Chapter Twenty-Eight
Owen emerged from the shower, grabbed a towel, and paused for a critical examination of his reflection in the mirror. Okay, he did not look like a new man, but he sure as green hell felt like one.
“The course of your life has been dramatically altered,” he announced to the man in the mirror. “From now on there will only be Before Alice Time and Alice Time. Got that?”
He refused to think about an After Alice Time.
Until recently his future had been locked in fog.
The view had begun to clear two weeks earlier when he had started the search for Alice.
Now, because of her, the last of the murky vapor was evaporating.
He could see the road ahead, and it held the promise of meaning and purpose and something he was pretty sure was joy.
Well, damn. So this was what love felt like.
Try not to faint, March. Not a good look for a consultant. You need to get dressed and go to work.
He had a case to close so that he could move forward in Alice Time.
Alice had showered first and was now dressed in black trousers and a black pullover. Her hair was caught up in a sleek twist. Her tuned amber gleamed in the pendant around her neck and the small earrings. She was sitting at the table, drinking tea that she had made with the in-room machine.
“I’ve ordered breakfast from room service,” she said.
“Good. I’m starving.”
For a couple of beats he just stood there, savoring the sight of her in the morning light.
She gave him a searching look and a tentative smile.
The questions in her eyes reminded him that he had not yet told her the details of his recovered memories.
After what she referred to as a minor tune-up of some dreamlight currents, he had fallen asleep.
He had not realized how sleep deprived he had been until now, when he was finally feeling reasonably normal.
“No need to worry,” he said, heading for the coffee machine. “I’m happy to report that I’m not a crazed monster talent who kills people with psychic powers and then conveniently forgets about it.”
The stark silence behind him might as well have been a shrieking fire alarm.
“Shit.” He turned, horrified by his own thoughtless words. “I’m sorry. I never meant to make a joke out of it. I wasn’t thinking. It’s just that I’ve been living with that blank spot in my memory for six very long months.”
He stopped on the theory that the best thing a man who found himself in a very deep hole could do was stop digging.
“I understand,” Alice said. Wry amusement sparkled briefly in her eyes. “Probably better than anyone else.”
“I know. That’s why I—” Stop. Not another word, you idiot.
“Relax. I owed you. If it hadn’t been for you, Sebastian wouldn’t have found that video and I would be back in that cell at Serenity Gardens.
And now you’re trying to protect me from Kelbrook and his fixer.
I’m glad I was able to return the favor by unlocking a few currents in your dreamlight. It was the least I could do.”
Anger heated his blood. “You make it sound like we’re doing business together. Keeping the scales balanced. That’s not the way it is. We’re partners in this mess.”
“Right. Partners.” She gave him a smile that was as sharp as polished crystal. “Tell me about your lost memories.”
He wanted to argue but he couldn’t think of anything useful to say on the subject of favors. He turned back to the coffee machine and poured a cup, giving himself a moment to decide what to do next.
He felt like a glow-deer caught in the headlights, frantically trying to decide if he should phosphoresce to ward off the oncoming vehicle or run for cover. One wrong move and he would become roadkill.
Unfortunately, he lacked a glow-deer’s natural ability to illuminate when threatened. That left only one option. It was time to change the subject.
He carried the coffee back to the table and sat down across from her.
“It was the artifact,” he said.
“What artifact?”
At least she sounded genuinely curious now. No judgment. Yet. He drank some coffee and concentrated.
“The killer’s name was Howard Gatley,” he said. “He was a strong hypno talent. Called himself Mr. Magic.”
“I remember that case. It was all over the media for a while.”
“Gatley found an Alien relic. An AUP.”
“An artifact of unknown power?”
“Yes. It should have been handed over to the authorities immediately, but Gatley fooled around with it and managed to rez it. The authorities kept that information out of the media.”
“Probably because there are too many horror movies featuring power-mad villains who are capable of rezzing an AUP. The idea of a person augmenting their natural talent with an artifact makes people nervous.”
“Yes,” he said. “It does.”
“Was the one Gatley found a weapon of some kind?” Alice asked, intrigued now.
“There’s no way to know what it was designed to do.
It might have been a garden ornament or a medical device or a child’s toy as far as the Aliens were concerned.
