The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (87 page)

The human male had a distinctive face. Sharp cheekbones, skin that spoke of a complex genetic heritage, and eyes that hinted of a parent from central Asia. But it wasn’t Detective Max Shannon’s appearance that interested Nikita.

No, she was interested in something far more important—his mind.

Sophia hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours when she walked into the ironically named Liberty Penitentiary the next morning, but no one could’ve guessed that from the crisp clarity of her tone, the smartness of her dress. She was taken directly to an interview room upon arrival. The assistant district attorney in charge of the case arrived a minute later.

Five minutes after that, she began the memory retrieval. Unlike Bonner’s, this inmate’s mind was full of nothing but forty years of living and violence. Some young Js got lost in the mess, but Sophia had learned to filter very well. She went directly to the memories of the day in question and took no more than the relevant minutes.

Humans tended to be suspicious of telepaths, and Js in particular, afraid the Psy would steal their secrets. The truth was, Sophia already had too many pieces of other people’s lives in her head. She didn’t want any more—especially the kinds of memories she was invariably asked to retrieve. In all her years of service, she’d found only four innocents. “I have it,” she said to the A.D.A.

Asking the prisoner and his attorney to wait, he walked her to the waiting area outside the warden’s office. “Could you project the memories to me?”

Nodding, she did as asked. This little telepathic quirk was what turned a Tp into a J. Most telepaths could transmit words and/or isolated visuals, but Js could not only retract, but transmit the entire memory in a continuous stream. This A.D.A. was human, his shields no barrier. That could have been a handicap in other circumstances—however, given that this case had no associated cost or benefit to the Council, he was safe from Psy coercion.

“Thank you,” he said after she completed the projection. “That does put a different spin on things, doesn’t it?”

She didn’t answer, aware he wasn’t talking to her. And even if he had been, she would’ve made no response. She tried not to “see” the memories anymore. It was a futile effort, but sometimes, she could distance herself a fraction.

The A.D.A. released a breath. “I’d like to go back and chat with the witness and his attorney. The jet-chopper will be arriving to take you back to the mainland soon.”

“Please go ahead.” She saw him looking around for the warden. “This location is tightly guarded. I’ll be safe on my own.”

“You sure?” A concerned look.

“I spend a lot of time in prisons.”

“I guess you must at that. Alright, you’ve got my secretary’s number. Give her a buzz if the chopper doesn’t arrive in the next ten minutes.”

“I will.” Nodding good-bye as he left, she took a seat, outwardly calm. But the truth was, she should’ve never, ever been left alone. As she’d told the A.D.A., it wasn’t because her physical position put her at risk. There were at least four double-keyed electronic security doors, full of bars and steel, between her and the first inmate.

It wasn’t even because she might get scared sitting alone in such a cold, gray place.

She had witnessed thousands of moments of the most depraved violence and pain, but she herself didn’t feel fear. She didn’t feel anything. The Silence Protocol, the conditioning that chilled Psy madnesses as it chilled their emotions, ensured that. However, in Sophia’s case, Silence didn’t work as well as it should. And everybody knew it. Most Psy would have been summarily rehabilitated, but Sophia was a Justice Psy. And Js were rare enough and necessary enough that they were allowed their little . . . peculiarities.

Of course, Js were also never to be left alone in “suggestive” locations.

The reminder of Max Shannon’s grim words stayed her hand for a second. Would he consider this evil? Perhaps. But as her path was unlikely to ever again cross with that of a man who’d made her, for a fleeting instant, wish to be something better, she couldn’t let him guide her actions. Because though what she was about to do wasn’t in any official manual, like all Js, she considered it part of her job description.

The first scream came four minutes later. In spite of its shrill, piercing nature, no one heard it. Because the man who was screaming was doing so soundlessly, his mind locked in a telepathic prison far more invidious than the plascrete and mortar one that surrounded him on every side.

