Authors: Iris Johansen
“Bad shape?” Lily shivered. “I thought they were both dead. What happened to them?”
“Gunner,” Quenby said simply. “He’s not usually so ruthless, but he likes Cassie. He was mad as hell, and Andrew sanctioned it.”
“Sanctioned what?”
“Pain. They’re locked in pain. They’ll stay that way until the lock is lifted.”
“Gunner can do that?” Lily grimaced. “That’s not telepathy; that’s mind control.”
“Some of the stronger telepaths of the Clanad are capable of mind control, but it’s strictly forbidden.” Quenby paused. “Except for someone like Gunner, who acts as a policeman, or Andrew, who uses it to heal.”
“But you said Andrew sanctioned their pain.”
“He was angry,” Quenby repeated. “I’ve never seen Andrew so angry as when he knew how they’d hurt you. He had second thoughts this morning, and went out to the airport to remove the lock before the plane took off.” She wrinkled her nose. “My Gunner isn’t nearly as tenderhearted.
He thought they should suffer at least until they reached Sedikhan.”
“Mind control,” Lily repeated, dismayed. “I thought I’d come to terms with what you told me last night, but this is different.”
“Just another outcropping of the iceberg.”
“The Titanic sank because of one of those outcroppings. I can already feel the water pouring into my boiler decks.”
Quenby chuckled. “I guarantee that you won’t sink. We’ll just have to keep the influx to a minimum until you have time to repair your hull. How’s Cassie?”
“Fine. Still sleeping.” Lily shook her head in wonder. “It’s as if all this had never happened to her. She’s neither worried nor afraid.”
“Andrew.” Quenby smiled. “I told you he knew his job.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“He thought you would. He said—”
Andrew opened the door and walked into the room. He stopped short, stiffening with wariness
as he caught sight of Lily. His greeting sounded curiously formal. “Hello. Did you sleep well?”
He still looked tired, Lily thought, but that terrible haggardness was gone. “Well enough. Cassie’s still sleeping.”
“Good. She needs it.”
“How did it go?” Quenby asked.
“Rotten. Baharas is okay, but there’s no response at all from Kalom.”
“Well, don’t worry. They’ll take care of him at the compound.” Quenby moved quickly toward the front door. “I think I’ll go for a walk in the garden. Did Gunner come back with you?”
Andrew nodded, his gaze still on Lily’s face. “He’s at the lodge. He wanted to clean up some loose ends before we left.”
“Then I’ll go find him and make him buy me a cup of coffee.” The door closed behind Quenby.
Her departure left the room echoing with a strained silence, which Lily hurried to fill. “Would those loose ends have anything to do with this telepathy business?”
Andrew nodded. “A few memory erasures to cover what happened here.”
“You speak of it so casually.” Lily crossed her arms across her chest to still their trembling. “Just a few erasures. And Quenby is so damn matter-of-fact too.”
“We live with it every day.”
Lily laughed shakily. “Gunner said the exotic becomes commonplace when you’ve grown accustomed to it. I don’t think I’m that adaptable.”
“At least you’re not rejecting the concept.”
“I can’t. I was here. I saw those men. I talked to Cassie.” She met his gaze. “As outrageous as I find the idea, I have to accept the fact that you and Gunner are telepaths. Believe me, I wrestled for a long time with that particular bogeyman last night.” She straightened her shoulders. “Okay, you’re telepaths. Now I have a few questions.”
“Only a few?”
“First, why did those men want Cassie?” She held up her hand as he started to speak. “Oh, I know you said they wanted her because she was your daughter, but why?”
“They wanted to study her,” Andrew said. “They wanted to run tests and do some brain scans on her to see what makes her tick.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s the first quarter-breed the Clanad’s ever produced, and they thought it possible she could be controlled and directed as they wished.”
“Wait a minute. Quarter-breed? Quenby was saying something about half-breeds and the Clanad. Just what is the Clanad? It’s no corporation, right?”
