Marked (27 page)

Too late to change your mind now
, I told myself.
Too late
.

Jamie was watching me, carefully, carefully. Small step after small step. Johanna was actively reading me now. Small step. Small step.

At four feet away I asked,
How do you want to do this?

She looked at me, at Jamie, and thought. “Come up here on the bench.”

So there I was when she let Jamie go. There I was, empty, afraid.

And in the moment Jamie was far enough away, the moment that horrible knife came in my direction, I took the moment.

I slipped inside Johanna's defenses like a flea under a blanket, small burrowing crawls too small to be noticed. Planning to wait for the right moment.

Her arm dragged me toward her, or tried—she wasn't that strong, but she used what she had ruthlessly. Her knife came down in front of me; she couldn't reach my throat comfortably, settled for my side.

The flyer settles behind us in the air,
she projected to whoever was listening.

And then I saw the glint across the way, from a high-up building in the Guild skyscraper. Rifle. Sharpshooter.

Johanna saw what I saw.
It wouldn't shoot. It wouldn't shoot
, her mind said. She hadn't seen a vision. Things were changing so fast, but she hadn't seen a vision.

Jamie was nearly to Captain Harris.

I had my moment. I slipped in, to the back of her mind. . . .

I found myself in an endless empty plain, cold. Frozen grass extended as far as the eye could see. In the distance, high ragged mountains. My breath froze in front of my face. Not a picture of her mind, not a true seeming, but a defense. A real, deep defense the likes of which I'd never seen.

I ran, forward, in the quick lope I used to move through Mindspace quickly. No matter how much I ran, the endless plain extended in front of me. There had to be a way out. There had to be.

I kept moving, my speed slowing as the cold moved into my bones. I kept moving, kept looking for the way out.

After an unknowable time, on a random step, my foot broke through, into a burrow that snapped in, imprisoning my foot before I could get away.

I pulled. Again. Again.

Behind me, a low, dangerous growl that crawled up my spine.
Run,
my instincts screamed.
Run.
But no matter how I pulled against the ground, my foot was stuck.

The growl again. I turned—bending my body uncomfortably, my foot caught.

It was a leopard, a white leopard with tufted ears and long teeth, a leopard impossibly big, ten feet tall or more, thousands of pounds. Moreover, it wore Johanna's mental scent.

My gut fell out of me.

“Nice of you to fall into my trap,” the leopard said with Johanna's voice.

I pulled harder against the trap, and felt the ground stretch, stretch like taffy . . .

The leopard placed its paws. It leaped—

Something snapped in my leg. I screamed. Pressure, pressure—I was crushed. Its head looked straight into my eyes.

Prey,
she thought. And I got my first true look at Johanna's soul. At the thing that lived where human emotion should be. It was cold, cold like the plains, and hungry. So hungry, for power, for respect, for status. It had killed before, and would kill again, with no more thought than a leopard hunting a rabbit, with the same fierce joy.

Let me go,
I said, knowing it was futile.

No.
The leopard opened her mouth. . . .

Her breath smelled like flowers. Like flowers. The little detail gave me pause as the teeth came down.

In the space between one second and another, I did the one thing, the critical thing we taught middle school children to do first, before any other training. I let go of everything but
me
and turned
in.
I let all of it go . . .

 . . . and found myself back in my body. Heart racing. Terror drenching me in sweat. But I was in my own body, my mind ragged but in one piece.

In front of me, Stone had a gun trained on both of us. I looked down. The knife was drooping, inches from my side.

I reached down, grabbed her wrist. She was slow, slow, still stuck in the place in her own mind. I forced the button. Hit the button to turn the blade off and threw myself forward, to the deck. The limp vibroblade hit me as Johanna woke up, angry. But it was just cord now, just cord.

“Take one more move and I will shoot you where you stand,” Stone said in a voice colder than the plain I'd found myself in.

I crawled to the side, away from the line of fire. I stood up, wary. Maybe I should run. Maybe I should push her over the edge. There had been something in the leopard's eyes . . . something terrifying. Something that was an all-too-true representation of the thing that lived inside Johanna.

Then she moved.

Crack.
The gun went off.

She was moving—to me, to me. The vibroblade
whined.

