A Perfect Darkness (15 page)

Sensing he was telling her the truth, she proceeded to tell them everything, or nearly everything. She left out the Ultra part. As he'd told Petra, she didn't want him to get full of himself.

They both listened and didn't interrupt until she mentioned the sexual side effects. Petra looked at Eric. “That's why you're so horny.”

Amy raised her eyebrows.

“Petra,” he warned in a low voice.

Amy was glad she didn't take the warning. “He's been arrested for sex in a public place and solicitation for prostitution.”

“I don't consider a canoe in the middle of a lake public.” He recited it as though he'd said it many times. “I've never had to pay for sex.”

Amy imagined he didn't, not a muscular guy with sculpted cheekbones and riveting eyes. His personality, though, wasn't exactly a plus.

Petra giggled. “When he hit his teens he was more sex-crazed than other boys. I'd heard the girls talk about how the boys would go off in about three seconds, but I heard Eric moaning and groaning for forty minutes.”

“You listened?” Eric said.

She shrugged. “I had to learn somehow. Dad couldn't even utter the word ‘sex' around me. I didn't have a mom around to explain it.”

Amy nodded. “I know that feeling. My aunt, who raised me after my parents died, was too busy to talk about the birds and bees.” She glanced at the sepia painting. “What about Lucas?”

Petra's humor vanished. “Though Eric would do it just about anywhere, Lucas was private. And quiet. He chose older girls, not high schoolers, so there wasn't any gossip about him. Neither ever had a long-term relationship. Eric eventually drove them away by being his charming self. Lucas…I don't know.”

Amy didn't want to think about Lucas being with another woman. “The other side effect of being in the program was…well, going crazy.”

When Petra looked at Eric, he said, “Don't even go there, little sister.”

“I was going to ask if you think that's why Mom set herself on fire.”

Amy's mouth dropped open.
“Your mother set herself on fire?”

Petra said, “Dad told us it was an accident at the lab, but we overheard him saying she'd set the fire.
And she probably did it through pyrokinesis. Not on purpose, like suicide. Maybe she lost control.”

Amy continued. “Now they're looking for the offspring. For us.”

“Did you find out how many there are?” Eric asked.

“I wish I'd had time.” She looked away. “They call you—us—Rogues.”

“Rogues.” A smile spread across his face. “I like it.”

A thought jumped to mind. “Eric, if you can remote view, you can go to Lucas, see where he is.”

“Normally I could. I think I'm there, but it's pitch-black, eerie.”

“But she can connect with him,” Petra said to her brother. “Or rather, he can connect to her.”

“Yeah, I know,” he muttered. “Maybe the dream connection works differently.”

They grew silent. Finally, Petra said, “Lucas asked you about those fires, even the ones that happened when you had an alibi.”

“Don't look at me like that. That's why I never told you.”

“You killed a man,” she whispered.

“Two men,” Amy clarified.

Petra looked at Eric, confusion in her eyes. “I can understand that, if it was the only way you could escape. But Eric…Gladstone was tied up. He couldn't hurt you.”

“Not then, but he would have. Petra, this is a war. They're out to kill us. Get over it.”

She winced but said nothing.

Eric walked down the hall and returned a minute later with the hard drive for a laptop. He handed it to Amy. “Gladstone's drive,” he said. “Find out what's on it.”

A
n hour later Gerard and Robbins watched Lucas on the monitor as he sank into a receptive state. His brain waves jumped erratically. Gerard typed preliminary notes at his computer.

“Now that he's had three injections,” Gerard said, “we're starting to see a difference in his brain wave patterns.”

Robbins's expression was dour. “When will his sanity start breaking down?”

“I think we'll get another mission out of him, maybe two if we're lucky.”

That stopped Robbins. “How long?”

“For what?”

“How long until we start secretly giving the new recruits the Booster?”

“We're only giving the Booster to the Rogues.”

“How long before you grow impatient? Look what happened last time.”

A knock at the door interrupted him. Olivia peered in. “Leon's here.”

“What the hell does—” Gerard cut himself short as
his older brother pushed past Olivia. He forced a smile but didn't put too much effort behind it. Civil was as much effort as he and his older brother could expend toward each other. “Robbins, we're done.”

Robbins left. Olivia paused with a questioning look on her face but closed the door and left, too.

Leon didn't sit, nor did he bother with any kind of greeting. He walked around the room, looking at the monitors. “Who's that?” he asked, nodding toward Lucas, who, thankfully, didn't look like a prisoner.

“What can I do for you, Leon?”

Leon spun around and narrowed his eyes at Gerard's nonanswer. Leon was taller, better looking, and, in some ways, smarter, a fact he had always rubbed in. That and his major general status. “I've heard that you've been preoccupied with a new program, and it smelled like the last one that nearly destroyed our family's name.”

Gerard remained in his chair, relaxing his tense muscles before his adversary picked up on it. Leon could smell fear like a snake sensed movement. “Are you spying on me? Or is it Father?”

Leon Darkwell Sr. was a five-star general and as fiercely protective of his status as Gerard was of his program.

