I've missed you
—
The thought faded as the scene shifted. She could see it all with perfect clarity, but there was no sound. It was as though she were watching a silent movie, or a television that had been put on mute. Rick again, this time with a large dark-haired man she recognized as Raven Ramirez. The two of them were arguing companionably over a beer. In a flash she saw another image. Her younger brother
Antoine,
Fiona's twin, looked intolerably smug, as usual, right up until the moment Rick threw him up against the wall with
a snarl of utter fury. It took both Raven and Lucas to separate them. Rick
…
and Raven
…
working together. Did they know how they fit into her life in this future time? The man she loved, and the man she had no choice
but
to love?
With each transition the vision that played out behind her eyes seemed to gain momentum and speed. It raced through her mind like a runaway horse. She was losing control. Scene after scene flashed through her mind in an ever changing kaleidoscope of images: Her mother's face, eyes dark with rage, as her younger self tried to tell
Maman
of a vision she'd seen; then a shift, and a slender blond woman was telling her joyous husband of her pregnancy. It was Raphael, Amber's lover from before she'd met Charles, and he seemed lovingly content with the blonde, who looked enough like Fiona for
Josette
to do a double take from outside the vision.
A temple appeared next in the same jungle that she'd encountered in the assassin's mind, with snakes converging for a dark ceremony; then feral birds descending on a small pack of desperate red wolves. Then Rick lay dead, his heart's blood leaking out while she was covered in a multitude of snakes just a few feet away, unable to help. Then he was alive again, bouncing an infant boy on one knee.
There were so many images
—visions of joy and sorrow, pain and death. She couldn't begin to sort them all.
She felt her grip on her mind start to slip. It was too much.
Josette
screamed with rage and frustration.
NO!
She
would
control this! In desperation she turned to the only things that she could count on to bring her back to her body in the present
—blood and pain.
She bit down into her lower lip, felt her teeth rip through the skin until red dripped down onto the gray and tan rabble at the edges of her vision. It was barely enough, but she felt her mind slowly clear
…
saw the tendrils of time form a cloudy lace that eventually converged and became the present.
It took several minutes of hard work to clear herself from beneath the rubble. Each breath burned in her lungs from the smoke that boiled up into the azure sky. She could taste the burning chemicals
— varnish and plastic, insulation and paint—on her tongue. Very soon the sheriff and others would come to investigate. She didn't want to be here when that happened. There would be too many questions.
The body of the snake's mate still lay near what had been the front porch and she started to drag the burned, bloodied body toward the wall of flames. If she was lucky, the police would believe the woman was her. After all, it wasn't as if the humans had her DNA or fingerprints on file. The Sazi did, but they wouldn't share. No, Aspen Monier needed to die in order for
Josette
to live.
Raising her chin in defiance she blinked back the
last of the tears from the stinging sooty air, shifted forms, and started to pad her way to the place she'd buried the start of a new life. It was time to face the future.
Rick
took a
long pull of coffee before setting the cup down on the end table next to him. He brushed an unruly shock of hair away from his eyes. "What?" His expression grew guarded, his tone not quite hostile.
"I asked you how much
Josette
told you about her relationship with her mother?"
He tried to decide what Charles wanted him to say. Josie might not be his wife anymore, but the confidences they'd shared were
…
well,
confidential.
The older man must have sensed his reluctance. He turned his head slightly and called out. "Amber? Could you come in here for a moment?"
When the door opened, Amber was carrying a stack of clothing that she handed to her husband. "Bruce checked them out. They're all fine. No socks, though. Damned if someone didn't thread in a small wire with a nanotracker."
Charles nodded and stood. "I hope you don't mind Rick, but I'd like to use the bedroom for a few minutes."
"My house is yours." Rick meant every word and was rewarded with a gentle smile from the older man.
"Thank you. I appreciate that. Especially since we
crashed in on you uninvited." He started walking toward the darkened bedroom, each movement heavy with a deep pain that sent ripples of agony through Rick's gift of empathy. Charles paused with his hand on the bedroom door and turned to address Amber. "Tell Rick about
Sabine
and
Josette,
please. He might know some of it, or he might not. But he needs to understand what we're dealing with."
Amber sighed and nodded her agreement. Her eyes didn't leave Charles's form until the bedroom door closed behind him. Only then did she pick up a mug and sit down, leaning back into the cushions.
