Out of Mind

Chapter 35

She was not dead.

Splayed facedown on a hard surface, her body ached, and pain burned in her head. Willow did not want to open her eyes. As long as she kept them shut, she wouldn’t know where she was, and she didn’t want to know.

Above all, she didn’t want to think about where she had been.

Images scuttled through her brain, not one of them clear, not one of them staying long enough for her to study. Shapes moving in darkness. Coming closer. Fading away. Angry voices, shrieking. And questions. There had been questions, questions, but she recalled only words, here and there. “Tell us why. Tell us how.” Even those words began to fade away as if her mind was a computer drive in the pull of a powerful magnet.

Cautiously, she turned on her side, but only to curl into a tight ball.

She slitted her eyes.

Hot darkness all around, not a breath of fresh air. Clammy, almost damp, the surface beneath her was slick. She did not dare to look up.

“The wrong one! She is useless.” A pointed face, wolflike, but with scales rather than fur, had poked close to hers. Its body loomed behind, bent almost double to get down to her level.

It gave out an echoing holler and its body rocked and wobbled. Willow had felt gluey drops spatter her face.

“Not useless,” another one said. “She will serve an important purpose for us.”

The impression faded.

“Ben,” she said, longing to see his face, to feel him. Letting her eyes close again, she thought about his voice and all he had told her about communicating with each other. They had done that. She had opened her mind, and they had heard each other without talking.

“Ben,” she thought, drawing as much calm about her as she could. “Find me.”

How hopeless.

Gradually, she became aware of noises. Everywhere, noises. Voices a long way away—and dogs barking.

“Ben!”

“It’s okay. Don’t move. I’m here.”

She lay still, barely breathing for fear she wouldn’t hear him again.

He came without sound, or rush of wind or any outward sign of the power and speed of his arrival—until he stroked her arm and she peeked to see him kneeling beside her. She felt his pent-up fear and rage, his struggle to let relief at finding her master his need for vengeance.

“Don’t move,” he said again, gently touching her, his big hands circling her face and head. “What happened to you? Where have you been?”

“What time is it?” Willow asked.

He kissed her face and rested a cheek against hers, touched his lips to her neck. “Four in the morning. You’ve been gone for hours. You were coming toward me by the pool. I only took my eyes off you for a second, but then you were gone. We combed the whole place. Now they’re tearing the city apart. Nat’s in charge. Can you hear the dogs? They’re all over this district. He has every agency out there.”

She coughed and he rubbed her back.

“I’ve got to stop disappearing from that garden,” she said in a weak attempt at a joke. “I was taken into the earth—deep beneath it. There was a place, far away, filled with creatures. They were mostly different from each other. Ugly to me. They wanted me to tell them something. I don’t remember what. They threatened to kill me.”

Ben took a ragged breath, then said, “Can you move your fingers and toes?”

Dutifully, she wiggled both. “Yes.” She uncurled her body. “I think everything moves. I know this horrible thing won’t end. We’ve got to make everyone understand they aren’t safe anymore. Those beasts, they’re going to fight for New Orleans, but that won’t be enough. They’ll want the world.”

He bowed his head. “Yes.”

“Where am I?”

He grew still. “You don’t know? You’re in the cabana at the Brandts’.”

“I was sent back here?” she said in wonder, turning her head. She could make out the shapes of furniture and a pale reflection on white walls. “I don’t want to be a coward, but I’m so frightened.”

“Anyone would be, but I should have been able to keep you safe,” he muttered. “I’ll never forgive myself for this.”

“Ben, it wasn’t your fault. But why didn’t they kill me? Why did they bring me back?”

He eased her to sit up and lean against him. “Because they want you alive and here,” he told her. “They’ve got plans for you, love, but you aren’t alone anymore. What did you mean about being taken deep under the earth?”

She told him about the bright blue light that blinded and stunned her, about being pushed into the pool at the Brandt house and the raptor creature she had seen again. “I don’t think it went with me. I didn’t see it again.” There was the bizarre mask that helped her breathe underwater without the help of air tanks; the powerful pull that dragged her through a hole in the bottom of the pool. She had expected the gush of water all around her to continue, but it dried up when she got there.

“The eggs,” she said, startled by a sharp vision. “They had piles of eggs, and they ate what was inside, the shells, as well, and any little bones that fell.”

“The eggs again,” he said.

“I saw some Embran—I think that one looked like a human all the time.”

“God, I hope not,” Ben said under his breath. “Mutating is bad enough. But all we need is to have no way to separate some of them from us.”

“Wait.” She clutched his arms. “The Embran are dying and they say it’s our fault.” Her headache pummeled her temples again. “They want our world, Ben. They kept saying the answer to getting back their immortality is here. They told me they will take our world, and we’ll serve them—and suffer.”

