by Jody Wallace
None of us acknowledged the unspoken “now that they got someone else” addendum. Until I did. “It’s like there’s a vampire going around eating supras.”
“What?” Beau and John said at the same time.
“That would explain why it only gets one. It gets full after it sucks a brain dry.”
“Psychic vampirism is not a registered ability,” John said with more than a touch of asperity. “Or an unregistered one. Or a scientifically possible one. Suprasenses don’t work that way.”
“Erasers like Lou muck with the brain.”
“Short term memory loss is a hormonal and neural effect,” John said. “It’s a far cry from brain sucking.”
The science of suprasenses had flown in one of my ears and out the other, but I’d latched onto one important aspect. “There are still things we don’t understand. I could be right.”
“I don’t understand why you’re still here,” Beau said.
“I keep coming back to the fact we had headaches.” I held up my hand to forestall John. “It’s like you don’t want to acknowledge the fact we had a warning and ignored it.”
I guess they couldn’t handle illogic and vampires followed by logic and reason. Beau opened his eyes and stared at John, and the two of them communed in some silent dude agreement that the chick in the room was nuts.
Or worse—she was right.
“It’s possible something affected us,” Beau finally said, “and they latched onto me because I’m more important.”
“They crisped you up like bacon because you’re special?” I scoffed. “Superiority complex much?”
“Your imagery sucks.” Beau wriggled his feet until he could toe off his shoes.
I didn’t agree his loss would affect YuriCorp more than John’s. Jolene could do most anything in the lab Beau could do, plus she was nicer. Beau didn’t go to many customer sites. I kept hearing he was this great trainer and science genius, but I’d seen no evidence—considering the evidence was me. It seemed more likely today had been a crime of opportunity.
With Beau, it could just as easily have been a crime of annoyance.
John frowned. “It doesn’t fit the pattern. I get sent on more jobs. I’m not sure you’d be viewed as a greater asset.”
“I thought there was no pattern.” If Yuri had been in the room, I’d have shaken my finger at him. He’d told me there was no pattern and... No, he’d told me there was no concentric map circle leading to the hideout of the villain.
“Well,” John demurred, “there’s a tendency for them to strike the higher strength supra and pass over the chameleons. If they want to debilitate us as a company, that’s how to do it.”
Yuri hadn’t mentioned the bad guys took out the ranking officers because it was common sense. Duh.
“It doesn’t help us find out how it’s happening or prevent it from happening,” John finished.
We were perilously close to discussing the mole in front of Beau. The fact YuriCorp was being targeted was common knowledge outside YuriCorp as well as inside it. The fact we were actively investigating was not common knowledge, but it would be stupid if we weren’t. The part nobody suspected was that I was the secret weapon.
Some weapon I’d turned out to be.
“Someone should talk to Yuri and Al about the migraine early alert system,” I said. “Pavarti had a headache the day she burned out. Did any others have headaches?”
“I’ll mention it to Al tonight.” John checked his watch. “Right now we have to go. Beau, Cleo will be back in four hours to drive you to Nashville.”
“Never trust a woman driver,” Beau said before I yanked the door shut.
He’d had been lying about women drivers—he’d only said that to piss me off. How could I deny the poor, crispy man the satisfaction of a loudly-slammed door?
~ * ~
Instead of telling anyone at Wyse Beau had had a nervous breakdown, we pretended he and I had been recalled on a work matter, which technically was true. A family matter wouldn’t explain us both leaving.
But it did raise the question, did Beau have a family or had he been spawned from primordial muck? Yuri had scheduled a company picnic, but I’d never heard Beau talk about anyone, inside or outside his head. I never heard rumors about him sleeping around. I never heard about him, period. He was a testy hermit nobody liked.
Huh. I’d never thought about the parallel, but that would have described me at most of the companies where I’d worked before YuriCorp.
John and I agreed I shouldn’t waltz around Wyse and ask people if they’d sucked Beau’s brain dry. I hadn’t found anything at the company where Pavarti had been struck, and a quick phone call to a troubled Yuri confirmed—I was to cart the A.S.S. home A.S.A.P. and not take any additional risks.
The A.S.S. was mobile when I returned to the hotel, his bags packed and his expression grim. He frowned all the way to the car.
“So, no stroke,” I guessed, more relieved that I let on. “That’s good, right?”
“I told you that already.” He glared at me before he tossed his suitcase into the trunk of the company sedan.
“Is it permanent?” I asked.
“Too early to tell, but thank you so much for the reminder.”
I placed my suitcase beside his and my purse in front. “I meant the frown.”
He didn’t answer, just got in the car with his leather man bag and crossed his arms.
“How cute, we both have purses.”
He still didn’t say anything. He was probably suffering emotional upheaval from the burnout, but he was upright and walking. He hadn’t had a stroke. I wasn’t one to look on the bright side, but his situation could be worse.
“You can sleep in the back if you want.” Then I’d be under no obligation to talk to him. He’d make me practice my fade for the next five hours and lecture me on my errors.
“Take my eyes off the road? Not a chance. I want to see the guard rail coming.”