“Gerard, you don't think you were able to climb back up to where you are at the CIA just by your abilities alone, do you?”

Gerard's face flushed. “I sure as hell do.”

He hated Leon's smug smile. “You always were delusional, little brother.”

That propelled Gerard to his feet, something he in
stantly regretted. Never let your opponent force you into defensive action. “Get to the point. I've got work to do.”

“That is my point. I'm here to find out what you're up to. Like a child, you have to be checked on.”

“Get out of here. I only have one boss to answer to.”

Leon, as always, looked unruffled by his unwillingness to cooperate. “Yes, you do. I'm sure he'll be interested to know how you nearly brought down the CIA twenty years ago.”

“He already knows. He trusts my judgment.”

“Why the armed guards?”

“To keep out the riffraff. Obviously they aren't doing their job.”

Leon gave him a humorless smile and left.

 

Lucas wanted to get this mission over with so he could connect to Amy. He had studied the picture of the terrorist living in London. The Devil had given him the gory details of what this man had done to hundreds of innocent people…if he could trust a man who had abducted him, was injecting him with some unknown substance, and would probably kill him as soon as he outlived his usefulness.

In the sensory deprivation state, his mind quickly sank into the murky depths. First the shapes floating around in the darkness. Then flashes of images. This time every image that flashed into his brain came with a tearing pain like nothing he'd ever felt. He saw Eric and Amy, the dancing light of fire on their faces; Amy at…at the shelter. She was there now or would be. He couldn't tell what was past or future. The storm
seemed a mix of both. No matter, if she was at the shelter or would be, she was safe.

He saw a man strapped to a table like him, writhing against the restraints, his face bruised. Before Lucas could get a good look, he was gone. Ripping pain. More images coming faster, so fast he couldn't grab hold of them. Gunfire. Eric's scream. Pain. Blackness. Then the target, sleeping, nice room, woman next to him, dreams of destruction, hatred, dreaming of death to the enemy…Americans, Brits.

He went in.

A second later he was out again, like a diver who kept floating to the surface just before he could grab the treasure on the bottom of the sea.

He dove in again. This had never happened before. He was losing control. And the pain, God, the pain was so bad. He brought his mind back to the target, but other images slammed in: more gunshots, Amy falling to the ground. Again, gone before he could see any details. The Booster was making him lose control. Not that he'd ever had any real control of his abilities, but at least he knew them. He'd learned how to use them to help people. These images were painful and so fleeting he couldn't do anything with them.

He pressed his fingers to his closed eyes until he saw crazy purple lines.
Focus.
He had to do this. If Amy hadn't gone to the shelter yet, he had to cooperate and be useful long enough for her to get there.

The fact that he saw her there meant things had gotten ugly. Damn, he didn't want to think about that. Not now. He would go to her, find out what was going on.

He focused his thoughts again, imagining the target's face. The storm of images now centered on the man: meeting with other men; hatred; a bomb exploding in a large department store, screams, children, blood…

Lucas felt the familiar anger that engulfed him whenever he tried to get into a murderer's dreams. He saw the man again, still asleep. He dove in.

 

Eric led Amy to a small room that held a rack of car batteries, a desk and computer, and security monitors showing four frames, including the entrance they took to get there. She pointed to a frame of an interior door. “What's that?”

“That's the door from the gallery. We've seen someone snooping around twice already.” Eric gestured to the computer on the desk. “Here are some tools, hopefully what you need to get into this drive.”

“Eric,” Petra said. “Why don't we get her settled in first? Give her a breather?”

“No time for breathers.”

Amy smiled at Petra's thoughtfulness. “Thanks, but doing something will help me forget…well, at least it will help put tonight on the back burner for a while.”

Eric said, “You know you can't return to your apartment, not even to get anything you need.”

She patted her backpack. “I have most everything here. Except Orn'ry.”

“Orn'ry?” Petra said, her eyebrow raised.

“My cockatoo.”

“No pets in here,” Eric said. “Not that it matters because you can't get it anyway.”

“I've already got a friend set up to take care of my things should…I disappear. If he can handle Orn'ry.”

Eric slapped his hand to his forehead. “Don't tell me you've told someone else about this!”

“He thinks I stumbled onto a file I shouldn't have seen and now someone's after me.”

“Perfect,” Eric said with a nod of approval. It annoyed her that his approval felt good.

“I'll need some clothes, though,” she said, gesturing to her sweaty, torn shirt and pants.

“I've got a bunch of stuff here,” Petra said. “After we found Gladstone”—she looked at Eric—“I packed up and moved down here. Eric's been here for a while. You can use my clothes until we can get out and buy some.”

“You're a lot taller than I am,” Amy said.

“Only an inch or so.”

Amy realized Petra was right. She'd seen Petra as tall and herself as short. She'd always felt not enough, at least on a personal level. Now everything had changed. Who she was had changed. No time to delve into that, though. “Let me clean up, and then I'll get right on the drive.”

Later, when the fear and grief had drained from her body, she would sleep. Hopefully Lucas would come, and she would tell him what had happened. Now that she was fully involved, he didn't have to protect her by withholding information about his whereabouts.

