Shadow Touch (9 page)

She landed back in her body with a rude thud, but darkness—always darkness—crept close against her vision and she could not lift her head from the Russian’s chest.

She lost herself again.

When Elena healed people, the journey back into her body was almost always instantaneous, never accompanied by unconsciousness or periods of confusion. Which was why, when Elena next opened her eyes and found herself back in the locker room—the Russian nowhere in sight—she knew something bad had happened.

Namely, Rictor.

“What did you do?” Elena asked, trying to stand. Her body would not obey; she felt weak, dehydrated. Rictor, impassive, stood less than a yard away. It took her a moment to realize she sat inside one of the shower stalls. Her clothes were still on, her body dry.

Rictor ignored the question. “You need to shower before I return you to the cell. Doctor’s orders.”

“What did you do to me?” Elena asked again, furious. “Where is Artur?”

Rictor crouched. He looked bored. Gently he said, “You should not have interfered.”

Elena stared at him, trying to read his face. It was impossible. “He would have died, Rictor. I had to do something.”

“You complicated matters.”

“How could I possibly have complicated anything around here? You guys are so in control you might as well brand your names on our asses and make us moo.”

Rictor briefly closed his eyes. “If you really felt that way, you wouldn’t be thinking so hard about all the ways you can escape. Now stand up. You need to shower.”

“Where’s Artur?” she asked again, unmoving. Her heart ached—a physical pain, as though a piece of her were missing.

“The Russian is where he should be. Alive, thanks to you.” Rictor did not sound terribly happy about that. His green eyes flickered to a deep emerald, catching light, an impossible amount of light—

Elena’s breath caught, remembering that same light inside Artur’s head. “You were there with us. You… helped.”
You helped pull out the worm. You stole me away from Artur
.

“I would be a fool to do that,” he said.

“Bullshit.”

Rictor grabbed Elena’s arm and hauled her up. She barely had strength to stand on her own, so he had to hold her. She hated that, pushed feebly at his chest until he let her lean against the tile wall.

“Swearing doesn’t become you,” he said quietly. “You don’t do it naturally.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to lecture me about good language. Or did I imagine all those times you said ‘fuck’?”

Rictor’s mouth tightened. He reached out and turned the shower knob. Cold water blasted over Elena’s body. She gasped, trying to jerk away. Rictor held her still, getting sloshed with the same cold water. After a minute—the longest of her life—the water turned warm. Her scrubs hung heavy against her body.

“What’s the point of this?” she spluttered, feebly wiping water from her eyes. “Or is this just another kind of torture?”

“Cleanliness promotes health,” Rictor said, in a dry monotone that sounded as if he were reciting from a manual. “And the doctor wants you in
perfect
health.”

“Your doctor is crazy,” she said, and then, quieter, “Why did you do it, Rictor? Why did you get involved? If I wasn’t supposed to help Artur, you could have stopped me. It wouldn’t have been hard for you to do.”

Rictor said nothing. He did not look at her. Elena wondered if there were cameras watching them, but Rictor had started this, hadn’t he? Surely it was safe.

“Is he still alive?” she asked, insistent. “At least you can tell me that. Did I heal him just so he could just get shot in the head?” The possibility made her sick.

More silence. Maddening, horrible—

“Rictor.”

“No. Like I said, you complicated matters. Maybe we both did.” He stepped away before she could respond, peering at her body with a clinical detachment that rivaled that of most doctors. “Can you undress yourself?”

Elena stared at him. “I sincerely hope you don’t expect me to take a shower—a real shower—right in front of you.”

His silence was answer enough. Elena felt pure heat spread across her face. Her fingers curled against the slick tile.

“No,” she said, low. “No. I don’t care what kind of sick place this is, I’m not taking any more. You turn around, Rictor. You turn around or leave this bathroom or do something the hell different, but I am not stripping naked in front of you.”

“It’s the rules,” he said. “I have to follow them.”

“Why? Is there someone watching us to make sure you do?”

“No,” Rictor said. “It’s just something I have to do.”

He bit out the words, and Elena could not tell what made him angrier: her resistance, or his own inability to bend the rules for her benefit. She did not care, either way.

“I won’t do it,” she said.

“I can make you,” he replied.

“Then you deserve to be here. You deserve this life, and worse.”

Rictor’s expression darkened. “You should not talk to me like that.”

“Why not? You already know what I’m thinking. Why shouldn’t I speak my mind?”

He went very still. Stared at her, thoughtful. It made Elena uneasy when he looked at her like that.

“I made a mistake,” he finally said, slowly. “I should have made you afraid of me.”

