A Deadly Web (10 page)

“Magic,” she offered.

“Smoke and mirrors? Maybe so.” He opened the door and continued to partially support her as they went inside. Brodie paused just a moment in the entrance hall, his free hand slipping into the pocket of his jacket.

Tasha felt something. She wasn’t sure what it was, but something told her some kind of device had been activated.

“What did you just do?” she asked, dropping her bag and keys on the table.

“I just jammed the signal,” he said.

“Signal? What signal?”

“The one coming from the cameras the goon squad planted in your apartment before they left.”

Tasha stepped away from him, suddenly more alert. “What? They left cameras?”

“I’ll have to check to be sure, but probably. They usually do if one of their visits doesn’t net them the psychic they’re after.”

“But I never saw—”

“They’re very small, Tasha. They can be stuck on a wall at the edge of a picture frame or mirror, under a bookshelf. You have to know what to look for.”

“They’ve been watching me. They’ve been watching me? All the time since then?”

He eyed her. “They aren’t watching you anymore, I can promise you that. Look, I think you really do need to rest. Why don’t you take a nap?”

“It’s not even noon. I think.”

“I’m betting you really haven’t been sleeping well, not since their visit, at least. And after what happened at the coffee shop, you definitely need to rest.”

“I don’t think I can. Cameras . . .”

“I’ll check the bedroom for cameras, and you’ll see me get rid of them. Then you can rest. I’ll stay here, watch TV or something. And reassure the security guard when he shows up in a few minutes to check on you.”

“You think he’ll do that?”

“I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.”

Tasha didn’t wait to find out. She was able to stay awake long enough to examine the elegant cameras, no larger than the little chalk boxes used on pool sticks; Brodie found two in her bedroom, one hidden on a picture frame and one under a bookshelf. But none in the bathroom.

“Why?” she asked him. “I mean—I’m glad, but why?”

“No idea. Maybe the sight of naked people offends them.” Under her stare, he relented. “We think it has to do with all the tile in most bathrooms, and the plumbing. Not sure just how; you can get cameras similar to these in electronics stores and they work most anywhere, but these are a lot more sophisticated than what the average consumer finds. Sometimes being more sophisticated is a weakness, not a strength.”

Tasha handed the camera back to him. “Were they listening?”

“We think so. But everything’s been deactivated now, I swear.”

“In that case, I think I’ll take a nap. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. There are a few take-out menus in the drawer by the stove, most from places open on Sundays. Just buzz the security desk if you’re expecting a delivery.”

“Got it.” He eased out of the bedroom. “Rest as long as you need to. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Thanks.” Tasha thought it was rather remarkable that she felt comfortable enough to go to sleep with a relative stranger in the apartment. Then again, she was pretty sure
she knew John Brodie a lot better than she would ever know most anyone else in her life.

Deciding to think about that later, she pushed the door to but didn’t close it completely, shed her clothes and pulled on a comfortable sleep shirt, and crawled into bed.

There were naps . . . and then there were
naps
.

—

“So you’re in?” Murphy asked when she checked in with Brodie a bit after noon.

“I’m in.”

It was difficult to read nuances over cell phones sometimes, but . . . “That was brief even for you,” she observed.

“Nothing else to say. Yet, at any rate. They had planted cameras in the apartment. I disabled them.”

“And Solomon’s asleep?”

“Yeah. Hasn’t been sleeping much, I gather.”

“Not a surprise.”

“No.”

She had worked with Brodie for years, and aside from her extra senses Murphy was also highly intuitive when it came to people. So she knew he was bothered by something. And in their world, being bothered by something was seldom a matter best kept to oneself.

“What happened?” she asked bluntly. “Something out of the ordinary, I’m guessing?”

He was silent just long enough to make it obvious, then said slowly, “She needed to read me to know she could trust me.”

“Yeah, we both knew she would. And?”

“She’s . . . powerful. Read deep, and I mean deep. Quick. Thorough. Even touched a few places I don’t believe any of our psychics have touched before.” He didn’t explain that intriguing bit, just continued in a voice just this side of grim. “But then something else happened.”

“What?”

“I’m not quite sure. It was almost like . . . she was in my mind, but somewhere else as well, almost like she went through a doorway and into a dark place where I couldn’t see or sense her. That’s never happened before when I’m being read or scanned.”

