Inhuman (5 page)

Chapter 8

THE rally was being held downtown in Centennial Plaza. It was a pretty spot for much of the year, with a fountain perched in tiered stone basins and several oaks slowly growing their way toward stature. In the warmer seasons the trees stood ready to flutter their leaves and freckle the ground with shade.

Not today, though. Today the trees were bare, the fountain dry. But everything else was full.

"There's a lot more here than I'd expected." Ginger sounded torn between anxiety and delight. "I expected to see mostly students. And the coven—several of them promised to come. But this…"

"You did a good job of getting the word out. There must be a couple hundred people here. Maybe more." All of them talking at the same time, all of them revved—uneasy, angry, excited. To Kai, the air was a colorful din. "The TV people showed up, too."

"Are you doing okay?"

"I'm fine." Aside from the guilt. Had Kai been a true empath, such a large crowd would have been uncomfortable at best. Kai hated the deceit, hated worrying Ginger for no reason. But not enough to tell her the truth. Ginger would feel sorry for her.

Kai could handle the sting of rejection—and had, plenty of times. She understood why people feared the loss of privacy. But pity labeled her pathetic, and she couldn't tolerate that.

In the eleven years since the accident, Kai had moved seven times. In each new place she'd hoped to find friends. And she had, until she tried trusting them with the truth about herself. Whenever she told someone she saw thoughts, they changed. Most withdrew, fearing judgment or invasion. Those who didn't withdraw physically did so in other ways, watching for signs of insanity… because everyone knew telepaths went crazy sooner or later.

Everyone but Nathan. She didn't know how she'd found the courage to tell him, but she knew why. He didn't lie to her, not even a rosy little social lie. How could she keep lying to him? So six months ago she'd told him. He'd nodded, asked a few questions, and said he'd never heard of a telepathic Gift like hers, but it sounded easier to live with than the usual sort. And that was it.

"You sure you're okay?" Ginger put a hand on Kai's shoulder. "I need to make my way to the front. I'm supposed to speak after Charley."

"You didn't tell me you were one of the speakers!" Kai patted her hand. "Go on. I'm going to hang here at the back." She might not have the problems a real empath would, but the excited crowd made her nervous. "You might see if you can calm folks down a bit. They're wired."

Ginger grinned. "Charley will help with that. He can put a class to sleep in under ten minutes."

"Hey, I'll bet his students stay awake. They'd want to see if he does." Charley, like Ginger, taught at the local community college. He was actually a wonderful speaker, but so laid-back he looked like he might doze off mid-word.

Ginger started threading herself through knots of people. The moment she left, Kai dug her nails into her palms.

She might not feel the emotions swirling around her, but if she weren't careful they'd still suck her in. Kai called it fuguing, the way she could slip away, entranced by the colors and shapes of the minds around her. As a baby she'd apparently been lost in fugue so often that she'd been diagnosed as autistic.

Grandfather had known better. When she was three he'd taken her to another shaman, and together they'd performed a rare ritual that suppressed Kai's Gift. For eleven years she'd been normal—until the day she woke, weeping, from a week-long coma. She'd had no memory of the accident, but from the instant she awoke she'd known her parents were dead.

Therapy had saved her in more ways than one. Therapy and Grandfather. She'd needed the intense physical focus to learn how to mute the Gift that had woken, full-force, while she was in a coma. She'd needed Grandfather to teach her how to go on.

Fugue had never captured her completely, the way she was told it had when she was a baby, but it brought other dangers. When in fugue, she could play with the patterns, change them, intrude her patterns into others. When in fugue, she
wanted
to. She'd see something in the patterns that needed fixing, and—

"Kai. Kai!"

Startled, Kai swung around to see Jackie a few feet away, trouble writ as large on her face as it was in her colors. "What is it?"

"Damned ghosts." She scowled. "I'm supposed to get you out of here. Or Ginger. Or both."

"AFTERNOON, Doug. This is Sergeant Hunter," Sheriff Browning said. "He has some information you need to listen to."

Midland's chief of police made Nathan think of a whip—quick, taut, and snappish. He even looked the part, being over six feet and under one-sixty. His hair and eyes were dark, his forehead high and getting higher. His mustache might have been laid out with a ruler.

"Randy." Chief Roberts nodded at the sheriff. He had a nod for Nathan, too, but no word of greeting. Nor did he offer either of them a handshake, remaining behind his wide desk, its shine interrupted by very few objects—reading glasses, a file folder, a pen, a phone, a wire basket holding papers. "I imagine you're here to complain that I'm intruding into your territory. I'm behind, so I hope you can make this quick."

