CHAPTER 23
We all waited, a long, tense moment.
“You ready?” Captain Harris asked me.
“Give it another second,” I said. “She’s not as strong a telepath as some here, and Jamie’s presence will cloud things, but she’ll still be able to feel us coming more clearly than the suspects you’re used to.”
“You can’t go after them,” Tubbs said. “She’ll kill her. One of the strongest telepaths in the Guild, and she’ll kill her.”
I looked at him. “She’ll kill her anyway if we don’t move.”
Harris looked around. “We need physical backup here. People who won’t escalate the situation, somebody I can count on in a fight.”
I looked around. “Gustolf. Stone. You’re with us. Tubbs, you call Enforcement.”
“I need all entrances and exits to the building cut off. Anything I should look for with this lady? Can she fly or something stupid?”
“She can see the future reliably, medium-term. An hour or two is preferred.”
Harris shook his head, working that out.
I thought about that. “Okay. We get the exits blocked off. She’ll see that.”
“We plan to send Ward in alone,” Harris said.
A burst of muttering moved through the crowd, but Gustolf and Stone had already stepped up.
“I can get more physical backup,” Stone said.
“If we can get Turner here quickly, do it,” I said. “But too big a group she’ll see it coming. I’d like you to plan in your mind to hold back when we get there and not start any violence. I’d like you to make that decision now, and stick to it in your mind unless and until something happens.”
Gustolf smiled, seeing where I was going. “You got it.”
“Let’s go,” Harris said.
“What right do you have to make decisions for all of us?” Diaz asked.
We paused halfway to the door. “Obviously no one else here is doing it. We’ve both seen hostage situations before. Plus you and Hawk have a lot of talking to do before I get back. It would be a disgrace to the Guild founders if you let one woman manipulate you all into destroying the Guild.” I put heat behind the last and made myself believe it.
And so we turned and walked out, Gustolf and Stone following without further questions.
• • •
Outside in the hall, Mindspace was disturbed, too disturbed; after Diaz’s force-bomb, it wasn’t holding on to signatures the way I expected.
Harris had kept walking. He looked back. “This way.”
“How do you know? Mindspace is empty,” Stone said.
“I was married to the woman for years. Mumbo jumbo or not, I can find her in a snowstorm. She’s used this against me more than once.”
A Link. And we turned back.
Diaz and Hawk had entered the hallway.
“Don’t be underfoot,” Harris said, and walked.
Right turn, left turn, a long walk straight before another turn while Harris stood and tried to decide where to go.
“I feel the telepath stronger to the right,” Stone said, then frowned, a tight stream hitting him in Mindspace, then over. “Wait. The building’s entrances are now blocked off.”
“She’s changed directions,” Harris said. “There’s something wrong.”
“We’ll wait while you figure it out,” Gustolf said.
Diaz limped up closer to me. He was slower than the rest of us, but sheer stubbornness kept him moving. And we’d established he could do some loud and crazy things with Mindspace. I didn’t trust him.
“You’re not as strong as half of our Enforcers,” Diaz said. “You should back down and let the professionals handle it.”
“What, your professionals?” Hawk said. “You want another chance to manipulate the situation, don’t you? Take away more of the Guild’s rights. Well, it’s not going to happen on my watch.”
“Shut up, both of you!” Stone hissed.
Gustolf nodded. “Every moment you delay us, every moment you change the future by being here, is one more chance for her to take it badly and kill Jamie. You need to back off.”
“I’m the head of the Guild Council,” Diaz said, affronted. “And this man is an outsider, and hardly a Seven. Why should I trust him at all?”
A Seven? I felt like he’d struck me across the face. But I hadn’t managed to stand up to Green. . . . Maybe it was true. I’d had a brain injury. Sometimes you didn’t get it all back. But: “I spotted Johanna when no one else did,” I said. “Strength had nothing to do with that. I’m . . . I’m good at people. I’m good at spotting lies, and body language, and outthinking people. I understand desperate people. That’s more than any of you do anymore. You’ve gotten lazy in your ivory towers, both of you.” I spat the last, angry. “You figure this out. We have work to do.”
