A Deadly Web (9 page)

Distracted, she said, “That’s how you found me? By finding them?”

“That’s how. Not so unusual. He has better resources, or at least knows how to best use them. You weren’t exactly hiding, but you weren’t using your abilities in any way as to attract attention.”

“So how did they find me?”

“I have no idea,” Brodie confessed. “But the strength of your abilities may have something to do with it.”

“You aren’t filling me with a lot of confidence here, Guardian,” Tasha told him.

“Just because I don’t have all the answers doesn’t mean I don’t know how to keep you safe. Now, are you going to read me, or not? Because this won’t work unless you at least believe I’m trying to help you.”

Tasha hesitated for another moment but finally closed her eyes and very carefully lowered her walls. But as careful as she was, she was immediately slammed by the thoughts of those all around her, thoughts and fragments of thoughts she had to pick her way around and through.

They so need a new cook in this place, this muffin sucks.

. . . really don’t know why I should listen to his mother . . .

. . . and if I’m really convincing, he’s probably good for another thousand at least . . .

. . . thinks she can take my kids . . .

. . . should have spoken up at the meeting, dammit, they’ll never notice me at this rate . . .

I can trade my car in for something cheaper, and that’ll help.

. . . poor little thing . . .

Christ, you’ve never heard of tipping the waitstaff?

. . . how anyone could be so cruel to something so helpless . . .

Why do they keep sending me so damned many catalogs?

. . . why he thinks I have to go to church . . . sitting in church doesn’t make me a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes me a car, and it doesn’t make him one either.

First thing tomorrow I’ll just ask for the raise, they can only say no, right?

. . . something back on my taxes this year, so . . .

I really should just kill the bitch.

—

“Wow,” Astrid said softly, her eyes still closed.

Duran remained at the window, but his head turned toward her.

“Now I know why you want her so badly.”

“Are you in?” he asked.

“Almost. Give me a sec.”

—

. . . shouldn’t blame me . . .

. . . and one more bet won’t break the bank . . .

. . . judge’ll give me custody, I’m sure . . .

Tasha?

She went very still and focused on that voice, not at all surprised that it “sounded” to her like his speaking voice, because that was usual, she had discovered. She methodically closed out the other voices, the other thoughts, until only that quiet question sat in her mind.

Tasha?

“Yes.” She spoke aloud because it was less confusing to her.

So you can read me?

“Yes.”

Okay. Look deeper.

Tasha hesitated, because she had looked beneath the level of surface thoughts only a few times in her life, and it had never been a pleasant experience.

Look deeper. You have to know. Have to understand. You have to trust me.

She drew a breath and braced herself, making what she knew would be a futile attempt to protect herself from what he had felt.

Everything he had felt.

That was something she hadn’t told him. That it wasn’t just thoughts she picked up from others.

It was emotions too.

There were jagged pictures, like pieces cut from a movie, a scene here, an action there. Calm moments. Desperate moments. Flashing past her, faster and faster, years of moments. Some in color, some in black and white. And with them came the pain and the loss, the anger and frustration, the brief triumphs and more lasting grief.

There was violence in his past, and danger, and a black rage and sorrow so deep and overwhelming she knew he had not yet dealt with it consciously.

So deep . . .

She was too deep.

It was dangerous to be so—

Tasha.

Something tugged at her.

Something pulled her even deeper, deeper than emotion and into a raw, primal place that was dark and terrifying.

You aren’t Brodie. What’re you doing in his mind?

At the extreme edge of her awareness, she thought Brodie became aware that something was wrong, became alarmed, but then she was pulled deeper still, and she no longer heard or felt him at all.

How are you doing this? It’s his mind, I’m still there—

Are you? Are you really, Tasha?

She opened her eyes with a start. And she was no longer sitting in a chair outside the coffee shop. Instead, she found herself in what looked like a maze, with hedges towering much taller than she was, their branches reaching inward above her head, blocking out the light.

If there was light.