My body reacted before my mind had a chance. Hand up to strike the blade away. Body twisting—the judo flip Cherabino had drilled me on again and again—my hands, my body changing her momentum.

The blade scored my leg—pain, pain. I cried out.

She was up and moving again.

And then the world shattered, Mindspace disappearing under the weight of unimaginable tsunami force. The curving lights overhead exploded. The glass office building went dark, top to bottom. My ears popped as I fell to the floor, Stone falling too.

Jamie stood in the center of the wind, force in her hands.

Johanna was still on her knees. “You will not—”

Another tsunami rose and crushed the world. I blacked out.

CHAPTER 24

I woke up
in the Guild infirmary, a tiled area that stretched over half of a skyscraper floor. Rows of beds with pulled-back curtains were filled with occupants, some sleeping, some awake. Gustolf was there, and Stone, and others. Opposite were various monitoring devices and a nurses' station. Across the room, you could just see doctors making their rounds. The lights felt too bright, and Mindspace distant, and I had a low throbbing at the base of my skull.

Two people stopped by Stone's bedside, a woman about his age with a kind smile, and a boy about ten years old. His family.

He'd gotten through it, and made the Guild better, for his family.

“Ah, you're awake,” a cheerful woman with a medic patch said then. She came over, pulling out a flashlight. “Look up for me.”

I complied.

She smiled and put the flashlight back in a lab coat pocket. “Now the mental flex. Stretch your mind up—” She put her fingers on my temples and looked abstracted.

I stretched my mind upward, then around, then down, while she watched.

“Any lingering pain?” she asked, removing her hands.

“Some,” I said. “Feels like aftershock.”

She nodded. “That should decrease steadily for a couple of days. It never feels good to have your brain-box override the Abled center, but it saves your life, so we don't complain. Much.” She smiled. “I'd rest up and try not to do any active reads. If the pain gets worse, you come back here immediately.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem,” she replied. “We've got a lot of these today. She took out the electrical system and half the minds in the professional building.”

I processed that for a moment.

“Captain Harris, the neutral non-Guild guy? I assume he's fine?” I asked. His brain wouldn't have been affected much by the Mindspace tsunami, maybe. Although he did have the Link to Jamie. . . .

“He's fine, though he's left the Guild for now.”

“How is Jamie?” I asked.

“Tired,” Jamie's voice came from ten feet away as she walked toward me. Deep circles were under her eyes, and a bandage was around her arm.
I'm okay,
she said. Underneath the words was gratitude . . . and hesitancy. She was never quite comfortable with the full use of her gift.

“We did it,” I said. “We found the killer and saved the day.”

“You did it,” she said uncomfortably. “Johanna was quite . . . She influenced the fear. I could see her doing it, but I couldn't stop it. The fear was so . . . I couldn't do anything. I am profoundly sorry.”

“You finished it, given the chance.” I paused, realizing I was suddenly in the role of teacher here. “The lizard brain is hard to fight. Even policemen and women freeze up when they encounter real danger the first few times. It's the nervous system. It's not you. And she'd been manipulating so many people, I'm betting she was real good at stoking that fear.” In fact, that's probably what she did with Meyers, that and plant the idea of suicide for his future-sense to play with.

Jamie looked down, not meeting my eyes.

“You did what you had to do at the moment, and you did it well,” I said. “It's a win in my book. The police department might even give you a medal.”

“I still thank you,” she said. “You saved my life. You . . . you may not be what you were, or as strong as you were. But you've become a good man. You've built skills that make a difference in this world for the better. I'm sorry for my harshness earlier. I didn't understand. I do, now.”

I took a moment and soaked in the warm feeling. She had been one of the most important teachers I'd ever had. “That really means a lot,” I said.

“Good.”

Awkwardness crept into the silence, so I asked, “What will happen to Johanna?”

Jamie shrugged, some of her confidence settling back. “She's with the deep-scanner now and the Council will convene tomorrow. If she is responsible for as much as I believe, she will be executed or mind-wiped the day after.”

“She'll be gone. The person that she was will be gone either way.”

