Twisted Miracles (25 page)

“
I
wasn’t pulling from a human
,
then.
And I didn’t know you were there.
Back up.
”

He stepped back, but I could still feel my power angling for him, attaching to Geary and then wavering back toward Shane like a broken spiderweb.

“
Farther.
”

“
I’m not—
”

He was cut off by a loud blaring sound. For a couple of confused seconds I thought it was Geary’s alarm clock. Then I realized it was a siren. Geary’s security system, which we’d both neglected to notice right by the front door, was blinking red.

“Fuck!” Shane said.

“
Should we leave?
” I had to make even my mindspeech loud over the sound of the alarm.

“
What about Geary?
”

“
We’ll come back for him!
”

We raced back down the stairs, but we were too late. I saw flashing blue-and-red lights through the glass of the front door. God, only in the Garden District would cops respond so quickly. “
Back door!
”

We headed for the living room. Unfortunately, Geary chose that moment to wake up and stagger down the stairs. He was wearing a burgundy silk robe and his hair was sticking up.

He was clearly still woozy from the pull, but when he saw us, his eyes flew wide open. “What the—?”

I telekinetically snapped his jaw shut. He tried to turn toward the door, but I was holding him motionless. I must have drained more of his powers than I’d thought, because he wasn’t even trying to fight me off.

“
What the fuck do we do?
” I sent to Shane.

The police came up and rang the doorbell. It was barely audible over the sound of the alarm. Two officers shifted on their feet and peered through the glass.

All three of us were frozen. The cops rang the doorbell again.

“
Possess him!
” I said.

“
What?
No way!
”

“
You have a better idea?
”

Shane looked horrified. “
I’m not even sure if I can get in that deep.
”

“
It’s the only way.
We’re out of time.
”

Shane looked at the front door and then at Geary, who was making strangled attempts to yell through his closed mouth. “
Oh
,
hell
,” Shane said, and his lip curled back as he invaded Geary’s head.

It took him a moment, and I knew he must have been fighting Geary’s natural resistance. The cops rang the doorbell again, and this time, Geary walked stiffly over and opened the door.

“Dominic Geary?” the cop said. He had to shout over the sound of the alarm. I held my breath.

Shane made Geary nod.

“Is everything all right, sir? We got a call from your alarm company.”

Shane made Geary nod again. His hand rose stiffly and punched six numbers into the keypad by the door. The alarm stopped sounding, and my shoulders relaxed in relief. The noise had been panic-inducing.

“Out of town guests,” I said helpfully. “Didn’t know the code.” Shane made Geary shrug.

“Of course. I understand.” The cop turned back to Geary. “If you could just give us the safety code, then?” I dipped into the cop’s head. Apparently he was waiting for an “under duress” signal. His hand hovered over his gun.

“
Shane...
”

He ignored me. His pupils were more dilated than I’d ever seen them.

“The code, sir?” the cop said. His partner hiked up his belt and settled a hand next to his radio. I forced myself to keep smiling, but my teeth were clenched and I wasn’t breathing. I must have looked manic.

Veins popped out in Geary’s neck. I could hear the cops mentally preparing to call for backup, draw their weapons. I was debating the moral acceptability of knocking everyone out and making a run for it when Geary spoke.

“Nine-seven-seven-eight-four!” He practically yelled it, then snapped his jaw closed again. The cop nodded. I breathed again.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir. Have a good night.” He and his partner left, and I sat down on the couch and put my head in my hands. Shane released Geary, then fell forward next to me, sweat stains spreading under his arms.

“
You okay?
”

He nodded.

I turned to Geary, who was still staring at us in shock, backing slowly for the front door. “Uh-uh,” I said, restraining him again. “We’ve got some questions for you.”

* * *

Geary wanted us to believe he didn’t own duct tape.

When I went right to the bin above his washing machine and pulled it out, he blanched.

“Who are you people?” he said.

