Hybrid (12 page)

“I’m sorry for calling you; I never meant for you to get involved.”

Amanda could hear the anguish in her father-in-law’s voice. “Greg, I already knew something was going on, you just helped to bring it into focus. Someone is spreading a virus, and that same someone is looking for me. I would rather meet him on my own terms.”

“Why haven’t you told me about this before?” Greg asked too quickly. Amanda saw something in his mind. For most of the last seven years, she had restrained her ability around family members, but this particular thought was so powerful that Amanda couldn’t avoid it.

“You’ve seen him,” she said.

“I’ve seen someone, and Lisa has seen the same person several times as well. It’s probably just Internal Affairs making sure that my retirement is not too comfortable.”

“You don’t believe that and neither do I,” she answered. “I’ll know more as soon as I see you.”

“Amanda, don’t be a fool; if you come anywhere near here, the FBI will be all over you.”

“O ye of little faith, with a wave of my hand, they will all disappear.”

“Amanda this isn’t funny,” Greg rebuked her.

“What’s wrong with you, Greg?”

He waited a moment before answering her. “There is a priest in our parish. I’ve known him for a few years. He’s a good man; at least, I thought he was a good man.”

“Greg you’re babbling,” Amanda prodded him along.

“It seems he has abilities similar to yours and has managed to conceal them for I don’t know how long.” Greg waited for a reaction, but Amanda stayed quiet. “He said he saw you early this morning and that you were looking for someone to kill.”

“He’s wrong,” Amanda said rather unconvincingly.

“Honey, we can’t do this again. The last time . . .”

Amanda cut him off. “I gave you my word, and I’ve kept it,” she said sharply. ”I am coming home to find the man who is purposely spreading this infection. I will tell you now that I will do whatever is necessary to stop him; you can’t ask me to do anything less.”

“Even if you do it for the right reasons, it’s still murder.”

Amanda didn’t respond; she didn’t want to argue with Greg, especially over a cell phone. “I should go Greg, it’s starting to snow, and traffic is picking up. I’ll call you once I get in, and please don’t worry about me.”

“I will always worry about you, Amanda, please be careful.”

Over the next half hour, the snow worsened. Travel was being discouraged, but no one seemed to have listened. There had been three multi-car accidents within a twenty-mile stretch along I-25 before the road was closed. Amanda had been lucky; she had been able to follow three huge snowplows into Colorado Springs a little after nine. The Highway Patrol finally directed her off onto a downtown exit. The streets had been plowed and sanded so the going became a little easier. Her first order of business was to find a place to stay. For more than six years, she had successfully evaded the FBI by assuming the identities of others. She was surprised how easy it was. Even with the additional scrutiny over the last few years, Amanda could effortlessly become half a dozen different people. She had credit cards, drivers’ licenses, and bank accounts, everything a normal person would need to move through society without arousing suspicion, including getting a hotel room.

“Good morning, and welcome to the Hilton,” the desk clerk greeted Amanda with a tired smile. Normally, she would have preferred a place with a lower profile, but all the low-to medium-range hotels were filled with stranded travelers.

“Morning!” Amanda returned the smile and read his nametag and his mind in the same instant. David Ruiz was twentyseven, married with three children, all boys. He and Sophie, his wife of six years, had just moved into a new house, and David was working two jobs to manage the mortgage. Sophie was a legal clerk, and David’s greatest fear was that he would lose her to a better provider. Normally, he was home by this time, but the rest of the hotel staff was having trouble getting in, so David had volunteered to stay for a while. He needed the extra hours almost as much as he needed the gratitude of his boss. He was a good, decent man, which made it all the harder to accept that he was infected.

“How long have you been sick?” Amanda asked. She could have pulled the answer directly from his mind, but that would have required an active search, and she didn’t know how he would react.

“About a week. It’s just this flu that’s been going around. I think I picked it up from one of my kids.” He seemed somewhat embarrassed by his haggard look. “I’m pretty much over it now, but last week was pretty rough.”

“So you’re getting better?” she asked with a voice too high for casual conversation.

