Chapter Nine

Beth walked Charlie back to the other room. Alec, perhaps telepathically summoned by Beth, joined Charlie to play.

Daz wanted to celebrate. His son had special abilities and Beth was going to train him. He bet Beth could fix his autism too. She was a telepath, and she already worked with special needs kids to help them.

Best of all, Renee was accepting all of it very well.

“Nothing but good times ahead right?” he asked.

Renee gave him a look that he couldn’t interpret and walked over to the window that overlooked the grounds. “Problems can’t be solved just like that, Daz.”

“Well, yeah, Charlie has to learn to train his ability but…”

She was shaking her head again at him. “That will take time. And it’s possible that his ability didn’t make him autistic. Telepathy might not be a miracle cure.”

“But it might be too,” Daz said.

“Has Beth ever cured autism in her other patients?” Renee asked.

“Um…I don’t know. I know she helps them.”

“I love your optimism. I hope you’re right.”

Beth came back in. She glanced at both of them, no doubt sensing the tension. He knew he was broadcasting his thoughts pretty loud.

Beth cleared her throat. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“Apparently so.”

Renee sounded just like Charlie when she said that.

They settled down, with Loki at Renee’s feet.

“Charlie’s just as adorable as Daz always claimed,” Beth said.

Renee nodded. “Thank you.” She took a deep breath. “So what’s next?”

“I think I need to back up so you can understand what we are and what we do here. I intended to explain before talking to Charlie but…”

“Charlie’s meltdown interrupted,” Renee said.

“Exactly.” She crossed her legs and adjusted her skirt. “The reason the Phoenix Institute exists is to help kids like Charlie so they’re not scared of their abilities and they learn how to use them responsibly.”

“What led you to create the Institute?” Renee asked.

“Are you worried about some ulterior motive?” Daz said.

Renee glared at him. “No, I was genuinely curious. Besides, Beth asked before if we had questions. I let Charlie ask first but I have some of my own. Why would you think I’d accuse her of some ulterior motive?”

“Daz is probably touchy because this place was founded by a man with hidden motives,” Beth said, cutting in. “Richard Lansing, Alec’s guardian, was obsessed with using psychics to gain control of the world. To him, Alec was a weapon that needed to be properly trained, not a real person with wants and needs. He kept Alec in isolation on the grounds, only eventually bringing in Daz to help train him to work with a military team.”

“That sounds horrible,” Renee said.

“He coped better than I would have ever expected,” Beth said. “Having a new purpose helps.”

“And how did that all change? How did he get that new purpose?” Renee asked.

Daz stared at the floor. He hadn’t done enough to change it. He’d let Alec down.

“Alec, myself, Daz and several others changed it, after Lansing died. Well, we’re trying to change it. Lansing left a lot of his affairs to clean up when he died unexpectedly.” Beth sighed. “As for why I have a special interest in children, I mentioned to you that the lobby is a way to honor my mother, yes?”

“Yes, and that’s lovely. It sounds like you lost her very young?” Renee asked.

“I was kidnapped when I was eight by a group of men who wanted to use my telepathy for themselves. My mother died trying to stop them.”

“I’m so sorry,” Renee said.

“Thank you.” Beth cleared her throat. “I was rescued and given a normal life. For years after the kidnapping, my telepathy lay dormant, but every once in a while, it went out of control and overwhelmed me.” Her smile was wistful. “I was physically free but at the mercy of a power I didn’t know how to control. Alec learned how to control his power but he had no freedom. When we met, we sort of rescued each other.”

“That sounds like a beautiful love story,” Renee said. “And now you want to make sure other kids don’t go through what either of you did.”

“Exactly. As I said, Charlie’s lucky to have you both. So, what else?”

“There’s really just one question: is Charlie’s autism a result of his telepathy? Will it go away once he learns to control the telepathy?” Renee asked.

Daz straightened, intent on the answer, hoping he was right.

“No,” Beth said.

Fuck, Daz thought.

Beth leaned forward. “I spent some time reading Charlie’s mind at the end of our session. I can confirm his diagnosis. He’s definitely dealing with some unusual thought patterns that are on the spectrum. That includes his sensitivity to noise and light, as he demonstrated earlier, and his need for routine as well as his impulse issues. It’s not the news you wanted. I’m sorry.”

Daz stood. “You’re sure?”

“She’s sure.” Renee glanced at him. “I know, it’s tough to truly accept. I’ve been there. But Charlie can’t get the right treatment if we don’t accept his condition.”

“You’re dealing with all this very calmly, Renee,” Beth said.

