Levitating Las Vegas (29 page)

“Oh, Jesus, what has that girl done now?” Kaylee exclaimed. And when Kaylee exclaimed, Elijah had learned to listen. He stopped Shane’s car behind the black SUV that had abducted him in Icarus, upright but smashed as if it had overturned.

They both jumped out of the Pontiac and ran toward the SUV. Elijah’s heart pumped wildly. He dreaded what he would find if unflappable Kaylee was this upset. He stopped at the back corner of the SUV, heart exploding, hoping this was not the last moment of his life he would think Holly was alive. He jerked the hatchback open.

The SUV was empty.

“They all got out.” Kaylee walked toward him from the driver’s door. “But this is clearly her work. She’s here at the Res, and she was angry when she got here, which is a good sign. Let’s leave Shane’s car here, for the sake of stealth. That thing would wake the dead.”

They hiked up the dirt road, passing a sad sign for a neighborhood development long abandoned:

Meadgate

The Gate to Lake Mead

Only one house in the development had ever been built, it seemed. From what Elijah could tell by its bright windows in the darkness, the house itself looked like something in a brand-new Vegas suburb. Rock music shook the foundation. Trucks and cars and Rob’s sheriff’s deputy car were parked anyhow in the dusty yard.

“This is the Res?” Elijah asked doubtfully.

“This is the current Res, so I understand,” Kaylee said. “It moves around. If it didn’t, after a few years the surrounding farmers would start to wonder where all their teenage daughters were disappearing to.”

“Like Holly’s mom,” Elijah said.

“My mother, yes.” She shook her head as they approached the house. More quietly she explained, “My dad managed to escape. He took me with him. He was pissed because my mom had taken up with Peter by then. I guess I should be glad my dad got me out, but he was a lousy father. Drunk. Trying to drown out his power. I didn’t understand that then, though. The instant I got my own power, I ran away. I lasted a few months on the streets of Vegas before the Res found me. When a kid with new power is confused and angry, the Res knows exactly what to look for and what to say to reel her in. Oh—” She tripped, and Elijah caught her elbow just before she fell. She kicked the object in the road that had tripped her. “For the love of God, those little shits have been out here setting fire to animals again.”

Elijah kept walking after her, but his gaze lingered on the singed body of the bat in the road—more than one, now that he strained his eyes to look for them. He counted five. His skin went cold with fear for Holly.

As they reached the first few cars parked outside the house, he realized he’d better steel himself for what he would find inside. “How many people are in the Res, anyway?”

“I’m not sure how many there are now,” Kaylee said. “I haven’t been here in a year. But back when I was here, there may have been thirty total. Fifteen here at any one time. They come and go because they have school and jobs. Some even have families.” She looked at him. “Fifteen is still more than two.”

“Then what’s the plan?” Elijah asked, hoping there was a plan.

“We’ll rush up and kick in the front door,” Kaylee said. “Can you do that while I cover you?” She waved her pistol in the air.

“Sure,” Elijah said. He’d kicked in Shane’s door at UNLV that morning, but it had been standing half-open to begin with. He’d never kicked in a closed door. He’d never seen it done, except on TV. He was beginning to change his mind, and Kaylee hadn’t even touched his brain. “Sure.”

“We have to surprise them,” Kaylee said. “I’ll change their minds about changing our minds. If I can strike first and paralyze them, we might have a chance against them. We can snatch Holly and run.” Probably not, Kaylee was thinking, because she wouldn’t be able to hold that many minds for long.

“Okay,” Elijah said, trying to shut out her thoughts and stay confident they could do this. But one more very strong image slipped through, one he didn’t understand at all. “Why are you obsessing about the meat freezer for the restaurants at the casino?”

Among the parked cars, she stopped and turned to him. “If you make it out and I don’t, you need to get Mr. Diamond’s body out of there before the restaurants use up all the boxes of veal cutlets.”

“You hid Mr. Diamond’s body behind the veal cutlets?”

“I told you, bodies are very difficult to dispose of.” She put her finger to her lips and tiptoed the rest of the way to the front door of the Res. She raised her eyebrows at Elijah, asking him silently what he read from the people inside.

