by Pam Richter
"If he weakens you or hurts you, he may simply erase any psychic power you possess. Unusual human abilities seem to flourish in certain circumstances. They aren't turned on by will power alone. Psychic powers are manifested in periods of extreme need, during periods of great stress. Omar may bring your powers out to his own detriment, if he pushes you too hard. On the other hand, he might just cause them to disappear."
"So I would be worthless to him. But you're supposing I have something I've never even experienced."
"You've never had premonitions that came true? Never knew when someone was going to call you? Never avoided a disaster because you felt uneasy?"
She nodded rather dubiously. "Those things happen to everyone."
"That's called precognition. Think of something recent," Vincent urged.
"Oh, I did know when Omar's witches were after Heather. I knew they would kill her if I didn't do something right away."
"And you knew better than to get involved with Omar," Vincent said nodding. "Think of something different about you. Maybe when you were a little girl."
Michelle was silent for a moment and then her face lit up. "It's almost a family joke. They said I was attracted mysteriously to hurt animals. I did seem to find a lot of injured and abandoned little dogs and cats. Rabbits. Once a bat. Rats and mice. I insisted on keeping them. My parents said I healed them. But that was long ago."
"Okay. Let's just suppose you have the psychic ability of precognition and also the gift of healing. That may be what attracted Omar."
This man was enhancing her anxiety about Nakamura. She got up and went to the telephone. "I'm worried about a friend..."
Vincent listened to her side of the telephone conversation, but couldn't see her face, as she was turned away from him. She was talking to someone named Tom. Vincent saw her react violently, as though she had received a physical blow. She cried out 'No,' once, then she was quiet for a time.
"Try to keep him there. I don't think he should drive...Oh...the car's wrecked? He can't talk?...resting. Okay. Thank's, Tom. I'll come over now. Take him back to his hotel."
Michelle walked woodenly over to a chair and sat down. "His car exploded."
Vincent nodded. "You have to believe very strongly, right now, that you have the powers."
Michelle shook her head. "I have to drive over. Get Nakamura."
She seemed agitated and Vincent didn't want her panicking. She had to be calm. "No. You'll be leading Omar directly to your friend. You should stay away from him. I think Omar will start another attack very ..."
Suddenly all the light bulbs in Michelle's apartment started exploding, one after another, like tiny bombs. First the bulb in a lamp by the couch, near where Vincent was sitting exploded. Then each bulb in a small chandelier in the dining room. The apartment became darker as each bulb exploded with the popping sound of a small bomb. The kitchen fixture erupted loudly and crashed to the floor. Each pop and explosion was distinct and separate. Smoke drifted from the bulbs and glass covered the floor.
When the glass splinters sprayed around the room, tiny sharp projectiles hit Vincent and Michelle. Michelle let out a shrill scream and ran to the center of the living room.
A whirlwind seemed to blow through the whole apartment, toppling books off of shelves, knocking chairs over, sending small objects flying around the room.
Everything stopped. The whole apartment was completely dark, which made it even scarier. Only a diffused illumination came in from the windows to the balcony.
Vincent was badly hit on the right side of his face and arm from the exploded lamp bulb near where he had been sitting.
"Are you all right?" Michelle asked. She was shaking out her hair, which was covered with tiny glass splinters. She had been closer to the dining room and the tiny bulbs in the chandelier had sprayed the fragile glass all over her, but she didn't have any serious cuts.
Vincent nodded. "We were lucky. But we have to get out of here. Right now. He's started his attack."
Vincent painfully pulled a splinter out of his right cheek as Michelle led him toward the sliding glass doors to the patio so she could see his injuries better.
"You're lucky you didn't get glass in your eyes," Michelle commented. She was picking glass out of his sparse hair. He had several cuts on his arm and scalp. There was a bad one on his ear lobe, which was dripping blood which appeared black in the dim light.
"Let's go in the bathroom and take care of that," Michelle said. She started hurrying toward the bathroom.
