Beyond Fearless (3 page)

She hadn't figured him out. Just the way she hadn't figured out a lot of things that other women seemed to know instinctively about the opposite sex.

Too bad her psychic abilities couldn't help her in that department.

She'd had a few relationships. But nothing deep. Nothing that didn't lead to a disappointing dead end. Because she'd never been able to really open up with anyone. And more than once she'd thought that fate had granted her a mental power that few other people possessed—and left her with a crippling emotional disability as payment.

ANNA DRAGGED IN
a breath and let it out slowly, wishing her talent hadn't brought her to this place and this time. It had started off as a childhood game, picking up things that belonged to other people and tapping into their memories.

She'd turned the game into a profession after Mom and Dad had died in a car crash during her sophomore year in college. Dad had been trying to pull off one of his big real estate deals at the time, so he'd left her with a boatload of debts.

Vowing to pay them off, Anna had started looking for a way to make some money. And she'd never gone back for her degree because she'd been too busy supporting herself. Her first job had been in the nightclub of a hotel owned by one of her father's creditors, who'd probably figured he had nothing to lose by hiring her. She'd impressed him with her talent, and he'd helped her get hooked up with an agent who had booked her into clubs in several cities. That first agent had given her the name Magic Anna. It didn't exactly fit. When she'd done some research, she'd found out what she did was called psychometry. But by then she was stuck with the Magic Anna name. And if people came in expecting a magic act, they quickly found out the real deal.

To be honest, her nightclub act had given her a sense of secret power—until the first jolt of alarm had cut through her like a knife stabbing into her soul.

She'd found herself facing a man she knew was a rapist. At least she'd clicked onto the picture of a rape when she'd picked up his money clip. And there was nothing she could do about it because she had no proof of what he'd done.

Damn. Why was she thinking of that
now
?

 

A
block away from the Sugar Cane Club, Raoul San Donato watched a customer studying a display of wood carvings in his native arts gallery.

That's a live one,
he thought from his desk at the back of the shop.

She was obviously a tourist, with badly sunburned shoulders and a few wisps of dyed brown hair escaping from under the crown of her wide-brimmed straw hat. She looked to be in her midforties, about ten years older than he. The kind of lady who might like some afternoon fun in bed.

Briskly, he switched his mind from sex to a more practical topic—making a sale.

He gave her a few minutes to examine the beautiful objects he had assembled in his gallery, then walked over and asked in his most cultured voice, “May I help you?”

Without bothering to glance up, she gave the standard tourist answer: “I'm just looking.”

“We have some wonderful buys on works by talented local artists.” He gestured toward a trio of dolphins leaping from waves. “Pablo Ramos is just coming into his own. In a few years, his sculptures will be collector's items.” As he spoke, he exercised one of his special talents and sent her a silent message urging her to buy something. When he felt a subtle change in her attitude, he smiled inwardly.

“Really?” she asked, looking him full in the face. He knew she was taking in his island good looks—the combination of Caucasian and African features that had blended so well to make him a striking man with a coffee-and-cream complexion, a Roman nose, and sensual lips.

He kept speaking smoothly as he silently encouraged her desire to buy, using the talent he'd had since he was a boy. “Or you might consider the work of Thomas Avery. He's a bit more established, but his prices start off very low, so you can still get in on a good deal.”

She nodded, considering a black onyx cat sitting with its nose pointed toward the sky.

“For you, a special price. Three hundred dollars,” he said, knowing he could tip her over the edge if he only had the time.

She came back with an immediate counteroffer.

“One hundred and fifty.” Not so low as to be insulting, but low enough to let him know she understood the game.

“Two hundred.”

“I don't know…” she murmured. “How about one eighty?”

“At that price, I'll have to give Thomas less. And I know he's supporting his wife and children on his earnings.”

“All right. Two hundred.”

“I'll include a certificate telling about the artist and his work.”

Just as he was about to clinch the deal, a man wearing an orange T-shirt stretched over a jiggling belly that hung over khaki cargo shorts came in.

“Honey, come on. I'm hot and tired. And the ship is sailing in an hour.”

She held up the cat. “I'm buying this. It will look fantastic on the shelves in the living room.”

When the man started to nix the transaction, Raoul repressed a curse. Instead, he acted quickly, blocking the husband's negative comment with a quick jab of mental energy.

The fat man closed his mouth and went back outside while Mrs. Pam Birmingham of Bridgeport, Connecticut, bought a tchotchke from Grand Fernandino.

After walking her to the door, he stood staring around his gallery with satisfaction. For the first eight years of his life, he'd thought that everyone lived in a dirt-floored hovel, ate rice and beans for breakfast, and crapped out back. Then his aunt had come home from Palmiro to brag about the high life in the port city, where she made solid money in the big hotels—cleaning the rooms of the rich tourists.

Momma had followed her. And she'd taken Raoul and a couple of the other kids with her. At first, he'd been bugeyed at Palmiro's grandeur. In the island's capital, too many people might squeeze into one room at night, but life was nothing like in his village.

And when he helped Momma clean up after the rich folks in the big hotels, he saw how they lived. Sometimes they left wonderful things behind when they flew back to their homes—candies nestled in crinkly brown paper cups, soft drinks, magazines with pictures of naked women.

He enjoyed the booty. When he ran errands for the tourists, their tips seemed like a fortune. And he vowed that he would do what it took to live like them.

He'd started with his speech, imitating their grammar and vocabulary but keeping the soft island tone of his voice and just enough “native” turns of phrase to make himself seem charming.

Some island kids quit school early. He stayed through tenth grade. And after class every day, he joined the hordes of higglas—street vendors—saving his earnings until he could rent a stall in the marketplace.