He could sense many minds within his range, but he couldn’t read a thing. All the shades were drawn. “Blocking,” he mouthed.

That didn’t seem right to Kaylee. They shouldn’t be blocking if they didn’t know Elijah was coming. But maybe they were blocking to protect themselves from each other. She was just being overly cautious, looking for an excuse not to go in. And she
would
go in. She positioned her pistol at the ready and held up one finger to Elijah. One, two, three.

He kicked the door in—

—and fell through the open door before his foot even touched the surface. He hit the floor hard on his shoulder and looked up into the faces of ten people he’d never seen, three of the four people who’d tried to kidnap him in Icarus, and Rob—who didn’t take off his gun belt at the Res like he had at home.

“I can’t believe you didn’t see me,” Carter announced, pushing Kaylee through the door ahead of him. “I was behind the Meadgate sign, waiting for you guys, and then I warned the Res you were coming with my special telepathic communication device!” He waved his cell phone in the air.

“Dangermouse,” said Rob. “Welcome.” He held out his hand and helped Elijah up from the floor.

Elijah looked around for Kaylee and searched for her with his mind. She was in a group of her own, people who knew her, some who liked her, several who disliked her very intensely. All of them feared her. They touched her and kissed her on both cheeks and her forehead.

Then one guy drew her close. He looked unassuming, a few years older than Elijah, with a goatee and a vintage bowling shirt and faded jeans. But Elijah received a strong evil vibe from him, matched equally with lust for Kaylee. His name was Isaac and the Res was his. As he kissed Kaylee hello, Elijah felt her heart fluttering so fast she might pass out. She’d never been so frightened in her life. She was powerless to change minds, because April had beaten her to it.

“Hand me her Beretta,” Rob called to the group, “just in case.”

Kaylee opened her palm. Rob took the petite Beretta she offered him. He checked the safety (he
was
capable of doing this and not shooting a hole in the ceiling, Elijah noted) and handed the gun to Isaac, who pocketed it as if it were a pen or a dollar bill. Isaac draped his arm around Kaylee’s shoulders. Elijah felt its weight along with her terror. The group led the way down the hall and shut a bedroom door behind them.

Elijah tried to slow his own breathing, and he pictured window blinds drawn down over his own thoughts. “What did you do with Holly?” he asked Rob.

Rob waved through an archway to the kitchen, where Holly sat on the countertop in her silver sequined minidress, between the stainless steel refrigerator and the microwave. Her thick mascara had run down her cheeks, and her dark hair had dried in strange waves. Scowling at him, she looked like a different person.

“You can have her,” Rob said.

Elijah took a quick step toward Holly before he heard what Rob had said. Then he stopped and faced Rob again. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, go ahead,” Rob said. “Nobody’s going to change your mind, Elijah. Take my girlfriend and run if you want.”

“
My
girlfriend,” Elijah corrected him.

Rob smiled. “Remember
you
stole her from
me
. And now I’ve won her back.”

It was a trick. Elijah knew this, but he couldn’t very well take Rob’s word for it. He walked through the archway, toward Holly, with his hand out to her.

He hadn’t even reached the island in the center of the kitchen when she knocked him backward. He flew through the air for a split second, flailing to find a hold on something, and came to a gut-wrenching stop with a searing pain in his back. The sky was falling. It took him a moment to realize he’d broken a door with his body and now sat on the floor of the pantry with cans of kidney beans rolling into his lap.

“What did Rob do to you?” he yelled at her, outraged through the pain.

Her mind told him. Holly was no good at blocking, if she even tried. He saw what Rob had done to her and what Rob had made her think about Elijah and Kaylee. He felt what she’d felt.

Rob stepped in front of the closet, obscuring Elijah’s view of Holly. He said quietly, “I don’t think she wants to go with you, Dangermouse. For some reason she thinks you’ve been cheating on her with Kaylee. But you’re welcome to leave without her. Or you can stay. Either one. We have cake.”

Rob crossed the kitchen and eased his uniformed hips between Holly’s knees. She’d been watching Elijah with no expression on her face. Now she closed her eyes and opened her mouth for Rob’s kiss.

