Dark Visions (15 page)

It took them half an hour to plan the burglary. Actually, it only took five minutes to do the planning. The other twenty-five were spent trying to force Gabriel to help.

"No, thanks. Include me out," he said.

"You wouldn't have to go inside," Kaitlyn said through her teeth. "All you need to do is sit in the alcove and watch for cars coming in the driveway."

Gabriel shook his head.

Anna tried gentle reasoning with him; Lewis tried bribery. None of it worked.

At last Rob stood up with an exclamation of disgust and turned toward the door. "Stop catering to him.

He's afraid. It doesn't matter; we can do it without him."

Gabriel's eyes went hard. "Afraid?"

Rob barely glanced back at him. "Yeah."

Gabriel stood up. "Care to say that again?"

This time Rob turned. He stood face-to-face with Gabriel and their eyes locked, silently fighting it out.

Kaitlyn watched them both without breathing. Thinking again that they were so different, such opposites.

Rob all gold, radiant energy, his waving hair tousled, his eyes blazing. And Gabriel darkness, his skin paler than usual, his hair looking black in contrast. His eyes bottomless and cold.

Like the sun and a black hole, side by side, Kait thought. In that moment the image was etched into her mind, a picture she would never draw. It was too frightening.

Once again, she was afraid for Rob. She knew what Gabriel could do-with or without a knife. If they started fighting . . .

"I'm going downstairs," she said abruptly. "To ask Mr. Z if we can order a pizza."

Everyone looked at her, startled. Then Kait saw understanding flash in Anna's eyes.

"That's a good idea. I'm sure nobody wants to cook dinner," Anna said, standing and gently taking Rob's elbow. She nudged Lewis with her foot.

"Uh, fine with me," Lewis said, putting his baseball cap on backward. He was still looking at Gabriel.

Slowly, to Kaitlyn's great relief, the two combatants broke their locked stare and stepped away from each other. Rob submitted to Anna's gentle tugging. Kaitlyn made sure he got out the door.

Then she looked back at Gabriel.

His eyes were still dark as black holes, but his mouth was mocking and sardonic. "You can put it off, but it's going to happen someday," he said. Before Kaitlyn could defiantly ask what was going to happen, he added, "I'll watch for cars up here. But that's all. I won't risk my neck to help you. If something goes wrong, you're on your own."

Kaitlyn shrugged. "I've always been on my own," she said, and went downstairs to order pizza.

Mr. Zetes didn't leave until eleven o'clock. Kaitlyn was afraid to have the group stay downstairs with him after dinner, afraid that one of them might give something away. They sat in the study, pretending to do homework, and all the time listening for a sign that Mr. Z was going.

When he finally did go, he called them to the staircase and said that Joyce would undoubtedly be coming soon.

"But you won't be alone until then. I'll leave Prince and Baron," he said.

Kaitlyn studied his face, wondering how much he suspected they suspected. Were those dark eyes fierce or just acute? Was there the shadow of a grim smile on his lips?

He can't know anything, she thought.

Acting for all she was worth, she said, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Zetes."

When the front door shut behind him, Kaitlyn looked at Anna, who looked back helplessly.

"Prince and Baron?" Kait said.

Anna sighed, fingering the end of her black braid. In anyone else it would have been a nervous gesture. "I don't know. I will try, but they look very hard to influence."

"You'd better go if you're going," Gabriel said curtly.

"You just go hide-I mean stand guard-in the dark," Rob said. Kaitlyn grabbed his wrist and dragged him a step or two down the stairs. Dearly as she loved Rob, there were times when she wanted to bash his head in.

Gabriel retreated into the darkened study, his handsome face inscrutable.

"You first, Anna," Kaitlyn said. Anna walked down the stairs, so slowly and gracefully that she might have been drifting. Rob and Kait followed, with Lewis behind.

"Careful. Easy," Anna said as she reached the bottom. A low growl sounded from somewhere behind the staircase.

