Part 22 (1/2)
After the laughter, they spoke of her options, whether she might want to go back to school or if she'd prefer to do something less academic for a while. It was a valuable conversation, one that gave her plenty of food for thought.
”I was worried I'd be overwhelmed,” she confessed upon arriving in the busy city by the water that was San Francisco, ”but I love the noise and the color and the people!”
It was a couple of hours later, as they were walking into a small Italian restaurant for lunch-after stas.h.i.+ng their shopping in the SUV-that three things happened in quick succession. Someone shot at Faith and missed, the bullet smas.h.i.+ng a window; Mercy spun to cover Faith with predatory grace while yelling at Sahara to duck; and bony hands gripped Sahara around her upper arms.
Then the restaurant was gone, and she was in what appeared to be a small, empty warehouse, dust motes dancing in the streaks of sunlight slanting through the old wooden boards that made up the walls.
”I a.s.sume you're after the bounty?” she said in a calm tone in spite of her racing heart, stifling her first instinct-which was to call Kaleb. Since she wasn't dead or bleeding, it meant the man behind her, his gloved hands already off her skin, wanted her alive, so there was a chance she could defuse the situation without violence.
The kidnapper s.h.i.+fted to face Sahara. He was thin and relatively short, only two or three inches above her in height, but he not only moved with an economy that shouted skill, he had a gleaming black laser pistol in his hand. ”The bounty is gone,” she said at his continued silence, her own gun snug in the ankle holster covered by her jeans.
”I have a private client.” Curt words that added to the impression of a honed professional. ”As long as you cooperate, I have no intention of causing you bodily harm.”
Glancing around the warehouse, she spotted an overturned crate a meter away. ”May I sit?”
A brisk nod as, keeping her in his line of sight, he moved to a paper thin portable computer set up on what appeared to be a cheap card table.
”Are you checking to see if your client has wired the payment?”
No answer. But while he believed her docile and resigned to her fate, Sahara watched him. It soon became apparent that he was moving with a deliberate care she hadn't noticed at first glance. The man was weak, close to his limit-either he'd teleported her to a location far outside his range, or he'd had to 'port several times in close succession in order to pull off the shot at Faith followed by the grab.
”How,” she said, working through her options, ”did you locate me?”
”That knowledge can't a.s.sist you now.”
”I'd like to know where my security failed.” True, except she didn't need him to tell her. ”An intellectual exercise.”
A slight pause before, surprisingly, he gave her an answer. ”According to my employer, it was certain NightStar would put you in a secure location. There was only an outside chance you'd be with your cousin, but I decided it merited forty-eight hours of my time. Since DarkRiver's territory is large, I determined to surveil the parking lot of the pack's city HQ with the intention of tailing Faith.”
Chance, Sahara thought, was a tricky beast. ”Luck is certainly on your side today.” Rising, she took a few slow steps toward him, aware of his eyes tracking her every move, his fingers curved around the gun at his side. ”May I?” she said and nodded at the water bottle beside the computer.
”Here.” He handed it to her, confident of the protection afforded by his gloves.
That was his mistake and part of what made Sahara so dangerous.
A split second after her fingers brushed his, the kidnapper handed her his gun, his eyes blurry with confusion. ”What am I doing here?”
”You got lost.” Weaving a new memory for him, she sent him to sleep on the floor. When he woke, it would be with a recollection of an altercation that required he lie low for a week.
Sahara hated the idea of violating anyone's mind, but this bounty hunter had lost the protection offered by her abhorrence for mental invasion when he decided to abduct her. Slipping in and out of his mind as if it were her own, she logged on to his computer using his pa.s.sword and erased everything that referenced the deal, whether in his e-mail or in his bank accounts. It helped that he was organized, his mind filing the data about her in a discrete section, but it still took time.
Rather than attempting to overwrite the hard drive, she decided to take the computer with her. That meant another memory insertion where the kidnapper's phantom opponent in this altercation threw the small backpack containing his computer under a pa.s.sing truck, the pieces that remained fit only for the recycler.
Kaleb, she said afterward, conscious it was past midnight in Moscow. Are you awake?
Yes. What do you need?
For you not to kill someone.
He appeared beside her a second later, taking in the situation with a single glance. ”Why shouldn't I kill him?” An ice-cold question.
