Shadow Touch (11 page)

“Taken your fill yet?” Elena asked, when still he did not speak. She could not stand much more of his inaction, his deadly silence.

He smiled. “Not yet, Elena. It will take some time to understand you. To learn what makes you tick. But time, thankfully, is something we both have.”

“I’m really not that complicated.”

“Oh, no. You are so strong, Elena. You know what I am. I can see it in your face.
You know what I am
, and yet you do not look away.”

Elena did not know how to respond. He said, “Good. That is good, Elena. Strength is its own currency in this place. Power, too. You have both. The only thing left to measure is your resolve.”

“My resolve is fine,” she said.

“We’ll see,” said the Quiet Man. He moved.

It was not a surprise—Elena had some warning—but he was fast and strong and he grabbed her by the ear, wrenching it so hard she lost her balance. Even as Elena fell, she lashed out with her hands. A blind strike, but true: She caught an eye, his bottom lip. Dug her jagged nails into wet flesh and yanked hard. The Quiet Man grunted; he slammed his fist into her shoulder. Elena refused to let go. He put his hands around her neck. She saw her reflection in his eyes, her face so bright and pale she could not see the color of his gaze, and then she could not breathe—could not draw air to live—and there was nothing in his face but calculation, measurement, and she knew he could choke her until the brink of death and then bring her back, again and again, like a necromancer playing a game of life—so sure, so confident, looking at her as though he had already won and that the strength he bragged upon for her sake was nothing, just a toy with words, just another weak woman—pliant in his deadly hands—and she refused to be that woman. She refused to die.

She entered his body. It was not difficult. He had barriers, but she had strength and anger and desperate desire, and his resistance lasted only seconds. She entered his body and it was like breathing to her, like the breathing she was not capable of, and she thought,
I could heal you; I could kill you
—
the two are so very much alike
, and she went looking for his heart, for that precious muscle. She found it. Wrapped her spirit tight around the pulse, the beat, and squeezed.

The Quiet Man’s eyes widened. He gasped. Let go of Elena’s neck and kicked her away. The link between them died. Elena hit the floor hard, gasping for breath, gagging on air. The Quiet Man clutched his chest.

“You tried to kill me,” he whispered. “I felt you try to kill me.”

“All’s fair,” Elena spit, still on her hands and knees. “Touch me again and I’ll finish the job.”

She heard something outside the hall: the hard pounding of feet. The door slammed open. Rictor. A sheen of sweat covered his dark forehead.

“Boo,” said the Quiet Man, still holding his chest. His face was pale, his lips almost ashen. Elena wanted to laugh, but felt too sick. She could not sit up. Her throat ached.

Rictor stepped into the room. There was nothing different about his appearance, but Elena sensed a change, some subtle charge within his eyes, the slant of his hard mouth. He glanced at Elena. His jaw flexed.

“This is the second time you’ve broken the rules, Charles.” Rictor’s eyes glinted bright. “You did not fucking learn your lesson.”

The Quiet Man straightened, his hand falling to rest against his side. His body quaked. Elena would bet he needed to lie down, too. “I’m not myself, Rictor. She does things to me.”

“I can see that,” Rictor said. “She almost killed you. Maybe you should have let her. When
l’araignée
finds out.”

“
L’araignée
will do nothing, Rictor. She needs me.”

“She does not need you more than Elena.” Rictor bared his teeth. “Temptation. I always knew you wouldn’t stay leashed. The black thread grows tiresome, doesn’t it?”

The Quiet Man looked at Elena. Rictor stepped in front of him.

“Don’t look at her,” he said, low. “Don’t think of her.”

The Quiet Man bared his teeth. “You cannot control a man’s thoughts, Rictor. That is the last realm of his dignity, his sole and most perfect possession. Even you cannot touch that.”

“Are you sure?” Rictor whispered. Elena thought his eyes glowed. “Be careful, Charles. You don’t know all my tricks.”

The Quiet Man hesitated. “You are still caught in the same web.
L’araignée’s
black thread may not hold you, but it is the same for us both. She has our souls.”

Rictor said nothing. A moment later the Quiet Man winced. He touched his temple.

“Get out of here,” Rictor said. “Stay out.”

The Quiet Man said nothing. Elena did not think he looked especially cowed, but he did avert his eyes as he stood. Elena watched his face, the terrible nature of its ordinariness, and felt more afraid than she had before.

I’ll be a challenge to him now. This isn’t a man who gives up.

The Quiet Man left. When the door closed behind him, Elena waited a moment and said, “Is he really gone?” She glanced at the two-way mirror. Rictor nodded. Elena lay down on the floor and sprawled out on her back. She stared at the ceiling. Weakness be damned. It did not mean jack shit to pretend courage, not after that. Her heart pounded; her head and throat hurt. She felt sick to her stomach. It was the end of the adrenaline rush.

Rictor crouched beside her. “Maybe you should put your head between your knees.”

Elena squeezed her eyes shut. She was going to vomit, she was going vomit, she was—

Rictor dragged her to the toilet just in time. She hurled. Nothing but bile came up, but that was ugly enough. Face red, eyes watery, Elena slumped back down on the floor.

“I hate this,” she said. “
I hate this
.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Elena tapped her head. “Don’t you already know?”

His mouth tightened. “This is for your benefit, Elena. It will help you.”

“What would really help me is getting out of here, Rictor. Think you can do something about that?”

He said nothing. Elena sighed. “I almost killed him. Committed murder. I never, ever thought about using my gift in that way, but for just one moment—one—it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.”

“Of course it did.” His voice was quiet, calm. “You can’t get much more natural than the desire to live.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Elena said. “What kind of zoo are you running here?”