“Quiet.” I duct-taped him to one of his dining room chairs. I could have kept restraining him telekinetically, but I was getting tired, and I didn’t want to risk him getting away. Up close, I was surprised by how big he was. He clearly spent his share of time at the gym, and I wouldn’t have wanted to fight him the old-fashioned way. I wasn’t sure I wanted to fight him at all, but it was too late to worry if I’d be able to overpower him.

“Who the fuck are you?” Geary asked again. His voice was getting shrill. “What do you want?” He jerked his arms against the duct tape and looked around wildly. I thought of the woman we’d rescued and felt no pity for him whatsoever.

“Oh, we’re just some new parishioners of yours,” I said, and watched him turn even whiter.

He gave up on getting free and switched to wheedling. “Look, you want money? You got it. No problem. Just give me a couple days to get the cash together and you got it.” In his head, he was thinking about how to skip town.

I laughed. “You think we want
money?
With everything you’ve done, that’s the first thing you think of?” I looked at Shane. “He’s even more of a piece of shit than we thought.”

“Keep your money.” Shane sat down in front of Geary. “You won’t get to enjoy it in prison anyway.”

I had to wonder why he hadn’t recuperated enough to fight back. My pull must have been much more powerful than I’d realized. That, or he was more of a coward than I’d thought. Either way, it wasn’t going to last long, and I couldn’t give him a chance to take us out. I started pulling again, very carefully. As much as I despised the man, I didn’t want to kill him, and I knew I was going to have to take my time. Tiny jolts of power zipped into me, and Geary winced.

“Who’s the girl?” Shane stood, put a hand on either side of Geary and leaned in close. “Where did you kidnap her from?”

Geary tried to lean back, but he didn’t get far. “What girl? What are you talking about?”

I pulled a little more, testing myself. Geary twitched and looked around as if he was trying to figure out where the pinpricks were coming from.

“The girl you had tied up in your utility closet, you sick son of a bitch.” Shane was close to losing his temper. The image of the woman’s raw ankles was vivid in his head. We hadn’t found any ID on her, and we needed to figure out who her family was before I put her attacker in a temporary coma.

Geary looked bewildered. I dipped into his thoughts and found panic.
What the hell is going on who are these people what are they talking about oh God ohGodohGodohGod...
Out loud, he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Oh, Jesus Christ, please don’t hurt me, I swear I don’t know about any girl. I
swear!
Oh, God!”

“Shane,” I said. He was still staring at Geary as if it was taking everything he had not to snap his neck. “Shane, I don’t think he’s a converter.” I released the pull, and Geary slumped sideways, panting.

Shane straightened, staring at Geary with his head cocked. “How is that possible?”

“What the fuck did you just do to me?” Geary asked. We both ignored him.

“Could he not know what he is?” I moved to stand next to Shane.

“Not a chance. He knows he’s a fake. Right?” He bared his teeth at Geary

“Oh, Jesus...” Geary was starting to panic again, wondering if we were insane.

“If he were a converter, he’d’ve read our minds by now. It’s got to be someone else.” The insanity idea took on more weight in Geary’s head.

“But
who?
” Shane said.

“I don’t know.”

Geary was starting to gibber. “Oh God oh God, who are you people oh God—”

“Please shut up.” Shane snapped Geary’s jaw closed with his mind. Geary’s eyes flared, and he tried to scream, but nothing came out. We both dipped into his head at the same time and heard him wondering what the fuck a converter was and why he felt as if he’d just run a marathon and whether or not we were going to kill him.

“
Maybe he has an accomplice
,” I said.

“
But then he’d know what we are.
”

“
Not necessarily.
” I turned and folded my arms. “Dominic, you’re going to tell us exactly how you’re working those sleazy fake miracles at that church.” I leaned down and tapped his head with my index finger. “And if you try to lie, we’ll know.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“We’re right back where we started,” I said as Shane pulled in the driveway at the B&B and opened the garage. The sun was rising, and the sky to the east was pink with deep blue clouds. “Further back, actually. He could be anyone.”

“At least Geary won’t be giving any more sermons.”

