The Possessed

Chapter 8

 
"Go on," Rob said curtly. "Don't keep us all waiting."
The horn blared again behind them.
Anna rose without any of her usual grace. Her movements were jerky, full of repressed energy. She snatched up her duffel bag and began to fumble with the door handle.
Kait sat stiffly, her shoulders tense, her head high. Her heart was pounding with defensive fury. Let Anna go if she wanted. It just showed she'd never cared for the rest of them in the first place.
Ridiculous.
The thought came out of nowhere, like a tiny glint of light in her mind, there and gone in an instant. It was enough to shock Kaitlyn into some kind of sense.
Ridiculous - of course Anna cared for the rest of them. Anna cared about everything, from the earth itself to the animals she loved to just about any person that crossed her path.
But then why was Kait so angry with her? Kait could feel all the physical symptoms. The pounding heart, the shortness of breath - the flushed face and tight feeling at her temples. More, there was a wild need to move in her muscles, like the desire to hit something.
Physical symptoms. It was another glint, surfacing from Kaitlyn's subconscious. And suddenly she understood.
"Anna, wait. Wait," she said just as Anna wrestled the door open. She tried to make her voice calm, when it kept wanting to come out panicked or seething.
Anna stopped but didn't turn.
"Don't you see - everybody, don't you see?" Kaitlyn looked around at the others. "This isn't real. We're all upset, but we're not really upset at each other. We're just feeling angry, so our minds think there must be a reason to be angry."
"It's just nerves, I suppose," Gabriel sneered. His lip was curled and his gray eyes were savage. "We couldn't possibly really hate each other."
"No! I don't know what it is, but - " Kaitlyn broke off, realizing that in addition to all the other physical symptoms she was shivering. It was cold in the van, colder than could be explained by the open door.
And there was a strange odor in her nostrils, a sewer stench.
"Do you smell that? It's the same thing I smelled yesterday when Lewis did his sleepwalking bit. And it's cold like yesterday, too." Kaitlyn could see confusion mingling with the anger in the faces around her, and she turned to the one person she trusted absolutely.
Rob, she said fervently, please listen. I know it's hard because you feel like you're angry, but just try. Something's going on.
Slowly Rob's face cleared. The smoldering fury went out of his amber-colored eyes, leaving them golden and somewhat bewildered. He blinked and put a hand to his forehead.
"You're right," he said. "It's like that psychology experiment - give someone an injection of adrenaline, and then put them in a room with someone acting angry. The first person gets angry, too, but it's not real anger. It's been induced."
"Someone's doing that to us," Kaitlyn said.
"But how?" Lewis demanded. He sounded scoffing, but not as exasperated as before. "Nobody's given us any injections."
"Long distance," Rob said. "It's a psychic attack."
His voice was flat and positive. His eyes had gone dark gold. Outside, the blaring horn had given way to several horns sounding continuously.
"Shut the door, Anna," Rob said quietly. "I'll find a place to pull over. There's something I ought to have told you before."
Anna slid the door shut. A few minutes later they had pulled over by the roadside and Rob was looking at the rest of them soberly.
"I should have mentioned it this morning," he said. "But I wasn't sure, and I didn't see any point in you all worrying. Those slug tracks... well, back at Durham I heard stories about people waking up to find those around their house. Slime trails or sometimes footprints of people or animals. They almost always went along with nightmares - people having terrible dreams the night before."
Nightmares. Now Kaitlyn remembered. "I had a terrible dream last night," she said. "There were all these people leaning over me. Gray people - they looked like pencil sketches. And it was cold - just the way it was a few minutes ago." She looked at Rob. "But what is it?"
"They said all those things were signs of a psychic attack."
"A psychic attack," Gabriel repeated, but his tone was less sarcastic than it had been.
"The stories were that dark psychics could do things even over long distances. They could visualize you and use PK, telepathy, even astral projection." His troubled eyes turned back to Kait. "Those gray people you saw - I've heard that astral projections are colorless."