She stood at a junction, with mossy paths leading ahead of her, to the right of her, and to the left. And even from where she stood, she could see other junctions, paths leading off in many directions. Dim green tunnels that led to places she instinctively knew were very, very bad.

Oh, how do you know until you try, Tasha? Don’t you want to explore what’s possible? I know you’re curious.

I want out of here.

Then find your way.
Mocking. Careless.

Cruel.

She was being tugged toward the left and wanted to resist the guidance, but something told her that fighting this—whatever
this
was—would make it far harder on her.

Smart girl.

Who the hell are you?

Don’t you mean
what
am I?

You’re another telepath, you think I don’t know that?

If you know that, then you must know who I am.

Tasha turned to the left and began walking, feeling colder with every step, aware that there was less and less light. And when she concentrated, probed, when she tried to find identity in that strange voice, all she found were . . .

Shadows. Shadows all around you. I can’t see you. But you’re there, aren’t you? Hidden by the shadows. Protected by them.

Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Hidden, yes.

But not protected?

Hidden because it suits them. Can’t you feel them, Tasha? Don’t you know what they are?

No. No, just . . . shadows. Sliding away whenever I try to get closer to them.

Just as well, I suppose.

Why? Why is it just as well?

Because they’re killing you, Tasha. Right now, this very minute, they’re killing you.

Without opening her eyes, Astrid asked, “How far . . . do you want me to take this?”

“As far as she’ll let you.”

“She’s strong.”

“Be stronger.”

—

Tasha ignored the growing chill and kept walking.

Nobody’s killing me. I’m inside a mind.

You’re open. Vulnerable. You dropped your shields and let us in. Don’t you know about pathways, Tasha? You touch another mind, and the contact forms a path between you. Like the one you’re walking now.

I’m in a maze. A huge maze.

Well, you’ve touched a lot of minds in your life. Apparently. Every mind you touched formed a pathway. For some reason, this deeply a psychic’s mind almost always visualizes that as a maze.

Tasha reached a crosspath and turned right this time.

You’re moving away from the center.

I know. I want the exit. I don’t need to see what’s at the center.

Don’t you?

No.

Even if that’s where I want you to be?

Especially if that’s where you want me to be.

So distrustful.

You told me I was being killed. I’m supposed to trust you?

Look at your hands, Tasha. At your wrists.

She looked. And saw slashes across both wrists, with bright red blood flowing from the wounds. But there was no pain at all.

It’s not real. I’m in Brodie’s mind.

You’re getting weaker. Can’t you feel it?

No.

What she felt, what she saw, was green tendrils reaching out from the hedges on either side of her, wrapping her wrists and then slipping free of the bushes. They were warm in this cold place.

They gave her strength somehow. She could feel it.

Every step is harder than the one before. Your feet seem to weigh twenty pounds each. Thirty. Fifty.

Her feet did feel heavier, but the bands on her wrists
had stopped the flow of blood, stopped her, somehow, from being so easily controlled by that other presence. Tasha wondered, but only briefly.

She was pretty sure she knew what the tendrils were. What they represented.

It was a surprise—and yet it wasn’t. It felt right. It made sense.

Though she didn’t know if Brodie was going to agree.

Feeling stronger, Tasha followed the path, refusing to stop.

I want out of here. I’ll get out of here.

Will you?

Brodie doesn’t know, does he?
she asked that inner voice suddenly. And in response she was certain of surprise, of hesitation.

I don’t know what you mean.

Of course you do. Or maybe only Duran knows. Maybe you should ask him what I mean.

It was getting even easier to walk, step by step, and Tasha realized the voice in her mind, its force and control, could be . . . distracted. Maybe even blocked, its hold on her weakened. Perhaps even broken. She had a feeling Duran didn’t know that.

She wondered if he’d be told.

What are you trying to do, Tasha? Do you think I’d let someone like you, someone who doesn’t even know how to use her abilities, try to control what’s happening here?

I think you don’t want me to dwell on what I’ve just realized.

