Rob immediately gave up the argument, mentally turning his back on Gabriel. We'll find a way to break it—another way, he promised Kaitlyn. The people in the white house will help us. And if they don't, I'll find a way.
"Yes," Kaitlyn murmured, her eyes shutting. Rob was holding her close, and she believed him, as she'd believed in him from the beginning. She couldn't help it; Rob made you believe.
"Go to sleep, Kait," he whispered, and Kaitlyn sank into the darkness fearlessly.
As long as you're with me I'm not afraid, she thought.
The last thing she heard before sleep was a distant whisper from Anna. "I wonder if we'll dream again?"
Gabriel twisted inside the sleeping bag. There was nothing but grass underneath him, but he felt as if he were lying on roots—or bones.
Ghoulish thought. The bones of the dead beneath him. Maybe the bones of his personal dead, the ones he'd dispatched himself. That would be poetic justice, at least.
Though he wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, Gabriel believed in justice.
Not that he regretted having killed the guy in Stockton. The one who'd been ready to shoot him over the five crumpled dollar bills in his jeans pocket. He was quite happy to have sent that particular home boy to hell.
But that had been his second murder. The first had been unintentional—the product of what happened when a strong mind came in contact with a weaker one. He'd been strong, and Iris—sweet Iris—had been weak. Fragile as a little white mouse, delicate as a flower. Her life energy had poured into him as if one of her arteries had been cut. And he—
—hadn't been able to stop it.
Not until it was over and she was lying limp and motionless in his arms. Her face blue-white. Her lips parted.
Gabriel found that he was lying rigid, staring straight up into the endless darkness of the night sky. His hands were clenched into fists and he was sweating.
I'd die if it would bring her back, he thought with sudden clarity. I'd change places with her. I belong in hell with home boy, but Iris belongs here.
It was strange, but he couldn't really remember her face anymore. He could remember loving her, but not what she'd looked like alive, except that her gaze had been wide-open and defenseless, like a deer's.
And he couldn't take her place. Things weren't that simple in the universe; he wasn't going to get off that easy. No, his part was to lie here on grass that felt like bones and think about the new murders, the ones that he was going to commit, inevitably, in the future.
There wasn't any other way for him.
The girl in Oakland—that scrawny ratbag with the tattoo—he hadn't killed her, quite. He'd left her in an alley with her life force almost drained, but still flowing. She'd live.
But tonight… the need was stronger. Gabriel hadn't expected that. He'd been feeling it for hours, the parched, cracked-earth sensation, and by now it was almost unbearable. It was all he could do not to rip into Kessler, who was a constant beacon of energy, radiating it like a lighthouse or one of those stars that flared regularly. The temptation was almost unendurable, especially when Kessler was being annoying, which was almost always.
No. He couldn't touch any of his own group. Aside from the fact that it would blow his secret, it was—impolite. Impolitic. Uncivil.
And wrong, the distant part of his mind whispered.
Shut up, Gabriel told it.
He was out of his sleeping bag in one lithe twist.
Since Rob the Wonder Boy was off limits, he would have to go hunting elsewhere. Through the web, Gabriel could feel the deep sleep of his mind-mates; through the windows of the van he saw nothing. Nobody was going to miss him.
He looked around under the stars for someone to quench his thirst.
Chapter 6
The people were leaning over her. The first thing Kait noticed was that they looked like pencil drawings—monochrome, all the color sucked out. The second thing was that they were evil.
She didn't know how she knew that, but it was clear. Clearer than the faces of the people. It wasn't that they didn't have features, but the features seemed blurred, as if they were moving back and forth thousands of times a second, or as if something about them had affected Kait's sight.
Aliens, she thought wildly. Little gray people from flying saucers. And then: Lewis's white shape.
Kaitlyn's heart began pounding with deep sick thuds that seemed to choke off her breath.
She wanted to scream, but that was impossible. She didn't even know if she were awake or asleep, but she was paralyzed.
If I could move—if I could just move I could tell. I could make them go away…
What she wanted to do was to kick upward with her legs and lash out with her arms to see if the visions were solid. But she couldn't even lift her knee. The things were leaning over her from all sides. There was a strange property about them—when Kaitlyn looked at any one of them, it seemed to be rushing toward her, but the group stayed in the same place. They were looking at her. Staring with a fixed blank gaze that was worse than any malevolence. And they seemed to be bending farther down, coming closer…
With a violent jerk Kaitlyn managed to lift her arm. At least, it felt like a violent jerk to her, but what she saw was her arm rising feebly and almost dreamily toward the figures. It brushed through one monochrome leaning face, and she felt a shock of coldness on the skin.
Refrigerated air…
The figures were gone.
Kait lay on her back, blinking. Her eyes were open now, and she thought they'd been open the whole while—but how could she tell? She was staring into darkness as black as the blackness behind closed lids. The only thing she could see was the faint shape of her arm waving in the cold air.
Cold—the air was definitely cold. And there had been a sudden drop in temperature just before Lewis saw his vision.
I don't believe it was a dream, Kaitlyn thought. Or not an ordinary dream.
But then, what? A premonition? She didn't have premonitions that way, and Lewis didn't have them at all. Lewis had psychokinesis, PK, the power to move objects with his mind.
Whatever it had been, it had left her with a terrible sick feeling. There was a—a running in her middle, a hot restless feeling that made it agony to lie still. She felt cramped and her eyes ached and her whole body was vibrating with adrenaline.
Rob was lying peacefully beside her, his breathing even. Deeply asleep. Kaitlyn hated to wake him; he needed the rest. Lewis and Anna were sleeping soundly, too—she could feel that through the web.