“Calmly?” She glanced at the monitors. “I’m not calm. I’m screaming inside. I’m confused and overwhelmed and exhausted. But what else can I do but stay calm? Being hysterical won’t help Charlie.”

“And accepting we can never help him will?” Daz asked. “Maybe Beth could telepathically do something to his mind?”

“Daz, listen to me. I can’t alter someone’s mind so completely.” Beth stared at him for a minute. “You really thought I’d tell you I could completely cure Charlie?”

“What’s so wrong with that?” Daz snapped.

“Because if you’re in denial, you’re going to see him as defective,” Renee said. “He’s Charlie. All of him is Charlie, even his autism. That’s who he is.”

The same feeling of helplessness that gripped Daz when he was a prisoner in Germany gripped him now. Was there nothing he could do? “I hear you but…can’t you, like, order him never to throw fits, Beth?”

“Ordering him never to do it would require rewiring his entire mind. There’s no telling what the effects of that would be. Is that what you want for your son?”

No, but, dammit. There had to be some way he could help.

Beth stood and walked over to the monitor to stand with Renee. In the other room, Charlie was chattering to Thor.

“He’s tired,” Renee said. “He always rambles when he’s tired.”

“He used his telepathy far more than usual for him today. That will tire him out,” Beth said.

“Could you really do it? Order him to be safe?” Renee asked.

“I have the ability to order people with my telepathy, yes.” Beth pointed at Charlie. “A few times, especially if I make it an unconscious command, causes no harm. But I’d have to be with Charlie at all times to reinforce the order. Once I was away from him, my influence would fade.”

“And relying on someone else to order him around is no way for him to learn to deal with his emotions,” Renee said.

“Exactly,” Beth answered.

Daz looked over at the monitor at his son. “He seems fine now.”

“He is fine,” Renee said. “He’s Charlie. And you have to deal with all that he is.”

“You’re saying I haven’t been?” Daz asked.

Renee reached out and took his hand. Comforting him, he realized. “I’m saying because you haven’t dealt with it as much as I have that it’s easier to hope for a quick solution.”

“I have been there for Charlie!”

“What? I’m not saying you haven’t been,” Renee said.

“Sure feels like it.” He stomped over to the other side of the room.

“Daz, listen to her. She’s trying to help you, not criticizing you. And you were hoping I could wave a magic wand and cure Charlie. You know it. That’s what you’re angry about, not what Renee said.”

“She’s wrong about me not being there. Totally wrong!”

“She said you haven’t dealt with him and his problem as much as she has. Which is true. She meant no criticism. Maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re so sensitive to that charge.”

“I wanted to thank you for helping Charlie work through being angry with me,” Renee said to Beth, oblivious to the telepathic conversation.

“It was the truth. I just helped him see it.”

“It’s funny, I was inclined to believe him about the telepathy but I thought it was impossible. So he had every right to be pissed off at me.” She sat down again and looked over at him. “So tell us what’s next.”

Daz let them talk while he thought his way through his frustration. Renee was right. It was Charlie that mattered. And Beth was right. He was sensitive to the charge of not spending as much time with Charlie as he could have, because it was true.

He could have pushed for more than two weekends a month with Charlie. He could have been more open when Renee first told him she wanted Charlie classified special ed. And while Renee thought telepathy was impossible, he knew telepaths existed. He could have paid better attention to Charlie’s claims instead of thinking Charlie had an overactive imagination.

Beth cleared her throat, perhaps to gain his attention again.

“On the autism, I can tell you that from being in Charlie’s head that his thoughts can be very disorganized and they fire at an extremely rapid pace. Sometimes the ideas are so fast, he just acts on them without thinking. Other times, he has so many at once that he shuts down and falls apart. I suspect you’ve seen him react to both things.”

Renee was nodding. “You saw the second reaction today. It’s like he gets completely overwhelmed and can’t deal with the outside world.”

“Exactly.”

Daz took a deep breath. “Can you help him at all, Beth?”

“That’s the good news. It will take time, but I should be able to help him function more normally. I have to do some of the work telepathically. Not mind control or changing his personality but guiding him to reorder his own thoughts. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes,” Renee said. She closed her eyes and sighed. “You’ve both given me something positive when I was beginning to lose all hope.”

“You’re really okay with all of this?” Daz asked.

“Yes,” Renee said.

“Tell us about your treatment plan,” Daz said.

“What I do isn’t really that different from behavior therapy except I can go into his mind and reinforce it. For instance, I can guide him to attach a thought of ‘count to ten before you act’ or ‘take deep breaths to calm down’ to his impulsivity, so that he learns to slow down his reactions to stressful events, all on his own. That’s one example.”