David paused and looked at Amanda. She had slipped out of character, and he had noticed. “I can assure you that I’m not infectious.”

She stared at him with a blank face. His embarrassment changed to curiosity, and then just as fast to the special, viralinduced brand of anger that Amanda was all too familiar with. He stared back at Amanda, his rage building. He tried to fight the rising fury, but the more she stared at him the harder it became for him to control himself.

She regretted having to do it, but just before he exploded, she reached for his mind and enveloped it. David responded by screaming and grabbing his head. She tried to be as gentle as possible while sifting through his mind. It took seven seconds before Amanda retreated back into herself. By that point, David was on the floor, howling in agony.

“Are you okay?” Amanda leaned over the counter, back in character. It took him a full minute to register that someone was talking to him.

“Huh? What?” He looked back up at her, wondering who she was and why he was on the floor.

“I asked if you were okay. You slipped on something, and I think you hit your head.”

He climbed back up to the counter, dazed, and still confused. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he repeated. He looked at Amanda as if he had never seen her before. “Are you checking in?”

“You were about to give me the room key.” This was more an instruction than an answer.

He looked down and found a room card with a sleeve. In his handwriting, the number 456 was scrolled across the top. “Oh yes, I’m sorry. Please excuse me. I’m just getting over a cold, and I’m moving a little slower than usual.” He handed her the card. “It’s room 456. Go through the lobby and take the elevators to your left. Do you need help with your luggage?”

“No, thank you,” Amanda answered. She walked away, leaving David Ruiz with a headache and a five-minute memory gap. She reached her room, dropped into the chair by the window, and called Greg.

“Hello,” Greg said tentatively.

“I’m here,” she said quickly. “It’s not the same virus, but it’s close. The clerk downstairs has been sick for a week; if it was my virus, he would be dead by now instead of getting better. I’m fairly certain that this is a mutation, and that’s why people aren’t dying by the thousands.”

“What about the violence? Is it related?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do you know who’s doing this?” Greg’s voice was rising in excitement.

“Not yet. I can feel him, he’s close, but for some reason I can’t break through.”

“So how do you find him?”

“I don’t know, but I’m worried that we may be too late. A slower-acting virus has greater infectivity. Thousands could already be affected.” Amanda wondered how many travelers Ruiz had infected in the last week, and how many those people had infected once they left. “We need help, and it’s not going to come from Atlanta.” Amanda quickly summarized her exchange with Martin.

“Our Chief Medical Examiner is brilliant but somewhat unusual. I can start with him.”

“It might be more effective if I talk with him.”

Greg laughed loudly. “I think if you met with Phillip Rucker, we wouldn’t be able to get him out from under his desk for a week. You better let me handle this.”

“All right,” Amanda said. “Greg, I really do need to see you and Lisa.” Aside from Emily, they were her last real contacts with humanity. “Let me find someplace safe, and I’ll call you back with a location. ’Bye.”

Amanda put her phone away and let her mind drift. The killer was frustratingly close, but he remained shrouded. If she could find him, she could extract every thought from his mind and quite easily take what was left of his life, without ever getting up from her chair—except, she couldn’t find him.

Her mind came back around to the early morning conversation with Greg. His parish priest had abilities similar to her own? It wasn’t possible; she would have been aware of him long before now. Could he be the one that was spreading the virus? The man who was seeking her? The killer?

There was no way of knowing without seeing him, but first she needed some sleep. It had been over forty-eight hours since she had last slept, and while her need for sleep wasn’t great, her body did need to recharge every once in a while.
Two hours, I can afford two hours
. She turned back the sheets, stripped down to a T-shirt and panties, and fell into the bed. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