"Quick enough." Browning took the seat he hadn't been offered, so Nathan sat, too. "Knox hauled off a possible witness to my case. You want to explain that?"

"If you're talking about the Shaw murder—"

"You know I am."

"There's no evidence he was killed outside city limits, and every reason to think his death is connected to the two Knox is already handling. He found a witness. He brought the man in to make a statement. That's his job. However"—he spared Browning a thin smile—"I'm not trying to keep evidence from you. Here's a copy of that statement." He handed Browning the file folder.

The sheriff took the folder but didn't open it. "Doug, in your rush to make this your collar instead of mine, you've screwed up. I know the gist of mis. Knox found a witness who identified the woman Shaw left The Bar with last night."

Though the smile remained thin, the dark eyes were smug. "That's right."

"Kai Michalski."

Nathan's heartbeat didn't speed up this time. He knew Knox had Kai in his sights and assumed the chief was backing him, so he had his body under rigid control. But deep inside, in a part of him that had never been and would never be human, he was howling.

Beings in thirteen realms would have known that howl, in their blood and bones if not their conscious minds. And feared.

"That's right," Roberts said again. "I assume someone in the judge's office tipped you. I wonder who that was?"

Browning continued as if the other man hadn't spoken. "You persuaded Judge Walker to issue a warrant for her arrest based on that witness's testimony. But you screwed up. Aside from the sheer lack of evidence—"

"I've got plenty to link her." Roberts leaned forward now, his eyes glowing with suppressed excitement. "Delia Rodriguez—the first victim—lived just two doors down from one of Michalski's patients. The second victim used to date another of her patients."

"Good God, Doug, this is Midland. Half the people here have some second- or third-hand connection to one or more of the victims."

"But half the people here aren't witches. She is."

"No," Nathan said, his voice steady. "She isn't. Not that it would be an indictment if she was, but you've got your facts wrong."

Roberts's gaze flickered to Nathan—then darted away. Probably hadn't liked what he saw in Nathan's eyes. "She sure as hell is. Michalski is friends with that witch out at the college. And don't tell me Ginger Hemmings isn't a witch. She's open enough about her perversions."

Nathan kept his voice from descending to a growl. "Wicca is a recognized religion. Ginger is Wiccan. Kai isn't."

Roberts had decided to pretend Nathan didn't exist. He laced his fingers together on top of his desk and spoke to Browning. "We've learned that they had one of their coven meetings last night. Held it at Michalski's apartment just a few hours before she picked Shaw up at the Bar. That's when they prepared for their black rites, when they drained Shaw of blood."

Browning shook his head. "That's all assumptions based on prejudice."

"Don't you accuse me of prejudice. No one has a better record of hiring and promoting—"

"Prejudice against the magical part of the population! Dammit, Doug, you and I have had our differences, but you've always been a good cop. You're so far off base this time you can't even see the base!"

"It isn't prejudice when it's based on facts. I know they met at Michalski's place last night. I know Shaw was later drained of blood. I know Michalski left The Bar with Shaw shortly before he died."

"No," Nathan said. "You don't."

Roberts still wouldn't look at him. "I've got a witness who ID'ed her and three more who gave a good description."

"Mistaken identity."

"What the hell is your man talking about?" Roberts demanded of Browning.

Nathan had had enough. He didn't change position or offer threat openly—but he used a voice the other man would not be able to ignore. "Kai Tallman Michalski was with me at the time your witness claims to have seen her at The Bar."

Roberts jerked. He narrowed his eyes and for the first time looked directly at Nathan. "You're lying."

He was, actually, but the chief had no way of knowing that. "She was with me the rest of the night, too. You think you can get a conviction with an officer of the law swearing he was with her all night?"

The man's lip lifted in a sneer, but underneath it Nathan saw the fear. Smelled it. "You think a jury's going to care what you say? I don't know what you are, but you aren't human." Relief shaded his voice when he turned back to Browning. "That's going to cost you in the next election, Randy. Keeping this—this man, for want of a better word—on as a sergeant even though you have to know that…"

Nathan didn't hear the rest. He was already out the door and closing it softly behind him.