We’d gotten Geary’s story through a combination of threats and mind-reading, and I was convinced he really hadn’t known about the girl in the closet. From the sound of things, until five years ago, he’d been working low-rent magic tricks in a one-room church in Briny Point—bending spoons, “reading” people’s minds. The huge building we’d seen was a recent expansion, made possible by his vastly improved “miracles.” As we’d suspected, they hadn’t started until he’d taken on a partner.

“This guy calls me up, says he knows I’m a fake,” Geary told us. “I get that kind of thing all the time, so I just told him I would pray that the Lord would open his eyes, and to please come by and let me show him the power of God. You know, stuff like that.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding as if he wasn’t insane. “Of course.”

If Geary caught my sarcasm, he didn’t let on. “So the guy tells me, ‘Cut the bullshit. I want to make a deal.’”

“Blackmail?” I asked.

“That’s what I thought at first, too, but that wasn’t what he was after. He wanted something more long-term. He tells me he can make my miracles more, you know—impressive. I told him I wasn’t in control of them, they were the Lord’s work, and he laughed at me and said, ‘I thought we were past all that.’ He said he’d show me, and I said okay.” He shrugged. “I guess I was intrigued.”

“This didn’t, you know,
worry
you?” I wasn’t sure the devil made deals, but if he did, Geary would have been at the top of his sucker list.

Geary described his first encounter with his new partner. Whoever it was had done a telekinetic demonstration in the church parking lot, lifting up a few handfuls of shells and making the trees blow around. Geary hadn’t been impressed until the converter started messing around in the church, unlocking doors and turning the lights on and off. Lifting up candles and lighting them. They’d worked out an arrangement, and I had to give the converter points for being clever. He’d never been more than a voice on the phone. He’d just asked for a set of keys and part of the take, picking up his share every Friday from a brass mailbox nailed to the side of the church.

“We’re just going to have to wait.” Shane shut the car door with his hip. His hands were full of rope and duct tape. I hit the button to lower the garage door.

“Yeah, and hope he doesn’t kill anyone in the meantime? Including you?”

“Lucky we’ve got you to guard us.”

We walked around to the back of the car, and I took the ropes from him. Shane opened the trunk and lifted Geary out, setting him on his feet. I’d debated knocking him out, but I wasn’t totally confident I wouldn’t do him serious harm. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t a murderer. We’d used an old T-shirt as a gag. Shane untied it and Geary took a deep breath to scream. I snapped his mouth shut.

“We can’t keep him tied up in a guest room forever,” I said.

“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears,” Shane said.

Geary mumbled something incoherent through his closed jaw. I slammed the trunk shut just as Bruce came through the mudroom door. His gaze took in me and Shane and the tied-up Geary. He opened his mouth and closed it again.

“The Blue Room’s empty, right?” Shane asked.

Bruce shut his eyes and blew out a deep breath. “Sweet Baby Jesus. I suppose it is.” He turned around and walked right back out, muttering under his breath.

We got Geary secured in a room on the second floor. It was set apart from the rest of the guest rooms by a large utility closet and the stairwell, so hopefully, no one would notice us hanging around in the hall. We’d figure out what to do with him as soon as we tracked down the converter who was helping him.

“We’re going to have to find a way to feed him,” I said to Shane. “If we leave him untied, he’s going to try and get away.”

“We’ll have to watch him in shifts.”

I sighed. This was getting more complicated by the hour. Maybe we really did need a prison like the San Francisco shadowminds. I locked the door and sat down in the hall outside the room.

“Are we gonna have to sleep out here?’ I asked, but before Shane could answer, Bruce came running up, panting. Shane and I both scrambled to our feet.

“The girl’s awake,” he said, “and Lionel could sure use some help.”

“Go!” Shane said. “I’ll watch Geary.”

I ran up the stairs two at a time. Lionel was in the doorway of the Robicheau Room, his hands raised, palms out, projecting calm. The girl was cowering in the far corner. She’d taken one of the cut-glass candlesticks from the mantle, and it was raised over her head like a weapon.

“We won’t hurt you,” Lionel was saying.

“Fuck you! Let me go!”

“I wish we could. It’s not safe.”

The girl’s eyes flicked to me as I came in. “Who’s she?” Fear was coming off of her like heat from a bonfire.