Dark Visions

by L. J. Smith

  She woke a long time later. Warm, diffuse afternoon light filled the room. Silence filled her ears.

  She got up and grabbed for the headboard as a wave of giddiness swept her. Breathing slowly, she held her head down until she felt steadier.

  Then she crept in stocking feet to the door.

  Still silence. She went to the stairway and turned her head, ear pointed downstairs. No sound. She descended quietly.

  If Joyce saw her, she'd say she was hungry, and when was dinnertime anyway?

  But Joyce didn't appear. The lower floor seemed deserted. Kaitlyn was alone in the house.

  Okay, don't panic. This is terrific, the perfect opportunity. What do you want to look at first?

  If I were a big ugly crystal, where would I be?

  One obvious place was the secret room in the basement. But Kaitlyn couldn't get in that; Lewis had always used PK to find the hidden spring in the panel. Another place was in Mr. Z's house in San Francisco, where he'd kept it before. But Kaitlyn couldn't do anything about that today. Sometime she'd have to find a way to get to San Francisco.

  For now . . . well, Joyce hadn't wanted her to see the testing. So Kait would start with the labs.

  The front lab was as she remembered it, weird machines, a folding screen with seashells appliquéd on it, chairs and couches, bookcases, a stereo. There was no graffiti. Kaitlyn looked briefly into each of the study carrels that lined the walls, but she knew already that the crystal could never fit into something so small. She found only more equipment.

  I wonder what their powers are? she thought, envisioning each of the students she'd met. I forgot to ask Lydia. Gabriel said something about Frost being clairvoyant, but the others-I'll bet they do something bizarre.

  She turned to the back lab ... and found it locked.

  Aha!

  It had never been locked before. Kaitlyn found it extremely suspicious that it should be locked now.

  But her jubilation changed to despair a minute later as she realized a basic truth. If it was locked, she couldn't get in.

  But wait, wait. Joyce had always kept a house key on top of the bulletin board in the kitchen, for anybody to grab when they were leaving the house. Sometimes people had the same locks on the inside doors of a house as the outside. If that key were still there ... and if it fit...

  In a moment she was in the quiet, darkening kitchen, fingers searching anxiously on the top of the bulletin board's frame. She found some dust, a dead fly ... and a key.

  Eureka! Praying all the way, Kaitlyn hurried back to the lab. She held key to lock, almost dropping it in her nervousness.

  It's got to work, it's got to work. . . .

  The key slipped in. It fit! She waggled it. It turned!

  The doorknob turned, too. Kait pushed and the door was open. She stepped in and shut the door behind her.

  The back lab was dim-it had been a garage and had only a small window. Kaitlyn blinked, trying to make out shapes. She didn't dare turn on a light.

  There were bookcases here, too, and more equipment. And a steel room like a bank vault.

  A Faraday cage.

  Kaitlyn remembered Joyce telling her about it. It was for complete isolation in testing. Soundproof, electronically shielded. They had put Gabriel in there.

  Kait remembered herself begging Joyce to promise she'd never have to go in.

  Her mouth was dry. She tried to swallow, but her throat seemed to stick together. She walked toward the gray bulk of the steel vault, one hand lifted as if she were blind.

  Cool metal met her fingers.

  If I were a crystal, I'd be somewhere like this. Shielded, enclosed. With enough room for everybody to get in and crowd around me.

  Kaitlyn's fingers slid over the metal. Her former tranquility in the face of danger was gone, and her heart wasn't just pounding, it was thundering. If the crystal was really in there, she had to see it. But she didn't really want to see it-and to be alone with that obscene thing ... in the dark. . . .

  Kaitlyn's skin was crawling and her knees felt unsteady. But her fingers kept searching. She found something like a handle.

  You can do it. You can do it.

  She pulled.

  At first, she thought the sound she heard was the vault door clicking. Then she realized it was somebody opening the lab door behind her.

  CHAPTER 6

  What does a spy do when she's caught?

  Kait's stomach plummeted. She recognized the voice, even before she whirled around to see the figure silhouetted in the door.

  Light shone behind him. Broad shoulders, then body lines that swept straight down. A man wearing a greatcoat.

  "Are you finding anything to interest you?" Mr. Zetes asked, his gold-headed cane swinging in his hand.

  Oh, God. The buzzing was back in Kaitlyn's ears and she couldn't answer. Couldn't move, either, although her heart was shaking her body.

  "Would you like to see what's inside there?"

  Say something, idiot. Say anything, anything.

  Her dry lips moved. "I-no. I-I was just-"

  Mr. Zetes stepped forward, snapped on the overhead light. "Go on, take a closer look," he said.