“My driving record is practically unblemished.” I fiddled with the radio until I found a loud rock station.
He clicked the radio off. “I still have a headache.”
“I figured you did.” I thought about switching the radio back on, but I wasn’t that mean.
He fell silent. I fell silent. Atlanta traffic, a hideous, snarling monstrosity, required all my concentration. I didn’t hear an audible sigh of relief from him once we were free of the beast and on our way to Tennessee, but by that point I couldn’t bear the quiet any longer.
I sighed for both of us. “I hate city driving.”
I expected him to say, “I hate your driving,” but he didn’t. He said, “Can you see me?”
I glanced at him. “Yeah.”
“Describe me.”
I knew this test. “You’re slouched in the seat with your legs spread. Classic little man syndrome, trying to take up more space than your itty bitty body needs. Sleeveless maroon T-shirt, the epitome of classy, and ripped off khaki pants. You know, they sell those as shorts. Hemmed and everything. A necklace with what looks like cat food on it. Tattoo. Earrings. Since when do you wear earrings?” He had a tiny silver hoop in each lobe.
It was weird, now that I reflected on it, to see him out of a lab coat. His biceps were cut, and he had a tattoo around one, black ink barely visible against his dark skin. The T-shirt did his chest some favors I didn’t appreciate noticing. I’d always known he was physically attractive, but I’d disliked him so much it didn’t matter. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone, though the ladies at YuriCorp enjoyed cataloguing the men a lot more than the men dared catalogue the ladies.
“Don’t take this the way it sounds,” I said, “but have you been working out?”
“No.” He leaned his head back and groaned. His full lips, lips I’d never, ever focused on before this very moment, tightened. “Hell and damnation.”
“What?” I tore my gaze from him and placed it on the road.
“My fade is gone.”
“Didn’t you expect it to be?” The man was burned out. Many victims hadn’t regained their abilities, and Adam Donning’s situation was looking dismal in many ways. His stroke had been massive.
“Doesn’t make it any easier to tolerate.”
How would not being able to fade affect his daily existence? Chameleoning was a touch suprasense, and he didn’t use it in the lab. He only used it in training, which he seemed to hate as much as he’d hated being on site. Hell, he might be happier without those obligations.
“Does your skin feel dead?” I wasn’t experienced enough with chameleoning to imagine what it would be like to lose it.
“It’s not that.” We rounded a curve, and the setting sun blasted directly into the car. He flipped a pair of shades from his man bag and slid them on.
Maybe dead skin wasn’t making him morose. It could be the loss of his other skill—the one that didn’t show up in the Registry and wasn’t the invisibility thing.
“What do you feel like?” I asked.
“My head hurts. Try to fade,” he said.
“I can’t, I’m driving.” I needed to ask my questions so they weren’t suspicious but would produce the answers I wanted. “How is this going to affect you at work?”
“I won’t have to go on site.” That wasn’t the whole story. Omissions produced a light masking effect. “Fade.”
I ignored his attempt to divert me. “If that’s all, why are you so grouchy?”
“Why are you so curious?” He turned to face me, his brows drawing together above his sunglasses. His soft-looking lips were darker on the outside, pinker on the inside. He had no stubble. His sculpted face was as smooth as my legs after a hot wax.
When he slid his arm along the back of the seat, his muscles bunched, etching out a sexy indention below his bicep.
There was no reason in the world why YuriCorp’s women wouldn’t crow about this man’s assets whenever he turned his back. Especially when he turned his back. It couldn’t be his disposition. They weren’t loath to objectify any and every man, despite personality or marital status.
Why was he suddenly so striking? I’d wanted to strike him on numerous occasions, but I’d never wanted to...
That was disgusting. Come on, Cleo. Get a grip.
I thought about his body pressed against mine yesterday, his hands tight on my wrists, his hips between my thighs. Then I thought about all the mean things he’d said to me, and I got better.
It helped to fixate on the road. “Why am I curious? I want to know what it’s like to be burned out.”
“For you, nothing. You’re not good enough for it to matter,” he lied.
“Asshole.” The insult didn’t have the vigor it usually did. When you call somebody an asshole that often, it loses its punch. “What could you do besides be a management consultant if your ability to be a chameleon never came back?”
“Work in a lab, obviously.”
Another omission. There was something else he felt he could do; he just wasn’t saying it.
“Did you go to school for science?”
“Yes.”
“Have you had other jobs?”
He pursed his lips, like he couldn’t decide what he wanted to share. This was as close as we’d ever come to a personal discussion. I’d had deeper conversations with YuriCorpers I’d only met once.
I saw Beau every day. Way too long every day, and I knew nothing about him.
“My first job in the supra community was with the Registry lab,” he finally said.
“That’s interesting.” The Registry lab was where supra DNA received the comprehensive analysis required to determine all sensitivities, especially latent ones. He must know a lot of things about a lot of people. “Did you like it?”
“It was a job.” He slid his arm off the seat and faced the front.
There was something more there, but there could hardly be less. I couldn’t stare at the lips of his mask while I was driving. I’d have to be satisfied knowing there was a story behind his nonexistent story. “Why are you working at YuriCorp now?”