It was the same dream; it was always the same dream. She was walking along some sugar-white beach in the early evening twilight. She was alone, not by herself, but alone. There wasn’t another human being left on the planet, or perhaps the universe. Either way, she didn’t care. Nothing else had changed. Everywhere she looked, the world was the same; the birds sang as she kicked up the sand, waves lapped at her feet, and the wind blew through her hair. Off in the distance she heard her dog bark. Mittens, her mottled and often mangy mongrel dog from childhood, now a sleek golden retriever in the prime of life, ran towards her with a smile on his face. He had a look of sheer contentment, and Amanda realized that she too was completely content. She bent down to greet Mittens, and he lapped at her face relentlessly. She was naked, but it didn’t seem to bother Mittens, and as he was the only other sentient being in sight, Amanda ignored her nakedness. Besides, he was naked, too. She felt liberated, free from more than just clothes. The worries, the responsibilities that had crushed her all her life were gone. She ran, jumped, and wrestled with Mittens for hours, and the sun never set. She was both child and adult, fused in some strange synergy that only dreams can produce.

Mittens leapt from her grasp and streaked down the beach, running for the absolute joy of it. He crested a dune and jumped far into the sky, snapping at the seagulls as they took to flight. He landed in a heap, rolled over, and came up shaking, sending sand flying in all directions. Amanda laughed, and Mittens’ smile broadened. He existed only to make her happy.

A sudden loud drumming noise broke their reverie, and Amanda instinctively covered herself. This wasn’t part of the dream. Mittens stood alert, searching for the source of their interruption. His fur began to stand on end, and Amanda could hear his low, menacing growl over the surf. He stared up the dune that he had just run down. Something was over there. More specifically, someone was over there, unseen, but watching. Amanda could feel the curious eyes exploring her, and she felt more naked than she ever had felt in the waking world. Mittens jogged back to her, waiting for the command to destroy the interloper.

“Easy, big boy,” she said while patting Mittens, who seemed to have grown to an unnatural size. Amanda stood, fully clothed, no longer the fragile flower of her youth, but a force of nature, more than capable of defending herself. “Let’s see who it is.” Her mind reached for the intruder, but it slipped her grasp. She chased it, but it kept scurrying away; it was like trying to pin a mouse with a tennis racket. Mittens barked and shot across the sand and over the dune with dream-like speed. Through his eyes, Amanda first saw him, the intruder, and he saw her.

“Let me kill him,” Mittens whispered, and Amanda was suddenly by his side, standing at the crest of the dune, staring at a man dressed all in black. She looked down to see a ferocious wolf where Mittens used to be, his eyes burning with a murderous light. “He’s the killer, and he means to destroy us. Evil runs through his veins. I can smell it.” Mittens the wolf was drooling and licking his chops.

“No, he has answers that I need, besides I promised,” she said weakly to her dog. But a part of her, a part beyond Mittens, toyed with the idea. Did she really need answers? Were they as important as stopping him, killing him? It would be so easy. There was no possibility of escape. She could see him, and that was all that was necessary. She felt the old cruel smile cross her face, and the blood lust rose in her chest. Mittens tensed, waiting for his release, but Amanda hesitated. She had promised Lisa and Greg, and for six years, she had lived by that promise.

“Aunt Emily said to kill him,” Mittens countered. Amanda looked down at her enormous wolf, but still she hesitated.

The Dark Man tried to speak, but Amanda couldn’t hear him. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t understand him. They were closer now, and the sound of the surf had receded, but she just couldn’t make out what he was trying to say. She strained to listen, but all she could hear was an annoying buzzing sound.

“I can’t understand you,” she said over the buzzing. Mitten’s tail brushed her leg, his threatening growl clearly audible.

The Dark Man started waving his arms, and Mittens jumped to his feet. “No,” Amanda commanded, and Mittens obediently sat by her side. She didn’t feel threatened. It was her dream, her mind, and her turf.

He became more agitated with her lack of response, and he took a step closer, his face registering anger now. Mittens had risen to a crouch, ready to launch himself at the strange man and tear off one of the waving arms. One more step and Amanda would let him, but the man stopped. He put down his arms and just stared at her, frustration and anger radiating from him.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you?” Authority filled her voice. He didn’t respond, and Amanda wondered if he was having the same difficulty hearing as she had. “Can you hear me?” she screamed, although she was not really sure why she screamed the words. Dream or not, she was in the realm of thought where screaming only communicated emotion.