“She wasn’t still there, in your mind?”

“I honestly don’t know. For a while, I couldn’t sense anything. Then I got the strong feeling she was in trouble. And somehow, I was able to find her, reach her. Hold on to her.”

After a moment, Murphy said slowly, “A few psychics have reported that when they dropped their shields and read one of our Guardians initially, they were pulled deeper, seemingly by a third party. Into some kind of dark maze.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Well, it’s never happened with you before, right? So there was no reason for you to know. Especially since we don’t know what it means. The few psychics reporting that said it wasn’t really a big maze, but a dark one, and that they felt compelled to follow a voice urging them toward the center of the maze.”

“One of Duran’s psychics?”

“That seems to be the consensus. One of his testing
one of the psychics we find, early on before our psychics know they can trust us. Almost like they were . . . given a choice. Trust us—or go over to the dark side.”

Brodie didn’t appear to find that melodramatic. In fact, he sounded grim when he said, “Not being psychic has its disadvantages. Still, I can sense a psychic when I’m being read or scanned—at least as far as I know—so why didn’t I know someone else was there?”

“Not sure. Does Tasha know?”

“I think she knows something, but there hasn’t been a chance to discuss it.”

“She came out of it trusting you?”

“Yeah, I’m sure of that. But it drained her, and she was pretty out of it. She did say something about pathways, and Duran not being pleased.”

“Nobody’s ever been able to read Duran.”

“I know that.”

“Think she did?”

“No, I think it was something else. Something to do with the other psychic apparently communicating with her. I’m hoping Tasha will be a lot clearer-minded when she wakes up.”

“If she knows something helpful, I hope she is too.”

“I’ll let you know.”

A little amused despite everything, Murphy said, “Well, since you’re there, I think I’ll take a nap myself. And I’ll keep watch over the exterior of her building tonight while you do your Guardian thing.”

“I didn’t say I’d be here tonight.”

“No. You didn’t. Then again, you didn’t have to.”

“The cameras have been disabled, sir,” Alastair reported.

“Of course they have. No doubt the first thing Brodie did when he entered her apartment.”

“Yes, sir.” Alastair waited patiently, without fidgeting; like certain sentries in very visible posts around the world, he was capable of standing still as a statue for a long time.

Which, working for Duran, was something that came in handy more often than not.

Several minutes passed.

Finally, Duran said, “The watchers around her building. Pull them back another two blocks.”

“They won’t be able to see the building at all. Sir.”

Duran lifted his gaze from the papers before him, those odd green eyes of his unreadable. “Do you think I’m not aware of that information, Alastair?”

“I’m sure you are, sir. Apologies. I’ll send the order to the watchers immediately.”

“Yes. Do that.”

Alastair slipped from the office, without visible haste but without wasting a moment. All the while reminding himself yet again that it just wasn’t wise to question an order from Duran.

Ever.

Alone in the very nice suite on the top floor of the hotel his team had rented for the duration, Duran sat at his desk frowning in thought. It wasn’t an expression he usually allowed his team to see—and most certainly not one he allowed his superiors to see—but he was alone for the moment, and for the first time in a long while, he was more than a little disturbed.

He had grown accustomed to the fact that their psychics often had problems reading new psychics, especially in the early days before their resistance was broken down. But he was looking down at two names of new psychics one of his telepaths had been able, to a degree, to read. And both had thoughts of the same person in their minds. The same man. A man both had been convinced could help them, if they could only reach him. With their minds, their abilities.

Bishop.

Duran wasn’t at all sure they were wrong about that. It was something he had considered a possible danger for some years now, though he had hoped Bishop would be too busy with his own team and the considerable dangers
they faced on a daily basis to even be aware anything else was going on among the rest of the psychic population.

He should have known better.

And now he was left with the worry that Bishop knew at least something about them, about what was going on, that he was likely to make contact with at least one of those opposing them, and . . .

And what? That was the problem. Duran wasn’t at all sure what Bishop would do if he knew what was going on. What he could do. And whether he was powerful enough to discover a truth they had managed to hide for decades.

All Duran really knew was that two psychics taken very recently had recent thoughts of Bishop on their minds.

And no matter which way he looked at it, that was not good.

