by Elana Brooks
Rosalia rained missiles on Sarangerel, and so did Steve, but she was unstoppable. The ball of astral energy she summoned was dim compared to the exploding bomb, but it would be enough.
Horror froze Rosalia’s heart. She’d made a terrible mistake.
Grimly Steve gathered one last ball of energy. “Keep fighting after the bomb goes off. Beverly and Adrian will be free to help you. Make her pay for killing me.”
Numb with despair, Rosalia nodded and called up the biggest ball of energy she’d ever held. She’d use every bit of strength the soul bond gave her while she still had it. “I will. I promise.”
Steve hurled his ball at Sarangerel’s head. She dodged upward. It burned away her hips and legs, but she barely seemed to notice. She raised her ball and took aim at Beverly. Rosalia drew her arm back.
Her hand and missile evaporated in a blaze of pain. Robert shoved her aside and threw his arms around Sarangerel. “I won’t let them kill you, Angie.”
She screamed and fought to break free. “I won’t let them win!”
He dragged her backward. She twisted in his arms and thrust her missile into his chest.
As his tether blackened and broke, Robert screamed. Sarangerel’s face blanched, and she shrieked. Both of them clutched their hearts and doubled over.
Between them, a spark even brighter than the exploding bomb kindled. White-hot lightning streaked out and enveloped both Sarangerel and Robert. With a deafening crack and a blinding flash, they vanished.
For a horrified instant, Rosalia was too shocked to move. Then she grabbed Steve’s arm and dragged him to the bomb. “Lead us out of here.”
She fell in between Adrian and Beverly and added her telekinetic power to theirs. The bomb was shoving outward with significantly more force than before. If they didn’t finish this quickly, it was going to break loose.
Steve seized her hand and Adrian’s. His telekinesis supplemented theirs, and his voice was firm and confident. “Keep it light and steady. All together. One, two three—go.” Gently at first, then with more force, the four of them pushed the incandescent ball into motion.
As they neared the corner, three of Angel’s faceless minions burst through the walls. They ranged themselves across the hallway and raised shining missiles. Rosalia heard Steve’s silent curse, but aloud he remained calm. “With me. Slow, now slower. A little more. Stop.” They eased the explosion to a smooth halt.
Beverly pulled back, pressing Rosalia’s hand into Adrian’s. “I’ll clear them out of the way, if the rest of you can handle the bomb.”
“We’ve got it,” Steve assured her. Adrian echoed his reassurance, and so did Rosalia. She accepted the force Beverly transferred into her control.
As soon as her share was redistributed, Beverly zipped forward. A few well-placed shots scattered their weaker enemies. She moved aside. “Get that thing out of here. I’ll guard your back.”
Steve got them moving again. They made a right turn. Rosalia and Adrian pushed the bomb from behind while Steve pulled from the front. As they grew more comfortable coordinating their telekinetic efforts, their speed increased. They raced down a long, straight corridor over the heads of terrified doctors, nurses, and patients, who screamed and cowered and pointed.
Steve warned them as another turn approached, and they slowed in unison. They used the full width of the intersection to guide the bomb through a smooth curve. Rosalia panted and struggled to maintain the flow of telekinetic energy. Just little longer…
Steve guided them into a room. Rosalia nearly wept at the sight of sunlight beyond a window. The glass burst in a shower of fragments. “Careful,” Steve said. “It’s going to be a close fit.”
Rosalia poured her focus into working in perfect harmony with the others. They did the same. With Steve, the soul bond made it easy. Coordinating with Adrian took more effort, but they opened their minds wide to each other and followed Steve’s lead. He eased the bomb toward the opening, and together they slid it through. The window frame scorched and blackened as it passed.
They soared up and west, into the clear turquoise sky. The bomb strained at its bounds. They passed over a strip of golden sand and white lines of breakers. The ocean spread beneath.
Steve said, “Now!”
With a sob of relief, Rosalia released the bomb. It flashed brilliant white. The shockwave passed through her insubstantial astral form quicker than thought. A crack of thunder deafened her. Billows of thick gray smoke choked the air.
Steve’s hand tightened around hers. She fell into his arms. They reached out to include Adrian in their exuberant embrace.
The three of them hugged fiercely, then fell back to regard each other in marveling wonder. Gradually the smoke thinned and dispersed. Blue sky appeared overhead, blue ocean below. Rosalia still couldn’t quite believe it was over.
Steve wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We did it,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 29
Present
As they approached the hospital, Adrian shot off to find Beverly. Steve was about to follow when he remembered a crucial detail. New fear clutched his heart. “Your body,” he said to Rosalia. “Carlos still has it.”
She caught her breath, then grimaced. “He’s no match for the two of us together.” She pushed in front of him and zoomed away, following her tether.
She was right, he told himself as he chased her. If it came to a fight, they could defeat Carlos easily. With luck, they could eliminate Angel’s last leader and put an end to the rogue organization for good.
Carlos must have reached the same conclusion, because his car was gone. Rosalia’s body lay crumpled in the parking lot next to the space where it had been. Steve clenched his fists when he spotted it, helpless and vulnerable. Forget psychic threats from their enemies—she could have been run over by any careless driver. He was going to hunt down Carlos and make the Spaniard pay for treating her with such reckless disdain.