Even as he screamed, he was moving, unzipping his pants, pushing them down to his ankles, shuffling over to pick up a tool he’d hidden in the hollow leg of the desk his attorney had won for him. The inmate was a learned man, his attorney had argued; it constituted cruel and unusual punishment to put him in a place where he couldn’t write, couldn’t keep his research notes. The attorney had never mentioned the tiny, helpless victim his learned client had put in a dog cage devoid of the most basic of human necessities.

However, the amenities he had taken such glee in winning were the furthest things from the inmate’s mind at that moment. His hand clenched on the tool as he blubbered without voice, his will shredded like so much paper. Then the tool touched the flaccid white of his belly and he realized what he was about to do.

Blood dripped onto the floor almost a minute after that—it took time to achieve that kind of damage with nothing but a shiv, a weapon made out of a toothbrush ground against contraband rocks until its edges were as sharp as . . . well, almost a knife.

The act of amputation was excruciatingly painful.

And it was long over by the time a short, compact man with black hair faintly touched with silver walked into the waiting room. “I’m sorry for the delay, Ms. Russo. Your jet-chopper arrived five minutes ago, but I wasn’t immediately able to spare an escort—several prisoners decided to get into a ruckus in the yard.”

Sophia stood, briefcase held loosely in her left hand. “That’s quite alright, Warden.” The otherness in her settled back, its task complete. “I’m still on schedule.”

Warden Odess escorted her through the first set of security doors. “This is what, your third visit here this month?”

“Yes.”

“Things going well on this new case?”

“Yes.” She paused as he cleared them through the second to last checkpoint. “The prosecution team feels certain of success.”

“I guess they’ve got an ace in the hole with you. Pretty hard to argue innocence when you guys can pick the memories out of the accused’s mind.”

“Yes,” Sophia agreed. “However, insanity or diminished responsibility pleas are quite popular in such cases.”

“Yeah, I guess so. You can’t see into their heads, right? I mean—know what they were thinking at the time?”

“Only by reference to their actions or words,” Sophia said. “If those actions or words contain any hint of ambiguity, the field is thrown wide open.”

“And, of course, the defense always argues that things weren’t as they appear.” Snorting, the warden stepped out into the crisp light of the late winter’s day. Sophia blinked as she, too, exited. The light seemed too bright today, too intense, cutting across her retinas like broken glass.

Odess watched as she blinked. “Guess it’s time for you to go in.”

Most people didn’t know that Js only worked one-month rotations before returning to the nearest branch of the Center to have their Silence checked. But Odess had been part of the prison system for over a decade. “How do you always know?” she asked, having worked with him sporadically over those ten years.

“That question is your answer.”

She tipped her head a little to the side.

“You begin to act more human,” he told her, his dark eyes holding a concern she’d never understood. “At the start, when you’ve just returned from wherever it is you go, your responses are short, distant. Now . . . we actually had a conversation.”

“An astute observation,” she said, realizing the tilt of her head for what it was—a sign of disintegration. “Perhaps we can have another conversation in a month’s time.” That was how long it would take for the conditioning to begin to fragment again.

“I’ll see you then.”

Sophia walked to the waiting jet-chopper with an easy, unhurried stride. She was in Manhattan proper by the time they discovered the prisoner bleeding in his cell.

 

Max had spent the night going over the Bonner case files, on the slim chance that the bastard would actually give up a body at some stage. In truth, every single detail of the Butcher’s crimes was already engraved on his memory banks, never to be erased, but he’d wanted to be absolutely certain of his recall. All that death, the pain, coupled with the smug arrogance of the man who’d ended so many lives—it hadn’t exactly left him in the best frame of mind for what had to be some kind of a Psy joke.

“Commander,” he said, staring into the aristocratic face of the Psy who ran New York Enforcement, “if I can speak bluntly—”

“You rarely do otherwise, Detective Shannon.”

In most humans and changelings, Max would’ve heard in that statement a wry humor. But Commander Brecht was Psy. He’d look at a rape victim with the same dispassionate gaze as he would a drive-by-shooter.