One dog was in the paneled hallway, Kaitlyn saw as they rounded the corner. The other was in the darkened living room, almost blending into the shadows. Both were watching Anna intently.

"Easy," Anna breathed, and that was the last word she said. She stood perfectly still, looking at the dog in the living room, her left hand raised toward the dog in the hallway, the way you'd gesture to a person to wait.

The growl died away. Anna's upraised hand slowly closed, as if she'd caught something in her fist. She turned, smoothly and without haste, to look at the dog in the hallway.

"Look out!" Rob yelled, jumping forward.

In absolute silence, with its lips peeled back and the hair on its back bristling, the dog in the living room was stalking toward Anna.

"No!" Anna said sharply, and added some words in a language Kaitlyn didn't know. "Hwhee, Sokwa!

Brother Wolf-go to sleep! It's not hunting time now. Rest and sleep."

Then, without showing the slightest sign of fear, she reached for the snarling muzzle. She locked one hand over it, grabbing the hair at the dog's neck with the other. Her eyes gazed straight into the animal's, unflinching and unwavering.

"I'm the pack leader here," she said clearly. "This is not your territory. I am dominant." Kaitlyn had the feeling that the words were only part of the communication. Something unspoken was passing between the graceful girl and the animal.

And the dog was responding. His lips slid down to cover his teeth again. The hair on his back flattened.

More-his entire back flattened, drooped, until his belly almost touched the floor. His tail tucked between his legs. His eyes shifted. His entire attitude was one of submission.

Anna held out a hand to the other dog, which moved toward her slowly, tail down, almost crawling on its elbows. She clamped a hand over its muzzle, clearly establishing dominance.

Rob's eyebrows were up. "How long can you sustain that?"

"I don't know," Anna said without turning. "I'll try to keep them right here-but you guys had better work fast." She tilted her head and, still looking at the dogs, began chanting something softly. Kaitlyn didn't understand the words, but the rhythm was soothing. The dogs seemed mesmerized, cringing a little, pushing at her gently with their noses.

"Let's go," Rob said.

The paneling in the hallway was dark-walnut or mahogany, Kaitlyn thought vaguely. She and Rob both scanned it intently, while Lewis squinted doubtfully.

"There," she said, pointing to the middle panel. "That looks like a crack, doesn't it? It could be the top of a door."

"That means there must be a release somewhere around here," Rob said, running his fingers over the smooth wood and into the grooves between panels.

"But we'll probably never find it by accident. You may have to push more than one place, and do it in a certain sequence or something."

"Okay, Lewis," Kait said. "Do your stuff."

Lewis edged between them, muttering, "But I don't know what to do. I don't know anything about secret doors."

"You don't know exactly what you're doing when you use PK on the random number machine, either, do you?" Kaitlyn demanded. "So how do you manage that?"

"I just kind of... nudge at the thing with my mind. It's not conscious. I just nudge and see what happens, and if something works, I keep doing it."

"Like biofeedback," Rob said. "People don't know how they slow down their heart rate, but they do."

"Well, nudge this panel and see what happens," Kait told Lewis. "We've got to find that door-if there is a door."

Lewis began, stroking the panel lightly with outspread fingers. Every so often he would stop and push on the wood, his entire body tense. Kaitlyn knew he was pushing with his mind, too.

"Come on, where are you?" he muttered. "Open, open."

Something clicked.

"Got it!" Lewis said, sounding more astonished than triumphant.

Kaitlyn stared, her knees going weak.

There was a door. Or a passage, anyway. The middle panel had recessed and slid smoothly behind the panel on the left. There was a gaping hole in the formerly solid wall.

It looked just like Kaitlyn's drawing, except that there was no figure in the doorway. There were only stairs leading downward, faintly illuminated by half-covered reddish lights at foot level. They seemed to have been activated by the door opening.

Lewis breathed one word. "Jeeeeeez."

"Why is it so dark?" Kait murmured. "Why not put some real lights in?"

Rob nodded toward the French doors to Joyce's room just opposite. "Maybe because she's there. This way, you could walk into this place without being seen, even at night."