Hawk waited, and Diaz shifted, the first hint of danger in his mind.
Harris was there then. “Ward can talk his way into and out of anything with enough time to think about it. I’ve seen his tapes. He’s seen sociopaths before. Hell, I’ve seen sociopaths before. You want your telepath back in one piece, you bet on Ward. But you do it right. You leave him the hell in peace to think.”
I looked at one of the most powerful men in law enforcement, someone who clearly believed in me. Someone who thought I could do this.
He waited, total attention on two of the most powerful men in the Guild. “Work out your differences. We’ll see you in a few hours.”
Then he turned around and trotted. I followed, and Diaz and Hawk stayed behind. I heard a small, quiet, Mindspace sending, then another, then another, the edges bleeding into Mindspace without giving away their content. They were talking.
Stone and Gustolf waited a moment, behind.
“Do you really think I can talk my way out of this?” I asked.
“Shut up, Ward. I need to find my ex-wife and kill the bitch who took her.” He paused. “You screw this up, you’ll never work in this town again.”
“Thanks,” I said, finally feeling back on solid ground again.
• • •
We passed through a thick door alone on a long wall—on the other side was sunlight, bright, blinding sunlight. Two large lights on posts curved overhead, unlit.
Don’t come any closer, Johanna sent to me.
Pain came from Jamie, sharp pain from her arm, and fear. I felt her rubbing her wrist again, the steady attempt at calming not doing enough right now.
I stopped walking, Captain Harris next to me. I grabbed his sleeve to stop him too; there were downsides to having a normal in a high-risk telepathy situation. He stopped, though.
If you need us, we’re ready, Stone told me through the tag he had in my head, the smallest, quietest kind of transmission there was, short of a Link. Nearly guaranteed to be undetectable. He and Gustolf stood on the other side of the door.
Be calm, I told Johanna.
My eyes finally cleared and I saw we had exited onto a . . . kind of an oval-shaped open deck. We were still twenty stories up, give or take, and the thin railing was all that separated us from open air on every side. The main bulk of the skyscraper still continued behind us. Other Guild buildings continued to the right, while a main road with skylanes sat on our left. Straight ahead was the reception building for the Guild, its glass atrium dome many stories below us.
Here, on the deck, vegetable beds, bushes, and trees filled pots in evenly spaced geometric forms, like a formal garden on a roof. A main aisleway continued in front of us, perhaps twenty feet out, plants on either side. At the end of the aisleway Johanna stood on top of a wooden bench, Jamie there next to her, terror emanating from her.
You come any closer and she dies, Johanna told us, in a carrying voice in Mindspace. The vibroblade in her hand still buzzed dully.
They were less than a foot from the low balcony—and in plenty of room and space to throw them both over that balcony. She’d thought this through. Anything we did to take the knife from her would make Jamie that much more vulnerable to the heights. My heart sped up.
Harris poked me, with a finger in my ribs like I was a child. “Talk,” he hissed.
I took one step forward and stopped. Johanna’s grip on Jamie tightened, and it all was far, far too real. Jamie, the woman who’d mentored me, who’d taught me right from wrong in telepath circles, who’d been there for me for years. She had her own agenda, own life now. But once . . .
I was terrified for her, and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Harris’s charge to talk.
Let’s talk about this, I said. How can we help you get where you need to be? What will it take to get Jamie her freedom?
Johanna thought about that. And my interrogator’s brain started moving ahead, making connections, guessing what she wanted, getting inside her head without ever bridging the gap in Mindspace.
I was a good interrogator. Today, for Jamie, for me, I’d be a great one.
There’s a way out of this, I said. You let her go, your odds of getting away clean are better. The Guild is less likely to pursue. You find a place in one of the nonaffiliated Guilds. Russia or India would appreciate someone of your talents and skill. Who knows, you might end up with more influence and position there. Your training will be unusual there. You can bend things to your advantage.
I don’t speak Russian, Johanna said.
You’ll pick it up quickly with a telepath-assist, I said. Plus, you’ll have new problems, and I’m told Russia appreciates a certain ruthlessness in one of its operatives. You could do very well in that kind of culture.
What do you mean? she asked.
