by Rebecca York
He scanned the scene, then took a step forward. The beach seemed to be deserted except for some plovers running along the edge of the waves, searching for crabs and other sea creatures.
He looked to his right, and elation surged through him when he saw that Anna was standing on the sand on a spot that was formed from recent waves. In bed beside him, she had been naked. In the dream she was wearing a South Sea island sarong made of bright flowered material. It blew gently in the breeze, as did her hair, which was dark and shiny around her shoulders.
When he took a quick look behind him, he could see the white walls of the house poking up through a tangle of vegetation.
So in the dream Anna was still on the island, but she had come down to the water’s edge and dressed herself in something comfortable but simple.
He was still as naked as when he’d awakened. But this was a dream, after all. And he grinned as he thought about what he might put on.
Not just clothing, but a whole persona. He could be anything in the world. He could come to Anna as a Greek god. Or a rock star.
He decided on being himself and wearing a pair of loose-fitting trunks with a random blue and white Hawaiian pattern.
He grinned again when they appeared on his lower body. Too bad he and Anna couldn’t stay here. Then they’d have everything they needed.
He thought about asking the god of dreams for a cup of coffee and a bagel slathered with cream cheese and apricot jelly. But that would only be a cruel joke when he woke up and had nothing to eat besides canned soup and protein bars.
Anna raised her hand to shade her eyes as she looked out over the ocean, apparently searching for something.
Barefoot, he walked lightly across the sand and came up quietly behind her. Before he reached her, she stiffened.
“Zach?”
“Were you expecting someone else?” he asked, unable to keep a gritty sound out of his voice.
“Of course not.”
When she tried to spin around and face him, he circled her waist with his hands and held her where she was.
She settled against him, then asked in a high, breathy voice, “What are you doing here?”
“You know that this is a dream?”
She hesitated for a moment, apparently considering the situation. “Yes,” she finally said. “It’s my dream, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did you get here?” She tried to turn again. “Are you really Zach? Or did I invent you?”
“It’s really me.” He laughed. “I wanted to see if I could join you. I mean I wanted to see if we could find one more way to connect with each other.”
“Always inventive.”
He caught the tension in her voice. “Is that a complaint?”
As he spoke, he pulled her more tightly against his body, then bent to skim his lips against her neck. “I like your outfit.”
She looked down and laughed again. “I guess it must be the right dress for a shipwreck survivor.”
“Plane wreck.”
“Oh, right. Maybe I don’t want to remember that.”
“What’s wrong?”
She looked around and shivered. “Someone’s watching us. I guess it’s him.”
Zach’s head snapped up, and he looked out toward sea, then to his left and right and finally behind him.
He saw no one.
“You don’t feel it?”
He didn’t answer, but he couldn’t stop a shiver from racing across his skin. The same shiver that had seized Anna.
YES.It’s me, Raoul thought with satisfaction. You can’t hide from me. Even in your sleep.
He and Etienne had gone out to ask questions, staying out late until almost nobody had been left on the streets. He’d gone home to bed for a few hours of sleep. Not with Nadine. He didn’t want the interference of Nadine now. So he bedded down in one of his other houses.
In the morning, he’d gone back to the shrine. He’d learned that Ibena was capricious. She was teasing him. Or maybe she was testing his loyalty. But he would let her know that he hadn’t lost his faith in her. And when she realized his dedication to her service, she would reward him.
He’d begun to pray again. And as he had knelt before the altar, he had stumbled into Anna’s dream.
She was standing on the beach, staring out to sea. At first he’d been elated to find her alone. He’d been about to contact her when the man named Zach had stepped into the scene.
“Damn you, you fish bait!”
As soon as Raoul muttered the curse, he struggled to calm his emotions. Emotions would get him into trouble. He wanted to lash out immediately. He wanted to hurl a thunderbolt that would shatter the peace of the dream. But he held back, biding his time, thinking about what he could do.
And as he watched and waited, he saw something else.
There were more people in the dream. Not just Anna and Zach. Another man and woman.
Blood fire!
“CAN you feel him?” Anna whispered, as though keeping her voice low would prevent someone else from hearing their conversation.
“San Donato?”
“Yeah.” Determined to make it clear that Anna belonged to him, Zach skimmed his hands up and down her sides, his fingertips caressing the outer curves of her breasts.
He was gratified to feel her instant response to him. Looking down and over her shoulder, he could see her nipples bead under the fabric of her sarong.
She arched against him, her bottom pressing to his erection, and he started thinking that he should throw some blankets on the grass so he could make love to her. That would show the bastard which man belonged in this dream and which man didn’t.
Yes, she whispered in his mind.
But before he could lead her off the beach, a movement out in the blue water caught his attention.
Anna’s mind must have been tuned to his, because she followed his gaze.
“What’s that?”
At first the object was far away and indistinct. Then he saw that it was a boat—speeding toward the island.
Anna made a small sound.