“How is that any of your business?” He shuffled around in his bag and pulled out an MP3 player.
He wouldn’t.
“You may not realize this, but this is called a conversation. It’s what adults do when they’re trapped in a car for five hours.”
Next he pulled out headphones. “If you say so.”
Although I’d hoped he’d sleep in the back seat, now that I was on the trail of actual facts, I did not want him putting on those headphones. I started babbling.
“About your job at the Registry. Did you ever run your own chart and—”
“No,” he lied. He fiddled with the MP3 player, rolling the dials and inspecting the read-out.
I wasn’t going to get the information that way without raising his suspicions. “They’ve got no source of income other than what the companies provide, do they? Like a charity. I can’t believe we haven’t gotten solicitation calls. They could sell calendars to raise money—twelve months of sexy supras.” That put me in mind of his appearance, which was aggravating, but I could use it. “Do you think they’d want you for Mr. August?”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
I’d never seen a black man blush before, and I didn’t see one blush now. Damn. “You could pose with Samantha. She makes you look tall.”
“So do you,” he pointed out. “Tall and thin.”
God, I hated him. Even if he was only saying it to hurt me—the liar—it rankled.
“You must realize you’re a pretty boy,” I mocked. “Wham-style double earrings. Tribal tattoo. Hemp necklace. Trendy little dreads. All smooth-shaven and muscled up. You’re a gym bunny. Admit it.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he lied.
I couldn’t see every detail of his mask, but oh boy, did he ever have one!
“You’ve been hiding your light under a bushel,” I guessed. “You actually care about your appearance.”
“No, I don’t.”
Lies, lies, lies! I risked a long, careful glance. “What are you not telling me?”
“Nothing,” he said, and his mask said, I keep a fade all the time.
“Have you...have you been running a fade at YuriCorp like you did at Wyse Money?”
“No,” he lied.
It was a reasonable guess, even without reading his mask. “How does it work on me and the other chameleons?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And his mask said, Chameleons can’t see me, but I can see them. All of them. No matter how good they are.
I opened my mouth to call him out, but I wasn’t sure what I’d say. Such a confrontation would mean admitting my own secret ability, like he’d unwittingly admitted his. He could fade from other chameleons and see other chameleons who were faded.
That would be handy...for corporate espionage.
To hell with it. “Are you loyal to YuriCorp?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. It was true. “Jesus, Cleo. What goes on in that head of yours?”
“I don’t know. All these horrible things happening around us. I’m sorry.” Why would he hide his ability if he was loyal to the company? It wasn’t like mine. It wouldn’t make him a pariah. Moreover, his running a fade at work all the time baffled me, but he’d denied it and I couldn’t prove anything unless I told him what I could do.
“Do you want to talk about something else?” I tried to think of a way I could get him to confirm, out loud, that he maintained a constant fade.
“Actually, no,” he lied.
Huh.
But then he said, “If you’re not going to practice, I’m done.” He slipped the headphones into his ears and cranked his MP3 player so loud I could hear the tinny thump of whatever music was filtering into his ears.
“Since I have to drive, the least you can do is entertain me,” I grumbled, but I was pretty sure he couldn’t hear me. His secret sensitivity, apparently, was in his eye
s.
Oh, and his appearance. He seemed pretty sensitive about that, too.
~ * ~
Two days after we returned from Atlanta, I returned to work. Yuri had given me the weekend to recover and Beau as long as he needed, but Monday it was business as usual for us both.
Whatever that was. With me not gearing up to go on site, I did mornings with Beau and afternoons in consulting studies with follow-up from Atlanta. I was drawn in on some prep on a couple projects to see how that side of the business functioned. Yuri didn’t assign me another job, even though other consultants hopped from site to site without much of a break now that we were short staffed.
At least Beau’s burnout distracted him from the tests he’d wanted to run on my DNA. But then, so did the people who kept showing up at the lab, wanting to speak with him. And other stuff.
The people at YuriCorp had some dirty minds.
“I’m serious,” Roxanne said, cracking her knuckles in the doorway of the lab. “It’s standard procedure to come in for a checkup if you burn out.”
Beau flipped his goggles to his forehead. “It’s my brain, not my spine.”
“You’d be surprised how much difference an adjustment makes. You might be out of alignment and not realize it.”
“I’m aligned,” he said.
Roxanne wasn’t wearing protective booties and didn’t step into the lab. I perched on my corner stool, dutifully faded, which meant neither was fully aware of my presence. Beau’s burnout had relieved him of his ability to see other chameleons who were faded.
She flipped shiny black curls off her shoulders and smiled with frightening rapaciousness. “I need to get my hands on you to be sure.”
“I’ll pass.” Beau replaced his goggles and turned back to the test tubes he was decanting into a hazardous waste container.
That was the morning of the first day. On the second day, Tina Harris, our new chameleon, asked him to lunch in order to “talk to the master”, which might not have been the best approach, considering he was burned out and surly about it. Two more single YuriCorp women and one man also put in an appearance, and that’s just while I was present.