You’re good at hiding what you’re really thinking. You’re good at lying mind-to-mind and you don’t mind taking people out along the way. If what I’ve heard about Russia is true, they will appreciate those things. You can be you, without having to hide so much. You might find you like it better than even a Council position here.
A decision crystallized. I took a step forward, then stopped, again.
She returned, Fine, you want the strong-telepath back in one piece? You get me a way out. We can negotiate. I’d like a fueled flyer capable of transatlantic flight. A million ROCs. An escort to international waters. A parachute and a life vest. You get me there, I drop her where you can retrieve her.
I took a moment to process that. She’s bleeding. If the sharks get involved, I don’t think they’ll just let you go. I took another step forward.
If you can’t give me what I want, there’s not much point in me staying around, is there? She gave me a stare. Stay right there. You talk to the Guild. You get me what I want.
I’ll get you what you want, I told her, allowing the concern for Jamie to slip through. Then: Stone, did you hear that? I asked, in that same, quiet sound he’d used for me earlier.
Loud and clear.
Any chance of at least the flyer?
Guild’s not going to let her escape. I can get you something to make the right noise, but give it another five or ten minutes and we’ll have snipers on the next building. There’s no walking away from this kind of threat to the Guild. I’ve been monitoring the private Enforcement channels. They’re furious, and the entire Council and most of the family is screaming for blood. Enforcement will act accordingly.
What about Jamie? She was one of two Tens in the world, and vitally important, I thought.
Silence answered my question.
Well, crap. Score another one for Guild ruthlessness. I swallowed. At the angle they were at, any sniper fire was very likely to kill Jamie too, even if they didn’t aim for her. Between the fall and the blade, she was in a death zone. The blade particularly. Those vibroblades were dangerous; I’d seen one slice through concrete—and almost my hand.
I want assurances now. Johanna tightened her grip on Jamie, and a burst of fear ran through Mindspace at a strength only Jamie could manage. I felt the fear hit me like a hurricane. And then I decided.
Whatever the Guild was going to do, they were going to do. All the fast talking in the world wouldn’t stop them from responding to what they thought was a threat to their entire system. And with the break between the Council and the family, a common enemy was getting everyone incensed. Good for the Guild long-term, but fatal for Jamie now, perhaps.
If she could just fight back . . . I looked into her eyes and saw only fear. Telepaths weren’t trained to fight physical danger. Not even in battle training. And she was bleeding, a small puddle of blood now on the concrete under her arm, her hand covered in red. Blood loss would make her weak.
Whereas I was used to getting hurt now. I was used to physical. And I’d woken up this morning knowing I could die today.
There wasn’t any real choice now, was there?
Stone, get the flyer. That sending I put real volume into so that Johanna would be sure to hear me.
“Tell you what,” I deliberately said out loud, where Harris could hear me, using my diaphragm to make sure the sound passed all the way through the space between me and Johanna. “I’ll come over there. You let Jamie go. You keep me instead.”
She thought about that for a second. You’re not as valuable a hostage. You’re a criminal.
“I’m more likely to survive in open water, and I have no fear of heights,” I said. “I will jump from that flyer without giving you any trouble over it. You’re on your way faster. And at this point, Johanna?”
“What?”
“We’re running out of time to get this done where we all walk away. Take the deal. The flyer is on its way.”
“Fine. Small steps,” she yelled. “No tricks.”
So I took small steps, a dozen, then two dozen, one slow, small step after the other. I was being an idiot, my mind informed me, while my heart beat too fast. It didn’t have to be me on the other end of that knife.
Too late to change your mind now, I told myself. Too late.
Jamie was watching me, carefully, carefully. Small step after small step. Johanna was actively reading me now. Small step. Small step.
At four feet away I asked, How do you want to do this?
She looked at me, at Jamie, and thought. “Come up here on the bench.”
So there I was when she let Jamie go. There I was, empty, afraid.
And in the moment Jamie was far enough away, the moment that horrible knife came in my direction, I took the moment.
I slipped inside Johanna’s defenses like a flea under a blanket, small burrowing crawls too small to be noticed. Planning to wait for the right moment.