“You call that a mistake? Holy crap.” Elena briefly closed her eyes, weary. She needed to lie down. “You’re no better than the rest of them… whoever they are.”

Elena felt a large, warm hand on her neck. It was not a friendly touch. Rictor stood so close she could see herself in his eyes. “You’d better hope that’s not the case,” he whispered. “You’d better pray I’m better than that.”

Elena said nothing. Her voice would not work. His terrible anger shot into her spine like a thunderbolt, jarring her security, her tentative trust. There was power inside him, immense and tightly reined. Like Niagara, dammed.

Elena swallowed hard. “You’ve proven your point. Now let me go.”

Rictor’s hand dropped away. He stepped back and turned sideways so that he faced the locker room door. “This is the best I can do, Elena. Take your shower.”

He stared at the wall. If he wanted to, he could watch her from the corner of his eye—but Elena had lost all desire to argue. Her heart pounded so hard she felt dizzy.

Why, Rictor? Why should I be afraid of you?

He said nothing. Of course.

Face hot, pride taking a nosedive into the drain beneath her feet, Elena shucked off her filthy clothes and kicked them away from her. There was soap in the stall. She scrubbed her skin raw, turning so she did not have to look at Rictor. Despite her humiliation, it felt good to be clean again.

“You have five minutes,” he finally said.

Elena turned off the water. She glanced around for a towel and found one folded on the floor by the shower. Next to it were some fresh scrubs and a pair of white socks. Rictor waited until she was dressed before tilting his head to look her over.

“Clean enough?” she asked, bracing herself against the shower wall. The hot water had restored her calm; she felt angry, though too weak to do much about it. Healing Artur had completely wrecked her endurance.

“You’ll do.” Rictor did not move. He watched her, thoughtful. Elena waited, happy to play the silence game.

“Are you ready?” he finally asked, and his voice was so quiet she had to lean forward to hear him. Even then, it took a moment to register his words. The question felt heavy, loaded.

She said, “Does it matter?”

He said, “It always matters.”

“And if my answer is no?”

She felt the great weight of his gaze upon her, measuring and judging, and he said, “Then you won’t survive. You need to be strong in the head, Elena. You need to be ready.”

“Ready for what? How can I trust you? You tell me these things, but then you say I should be afraid. I am not like you, Rictor—I can’t read minds. Why are you doing this?”

He moved close, the warm, rich brown of his skin holding the light, just as his eyes seemed to reflect it, flashing green and bright. Again she felt his power, power edged with some careful, timeless grace, and she remembered that brief presence inside Artur’s mind, surrounding them, sharing strength to fight the worm.

Rictor grabbed her arm and yanked her from the shower stall. She stumbled and caught her balance against him. He did not hurt her, but his strength was inexorable; he dragged her like a doll to the door.

“This is all I
can
do, Elena.” His voice was hard, quiet. “And when they kill me, you won’t even have that.”

“Rictor,” she breathed. He did not look at her. He refused to say anything more.

The pain was gone. Still naked, still unprotected—but that soul-splitting headache had finally disappeared. Even the influx of vision in his head felt improved, as though the memories pouring through him were clean and cold, distant and not a part of him. Artur had not felt that way in a very long time. It was like having his youth restored, the youth he had never been able to have.

Elena gave me this gift. She did more than simply heal me.

Which was utterly remarkable. He had never imagined—even as strange as his life could be—that a person could do such things. Part of him still reached out for her, which disturbed him. It made no sense to feel such aching loss for a stranger.

Not a stranger
. Not when he could clearly recall the touch of Elena’s spirit against his own, how it felt to have her so tightly bound against him they risked becoming one creature. It frightened him to be so exposed.

And yet… he could not deny it felt safe and right. To hold and be held—for once, to let the visions in his head sweep into darkness without being carried with them. Elena had anchored him, protected him, and though he looked down into the heart of her soul looked deep, because he had no choice, never any choice—he was not repulsed by what he found. Elena’s skeletons were clean like her spirit, untainted by the tragedies in her life. She walked tall and lovely inside her heart, a heart that had embraced a stranger, a heart that had almost killed itself to help him.

And it pained him that he was unable to do more for her. Even in the end she had been pulled away from his embrace, stolen from his mind. Yes, she’d had to return to her body, but her disappearance felt like theft. He could not hold her—was too weak from the psychic battle with the strange creature inhabiting his thoughts.

A worm, a shadow, a vein into his head. Any description was meaningless, insofar as its purpose was concerned. Something had been done to him. His mind had been invaded, set upon by a leech.