“He could have killed me, but he didn’t,” Rosalia said as she dropped into her body. She sat up, shook her head hard, and climbed to her feet, brushing dirt from her clothes and hair. “Forget him for now. Let’s find your body and make sure it’s safe.”
Grudgingly, he admitted she had a point. He traced his tether back toward the hospital, transmitting an image of where he was so she could follow, even though she could no longer see his astral form.
Now they were evacuating the building. A nervous crowd, many of them in skimpy hospital gowns, surrounded the door, chattering about the baffling events of the morning. Dozens of wheeled beds holding patients stood around haphazardly, and staff were rolling more out every minute. Patients trailing IV stands limped on the arms of nurses. Wheelchairs bore others. A cluster of clear plastic bassinets held newborn babies, with frantic parents striving to reach them and nurses demanding to see identification.
Steve sternly dismissed the guilt that assaulted him. It wasn’t his fault Angel had put all these people at risk in their attempt to kill him. It was because of what he’d done, along with Rosalia and the others, that they’d escaped with their lives. A little stress and inconvenience was a small price to pay.
His tether led him to the middle of the hospital lobby, where two nurses were wheeling the bed bearing his unconscious body, still attached by a tangle of wires to the monitor an orderly rolled alongside. They were caught in a traffic jam of beds waiting to exit.
Rosalia was trying to make her way upstream through the crowd. No need to wait for her. Steve stretched out and sank into his body. Apparently his brain was healthy enough to regain consciousness, now that his mind was back, because his thoughts continued instead of fading into blackness.
As the usual disorientation subsided, he evaluated his condition. His head hurt, but not as badly as he feared. They must have given him painkillers. Morphine or some other opiate, to judge by the woozy, floating sensation. His limbs felt weak, and his mind was foggy and dull, but other than that nothing seemed wrong.
He blinked experimentally a few times, then turned to one of the people pushing him, waving at the IV line trailing from his arm and the electrodes attached to his head. “Hey.” His tongue felt thick and heavy, and some of his words slurred. “Any chance of getting this stuff disconnected?”
The man cast a harried look at his monitor, then patted his arm. “Lie still, please. There’s been some excitement while you were unconscious, but everything is going to be fine. We’ll get a doctor to check you as soon as possible. Until then, relax and let us take care of you.”
Steve briefly considered ripping out the wires and tubes and going in search of Rosalia, but instead dropped his head to the pillow and stared at the ceiling. She’d find him soon enough.
A few minutes later he smiled at the sound of her strident voice demanding to be let through. He sat up and waved. “Over here.”
She shoved past the doctor arguing with her and squeezed between beds until she reached his side. “What are you doing? Lie back down. Have you forgotten you just had brain surgery?”
He loved the fire flashing in her eyes. Just to irritate her, he swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Calm down. I feel fine. We need to find Solomon and the rest of the Eight and tell them about our vision. Let me get my clothes.”
“Don’t you dare!” She shoved his shoulders, none too gently. “Adrian and Beverly went back to New York and gave Solomon the message. Angel dropped the telepathy block once they realized it no longer served any purpose. Solomon is going to catch a flight so he can check on you in person.”
“He doesn’t need to do that.” Steve felt touched. In the midst of his own troubles, Solomon was willing to take the time to come all the way across the country to give him the gift of his physical presence.
“That’s what I told him, but he insisted.”
Steve was starting to feel lightheaded, but Rosalia was still glaring at him, so he stayed sitting. “He told the rest of the Eight about Sarthex’s plan?”
“Yes. The secret is good and out. Angel failed.”
“Thank god.” The knowledge lifted a huge weight from his heart. “Does he have any ideas about how to stop them from making the maneuver?”
“Not that he told me.” She scowled and pointed at him. “Don’t you dare even think about rushing off to the Seraphim ship. We did our part. Let the others deal with Sarthex while your brain heals.”
He scowled back. “I won’t let the rest of the Eight fight him without my help. My brain can heal just fine while my soul is traveling. They need me.”
“I need you more!” She put her fists on her hips. “I’ll tell Solomon to order you to rest for at least a week.”
“He’s my leader, not my commander. I don’t have to follow his orders.”
“Then I will personally sit on you to keep you in your body. The Eight can’t afford to lose you any more than I can.”
“They won’t.” He pointed at her. “Feel that?”
She glared at him. “What?”
He thumped his chest. “Our bond.”
“What about it? It’s fine.”
“Exactly.” He grinned at her, relief and joy joining the drugs to give him a heady sense of euphoria. “We’re yelling at each other, and it doesn’t care. We can fight all we want. We don’t have to be afraid that one wrong word or angry outburst will break it. It’s a lot stronger than that.”
She blinked, then frowned, then closed her eyes. After a moment she opened them again, wonder matching his own shining there. A smile crept across her face. “Damn. You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “Solomon is going to be pleased his plan bore fruit so quickly. Once I’m fully recovered, you and I are going to be a formidable team. The Seraphim will never be able to surprise us again. Our visions will guide the Covenant’s strategy and decisions.”
