sad and sorry tale."
She smiled again. "Do you have a name?"
"Poppy Burns."
She raised an eyebrow. "Indeed? And what are you doing here in St. Kilda, Poppy Burns?"
Something in the way she said that had uneasiness stirring. I shrugged, and did my best to ignore those d.a.m.ned b.u.t.terflies.
"Looking for work, a place to stay. Usual s.h.i.t."
"So where did you live before?"
"You"re getting awfully nosy, aren"t you?"She shrugged. "Given what you said to me before those vamps showed up, I think I have the right to be nosy."
I sniffed, and didn"t reply.
"And given your so bluntly put opinion of me," she continued, "why would you then go on and save me?"
"Who says I was saving you? Those stinkers had me in their sights just as much as you."
"Maybe."
"If we"re going to be nosy, then tell me how you can be blind as a bat, and yet can walk around as well as any sighted person?"
She went still, and for a moment I thought I"d blown it.
"How do you know I"m blind?" The warmth that had been in her tones until now was replaced by cold steel, and a chill went down my spine.
It was a timely reminder that this woman-however nice she seemed-was one of the five clones and in league with the man I was trying to bring down.
"Easy. Though your gaze appears to look directly at people, there"s no true life in your eyes, no response to the smaller movements people make, and no real response to facial expressions. It"s like you can see, but only from a distance, so that up close things aren"t clear."
Amus.e.m.e.nt warmed her expression. "You are very observant."
"You have to be when you live on the streets."
"True." She paused, considering me. "Are you after work now?"
I shrugged. "Depends what it is."
"You will earn more in two weeks than you could in a year of regular work."
"Lady, that sounds a little good to be true. What"s the catch?"
"You"re being paid to have s.e.x with strangers."
I raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"No "and." The resort is owned by my... employer."
Employer? Starr was more than just that. "So you"re not just a scamming psychic? You"re a pimp, as well?"