"Astral projections as in letting your mind do the walking? Leaving your body behind?" Lewis asked, cocking an eyebrow. The atmosphere had changed; the web was no longer quivering with animosity.
Kait thought that everyone looked like themselves again.
Rob was nodding. "That's it. And I've heard that psychic attacks can make you weak or nervous - even make you think you're going crazy."
"I thought I was going crazy just now," Anna said. Her eyes were large and bright with unshed tears.
"I'm sorry, everybody."
"I'm sorry, too," Kaitlyn said. She and Anna looked at each other a moment and then simultaneously reached forward to hug each other.
"Sure, everybody's sorry," Gabriel said impatiently. "But we've got more important things to think about.
A psychic attack means one thing - we've been found."
"Mr. Zetes," Rob said.
"Who else? But the question is, who's he gotten to do it? What psychics are attacking?"
Kaitlyn tried to visualize the faces in her dream. It was impossible. The features had been too blurred.
"Mr. Z had a lot of contacts," Rob said wearily. "Obviously he's found some new friends."
Anna was shaking her head. "But how can he have found such powerful ones so fast? I mean, we couldn't do what they're doing, and we're supposed to be the best."
"The best of our age group," Rob began, but Kaitlyn said, "The crystal."
Understanding flared immediately in Gabriel's eyes. "That's it. The crystal is amplifying their power."
"But it's dangerous," Kaitlyn started, and then she shut up at an ominous glance from Gabriel.
Intent on his own thoughts, Rob didn't seem to notice. "Obviously, they don't care about the danger, and while they're using the crystal they're much stronger than we are. The point is that we've got to be prepared. They're not finished with us - and the attacks will probably get worse. We've got to be ready for anything."
"Yeah, but ready how?" asked Lewis. "What can you do against that kind of attack?"
Rob shrugged. "At the Durham Center I heard people talk about envisioning light - protective light. The problem is that I never really listened. I don't know how you do it."
Kaitlyn let out her breath and sat back. The others were doing the same, and a sense of apprehension ran through the web. Apprehension - and vulnerability.
There was a long silence.
"Well, I suppose we'd better get back on the road," Kait said finally. "It's no good sitting around and thinking about it."
"Just everybody be on the lookout for anything unusual," Rob said.
But nothing unusual happened on the rest of the drive. Anna took the wheel and they resumed their beach-scanning, agreeing that nothing on the Oregon coast looked like the place in their dreams. The rock was too black - volcanic, apparently - and the water too open.
"And it's still not north enough," Kait said.
They stopped that night at a little town called Cannon Beach, just below the Washington border. It was already dark by the time Anna pulled the van into a quiet street that dead-ended on the beach.
"This may not be legal, but I don't think anybody's going to bother us," she said. "For that matter, I've hardly seen anybody around here."
"It's a resort town," Rob said. "And this is off season."
It certainly seemed like off season to Kaitlyn. The sky was clouding over, and it was cold and windy outside.
"I saw a little store back there on the main street," she said. "We've got to buy something for dinner - we ate the last of the bread and peanut butter for lunch."
"I'll go," Anna said. "I don't mind the cold."
Rob nodded. "I'll go with you."
It was only once they were gone that Kait wished Lewis had gone, too. She was getting worried about Gabriel.
He seemed tense and distant, staring out the window into the dark. In the web Kaitlyn could feel only coldness and a sense of walls - as if he were living in a castle of ice.
He put the highest walls up when he had the most to hide, Kaitlyn knew. Right now she was worried that he was suffering - and that he wouldn't come to her for help.
And she'd noticed something else. He was still sitting in the front passenger seat. The rest of them had changed places every so often, but Gabriel always stuck to the front.
I wonder, Kait thought, if it could have anything to do with the fact that I always stick to the back.
She was getting fairly good at screening her thoughts when she concentrated. Neither Lewis nor Gabriel seemed to have heard that.
Rob and Anna returned windblown and laughing, clutching paper bags to their chests.