“How long before it helps him?” Renee asked.

“Remember, I’m not ordering him to do anything, I’m helping him order his own thoughts and showing him how to reinforce his own thoughts. I’d expect some improvement in six months, and I’d want to work on his impulse control first, as that seems the most pressing concern.”

Renee nodded. “Definitely.”

“But I have to be careful because we wouldn’t want him to hesitate over something he does need to do quickly.”

“Like, say, run inside from a storm,” Renee said with a smile.

“Yes.”

“Teaching him to be able to count to ten before acting sounds like a gift from heaven,” Renee said.

“As I said, I have to do it carefully, so I’m guiding his own thoughts, not imposing my own. But he’s young and, with time, he should be able to do it on his own. It’s a coping skill, not a cure, but a good one. And we can do something similar with his sensory overload. I can teach him to process the sounds and lights slowly.”

“Okay. Good. Anything else I should know right now?” Renee asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Beth frowned. “It’s not about Charlie’s health, either, except indirectly. I believe he’s in danger.”

“From what?” Daz flexed his hand, instinctively tensing for a fight. “Does his telepathy hurt him?”

“No, his telepathy helps him, not hurts him. I’m speaking of danger from an outside force,” Beth clarified.

Renee sank deep into the couch cushions. “Outside danger?” she whispered. “What do you mean?”

The day was catching up to her, Daz thought. She’d already dealt with the revelations about psychic abilities, Charlie’s meltdown, and the further revelations about Charlie’s own abilities. She needed rest. He could take this burden off her, at least.

“You’re exhausted, Renee. You shouldn’t have to deal with this too. Go with Charlie and I’ll talk to Beth about it. This is my area,” Daz said.

“And I’ll be able to rest knowing there’s some unknown danger menacing our son? C’mon, Daz.”

Had she just said our son?

“I just wanted to take care of you.”

“Shutting me out isn’t the way.”

Beth cleared her throat again. “In any case, I wouldn’t be comfortable keeping this from either of you. Let’s make this easier. I’ll tell both of you telepathically. That will give you as much information as possible.”

“You want to read my mind?” Renee sat up straight.

“No, only talk to you telepathically. This is also a good way to show you how I talked to Charlie. Are you concerned?”

“No. I just trusted you with my son. I’m hardly going to hesitate for my own sake,” Renee said. “Let’s go. Show me.”

That was just like Renee to leap headlong into something new. Daz reached out and took her hand.

She grasped it. “No more keeping secrets?”

“No more,” he said.

“Okay,” Beth said. “Holding hands is a great idea. The more physical contact, the better the connection.” She reached out her hands to them.

“Daz, you shouldn’t have tried to tell Renee to rest. This concerns her as much as it does you.”

“Is that professional advice or personal meddling? And can Renee hear us?”

“I’m only speaking to you. And, yes, it’s personal advice. I know you’re trying to protect her but shutting her out isn’t the way.”

“How do you know so much about it? You and Alec have easy sailing between you.”

“Not so easy all the time. But I’m not thinking of us, I’m thinking about my father and his wife. You know how he shuts down emotionally. He’s had to make some serious adjustments now that he’s married. It’s not been easy. Luckily, Del not only loves him, she understands him.”

“If you’re comparing me to Philip Drake, I must really be doing something wrong.”

Laughter flavored the connection with Beth. “Philip’s starting from a rough place. It should be easier for you. But you and Renee are both self-contained. It’s hard to tell sometimes how deeply you care. I’m not sure even Renee knows how you feel about her. I’m not sure she ever will, unless you say it.”

Damn. “Can you tell how Renee feels about me?”

“You’ll have to figure that out for yourself. Relax, now, I’m bringing her into the link.”

“So what’s this danger?”

That was Renee’s voice. Her emotions flavored the words too. On the surface, there was calm. Underneath, though, he could almost feel the rumblings of panic.

“Daz, Renee, let me show you what Charlie saw through Odin’s eyes.”

And just like that, Daz was plunged into a vision of Charlie holding Odin. All he could see of Charlie were his hands. This must be his point-of-view then. That image vanished to be replaced by thoughts Odin must have sent to Charlie or, at least, what Charlie remembered Odin said to him.

An oversize man peered down at Odin, threatening, telling him he had to lure the nice boy out of his yard. Charlie cut into that memory, asking who the mean man was. Odin again, projecting very little except he hated the mean man and wouldn’t stay with him now that he had Charlie.

