The others were staring at Kait—but it was a good staring, full of dawning wonder.
"You know, they might, at that," Rob said.
"Marisol may even have told them something about it—maybe not in detail, but she might have given hints. She liked to give hints," Kait said, remembering. "And they've got to be upset over what happened. Their daughter's fine, a little moody but perfectly healthy—and then one day she falls down in a coma. Don't you think they'd have their suspicions?"
"It depends," Gabriel said. He looked dark and cold—cheated of his confrontation. "If she was taking drugs—"
"Joyce said she was taking drugs. And personally, I'm not inclined to trust anything Joyce said—are you?" Kaitlyn tilted her chin at him and to her surprise got a flash of amusement from the gray, chill eyes.
"Anyway, it's the best chance we've got," Lewis said. Always quick to see the bright side of things, he was smiling now, his dark eyes sparkling. "It's someplace to go—and maybe they'll feed us."
Anna twisted her hair into a long tail and stood gracefully, and Kaitlyn realized it was settled. Two minutes later they were walking down the sidewalk, looking for a phone book. Kaitlyn felt unkempt and empty—she hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday—but surprisingly fit.
The street was deserted, now, and although the fenced-in buildings were just as decrepit, the whole place looked a little safer. Lewis was cheerful enough to pull out his camera and take a picture.
"For posterity," he said.
"Maybe it's better not to look like a tourist," Anna suggested in her gentle voice.
"If anybody comes near us I'll take care of them," said Gabriel. His thoughts were still black with jagged red streaks—leftover from his fight with Rob.
Kait looked at him. "You know, I was meaning to ask you. Mr. Z said you couldn't link with another mind once you were in a stable link with us—but you linked with that policeman, and with Mr. Z and Joyce earlier."
Gabriel shrugged. "The old man was wrong," he said briefly.
Again, Kaitlyn felt a whisper of anxiety in her blood. Gabriel was hiding something from all of them. Only Gabriel, she thought, could manage that so easily in the web.
And despite his barriers, she could sense something—strange—in him. Something that had changed in the last night.
The crystal, she thought. Mr. Zetes had forced Gabriel into contact with a giant crystal, a monstrosity of jagged edges that housed unthinkable psychic power.
What if it had done something to Gabriel? Something… permanent?
"Gabriel," she said abruptly, "how's your forehead?"
He put his fingers to it quickly, then, deliberately, dropped his hand to his side. "Fine," he said. "Why?"
"I just wanted to look at it." Before he could stop her, she reached up herself, brushing his dark hair aside. And there on his forehead she could see it, shadowy on the pale skin. Not the kind of scab she would have expected from the cut the crystal had given him. It looked more like a scar or a birthmark—a crescent-shaped dimness.
"Right over your third eye," Kaitlyn said involuntarily, just as Gabriel grabbed her wrist in a bruising grip. She and he had both stopped dead. He stared at her, and there was something frightening in his gray gaze. Something menacing and alien that she'd never seen before.
The third eye—the seat of psychic power. And Gabriel's powers had been greater ever since his contact with the crystal…
He'd always been the strongest of all of them, psychically. It scared Kait to think what he might become if he got any stronger.
"What's wrong with you guys?" Lewis was demanding. The others were far ahead. Rob was walking back toward them, his brows drawn together.
Then Anna, who was farthest down the street, called, "I see a phone!"
Gabriel released Kait's wrist, almost throwing it, and started toward Anna briskly.
Leave it alone, Kaitlyn told herself. For now. For now, concentrate on surviving.
They found Marisol's name among a flood of Diazes in the phone book. Lewis wasn't familiar with Ironwood Boulevard, the street where she lived, but they studied a map at a gas station.
It was almost nine-thirty before they arrived, and Kaitlyn was hot, dusty, and starving. It was what Lewis called a pueblo house, a fake adobe house covered with pinky-brown stucco. No one answered the doorbell.
"They're not home," Kaitlyn said in despair. "I was stupid. They're at the hospital with Marisol; Joyce said they went every day."
"We'll wait. Or come back," Rob said firmly, his resolution and his temper undisturbed. They were heading toward the shade of the garage when a boy, a little older than they were, came around from the back of the house.
He had no shirt and his thin, sinewy body looked tough. Kait would never have dared approach him on the street. But he also had curly hair that shone in the morning light like mahogany, and a full, rather sullen mouth.
In other words, thought Kaitlyn, he looks like Marisol.
For several heartbeats they all just stared at each other, the boy obviously resenting these intruders on his property, ready to fight them off. Rob and Gabriel were reacting by bristling. Then Kaitlyn stepped forward impulsively.
"Don't think we're crazy," she said. "But we're friends of Marisol's and we've run away from Mr. Zetes and we don't know where else to go. We've been on the road since last night and it took us hours to walk here. And—well, we thought you might help us."
The boy stared harder, through narrowed eyes that had long, dark lashes. Finally he said slowly, "Friends of Marisol's?"
"Yes," Kaitlyn said firmly, tucking away in her mind all the memories of how Marisol had snubbed her and terrorized her. That didn't matter now.
The boy looked each of them over, his expression sour. Just when Kaitlyn was convinced he was going to tell them to go away, he jerked his chin toward the house.
"Come on in. I'm Tony. Marisol's brother."
At the door he asked casually, "You a bruja? A witch?" He was looking at her eyes.
"No. I can do—things. I draw pictures and eventually they come true."
He nodded, still casual. Kaitlyn was vastly grateful that he seemed to believe her. He accepted the idea of psychic powers without surprise.