Dark Visions

by L. J. Smith

  So she composed her face and did her best to veil her thoughts. It wasn't easy to hide things from mind-mates, but she'd gotten a lot of practice in the past week or so. Looking as resigned and grim as possible, she said, "I agree, too."

  She was worried that they might be suspicious- but she was with three of the most unsuspicious people in the world. Rob nodded, looking genuinely grim and resigned himself, Anna shook her head sadly, and Lewis sighed.

  "We'll hope for the best," Rob said. "Meanwhile, I guess we should get some sleep. We'll have to get up early and get moving."

  Which means I don't have much time, Kaitlyn thought, and then she tried to smoke-veil that, too. "It's a good idea," she said, going over to the desk and putting the crystal shard back in.

  Lewis said good night and left, chewing one thumbnail and looking wistful. About Gabriel? Kaitlyn wondered. Or Lydia? Anna departed for the bathroom and Kait and Rob were left alone.

  "I'm sorry about all this," Rob said. "And especially sorry he hurt you. That was-unspeakable." His eyes were dark, dark gold.

  "It doesn't matter." Kaitlyn was still cold-and drawn to Rob's warmth like a moth to a flame. Especially now, when there might be no tomorrow . . . but he couldn't know that. She reached for him and he took her in his arms.

  Their first kiss was a little desperate, on both sides. Then Rob calmed down, and his tranquility spread to Kait. Oh, nice. Warm tingles, warm golden haze.

  It was harder now to cloak her thoughts from him. But she had to, he couldn't suspect that they were going to be separated for the first time since they'd met. Kaitlyn clung to him and concentrated on thinking about how much she loved him. How she wanted to engrave him on her memory . . .

  "Kait, are you all right?" he whispered. He held her face between his hands, searching her eyes.

  "Yes. I just-want to be close." She couldn't get close enough.

  You've changed me, she thought. Not just showing me that boys aren't all pond scum. You've made me different, made me look at the broader picture. Given me vision.

  Oh, Rob, I love you.

  "I love you, Kait," he whispered back.

  And that meant it was time to stop. She was losing her control; he was reading her thoughts. Reluctantly Kaitlyn pulled back.

  "You said it yourself. We're going to need our sleep," she told him.

  He hesitated, grimacing. Then nodded, yielding. "See you tomorrow."

  "Sleep well, Rob."

  You're so good, Rob, she thought as the door closed behind him. And so protective of me. You wouldn't let me do it. ...

  There was a map of Oakland on the desk; they'd bought it to find their way back to Marisol's house. She put it in her duffel bag with the rest of her worldly possessions-a change of clothes bought with the Fellowship's money and her art kit-and pulled a pair of underwear over it. Maybe there was a way to leave the bag in the bathroom . . . yes, and she could wear a nightgown over her clothing. . . .

  "Need something?" Anna's voice said from behind her. Guilt stricken, Kaitlyn froze in place.

  CHAPTER 3

  Blank your mind! Kaitlyn told herself.

  She'd been caught red-handed, thinking about things that would make Anna suspicious-if Anna had been listening. And everything tonight depended on Anna not suspecting.

  "Just trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow," Kait said lightly, giving the bag a final rummage-through. "Not that I have much choice; I'm beginning to feel like Thoreau."

  "With his one old suit?" Anna laughed, and Kaitlyn felt the knot in her stomach ease. "Well, I'm sure Marisol would lend you something if she knew what an emergency it was. Why don't you look in the closet?" Anna was going to the closet herself as she spoke. "Whew! This girl liked clothes. I bet we can both find something to fit."

  I love you, Kaitlyn thought, as Anna pulled out a long slim cotton-knit dress and said, "This looks like you, Kait." I love you and Lewis almost as much as I

  do Rob. You're all so decent-and that's why he's going to beat you if you're not careful.

  She forced her mind away from that and looked around the room. Marisol's room was like Marisol herself-an unpredictable mixture. Neat with messy, old with new. Like the big mahogany desk, with its silky-ruddy finish scratched and stained, as if it had been given by a loving grandmother to a careless teenager who used it for mixing perfume and storing a CD player. Or the leather miniskirt peeping out of a hamper just below the picture of the Virgin Mary.