She didn't bother with preliminaries, as though there wasn't time for such frivolity. "My mother hated the fact that
Josette
was a seer. But more than that, she feared what my sister saw about her. When we were eight years old she paid an ungodly amount to one of the seers in the area to have her block my sister's gift. The woman warned her it should be a temporary thing, that bottling up the magic for more than a day or two would cause problems, but my mother didn't listen. She wanted the gift
gone."
He'd known part of this. Josie had seldom talked about
Sabine, but a
few things had slipped out over the years. "What happened?"
Amber shuddered. Turning her head, she stared into the flames. Her voice was deceptively calm as she spoke, but Rick could feel the effort it was taking her to control the emotions brought on by the memory.
"Josette
suffered terribly. It started with light sensitivity and a headache; then agitation and irritability, followed by a fever and chills
…
" Amber's voice simply stopped. A wave of panic hit him like a fist to the jaw and tears filled her eyes.
"All of the seers are in terrible danger, Rick." She lowered her voice. "Because of what
Maman
did, Aspen can't be blocked
but
…
" She shook her head, causing the first of the tears to slide soundlessly down her cheek.
But what!
Rick barely managed to control himself enough to keep from interrupting her.
"She has enemies on the council, and not just Ahmad. They're saying that she's the only one who could be responsible
—that she's gone completely insane and is killing the other seers. But I don't believe that. Aspen would
never
do such a thing to another seer. Charles has forestalled them for now, but something has to be done."
Rick froze in mid-motion, his hand hovering in the air above the coffee cup.
Danger
…
Josette's
in danger.
He felt a fluttering in his chest and realized it was fear. Josie could handle nearly anything, but if the council turned against her she'd be put down
— just like Jack had been.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Amber continued in a rash. "It actually doesn't take that much power to block another person's gift if they're not aware of it or fighting you, and there are several ways
of doing it
—
if
you share the same gift. And only someone who shares the same gift can break the block."
"It doesn't have to be the same person who blocked it?"
"Not if you find someone more powerful than they are."
"So
…
" Rick started to speak, but Amber interrupted him, in whispered tones so low that even the other Sazi nearby wouldn't be able to hear.
"So, last night Charles collapsed during a vision. Something or
someone
is literally draining his power every time he uses his gift. He shouldn't even be standing, Rick. You see what he looks like." She turned a deeply worried face toward the bedroom door. "I tried to contact the other Sazi seers, to see if one of them was available to come break through what was done to Charles."
"And?"
"I reached everyone but
Josette
and our most recent seer. He only has hindsight, so he's probably fine. But every seer with foresight has been blocked, and is in the same condition as Charles or worse. It was done so skillfully that they never even noticed until nearly all of their power was drained." There was suppressed rage under those perfectly calm-sounding words. It pounded at Rick's gift, until he had to fight to maintain his own reason.
"Charles told me that, because of what
Maman
did, Aspen won't be affected, which means, that if she is alive and sane she can
…
will
help us."
Rick found himself shaking his head. "Josie's not insane. And I agree that she'd never hurt another seer the way
Sabine
hurt her."
"She may be our only chance at breaking the block on the others before they die, or before whoever is doing this kills
her
to keep her from doing just that."
Rick's mouth was dry. He had to clear his throat twice before he could manage to speak. "But
Josette
broke free by herself before. Can't the others?"
Amber shook her head.
"Non. Maman
murdered the Sazi who set the spell by accident, in one of her fits. Without the spellcaster's power to draw from, the spell began to weaken. Also
Josette
and I were children." She fought to find the words to explain. "From what I'm told, it's sort of like the measles, or some of the other childhood ailments. Serious, but not necessarily life threatening in children, but possibly fatal in adults, and the older the person, the deadlier it is."
Rick swallowed hard. His stomach tightened with fear. Charles Wingate was one of the truly ancient Sazi. He'd been Rick's mentor, his
friend
for longer than either of them would care to remember. "But
…
"
He hadn't heard the door open, being as engrossed as he was in what Amber was saying, so he jumped a little when Lucas spoke in a low growl. "Our plans just changed. I just got a call on our only noninfected
phone. Satellite pictures from earlier today of the house where Aspen lived in the desert show a charred hole." Amber gasped and a buzzing filled Rick's ears.