“Well, we do maintain several corporations.” Andrew shrugged. “The Clanad actually refers to a group of refugees who escaped from Said Ababa a good many years ago. They were Garvanians who had submitted to chemical injections to induce mind expansion right before Said Ababa invaded their country. The chemical was derived from a rare plant found only in Garvania that became extinct shortly after the experiments began. This irritated the Said Ababans no end, and when Garvania was defeated, the group was transferred
to a place called the Institute in Said Ababa and forced to undergo certain tests.” Andrew’s lips tightened grimly. “Everyone in the group was treated very harshly. My mother told me my own father’s heart was fatally weakened by the treatment he received at the Institute, and Gunner has horror stories that don’t bear repeating.”
“And they were going to take Cassie there?” Lily whispered.
“She would have been safe until she reached the Institute,” Andrew added bitterly. “They wouldn’t think of damaging the laboratory animals.”
“And they want you for the same reason?”
“They realized the original members of the Clanad were too strong for them to touch, but they thought the strength might have been diluted in the second and third generations.”
“And is it?”
“No, but the younger generations have a greater sensitivity, which makes unskilled tampering very dangerous.” He paused. “Cassie couldn’t have survived the Institute, Lily. She would have
locked herself away as she did last night, and been dead in a few days.”
“Dead?” Lily’s eyes widened in horror. “She was in that much danger?”
“It’s only a matter of time after the mind shuts down before the bodily functions follow.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I knew I could bring her back, and it would only have terrified you.”
“Yes.” She was terrified now at the mere thought of how close Cassie had come. “Quenby said half-breeds were prone to this kind of trauma. It’s like a time bomb. It could have happened anytime.” Her voice rose in panic. “It could happen tomorrow.”
“Easy,” Andrew said quietly. “It took a gigantic shock to send her into a tailspin.”
“And what if it had happened before?” Lily asked fiercely. “What if you hadn’t been on the scene?”
“I would have been notified. You don’t think the Clanad would let one of its own go wandering around without being monitored. We
care
about
one another, Lily. The Clanad wouldn’t let my daughter suffer.”
“Just one big happy family.” Her hands tightened into fists. “Well, I don’t know anything about this Clanad of yours, but—”
“The Clanad isn’t only mine; it’s Cassie’s.” Andrew smiled faintly. “And you belong to it now too.”
“No!”
He nodded. “A rather perilous honor, I agree. The only place where we’re safe is Sedikhan, because we’re under the protection of the reigning sheik, Alex Ben Raschid. Anywhere else in the world, discovery of what and who we are means we’re fair game.”
“Even here in America?”
“There are witch hunts everywhere. What was your reaction when Quenby told you?”
“Revulsion,” she said honestly. “Fear.”
“Exactly.” He smiled sadly. “And you’re an intelligent, civilized woman, who knows I care very much for her. There are a hell of a lot of people who are on the lower end of the scale whose
reaction would be a good deal more violent. I was almost murdered when I was a child younger than Cassie, by someone who discovered what the Clanad was.”
“Murdered.” She swallowed to try to ease a sudden queasiness in her stomach. “They’d murder a child?”
“As you told Cassie, there are lots of weirdos running around.”
Death. Andrew could have died, and she never would have known him. He never would have grown up, never given her Cassie. She dried her suddenly moist palms on the denim of her shorts. “I don’t understand how anyone could—” She stopped as a thought occurred to her. “This insemination business. Was that the Clanad’s way to spread its powers?”
He nodded. “We were encouraged to be donors, but it wasn’t mandatory. Each parent was investigated for genetic and mental stability, and the children were monitored from birth for any sign of acute sensitivity.” He grimaced. “I wanted no part of it. Until I saw you.”
She laughed shakily. “Well, your investigation went off the track when it came to me. I’d just committed the most incredibly stupid act in the history of the human race, and I was on the verge of a breakdown.”
“But you were a survivor, and struggling damn hard to come back to life. You’re very strong, Lily. You’d have been chosen by the Clanad even if I hadn’t wanted you to belong to me.”
She repeated his words: “A perilous honor. When you consider you gave me a daughter who can go into shock and die at any moment.”
He flinched, and she felt a stab of remorse. The words had tumbled out unthinkingly, born of bewilderment and frustration. “I didn’t mean—”
He interrupted quietly. “No, you have every right to resent it. Our scientists thought the sensitivity would have vanished by the third generation, but you had no choice, and no information on which to base a decision. My only defense is that I thought I was giving you sufficient gifts to balance the bad points. Be fair: If you had the
decision to make today, would you choose not to have Cassie?”