  A pair of expensive sunglasses were lying half under the bed's dust ruffle. Kait picked them up and absently twisted one gold earpiece back into shape.

  "How about this?" Anna was saying, and Kait whistled. It was a very sexy, very feminine dress: spandex bodice fitting to just below the hips then flaring to a sheer chiffon skirt. Tiny gold clasps held the cap sleeves. A radical dress, black, that would make the wearer look slim as a statue.

  "For you?" Kait said.

  "No, you, dummy. It would make the boys swallow their tongues." Anna started to put the dress back.

  "Come to think of it, you don't need any more boy trouble. You've got two panting after you already."

  "This kind of dress might get a girl out of trouble," Kait said hastily, taking the hanger. Spandex and chiffon wouldn't wrinkle, and she would need all the weapons she could gather if her plan went through.

  An outfit like this might make Gabriel sit up and take notice, and seducing Gabriel was item number one on her date book.

  She folded the dress small and put it in her duffel bag. Anna chuckled, shaking her head.

  Is this really me doing this? Kait wondered. Kaitlyn

  Brady Fairchild, who used to think Levi's jeans were high fashion? But if she was going to be Mata Hari, she might as well do it thoroughly.

  What she said was, "Anna? Do you think about boys?"

  "Hmm?" Anna was peering into the closet.

  "I mean, you seem so wise about them. You always seem to know what they'll do. But you don't seem to go after them,"

  Anna laughed. "Well, we've been pretty busy lately with other things."

  Kaitlyn looked at her curiously. "Have you ever had one you really liked?"

  There was the barest instant of hesitation before Anna answered. She was looking at another dress, fingering some sequins that were coming off. Then smiled and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I found somebody worth caring for once."

  "What happened?"

  "Well-not much."

  Kaitlyn, still watching curiously, realized with surprise that Anna's thoughts were veiled. It was like seeing lights behind a paper wall-she could sense color but not shape. Is that what my veiling looks like? she wondered, and barely had the wits to ask, "Why not?"

  "Oh-it would never have worked out. He was together with somebody already. My best friend."

  "Really?" Thoughts of veiling had led to thoughts of what she was veiling, and Kaitlyn was by now utterly distracted. She hardly knew what she was saying, much less what Anna was. "You should have gone for it. I'll bet you could have taken him. With your looks ..."

  Anna grinned ruefully and shook her head. "I would never do that. It would be wrong." She put the sequinned dress back in the closet. "Now, bed," she said firmly.

  "Um." Kaitlyn was still distracted. Thinking: I'm casual, I'm calm, I'm confident. She hurried to the bathroom and came back with her clothes still on under the billowing flannel nightgown she'd gotten at Anna's house.

  She'd acquired it on the trip up to Canada, because they hadn't stopped by Anna's home in Puget Sound on the way back down. They'd accepted money and a 1956 Chevy Bel Air from the Fellowship and taken Route 101 all the way down the coast, driving all day for three days, avoiding Anna's parents.

  Avoiding any parents-they hadn't contacted Lewis's in San Francisco or Rob's in North Carolina or Kaitlyn's father in Ohio. They'd agreed on this early as a necessity; parents would only get worried and angry and would never, never agree to their kids doing what had to be done.

  But f
rom what Gabriel had said, Anna's parents had gone to the police anyway. They'd had proof of what Mr. Z was up to-files Rob had stolen from the Institute, detailing Mr. Z's experiments with his first group of students . . . but obviously even proof wasn't enough. Mr. Z had the police sewn up.

  No one from the outside could take him down.

  Kaitlyn sighed and pulled the covers more tightly over herself. She was focused on Anna, lying beside her in Marisol's bed; listening to Anna's breathing, monitoring Anna's presence in the web.

  When she was certain Anna was asleep, she quietly slipped out from under the covers.

  I'm going out to see Rob, she projected, not loud enough to wake the other girl, but loud enough, she hoped, to wiggle into Anna's subconscious. That way, if Anna noticed her missing in the next few hours, she might assume Kaitlyn was in the living room and not worry.