Such a thing was not unheard of. Roland was an expert at psychic manipulation, as was Max Reese, another of Artur’s friends. According to them, it was close to impossible for a true telepath to hear anything beyond a person’s surface thoughts. It had to do with the low level of electricity every human generated—the kind of thing that allowed brain waves to be measured, or a slight charge registered by touching a field-strength meter. The only way to discover secrets that lay below the surface of a person’s consciousness was to lay down a thread of some kind—build a link between minds and wait for the underground to surface.

Only, the secrets inside Artur’s head were the kind that should never be shared.

Perhaps the fail-safe was triggered. If so, then Roland will know something is wrong. He will be able to warn the others
—
perhaps even find me, if Dean has not already
.

The fail-safe was Roland’s own creation, his version of a black worm. Years ago he had created a telepathic alarm system, a trick to keep the agency’s true purpose safe from betrayal. When someone was ready to be brought into the fold, Roland—with the individual’s permission—created a mental link, a connection between all the agency’s secret information and the emotional center of the brain. It did not take much to trigger the link. A single discussion with the wrong person—just one word, even—and Roland would know. All threads led back to him.

The black thread of the spider
. Charles’s memory drifted cold through his mind. The black thread, holding him like a dog, with a voice in his dreams. Artur remembered his own dreams, his nightmares. A woman whispering,
endless and undying
.

She was trying to control me. I would have been another killer, leashed. A pet, like Charles Darling. And when she had me, she would have also had my secrets.

He recalled Ms. Graves pressing him for his assent, for just one word: yes. Chills shuddered up Artur’s spine. He had come so close to saying that word, and it would not have mattered if it was a lie in his heart; like Roland, whoever had set the worm upon him—be it Graves or someone else—needed his permission. Some agreement, which would have translated into the spiritual, opening a crack in his mind for the worm to slip through and take control. Of course, it did not matter to Graves if she truly convinced him to join—all she needed was to wear him down until he said something to appease her. The mind was a tricky thing, with natural barriers and natural weaknesses, but the old adage played true: Give an inch and someone would take a mile. Might take your whole life, too.

“You’re awake,” said a smooth voice, startling Artur. “Don’t try to pretend otherwise. Your brain activity has increased significantly since your last scan.”

Artur opened his eyes. Directly above him was the inner wall of a creamy plastic dome—a ring—curving down around him like the center of a smooth doughnut. He tried sitting up and found himself bound to the table, tight bands holding his ankles, wrists, and chest. There was a restraint around his forehead. He tried to look down his body at the man addressing him and heard a low laugh.

“No, dear boy. I am not in the room. I am speaking to you via an intercom.”

“Who are you?” Artur tested his bonds. Waking up completely helpless was growing tiresome.

Another low laugh. “A doctor, of course.
Your
doctor. And you, Mr. Loginov, are fast becoming one of my favorite patients.”

That was not a comforting thought, considering that Artur had some notion of what this man did to his patients. Still, he was not above taking advantage of a good opening. “Might I ask what is so fascinating?”

“Your brain,” said the doctor, a smile in his voice. “I have never seen anything quite like it. The activity in your anterior cingulate cortex is incredibly intense. You are, to put it mildly, lit up like a Christmas tree. Which is remarkable, considering
that
is the area of the brain most closely associated with a great number of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia. Your extraordinary ability to process complex information must be the only reason you’re not yet insane.”

“How interesting,” Artur said. “I always wondered.”

“Delightful. I like it when my patients appreciate the process.”

Yes. Not very comforting at all.

Artur gazed down his body again. Outside the machine, past his feet, he saw a blank flatscreen monitor hanging from the ceiling; just below sat another monitor, this one blinking numbers. Artur heard more typing, which he realized was coming through the intercom. “How many patients do you have?” he asked, attempting a subtle examination of his restraints.

“Not so many,” said the doctor. “Although there has been a recent surge in some truly fascinating conditions. None that will surprise
you
all that much.” His emphasis was disturbing. But before Artur could respond, the doctor said, “Tell me how you feel.”

“How I feel?”

“Yes, dear boy. You suffered a collapse after your arrival. Or don’t you remember?”

“I remember,” Artur said, careful.

“And how do you feel now? Are you in pain?”

“No,” he said. “I feel fine.”

The doctor made a humming sound. “Interesting. What an unexpected reversal.”

Yes, but only if he expected Artur to be dead or incapacitated. Which meant that Elena’s intervention healing his brain, removing the worm—had completely upset someone’s plans.

A scream cut the air. Artur jumped against his bonds.