”Because I've handled it. He's more useful to us alive.” Once she'd touched a mind, Sahara could slip back in and take total control regardless of distance or time, turning the individual into a flesh-and-blood puppet who had not even a suspicion that his decisions weren't his own.
The idea of doing such a thing revolted her, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. Resulting from an unknown genetic mutation that meant it had no official cla.s.sification, her ability was one that would be the bogeyman of her race should they know about her. No mind was safe from Sahara's, no s.h.i.+eld impenetrable, no offensive ability capable of stopping her if she got close enough just once.
She left behind no trace of her interference, the memories she implanted as real as true memories. And she was undetectable when she worked. Should she desire, she could make a Councilor dance to her tune, a CEO sign over his properties, a man slit his own throat while smiling. And while she'd never had cause to test how many minds she could control at one time, the trusted NightStar telepath who'd worked with her to understand her ability when it first came to light, had posited it to be in the triple digits.
It was the ugliest of abilities to have for a woman whose own mind had been torn apart, but she had come to terms with it during the periods of lucidity built into the labyrinth. The decisions she'd made and the rules she'd laid down for herself all revolved around a central question: If she ever had a child, could she look into that child's eyes without feeling ashamed at what she had done?
Nothing about her actions today breached that test.
”Who hired him?” Kaleb asked, his gaze on the kidnapper, the stars eclipsed by lethal black.
”I've handled it,” she repeated rather than responding to the question and, when he didn't s.h.i.+ft his gaze, decided to play hardball. ”If you don't respect my wishes, I simply won't call you next time.”
The line of his jaw remained a blade, but he turned his attention off the bounty hunter. ”Who?”
”According to his memories, Tatiana.”
”Impossible. She's exactly where I put her.”
”Then someone in her organization smart enough to work out what I can do, and c.o.c.ky enough to deceive and undercut his boss.” If the rumors about the other woman's rise to power were correct, it truly was a case of what the humans called karma.
Not wasting any further time or energy thinking about Tatiana, she looked into the face of the cardinal telekinetic who she knew was having to exercise harsh self-control not to send the man at their feet to an early grave. ”Let's go home, Kaleb,” she said, brus.h.i.+ng her fingers over his jaw in a silent reminder of who he was to her.
Chapter 34.
THE FIRST THING she did once they were on the starlit terrace in Moscow was put down the laptop, borrow Kaleb's phone, having forgotten her own at the aerie, and call Faith. ”I'm safe,” she a.s.sured her cousin. ”You? Mercy? Her babies?”
”We're fine. Mercy ate the paramedics alive when I made her get a checkup,” Faith said with an affectionate laugh. ”Then Riley turned up and she decided to cooperate because he was crazy with worry-but she was right. There wasn't a scratch on her and, in her expert former h.e.l.lion-child opinion, the pupcubs enjoyed the excitement.”
Relieved, Sahara cut Faith off before her cousin could ask for her exact whereabouts, and promised to be home by the time night fell in San Francisco.
”You need to eat,” Kaleb ordered when she returned the phone, pointing out the high-density nutrition bars that had appeared on the small table beside the lounger. ”You're not healthy enough yet to afford to miss meals.”
”I'm starving,” she admitted and took a seat on the edge of the lounger. Kicking off her shoes and removing the ankle holster, she picked up one of the nutrition bars. ”My ability might feel effortless, but it burns psychic energy.” So did 'pathing to Kaleb, but she'd already worked that into her calorie requirements.
Leaning his back against the railing, Kaleb didn't speak until she'd finished the bar and washed it down with water. ”You've become more confident about your power.” His expression was shadowed, his voice icy with approval. ”I never agreed with your distaste for it.”
”I was young.” She grinned when a second nutrition bar floated pointedly in front of her face. ”And you've always been overprotective.” Taking the bar, she tore it open.
”You matter to me.”
So simple. So honest. So powerful.
Rubbing a hand over her heart, she shared her secrets with the one person who would never betray or use her. That he was the same man who planned to create an empire that spanned the globe was no contradiction. ”My ability has matured.” It had been erratic at sixteen, one of the reasons Tatiana had been able to imprison her mind. And once imprisoned, Sahara had been unable to break out-it turned out she could get through any s.h.i.+eld except one created around her own mind.