Refuse Cassie, with her sunny nature and loving heart? “No,” Lily said instantly. “I’d do it again in a minute.”
Andrew smiled. “Thank God.”
“But that doesn’t mean I hold you any the less culpable for not coming to me and telling me what I’d gotten myself into by bearing Cassie.” She walked over to the chair and sat down. “Still, later is better than not at all. Let’s get down to brass tacks. How can we keep this from happening to Cassie again? I assume this Institute will be sending other agents after Cassie when they find out you’ve have disposed of those two.”
He looked at her in surprise. “I told you that you were a survivor.” He smiled and nodded. “Gunner said they were an obstinate bunch at the Institute.”
“Then Cassie’s still in danger.” Lily’s hands tightened on the arms of her chair. “It hasn’t ended yet?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Tell me how we’re going to protect her.”
“I was waiting for you to tell me.” Andrew moved across the room to stand before her. “I think you’ve already figured it out, haven’t you?”
“You told the pilot of the helicopter we could never go back, only go forward.”
“Yes.”
“You meant that the old life wouldn’t be safe for Cassie.”
“Yes.”
She drew a deep breath and lifted her gaze to his. “You meant Cassie would have to go to Sedikhan.”
He nodded. “You’ll both have to go. The Institute has no qualms about taking hostages, Lily.”
“Of course I’d go. Do you think I’d let Cassie go alone?” Lily asked fiercely. “That is, if I decide she should go.”
Andrew was silent, waiting.
“Suppose she doesn’t like it there?”
“She’ll like it. She’ll feel more at home than she ever has in her life,” Andrew said gently. “And,
given time with her, I can build a mind barrier that will lessen the danger of the shock factor.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Several minutes passed before Lily spoke again. “What about her music?”
“She can perform in Marasef, if she likes, but I think you’ll find she’s leaning more toward composition. We have excellent teachers in the compound.”
“Compound?”
“The Clanad lives in a compound outside Marasef.”
“Oh.” She grimaced. “It sounds like a military stockade.”
Andrew shook his head. “It’s very pleasant. I have a house you can use until you’re given one of your own. It’s located only a few miles from my mother and stepfather’s home. I think you’ll like my mother. She and Jon are in Marasef right now, but she’ll probably rush back to meet Cassie.”
“She’s Cassie’s grandmother,” Lily said softly.
“Cassie has a grandmother. I never thought …” She trailed off.
“Is it me?” Andrew asked. “If I’m the reason you’re holding back, then tell me and let me see if I can work it out.”
“You seduced me.”
“I did.”
“Did you … It wasn’t telepathy?”
“Lord, no! I’d never go under against your will.”
A tiny smile tugged at her lips. “I think you must have done that the night Cassie was kidnapped. How else would you have known what happened, when I was unconscious and couldn’t tell you?”
To her surprise, Andrew flushed. “That was an emergency. We had to know what was wrong. I’ll never do it again without permission.”
“So the seduction wasn’t paranormal.” She made a face. “I suppose I was looking for an excuse. I don’t like admitting to weakness and stupidity.”
“You have an excuse, if you’d only admit it.”
“That I care for you?” She gazed squarely at him. “I don’t know what I feel for you any longer, Andrew. It’s as if I’ve been on an emotional roller-coaster ride for the past twenty-four hours. I’ve been angry, hurt, worried, afraid.”
“But now the roller-coaster cars have come back to the starting gate.” Andrew smiled. “And you can sit still and analyze what’s happened to you. If you’ve gone through all this and still don’t hate me, don’t you think that’s a good sign?”
“Maybe.” She shook her head wearily. “I just don’t know.”
“But you’ll let yourself find out?”
She stood up and started toward the bedroom where Cassie was sleeping. “We’ll see what happens when we get to Sedikhan.”
Andrew went still. “You’re going?”
Lily nodded as she opened the door. “Cassie and I will try it. If we don’t like it, you’ll have to find another solution. Okay?”
“Okay.” Relief and exhilaration turned Andrew’s tone buoyant. “You will like it, Lily.”
She frowned over her shoulder. “None of this voodoo stuff. Promise?”
“Promise.” Andrew’s eyes were twinkling as he said gravely, “Absolutely no hocus-pocus.”