"I pulled some strings and checked with local authorities. There was an explosion that involved an accelerant. While the fire destroyed most everything, there were traces of human remains. We got lucky that
Angelique
Calibria, the raptor representative, was nearby on vacation. She found barely enough tissue for Bobby Mbutu to do a DNA match with his tongue." He paused as Rick remembered Bobby, a brilliant chemist with a talented python tongue that could identify anything he tasted. "The dead body wasn't her."
Rick said a silent prayer of thanks, and muscles he hadn't even realized he'd clenched relaxed as he settled deeper into the chair.
"The thing is," Lucas spoke soberly, "she
was
hurt. Somebody had cleaned up the area, but
Angelique
found faint traces of her blood, and there was a grave containing a dead viper, a South American rattler, not far from the scene. It has all the ear-markings of an assassination attempt gone bad."
Rick sighed audibly. "It's not like it's the first time, Lucas. The snakes have been trying to assassinate Josie since she was a teenager."
The older man nodded. "True. But we're worried. Unfortunately, I don't dare send anyone after her that she doesn't know personally. If she didn't kill them
outright, she'd at least damage them, and I don't have any agents to spare." He sighed. "I had sent Tasha to see her on another matter some time ago, but I've lost contact with her." He growled. "I'm
hoping
it's a temporary setback. I can't afford to lose any more of my agents."
This was the second or third time Lucas had referred to Wolven agents in the possessive. Rick had always assumed Fiona had taken over when Jack left to join Congress.
"You
don't have any agents?"
Lucas sighed, but it ended with a light growl, and his scent was filled with annoyance. "I'm in charge, at least temporarily. Jack's dead, as I said. Fiona's unavailable."
Amber spoke up, her voice still a little unsteady. "Fiona and Raven Ramirez, her second before the council added my position over them both are on forced medical leave at the order of the Council."
The council had ordered the two top people in Wolven on
medical leave?
Rick didn't know Ramirez but he could just imagine Fiona's reaction to being benched. He nodded to both Lucas and Amber. "You have my deepest sympathies for dealing with Fiona while she's on forced leave. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." Rick was only half joking. Still, Lucas was a big boy. If anybody could handle an ill-tempered cougar it was him.
Rick had disliked Fiona from the minute she'd walked into the same room with him for the first
time. Either she hadn't known he was an empath, or she hadn't cared enough to shield herself. Rick had felt her emotions as clearly as anything he'd sensed in his life: ambition unfettered by anything more than the most rudimentary conscience; ethics that were best described as
…
flexible. It hadn't surprised him at all when he'd heard the rumor that she'd slept with Raphael Ramirez knowing full well that Amber was mated to him and pregnant. Bitch.
One-sided matings in the Sazi world might be the norm, but that didn't make it any easier. To fall in love with a person who might or might not share your devotion
…
it was one of nature's little cruelties in exchange for the dubious blessing of being Sazi. He'd always wondered what might have happened if he had been mated to Josie
—if pleasing her had been foremost in his mind, instead of his own selfish interests. Despite what the songs on the radio repeatedly told him, love
doesn't
conquer all. Not even among the supernatural community. Sometimes it just makes things worse.
The bedroom door opened and Charles appeared, looking a little better, but still fairly ill. Charles turned to Amber, his expression grim. "I hate to do this, my love, but I'm ordering an investigation into Fiona's activities."
Her brows shot up and she half-stood
—shock plain on her face. "Charles!"
He held up a hand. "I don't believe she's betrayed
us. I can't believe that. But at the very least she's been negligent, and that negligence has cost lives. We can't be certain yet that one of those lives isn't Aspen's. I know she's your only remaining baby sister, but
—"
A variety of emotions ran across the woman's face, and every single one of them beat against Rick's mind until he visibly winced. Apparently, she'd forgotten about his
empathi
c
ability and when she noticed, she calmed herself quickly. "I'm so very sorry, Rick. I know better than to blast emotions at you. But it's been a somewhat
…
stressful few days." She shook her head and her expression sobered. Rick could feel the stab of anger mingled with regret that passed through her.
When Amber turned to her husband, her face was calm. "Fiona and I haven't spoken more than three words in years. I won't tell her, if that's what you're worried about. But she wouldn't do
…
this.
Wolven isn't just her job, it's her
life.
She breathes law enforcement. She wouldn't be involved in something so hideous."
"Then she won't have anything to worry about." Charles's words were reassuring, but his tone wasn't. He turned to face Lucas. "You know what you have to do."