Her arm dragged me toward her, or tried—she wasn’t that strong, but she used what she had ruthlessly. Her knife came down in front of me; she couldn’t reach my throat comfortably, settled for my side.
The flyer settles behind us in the air, she projected to whoever was listening.
And then I saw the glint across the way, from a high-up building in the Guild skyscraper. Rifle. Sharpshooter.
Johanna saw what I saw. It wouldn’t shoot. It wouldn’t shoot, her mind said. She hadn’t seen a vision. Things were changing so fast, but she hadn’t seen a vision.
Jamie was nearly to Captain Harris.
I had my moment. I slipped in, to the back of her mind. . . .
I found myself in an endless empty plain, cold. Frozen grass extended as far as the eye could see. In the distance, high ragged mountains. My breath froze in front of my face. Not a picture of her mind, not a true seeming, but a defense. A real, deep defense the likes of which I’d never seen.
I ran, forward, in the quick lope I used to move through Mindspace quickly. No matter how much I ran, the endless plain extended in front of me. There had to be a way out. There had to be.
I kept moving, my speed slowing as the cold moved into my bones. I kept moving, kept looking for the way out.
After an unknowable time, on a random step, my foot broke through, into a burrow that snapped in, imprisoning my foot before I could get away.
I pulled. Again. Again.
Behind me, a low, dangerous growl that crawled up my spine. Run, my instincts screamed. Run. But no matter how I pulled against the ground, my foot was stuck.
The growl again. I turned—bending my body uncomfortably, my foot caught.
It was a leopard, a white leopard with tufted ears and long teeth, a leopard impossibly big, ten feet tall or more, thousands of pounds. Moreover, it wore Johanna’s mental scent.
My gut fell out of me.
“Nice of you to fall into my trap,” the leopard said with Johanna’s voice.
I pulled harder against the trap, and felt the ground stretch, stretch like taffy . . .
The leopard placed its paws. It leaped—
Something snapped in my leg. I screamed. Pressure, pressure—I was crushed. Its head looked straight into my eyes.
Prey, she thought. And I got my first true look at Johanna’s soul. At the thing that lived where human emotion should be. It was cold, cold like the plains, and hungry. So hungry, for power, for respect, for status. It had killed before, and would kill again, with no more thought than a leopard hunting a rabbit, with the same fierce joy.
Let me go, I said, knowing it was futile.
No. The leopard opened her mouth. . . .
Her breath smelled like flowers. Like flowers. The little detail gave me pause as the teeth came down.
In the space between one second and another, I did the one thing, the critical thing we taught middle school children to do first, before any other training. I let go of everything but me and turned in. I let all of it go . . .
. . . and found myself back in my body. Heart racing. Terror drenching me in sweat. But I was in my own body, my mind ragged but in one piece.
In front of me, Stone had a gun trained on both of us. I looked down. The knife was drooping, inches from my side.
I reached down, grabbed her wrist. She was slow, slow, still stuck in the place in her own mind. I forced the button. Hit the button to turn the blade off and threw myself forward, to the deck. The limp vibroblade hit me as Johanna woke up, angry. But it was just cord now, just cord.
“Take one more move and I will shoot you where you stand,” Stone said in a voice colder than the plain I’d found myself in.
I crawled to the side, away from the line of fire. I stood up, wary. Maybe I should run. Maybe I should push her over the edge. There had been something in the leopard’s eyes . . . something terrifying. Something that was an all-too-true representation of the thing that lived inside Johanna.
Then she moved.
Crack. The gun went off.
She was moving—to me, to me. The vibroblade whined.
My body reacted before my mind had a chance. Hand up to strike the blade away. Body twisting—the judo flip Cherabino had drilled me on again and again—my hands, my body changing her momentum.
The blade scored my leg—pain, pain. I cried out.
She was up and moving again.
And then the world shattered, Mindspace disappearing under the weight of unimaginable tsunami force. The curving lights overhead exploded. The glass office building went dark, top to bottom. My ears popped as I fell to the floor, Stone falling too.
Jamie stood in the center of the wind, force in her hands.
Johanna was still on her knees. “You will not—”