He moved closer to her, his gray eyes filling her field of vision, filling the world. Don't make me do it, Kaitlyn. I'm not your friend anymore. I'm your hunter. Go home and stay away from Mr. Z and you won't get hurt.
Kaitlyn looked into his handsome pale face. If you want the shard, you'll have to take it by force.
"Whatever you say," Gabriel murmured. His eyes were the color of a spiderweb. Kaitlyn felt the touch of his mind like a searing caress and then the world exploded in pain.
Kaitlyn!"
Dimly Kait heard Rob's shout, felt him struggling to get to his feet. Then, when he couldn't, beginning to crawl. She could barely sense him for the overwhelming pain in her head.
Anna and Lewis were closer and she could hear them shouting, too.
"Let go of her!"
"What are you doing to her?"
Gabriel brushed them away and kept on doing it. The pain increased-like fire. Kaitlyn had only one memory that would compare to it: being connected to the crystal. The big crystal, the impure one, the one Mr. Zetes used for enhancing psychic powers-and for torture.
Waves of red-streaked agony that peaked very quickly and died away just as another wave was coming. Kaitlyn's own muscle tension held her rigid, standing motionless under it. Kept her from getting away, kept her from screaming. It wasn't heroism. She didn't have the air.
Stop it, damn you! Stop it!
Rob had gotten to her, somehow. His hands were on her, and golden healing energy flooded up to combat the red-streaked anguish. His powers were protecting her.
"Leave her alone," Rob said hoarsely, and pulled Kaitlyn away from Gabriel, toward the bed.
Gabriel regarded the cleared path in front of him thoughtfully. "That was all I wanted," he murmured.
He opened the middle drawer of the mahogany desk and took out the crystal shard.
Kaitlyn was gasping for breath. Rob put her down on the bed, one arm still around her protectively. Kait could sense his trembling anger, and the shocked fury of Lewis and Anna-and she was surprised to find that she herself felt very little resentment toward Gabriel. There had been a look in his eyes just before he blasted her-as if he'd had to turn himself off to do it. To squelch his own emotions.
Now he turned to face them, and the shard flashed in the bright light of Marisol's halogen lamp. It was the size and shape of a small unicorn's horn, a foot long, multifaceted. It glittered not like crystal, but like diamond.
"It's not yours," Anna said in a low voice. She and Lewis had flanked Rob and Kaitlyn, the four of them presenting a united front to Gabriel. "The Fellowship gave it to Kait."
"The Fellowship," Gabriel sneered. "Those gutless do-gooders. If I'd lived in the old days, I'd have joined a Dark Lodge and hunted them out of existence." Not gutless, Kaitlyn thought. Gabriel's words brought the faces of the Fellowship to her mind: Timon, frail but wise; Mereniang, cool and discerning; LeShan, lynx-eyed and impatient. They were the last survivors of an ancient race, the race that had used the crystals. They didn't interfere with the affairs of humanity-but they'd made an exception for Kaitlyn's group. They'd given up their own power to give Kaitlyn a weapon against Mr. Zetes.
"And now Mr. Z is forming a Dark Lodge of his own," she said, looking at Gabriel steadily.
"You could call it that. A psychic strike team. And I'm going to lead it," Gabriel said negligently, stroking the crystal. That was dangerous, as Kait could have told him. One of the facets cut his finger and he frowned at the drop of blood absently. He seemed to feel no danger from the others; he didn't even bother to look at them.
"This would have been useless to you anyway," he said. "You were planning to take it to the crystal, right? Put them together and set up a resonance that would shatter both."
Kaitlyn didn't know what the scientific theory was. LeShan had told them that this shard would destroy Mr. Z's crystal, that was all. She watched a drop of Gabriel's blood fall onto the hardwood floor.
"But to do that, you'd have to get to the crystal," Gabriel continued. "And you can't. The old man has it under a combination lock-and PK won't help with that, will it, Lewis? Eight random numbers to guess?"
He sounded almost jolly-and he was right, Kaitlyn knew. Lewis could move objects with his mind using psychokinesis, but that wouldn't help him figure out a combination.
Lewis had flushed slightly, but he didn't answer
Gabriel's question. Instead he said, "Is Lydia still in this with you?"
"Your little sweetheart?" Gabriel grinned nastily. "Better give up on her, too. She's back under her father's thumb. She never liked you, anyway."
Pity, Kaitlyn thought. Lydia Zetes was a spy and a traitor, sent by her father to snoop on them as they traveled to Canada to find the Fellowship-but Kaitlyn felt vaguely sorry for her. Being under Mr. Z's thumb was a fate she wouldn't wish on anybody.
"It's like I told Kaitlyn," Gabriel said calmly. "You might as well all go home. You can't get at the crystal. The police wouldn't believe you-the old man has them taken care of. He's taking care of the ones Anna's parents contacted, too, by the way. And the Fellowship can't even help themselves. So there's really no point in you staying. Why don't you go home before I have to hurt you again?"
Rob had been silent so far-too angry with Gabriel to find words. Now he found them, standing up to face Gabriel directly once again. Kaitlyn didn't need the web to sense his rage-it was written in every line of his body, in the burning of his golden eyes.
"You're a traitor," he told Gabriel simply. "And if you won't join us, we'll fight you. With everything we've got."
His voice was quiet, but it shook. Not just rage, Kaitlyn thought suddenly. Rob was hurt-he felt personally betrayed. He hadn't believed Gabriel would hurt Kait-and Gabriel had proved him wrong. It had become a battle between them, Rob and Gabriel, the two in the group who had always fought most fiercely together, felt the most antagonism for each other, taken the positions farthest apart.
And who knew how to push each other's buttons. Rob was going on, his voice not quiet now but rushed and reckless.
"You know what I think? I think Kait was wrong- it's not the web you can't stand. It's not the intimacy. It's the freedom. Having to make your own choices, be responsible for yourself. That's what you can't take. You'd rather be a slave to the crystal than deal with freedom."