“So,” Max said, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose, “you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I ask you why the hell you’d put me on this. The Psy hate me.”

“Hate is an emotion,” Commander Brecht said from his standing position by an old-fashioned filing cabinet that had somehow survived all attempts at modernization. “You are more of an inconvenience.”

Max felt his lips curve up in a humorless smile. At least you could never accuse Brecht of not cutting to the heart of the matter. “Exactly.” He folded his arms over the crisp white shirt he’d put on in preparation for a court appearance. “Why would you want an inconvenience running an investigation into a Psy situation?” Psy were insular to the nth degree. They kept their secrets even as they stole those of others without pause or conscience. It pissed Max off, but all he could do was keep on doing his job. Sometimes, he won in spite of their interference—and that made it all worth it.

“You have a natural mental shield.” Commander Brecht’s tone was straightforward. “The fact that you’re immune to Psy mental interference may have been a stumbling block when it comes to your career—”

Max snorted. Fact was, with his solve rate and aptitude tests, he should’ve made lieutenant by now. But he knew he never would—Psy controlled Enforcement, and his ability to withstand their attempts at coercion, to run his cases as he saw fit, made him an unacceptable risk in any position of power.

“As I was saying,” the commander continued, his hair solid gilt under the streak of light coming in through the tiny window to his left. “While it may have been an obstacle in your path to a higher position within Enforcement, it is also an advantage.”

“I’m not going to argue with that.” Unlike so many humans, Max had never had to worry about whether he’d closed a case or looked the other way as a result of subtle mental pressure—many a good cop had broken because of that simmering kernel of doubt, that niggling concern that he’d been led to a particular conclusion. He said as much to Brecht. “I would’ve gone into private investigation if I didn’t have the shield—staying here to get mind-fucked wouldn’t have been at the top of my list.”

The commander walked over to his desk. “It’s beneficial for New York Enforcement that you decided to stay—you have the best solve-rate in the city. And you’re also, as the humans would say, mule stubborn.”

Max had been called a rottweiler once in a while. He took it as a compliment. “Still doesn’t answer the question of why you’d want me on a Psy case.” Command always assigned those to Psy detectives.

Max didn’t have a problem with that—so long as it was only Psy who were involved. But it angered the hell out of him when humans and changelings got shortchanged because a member of the cold psychic race was part of the equation. “The Bonner situation—”

“Is currently at an impasse according to the report you turned in last night. You’re going to wait him out, correct?”

Unfolding his arms, Max shoved a hand through his hair. “I still need to be able to respond quickly if he does decide to talk—I know this case like no one else.” And though he’d run the Butcher to ground, his task wasn’t yet over—wouldn’t be over until he’d brought each and every girl home, giving their grieving families the peace of being able to bury their babies in proper graves.

To this day, he could feel the slight weight of Carissa White’s mother as she collapsed into his arms—it had been a snowy winter’s night when he’d gone to their pristine little villa, a villa Carissa had decorated with twinkling Christmas lights two weeks earlier. Mrs. White had opened the door with a laugh. Later, she’d gripped his jacket and begged him to tell her that it wasn’t true, that Carissa was still alive.

And then she’d made him promise.
Find him. Find the monster who did this.

He’d fulfilled that promise. But he’d made other promises to other parents.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Brecht’s words crashed through the echo of another Psy voice—through the memory of a haunting statement so at odds with her glacial presence that Max hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her.

“The case I want you to work is high priority, but with room for flexibility should you need to fly back to consult on the Bonner case.” Brecht slid into the chair behind his desk. “If you’d take a seat, Detective.” A pause when Max didn’t immediately obey. “Your obsession with Bonner ended with the capture of a sociopath who would undoubtedly have continued to take lives if you hadn’t stopped his killing spree. However, if you let that obsession control you now, you’ll wind up dead of stress while he grows fat behind bars.”