"We splurged," Rob said. "Microwave hot dogs - they're still pretty hot - and Nachos and potato chips."
"And Oreos," Anna said, puffing back wisps of black hair that had blown in her face.
Lewis grinned as he unwrapped a hot dog. "Pure junk food. Joyce would die."
Kaitlyn glanced at him, and for a moment everyone stilled. We still can't really believe it, Kait thought.
We all know Joyce betrayed us, but we can't accept it. How could anyone put on an act the way she did?
"She was so -  alive," Anna said. "Effervescent. Energetic. I liked her from the minute I saw her."
"And she used that," Gabriel snarled. "She was recruiting us; making us like her was just a technique."
So tense, Kaitlyn thought. He's incredibly on edge. She watched Gabriel tearing into a hot dog almost savagely, and worry shifted in her stomach.
"Really hits the spot, doesn't it?" she said. Her eyes were on Gabriel, and she tried to keep her presence in the web completely neutral. She added casually, "But maybe it's not enough."
"We got two for everybody and a couple of extras," Anna said, following Kait's gaze to Gabriel. "You can have one of the extras, Gabriel."
He waved her off impatiently. His gray eyes, fixed on Kaitlyn, were full of angry warning.
"Just trying to be helpful," Kaitlyn said. She leaned close to Gabriel to fish a potato chip out of the bag and added in a low voice, "I wish you'd let me."
You can help by leaving me alone.
The thought was swift and brutal - and meant only for her. Kaitlyn could tell that none of the others had heard it. Trust Gabriel to have perfected the art of private communication.
So he wasn't going to come to her. He needed to, she was sure of that now. His face seemed even paler than usual, almost chalky, and there was a repressed violence to his movements. As if he were under some terrible internal pressure, and in danger of flying apart at any minute.
But he was stubborn, and that meant he wouldn't come. Gabriel didn't know how to ask for help, he only knew how to take.
Never mind, Kaitlyn thought, watching him surreptitiously. I'm stubborn, too. And I'm damned if I'm going to let you kill yourself - or anybody else.
Gabriel waited until they were all asleep.
Kaitlyn had been the last to succumb, fighting even the warmth they'd produced by running the van's heaters before they bedded down. He'd felt the red-gold shimmer of her thoughts running on when all the others were still and silent. She was trying to outwait him.
But it didn't work. Gabriel could be patient when he had to be.
When even Kaitlyn's thoughts had faded into a humming blank, Gabriel quietly sat up in the driver's seat and opened the door beside him. He slid out and had the door shut again almost before anyone could stir. Then he waited a moment, his senses focused on the inside of the van.
Still asleep. Good.
The wind out here was bitterly cold. Not the sort of night for any sensible person to be out wandering.
That was a problem, and Gabriel thought about it as he trudged through the dry, loose sand above the high tide line.
Then he looked up. There were cottages and duplexes on the beach, as well as motel units. And some of them must be occupied.
He tried to dredge up a killing smile, but he couldn't quite manage. Breaking and entering was one crime he'd never committed before. Somehow it seemed different from picking a victim at random off the streets.
But the other choice was Kaitlyn.
This time the killing smile came easily. It was a smile for himself, and full of self-mockery. Because Kaitlyn was the obvious choice - the girl was warm and willing and definitely pleasant to link up with.
Her life energy encased her in a scintillating ruby glow; her mind was a place of blue pools and blazing meteors. He'd been tempted all day by the aura that surrounded her like a charged field.
It had been all he could do not to plunge into that halo and drink it in gulps. Find a transfer point and fix on to it like a leech. He'd needed her desperately.
Only a complete fool would have turned down her help when it was freely offered.
Fighting his way through crumbling sand while the wind lashed around him like a lost spirit, Gabriel smiled.
Then he began to trudge toward one of the cottages that had a light in the window.
Kait woke up and cursed herself.
She'd been absolutely determined not to fall asleep. And now Gabriel was gone, of course. She could feel his absence.
How could she have been so stupid?