"No," Vincent yelled urgently.
Michelle turned around.
"Don't turn on any lights. They might explode too."
"Right. Where's Lucifer?" She looked around but couldn't see the tiny white cat anywhere. She finally heard him in the bedroom, meowing mournfully. She would have to crawl under the bed in the dark and get him.
"Leave the cat," Vincent said.
"I can't."
Vincent nodded and muttered, No, a healer couldn't leave an animal.
Michelle heard Vincent follow her as she walked into the dark bedroom, crunching on glass splinters, and inched under the bed. Of course Lucifer was being difficult and backing away from her. He looked an unearthly luminous white in the darkness and she finally grabbed him. She heard Vincent muttering about the fact that Omar seemed to have abilities over electrical phenomena. Lightening and electrical appliances.
Michelle started backing out from under the bed. "He must have been using those skills on the buildings I manage. We had power outages. Elevators, air-conditioners and lights malfunctioned. All at once. Smoke detectors went off. Security systems were suddenly screeching, going crazy for no reason. Real disasters. One man was almost killed."
"How long did it last?"
"A couple of days." Michelle was standing up with the struggling cat. "Then everything went back to normal." She was stroking the cat, calming it as they went back into the living room. The whole apartment was almost entirely black except in there.
"His power is limited. He can't control something like that for very long."
Michelle smiled when she noticed they were both whispering, as though they could be overheard. She went to the front door and opened it. It was on a spring which would close it automatically, but the bright light from the hallway was a relief, even though her apartment looked like a disaster area. The force of the flying glass and the wind had knocked books and figurines off of shelves like there had been a major earthquake. When she saw the extent of the damage she was surprised that neither she nor Vincent had been more badly injured.
"Get the things you need. We have to leave," Vincent urged.
She was still shivering from the shock of the exploding lights and was quiet for a time. Finally she let the door close and went to the closet in her hallway. She came out with a flashlight. She held it far away from herself, cringing as she turned it on, trying to shield the cat with her arm. It did not explode. There was glass shimmering all over the carpet where she focused the light. Even the glass monitor on her computer had burst, spewing its guts over the computer table.
"I think I will do whatever he wants." She was speaking slowly as she started gathering the clothes that she had prepared for work. "I can't let my friends get hurt."
"Wrong attitude, Michelle," Vincent said. "You have to fight him. You have to believe in yourself." He was wishing he had the time to hypnotize her and strengthen that belief. But they were going to have to start their own attack soon or Omar would take all initiative away from them.
"Think Michelle, what's he going to do now?"
"Oh," Michelle straightened up with the clothes over her arm. "He uses the heating ducts. The heat almost never goes on here in Hawaii. That's how my things got moved."
It was almost uncanny. She could see it in her mind, Omar sending his army of giant insects down through the ducts. It could have been gruesome and horrifying, but it was just a picture she was seeing in her mind objectively. Then she remembered tha
t the apartment above hers was empty. She suddenly knew that was why he had killed the woman living there. He wanted that apartment empty. The fact was there in her mind, sudden and incontrovertible, but she didn't know why. She aimed her flashlight up at the ceiling, where the heating vent was located. Gas was pouring out of the duct like thick smoke. It was already covering the ceiling like a thick oily cloud that was reaching down towards them.
Even in the dark she could see the gas was green. Her mind warned, Poison. She felt surprise that she didn't smell anything, just before she passed out.
CHAPTER 26
Suzanne pranced slowly down the hallway toward the guard, wearing a very brief halter and shorts. It was her job to distract him. She had to lure him from his post long enough for Omar and Samson to take the bodies out of the apartment in the hallway he was guarding.
His eyes felt like spectral hands drifting over her body, touching thighs, breasts and hips; skipping her face altogether.
