Blood Ties

by Kay Hooper

  “Hey, Quentin.” She tried to hold her voice steady.

  “They told me she might not make it.” His gaze was fixed on Diana’s face. “They’re wrong about that, you know. She’ll make it. She has to make it.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you? I didn’t know, not really. Not the way I know now. Not until I saw her go down, saw all the blood and… That’s when I knew. It happened so fast, so goddamn fast, there wasn’t even time to tell her. All these months I could have told her. And didn’t. What kind of fucked-up sense does that make?”

  Hollis was silent.

  He turned his head finally and looked at her, with eyes she knew were blue but looked grayish, bloodshot, and darker than she’d ever known them to be. In a queerly conversational tone, he said, “I can’t see the future. Not now, not when I need to. I’ve tried and I can’t. But there’s one thing I can see. No matter what they say about brain scans and a heartbeat, Diana isn’t here. I’m holding on as hard as I can, as hard as I know how, but… I’m holding her body, not her soul.”

  “I think you’re holding her soul too. Her spirit.”

  “She isn’t here,” he said.

  “I mean you’re holding something of her anchored here. So she can find her way back.”

  “Will she?”

  “Yes. Because she has to.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes. I’m not letting go. No matter how long it takes, I’m not letting go. Even though…”

  “Even though?”

  “This was her nightmare, you know. As a little girl, she saw her mother like this. Maybe like this. A body with a beating heart, breathing because of a machine. A body without a soul.”

  “She’ll come back, Quentin.”

  He nodded again. “Because she has to.”

  “Yes. Because she has to.”

  Hollis had thought she might persuade him to leave Diana for at least a few minutes, but now she didn’t even try. Instead, she said, “Why don’t you put your head down and try to rest.”

  “I might hurt her,” he said.

  “You won’t.” Hollis found a small pillow in her hands and didn’t even question where it had come from. She leaned across the bed and placed the pillow so that all he had to do was turn a bit sideways and put his head down. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable position, but at least he might be able to relax.

  “Rest,” she told him. “You won’t be any good to Diana or anyone else if you don’t.”

  “I don’t want to stop looking at her,” he murmured.

  “It’s okay. Just close your eyes for a while.”

  Almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, Quentin was out. But his grip on Diana’s hand didn’t weaken in the slightest.

  “So now what?” DeMarco asked.

  Hollis turned her head and looked at him. “Did it amuse you to watch me trying to sneak out of the room?”

  “It did, yes.” He didn’t crack a smile.

  Damn telepaths.

  “Now what?” he repeated.

  They were both keeping their voices quiet.

  Hollis didn’t bother to dissemble. “I want to try something. It probably won’t work, but I have to try.”

  “Not a visit to the gray time, I hope.”

  “No, something else. But…” She hesitated.

  “But what?”

  “Nothing. I’ll—” She broke off when DeMarco grasped her arm and half-turned her to face him.

  “But what?” he asked. “I heard what Quentin said. Things happen fast, and we can run out of time. So tell me what’s worrying you now. Don’t make me wonder about it later.”

  “I figured you’d just read my mind.”

  “No. Tell me, Hollis.”

  She drew a breath and let it out slowly, trying not to be so conscious of time ticking away. “It’s… the spirits. The place is full of them.”

  “I gathered that from your conversation with Miranda before she left. What’s changed?”

  Hollis hesitated again, then said, “Ever since I came out of the waiting room, since I stepped through that doorway, they’re the only things that look real.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everything else is… sort of gray.”

  He glanced around them, then said, “It’s a sort of gray place, really.”

  “No, that’s not it. Quentin and Diana… you. You’ve all got a gray tint. Washed out. Like a TV picture with the color turned down. And the only auras I see are around the spirits.”

  DeMarco considered that for a moment, a slight frown between his brows. “So you think you may have opened a door to the gray time.”

  “If I have, it’s my own screwy version, because this isn’t like Diana’s gray time. At all. Her gray time is empty of people and spirits—except her guides—and it’s desolate, like I told you. Cold and empty. But this… I’m seeing the living and the dead, and the dead have more color, more—hell, more life. So I don’t know exactly what I’ve done, Reese. Or how I can undo it.”

  Or if I can undo it.

  He nodded toward Diana. “What were you planning to do here?”

  “I can heal myself. Miranda’s sister is a medium, and she can heal others. I figured it was worth a shot.”

  “That takes energy, right? Strength?”

  “Yeah. If healing others is anything like healing myself… yeah. A lot of energy, especially for injuries this serious.”

  “I doubt you have much to spare,” he noted coolly.

  “I’m hoping I’ll have enough. At least to help, if only a little. It might take only a little to make all the difference.”

  “You’re going to do this no matter what I say.”

  Hollis nodded.

  “Okay. Then we’ll worry about this almost gray time later. Give it a shot.”

  Something about his voice made her look at him questioningly, not even sure what she was asking. But DeMarco was sure.

  “Something I noticed back in Serenade,” he told her. “In all the commotion, you probably missed it. The thing is, when Diana’s heart stopped, it wasn’t the CPR that got it going. You put your hand on her and called her name. That’s when her heart started beating again.”