One thing was clear. Odin was really scared of the mean man.

Daz blinked and the room around them reappeared.

“Whoa,” Renee said. “That was interesting.”

“But you don’t sound surprised,” Beth said.

“No, I’m not,” Renee said. “That’s because Charlie said something like that before about a mean man and that Odin had been sent by someone to lure him away. I thought it was an odd thing for him to make up at the time. He usually reported happy conversations to me. That’s one of the reasons it took me so long to be worried about it.”

“I’m all for protecting Charlie, and we’ll look into this but remember, this is coming from a cat,” Daz said.

“I believe every word of it and that Odin’s fear was real,” Renee said.

“Why?” Daz asked.

“Because, in retrospect, everything Charlie’s ever said to me about when he talked to animals has been accurate,” Renee said. “Now that I know he can really do it, I’m inclined to believe him. If Odin was scared of this man, he’s dangerous.”

“That’s good logic,” Daz said. “I’m just surprised you’re taking to this telepathy so well.”

“Anything that helps my son,” she said.

“I agree too,” Beth said. “Obviously, I can’t read Odin’s mind, but what he transferred to Charlie indicates this master wanted Odin to bring Charlie to him. And the cat was definitely scared of this man.”

“Who wants to take my son?” Daz gripped Renee’s hand tight and stared at the monitor. Alec had joined Charlie to play with the blocks. Someone wanted his son. And someone had also entered New Jersey over a year ago, on a mission from Rasputin. Could the two events be connected? But how could Rasputin know something about Charlie that his parents hadn’t known?

“Wait, forget about ‘who’ for a second. How could this mysterious man give a cat orders?” Renee asked.

“Damn good question,” Daz said. “Sounds like we have another animal telepath on our hands.”

“I agree,” Beth said. “I believe the ‘mean man’ was speaking to Odin telepathically, like Charlie does.”

“So it’s someone who has abilities just like Charlie,” Renee said. “Why would he want Charlie?”

“I can guess.” Daz stood and stared at the monitor. He knew Alec was in there and nothing got past Alec. He knew the Institute was safe. But it didn’t make the fear for his son’s safety go away. “Best-case scenario, this mean man could’ve recognized Charlie as a kindred spirit and wanted to be closer to him.”

“A very warped kindred spirit,” Renee said.

“Yeah. Unfortunately, I think we’re closer to the worst-case scenario: someone wants to take Charlie for his ability and control him.”

He looked at Beth.

She nodded. “Like my kidnappers wanted to do to me when I was his age.”

Renee walked over to the monitor to stand next to Daz.

“I know, it’s illogical to think I’m somehow protecting him better by standing over here.”

“But it helps.” He put her arm around his waist. Instead of objecting, which he half-expected, she put her head on his shoulder.

Someone wanted to steal their son.

Never.

“This is my fault. What I do is putting our son in danger,” Daz said.

“How could this be your fault?” Renee asked.

“Some enemy of the Phoenix Institute is after my kid,” he said.

“What enemy?” Renee asked.

He tapped his shoulder. “The guy in Germany. He took me hostage. Beat me. Burned me with his hand alone. And I got away. He’ll hate that. He’d want to get back at me.”

“Was he an animal telepath like Charlie’s mean man?” she asked.

“He was a psychic. Who knows what else he could do? And he had a legion of followers. We thought he’d gone underground but apparently he just changed tactics. We recently found he’s been watching the Institute for over a year and that he has an operative in this area. Shit.”

“Daz.” Renee put her hand on his face to get his attention. “Get past your guilt. Beth just said that this man probably wants Charlie for his psychic ability. How could this enemy of yours even know about him?”

“That’s a very good question.” Daz’s eyes narrowed. Had his captor read his mind during the torture? Daz had thought they were after information about Alec and the Institute but what else had they plucked from his brain?

“We’ll get answers.” Beth rose. “I won’t let anything happen to Charlie or either of you. This kind of situation is another reason the Phoenix Institute exists. We train people in their abilities. But we also protect them.”

“Thank you,” Renee said.

Loki head-butted her knees. Renee leaned down and hugged him.

“You’re not alone,” Beth said. “Everything we have, we’ll use to keep you both safe. And we will find out who did this.”

“Damn straight we will,” Daz said.

“So what’s next?” Renee asked.

“You don’t have to do anything except stay here safe with Charlie,” Daz said. “This is my specialty. I’ll come up with a plan.” He was going to have to put all that leveling-up training to use, along with all those new weapons. He was going to crush the person after his family.