He stopped at the desk where Roberts's secretary sat and forced ease on his voice and body. He gave himself a moment to appreciate the soft floral scent of her perfume so he'd have a reason to smile at her. Humans smiled when they didn't feel it, but, that trick was beyond him. "While my boss dukes it out with yours, I thought I'd see if I could catch up with Knox. Maybe if I'm in on the arrest, the sheriff won't take it so hard. Do you know if Knox has served his warrant yet?"

She tapped her pen against the desk, then said, "Guess it won't hurt to tell you. I haven't heard from him, so he probably hasn't."

He thanked her and left, taking the stairs, urgency riding him and instinct guiding him. Thoughts floated on that sea of need and knowing, crisp and useful.

Knox didn't know where Kai was. Chances were he'd go to the clinic, then to her apartment—and she wasn't either place. Nathan scented her as much closer. Downtown. He could get to her first.

He didn't ask himself what he would do when he found her. He had no plan, felt no need for one. He knew enough: Knox and Roberts intended to arrest her, to lock her away. It didn't matter at this moment if conviction was likely. The arrest itself would damage her. Jail would damage her. A trial would damage her.

So he would prevent the arrest. She was his. His. No one was allowed to harm her.

Chapter 9

"KEEP talking," Kai said. "This haunt has been trying to get my attention since last night." Jackie grimaced. "I should have listened, I guess. When I gave up and let him in, he didn't have much to say. Not even his name, which is weird. They're usually eager to give me their names, their stories. He did give me a picture—this place, filled with people like it is now. So here I am."

"He?" Maybe the message was from her father. A twist of longing tugged at her, because she wanted that to be true.

"Definitely he, though that's about all I know about him. 'Get her out of there,' he said."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Dammit, you'd think… but it's got to be either you or Ginger. I don't know anyone else here well."

"If something bad is going to happen—"

"See, that's just the thing. People think those on the other side have all this insight into events here, when half the time they don't have a clue. But… well, if a message is really specific, there's usually something to it."

Charley stepped up to the mike. His soothing voice drifted out over the crowd as he welcomed them, and the colorful soup began to settle.

"I take it this one's specific?"

"As such things go, yeah." Jackie chewed on her lip. "I'd better tell Ginger, too. Do you know where she is?"

"Up at the front. She's supposed to speak."

"Shit. She won't want to leave."

"I'll go with you."

"No, you won't. You'll leave, then I'll have one less to worry about. Go on." Jackie gave her a little push. "Go."

But once she was turned around, Kai saw what Jackie had come to warn about. Though the colors around the crowd had canned, a small group of men—maybe twenty—kept to themselves off to one side. Kai didn't like the look of their thoughts or the murky swirl they swam in.

"Jackie," she started, turning around—but her friend was gone, swallowed up in people.

It was Kai's turn for some lip chewing. Earlier she'd seen a couple of police officers over by the Midland Center, the brick building whose wall made one boundary for the plaza. Maybe she should find them, see if she could persuade them there was trouble brewing. Or maybe…
no,, dammit. Don't even think about it
.

Telling herself not to think about something was hopeless, of course.
Don't think about an elephant
inevitably conjures the image of an elephant. Once it occurred to Kai that she might be able to stop the ugliness before it erupted by calming those thoughts, she couldn't banish the idea by telling herself to drop it.

Okay, then. Consider it logically, pros and cons, she told herself as she began weaving through the packed bodies, heading for the Midland Center.

The pro was that she might be able to prevent violence. The con was—well, there were several. First, ugly thoughts didn't necessarily lead to violence. Second, she had no idea what she might do to any minds she tampered with. That was a good reason, an excellent reason, not to interfere. Third, she didn't even know if she could do it.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!" someone yelled from the back of the crowd.

Kai turned—and those thoughts were roiling now, seething with colors that made her think of storms and blood. There were more shouts, the volume and venom in them mounting every second.

Someone cried out in startlement or fear, someone else in anger. Kai couldn't see what was happening, but the people near her started moving—most trying to get away from the commotion at the rear, some shoving their way toward the trouble. She heard Charley's amplified voice telling everyone to stay calm, stay calm, but no one was listening.

She heard screams.

And the patterns—! The air was thick with the bleached yellow of fear, rippling with electric green and swirls of dark ocher, darker gray, mud brown. The wrongness of the patterns sucked at her. Kai breathed in raggedly—and let herself go, falling into fugue. She had to try—

Someone bumped her, hard. She fell against another someone, which kept her from hitting the ground, and found herself engulfed in a moving knot of people. An elbow jabbed her ribs. She heard screams, cries, yelling., Panic sent her heartbeat rocketing. She fought to keep her feet.