She held her head in her hands.

“How many of them are there?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know. A lot, I think.” She sat forward and broke into a sweat. “We’ve got to get to Chris and Fabio! I was coming to tell you about them last night. Help me out of here.”

“Not so fast,” Ben said. “Take it easy.”

Willow scrambled to her feet, and he promptly lifted her into his arms.

“Where are we going?” he said.

“They’re in the conservatory, in bottles like I saw in my mind when I was in the courtyard trying to reach them. Or they were in the conservatory. Are the police in the house? Who’s there? We have to go now.”

“Okay. Nat needs to know what’s going on. I was with him when you called me. He’ll think something nasty happened to me, too.”

“Just come with me,” she told him. “Remember I told you about a blue light on the wall just before Chloe died and how I thought she looked as if she couldn’t see when she fell over the banisters?”

“The light on the wall could have been the laser that was used on you. After you left Chloe she could have been blinded by it.” He finished her thought. “You said you couldn’t move at first—after the laser hit you. It could be that Chloe didn’t scream because she couldn’t.”

Her feet touched the ground again, inside the kitchen of the Brandt house. Ben had pulled another of his speed moves and this time she was glad, if confused.

“Keep quiet and listen,” he said. “We don’t need to speak aloud.”

“No,” she agreed, still marveling that he was right. “Please let’s get to the conservatory. I’m afraid those bottles will be gone by now. They look like bottles of orchid fertilizer or something. They’ve got colored granules inside. Ben! There’s a little bird in there and it’s evil. It’s guarding the bottles, I think. I saw it the first time I came here, and it seemed harmless enough then.”

“It probably is.” Ben laughed. “I think I can manage a little bird.”

“Are there any police here?” she asked.

“No. They were pulled once it was obvious you weren’t here. I think the house is empty.”

Rapidly, with Willow behind Ben, where he had put her, they slipped from the kitchen into the corridor beyond. Ben’s hand shot back to hold her still. “Do you hear something?”

She listened. “I think so. Raised voices. But they’re muffled. Ben, someone’s coming through the front door.”

He flattened his back to the wall, one arm stretched protectively across her body.

They could see into the gloomy hall, but the front door was indistinct. Willow saw shadows shift. A small light at the top of the stairs cast an anemic yellow swath that touched the foyer and the opening to the corridor leading to the conservatory.

“It’s Rock,” she told Ben, squinting to see.

“Wait. Don’t call out. See where he goes first. We can’t be too careful.”

In his leather pants and muscle shirt, his keys making the faintest sound on the chain tucked into his pocket, Rock crept forward, not looking right or left, but making straight for the conservatory.

“How does he know to go there? Did he tell you why he couldn’t be at the event last night?”

Willow looked up at Ben in the shadows. She could make out the long mane of his hair sweeping forward when he leaned to see what he could.

“What do you mean? You talked to him. I saw you. At the gondola—he sent for you, remember?”

“You saw the man who took his place as boatman in a full mask and costume,” Ben said. “But I think Rock’s a resourceful man and he’s very protective of you. He must have had a good reason to duck out last night.”

At last Rock disappeared. Holding Willow’s hand, Ben started forward again. “I don’t suppose you’d agree to go outside and call Nat, tell him you’re safe?”

“No,” she told him shortly. “I’m not leaving you. And we need to do this alone. This is nothing the police can charge into. Soon we’re going to have to gather all the power we have between the psi families and work together.”

“I’ve contacted Pascal and asked him to find Sykes,” Ben said. “Sykes has his shield up, probably to keep Pascal from interfering, but that means I’m shut out, too. Your brother has only got one thing on his mind. You.”

“We need him,” Willow said.

“He’ll check in and then we’ll have him.”

Raised voices, jumbled together and angry, came from the direction of the conservatory. A crash, then a shriek of rage speeded Ben and Willow in that direction.

“What are you doing here?” Vanity shouted. “You’re that man, Rock, with Willow’s crew. None of her people are here anymore. Get out. Now.”

“You have made a serious mistake, traitor.” It was Rock’s raised voice. “Don’t you know who I really am?”

Silence followed before Vanity made an enraged noise. “You came here in disguise. How dare you trick me.”

“I’m flattered that one look at my real head is all you need to identify me,” Rock said. “That saves time. You underestimated me, Vanity. Worse yet, you underestimated our leader. You think we are all fools and you can control us. I have communicated with the Protector. It was he who told me about you. I am to take you back to Safeplace. He has already decided how to make you wish you hadn’t made your own plans. You should not have followed me to New Orleans. More than that, you should not have tried to take the place I earned. I was the one who fought for the right to come here for the cause, not you.”

“Rock is Embran,” Willow thought. “And so is Vanity.”