—

Tasha was reasonably sure she had been asleep a long time, because night had fallen and her bedroom was lamplit. She could hear, dimly, the TV in the living room, too low to bother her. She felt rested and very relaxed.

Very, very relaxed.

And too comfortable to even stir when a lovely woman with long, dark hair emerged from the shadows near the closet and settled into the chair near the foot of Tasha’s bed.

“Hello,” Tasha murmured.

“I need you to listen to me, Tasha,” the woman said, her voice quiet and serene. “It’s very important.”

“It must be,” Tasha responded, her own voice soft. “Because you’re here. You came a long way, didn’t you?”

“Yes. And I can’t stay long. So you have to listen, and remember. I can help you understand.”

“Understand?”

“Understand them. Understand what you’re up against. And understand him.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

The woman nodded. “I was born Elizabeth Lyon, only child of Roger and Patricia Lyon, in Seattle. My parents were very wealthy, and they loved me very much.

“But I was different. I sometimes heard things I soon learned no one else heard, whispers in my head that told me what other people were thinking or feeling.”

“Me, too,” Tasha said.

“I know. But I didn’t learn to hide it as you did, Tasha. My parents were often baffled by me, and worried that my abilities would set me apart from others all my life. Being wealthy, they explored what options were open to them and me at the time, meeting with avowed psychics and with researchers studying what was then most commonly called ESP.

“It was shortly after this period, just a few days before my tenth birthday, that I was kidnapped. I never saw my captors and was kept unconscious for several days, drugged so deeply that even my psychic abilities slept and told me nothing. When I awakened, it was in a hospital with both my parents leaning over my bed. I remembered nothing of what had happened to me. If anything had. I had no injuries.

“Though I didn’t know it at the time, to get me back my parents had made a bargain with my captors. They might as well have made a bargain with the devil.

“For several years, my life seemed little changed, except that my parents seemed to worry more about my safety. And something else. I was visited once or twice each month by a
friend
of my parents, a very handsome young man named Eliot Wolfe. He, too, was psychic, and he wanted to guide me, to teach me how to use my abilities. It was what my parents wanted and I was entirely willing.”

“Did he help you?” Tasha was listening intently.

“Perhaps. He was the only person in my life who understood my abilities, understood what I was going through in learning to master them. And—I thought I was in love with him.”

“How old were you?”

“When he first began visiting, I was seventeen.”

“Crush?” Tasha guessed.

“Looking back, yes, of course. Though you couldn’t have convinced me of that then. All I can tell you for certain is that my feelings for him blinded me all through the remainder of my teen years.

“But as I matured, both my instincts and my strengthening psychic abilities told me there was something wrong, something hidden from me in my life.”

“You sensed it?”

“I sensed something wrong. And there were snatches of conversations I overheard, discussions interrupted when I entered a room. Gradually, I came to believe that my parents and Eliot were hiding things from me. I tried
more than once to focus my abilities on that suspicion, but it wasn’t until just after my graduation from high school that I was able to break through the walls they had built around me.

“What I discovered on that horrible night was so unbelievable, so shocking, that I could only run, try to escape. What else could I do? The man I had believed I loved was a soulless monster, intended to become my mate so that we might breed and produce psychic offspring.

“It was what my parents had agreed to in order to save my life. The deal they had made.”

—

Murphy was not Alastair, and there was a distinct snap to her voice when she told Duran, “This was not part of the plan. You weren’t supposed to test her so soon.”

“Not part of my plan,” he agreed. “I do wonder about yours, though.”

She ignored that. “I told you there was something different about contacting Solomon telepathically. Something unpredictable, maybe even unstable, but she has a lot of power.”

“Uncontrolled?”

“Not exactly. She has a lot of control too, it’s just that she isn’t entirely aware of just how powerful she really is. And that’s a dangerous thing.”

“Yes. You also told me Brodie wasn’t psychic.”

“He isn’t.”

“Perhaps he wasn’t, but something has changed. With Tasha Solomon, at any rate.”

“That’s what Astrid says?”

“She says the telepathic contact was unusually deep. And that Brodie responded. That he helped Solomon. Kept her from losing strength and helped her escape the maze.”

“Before she got to the center?”

“Yes.”