“We’ll call in all our resources, but please stay here with Charlie until we sort this out, Renee,” Beth added.

“Okay,” she said. “You don’t have to talk me into it. Whatever keeps Charlie safe.”

“In the meantime, we need to get Odin here, so Charlie can quiz him more about the mean man and I can get a clearer picture of what’s going on,” Beth said. “There is a good side. With Charlie staying here, I can get a jumpstart on his therapy.”

“And you leave getting Odin to me,” Daz said.

After he made sure Renee and Charlie were set up in their own rooms at the Institute, Daz and Alec headed back out to Renee’s house.

Charlie had pleaded to come with them, claiming they wouldn’t catch Odin without him but there was no way Daz was going to allow his son to leave the safety of the Institute right now, not with one, maybe two hostile unknowns out there: Rasputin’s man and the one who controlled Odin. Possibly they were one and the same but it never hurt to plan for two enemies rather than one.

Alec, with his TK, should be able to grab a cat, no matter how uncooperative, and together, they could handle any other problem.

They’d figure out who was behind it and then…

He gripped the steering wheel tighter. Then someone would pay.

“You think Rasputin is behind this?” Alec asked.

“He’s the one with an organization behind him, and I assume he knows about all kinds of psychics. And he sure knew a helluva lot about us before we even knew he existed. Plus, he has someone on the ground already.”

Daz rolled his shoulder, wishing the damn burn would stop itching. He’d taken the job of accompanying Richard Genet to Europe to start a dialogue between the Phoenix Institute and Richard’s immortal court. He hadn’t expected to encounter a very much alive Gregori Rasputin or that the Mad Monk had a hard-on to destroy Alec and the Institute. Taking Daz captive and torturing him had been the first step in Rasputin’s war. No, not the first step. The shot one of Rasputin’s people had taken at him had literally been the opening salvo in this war.

Daz owed his life to Richard and his lover, Marian Doyle, but Rasputin had disappeared after their explosive confrontation in Germany. They’d been watching and waiting for him to make a move, but Daz never expected Charlie to be part of it.

“I’m sorry your son got dragged into this. It’s me Rasputin seems to be after. I feel responsible,” Alec said.

“Save the guilt.” Because Daz had enough for both of them. “Rasputin is the one who’s responsible, not you.”

“Okay.”

After that, there was silence. Daz barely noticed the road crews working on the power lines on the main roads. But as they turned off the main road to a country road that led to Renee’s home, Alec spoke.

“Daz, did it occur to you that it’s a weird coincidence that your son has psychic abilities and you happen to work in a place that knows these abilities are real?”

“Yeah, it’s a weird coincidence but what else could it be? What are you getting at? That Rasputin was involved somehow?”

“No, not him. Lansing.” Alec paused as he reached ahead of them with his TK to toss a large tree branch out of the road. “You know how he was obsessed with finding as many psychics as possible, even to the point of trying to create them.”

“And?”

“Lansing hired you after Charlie was born, right?”

Daz nodded, slowly, catching on to where this was going. “You think Lansing somehow knew that Charlie was psychic even back then?”

“I bet Lansing knew there was a possibility Charlie could be psychic. He was obsessed with genetic codes. Look how he tried to duplicate his own genetic code, except his DNA was too degraded. It would be just like Lansing to check the genetic codes of everyone he hired, including you. He knew what he was looking for in the DNA. He would have known if you carried any genetic markers for psychic abilities.”

“That seems horribly possible.” Not for the first time, Daz cursed himself for not delving deeper into Lansing’s background before accepting his job offer. But if he’d done that, he’d have never met Alec. “Is this something you found in Lansing’s records?”

“No, nothing about you in particular, but we did finally decode an encrypted file that included the genetic markers that Lansing believed were important for psychic abilities. In all his records, it’s a continual obsession with him. With you, he not only got a good trainer for me but had an excellent way to keep an eye on your son, in case Charlie developed any abilities.”

“Shit.” Alec was right. “So that’s why he recruited me. I didn’t apply for the job. I didn’t even know it existed.”

“Exactly. Then the question becomes how he knew to check your DNA in the first place. It’s like you were on his radar already somehow. You ever run across him?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but now I’m going to double-check every job I ever did.”

“At least he’s dead now and can’t hurt you or Charlie.”

“There’s that,” Daz said.

“And whatever angle he was working on you, Lansing blew it because when I broke from him, you backed me and not him.”

“It took me too long,” Daz said.

“You’re the one who keeps harping on that, not me,” Alec said. “When push came to shove, you backed me because we were a team.”

