by Anna Durand
Grace frowned. "Where's my gun?"
Amador reached under the back of his shirt and produced Grace's personal weapon, the .357 Magnum revolver. He lobbed it to her. "I took the liberty of salvaging that from your purse."
"Thanks." She flipped out the cylinder, and even David could see it contained only three rounds. "Please tell me you stole some ammo when you were rampaging through the facility."
"A few extra clips," David said. "That's all the guards had."
"Maybe we can still run," Sean offered.
A twig cracked. Foliage rustled.
Footfalls whomped. Hard. Fast. Homing in.
Before any of them could process it, a dozen mind-controlled men trudged out of the shadows in a circular formation, penning them in.
A second line of jaundiced and haggard men scuffled up behind the first circle. At least a dozen more minions now reinforced the first group.
Grace chewed her lip. "How many bullets have we got?"
David grasped his gun, and the metal dug into his flesh. "Not enough."
Chapter Thirty-One
Grace huddled against David, her gun targeted at the sky. This was bad. So, so bad. When Nkosi said he commanded an army, she assumed he was exaggerating. No such luck.
David's arm clamped down around her. The gun in his free hand was pointed at the ground. Sean and Amador flanked them. Every single one of the men in her life looked grimly resolute.
They would fight. They would die.
She would live long enough to have her brain cut out.
A hard shudder jarred her. After everything she'd survived, after the arduous journey she and David crawled through to get back to each other, was this how it ended? Trapped. Helpless. Powerless.
A gunshot boomed.
Sean crumpled.
David and Grace rushed to him. A dark stain was spreading across Sean's left arm, near the shoulder.
"I'm okay," he croaked. "Hurts, but I'll live. Gimme a minute and I'll be good to go."
"Don't worry about that," David said.
Grace waved a hand at Amador. "Get down."
He dropped into a crouch near a tree.
A new sound emanated from the woods — the scraping of feet dragging across the ground. The shuffling of half-catatonic human beings. Tesler's army.
David thrust a hand into her hair. "We have to run, it's our only shot."
"It's too late." She surveyed the trees, counting the silhouettes that approached at a slow but relentless pace. "They're already here."
A voice shouted to them, a voice she knew all too well.
"Drop your weapons," Tesler said. "There's no hope of escape. If you surrender, Grace, I may spare your friends by granting them a quick, painless death. Otherwise, they will suffer along with you."
She would suffer either way. That's what he meant. She'd shoot herself in the head before surrendering to Tesler.
Men shambled out of the shadows to encircle them in an ever-narrowing line of armed and mindless soldiers.
"Shoot them!" David said.
Grace slapped a hand on his gun as he raised it. "Don't bother. There's another band in the woods behind these two groups, at least a half dozen more men. I can see them in my mind. We don't have nearly enough bullets to take them all out."
David's face twisted in anguish. Breathless noises sputtered out of him, as if he couldn't quite form words. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away.
In voice so calm it surprised even her, she told him, "It's over, David."
Their powers were squelched. A small army surrounded them. Yeah, it was all over.
He nodded. The anguish had given way to a bleak resignation, which matched the cold certainty wending through her.
Then his head jerked back, and he squinted at her. "How could you see the men in the woods? The EM field… "
She shrugged. "I don't know. I just did."
His lips parted, and his eyes flared wide for a second. Then his angelic face lit up with understanding. "When Tesler had me strapped in back at the facility, the EM field kept me from contacting you. But I was able to use my powers at a low level, briefly."
She didn't dare think it. Didn't dare hope for it. "The field doesn't shut down our powers?"
"No, it dampens them." He smiled with such brilliant optimism she couldn't prevent her own cheeks from dimpling with a matching smile. His hand lighted on her shoulder. "Since we combined ours, maybe we're strong enough to breach the field, or at least slip our fingers through it."
Please, yes, let it be true.
The crashing of footfalls snagged their attention. Their heads swiveled toward the clearing in unison.
Karl Tesler stomped out into the open, his back straight, arms at his sides. A ghost of a smile lent him the look of a man supremely satisfied with himself.
His eyes glowed pale white.
Grace swallowed, stepped back, bumped into David.
Tesler gestured to his minions. "Bring them here."
And so they were herded into the clearing, single file, their weapons confiscated. Two minions flanked each of them, one at either side. They halted in the center of the clearing, in a line. The dampening effect of the EM field stifled her, as if she'd been locked inside a casket buried six feet under the earth. Could their combined powers overcome the field?
Tesler strolled past them, studying each in turn. His stare flickered unease through Grace, but she noticed a pallor beneath his skin and a redness in his eyes.
When he reached David, the last in line, he halted. His smile broadened into a feral grin. "Dear boy, did you honestly believe you could keep her from me? I've existed far longer than any human. I am everything."
David snorted. "You're nothing. Just a lunatic who's temporarily holding the remnants of the Golden Power."
"I am the Golden Power."
"Bullshit."
Grace pivoted on her heels to face Tesler. "I drove the power out of Nkosi, and a scrap of it took root in your mind. You are the host to a parasite, nothing more."