The cry was sharp, an animal howl, wicked with teeth and fury. It took him a moment to realize it was not originating inside the room with him. Close, though perhaps just outside the door to where he was being kept. He heard men shout—muffled words over a song of snarls—and then something large slammed once, twice, against a wall.

Silence. Artur remembered his vision: a cheetah, circling. The animal he had just heard certainly sounded like a cat, though he had no idea why the Consortium would be concerning themselves with animals, unless it was for some kind of biological experiment.

Artur forced himself to remember, pushing, prodding, dredging up more of the cheetah—someone’s recollection of the animal—and then, again, a strong memory that had made an impression on more than one individual.

The dolphin. A living dolphin, held within a small tank that was only as wide and long as its body. The water looked dirty. The animal seemed tired, exhausted, it did not struggle in the harness that ran beneath its belly, holding it just above the water’s surface.

Artur peered close.
How curious
. Why would such a creature be here, in a place that seemed to have nothing at all to do with marine life—

He saw gold. Gold in the dolphin’s eyes. Dolphins did not have golden eyes.

No.
Only shape-shifters do
.

“
Bozhe moy
,” Artur murmured, too shocked to be mindful of anyone who might hear him.
My God. How did they know? How did they find one? How, when we have searched for months without any luck
?

Searching—it was part of Dirk & Steele’s bargain with the dragon woman, Long Nü. So few shape-shifters were left in the world, and they were in danger of dying, of fading into legend. If Dirk & Steele could offer the remaining shape-shifters a resource, a way of reconnecting with others of their kind…

A dolphin. Remarkable. Koni and Hart told me shape-shifters inhabited the oceans, that they flourished there while their landlocked brothers and sisters languished. Yet, to find one here… It is like discovering a unicorn.

And who was to say
those
did not exist as well? The world was full of vast possibility. Magic, science—all of it working together to create an extraordinary riddle without an answer, where the only response was acceptance. Accept, because the alternative was a small life, a small mind.

It was not so difficult for Artur to imagine the possibilities. Not when his life had been gifted with such highs and lows of pain and miracle. He had learned to accept a great deal from a very young age, and a little magic seemed easier and lovelier than the other truths he had swallowed.

So. A shape-shifter, here.

He thought of the cheetah. The big cat also had golden eyes, but that was typical of its kind. Artur could not say for certain the animal was anything more than what it appeared to be.

But what if? They already have one shape-shifter. Two, though remarkable, is not impossible.

But it was humbling.

I need to help them
, Artur decided. He thought of Elena—felt his heart ache, like a little death.
And you. I am coming for you, Elena. You are not alone. I am still with you
.

Still with her, and tied naked to a table.

Well. He never had expected an easy life.

Muted voices outside the room broke Artur’s concentration. He listened, and a moment later heard the doctor’s high, loud voice over the garbled mess of words and accents.

“Inexcusable,” Artur heard him say. “You should have been more careful.”

More talking, again interrupted by the doctor. “No, I told you his metabolism works faster than a normal animal’s. You simply did not listen. Now take him back and clean up this mess. Fast.”

His metabolism works faster than a normal animal’s.

That clarified things, and considering what Artur remembered from his visions, he had a fairly good idea of who was screaming out in the hall. The Consortium really did have two shape-shifters in its custody—one of whom still had enough strength to fight. Good. That was very good.

Artur heard a loud click. Muffled voices, scuffing noises, followed by a single pair of footsteps. Definitely in the room this time.

An elderly man in a white lab coat appeared beside Artur’s feet. He held a black plastic bag. His smile was faintly unpleasant, his face too narrow and his eyes too sharp to allow the baring of teeth. Artur watched him as best he could. The old man tapped a button on the side of the machine. The table Artur lay upon slid out. Artur blinked as the bright ceiling lights blinded him.

“I apologize,” said the doctor. “I hate interruptions.”

“And yet you manage them so well. That was an animal I heard, yes?”

“Very much so.” The doctor smiled. “Quite difficult to train.”

“Cats usually are. They are so
much
like people. Minds of their own, as you know.”

The doctor’s smile faltered. Yes. It was quite clear he did know. The hand holding the black plastic bag clenched tighter, knuckles rolling white.

“What a skill you have,” said the doctor softly. “What a knack for learning. Fascinating. They say you are a dangerous man. I quite believe it. And yet, I find myself wondering how it is that a man such as yourself, a man who can see the most hidden secrets of anyone in the world, does not run his own empire, his own kingdom to rival the one you are about to join.”

“I am sorry,” Artur said, “but I have no idea what you are talking about.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. “I suppose that answers it, then. You really are no better than a thug.”