“I should’ve never needed that shove.”

“Let it go,” Alec said. “I have.”

Not until he could make up for it, Daz thought. Just like with Renee, he had to put things right.

“Anyway,” Alec said, “the point is, if Lansing knew Charlie could be psychic—”

“Then people working for him could have known too. And those people could be out there still. They might be behind this, not Rasputin.”

Alec nodded. “Yeah. Or it could be the people who grabbed Beth all those years ago.”

“It’s all guesswork right now,” Daz said.

“Until we get the story from the cat.”

Alec said that with such seriousness that Daz glanced sideways at him. They both laughed.

“A cat. A damned cat,” Daz said.

He pulled his car into Renee’s driveway. Nothing had changed from yesterday save more of the snow had melted. Alec pointed to the remains of the van. “I should move that or Renee won’t be able to pull her car out of the garage.”

“Wait until we get the cat.” Daz searched around the garage and found the dog carrier that Renee told him was there. He held it up. “This is a little big but Odin won’t be able to slip through the bars on the doors.”

“Now, we just have to get the cat inside it. Uh, I don’t have much experience with cats. Will this be hard?” Alec asked.

“Let’s just say your TK will come in handy otherwise we’ll get scratched up pretty good, especially given Odin’s a stray who doesn’t seem fond of anyone except my son.” Daz pulled his gloves tight, just in case. “Let’s start looking in Charlie’s room.”

He unlocked the door from the garage to the mudroom. Daz froze. Something was off. Movement when there shouldn’t be any.

A crash echoed through the house. Daz set down the crate and drew his Glock. He glanced over at Alec.

Alec nodded, knowing what to do. He closed his eyes, focused on sending his TK through the house, using it as a kind of radar to find whatever was moving around. Alec would also be able to sense size and weight and know if they were dealing with the cat or something else.

He tapped Daz’s shoulder, pointed to the right and signaled threat.

Intruder, not cat. Damn.

Daz gestured at Alec to go right, while he went left. Alec passed through the mudroom and to the hallway. Daz cut through the kitchen toward that entranceway to the living room, on full alert. He strained to hear the smallest sound. He homed in on the rustle of clothes and the low growl of a cat.

It could be that Odin’s master had come back for the cat for some reason. Maybe he knew the cat could identify him.

Daz turned the corner into the living room, his weapon up and ready. A man all in black, wearing a long coat, held Odin in his arms.

“Put the cat down, get on your knees, hands on your head,” Daz ordered.

The intruder stared at Daz with unnerving dark eyes that held no irises. Daz suppressed a shiver. Rasputin’s people had the same kind of eerie stillness in them, and the immortal Mad Monk had the most terrifying stare of all. Fuck. This was the worst-case scenario.

“Why should I obey you?”

“Because you’ll be dead if you don’t,” Daz said. Let the guy talk. They’d find out more if the intruder felt he had the upper hand. When it was time, Alec would take him out.

“Do you really want to save this grungy animal?” The gravelly voice sounded as if were scraped over sandpaper. There was a trace of an accent, possibly Eastern European.

“He’s my cat.”

“No, he belongs to me. As does your son.” The intruder advanced a step.

“Stop,” Daz said through gritted teeth.

“You didn’t want your son from the start, Montoya. He’s an obligation to you. And his mother is overwhelmed by him. He’s much better off with me. Us.” The intruder smiled again.

They were only words. But this guy said them in the same way as the guys who had tortured Daz in Germany. The fear flooded back, and the memory of the searing agony from the hand pressed into his shoulder sent cold sweat down Daz’s back.

Alec appeared at the other side of the living room, one hand raised. “Surrender.”

The intruder raised one dark eyebrow. “No.”

The cat sprang from his captor’s hold, ruining Daz’s line of fire. He sidestepped, only barely missing Odin’s claws. The cat hit the floor and skittered away. Daz fired but the shot went wide.

The intruder chuckled, an unnatural sound.

Alec flicked his hand. The enemy flew backwards into the fireplace, and hit hard. Daz’s little paper origami figures floated to the floor.

“Stay right there!” Alec ordered. The fireplace poker flew into the air. Alec moved a finger and the poker pressed against the intruder’s throat.

They had him.

Daz and Alec stalked forward, wary. This could be a trick. It’d be safer to just shoot this asshole but they needed to know why he was in Renee’s house. Charlie’s future depended on catching not only this guy, but whoever he was working with.

A roar sounded from outside. The intruder grinned.

A roar?