Tesler tossed his head. The minions at either side of David seized his arms to haul him toward the big pine tree they'd hidden behind moments earlier. One of the minions whipped a zip tie out of his pocket and bound David's wrists and ankles. Tesler sauntered past the trio, positioning himself between David and the tree, his back to the trunk.
A memory exploded in her mind, a fragment from her horrifying vision the other day. In the premonition, David knelt before Tesler, hands bound behind his back.
The vision was coming true.
Strangling a cry, she tried to run for David, but the men guarding her caught hold of her arms and locked her in place. Impotent, she quivered with repressed rage and terror. Christ, no. This was not happening.
Tesler extracted an object from his pocket. A knife. Long and glistening.
"A gunshot to the head is too clean and quick for you," he told David. "I want you to suffer, while your darling girl watches."
Sean bellowed and jumped, about to bolt for David. One of his captors grappled him to the ground and subdued him on his stomach with a knee in the back. Sean cursed and flailed, unable to break free.
Grace ransacked her brain for an answer. A plan. Some crazy scheme. Anything.
Nothing came to her. Nothing. The blood freezing in her veins crumbled all her thoughts.
Tesler raised the knife. His eyes bulged, his expression wild.
Her heart battered her chest, and her head whirled. No, no, do not pass out. You aren't a weakling. You are the most powerful psychic anyone in this clearing has ever seen. Don't just stand here.
She was powerful. Everyone said so. She'd proved it more than once.
David stared at her, not a hint of emotion on his face. But in the instant their gazes converged, she understood
what he wanted her to do.
Shut down the EM generator.
Where was it? The field surrounded them, which suggested the generator was nearby, if not inside the field itself. She had no clue what the contraption looked like.
"I'm going to bleed you," Tesler hissed, "until you beg for mercy, and then I'll make you watch while I cut your beloved to ribbons. Only then will I slit your throat."
She was goddamn sick of listening to this deranged bastard.
As she squeezed her eyes shut, she sank into the depths of her mind, hunting for a spark of the energy she relied on to fuel her powers. Deeper and deeper she dived, searching, pawing, desperate to unearth —
A spark. Tiny but bright.
Its tentacles lashed out to her, eager to latch on and never let go.
Not this time.
She reeled back from the Golden Power. Scrap or not, it tempted her with an easy way out, but the price was too high. She sought out David's energy, and gathered it to her heart. Without conscious decision, she tossed out feelers to locate the EM generator. Its field burned red in the air, from her astral viewpoint, casting the world in a bloody haze.
There. She spotted a box, metal and equipped with a parabolic dish.
She condensed a ball of energy, took aim, and —
Wait. If she knocked out the EM generator, it would unchain the psychic powers of everyone inside the field. Everyone.
Including Tesler.
She had no idea whether the field caged the Golden Power, but she could not risk setting it free.
Besides, if Tesler's power was bridled, like hers, then she had a shot.
One shot only.
She opened her eyes. Tesler may be crazy, but he was cunning — especially with the limitless power corked up inside him.
Tesler stood motionless, cloaked in shadow, in front of David. Ambient light glanced off the knife's blade.
Some of the minions lacked weapons. Others held various types of handguns. The one nearest her wore a semiautomatic pistol holstered on his hip, with a leather strap to keep the weapon berthed in its holster. She might grab for the gun of the man nearest her, but he was eying her as if expecting some kind of attack. She'd have to do this the other way.
When she tapped into David's energy, he blinked and one eyebrow ticked upward for a heartbeat, though his expression gave away nothing. The boost she received from him enlivened her mind and arced through her body, an electric tingle composed of his warmth and stolid nature. It grounded her. Braced her. Strengthened her.
Thank you, my warrior angel.
His lips ticked up then, at the corners, just a touch, before flattening out again. Warrior angel? She felt his question, rather than sensing his thought. She'd explain that one later.
She used only her peripheral vision to spot their confiscated weapons piled up near a thin jack pine. Her .357 Magnum lay on top. Perfect.
Tesler hoisted the knife above his head. "Time to bleed!"
With a single burst of telekinetic energy, she whisked the gun up off the ground, spun it through the air to her, and clamped her fist around it as the weapon smacked into her palm.
The minion closest to her sucked in a sharp breath.
She slammed the butt of the gun into his head. He crumpled.
"Stop her!" Tesler shouted.
Grace fired one shot at the man restraining Sean, striking him in the leg. He cried out and slumped sideways. Sean seized the chance to snatch the man's gun from its holster and leap to his feet.
Amador broke away from his stunned guards and ran for the weapons pile.
The outer circle of psychic puppets edged inward.
She whirled on Tesler, swinging her gun up to target his chest.
Tesler slashed the knife downward.
Grace pulled the trigger.
The minions roared and swarmed toward around them.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The gunshot thundered in the clearing. Its echoes bounced off the trees in a cacophony that rattled David's eardrums.
A red stain blossomed on Tesler's chest. He collapsed to his knees, out of breath, eyes wide.
The knife tumbled to the ground.