“It’s him! He’s coming here.”
CONFUSION swamped Zach.
But the thought uppermost in his mind was to protect Anna.
“Don’t run.” Keeping her close, he shifted her so that his body was between her and the beach.
Maybe San Donato had invaded their dream. But he didn’t think the bastard was on that boat.
But if not him, then who?
The craft was speeding toward them, and Zach dragged in a startled breath as he took in the shape.
He blinked. It was his boat. “What the hell?”
“What?” she asked.
“It’s the Odysseus.”
As he stared at the approaching craft, he could see a man and a woman standing at the rail, staring intently toward the island.
They both had dark hair. The woman was small and pretty. The man was taller and tougher. But they both looked determined—and also relieved. They stopped about thirty feet from shore, the boat bobbing in the waves.
Who are you? Zach challenged, deliberately asking the question in his mind—not out loud—to see if these people could communicate that way.
We’ve been trying to reach you, they answered together, the words echoing in his head—and in Anna’s, he knew.
You’re in danger.
Yeah. We know that. Who are you? he asked again.
Jordan and Lindsay. We helped the pilot keep the plane from crashing.
You! Anna exclaimed.
How do you know us? Zach asked.
We’ve been casting our thoughts outward, trying to locate other people like us.
Other people like us? Psychics?
Not just psychics. There isn’t time for a long explanation now. But we’re all the result of the experiment at Dr. Remington’s fertility clinic. He was trying to create superintelligent children. Instead he created telepaths whose powers are dormant until they
connect with another subject from the experiment.
A fertility clinic, Anna gasped.
Your parents told you about it?
Yes, she answered.
But Zach shook his head. He’d never known that part of his personal story. Now he had a sudden insight into why his father had been so disappointed. He’d paid through the nose to have a child with his second wife. And he hadn’t been pleased with what he’d gotten.
The clinic was funded by a quasi-government agency called the Crandall Consortium. But the project went wrong.
Anna raised her head. Wait a minute. My powers weren’t dormant. I was using them to make a living.
We know about your psychometric act. We’re impressed that you could do that by yourself. But your powers have blossomed since you bonded with Zach, haven’t they?
Yes! she answered.
A man named Jim Swift is trying to kill as many of us as he can find. That’s why we changed our last name from Walker to West. He hired the thugs to get you on the plane.
They drowned, Zach said.
The woman breathed out a small sigh. I hope so. We’re trying to find out what happened to them.
We have another problem, Zach said. A local man who wants Anna for his wife.
But you’ve bonded with her. He can’t.
He’s trying, Zach answered. He’ll be happy if he can get me out of the picture.
The woman started to speak again, but her silent voice was cut off by a strange roaring noise. The ocean began receding from the shore, sweeping the boat farther from where Zach and Anna stood.
Wait. Come back, Anna cried out.
The woman shouted something, her voice drowned out by the the roaring water. Zach reached out a hand to them, but they were too far away for communication now.
“What’s happening?” Anna whispered.
Your Vadiana friend’s screwing around with us, Zach silently answered.
His gaze went from the receding water to Anna. She stood stock-still, staring in terrible fascination at the suddenly exposed sand and rock, where fish and other sea creatures flopped up and down on the wetly shining surface.
“How?” she breathed.
“I don’t know. But this didn’t come from your mind—or mine. He did it somehow.” As he grasped the implications, he grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the shoreline. “Run. Run for your life.”
JIM Swift—or Stone, as he called himself now—checked his e-mail again. Wild Bill should have checked in by now. But he hadn’t heard anything. That was bad news.
Had the woman freak gotten away? And the guy? And where the hell was Bill?
Afraid to check in because he’d screwed up?
Jim wouldn’t put that past the little bastard. But that left him in the dark and cursing.
Maybe he could find out if the plane had even taken off from Grand Fernandino—and if it had come back.
He opened an Internet window and started searching the news. A plane had taken off from the island and not come back.
So did that mean Anna Ridgeway and Zachary Robinson were dead? And what about Wild Bill and the freelancers?
If luck was running his way, something had happened on that plane. And the problem had taken care of itself.
But he wasn’t going to count on it for sure.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
“RUN!” ZACH SHOUTED again, tugging on Anna’s arm. “Run!”
She made a strangled sound, then turned and dashed back into the jungle.
He pelted along beside her, and they reached the tree line just as a roaring noise sounded behind them.
Images flashed through his mind—footage that tourists had shot of the tsunami in Thailand. They’d captured pictures of an enormous wave plowing in from the ocean, pounding resort towns along the coast, destroying everything in its path, knocking down buildings, sweeping away men, women, and children who were caught in the deluge.
He knew Anna had picked up the horrific images from him. He hated scaring her. Yet he knew the vivid pictures made her run faster.
He led her back toward the house, keeping pace with her as they plunged into the underbrush, his hand still firmly clasped in hers, willing her to speed up.