A large, brown bear burst through the glass door that led to the deck, flinging sharp shards all over the living room.

Daz threw up his hands to protect his face. A bear. A freakin’ bear! Fuck, did it have to be a bear again?

He kept his eye and his gun on their captive. This had to be a calculated distraction. He wasn’t going to fall for it.

Alec tackled the bear, sending him and the crazed animal to the floor. Daz had to jump out of the way of flailing claws, giving the intruder an opening. The asshole took off and ran outside through the hole just created by the bear.

Fuck.

Daz vaulted over the couch and leapt through the broken glass door to the ruined deck. Though he was a few seconds behind his quarry, the debris in the yard worked to his advantage. Instead of making a clean getaway, the intruder’s black trench coat snagged on a branch from a fallen tree.

Daz jumped to the top of the deck’s railing, aimed, and fired. The intruder crumpled to his knees as blood spread over his lower left leg.

Got you.

“Firefly, you okay?” Daz yelled.

“Uh, we’re having a stare-off,” Alec said. “Damn, he’s bigger than the ones in the zoo. Or maybe he looks bigger because he’s out in the open.”

If Alec was making jokes, he wasn’t in immediate danger. Good.

Daz sprang from the railing to the yard, carefully picking his way toward the man. His quarry clutched his leg and screamed something in another language. That had to be Russian. This was definitely connected to Rasputin and his people.

And they tended to travel in packs.

Daz scanned the yard, Glock ready to fire, searching for other enemies and ignoring the wounded man’s curses and screams. Or perhaps he was pleading. Not that Daz cared.

The intruder took a swing at him as soon as Daz was in arm’s length. Daz clocked the motherfucker on the jaw. He crumpled, hands wrapped around his wounded leg.

But his eyes stayed focused on Daz.

“You bear our saint’s mark. He will kill you.”

Those utterly dark eyes stared up at Daz, as if they could see right through him.

Saint’s mark. The handprint scar. Daz dug his fingers into the intruder’s coat and put the gun against the man’s throat. “What’s your name? Why are you here?”

The ebony eyes stared, unblinking. Daz felt cold sweat drip down his back again. It was like this guy’s brain wasn’t really there. Wait, he knew that look. Beth got that faraway look when she was communicating telepathy. Daz punched him again to break his captive’s concentration and sever his telepathic link. “Tell me who’s at the other end of your conversation.”

“We’ll take all you have, including your son.” The intruder stuttered out the words, went limp and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Dammit. Fuck.

The man sagged, inert, and the weight of his body pulled Daz to his knees. Daz searched the Russian for a pulse with one hand. He kept the gun steady in his other hand. This could be a trick.

No pulse at the throat. Daz put his hand over the chest. No heartbeat that he could tell either. Suicide? Had Daz hit the femoral artery and caused him to bleed out?

Daz examined the gunshot wound. His bullet had gone through the calf, not the upper thigh. Painful, for sure, but not a fatal hit, at least not this fast.

But something had killed him.

The bear roared from behind him.

Daz dropped the corpse and turned. The bear scrambled over the railing of the deck, rumbled across the yard and disappeared into the trees.

“Bears. Who knew.” Alec walked out onto the deck. “Status?”

“Uninjured. But our intruder appears to be dead and I’m pretty sure I didn’t kill him.” Daz glanced around. Too many tall trees around, even after the storm. Too much cover for an enemy. He hated being out in the open like this.

“He was talking to someone telepathically, Alec. Let’s get back in the house. No, better yet, the garage. It’s defensible if there are more of them.”

Or more bears.

“Right.” Alec waved a hand and the dead man rose into the air, over the top of all the storm debris. Daz followed, gun still out and ready. The scar on his shoulder still itched. Though maybe that was just his paranoia.

“I’ll scan the area with the TK,” Alec said as they entered the garage.

Daz wished he had his M1 Carbine instead of the Glock. Bears. Telepathic monks. He should have brought his new gadgets. At the very least, one of the flash-crash grenades.

“I found a few squirrels, but nothing big enough out there to be human,” Alec finally said.

Daz knelt over the intruder’s body for a final check. “Yeah, he’s definitely dead. But the bullet wound wasn’t enough to kill him that fast. I think he suicided. Or whoever was talking to him telepathically killed him.”

“Do you know who he is?” Alec asked.

“Not him particularly but I’m sure he’s part of Rasputin’s crew,” Daz said. “The arrogance and the Russian accent are the same. At least one of his buddies is out there, somewhere. We need to get going.”

“We still have to get the cat. All our answers could be locked up in his brain,” Alec said.