  Diana said, “Is there a point to this? Walking down this endless corridor as if we expect to find something?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Jesus, Brooke, I thought we were done with the cryptic guide routine.”

  “Somebody’s getting cranky.”

  “No, somebody’s getting pissed. I’ve been following you guides for most of my life, doing my damnedest to help you even when I couldn’t help myself, and now when I could use a little quid pro quo, all I get is more of the same old bullshit.”

  “Whether you believe it or not, Diana, I am helping you.”

  “Helping me burn off energy so I’ll die faster?” Diana knew her voice was harsh, but she couldn’t help it.

  “No. Helping you search for the truth. Look at these doors as we pass them. Think about what may lie behind them.”

  “Another fake Quentin, probably.”

  Brooke paused in the corridor to look at her, then continued on. “All right. Then think about this place. The fact of it.”

  “The fact is, it doesn’t exist. Not anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was an evil place and it was destroyed.”

  “Why was it evil?”

  “Because it held an evil creature. Because evil things were done there. Horrible things.”

  “So why do you suppose we’re in that evil place now?”

  “We aren’t. It’s gone.”

  “In a… replica of it, then. A reasonable facsimile of it.”

  “Because you want to mess with my head, most likely.”

  “Diana.”

  She sighed. And tried to think, if only because she didn’t want Brooke to get pissed and vanish, leaving Diana alone here. Not that she’d ever known a guide to get pissed, but still. Always a chan
ce.

  “Why are we here? Quentin said…” She steadied her voice with an effort. “Quentin said there has to be some connection. Between this place and the investigation. Or else why does this place keep coming up? Why do I keep visiting it in the gray time?”

  “Everything is connected, Diana.”

  She frowned. “So this place is tied to the investigation in Serenade? How?”

  “That’s your truth to uncover.”

  “Dammit.”

  Quite abruptly, one of the doors opened as they came abreast of it, and the fake Quentin smiled at her. “You really want to quit listening to that child. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Diana had stopped instinctively, and a glance showed her Brooke had stopped as well. But the guide remained silent, and it was left to Diana to respond.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to help you, Diana. You know that. I only want what’s best for you. I know what’s best for you.”

  “You’ve said that before. But you’re fake. You’re a phony wearing Quentin’s face, and I want to know why.”

  “You know why.”

  Do I? Or is this… thing… lying?

  She went with her gut, saying, “No, I don’t know why. All I know is that you’re lying to me.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  His tone suddenly silky, he said, “Wouldn’t you rather concern yourself with the body back in that hospital? Wouldn’t you rather be worrying about whether you’re going to live or die?”

  She knew he was trying to manipulate her, trying to make her fearful and uncertain. But she didn’t know why. To weaken her? To make her more vulnerable? Just for the hell of it?

  He was good, though. Good because it worked at least a little, as her thoughts turned, however briefly, to her terribly wounded body and the terrifying uncertainty of whether she would be able to reclaim it.

  For an instant she thought she could feel Quentin’s hands—both of them—holding one of hers, and she looked down at that hand wonderingly.

  “He won’t be there, Diana. When you really need him to be. When you finally have the courage to reach for him. He won’t be there.”

  She looked at the fake Quentin and for the first time felt only anger. “You’re wrong.”

  “No. He won’t be there. He’ll disappoint you.”

  Diana shook her head. “You don’t know him. Whatever you are, you don’t know him. But I do. I might not be able to count on anything or anyone else, but I can count on Quentin.”

  “Now you’re the one who’s wrong.”

  Turning her gaze to the silent guide, Diana said, “You aren’t going to help me, are you?”

  “I’ll help all I can.” Brooke’s gaze was fixed on the fake Quentin, with a peculiar watchfulness Diana found almost more unnerving than anything else. “But you have to find the truth here on your own, Diana.”

  “Because that’s the rule?”

  “Frustrating, I know.”

  “Can you at least give me a damn hint?”

  Brooke looked at her finally and said matter-of-factly, “He’s here because you allow him to be here. See what’s underneath the mask and he’ll have no power over you.”

  “I don’t—” Diana turned her head again only to see the door closed and no fake Quentin confronting her. Slowly she said, “I don’t know how to look underneath the mask.”

  Brooke began to walk again. “Well, perhaps you’ll figure that out while you’re here. Perhaps you’d better.”

  “Threat or warning?”

  Ignoring that, Brooke said, “We’re here for a reason, Diana. In this place for a reason. Think it through. Why would you come in the gray time to a place that no longer exists?”

  “Because…” The flippant response in her mind vanished as a far more serious—and frightening—one occurred to her. “Because… the evil still exists.”

  Brooke turned her head and smiled at her. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “You mean I’m right?”

  “Doesn’t it feel right?”

  To her surprise, Diana realized that it did. Then a chill cold enough to make itself felt even in the gray time stole through her. “The evil still exists. But—they stopped him. He’s in a cage.”

  Brooke continued walking, her face serene.

  “Brooke, the evil creature that killed in this place, the creature that nearly killed Hollis—he is caged. No longer killing. No longer dangerous. They got him.”