Suddenly she found herself in a pocket of space left inexplicably open in the shoving crowd. She started to reach again for fugue—then saw the body lying on the ground.

It was Jackie.

Kai threw herself to her knees beside her friend. Terror keened her senses, drowning the immaterial in a flood of physical. She shivered as she reached for the pulse point on Jackie's throat… strong. Jackie's heart beat strongly.

Kai shuddered in relief. She ran her hands over Jackie's head, looking ..: there, yes, there. On her temple, a knot. The skin wasn't broken, but something had hit her, knocked her out.

Another shiver hit. The air was freezing all of a sudden. Jackie had on a warm jacket, but was it enough? Maybe—

A woman built like a small rhino lumbered into the open space around Jackie. Kai pushed to her feet, thrusting out a hand and calling out for her to stop. Her voice was lost in the din.

The woman's face crumpled in fear. She pushed right back into the crowd.

Kai blinked. She'd never scared anyone off by waving at her before. What in the…oh. The cold. The cleared space. Even nulls sensed ghosts sometimes. Kai imagined spirits ringing her and Jackie, pushing back at everyone. She'd have to tell Jackie her ghostly friends weren't useless after all. Once Jackie was… oh, God. She had to be all right. She had to.

A sudden surge of people broke past the ghosts' ability to frighten—a mob with neither intention nor control over where it went, pressed willy-nilly by others behind them. The blood drained from Kai's face. She shoved a man aside. Another, a woman, was pushed almost on top of them, but saw Jackie at the last second and managed to stagger over her body without stepping on her.

Too many. There were too many, pressed by too many others. She couldn't—

Then a man in a khaki uniform slipped through the rush of people streaming the other way. Nathan. He bent and scooped Jackie up in his arms. "Get behind me!" he shouted. "Hold my belt."

Kai all but plastered herself against him. She gripped his belt as if her life depended on it, and rode in his wake as he cut sideways through the mob.

They broke out of the crowd near the fountain. Nathan didn't stop, but stepped up into the first stone tier, drained and dry now for winter. Carefully he laid Jackie down, running his hands over her much as Kai had done, then lifting each eyelid. "Concussed," he said, voice raised enough that she could hear. "What happened?"

"I don't know! It happened so fast—these people, the ones with ugly colors, they started yelling at us. At the Gifted, I mean, but I couldn't see what they did. Something that scared people, because all of a sudden everyone was—it was—" Kai found herself horribly close to tears. "I couldn't stop it. I couldn't."

He gave her a look, then rose and wrapped his arms around her. She started shaking.

He lowered his head so he could speak softly, close to her ear. "Adrenaline. You'll be okay in a minute."

"Jackie—"

"Can't do anything for her here. She needs the hospital. It's emptying out now," he added. "We need to go."

"Go?" She lifted her head to stare at him.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't prevent it. I…" He sighed. "A judge has issued a warrant for your arrest."

NATHAN got Kai moving while she was still too stunned and shocked to protest. First he had to make sure her friend received care, though, so he carried the woman to the makeshift stage that had served as a podium. The speakers had made it to safety inside the Midland Center, but the television people remained, avidly filming. The local news anchor hurled questions at him, but she was easy enough to ignore.

Uniformed officers were clearing out the last of the crowd as he and Kai left, some tending the fallen. Sirens sounded. They reached Nathan's official car on Illinois Street just as a car he recognized pulled up halfway down the block. "That's Knox," he said as he shut his door. Kai was already in the car, but he suspected Knox had seen her. "He's got the warrant."

"He's got it? You mean… you mean you aren't arresting me?"

Stunned, Nathan forgot to turn on the ignition. How could she think that? "No. Good God, no." He pulled himself together and started the car. "I came to make sure you weren't arrested. The riot delayed me. Good thing it was a small one."

She made a choked sound. After a moment, he realized it was a laugh. He glanced at her, unsure whether this was a time when their humor diverged or if she was hysterical.

She seemed all right, though pale. "The riot delayed you. God. All right. If you aren't arresting me, what are you doing?"

"Keeping Knox from arresting you."

"But… Nathan, if they've got a warrant, I can't just hide. I don't want to be arrested, but it's a mistake. It's not like they have any real evidence against me. They can't, so they'll have to let me go. But if I evade arrest I look guilty, which will make it harder to persuade them…" Her voice wobbled. "How could they think it was me? This doesn't make sense. Are you sure there isn't a mistake?"