“If he didn’t run off.”

But they went back inside the house and found Odin hunched and shivering at the back of the dog crate.

Daz knelt down. “You are a smart kitty. This was a good place to find cover.”

Odin blinked but otherwise didn’t move. Daz closed the crate door and locked the cat in. “Nice that something was easy.”

Alec looked around. “Yeah.” He frowned. “Too easy.”

“You think our dead intruder told Odin to go in there?”

“The cat seemed to be following orders to jump at you. Maybe his master told him to stay there while the bear was around and now he’s too scared to move.”

“In that case, our benefit.” Daz lifted the crate. “I’ll take the cat, you get the body and then we get the hell gone.”

“Right. One second. I don’t like the idea of leaving a big hole to the outside in Renee and Charlie’s living room.”

Alec walked out to the living room and put up both hands. Shards of glass rose from the carpet and furniture at his command and took their previous places in the doorframe.

Alec closed his eyes and waved both hands. A wave of heat brushed Daz’s cheeks. He blinked and when his eyes refocused, the door was back the way it had been.

“Damn,” Daz breathed out.

Alec went down on one knee.

“Helluva thing, Firefly,” Daz said. “Did that take all your oomph?”

“Yeah.” Alec straightened. “I usually do this kind of thing with Beth helping augment my TK. But the door will be stronger than regular glass now.”

Again, Daz knew he’d have to up his game if he was going to play in this league. What Alec could do was way beyond him. So was what Rasputin could do. He needed to stop thinking of countering strength with strength and figure out how to attack Rasputin’s weakness. If he could figure out what that weakness was.

He glanced toward Charlie’s room and caught a glimpse of the Batman poster. Renee had teased him about being Batman, but that was exactly the type of warrior he had to become to fight these people. “Let’s load up and get the fuck out of here,” he said.

Too bad the cat had to ride in the back with the corpse.

Daz only began to relax when they reached the highway. This attack could have been worse. Charlie could have been with them. No telling what the bear might have done to a little boy.

“So what happened with the bear? Why’d he run?” he asked Alec.

“I kept him at arm’s length with the TK. He was so beautiful I didn’t want to kill him. We had a staring contest for a few minutes until he went down to all fours and waved his head from side to side as if shaking something off. Then he roared at me and took off. He seemed more concerned with getting away than continuing the attack.”

“Our dead guy was controlling him, I think,” Daz jabbed a thumb at the dead body in the backseat. “If the ‘mean man’ Charlie mentioned is another animal telepath, we just found him.”

“And the bear was freed when he died, which explains why it ran off.” Alec took a deep breath. “Bears are scary.”

“You’re telling me. I had one knock me over once and…”

“And what?” Alec asked.

“And I had a bear come out of nowhere and knock me over once before. Just like this. Now I’m wondering if that was a coincidence.”

“When was this?”

“On a rescue mission in Turkey to find a missing plane. The same hike where Renee and I first got to know each other.”

“Is it related?” Alec asked.

“Weren’t you just saying that even Lansing hiring me wasn’t a coincidence? I bet two bear attacks aren’t either.” He stared at the road ahead. “We should search that guy one more time before we take him inside the Institute. He might have booby traps or even an electronic tracker on him.”

“Good idea.”

They pulled over at an open highway rest stop. The place was deserted. Just as well because Daz didn’t want questions about the dead guy in his van. They stripped the corpse and rifled through the clothing. He’d looked supernatural in life but very normal in death. His clothes contained no wallet, no keys, nothing to indicate his ID.

“Nothing dangerous on him,” Alec said.

“Keep all the clothes. Maybe your lab people can discover something about him from them. Same for the body.”

“Yeah, we’re going to definitely need one of our doctors to do an autopsy. I’ll call ahead so they’re ready for us.”

“You sure you can trust the doctors?”

“Beth checked them all out when I first took over the Institute. And we rechecked them again after the break-in last year.”

“Good enough.” Daz pulled out onto the highway again. The cat meowed, a sad little noise.

“What does that mean? Do cats always do this?”

“A lot of cats hate riding in cars and will meow the whole way. He’s pretty calm, all things considered.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Are you going to tell Renee about everything that happened in Germany?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just said you might have encountered our animal telepath with her years ago. That means she should know what she’s up against now. Maybe she even remembers something from years back that will help.”

“I’m not in the habit of talking to any civilian about my missions, especially ones that concern immortal crazy dudes. I figured it was safer for her that way,” Daz said.

“Renee’s not just any civilian, Daz.”

No, Daz thought. She isn’t.