The old wolf stank so much like wet, burning coffee that Rick looked to the kitchen to check if he'd forgotten to turn off the stove. But no, it was just anger, laden with regret.
"This is going to be a fucking nightmare." Lucas didn't move from his post, leaning against the far wall. He continued staring out the window, his entire posture rigid with barely controlled fury. Watching him, Rick realized that not all of the wood smoke was coming from the fireplace. The log walls would probably be permanently scorched, and there would be a definite handprint burned into the windowsill.
Still, Lucas managed to keep his voice even when he continued. "But first things first. We need someone Aspen trusts to find her and bring her in to deal with the seers issue. Rick, will you do it?"
This was exactly what he'd been afraid of. This tag team of the most powerful Sazi was intended to use him to manipulate and control
Josette.
They just expected Rick to play along. That pissed him off enough that he decided to give the other man a little taste of what he was feeling. He let down some of his controls, so the whole room
—and probably Bruce beyond them—would know
exactly
what he thought of the idea. Amber began to move uncomfortably in her seat and even Charles took a sharp breath.
"Josette
is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and you know it." Rick felt a high-pitched feline snarl rise into his throat. "And despite what
Antoine
says, she's
not
insane, and she's absolutely trustworthy." Rick lowered his shields, watching as Lucas fought to control a rage that wasn't his own, though it felt exactly as if it were. "I swear I could
gut
her idiot
brother for spreading that rumor! She is absolutely coherent in whatever time she's in. It isn't her fault she's existing in the past, present, and future at the same time. You have no fucking clue the kind of pain she's gone through trying to bring her gifts under control. You want her back
—but not because you're worried. Because you want to use her. Like you'll use me. Like you use
everybody."
Lucas made a low sound deep in his chest that would cause most lesser Sazi to grovel at his feet, and power crackled around him as he stalked forward, enough to make the lamp flicker. Human lips pulled back from his teeth in a very inhuman gesture, and the air suddenly reeked of anger, power, and fear. "You have no concept of what is at stake here. How
dare
you think you can stand in judgment of us when you don't have a goddamn clue what's been going on. You've wrapped yourself up in your warm little cocoon, leaving the dirty work for everybody else and now you think you have the
right
to act superior?"
Rick snarled and swatted at the stinging cloud of magic that Lucas attempted to throw around him. His own power flared with an electric heat as the last of his shields crumbled. The barriers between them melted. Rick felt Lucas's rage, but also
h
is guilt at the truth of the accusation, and the fear of some shadowy, overwhelming
…
something
he knew was about to descend but couldn't quite put a finger to.
It wasn't until Amber spoke, her voice filled with
wonder and sadness, that everyone began to understand just how powerful Rick's gift of empathy had become, and just how hard it had become to control. "Rick, you weren't just suffering from burnout when you left Wolven, were you?"
He struggled against the pull of emotions like a swimmer fighting a riptide. His voice sounded breathy when he replied, and dizziness overtook him.
"No. I needed to get far, far away from everyone
— human and Sazi—until I could get control over my
gift
.
"
He turned to Lucas with panic probably plain on his face. "Do you have any idea what it was like? To know exactly how the victims of my
questioning
felt, because I was feeling it with them? You're asking me to test my hard-won control out among the humans and possibly confront a woman I deserted when she needed me. What happens if I fail? What happens to
everyone
if the emotions overwhelm me or if I start projecting my
own
emotions outward? Do you have any idea of the panic I could cause in a major city? The riots I could start without even realizing it?"
Rick shuddered at the flash of a memory that brought him such pain, such shame. He slammed his shields down, cutting the flow of emotion to the others off an instant too late. The room was awash in pain and guilt, rage and fear.
"This,"
Rick snarled back, "is why I live in the middle of godforsaken nowhere, and why I left Wolven.
It's also why you should probably find somebody else to run your little errand."
Lucas glared at him, his massive hands clenched into fists. But it was Charles who spoke, the words hissed through his clenched teeth from emotions that he recognized weren't his. "There
isn't
anybody else."
Rick scented the lie in the air between them, and gave the other man a look of utter disdain before snorting his disbelief.
"Fine." Charles took a slow, deep breath. He very deliberately sat down, leaned back in the seat, and sighed. "There isn't anybody else I'd expect to
survive."
That, at least, was the truth. But there was more going on here than anybody was saying.