They shared a moment of pleasure at the prospect before Rosalia scowled again. This time it was mostly in jest. “Is that all I am to you? A way to make your psychic powers stronger? A source of real visions to replace the fake ones?”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “You know it’s not,” he whispered into her ear. “I get plenty of other things from you. And if I’m not mistaken, you get plenty from me. Want me to demonstrate?” Mindful of the very public setting, he kept his hands to himself, but he sent a delicate thread of telekinetic power to caress her breasts.
She caught her breath and swallowed. “Stop that,” she murmured, without much conviction. “The doctor said you have to avoid anything that will increase your heart rate and blood pressure for at least a month. You can’t risk putting strain on the damaged blood vessels in your brain until they’re completely healed.”
Steve muttered a heartfelt curse. He knew she was right, though. His heart was pounding, his blood was pumping, and the ache in the back of his head had sharpened considerably.
He was miraculously still alive when he should have been dead many times over. He wasn’t going to risk his life or the function of his brain because he couldn’t restrain his lust. Rosalia would still be there in a month, a year, a decade. They’d have all their lives to celebrate their love for each other.
Besides, there were other ways. “My body will stay nice and calm if we’re in our astral forms.”
She tilted her head, eyes dancing. “There is that.”
“Tonight? I don’t think the monitors will pick up anything unusual if I leave my body for a while.”
She stroked his cheek. “If they do, it won’t matter. Everyone knows about psychic powers now. You can just tell your doctor what the readings mean, and that they’re harmless.”
“That’s right. I keep forgetting the Covenant’s not a secret anymore.”
“Half of Los Angeles saw me flying across the city during morning rush hour. There are probably ten thousand videos on the Internet already. Skeptics are going to have a hard time explaining them away.” Her tone was humorous, but there was deep emotion under the lightness.
He squeezed her waist. “I know how much that means to you.”
She shrugged, but didn’t deny it. “It will take a lot more than that to prove our powers are real to everyone. I’m glad I get to be a part of it, though.”
He pulled her to him for a brief, tender kiss. Then he could no longer ignore the pain in his head and his increasing wooziness. He swung his legs back onto the bed and pulled up the sheet. “I think I’ll try to catch a nap. It’s going to take hours for them to decide the building is safe and let us back inside. Get some breakfast, then find somewhere to lie down. Both of us were up all night.”
She rubbed her eyes. “God, you’re right. That must be why I feel like shit. I’ll catch a bus back to my hotel. Call me when Solomon gets here. I want to talk to him, too.”
“I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you as well.” Steve laid back and closed his eyes. Sleep sounded like a really good idea. God, he was exhausted.
He hated to let Rosalia’s fingers slip through his, but she was still there in his mind and his heart. She always would be. That truth warmed him as he relaxed into welcome darkness.
Sometime around noon the firefighters finally declared the building clear. The confusion of the mass exodus happened again in reverse, minus the patients who had been discharged, had transferred to another hospital, or had checked themselves out against medical advice. More than once Steve was tempted to become one of the latter, but thoughts of Rosalia’s displeasure restrained him. Someone brought him a sandwich, and he devoured it while they wheeled him back up to the ICU, his trusty monitor beeping along beside him the whole way.
Solomon contacted him telepathically when his plane touched down. Steve passed word to Rosalia, who was just waking from her nap. She made it to his room first, so they were both there to welcome the leader of the Covenant when he walked through the door.
Solomon beamed at them. “I can’t begin to express how happy I
am to find you both alive and well.” He took a seat in the chair Rosalia had dragged in from another room in anticipation of his arrival. It made the tiny space so crowded Solomon’s feet were jammed against the bed and he had to duck his head to keep it from bumping an overhead shelf, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I must apologize for failing to check in on you and for being unable to respond immediately when Beverly alerted us to your distress. Other crises demanded my attention. Although if I’d realized how much danger you were in, I would have found some way to get you help. I’m very glad you managed to resolve the situation yourselves.”
“You’ll have to tell us all about what’s been going on.” Steve hoped none of his friends were facing as much danger as he and Rosalia had. “Anything we can help with?”
“Not at the moment. I’ll be sure to let you know if your aid is required. I’ll share what I can, but much of it is private in nature.” He smiled ruefully at Steve. “You’re not the only one who’s discovered that the road to a soul bond is seldom smooth.”
“Oh.” It figured the others had set out to follow Solomon’s instructions as quickly as he had. What kind of difficulties were they encountering? He’d probably never know the full truth. There were certainly parts of what had happened between him and Rosalia he was never going to share with the rest of the Eight.
She rescued him from having to say anything else. “You really didn’t need to take the time to come here physically, if you’ve been so busy.”
Solomon inclined his head. “My presence is required in Japan. This made a convenient place to break my journey.” He turned to Steve. “I’d like to see your memories of everything you feel comfortable sharing with me, particularly your interactions with Angel and the vision they tried so hard to keep from the Covenant.” Turning, he nodded to Rosalia. “Yours, too. Different perspectives can often provide deeper insight.”