She'd had practice, now, in disentangling herself from Rob and slipping away soundlessly.
Kait almost yelped as she stepped away from the van and into the wind. She should have brought a jacket - but it was no use thinking about that now. Head bent, arms wrapped around herself, she cast her thoughts wide.
She'd had practice now in searching for Gabriel, too. He was good at concealing himself, but she knew what to look for. In only a moment she had found it - a faraway sense of glittering ice. Like a blue-white spark on the edge of her mind. Kait turned her body toward it and started walking.
It was rough going. The wind blew sheets of sand away from her. When the moon came out, it showed particles whisking through the air like ghosts. It also showed a gigantic rock shaped like a haystack rearing out of the ocean, where no rock had any business being.
A spooky place. Kaitlyn tried not to think about psychic attacks and Mr. Zetes. She was crazy to have come out here alone, of course - but what else could she do?
The wind smelled of saltwater. From her left came the soft-but-loud crashing of waves. Kait swerved to avoid driftwood and then turned sharply, heading for a cluster of cottages. There. Gabriel was very close; she could feel it.
The next moment she saw him; a dark silhouette against a lighted window. Alarm spurted through her.
That window - she knew what he was doing loitering around a cottage. What if he'd already...
Gabriel!
The call was involuntary, wrung out of her by panic. Kaitlyn's heart thumped before she realized that Rob and the others were out of range.
Gabriel wasn't. His head whipped around.
What are you doing here?
What are you doing? she countered. What have you done, Gabriel?
She saw him hesitate, then saw him abandon the cottage window abruptly and come striding toward her.
She walked to meet him, and he pulled her into the shelter of a carport.
"Can't I take a walk without being followed?" he said venomously.
Kaitlyn gave herself a moment before answering. She was trying to smooth her hair, which the wind had turned into a mane of elf-locks and fine tangles. And she needed to catch her breath.
At last she looked at him. A streetlight outside illuminated half his face, leaving the other half in shadow.
Kaitlyn could see enough. His skin looked tight, as if it had been stretched over his bones. There were black circles under his eyes. And there was something about his expression... the way he stared at her, eyes narrowed, lips drawn back a little as he breathed quickly.
Gabriel was on the breaking point. And, no, he hadn't gotten into that cottage yet.
"Is that what you were doing?" she said. "Taking a walk?"
"Yes." His lips drew back a little farther. His eyes had turned defiant - he was going to brazen this out. "I need to get away from the rest of you once in a while. There's only so much of Kessler's mind I can stand."
"So you just wanted some privacy." She took a step toward him. "And you decided now was the time for a little stroll."
With startling suddenness he flashed his most dazzling smile. "Exactly."
Kait took another step. The smile disappeared as suddenly as it had come, leaving his mouth grim. "In the middle of the night. In the freezing cold."
He looked dangerous now. Dark and dangerous as a wolf on the hunt. "That's right, Kait. Now be a good girl and go back to the van."
Kaitlyn moved again, close enough that she could feel his warmth - and he could feel hers. She could feel the instant tension in his body, could see his eyes darken. She could hear his breath become uneven.
"I've never been a good girl. Ask anybody back home - they said I have an attitude problem. So you were just hanging around that cottage by accident."
He took the sudden change in subject without blinking, but when he spoke it was through clenched teeth. "What else would I be doing?"
"I thought" - Kaitlyn tilted her head back to look up at him - "that you might need something."
"I don't need anything from anyone!"
She'd accomplished something astonishing just then - she'd made Gabriel give way before her. He'd retreated, stepping back until the concrete wall behind him stopped him.
Kait didn't give him a chance to regroup. She knew the risk of what she was doing. Gabriel was on the verge of snapping - and he was capable of violence. But she wouldn't let herself think about the danger; she could only think about the shining torment in Gabriel's eyes.
She moved to him again, this time so close that they were touching. Carefully, deliberately, she put her hands on his chest. She could feel the running-stag clamor of his heart.
Then she looked up at him, her face inches from his.
"I think you're lying," she whispered.