Suzanne had believed her role would be difficult or impossible to perform, but suddenly she was an actress, swinging her hips and tossing her head. Her directions were to appear slutty and wanton, and although part of her enjoyed the vulgar and alien role, another deeper part was appalled. She stumbled, and when she awkwardly righted herself and resumed the sexy strut, she thought with confusion that she had been stumbling, even falling, a lot recently.
The keys to the vacant apartment in the hallway above were in her pocket. She was supposed to keep the guard busy there. She took the keys out of her pocket, a difficult maneuver because the shorts were so tight, and dangled them in front of the guard's nose. He was seated, so she leaned over seductively so he could get a good look down her halter top. She mentioned the vacant apartment, breathing warmly in his ear, in which she noticed disgusting, gross tufts of brown hair stiffly sprouting. He followed her eagerly into the elevator.
Suzanne almost had a panic attack when the elevator doors slid shut and she got a closer look at the man. He was hairy, heavy, at least forty years old and already panting lecherously. Dark brown hairs were also sprouting from his nose. She felt disgust when she looked into small, bloodshot and predatory brown eyes. She wondered what in the world she was doing. Wasn't she a college student with a wonderful career ahead of her? Didn't she have a straight A average all through high school and college? It seemed like a distant memory, but the fleeting thought almost had her in tears for the briefest possible moment.
She stumbled again when she got to the door of the vacant apartment. It was either fear or she was losing control of her body. It worried her momentarily, but she no longer had the capacity to keep one train of thought going long enough to figure out what was happening.
"Slow down there, big boy," Suzanne said playfully, as she shut the door of the vacant apartment. It was the place where a woman had been brutally murdered just a few days ago, but Suzanne didn't know that.
The guard was looking her over like she was something deliciously edible. He started to reach for her as she was closing the door, so close she could feel his hot breath and his hands upon her shoulders. She flinched away and then giggled, like she was playing a game. His attention was sickening. She thought she might throw up right here and now, and decided to make sure she hit him.
"I'm so thirsty," Suzanne commented, smiling at the old lecher. He backed off, not wanting to ruin his good fortune by moving in too lustily.
"Lets see what there is to drink," Suzanne suggested, quickly moving toward the kitchen and out of the proximity of his clutches, deciding this roll-playing was way above and beyond the call of duty. She wondered just how long she would have to keep this old guy busy. Omar said he would let her know when it was safe to release him.
"You are so pretty..." The man was attempting to touch her hair as she opened the refrigerator.
"Uh...thank you." Suzanne peered in and saw some soft drinks. She took out two. "Why don't you go in the living room and sit down. I'll put these drinks in glasses."`
The man reluctantly left the kitchen. There was a low counter that opened into the living room and Suzanne could see him obediently lowering himself down on the sofa. He looked like a great bear, a Neanderthal, not very tall but thick in every aspect. A repellent primitive throwback to reasoning man. She took ice out of the freezer and found glasses.
Suzanne checked her watch and noted that only five minutes had gone by, but she also noticed it was way past the appointed time for her to take the herbal potion Omar had mixed especially for her. It was a combination of ginkgo-gotu kola, ginseng, licorice, passion flower, St John's Wort, chamomile, catnip and some other things she couldn't remember. Suzanne knew it made her sleepy, so she took the brown plastic packet and emptied it into the drink she was fixing for the security guard.
She worried it might not make him sleepy enough, or work fast enough. She hated giving him two doses, which was all she had, but Omar would understand and replace them, she hoped, as she dumped in the second packet.
Omar had explained that the herbs enhanced mental and psychic perception, so that she could learn to do the rituals necessary to become his High Priestess quickly, but she was wondering now if it really had that effect. She always had those strange doubtful feeling right before she took another dose. Omar had her on the herbs around the clock now so those puzzling querying feelings hadn't bothered her recently.