"I'm sure. The sheriff and I discussed the case with Chief Roberts. Roberts is deeply prejudiced against the Gifted. He knows about the meeting you had at your apartment last night, though he's mistaken about its nature—thinks it was a coven meeting. He has a witness who saw you leave The Bar with Jimmie Shaw last night just after midnight."

"The Bar?" She was bewildered. "But I don't go there. I've never been there."

"I told them I was with you at that time. The sheriff believed me. Roberts didn't. He said a jury wouldn't accept my testimony since I'm not human."

"You told them… but I was home at midnight, asleep. Asleep alone. You didn't get there until two o'clock."

"Yes," he said, patient. "But they can't know what time I arrived. Do you mind if they believe we're lovers?"

She waved that away. "That's not the problem. You tried to give me an alibi, and you meant well, but that witness—she couldn't have seen me. It's someone else, someone who looks like me."

Someone who looked like her, yes. Or something. "He. The witness is Ed Bates. He was your patient, I understand."

"Soft tissue trauma to the neck and shoulders. We had several sessions… but Ed knows me. He must know that wasn't… was he drunk? That's it," she said, sounding pleased that something at last made sense. "He must have been drunk."

"Three other witnesses gave descriptions of the woman who left with Shaw. I spoke with one of them. She has a poor memory for names, but a good one for faces. She described you perfectly."

Kai didn't say anything for several moments. He wanted to take her hand, to reassure her with the alchemy of touch. That was what he would have needed at such a time, but he didn't understand human rules for touching, which changed from one culture to the next, from one decade to the next. He wasn't sure when touch was welcome between friends in this era.

If they were lovers…

She spoke before he could make up his mind, looking down at the hands she'd pleated together in her lap. "Do you think I did it, then?"

"No." He was glad to be able to reassure her of that much. "You've never killed."

"Hey. The telepath's sitting over here, not behind the steering wheel. You can't know that."

But he could. He did. Nathan struggled to find words for this knowing, but it was woven of so many threads… Some killers possessed a psychic scent, but not all. Not even most. And some humans who had never Sailed smelled like killers because the potential ran high in them. Those were the ones who wanted to kill, wanted the biood and power and destruction of it. Many killed without having that need—in war or to protect another, because of hunger or fear or a fleeting rage.

And some killed as Nathan did, as part of a hunt, though they hunted nonsentients—deer, rabbits, birds. A very few hunted and killed their fellows, but not as Nathan did. For them, he felt pity. They seemed to have some of the same instincts he possessed, yet they lacked others, those that should have connected them to their fellows, leaving them twisted and terrible. They killed because it was the only connection they understood.

A hellhound did not kill for that reason, but he understood the need for connection, the depth of that need. He'd hunted serial killers because they couldn't be stopped otherwise, but he'd killed them cleanly.

How would Kai feel when she understood that Nathan, too, was a killer? It was a question he didn't want to find in his head, and he tried to shove it out. But it clung like a bramble to the furry underside of his mind. Humans had so many moralities, some of them contradictory.

She would be distressed, he thought. He hated to distress her.

"I know you," he told her at last. "If you had killed for any reason, you would be a… a different version of Kai. You would still be my friend, but different than you are now." He slowed the car as thoughts and questions pinged and bounced around inside, making his head noisy.

"Nathan," she said in a surprisingly steady voice, "why are we stopping at a car lot?"

"I'll get a license plate here. The car… no, I haven't explained, have I?" His eyebrows twitched into a frown. "I'm making decisions for you. That's wrong. I'm sorry." He unbuckled his seat belt and turned to her. This time he went with his impulse and took her hands in his. "I want to hide you so you aren't arrested while I hunt the real killer, but I need another vehicle. Knox saw me with you. So did the television reporter. Once Knox realizes I didn't bring you in, they'll look for this car."

"But this is crazy! You can't throw away your career, and I don't want to be hidden away!"

He wasn't explaining well. "I don't have a career. I hunt. Working as an officer of the law suits me, but I can do that elsewhere, under another name, if I'm allowed to stay here. Here in this realm, I mean. If you don't want to hide…" This was difficult. He swallowed. "I respect your. right to make your own choices, but you need to know you aren't safe. The chameleon wore your face, your form when it lured Jimmie Shaw out of the city and killed him. You may be able to help me catch it."