David's bindings snapped free, cut by a spurt of power from Grace. He couldn't control telekinetic energy the way she could, and they both knew it.
Tesler toppled forward just as David sprang to his feet.
In unison, Tesler's army stumbled, halted, and the life sluiced out of them with visible effect. Their shoulders wilted. Their heads drooped. Many of them foundered and thumped to the ground.
David raced toward Grace and swept her into his arms.
Gurgling, blood oozing from his mouth, Tesler crumpled.
David saw nothing except Grace. He clinched her tight, and she gripped him just as hard. Their lips found each other's at the same instant, hungry, plundering and being plundered in a brief kiss of such intensity it flared like a supernova, wiping out everything around them.
Not literally, of course.
When their lips parted, and he set her down, they could do nothing more than grin stupidly at each other.
"Uh… " Sean's hesitant query disrupted their afterglow.
David finally noticed Sean and Amador had collected all the weapons from the guards and bound them with their own zip ties. The man Grace had shot sported a bandanna tied around his wounded thigh.
After quick peck on Grace's lips, David plucked up one of the minions' guns and turned to face Tesler. He lay still, eyes closed, body limp. Blood soaked his shirt.
Grace laced her fingers with David's. "Is he dead?"
"Not sure." He extricated his fingers from hers. "Wait here, I'll check."
He took one step.
She seized him arm. "Stop."
David paused, glancing back at her worried face. "What is it?"
"I… don't know." She gestured at the knife, which rested inches from Tesler's unmoving hand. "It's too close, he could reach it. And I feel… energy or something, coming out of him." Her fingers sank into his flesh. "Please stay here, for now."
"I could shoot him in the head, and then we'd know for sure."
"I'm afraid that might release the energy again, like with Nkosi." Her gaze darted to Tesler, then settled on David. "Please stay away from him, just until I sort out what I'm sensing."
With a sharp nod, he stayed put.
But his trigger finger itched to blast a hole in the bastard's skull.
Sean and Amador stared into the woods. Amador said, "Grace could see other men in the woods. Perhaps the boy and I should see what happened to them."
"Boy?" Sean balked. "I'm seventeen, asswipe."
"It's a good idea," David said to Amador, "but take weapons."
Sean and Amador made their way toward the woods, where the puppet psychics lay motionless, in varying degrees of awkwardness.
"Whoa," Sean said, with teenage awe. He hunched down to swipe a weapon from one of the minions — a rifle with a pistol grip mounted on its underside and a curved magazine extending down from the stock. "Zombie dude has an AK-47. Sweet."
He swung the muzzle toward a thick tree and pulled the trigger. Rounds sprayed the trunk. Bark pattered on the grass.
Sean's awe morphed into wide-eyed glee. "Full auto. Wicked."
"Fully automatic weapons are illegal," David said.
Grace made an unladylike noise, which only made him want to kiss her again. "Nkosi picked weak-willed people with questionable morals for his army. You're surprised one of them flouts the law?"
He stuck his tongue out at her.
She drew head back, as if shocked.
Amador and Sean headed out into the forest, Sean toting his new treasure, Amador looking aggrieved for being saddled with a rebellious teen. Their footfalls receded into sile
nce.
David brushed his palm across Grace's cheek. "I have to check on Tesler. It can't wait any longer. I'll tie him up." He nodded toward the unconscious minions. "See if one of them has another zip tie."
"David."
He squeezed her hand. "I know you're worried, but we have to secure him."
If we're not killing him. He kept the end of his sentence to himself. The only secured Tesler was a dead Tesler.
She sighed. "Okay. I'll stay here. But I am not searching for zip ties until you've got Tesler in hand. And take a gun." Her tone turned stern. "That is nonnegotiable."
They stood sideways to Tesler and the pine tree. To their left, branches bobbed slightly in the wind. The breeze fanned her hair out over her face, and David combed it back with his fingers.
"Deal." He feathered a kiss across her lips, then bent to nab a gun.
Movement flashed in his peripheral vision. He pivoted his head, overcome by a strange slowing of time, as if his brain had downshifted. His thoughts lagged behind what he saw, delaying his actions.
Tesler snared the knife. Hefted his body into a crouch. Took the knife in a throwing hold. Bared his teeth.
And launched the knife at David.
Grace flung her body at him, shouting as she threw them both to the ground. The moss cushioned their fall, but they landed askew, her leg under his, their arms entangled.
Her .357 plunked down by his head.
Rational thought disintegrated.
David grabbed the revolver and, still tangled with Grace, swerved his arm to level the weapon at Tesler.
The scientist lunged.
David fired.
Karl Tesler whumped down in a lifeless heap. His eyes gaped, vacant.
This time, David did not wait for Grace's permission. He lifted them both to their feet and marched straight to Tesler. When he found no pulse, no breathing or signs of life at all, he turned to Grace. "He's dead."
"Good." Her smile faltered, her gaze nailed to a sight beyond his shoulder.
"What is it?"
Before he could glance back, her mouth fell open on a cry of "No!"
A gunshot detonated.
She propelled her body into the gun's trajectory, behind his back.