Suzanne smiled when she thought of Omar. She would do anything for him. He was the most wonderful, wisest and most handsome man in the world. Suzanne felt like she was in a wonderful dreamland when she was with him. He had promised her everything her heart could desire, and had actually given her a large ruby ring. She glanced at the bright red facets, which threw a rainbow of colors on the kitchen walls. She hated disobeying him and forgoing the herbs, but she just could not stomach that old guy pawing her.
The old guy was looking at his watch and complaining that he had to get back to work as Suzanne gave him the drink. She reassured him that after they had some refreshments they could really relax. Lie down and relax. His eyes brightened and he gave her a disgusting smile.
Suzanne sat in a chair across from the couch and watched him down the doctored potion greedily, not even tasting the herbs, which were actually quite bitter, in his rush to get his hands on her.
Suzanne chattered inanely, with growing trepidation, as the man set down his empty glass, but she found that she was starting to remember things she had somehow forgotten. Things that had once been important to her; like getting her degree in abnormal psychology, like the boyfriend she had back at school, like her kind psychology professor, Vincent Middleton, who had generously taken her on this vacation.
Suzanne was puzzling over the priorities of her life and just where Omar fit into her carefully planned future, when the security guard suddenly interrupted her, blurting out, "I feel very strange."
The man placed his hand on his forehead, "Feeling woozy-sick."
Suzanne was shocked at how fast the man had responded to the benign natural herbs. She knew they just made you sleepy for a little while, then you got happy and euphoric. "I'm sure you'll be fine in a moment. There's lots of caffeine in those soft drinks."
"No. It's different." The man was gagging, holding his head. Then he fell over sideways on the couch.
Suzanne approached him warily. This might be a ploy to get her down on the sofa with him. He would win in any wrestling match they might have, outweighing her by at least a hundred pounds, and being much stronger as a male anyway. She cautiously waited about three minutes, but the man did not move and she finally, tentatively, touched his forehead. He didn't seem hot or anything. He didn't look like he'd had a heart attack or was in any pain. He appeared to be sleeping very profoundly, snoring softly through his open mouth.
Suzanne felt great relief that the man was knocked out, but she wondered what kind of herbs could be powerful enough to conk a man of his size out that fast. The way he had keeled over was frightening. Whatever Omar had
been giving her was much more powerful than she had believed. It was disturbing.
She sat anxiously, waiting for the man to wake up or for Omar to call. An hour went by. She glanced at her watch every minute or so. Finally she got sleepy, too, and curled up in the chair, drowsing off. She awakened several times, hiccuping, but went back to sleep quickly each time. It was the first natural sleep she'd had in days.
Now she was in serious and dangerous drug withdrawal. Suzanne had been given larger and larger doses of a powerful tranquilizer, which was laced with cocaine for the euphoric feeling. Heavy drug abusers, whether using cocaine, tranquilizers, alcohol or heroin, whose bodies become dependent on those drugs to function, often have seizures, a cardiac arrest, or die when the body is abruptly withdrawn from their narcotic. Many go through a severe psychotic episode, or states of agitation during drug withdrawal, if their body is physiologically strong enough to manage to stay alive, because the brain is another organ which becomes dependent on the drug.
Suzanne began having petit mal seizures, her whole body shaking with involuntary tremors every few minutes. Since she was asleep she didn't know she was in grave danger.
* * *
Nakamura was hurt badly enough that when Tom Mitsuto told him to lie down on his couch for a minute he went directly to sleep. He was out for a few minutes and then he was aware of someone disturbing him, shaking him, screaming in his ear. An enormously fat man stood above him and yelled, holding him by the shoulder and violently jolting him. It was a doctor Tom Mitsuto had called from next door.
The fat doctor made Nakamura limp around Tom Mitsuto's living room to make sure he was ambulatory. Then he took Nakamura's pulse and coaxed him into drinking several glasses of water. They switched to what seemed like gallons of coffee. The doctor told Nakamura he might have a slight concussion, but he was fine except for several abrasions on both knees and his left elbow. His left ankle was swollen and sprained. The doctor's prescription was rest and fluids for the next few hours.