In one part of his brain, he was thinking that this was a dream and the water gathering speed behind them couldn’t really hurt them. But he knew deep down that if he went on that assumption, he was going to end up dead.
Had San Donato seen the same tsunami TV footage, or was he making this up as he went along?
Would the bastard kill Anna, too? If he couldn’t have her for his own, would he make sure nobody else could?
The roaring sound was coming closer. Zach kept running, pulling Anna along, even when he knew the water moved faster than they could.
Not just a tsunami. A super tsunami.
The leading edge of the tidal wave reached them, slamming them in the back. His hold on Anna’s hand snapped.
“Anna!”
He heard her call his name as he went flying into the trees. She screamed, and he thought he saw her being swept toward the house. Toward safety, he hoped. If the water didn’t bash her into one of the walls.
He was pretty sure now that San Donato didn’t want to kill her. He wanted to kill his rival.
As if in confirmation, the water swept Zach in the other direction—into the jungle. He banged against tree branches and hidden obstructions as the huge wave carried him inland. Desperately he struggled to grab something that would stop him, but the branches had turned slippery.
All he could do was try to stay on the surface, but the wave dragged him under, down, down into water churning with logs and fish and other debris.
From years of diving, he’d made himself into an excellent swimmer. He was as at home in the water as he was on land. And he could hold his breath longer than anyone else he knew.
Trying to keep his cool, he pushed toward the surface. He had almost reached the open air when something caught his foot and dragged him back under the surface.
It was exactly like what had happened two days ago, when he’d been at the shipwreck with José and the man had been terrified of Pagor.
Zach made a disgusted sound. He knew where the unfortunate image had come from. His own mind supplied the information to San Donato, who was happily using it against him.
Screw you, he silently shouted as he called up the rest of the remembered episode. José had wrenched himself away. He’d done it then, and Zach could do it now.
Zach pictured the earlier scene, focusing on the moment when the panicked diver had broken free. But the hold on his ankle only tightened. And he knew that he was going to drown.
Drown in a goddamned dream.
And the worst part was that he’d done it to himself. He never should have come here in the first place.
No you don’t, he snarled. If San Donato could change the rules, so could he.
He pictured a long-bladed knife in his hand. As he did, he felt his fingers closing around the hard rubber handle.
His lungs were bursting, but he reminded himself that he was perfectly comfortable underwater. He could hold his breath for three minutes—if he had to.
He whipped around, seeing a hand clamped around his ankle. No body, no arm. Just a damn ghostly hand.
Lunging for the fingers, he slashed at them with his knife and had the satisfaction of hearing a bloodcurdling scream. The rest of San Donato might be invisible, but that didn’t prevent him from feeling the pain of cut flesh in the dream he’d invaded.
How do you like that? Zach gibed as blood spilled from the cut fingers, turning the water red.
Zach stabbed again, and the grip around his ankle loosened, then let go entirely.
Freed from the ghostly hand, Zach shot toward the surface. He could see the sunlight above him, but before he reached it, a log came shooting through the water right toward him like a torpedo launched from a submarine.
Before he could dodg
e the guided missile, it hit him in the head, and the dream turned black.
FOR a long time, he knew nothing. Maybe he was dead. Or on the way to heaven. His mind floated in blackness. And that was fine with him.
Then, from somewhere below him, he heard a woman’s voice.
“Zach. Wake up. Don’t you dare leave me, Zach. I can’t do this by myself. Not when I’ve finally found you.”
The words drifted by him, like fish swimming in a calm pool.
He wanted to be left alone.
But the woman kept talking.
After a long time, he realized it was Anna. Her name was Anna. And she said the same thing, over and over.
Too bad he couldn’t come back. His thoughts were vague and disconnected, but one thing he knew. He wasn’t supposed to return to the earth. His enemy had told him he was supposed to stay up here in blackness, detached from his body until the husk of his mortal existence withered away and died.
“No!”
Maybe Anna had caught the finality of that wayward thought floating through his mind. If she could, more power to her.
Come back, damn you.
Leave me alone.
A searing pain slashed into the hulk of his body, and from far away, he heard himself moan.
“That’s it, you coward. Come back.”
Coward? Where do you get off calling me a coward?
If you’re not afraid, then you can damn well come back.
The pain flashed through him again, pulling him back.
“Cut that out!” he shouted.
The pain came again, and this time his eyes blinked open. To his astonishment, he was lying naked on the couch where they had gone to sleep the night before.
Anna was also naked, and she was crouching over him, her expression fierce and her hand raised to slap him in the face, and he knew she must have done it before, more than once.
“What the hell?” he gasped out.
“Thank God.”
“What…?” he tried again.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked, her voice urgent.
“Going to sleep…” He considered that for a moment. “No, waking up. You were still asleep. And dreaming.”
He dragged in a breath as memories came flashing back at him—fast and furious as his brain began to function again.