  Kait tiptoed to the bathroom, where she'd managed to leave her duffel bag. She stripped off the flannel nightgown and crammed it on top of the black dress and Marisol's designer sunglasses. Then she crept down the hallway and noiselessly let herself out the back door.

  There was no moon, but the stars were frosty-pale in the night sky. Oakland was too big a city for them to make much of a show, and for a moment Kaitlyn felt a pang of homesickness. Out by Piqua Road in Thoroughfare, the sky would be pitch-black, huge, and serene.

  No time to think about that. Keep moving and find a phone booth, girl.

  Back in Thoroughfare, she would have been terrified of walking around a strange city at night-not to mention daunted by the task of trying to get to another strange city, at least thirty or forty miles away. But she was a different Kaitlyn than she'd been back in Thoroughfare. She'd dealt with things then that Kaitlyn had never dreamed of, she'd traveled all the way to Canada without any adult to help, and she'd learned to rely on her own resources. Now she had no choice. She couldn't wait until morning-she'd never get away from the others in the daytime. She didn't have money for a cab. Still, there must be a way to get across the bay to San Carlos; she just had to find it.

  With an almost frightening coolheadedness, she set out to find the way.

  This wasn't a bad area of town, and she found a phone booth with an undamaged phone book. She looked up Public Transportation in the local area pages-thank heaven, it said that most of the buses ran twenty-four hours a day. She could even see the basic route she'd have to take: up to San Francisco to get across the water, then south down to San Carlos.

  But now, how to find a bus that was running at this hour? Well, first thing was to find the bus line.

  Wincing a little, she tore the AC Transit map out of the phone book-a rotten thing to do, but this was an emergency. Using that and the map of Oakland she navigated her way to MacArthur Street, where the map showed the "N" bus running all night.

  Once there, she heaved a sigh of relief. A twenty-four-hour gas station at the corner of MacArthur and Seventy-third. The attendant told her that the bus ran hourly, and the next one would come at 3:07. He seemed nice, a college age boy with shiny black skin and a flattop, and Kaitlyn hung around his booth until she saw the bus approaching.

  The bus driver was nice, too, and let her sit behind him. He was a fat man with an endless supply of ham sandwiches wrapped in greasy paper, which he took from a bag under his seat. He offered Kait one; she accepted politely but didn't eat it, just looked out the window at the dark buildings and yellowish streetlights.

  This was really an adventure. Going to Canada, she'd been with the others. But now she was alone and out of mind-shot-she could scream mentally and none of them would hear. As they approached the Bay Bridge, its swooping girders lit up like Christmas, Kaitlyn felt a thrill of joy in life. She clutched her duffel bag with both hands, sitting up very straight on her seat.

  When they got to the terminal where she'd have to change buses, the driver scratched under his chins.

  "What you want now is the San Mateo line, okay? You go across the street and wait for the Seven B-it'll be along in about an hour. They keep the terminal closed because of homeless people, so you got to wait outside." He closed the bus door, shouting, "Good luck, sweetie."

  Kaitlyn gulped and crossed the street.

  I'm not afraid of homeless people, she told herself. I was a homeless person; I slept in a vacant lot, and in a van on the beach, and . . .

  But when a man with a plaid jacket over his head came toward her pushing a shopping cart, she felt her heart begin to pound.

  He was coming closer and closer. She couldn't see what was in the cart; it was covered with newspapers. She couldn't see his face either, she only thought it was a man because of the husky build.

  He kept coming, slowly. Why slowly? So he could check her out? Kaitlyn's heart was going faster and faster, and her joy in life had disappeared. She'd been stupid, stupid to go wandering around at night by herself. If she'd only stayed in her nice safe bed . . .

  The figure under the plaid jacket was almost on her now. And there was no place to run. She was on a deserted street in a dangerous city and she couldn't even see a phone booth. The only thing she could think of to do was sit up straight and pretend she didn't even see him. Act as if she weren't afraid.

  He was right in front of her now. For an instant a streetlight shone into the hood of his jacket, and Kaitlyn saw his face.

  An old man, with grizzled hair and gentle features.

  He looked a little baffled and his lips moved as he walked-as he shuffled. That was why he was going so slowly, because he was old.