  “If you say so, Diana.”

  “If I say so? You mean he’s still dangerous?”

  Sending her a calm glance, Brooke said, “You have to think in layers, Diana. Peel away one layer at a time.”

  Diana walked for a time in silence, glancing rather idly at each door they passed as she grappled with the question of how the evil that had existed in this place could still exist—and be connected to what had happened and was happening in Serenade.

  Layers.

  Layers…

  She stopped walking, staring at one of the doors that wasn’t quite as featureless as all the others, hardly aware that Brooke had also stopped and was waiting, silent. Slowly, as Diana stared, a shape was forming on the door at eye level.

  It was a cross.

  “My God,” she whispered. “Not the puppet—the puppet master. The evil hand on an evil creature’s leash. Samuel.”

  Nurse Ellen King came around the curtain prepared to pour wrath all over whoever had dared to invade her ICU without permission. But the sight that met her eyes stopped the words before they could even form.

  On one side of Diana Brisco’s bed, Agent Hayes finally slept, slumped mostly sideways with his head on a pillow near her knees, his hands still holding one of hers.

  He’ll have a monster crick in his neck, she thought. Her professional gaze checked the monitors, and she was both surprised and pleased to see that Diana’s vital signs were stronger, steadier.

  Then she saw the other two federal agents. Saw the tall, slight brunette on the other side of the bed from Agent Hayes slump as though all the strength had drained out of her. Saw the big, powerful blond man lift her as though she weighed nothing and cradle her carefully in his arms.

  “Hey, is she all right?”

  He turned, holding the brunette, and said, “She needs to sleep. Do you have an extra bed?”

  Ellen King looked at that almost-expressionless, handsome face, and thought fleetingly, That’s twice I’ve seen that look. Wow. I wonder if she knows.

  Then she got a grip on herself and said, “Yes. Yes, of course. Follow me.” And led the way.

  Twelve

  Serenade

  NAOMI WELBORNE INTENDED to one day anchor a major news program, and she intended to do so before she was thirty-five. So she had ten years in which to pay her dues, on top of the three she had already spent at the small eastern Tennessee station where her blond good looks had gotten her on the air only to chirp brightly about the weather.

  Naomi was better than that and she knew it. She was tired of being called in to be on air only as the weather girl in a short skirt, or for what amounted to a sixty-second filler if the real news happened to run short that day. She was tired of being assigned, instead of real news stories, story scraps the station manager cheerfully called human-interest necessities for the station.

  “Because people’ll stop watching if we feed them nothing more than depressing stuff, Naomi.”

  Human-interest necessities. Warm and fuzzy stories about little kids and heroic dogs and people who lived to be more than a hundred. She’d gone to so many goddamn birthday parties she suspected confetti was permanently embedded in her hair, and if she saw one more mutt awarded some medal or other for barking when he smelled smoke or learning to turn on a light switch because his owner couldn’t, she was afraid she’d borrow a gun from one of her cop contacts and shoot herself.

  Enough was more than enough.

  Naomi had been wo
rking on the final draft of her resignation letter the day before when the radio scanners at the station suddenly went berserk with activity. Police, fire departments and EMS, emergency electrical crews—all called to Serenade. There had been an explosion of unknown origin… cop down… at least one federal agent critically wounded… one known civilian casualty… deadly sniper still at large…

  Naomi looked around the almost-deserted newsroom of the station and realized happily that fate had decided to reward her for her patience by dropping into her lap what looked to be a real career-making story.

  The station manager had been obviously and insultingly doubtful about it when she lobbied hard for the assignment, but since all the other reporters were out, she was all he had. Reluctant, he sent her and a cameraman to Serenade.

  “Just get some footage and try to get statements from witnesses and maybe a cop if any’ll talk to you. And remember, Naomi, we can’t compete with the cable-news outfits, so don’t try to get fancy. Just get the story and don’t get in the way or step on anybody’s toes doing it. Understand?”

  “Sure, Keith.”

  “Tell me you understand that I mean what I say.”

  “I understand, Keith, okay? You really don’t have to worry about anything at all.”

  Oh, she understood, all right. She understood this was her chance, and she was damn well going to take it.

  Which was why she stubbornly remained, despite the complaints of her cameraman, with the shrinking group of reporters and camera crews behind the yellow tape long after most of the action—or at least most of the filmable action—had ended. And long after they’d heard anything more than a polite but distant “Keep back, please,” from any of the grave-faced deputies on the other side of the tape.

  Dawn wasn’t far away, and the cleanup was all but done.

  Dammit, I don’t have a thing for the morning news show.

  The body of the young deputy was gone, presumably to be autopsied, although Naomi was baffled as to why; everyone knew the poor kid had been shot, killed by the single bullet fired that day by the sniper. A single bullet that had also critically wounded a federal agent.

  Not that any of the cops were willing to confirm that.

  What remained of the wreckage of the destroyed SUV had been loaded onto a rollback and taken away, reportedly into the garage of the sheriff’s department—although she had missed that while trying to get a reluctant witness to say something on camera.