“Yes.” There was no sympathy in Jamie. “The flyer crash killed friends, and they found her fingerprint on one of the tampered parts. They found another device in the gymnasium, what they think mimicked madness and started the spread of the illness. Four people died from that alone. She deserves to answer for what she did.”

“I suppose she does.” It still seemed a waste.

Jamie shifted and changed the subject, firmly. “The Chenoa and Erikson-Meyer clans have accepted appointments to the ruling body. I was involved in the selection. We will be working out our differences together, at least for now. You averted a war, Adam. The Guild will be much better for your visit.”

“Then why do I feel fatalism from you?”

She looked at me for a moment, then finally said, “If you're able to walk, Diaz and Hawk wish to see you now. I have already given my testimony on your behalf and my belief that you saved my life. I said I'd come down to tell you personally.”

“Oh,” I said. Then I stood. “I can walk. Um, can I ask you a question?”

“At this point, you've earned any question I could possibly answer.”

Oddly, the vision from earlier came back, nagging. “I had . . . a vision. It seemed very certain, and Cherabino experienced it through some spillover with a Link. She thought the boy in danger was a relative of hers. I . . . Now that I've had a chance to think about it, I don't believe it is. I knew the boy in the vision, but I don't know him now.”

Jamie stopped. “What are you asking?”

“Nothing has happened yet, nothing remotely like that vision. Did our actions change it? Is it just one of the ones that appears and disappears?”

“You know I can't answer that, Adam. The future is unknown. You know that.”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

The female court official showed up in the infirmary then. “Adam Ward?” she called. “You're overdue.”

“Will you come with me?” I asked Jamie.

She shook her head sadly. “I can't. I'm sorry.”
I will always remember what you've done for me. Always. I am so deeply sorry I could not do it myself.

Nobody's perfect, Jamie.

I left, with the unsteady and fatalist feel of my old mentor—and my own self—ringing in my head.

Now it was time to face the Council.

•   •   •

Diaz stood in an empty Council chamber, Rex and Hawk on either side, neither happy. Diaz looked out onto the now-graying cloudy day through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the soft light kind to his heavily wrinkled face. Darting cars moved down the skylanes. Skyscrapers started to light up with the approach of darkness.

“I'm here,” I said, unable to keep myself from getting cranky. “Unless you're going to throw me out on the street like you did Captain Harris, I'd suggest we get to it.”

Diaz turned, looked at me critically. “Perhaps you were right. Strength is not all that matters. The Guild . . . the Guild has been too complacent. You showed me that today. We need new skills. We need new perspectives.”

“If you're offering me a job . . .”

He held up a hand.
Let me finish.
“We need new perspectives. We need . . . information. We need new blood. It came to my attention during the trial process that you have been linked to a certain young Jacob. He is strong, and by rights belongs to the Guild.”

Hell of a change of subject, and everything Cherabino and I had been working to avoid for such a long time. I supposed it was inevitable, but I still chose my words carefully. “It would be a mistake to remove him from his family without due consideration. They have political and police contacts who will fight. Hell, I'll fight you. It's a mistake to target the boy when what you want is me. You know that. Hell, everybody here knows that.”

“No one is targeting a boy,” Hawk said then, quietly. “The Guild does not use children as bargaining chips.”

“If he has the strength, he belongs to the Guild by right,” Rex said. He had his mind very, very controlled. But his face—that look was disgust. The emotion that fueled violence. “Further, Ward is a criminal for concealing a potential Guild member from us. No matter how strong or weak the boy is, that needs to be addressed.”

I stood a little straighter. “It would be a mistake to take him from his family,” I said again. “He has an ongoing severe medical issue, and I don't believe the Guild will be able to address his needs. Furthermore—” I cut off Rex's protests. “Furthermore, I don't believe he will survive the pressures of the Guild program at this age. It would be a shame to destroy such a promising Ability to prove a point. He has allies in the police force. And he has me. This is not about Jacob, or it shouldn't be. If you're going to punish me for my sins, go ahead. I'm here. But leave him out of it. He's just a boy.”

“Let's leave the boy for now and move to you.” Diaz's mind leaked certainty, and respect, and sad decision. “At the beginning of today's events, the Council took a vote to remove your Ability but keep your mind and memories intact. This would protect the Guild—as Rex has argued so heavily in favor of—and yet still allow you to pursue this life you have among the normals.”

