The House (43 page)

It wasn’t
easy, I had gone into Eddie’s mind unprepared and it was stupid. I
hadn’t meant to do it that time so I had an excuse, but I would not
risk my sanity if I could avoid it. I knew that one of the reasons
the Covenant killed telepaths was that they had a tendency to go
crazy and take everyone around them with them. I could hear what
seemed like every mind in Britain, maybe more. The world would not
be a good place to be if I dragged them all into madness. For that
matter, the local area wouldn’t be in very good shape if I took all
the shifters and vampyre around me into loopsville.

I reached out
and Eddie took my hand. It stabilised me. I put my fingers on the
pulse in his wrist; it was strong and steady. My anchor. I hadn’t
ever used a proper anchor, though I’d read about them. You could
make a spell to link yourself to your body but I think they were
mostly used in visions. They weren’t used much anymore, if ever.
Visions had gone out of fashion when they stopped predicting
anything that science couldn’t. The only thing the seers did these
days was to look for witches about to be born.

So I used
Eddie’s pulse to anchor me to my body. It wasn’t a spell but it was
a soft, steady sensation in my own body. It also helped me relax. I
closed my eyes and focused intently on Eddie’s pulse. Before, I had
fought to keep my own senses intact in case something happened. Now
I was relying on Eddie. I knew that I wouldn’t necessarily feel
anything that happened to me. I wouldn’t see out of my eyes or hear
through my ears. I didn’t know how I knew; it was an innate
knowledge that it would leave me helpless.

I calmed
myself and effectively cut myself off from my body until all I
could feel was Eddie’s pulse under my fingers. As long as that
didn’t change I would be fine. As long as Eddie stayed calm, I
would be fine.

I reached out
mentally. It was much more difficult than it sounds. I touched each
mind in turn until I found what I wanted. I touched Eddie’s mind
and I knew he felt me, but as I moved out I knew that the others
did not notice. They did not know what the touch of someone else’s
mind felt like, so they couldn’t recognise it as long as I didn’t
do it too much.

I found Marie.
It was the best feeling I had had in a very long time to touch her
mind. It felt like coming home. My grandfather may have always
rescued me physically but it was Marie who brought me back to
myself. It was Marie who had taught me and loved me like her own.
Touching her mind felt like I was wrapped in her arms again.

I luxuriated in the feeling a moment before making myself
known to her. She didn’t know I could do this because it was so
new. It was so new that
I
didn’t even really know I could do it, but she
accepted it. She had always accepted any power or magic from me as
it was. She knew very little about magic so all she could do was be
there to listen.

“Marie?” I
whispered, except that no sound came out of my lips. It was a
thought made substance in her mind. It jarred the rest of her a
little because it was my voice in her head and not her own, but she
didn’t react like it hurt. It was just different. At least I hoped
it wasn’t hurting her, I wasn’t deep enough in her mind to be able
to tell.

“Trixibell.
How did I know that you would all do something stupid?” She sounded
like herself, like she was speaking even when I knew she wasn’t.
She was projecting thoughts, or rather, ordering them so that I
could hear them. Apparently it’s more innate than we realise to
talk to someone mind to mind.

“We got
caught,” I said. I kept my voice even and calm. If I allowed any
emotions into my voice that I was projecting on Marie, she might
pick up the emotion as well. I had to be careful. I also had to be
careful not to damage her mind. I had to stay near the surface and
only allow a little part of my mind in. It was like walking a
tightrope. One wrong move and you fall.

“I know, I
saw. You are a better fighter than I remember.”

“We are going
to try to escape. What do you know about this place?” I asked. I
felt her shiver and I saw for myself what they were doing. I saw
through Marie’s memories that they took blood from the caged
shifters to change teenage runaways. I saw the devotion the new
shifters gave to Talon. I saw the bodies that they carried away. So
many had died, and not all at first. Some people survived only to
be ripped apart by their first change; that seemed to be what was
happening to most of the kids.

