[Ganzfield 2] Adversary (25 page)

“Keep Mitzy inside. Is there any security on the perimeter wall?”

“Just a couple of cameras on the gates.”

“Go turn those off as soon as you get inside.” Her bubbly tone was long gone. “Erase the ones that show us or the van.”

“Will do,” said Bob, cheerfully. He was happy we were here, after all.

*   *   *

Sean drove the van across the grass to the property line. I wondered if Bob would be pissed later when he saw the unexplained tire marks in his professionally manicured lawn. We approached the wall as though it was the boundary to a dangerous land. In many ways, it was. The bricks rose about eight feet high and followed the slight slope of the land. A repeating pattern stuck out along the top edge, like scalloped frosting on a bakery cake.

Rachel closed her eyes and located Matilda. The golden thread in her mind led through the wall, across the grounds, and into the building on the far side. It was probably just Isaiah’s guest bungalow, but it was larger than my mom’s house.

Matilda looked exhausted and drawn as she sat on the edge of a bare mattress in a ground floor room. Rope bound her hands together in front of her, as though forcing her to pray. I could make out just a hint of her thoughts at this distance—the guesthouse was at the edge of my mental range.
Despair—
Matilda was filled with grey hopelessness. Without seeing Rachel’s vision, I wouldn’t have recognized her mind.

Morris lay unmoving on a twin bed in a small upstairs room. His legs still looked broken and his skin shone with the sick sweat of fever. Rachel and I watched his chest rise and fall a few times.
At least he’s still alive.
I couldn’t feel anything, not even pain, coming from him. He must be unconscious.

Where was Isaiah? Would he sense me this close, even while I was shielding? No way to tell. I walked forward until I touched the wall, and then focused on finding the other minds in the guesthouse. My palms left damp marks on the bricks as I simultaneously strained to listen while keeping my shield in place, both reaching out and holding back. The effort made my eyes hurt.

Wasn’t it strange that mental shielding only kept other telepaths from reading me? Why didn’t it interfere with my ability to read others? I’d been thinking of my shield as a wall, but that wasn’t right. Walls stopped things in both directions. Blocking like this didn’t stop the thoughts of others, but it prevented mental attack.

Didn’t it?

Oh, crap.
I went cold. Would my mental shield give me any protection from Isaiah at all, or would a burst of killing energy from his mind pass into mine as easily as a thought? Was it only camouflage, helping me avoiding detection? Or would it prevent Isaiah from focusing properly, like jamming his radar, keeping him from being able to send a blast to the right place?
Ah, hell.
I really should’ve thought of this stuff earlier. Now was definitely not the time.

I closed my eyes to concentrate, to focus on the rescue of the healers. Matilda and Morris needed us. “Four guards,” I said, finally. “Two are outside. I think there’s one in front of each of their doors. Matilda’s downstairs in a big bedroom. She’s conscious. Her hands are tied. Morris is unconscious in a room upstairs. He’s still injured.”

“Let’s do this.” Drew kept his voice low.

I squeezed Trevor’s hand as he joined me at the wall. Anxiety clumped in my gut. “Stay safe,” I whispered to him.

He trailed a finger lightly across my cheek. “You, too.” Trevor felt oddly cut off—having me this close but unable to hear my thoughts. I guess that meant I was shielding well.

I made one last mental pass over the surrounding area, and then I gave them a nod. “All clear.” My voice sounded raspy in my ears.

With an invisible boost from Trevor, Drew rose into the air, crouched over top of the wall, and then lowered on the far side. I felt him locate the security camera that covered this portion of the wall and melt its innards.

I held my breath. If someone had seen him fly over the wall, we’d know pretty quickly. I tensed, listening to the thoughts of the guards in the house. No reaction. Maybe the security people hadn’t noticed the camera go out. If we had any luck at all, the guards would be too busy monitoring the Sons of Adam gathering to worry about what might—as far as they knew—just be a loose wire.

I gave Trevor another quick, jerky nod, and he lifted Hannah and Cecelia the same way he’d lifted Drew. He met my eyes for a breathless second then vaulted himself over.

Precognition isn’t a G-positive ability. That’s a surprising lack, actually. All of the “psychic” talents were usually clumped together in popular fiction, the way vampires and werewolves seemed to populate the same stories. What if we’d known then, when the team was going over that wall, that we wouldn’t all be coming back alive from this expedition to Isaiah’s?

We definitely would’ve done a few things differently.

I pressed my forehead against the brick, listening with my mind and my heart to Trevor’s progress across the grounds. The ornamental plantings didn’t provide much cover—our people would be seen if someone looked this way. I listened for the thoughts of alarm that I expected to feel if the guards spotted them. My pulse pounded in my ears and sweat dampened my clenched fists. Being left behind felt more stressful than taking part in a mission. I hated being separated from Trevor, especially when he was doing something dangerous. I couldn’t help him from here. I couldn’t do anything but watch.

My connection to Trevor kept his thoughts bright in my mind, even as the others faded into the edges of my ability. They paused at the side of the building as Drew fried the security camera covering the front door then focused on suppressing the guns while Trevor grabbed the two guards outside the front door. His invisible hands clamped their mouths shut and held them immobile as Hannah laid hands on their foreheads, knocking them deeply unconscious.

“They’ve taken out the first two guards.” I whispered, for Sean’s benefit. Rachel followed along with her visions.

Cecilia, meanwhile, opened the front door, calling out, “Don’t move! We’re supposed to be here!”

The guard downstairs smiled at her. After all, she was supposed to be there.

I felt Matilda’s despair flicker and fall away, replaced with hope.
“I’m in here!”
Her voice sounded thin and fragile through Trevor’s thoughts. He reached within the mechanism and released the lock.