  Or, Kaitlyn thought suddenly, maybe because he's weak or hungry. It would make me hungry to push a shopping cart around at four o'clock in the morning.

  It was one of those moments when impulse overrode thought. Kaitlyn pulled the ham sandwich out of her duffel bag.

  "Want a sandwich?" she said, which was exactly what the bus driver had said to her. "It's Virginia ham."

  The old man took the sandwich. His eyes wandered over Kaitlyn for a moment and he gave a smile of astonishing sweetness. Then he shuffled on.

  Kaitlyn felt very happy.

  She was cold and tired, though, by the time the bus came. It wasn't a nice bus like the "N." It had a lot of graffiti on the outside and split vinyl seats on the inside. There was chewing gum on the floor and it smelled like a bathroom.

  But Kaitlyn was too sleepy to care, too sleepy to ask to sit behind the driver. She didn't pay much attention to the tall man in the torn overcoat until he got off the bus with her.

  Then she realized he was following her. It was nine or ten blocks walk to the Institute, and by the third block she was sure. What hadn't happened in the depths of Oakland or the wilds of San Francisco was happening here.

  Or ... he might be okay. Like the man with the shopping cart. But the man of the cart hadn't been following her.

  What to do? Knock on somebody's door? This was a residential neighborhood, but all the houses were dark. Run? Kaitlyn was a good runner; she could probably outdistance the man if he wasn't in good shape.

  But she couldn't seem to make herself do anything. Her legs just kept walking mechanically down Ex-moor Street, while shivers ran up her spine at the thought of him behind her. It was as if she were caught in some dream, where the monsters couldn't get her as long as she didn't show she was afraid.

  When she turned a corner she glanced back at him. Foxy red hair-she could see that under a streetlight.

  His clothes were ragged but he looked strong, athletic. Like somebody who could easily overtake a seventeen-year-old girl running.

  That was what she saw with her eyes. With her other sense-the one that sometimes showed her the future -she got no picture but a distinct impression. Bad. This man was bad, dangerous, full of evil thoughts. He wanted to do something bad to her.

  Everything seemed to go clear and cold. Time stretched and all Kait's instincts were turned to survival.

  Her brain was whirring furiously, but no matter which way she turned the situatio
n looked the same. Very bad. No inspiration came about to save herself.

  And underneath her thoughts ran a sickening litany: I should have known I couldn't get away with this.

  Wandering around at night on my own ... I should have known.

  Think of something, girl. Think. If you can't run, you'd better find shelter, fast.

  All the houses around her looked asleep, locked-up. She had a horrible certainty that no one would let her in ... but she had to do something. Kait felt a sort of wrenching in her guts-and then she had turned and

  was heading for the nearest house, taking the single porch step in a jump and landing on the welcome mat. Something inside her cringed from banging on the door, even in this extremity, but she clamped down on the cringe and did it. Hollow bangs echoed-not loud enough, to Kait's ears. She saw a doorbell, pushed on it frantically. She kept pounding, using the side of her fist because it hurt less than using her knuckles.

  Inside, she could hear only silence. No reaction to her noisy intrusion. No footsteps running to the door.

  Oh, God, answer! Come here and answer your door, you idiots!

  Kaitlyn looked behind her and her heart nearly jumped out of her body.

  Because the foxy man was there; he was standing on the walkway of the house. Looking at her.

  And he was veryveryvery bad. His mind was full of things that Kaitlyn couldn't sense directly, but that when put together sounded like one long scream. He'd done things to other girls-he wanted to do them to her.

  No sound from the house. No help. And she was cornered prey here on the porch. Kait made her decision in an instant. She was off the porch and running, running for the Institute, before the man could move a step.

  She heard her own pounding footsteps in the street -and pounding feet behind her. Her breath began to sob.

  And it was dark and she was confused. She didn't know which way the Institute was anymore.

  Somewhere around here she turned left-but where? It was a street that sounded like a flower or plant-but she couldn't read street signs anyway.

  That street looked familiar. Kait swerved toward it, trying to get a glimpse of the sign. Ivy Street-was that right? There was no time to debate. She veered down the street, trying to push her legs into going faster.. . and realized almost instantly that it was a mistake.