Murphy wasn’t often disconcerted. “I didn’t know anybody could do that. Huh. No wonder he didn’t have much to say later on.”

“I imagine he’s . . . learning to cope.”

She frowned. “I don’t like it. You shouldn’t have pushed her, not like that, not this soon. John’s been in this a long time, and we both know what’s been driving him. If Tasha Solomon becomes more than just another wounded psychic he needs to protect, if she becomes more than that to him . . . He could take her and go to ground. After ten years in this, he may be more than ready to do just that. And if he wants to disappear, wants both of them to disappear, especially to protect her, nobody on either side is ever going to find them.”

“You seem very sure of that.”

“I am. Unless you’re holding one hell of an ace up your sleeve, Brodie alone would be more dangerous than you can imagine if he chose to, if he stopped being a Guardian and chose to fight. Really fight. Or disappear. Either way, we both know I can’t afford to lose Brodie or Solomon. And neither can you.”

“Solomon’s abilities are that formidable?”

“Astrid didn’t tell you?”

“She told me there was a lot of power, and that some kind of connection had been made with Brodie.”

Murphy wondered just how much of the contact Astrid had kept to herself. And why. She also wondered if Duran was being straight with her; that was
always
a question mark.

“Solomon can do things, Duran, things she isn’t even aware she can do. If you push her, if
anyone
pushes her too hard . . . she could destroy herself and anyone near her. We’ve both seen that happen before.”

He heard something in her voice. “Or?”

“Or . . . she could be the supreme you’ve been searching for. The psychic able to tip the balance in your favor.”

It wasn’t often Duran’s calm face showed expression, but he was very clearly surprised by that. “Astrid didn’t feel it in her.”

I wonder.
“She wouldn’t have. I know how much you use and value your favorite psychic, but news for you: Astrid has her limits, just like everybody else. And her blind spots.”

“But you were able to feel . . . possibilities . . . in Solomon.”

“I got physically closer. Maybe that made the difference.”

He frowned. “You aren’t connected with Brodie?”

“Are you kidding? Nobody’s ever been able to connect with Brodie, not like that. Read him, yes, when he allows it. But not connect to him. Unless Astrid’s right and Tasha Solomon has.”

“Brodie has experience with psychics.”

“Not like this, he doesn’t. If she did connect with him, then he’ll be feeling something different, and given time he could figure out what it is. Maybe even figure a way to use it against you. But I doubt he has a clue right now. I doubt Solomon does either. I’m betting they’re both . . . overwhelmed.”

“His wife was psychic.”

“I know that. And I know she connected with him on a deep level, but I have no idea if that connection formed a pathway.”

“I know. It didn’t.”

She wondered how he knew, but didn’t ask.

A question for later.

“Well, if Solomon went that deep, we can both bet something changed in Brodie. In both of them. How that change will manifest is . . . anybody’s guess. Especially if some kind of a pathway was forged between them.”

“That was Astrid’s take. She’s not entirely sure just how, but is certain a pathway was created.”

“One way?”

“She says not.”

Murphy’s brows rose. “If that’s the case, we have more than one problem. Solomon’s abilities, at least when I touched them, were powerful but not being used for anything except defense. No deep emotion has ever pushed her to explore her own limits. But Brodie . . . there is a lot of rage in him, and he’s lost too much already. As calm as he usually appears, he
is
driven by emotion; it’s at the core of everything he does. A mental or emotional pathway between him and Solomon, especially if she’s as powerful
as we believe she is, could supply the strong emotional drive she’s never really had. His. It’ll likely give her even more power, and much more incentive to test her own limits. And it would mean something else as well. It would mean that all Brodie’s experiences in this to date will be viewed through an entirely new set of eyes. He’ll have a better idea just what’s at stake. And
that
means he is not going to let anyone he cares about be harmed or taken away again.”

“The thought had occurred.”

“Which means you’ll never bring Solomon over. Whether she’s strong enough to resist, or could even be safely brought over given the power she possesses, may well be a moot point.
Is
a moot point if she really connected with him. Brodie won’t let it happen.”

Duran said, “I don’t give up easily, Murphy.”

“Neither does Brodie. In fact, he doesn’t give up at all. That isn’t in him, to give up. Not when he really cares. He’s stronger than you, Duran.”