Matilda’s anguish came through more strongly to me once Trevor was in the same room with her.
“He’s a charm!”
Her words rushed out of her.
“Isaiah can charm now! And he’s an RV. He can find G-positives, like Charlie Fontaine could. He has people coming here—you have to stop him! He’s going to tell them where to find G-positives and send them out as killing squads.”

Her words dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. Everything clicked into place. The research looking into the brains of G-positives—G-positives like Charlie Fontaine, Rachel’s uncle—hadn’t been just to discover how to kill us better. Had Isaiah forced Matilda to use her healing ability to alter his brain structure, adding more G-positive abilities? I hadn’t known that was even possible.

Oh, my God.
If he could locate G-positives, we’d be the first people he’d find. Hell, we were almost in his telepathic range already. Did he already know we were here?
Crap, crap, crap!
I started shaking. This was so much worse than we’d thought. And he now had a house full of people who’d be more than willing to kill us, even if he didn’t have the added power of being able to charm them into it. The charm component just made the killers more lethal. They’d become like suicide bombers, content to die so long as their targets died, too.

We were in terrible danger.

The survivors of Ganzfield were in terrible danger.

Even my mom was in terrible danger.

We needed to do something—
right now
! And I could only think of one thing. I was shielding. I could get in there and I could blast Isaiah’s mind.

I promised Trevor I’d avoid “extra danger.”

I knew what he’d want me to do and I knew what I had to do, and they were two very different things. I was in trouble either way. At least, if I went in, I’d give the others a chance to get away and I might have a chance of stopping Isaiah forever. Isaiah would hear anyone else coming—no one else on the team could shield. No one else could come.

I had to go. Right now. Alone.

“Rachel,” I dug into my purse for my cell phone. I tossed it to her with trembling fingers. After a second, I tossed my purse to her, too. “Call Nick Coleman. Tell him Isaiah’s not just a telepath anymore. He’s a charm and an RV and right now he’s preparing death squads to send after every G-positive he can find.” She froze, wide-eyed, for a moment, and then recovered with a quick nod and started flipping through my contact list for Coleman’s number.

“Sean, I need a boost over this wall.” I stepped into the basket he made with his hands, threw my free leg over the wall, and then leaned down to him. “Tell Trevor this isn’t ‘extra danger.’ We’re all dead if I can’t stop him. Tell him I love him. Get everyone out of here and keep driving until it’s safe.” Sean nodded, committing each item to memory. “Don’t wait for me. Go as soon as they get back.”

Both Sean and Rachel had a bad mental startle at that, but I didn’t know if I could survive this and I needed to know they were safely away before Isaiah could send people after them. “Don’t stop anywhere. I’ll call my cell once I’m out—let you know where to come get me,” I added, glancing at the phone in Rachel’s hand. I didn’t know where I’d get a second phone. Hell—I didn’t even know if I could remember my own phone number right now. I just had to make sure that Trevor and the others were on the move, rather than just sitting here as easy targets.

Rachel dialed Coleman; the phone rang in her ear as I slid over the wall. Rough bricks scraped my palms as I dangled, and then dropped to the ground. I could see the main house in the distance; it could fully be called a mansion. Modern design—a lot of glass. I took off running toward it.

I felt Trevor untie Matilda’s hands and Cecilia release her from the “Don’t move” charm command she’d uttered when going in. I passed out of range as they headed upstairs to find Morris. And then I was alone—in enemy territory.

I worked on keeping my shield up as I approached Isaiah’s glass mansion
. He who lives in glass houses… No. Focus! Keep the shield up!
I slowed to a walk as I reached the line of parked cars, forcing my breathing rate down and my face to assume a mask of normalcy.

What were the names of the two Sons of Adam members Coleman had told me? If anyone asked, I could say I was here with one of them. One was Something Miller. Could I pick up enough information from the minds of strangers to fake an acquaintance? Possibly. The mental babble grew as I drew closer to the crowd. I closed my eyes, concentrated once more on the silver spiderweb shield in my mind, and took a deep breath. Then I pushed open the wide front door.

Large windows brightened the mansion’s foyer. Several of the people gathered inside still wore sunglasses against it. I glanced around. Strange: their thoughts seemed so…
normal
. Most were pleasantly social as they talked in small groups, holding drinks and eating finger food off of awkwardly balanced little plates. Work, family, friends—these people weren’t rabid hatemongers at the moment. I’d only encountered Sons of Adam members when they were actively hunting us. I hadn’t considered they might not feel intense fear and hate all the time.

A strong mental presence broadcast from deeper within the house. I continued forward under a gracefully arching double staircase. Glass-paneled doors, now thrown wide, opened into a great room that stretched the width of the house. Windows ran floor to ceiling along the far wall. The lake caught the sunlight behind them, reflecting painful little jewels of sunlight from the water’s rippling surface.

More people milled in this room, more than seventy or eighty here in all. The majority were male, and most seemed to be in their twenties or thirties. I felt mental pricks as several of the men noticed me. I still hadn’t gotten used to hearing the idle erotic fantasies of men who didn’t suspect their thoughts would be heard, and they set my teeth on edge.
No. Don’t think about that now. Keep the shield in place.

A few people thought I looked familiar; they were trying to place me.
Crap.
I felt myself break out in a cold sweat. My picture had been circulated as a target. No one had made that connection yet, but it could happen at any moment.

I moved with slow deliberation toward Isaiah.
So loud!
I could feel his thoughts too clearly, rehearsing the next thing he planned to say in conversation. His words bullhorned into my head and I still wasn’t in range. His mind was so strong—too strong. I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. I skirted a food-laden table covered in white linen.

A uniformed caterer bumped me, muttering an insincere apology. I gasped at the touch and my wire-taut emotions spiked before I recognized that it wasn’t an attack.