“The kind that keeps men like Charles Darling as pets.” Rictor stood. He held out his hand to Elena, but she did not take it. She stood on her own. It was not easy or pretty. She gingerly touched her neck.

“Who is he? And how could anyone keep that man as a pet?”

“Charles is a serial killer,” Rictor said—simple, easy, like the name of a recipe for fancy breads: homicide wheat supreme or psycho banana walnut. Nice and warm. “He likes women, but he’ll do either gender if the timing and circumstances are right. You look exactly like his first kill.”

Elena stared at him. “And you’re telling me this
now
?”

“I didn’t want to alarm you. I knew Charles was interested, but I thought he would have enough sense to stay away.”

“Because of that… that…
l’ara
-what’s-her-name?”

“Yes.” One word, tense. Elena waited. He said nothing more. Stood there as though silence were the only friend he had.

Unacceptable. Elena was through with the scraps, riddles. She wanted answers. After what she had just experienced—the line she had almost crossed—she wanted them so badly she was ready to get down and fight all over again.

She stepped near. “Rictor. Who is she?”

He moved away, but Elena stayed close, pushing him with nothing more than her gaze. “No,” she said. “You tell me. Who is this woman, and why am I more important to her than the Quiet Man?”

“She is coming here today to meet you,” he said. “Soon, in fact. You’ll see for yourself why she wants you.”

He sounded like a man proclaiming a death sentence. Elena could not read his expression; he was trying to pull off “bored,” but he was not quite detached enough to do it. She saw the fear in his gaze, the sliver of anger—at her or this
l’araignée
, she could not tell.

“Wait,” she said. “
L’araignée
… what does that mean?”

“Spider,” Rictor said, and his voice was dull. “It means spider. The spider with her black thread. Her black
worm
.”

Elena stared at him. “The woman who put that
thing
into Artur’s psyche is coming here to see me?”

Rictor’s jaw flexed. “Do you remember what I said about being strong in the head, Elena? Do you remember what I told you?”

She nodded, unable to speak. The expression on his face terrified her.

“Good,” he said. “Because she is almost ready for you.”

Artur opened his eyes in the real world, the hard white world of the facility. Graves was the first person he saw.

The rag was gone. Sweat rolled off his scalp, his body, soaking his clothing. His throat ached. Screaming—he had been screaming.

And not just because of the rag and the death it held.

Elena
, he thought, reaching out to her. He could still feel her presence inside his heart—not just the thought of her, but an actual presence. It did not matter; he could not find her. He could not see the outcome of her terrible battle with Charles Darling.

The connection between them had been so strong that when Elena was pulled away, a piece of Artur went with her: the seeing part of his mind, a sliver of consciousness. A vision without the physical, which should have been impossible, but his powers were of the mind, were they not? And there were so many different kinds of touch. Touch of skin, touch of thought, touch of spirit.

He saw. He saw Charles enter her room. Saw and heard and could do nothing to help her. Screaming as if it were the end of his life, raging, fighting in his ghost prison as Charles wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed.

And then… nothing. Here, now, Graves gazing down at his face with a puzzled frown.

“Your mind went somewhere,” she said.

Artur could not speak. He fought to control his breathing. Graves traced the air just above the crown of his sweat-plastered hair.

“What secrets sleep?” she murmured. “Such complex emotions, Mr. Loginov. Your heart just spins on a dime, from calm to anxiety to fear to courage. It is all I can do just to keep up with the emotions you throw at me.”

“It is his brain,” said the doctor, who stood on the far side of the room with a clipboard and pen in his hands.

“Every time Mr. Loginov has a vision, he toes the line of madness. It’s no wonder he has mood swings.”

Graves quirked her lips. “I think you’re falling into oversimplification, Doctor, but that’s all right. Sometimes complex men need a little simplicity in their lives.” She leaned close to Artur, her gray eyes as cold as her name. “But you and I need to talk now.”

Artur ignored her. Marilyn sobbed. Poor dead Marilyn. If the same happened to Elena…

“Mr. Loginov.”

“No,” he spit. He remembered the mold-slick basement that smelled of blood; the woman who had died there still lived with him, begging for peace. And now her killer had his hands wrapped around another woman’s throat and he could do nothing. Nothing but hope and pray. “No, Ms. Graves. I will not divulge the secrets of my agency. Keep hurting me if you like, but
you have lost me
.”

Her mouth turned down; an ugly mouth, gray and hard. “There goes that mood swing. You certainly are fickle.” She glanced over her shoulder at the doctor, who watched them both with undisguised interest. “I think you have another appointment to go to, Doctor. You don’t want to be late.”

Disappointment nickered over the old man’s face, but he nodded and left the room. When he was gone, Graves found a chair and pulled it close to the table, sat down, and crossed her legs. Artur did not see a gun, but he was sure she was armed.

Graves said, “I should have killed you.”

“You still could.”

“No,” she said. “It’s too late. You’re a challenge now. I don’t need a challenge, but with you, I cannot seem to help myself.”

“You must live a very sad life if torturing me is the only thing that brings you excitement.”

She laughed. “Oh, Mr. Loginov. The things we have in store for you. You are telling yourself it cannot get worse. You are thinking there is nothing more terrible than what I just made you endure. You are thinking you can buy enough time, learn enough secrets, to help you escape. Poor man. You are so very wrong.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “It will not make me join your Consortium or betray my friends. You will not learn anything of great scientific value from these… tests. You are merely acting as a sadist.”

“Of course,” said Graves, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “It is a question of power, Mr. Loginov. Mine, at the moment, is greater than yours.”

“Power,” Artur scoffed. “Your power is an illusion. You crave it like a drug, but it is meaningless. You do these things because you need to be perceived as something more than what you are. A fatal weakness in your ego. It is very… sad.”