I saw three
survivors – two boys and one girl. I saw that they would be
dangerous. They saw Talon as their saviour and they weren’t going
to let us go lightly. They would stand in our way and there was
nothing we could do to help them. Although, Marie thought that the
girl might come around. The boys, she thought, were too
bloodthirsty. They seemed to see their transformation as a way to
become stronger so that they could beat the people who challenged
them. One had already killed another runaway.

I saw that
they also took blood from the shifters for the vampyre. Which was
interesting. The vampyre belonged to witches so they didn’t
necessarily need blood. They got their life force from their witch.
I also didn’t see what good it would do. Life force willingly given
it would give the vampyre life; the vampyre fed on the life the
person had lived, on the magic they had picked up through their
lives.

Of course,
shifters were magical in and of themselves. It would be a much
bigger boost for the vampyre to take shifter blood. Even if it was
forcibly taken it might give them the edge to hide from their
witches. I knew that their witches didn’t know because there were
none here. I had briefly checked everyone’s mind before settling on
Marie.

“How do we get
out?” I asked.

“They only
open the doors to get blood,” Marie replied.

“What about
food and bathroom breaks?” I asked,

“They throw in
food when they take blood. If you look very carefully there is a
removable panel in the floor at the back of the cell for a toilet.”
Marie sounded resigned. And no wonder if they weren’t feeding
anyone. It would do more than make us weak. It would kill us,
probably sooner rather than later. I presumed they put water in
when they got the blood as well.

“We will get
out,” I whispered to Marie as I slid out of her mind. I went in
search of Marlow, hopefully he would be conscious.

He was. Marlow
agreed that we had to get out. He offered to try and break through
to the next cell which contained James. I told him to wait until
I’d checked on everyone, since breaking through to another cell
wouldn’t get us out. It would just alert the guards to our
attempt.

I entered
James’ mind next. It was filled with worry for Stripes. She was
apparently only two cells down from me, which explained why I
couldn’t see her. He agreed that he would help Marlow to break
through the wall and again I told him to wait. We had to make sure
there wasn’t a better option.

I found
Hercules in a lot of pain. He’d been put in with Shayana but she
was a ghost of the woman I had known. She was painfully thin and
huddled up in the corner. There was a sense of hopelessness that I
got even through Hercules eyes. Hercules was conscious and was
healing at least. They had done a lot of damage and the healed
muscles were starting to spasm, which seemed to hurt more than the
injuries.

I left
Hercules without asking him anything. He was in no state to think
clearly. I found Hunter unconscious. At first I couldn’t figure out
what was wrong, I thought I’d found the wrong mind. He was balanced
on a razor edge with death. He had been beaten so badly that his
skull had fractured and his brain was open to the world. It was a
severe injury even for a shifter. It felt like every bone in his
body was broken and he had to be in multiple organ failure to be so
close to death’s door.

There was
nothing I could do for Hunter unless I could get to him. He wasn’t
even in a cell; they had left him for dead in the corner. His only
hope was immediate medical attention, which brought home the need
to get out quickly. We had no time to waste to wait and plan. Every
moment was a step closer to death; every moment would see us grow
weaker.

As I started
to pull back into my own mind and body I brushed one of the
vampyre’s minds. It was really quite empty. He was stupid, that
much was clear. Perhaps even mentally retarded.

I felt myself
slipping into his mind without meaning to. I had never been in the
mind of someone who was so blank. He couldn’t form full thoughts
very easily. It would make him very easy to manipulate, maybe even
for me. It was an errant thought of mine. Something that I knew I
should not do, and yet the temptation was so strong. Almost a
compulsion.

I didn’t
exactly speak into his mind as I had with the others. I kind of
sent him the idea of what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to open
my cell. I saw the difficulty with it almost immediately. The cells
were spelled, which was why nobody was paying them any attention.
As long as the doors were closed you wouldn’t really notice what
was going on inside.