It was about that time that he began talking seriously to Joseph Hondino, one of the local Vadiana priests.

Old Joe had taught him about the pull toward completeness and divinity in the universe. He'd taught his young disciple that reality is a world of forces in continual process, of energy moving at different rates of speed. Raoul had zoned out on the deep background stuff, but he understood that men and spirits interacted. And if you courted their help, they might be on your side. Or they might not.

When he'd done a little reading on his own, Raoul discovered something even better—that nothing is completely “good” or completely “evil.” And as far as the universe is concerned, no action is completely “wrong” or “right.” Which meant, in his mind, that the end justified the means.

Of course, when he talked to Hondino about it, Old Joe was horrified at that interpretation. He'd lectured Raoul on right and wrong. On the proper use of Vadiana and the forbidden.

Although Raoul pretended to listen, he was already making his own plans. He'd long ago discovered he had special powers—way before he had heard of the Vadiana gods. Hooking up with the Blessed Ones simply added to what he already had. And, he figured, the proof of a course of action was in how well it worked.

So far, it was working very very well for him.

A lot of islanders had tied their fortunes to his. More and more people came to the private compound on the other side of the island, where he held his very potent ceremonies on Friday nights.

With a little smile, he strode to the door of the gallery to flip the lock and then the Open sign to Closed. As he was about to pull down the shade, he stopped short.

Speak of the devil.

Joseph Hondino was standing across the street, staring at him. The dark skin of his bald head gleamed like he'd rubbed it with palm oil. His white beard was neatly trimmed. And his eyes were sleepy-looking. But everybody on the island knew that he missed very little. If you were stealing goodies from the tourists' rooms, he knew it. And if you needed a pair of decent shoes so you could get a job as a waiter, he knew that, too.

Raoul went stock-still. For just a moment he felt like a street kid caught with his hand in a tourist's pocket.

He recovered quickly. Manufacturing a grin, he gave the priest a jaunty wave.

They stood regarding each other for several heartbeats, across an enormous gulf. Raoul broke the spell and turned away.

Hondino had told him he was perverting the principles of Vadiana, but he didn't care what old Joe thought. Because he was getting ready to make his big move. And when he did, Hondino was out as the big cheese on the island. And Raoul San Donato was in.

He pulled the shade, then went back to his cash drawer to count the day's receipts. Two thousand dollars. Excellent!

He left the credit card slips in the drawer and hid the money behind a loose board in the shop's back room. Business over for the day, he stepped into the small rear yard, where the darkness and a high wooden fence gave him privacy.

In a building that had once been a storage shed, he had set up a small shrine to Ibena. She was one of the Blessed Ones, the deities who ruled over every force of nature and every aspect of human life. To please her, he had decorated the shrine with rich gold, red, and coral. And he had carefully collected some of her favorite objects—fans, tortoiseshell combs, peacock feathers, and a small boat floating in a tub of water because she was the deity of rivers.

She was also the goddess of love and of sexuality, of marriage and fertility. And she would bring him a woman who was his equal, a woman to share the bounty they would create together.

Some people expected a strong man to make Pagor his patron saint, but Raoul had found a better focus for his prayers.

He took off his shirt and hung it on a hook by the door. He was offering himself to the goddess. Offering her the tattoo that he kept hidden from the tourists. It started at his right shoulder, snaked partway down his arm, and spread across his chest. He had gotten an artist to depict the Blessed Ones, with Ibena in the middle, her brown hair spread out like a fan and her eyes a dramatic shade of turquoise that drew people's attention to her power.

He loved that tattoo. And his followers did, too. It was the living symbol on his body of what he had made himself into. And what he would become. When he married, he would add his wife's face to the mix. But on his back, because he would never offend the gods by placing her among them.

Shirtless, he walked past the shrine and stepped to the cage where he held the chickens that he used in his rituals.

All of the saints required sacrifices, to renew their life force, and he had dedicated himself to renewing and pleasing his special saint. His diligence was working, even if Old Joe didn't approve of his goals or his vision.

He knew that the term “saint” had first been used by the early Vadiana worshippers to hide their practices from the slave owners who wanted to wipe out their native traditions. So the slaves had let themselves be converted to the Catholic faith—at least on the surface—while secretly giving the new saints the attributes of their old deities. He didn't know which saint Ibena had stood for, because she was so sensual and so womanly. Not like the dried-up old nuns who ran a convent at the edge of town.

Opening the cage, he quickly pulled out a chicken, then ignored its squalling as he brought it into the shrine. As he chanted a prayer to his patron saint, he expertly wrung the chicken's neck, making a quick kill. Then with his knife he made a cut in the throat and let a few drops of its blood drip onto the altar and the rest into a bowl. Later, he would give the chicken to a poor family that would appreciate the meal.

Straightening his shoulders and speaking in the formal tones of a priest, he said, “Bring my future wife to the right man. The man she was meant to join with in love and power.” He made the request in a clear, loud voice. “Help her realize that her own abilities can be greater than she knows. Help her find her destiny.”

As he spoke to Ibena, he pictured himself stepping onto a windswept plain, away from the world of men, where he could meet the woman he had chosen as his bride. He would introduce himself to her there. Later they would unite their bodies in sexual ecstasy and their minds in power. And together they would rule this island.

A small doubt tugged at him. Perhaps he was moving too fast, calling her to him now. And in this way. But he wanted to test his power over her. And give her a taste of how much they would mean to each other.

He pictured her stepping into the reality he had created. She would be wearing only a gauzy green dress. Green like the island jungle.

As the image grew in his mind, he felt his own spirit expand, flowing out to meet hers.