Kaitlyn frowned, then shrugged. There was no time to wonder about it. "Lewis, you stay up here. If Gabriel yells that he sees lights coming up the driveway, tell us. We'll come up fast, and you can close the door."

"If I can close the door," Lewis said. "It's like trying to learn how to wiggle your ears-you don't know how until you do it." But he stationed himself by the panel like a resolute soldier.

"I'll go first," Rob said, and began cautiously making his way down the stairs. Kaitlyn followed, wishing that she'd brought a flashlight. She didn't at all like this journey into red-hazed dimness-although the lights illuminated the steps themselves, they showed nothing around them. The stairway seemed suspended in an abyss.

"Here's the bottom," Rob said. "It feels like another hallway-wait, here's a switch."

Light blossomed, cool, greenish fluorescent light. They were in a short hallway. The only door was at the end.

"We may need Lewis again," Kaitlyn said, but the door opened when Rob turned the handle.

Kaitlyn didn't know what she expected to see, but it certainly wasn't what she saw. An ordinary office, with a corner desk and a computer and filing cabinets. After the sliding panel and the dark staircase, it was something of a letdown.

She looked at Rob. "You don't think ... I mean, what if we're completely wrong here? What if he just has a hidden room because he's eccentric? It's possible."

"Anything's possible," Rob said, so shortly that she knew he wondered, too. He went to the filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer with a sliding rattle.

The sound made Kaitlyn's skin jump. If they were wrong, they had no business poking into things.

Defiantly she went over to the desk and thumbed through some papers from the letter tray. They were business letters, mostly from important-sounding people, addressed to Mr. Zetes. They all seemed to be photocopies, duplicates. Big deal.

"You know what?" she asked grimly, still pawing. "I just realized. If Mr. Z was trying to hide something, he'd never hide it here. Why should he? He's got to have better places. He's got a house, doesn't he?

He's got a corporation, somewhere-"

"Kaitlyn."

"Well?"

"I think you should look at this." Rob was holding a file from the cabinet. There was a photograph of Kait clipped on the jacket, and in bold letters: kaitlyn

BRADY FAIRCHILD, PROJECT BLACK LIGHTNING.

"What's Project Black Lightning?"

"I don't know. There's a file like that for each of us. Inside there's just a bunch of papers-all kinds of information. Did you know they have your birth certificate?"

"The lawyers told Dad they needed stuff. . .. What's that?"

"A graph about your testing, I think." Rob's tanned finger traced the bottom axis. "Look, this is dated yesterday. It says First Testing with-and then there's a word I can't read."

"First testing with something," Kaitlyn repeated slowly. She touched her forehead. "But what does it mean?"

Rob shook his head. "There's another set of files here, with other names." He held up a file jacket with a photo of a smiling girl with dark brown hair. It was labeled sabrina jessica gallo, black lightning pilot STUDY.

Running diagonally across the label, in thick red ink, the word terminated was scrawled.

Kaitlyn and Rob looked at each other.

"Which was terminated?" Kait breathed. "The study or the girl?"

Silently, with one impulse, they turned back to their search.

"Okay, I've got a letter," Kait said after a moment. "It's from the Honorable Susan Baldwin-a judge. It says, 'Enclosed is a list of potential clients who might be interested in the project.' The project." Kaitlyn's eyes scanned down the list. " 'Max Lawrence-up for sentencing May first. TRI-Tech, Inc.-settlement conference with Clifford Electronics Limited, June twenty-fourth.' It's all like that, names and trial dates and stuff."

"Here's another file," Rob said. "It's hard to figure out, but I think it's an old grant from NASA. Yeah, a grant from NASA for half a million, back in eighty-six. For"-he paused and read carefully- "investigation into the feasibility of the development of psychoactive weaponry."

"What of the what?" Kaitlyn said hopelessly. "Psycho-what?"

Rob's eyes were dark gold and bleak.

"I don't know what it all adds up to. But it's not good. There's a lot Mr. Z didn't tell us."