Elijah looked around him at the lovely suburban house from hell, high ceilings shadowy, reflecting the colored glow of lava lamps and plug-in strobes. He heard an angry shout from Kaylee down the dark hall. Her voice quickly cut off, and the throbbing music filled the space where her voice had been. He recognized April straddling Carter on a sofa in the den. Several other couples made out in corners, seeming oblivious to him. They didn’t ignore him, though. The secrets of their minds were shuttered tight, but they were hyperaware of Elijah’s position on the floor and his thoughts about Holly.

Despair and nausea pretty much covered it. Holly had had perhaps an hour’s head start on him at the Res, and in that hour, Rob and his friends had convinced her to throw Elijah across the room. What would they put in her head before the night was over? What would Rob make her do for him? Elijah couldn’t leave her, anymore than he could leave the eerily silent Kaylee in the back room.

He had to get them out of there.

He jumped up from the floor, and immediately regretted it. His entire back would be bruised from the force of breaking the door, and lengths of jagged wood poked and scraped him as he moved. He felt like a hunchback monster as he crossed the kitchen, a voyeur as he stood behind Rob, watching him make out with Holly.

“Hey!” Elijah shouted stupidly.

Rob didn’t turn to look at Elijah, only stepped out of the way. But Elijah caught a glimpse of the amused smile on his profile just before the room went black.

He was still conscious. Or he’d lost consciousness only for a second. His head throbbed from Holly’s punch. He sensed Rob bending over him, and a levitator whose mind felt familiar. The one who’d come after him in Icarus. Violet.

“My gosh,” Rob said, “is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Violet murmured. Elijah’s field of vision filled with her face, a beautiful girl with black eyes. She cried, “For God’s sake, Holly, whatever he did, does he deserve to die for it? You’re going to kill him!”

The direction of power had shifted in the room. Elijah sensed that the mind changers had let Holly go. When Violet moved out of the way, he saw Holly still sitting on the counter, horrified by what she’d done to him, confused about whether his affair with Kaylee was real.

It’s not,
Elijah wanted to tell her, and
I’m okay
. But he changed his mind about calling to her.

Violet helped him sit up against the kitchen island. “Poor thing,” she cooed. “Did that mean old levitator hurt you?” She was thinking it was fun to invite new friends to the Res and turn them against each other. She watched his expression change as he received this message from her, and she smiled with satisfaction. Then she kissed him.

He drew back, then changed his mind and kissed her, deeply. He wove his fingers into her black hair and pulled until it hurt her. She chuckled against his lips, amused at his small show of resistance.

The door slammed. Elijah no longer sensed Holly’s despair. She was gone.

Violet sat back on her heels. “You’d better go after her. Can you stand? Man, she really coldcocked you.” Pouting, she stroked his injured eyebrow hard enough to make him wince. Then she stood and held out a hand to help him up. This was a levitator’s joke. Without ever touching his hand, she pushed him up from behind. “Good luck out there.”

He swung through the back door and tromped through the small circle of porch light, past the patch of gravel that served as a yard. The house was perched at the edge of a cliff—small wonder this lovely planned community had never sold—and Holly peered into the chasm, sequined dress glinting in the starlight. Elijah sensed other minds in the shadows, controlling his every move.

But nobody touched Holly’s mind now. They’d done their work on her for the moment. Now they allowed her to drown in her own confusion and guilt. Hearing his footsteps across the rocks, she whirled to face him, panicked that someone was coming for her. When she saw it was him, she rushed toward him for a hug.

He put up his hand. “Don’t touch me!” he shouted. He was not possessed, but that’s what it felt like with mind changers inside his head, telling him what to say.

She stopped short. She wished she could see his eyes, his pupils, but his face was in shadow.

“You think I’m sleeping with Kaylee?” he yelled at her, voice breaking. “After everything we’ve been through together, you’ve just gotten here and your new boyfriend makes you come and then convinces you to beat the fuck out of me?”

“I’m sorry!” she cried. “They made me. They changed my mind. Like they made you kiss Violet just now.”

She waited for him to acknowledge that kissing Violet had not been his choice. He wanted to acknowledge this, then changed his mind.

She started to panic. Either Rob had been right and she’d never had Elijah, or she was about to lose him because of something she’d done. She had no idea which. “You don’t understand—”