The spell had
hit this vampyre particularly hard since he had so little thought
of his own. I had to make him open the door to my cell when he
could barely recognise that there was a door there at all. It
seemed that we only became real to him when our doors were open.
But he was still my best bet, and it was amazingly easy to put the
thought into his mind. If I tried with anyone else I feared they
would realise the intrusion. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out it
was me. There aren’t exactly a lot of telepaths about. I wondered
what Talon had wanted with me. Maybe he just wanted more powerful
blood for his charges.

I could plant
an idea in a fully functioning person and make them think it was
their own if I practiced enough. The idea terrified me, but for
that moment it was useful. For that moment I would do something
that made telepaths feared, I would manipulate his mind.

He started
over towards my cell; his gait was awkward and uneven like he had
never really learnt to walk properly. It made his progress
painfully slow but I wouldn’t make him run. Even if it worked it
would set off alarm bells for the others. There were only two or
three vampyre in the main room then, everyone else must have gone
to help the girl who was being changed. Two or three was more than
enough to put up a fight. If I got out I had to get everyone else
out very quickly.

Finally the
vampyre reached my door. He stared at it a moment as if he wasn’t
quite sure what he was doing. I panicked that he had realised that
I was in his mind. In reality he was just unsure of the mechanism.
I looked through his eyes at my cell. It was difficult because the
whole room was fuzzy to him and I realised that this had been what
the cells had looked like to me when we first came in. It must have
been why I couldn’t clearly identify anyone inside them. Thinking
back I hadn’t even really tried to see who was in the cells. The
thought had never entered my mind. The spell was a scary one.

I saw a button
press just to this side of the door. Looking deeper into the
vampyre’s mind, while not pleasant, showed me that it was the
left-hand one that corresponded to my door. Going through his
memories seemed to make him remember how to operate the door
himself.

He shuffled
over to the door release. I needed him to press it but I also
needed to be ready when he did. I had a moment of indecision before
I pulled back into myself.

It was easier
coming back than going out. It felt like I had popped back into my
body, like there should have been a sound to go with it. I let go
of Eddie’s hands and turned towards the door to see if the vampyre
was still going to open it. I needed him to open it. Hunter was
dying. It had to be now.

To my
amazement he actually did press the button. I saw the door start to
move. The vampyre just stood there looking confused; clearly he
couldn’t remember why he had opened the door. I knew that once the
door was open they would be able to see us properly and notice
something was amiss but I hoped that if I could slip out while it
was still going up, then close it again, we could get out
unnoticed.

Most spells
had these kinds of weaknesses or loopholes. It was a scary,
powerful spell but unless it had been laid by a master caster it
wasn’t infallible. Master casters were not exactly thick on the
ground.

I took Eddie’s
hand again and hauled him across the cell through the sliver of
space under the door. We only just made it before the vampyre
decided that he really couldn’t remember opening the door and
absentmindedly hit the button again to close it before returning to
his seat. He never even saw us.

My pulse raced
as I started around the room. The spell had to extend just beyond
the doors; it was the only explanation for nobody seeing me. I
clung to the doors as I moved painfully slowly. I wanted to run. I
wanted to help Hunter. I had to at least check he was alive before
I opened any other cells.

I left Eddie
cowering by the door to the cell we had been in. I didn’t have the
energy to worry about him, all I could think of was the feel of
Hunter so close to death. I could see him vaguely in the corner. He
looked like he was close enough to the doors to hide him from the
rest of the room. I figured that was the main reason nobody had
helped him. It had to be. I just couldn’t fathom any way they would
have left him to die.

He had a rare
second form and they would want that. They would want to be able to
use him to change those kids. I shuddered at the thought. Changing
anyone under the age of sixteen had an automatic death sentence. It
was there for a purpose and I just couldn’t get my head around
Talon’s reasoning. There would be plenty of adults who would want
to be changed if you were going to change a lot of people.