Frustrated that she couldn’t see inside the conservatory, Willow dropped to her hands and knees and shifted forward, but Ben’s hand on the back of her neck held her where she was.

Vanity’s strident voice broke in. “The Millets are getting closer to finding the key. We know they have one of them—”

“I also know,” Rock interrupted her. “I saw it in their shop. How did you find out about them?”

“The same way you did. I have my spies who let me know what our Protector discusses. If we don’t stop these humans, they may find all the keys eventually, and then they will be more difficult to stop. We have to capture their secrets first. We must get those keys and find their precious angel.”

Willow started to get up, but Ben stopped her.

“They won’t get to their legend,” Rock said. “Before they can, we will have overcome them all, and the legend will be in our hands. I believe the answers we’re looking for are there. Zibock and I are convinced there is a formula that will restore us. You forget that we have the Millets’ ignorance on our side. Thanks to the woman who was with Jude Millet in Belgium, the Embran know what we’re up against and what we must have. The Millets are still trying to guess about us. They know nothing, not even the significance of the keys.”

“I wish we had those—as many as it will take to reach the angel’s secret.” Vanity took a noisy breath. She sounded as if she could scarcely breathe. “Still, we don’t know how many keys there are. But we are all getting weaker. Who knows how many years we have before we can’t fight anymore. There have been too many mistakes made.”

“Not by me,” Rock said. “Bolivar was too easily distracted. Thirty years he wasted here indulging himself. But I am single-minded. I have done what I was sent to do.”

“How did you know I was working to undermine Willow’s business and get her here in this house?” Vanity asked.

“Have you forgotten what good friends Willow and I are?” Rock laughed. “And how closely we work? I can read, Vanity. And I have my ways around doors. The information is all there, written down.”

“Rock’s been there, right where I work, planning against us all the time,” Willow said. “He opened the tattoo parlor within days of my move-in. Ben, he’s one of them.”

“Did you kill Chloe Brandt to implicate me?”

He laughed again. “How perceptive of you. And it certainly brought a lot of attention you hated. The Brandts were a clever choice for your purposes. Dysfunctional is the word humans use, I think. But I only took moderate pleasure in disposing of the woman. No challenge there. Once I was sure she couldn’t make any noise, there wasn’t a fight. She tried to cover her face and stood there while I cut her. No challenge at all.”

With her hands rolled into fists, Willow looked up at Ben, and he shook his head. “Don’t let anger distract you.”

“So you took Willow Millet to the Protector?” Vanity said. “And now you are golden. Has she given the Protector important information?”

“I can’t tell you about it.”

Willow nudged Ben. “He’s not going to tell her they didn’t get any information from me.”

“We can’t be sure Rock knows you’re back,” Ben said.

The woman hissed with frustration. “What happens to us now?”

Rock’s voice became silky and completely unlike that of the man Willow had known. “You will be punished, but you will get another chance. You are resourceful and we need you. Let’s go and get our next orders. There has been one change I know of. The Protector has given up on infiltrating mankind with single emissaries. Our numbers on earth will grow faster in future. We will be everywhere among them. First New Orleans, then wherever the Protector decides after that. The humans will be allowed to relax, to grow complacent, but not for long. Our everlasting lives depend on the secrets they are hiding from us.”

“They are already searching for the legend. They are curious about the keys. If they connect the two it will be very dangerous for us,” Vanity said.

“Yes,” Rock agreed. “But we should return to Safeplace Embran. There are signs we are breaking down, you and I. I have brought us something to help us on our way.”

Cracking noises followed, and cooing, like the cries of large doves.

“What are we going to do?” Willow asked.

“Stop them. But it may be even trickier than we expect. There was someone else with Vanity before Rock arrived. We heard another voice. But I’m only hearing Rock and Vanity now. Someone must be hiding in there.”

“We can’t take them all on by ourselves,” Willow said.

“I intend to manage nicely on my own until Sykes and the others get the message.”

“I want you to know something.” Willow reached for his hand. “I shouldn’t have sent you away. I should have had the confidence to trust your love.”

He crouched beside her. “You sound as if you’re saying goodbye. Nothing is going to happen to either of us.”

“I can’t live without you, Ben.”

His hug gave her some courage. “Tell me one thing,” he said, and his arms shook with emotion. “Admit we’re Bonded forever.”

She felt tears on her face. “Forever,” she told him.

Ben stood again, and with his back still to the wall, he slipped to the doorway, took a cautious look into the plant-filled spaces of the conservatory and crouched low. “Please stay here,” he said. “Get outside as soon as you can and call Nat. See who else you can reach. Make sure Nat knows to wait for a signal from me before coming in here.”

She didn’t answer, and he didn’t wait before leaving her.