And what is that, pray tell?

This struggle, this war, it isn’t only a thing of the physical world, a visible thing. It isn’t
even
that. This is where the real battles are taking place, isn’t it?

Tasha slipped around another corner, certain now of where she was heading, of how to get out of the maze.

Out of Brodie’s mind.

I don’t know what you mean.

Sure you do. We have all the power here. Psychics. But we tend to be loners, and that makes us vulnerable. To people like Duran, people who would use us. Duran has harnessed your power to do his bidding. He wants mine too. He’s testing me, isn’t he?

Definite surprise that time.

I don’t—

Oh, don’t waste my time as well as yours denying it. He sent you to test me. He wants to know how strong I am. And . . . he isn’t psychic, is he? He isn’t . . . And, somehow, that’s what all this is about.

Tasha looked at her wrists again, at the warm leafy tendrils wrapping them. No blood, no slashes. Her step was lighter, faster, with nothing weighing her down or holding her back. She turned another corner, and could see a break in the hedge not far ahead of her.

The exit.

Tasha—

Are you going to tell him how powerful I really am?

Why wouldn’t I?

Because you’re still psychic. Still one of us.

No. I’m not. Not anymore. Not for a long time now.

Did you go willingly . . . Astrid? Did you join them of your own free will?

Of my own free will. More or less.
Grim now.

Did you sell your soul to them, Astrid?

You’re out of your depth, Tasha. You may think you can win this, but you can’t. None of you can. None of us. There’s less . . . damage done if you just give in.

You keep telling yourself that, Astrid. Maybe one day you’ll actually believe it.

Abruptly, the air changed, cold washing over Tasha again, and she realized that Astrid wasn’t distracted anymore, that she was reaching out with ferocity. With anger.

No. Wait. You—

Tasha felt a sudden tug, so powerful it nearly stopped her in her tracks, but then the tendrils around her wrists shot out, one end still holding her and the other finding the exit.

And pulling her toward it.

Tasha—

See you next time, Astrid.

Before that other presence could even gather itself to respond, Tasha was whisked around the corner.

And everything went dark and still.

Tasha?

Tasha?

“Tasha?”

She opened her eyes slowly, the effort demanding total concentration. Her body felt heavy, impossibly tired, and
the brightness of the sunlight hurt her eyes. For a moment, she couldn’t really focus. But, finally, she did.

A sidewalk table at the coffee shop. Brodie sitting across from her, leaning toward her, his face intent.

She looked at her wrists, at his fingers wrapping them warmly.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice husky. “Yeah, that’s what I thought they were. Your hands. Thank you, Brodie.”

“For what?” His expression remained intent, and he didn’t release her wrists.

“For saving my life, I think. At least the part of my life that really matters to me.”

—

Astrid accepted the handkerchief Duran gave her and held it to her nose. Her still-bleeding nose.

“Well?”

Her head was pounding in a way she knew was going to linger, possibly for days. For a moment, she wasn’t sure how to answer his demand, but Duran wasn’t a man to whom silence was an acceptable answer, so she finally said, “Remember that thing that happened with Sarah Gallagher and Tucker Mackenzie?”

“Of course I do.”

“I think you may have the same sort of problem with Tasha Solomon. And Brodie.”

“They haven’t mated.”

“No. Still.”

“That’s impossible. He isn’t psychic.”

“No. He isn’t, is he? Or, at least . . . he wasn’t.” Astrid held the cloth to her nose and looked at Duran, feeling despite everything a flicker of real enjoyment. “That’s what makes it all so very interesting.”

—

Tasha was somewhat surprised that no one around them seemed to have noticed anything out of the ordinary going on.

“You didn’t make a sound,” Brodie said, finally releasing her wrists. “Just turned about five different shades of pale and almost stopped breathing. That’s when I grabbed your wrists.”

She looked at him, still feeling impossibly tired. “Did you just read my mind?”

He looked surprised. “Did I?”