Other than having no windows and concrete walls, the shelter resembled a regular home. She took a shower and washed Cyrus's blood from her arms, nearly gagging and crying at the same time. She found
a pair of jeans and a red stretch top on the sink cabinet afterward. Feeling a little revived, she pushed herself on the drive for two hours.

“Any luck?” Eric asked for the umpteenth time as she stood.

“It's not physically damaged; its sectors were scrubbed by something resembling a virus. Not impossible but more difficult than the coffee-spill type of job. Files are made up of thousands of bits, and those bits aren't stored contiguously; they're placed wherever there's space, a sector here and a sector there. Without the file name placeholder, I'll have to pick through the sectors and piece things together. I did find what looks like bits of word processing documents that look hopeful.”

“Then why are you getting up?” He tried to steer her back to the computer.

“Because my brain feels as though it's being attacked by a computer virus.” She held herself stiff, resisting his effort. “I have to sleep.” When he looked like he would argue, she said, “Show me where I'm sleeping.”

“There are three bedrooms on this level,” he said, leading the way. “Mine's to the right, Petra's is at the end of the hallway, and Lucas's room is here. I guess you can sleep there.”

Lucas's room. Had he slept here? The bed was loosely made, so she guessed he had. The walls were a gray-blue, like his eyes, with two dream paintings that added vivid color. She felt an ache at the sight of them. A cabinet in the corner held more sketches. An open door revealed a bathroom.

“Good night,” she said to Eric.

Without giving him time to respond, she closed the door in his face. She stripped out of her clothes and looked through the drawers in the long dresser. “Oh, yes.” She pulled out a shirt that had to be Lucas's and nearly stumbled to the bed. She could smell the faintest scent of a man on one of the pillows. She breathed in deeply, whispering his name. Her last coherent thought as she tumbled directly into sleep was, Lucas, please come to me.

During the hypnagogic stage, she heard the voices for a few seconds, whispers, words here and there. Then her name. Not Lucas, not his voice.

Along with the voices came a cold fear that poured through her body.

No, no, no.
She pushed the voice away. Was something from her darkest dreams trying to reach out? She imagined a brick wall as wide and high as infinity blocking whatever was trying to get in. She dreamed of death, of Cyrus being shot, of running through the dark woods and the trees reaching out to grab her. Then the forest melted away, though the darkness remained, and Lucas flashed in. He said something but his words were warbled.

In the next instant he was holding her, touching her as though he believed he wouldn't again. “Are you all right? What happened? I felt you…scared.”

He had a shimmering quality, as though he were there and not. She felt him, but his image was vibrating and his words choppy. “I'm okay. I'm in the tomb with Eric and Petra.” She felt her emotions welling up. “They killed Cyrus!”

He was gone. In the next instant they were kissing by the beach, his mouth all over her, and then ev
erything changed again and they were in the shadow of the pyramid making love, and then in a dizzying second they were by the waterfall.

She grabbed onto him, feeling his body against hers, holding on tight. He pulled her just as close and kissed her as though she held the only oxygen he'd had for hours. “Amy, Amy, Amy,” he whispered between kisses. “You're all right.”

Had he heard what she'd said? She let him sweep her away for a minute, needing his touch as much as he seemed to need hers. His hands ran over her shoulders, her back, and then up to cradle her face again. His eyes were closed as though he was absorbing her. “What hap—”

“I'm with Eric and Petra,” she said.

But he was gone again, replaced by images of a previous dream. For those seconds, she could feel him just as she always had. A second later she was alone again, in the dark.

“Lucas!” she called, and heard her voice echo back.

“Amy—” First his voice and then a flash of him a few feet away. “…don't know what's happening…whatever they're giving me…changing…can't hold on.”

She reached out to him, their fingers grazing, and pulled him toward her. “I know you tried to keep me safe, but I'm involved now. Help us find you.”

“No…too dangerous.”

She stood in the darkness, searching for him. “Lucas!” Somehow she knew he was gone this time, but she waited anyway. Then, awake, she got up, intending to go back to work on the drive.

Her gaze went to the cabinet that she knew con
tained Lucas's drawings and paintings. Needing to feel close to him, she sat down and pulled them out. It seemed these were his personal collection. She could see his style, even in the earlier ones, and could see how his talent had grown. Most were of her, snapshots of various moments in her life over the years.

One was of her lying on the grass, with a dog as close to her as it could get, its snout on its paws. Tears filled her eyes as she thought of Buzby, a golden retriever at the shelter where she volunteered. She cheered when a family adopted Buzby. They returned him a week later, their veterinarian having found a cancerous lump with which they weren't equipped to deal. She had given Buzby love and comfort until he died. The sketch showed exactly the way they lay in the grass together during those last weeks, and the grief on her face.

Other paintings showed happy moments, sitting up in a tree at the park, joining an impromptu Frisbee game, soaking in the sun. The most amazing part was how beautiful she looked in the paintings, and yet her hair was still that in-between straight and wavy, her body too boyish.