I swallowed. Losing my telepathy—well, I'd lived through it once. But it was like losing a leg, or a testicle. It wasn't dying, though. It wasn't dying and it wasn't losing Cherabino or Swartz. “And now, after I've saved the life of one of the rarest telepaths?” I asked. “After I've saved your Council from a sociopath?”

Diaz shook his head. “It looks like Rex was right all along. Your . . . skills, unethical as I might find them, uncovered a snake in our midst. You risked your own life to save a Guild treasure. It's time to talk about debts.”

“Where are you going with this?” I asked, cautious, not quite daring to hope.

“As head of the Council, I am overruling the vote, as is my right,” Diaz said, in a flat tone. “You have paid for your accusation. You have paid, many times over, for the lapses in courtesy you have committed. I am also forgiving half of the debt you have incurred for using our medics—half.”

“Thank you,” I said, automatically, not knowing what else to say. “What does that mean exactly?”

“The balance sheet is accounted for. But understand, Adam Ward, I don't like you. I don't like your ethical choices. I'm asking you not to come to the Guild here—or in any other office—for any reason, unless you are called. If I find you here, you will find yourself in a cell and in considerable pain. I don't like surprises in my territory,” Diaz said.

“I will be the one administering the pain,” Rex said. “Consider that a promise.”

I should have been scared at that. But the maelstrom of emotions I'd been through in the last several hours had left me numb and unimpressed. “Fine,” I said. “I've paid off part of the debt, you forgive me, we part ways, and I stay away. I can do that. But about Jacob—you leave him alone. You want me to cooperate, that's my condition.”

“No deal,” Rex said.

Hawk faced the others. “The boy comes to the Guild for twice-weekly lessons with experts. We monitor any home tutoring he receives in his Ability as well. When he reaches his Level and Skills test, he will have the choice to join the Guild . . . or our support in pursuing membership at another, qualified Guild. He is a boy, not a pawn,” he said roughly.

Private messages flew from him to the other two, and back, for several minutes. Hawk seemed brittle and angry, and stood his ground.

“Fine,” Rex finally said, his mouth twisting like he'd bitten into a lemon. “Fine. But he fails to show and Ward pays double the use-price for the boy's talent, to be added to his debt or taken out on his hide.”

Hawk paused, and I felt the decision not to argue.

“So it is,” Diaz said.

I looked at him. He looked at me.

“Is that it?” I asked, a sense of relief waiting in the wings while I moved carefully, oh so carefully out of this.

“You should leave now,” Rex said, that disgust back in his voice.

I nodded and walked away.

•   •   •

Captain Harris drove me home in total silence, the air flyer's engine and air noise the only thing I heard other than the screaming of my own mind. Relief and anger fought by stages, relief and anger and hope and fear.

Finally I couldn't take it anymore.

Now that I had escaped losing . . . well, everything, I needed to know. “Am I still employed?”

Harris glanced at me, and I felt a thin, weak burst of exhaustion escape into Mindspace. “Aren't you going to ask me if the Guild's secrets are safe now? That's usually what you people ask me at this point.”

I blinked at him. “I'm not really ‘you people' anymore. I don't really care if you keep their secrets or not, so long as I don't have to deal with the Council for, I don't know, approximately forever. You want to hold a press conference, you knock yourself out. I'll hold the camera and cheer.” I looked out the window. Tried to figure out how soon I could ask the job question again.

He took a right turn, then a left. A few minutes later, about the time I was going to ask again, he spoke. “I haven't kept my pass by being indiscreet. Neither, I suspect, have you. You did well, for what it's worth. Focusing the anger at the third party was . . . an unusual choice, but I think it worked. Johanna certainly reacted in a way that supported that decision and made your accusations seem credible.”

“They won't have a war or anything for right now, at least,” I said. “That much was a lie, you know. Johanna wasn't behind it
all
. They did a lot of the stuff themselves, out of fear. The quarantines, the Tech. The fear that spread like wildfire. They engineered a large portion of their own downfalls. Even if Johanna helped. A lot. She admitted to the illegal devices, you know.”