“You know, I think you did. Pathways. Maybe they don’t just form between psychics. Maybe that’s it. Or maybe because I was so deep. I bet they didn’t count on that. I bet Duran is not going to be at all pleased. Even if it was his idea.”

She wondered why everything around her, including Brodie, seemed to be just slightly . . . out of focus, somehow. Was this something the other psychic had thrown at her in those final seconds? Was it because she had been so deep in Brodie’s mind? Or because she had actually been somewhere else, some place out of time and space where a psychic would always, instinctively, go to forge pathways? Or look for them?

“We need to leave,” Brodie said. “Right now. Your apartment is closest.”

“Okay.”

Except there was no way she was going to be able to get up under her own steam. Because she didn’t have any steam. She wanted to sleep for about a week. And then take a nap.

Brodie left a few bills on the table, setting his coffee cup on top of them, then came around and more or less lifted her out of her chair.

“Better?” he asked after a moment.

“I think so.” The dizziness had passed. Mostly. She thought she could walk. As long as he didn’t let go of her, at any rate.

He kept an arm around her as they walked across the streets to her building.

“You are definitely reading my mind,” she told him.

“Let’s not discuss this until we’re in your condo, okay?”

“Right. Right. Civilians.” She fished in the shoulder bag that had somehow ended up hanging from her shoulder and produced her keycard. “Gotta swipe this. And then the code.”

“Yeah, I know.” He continued to hold her upright as they reached the front entrance of her building. “I just hope security doesn’t think I slipped you a mickey.”

“Slipped me a mickey. That’s an old phrase. You like old movies, don’t you?”

“I rarely have a chance to watch the newer stuff. Tasha, it’ll look better on the security monitors if you swipe the card and enter the code yourself. Can you do that?”

“Of course I can.” She managed, though didn’t doubt that she might easily appear to be . . . impaired.

Brodie got them through the door when it buzzed. And as soon as they were in the lobby, the one security guard manning the front desk was on his feet, eyeing them.

“Hey, Ms. Solomon,” he said. “Are you okay?”

She peered at him. “Stewart. Hey, Stewart. Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, I got dizzy. So it’s a good thing my friend John was with me.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sir, if you wouldn’t mind—”

“Not at all.” Brodie produced an ID card.

His driver’s license, Tasha thought. She watched the guard study the card carefully.

“I really am all right,” she told him. “Not drunk or drugged or anything like that. Just really tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Stewart handed the card back to Brodie, still clearly undecided for a moment, then said, “I hope you can get some rest, then, Ms. Solomon.”

“That is a very good idea. I will do that.” Even to herself, Tasha thought she sounded out of it, to say the least, and added what she hoped was a reassuring parting comment. “John is going to stay with me, so everything will be just fine.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

In the elevator, Brodie said dryly, “Bet he’s either on the phone or on the computer checking me out as we speak. Former cops are always the most suspicious. Not that I blame him. I’m not entirely sure what happened at the coffee shop, but you really are out of it. He has every reason to worry about you and to make sure I’m not on the books as a serial killer or rapist or something.”

“Then I hope your record is clean,” she told him seriously.

“It is.”

“Good. But they often aren’t, you know. On the books. Serial killers and rapists. I mean, lots are caught, but lots more fly below the radar until somebody finally realizes what they are. And by then the body count can be . . . really high.” She blinked up at him. “I used to work for a lawyer.”

“It shows,” Brodie told her, polite.

“And you’d know,” she heard herself saying. “You used to be a lawyer, didn’t you?”

He nodded slowly. “You get that out of my mind?”

“I guess.” She thought about it. “I guess I had to.”

The elevator doors opened on the third floor, and Brodie kept his arm around her all the way down the hallway to her apartment. She managed to unlock her door without his help, which she supposed was a good thing given that Stewart was probably still watching them.

“So how did they miss the goon squad the other night?” Brodie mused. “We’ve never been sure how they get into secure buildings, but they have it down to an art.”