But once Gatley activated it, the object locked onto his aura.
He figured out that he could channel energy from it to enhance his own natural talent. ”
“So he became a much more powerful hypno talent?”
“Yes. Not only that, the AUP allowed him more range. He was able to hypnotize his victims from several yards away. He did not have to get close to them to implant a strong suggestion. That, of course, made it very hard to identify or track him.”
Alice nodded. “He didn’t have to risk being seen in close proximity to the victims before they disappeared.”
“Exactly. He used his talent and the artifact to send his targets into the tunnels, where he was waiting for them. And then he entertained himself by making them pretend to be what he called ‘a volunteer from the audience.’ ”
“According to the media, his last victim survived because Mr. Magic died of a stroke before he could murder her.” Alice paused. “I’m assuming that was not a lucky coincidence?”
“No. Bad guys tend to fall into patterns and habits, just like everyone else. Once Gatley had perfected his so-called magic show in the tunnels, he did not want to be bothered by changing locations. I was able to put together a psi profile that allowed the Feds to track him down in the Underworld. The FBPI was prepared to send in a task force, but I knew that even if they caught him, Gatley would make sure they didn’t find the last victim or the bodies of the others. ”
“He would have tried to use the locations as bargaining chips with the authorities.”
“I’m sure that’s how it would have gone down. And in the end, Gatley would have let the last woman die anyway, because she knew too much. She would have been able to give testimony at his trial.”
“You went in alone, didn’t you?” Alice said. Understanding lit her eyes. “You allowed him to think he had hypnotized you. He intended to make you one of his victims.”
“He knew I was hunting him and he developed an obsession with me. His goal was to prove that he could outwit me and then force me to be his next volunteer from the audience.”
“Instead, you took him down. How did you do it?”
“I intended to do it the old-fashioned way,” he said.
“Draw him out of hiding and flame him unconscious. I didn’t want to kill him if I could avoid it, because the task force wanted to question him.
Gatley assumed he could control me with his talent and the artifact, so I figured I would have the advantage of surprise. ”
“He couldn’t manipulate you with his enhanced hypno talent?”
“No. My own talent has a narrow range, but it’s strong. It gives me the ability to think like the predators.”
“In other words, you’re a natural-born detective.”
“I never thought of it in those terms, but whatever. The upside is that I’ve got some natural immunity to other people with strong talents, including hypnotists.”
“What happened with Gatley?”
“That’s where the blank spot in my memory was.
Now, thanks to you, I remember. I had tracked Gatley to his lair in the Underworld.
From his point of view, I had walked into his trap.
We were in a large rotunda with a lot of intersecting passageways.
The victim was in one of them. He had stripped her of her amber.
Gatley claimed I had one chance to find her and save her by picking the right hallway. ”
“That would be impossible if you weren’t able to lock onto her amber.”
“That was the point as far as Gatley was concerned. I refused to participate in his so-called magic show. He tried to force me to search for the woman by rezzing the AUP. He used it to focus his talent on me. Afterward the experts decided that either he had lost control of the artifact or it had overwhelmed his senses. Those AUPs are always unpredictable and potentially dangerous.”
“What happened?”
“The relic lit up like a volcano and unleashed a storm of hot energy. Gatley got slammed because he had physical contact with it and he was actively focusing through it at the time of the explosion. He was killed instantly.”
“Being within the blast radius of a burst of energy from an artifact certainly accounts for your memory issues.”
“I realized the storm was not going to stop just because Gatley was dead. The artifact was still going strong. I knew I had to shut it down or eventually it would kill me, too. I couldn’t run, because the victim was trapped in a nearby chamber.”
“You couldn’t abandon her,” Alice said with a knowing look.
“The currents of energy were so strong, I could not balance on my feet. Instead, I crawled across the rotunda, picked up the artifact, and…shut it down.”
Comprehension lit her eyes. “Oh, my. In other words you discovered that you…?”
“That I could rez the artifact, too. Yes.”
She cleared her throat. “And you did not mention that to the authorities.”
“People who can rez Alien artifacts end up on FBPI lists and attract the wrong kind of attention.”
“Got it. You were very wise to keep quiet. How did you explain the AUP to the Bureau?”
“I said it had shut down after Gatley died.”