  But Kaitlyn couldn't look away from his face. The first time she'd seen this man, she'd thought him courtly and aristocratic. His white hair, aquiline nose, and piercing dark eyes made him look like some English earl. And if an occasional grim smile flashed across his face, she was sure that he had a heart of gold underneath.

  She'd found out differently.

  Now, his eyes held her with an almost hypnotic power. Boring into her mind, gnawing. He looked more telepathic than Gabriel. His measured, imperious voice seemed to resound in her blood.

  "Of course you want to see it," he said, and Kaitlyn's throat closed on her protests. He advanced on her slowly and steadily. "Look at it, Kaitlyn. It's a very sturdy Faraday cage. Look."

  Against her will, Kaitlyn's head turned.

  "It's natural that you would be interested in it- and in what's inside. Have you seen that yet?"

  Kaitlyn shook her head. Now that she wasn't looking into those eyes, she found she could speak-a little.

  "Mr. Zetes-I wasn't-"

  "Joyce told me that you had come back to join us." Mr. Z's voice was rhythmic . . . almost soothing. "I was very pleased. You have great talents, you know, Kaitlyn. And a keen, inquiring mind."

  As he spoke he unlocked the vault with a key, grasped the handle. Kaitlyn was speechless again with fear. Please, she was thinking. Please, I don't want to see, just let me go.

  "And now your curiosity can be satisfied. Go in, Kaitlyn."

  He pulled the steel door open. There was a single lamp inside, the battery-driven kind that clamps on walls. It gave enough light for Kaitlyn to see the object below.

  Not the crystal. A sort of tank, made of dark metal.

  Bewildered, forgetting herself, Kaitlyn took a step forward. The tank was almost like a Dumpster trash can, except that instead of being rectangular it had one side which slanted steeply. A door was set in that steeply slanting side. It looked like the door to a hurricane cellar, leading down.

  There were all sorts of pipes, cables, and hoses attached to the tank. One machine beside it looked like the electroencephalograph Joyce had used to measure Kaitlyn's brain waves. There were other machines Kaitlyn didn't recognize.

  The tank itself felt like a giant economy-size coffin.

  "What ... is it?" Kaitlyn whispered. Dread was clogging her chest like ice. The thing gave off an aura of pure evil.

  "Just a piece of testing equipment, my dear," Mr. Zetes said. "It's called an isolation tank. The ultimate Ganzfeld cocoon. Put a subject inside, and she is surrounded by perfect darkness and perfect silence.

  No light or sound can penetrate. It's filled with water, so she can't feel the effects of gravity or her own body. There is no sensory stimulation of any kind. Under those conditions, a person-"

  Would go insane, Kaitlyn thought. She recoiled
from the tank violently, turning away. Just the idea of it, to be abandoned in utter darkness and silence, was making her physically sick.

  Mr. Z's hand caught her, holding her lightly but firmly. "Would be undistracted by outside influences, free to extend her psychic powers to the fullest. Just as you did when Joyce blindfolded you, my dear. Do you remember that?"

  He had turned to look at her, holding her terrified gaze with his. She hadn't missed his use of personal pronouns. Put a subject inside and she can't feel her own body.

  "As I said earlier, you have very great talents, Kaitlyn. Which I would like to see developed to their fullest."

  He was pulling her toward the tank.

  And she couldn't resist. That measured voice, that precise grip . . . she had no will of her own.

  "Have you heard of the Greek concept of arete, my dear?" He had put aside his cane and was opening the hurricane-cellar door. "Self-actualization, becoming all you can be." He was pushing her toward the open door. "What do you think you can be, Kaitlyn?"

  A black hole gaped in front of her. Kaitlyn was going into it.

  "Mr. Zetes!"

  The voice was thin and distant in Kaitlyn's ears. All she could see was the hole.

  "Mr. Zetes, I didn't realize you were here. What are you doing?"

  The pressure on Kait's neck eased and she could move of her own volition again. She turned and saw Joyce in the doorway. Gabriel and Lydia were behind her.

  Then Kaitlyn simply stood, blinking and trying to breathe. Mr. Z was going over to Joyce, talking to her in an undertone. Kaitlyn saw Joyce look up at her in surprise, then shake her head.

  "I'm sorry, but there's no help for it," Mr. Z said, with mild regret, as if saying "I'm sorry, but we'll have to cut expenses."

  He's talking about my imminent demise, Kaitlyn realized, and suddenly she was talking, gabbling.

  "Joyce, I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have gone inside here, but I wanted to see what changes you'd made, and there was nobody around to ask, and-I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."

  Joyce looked at her, hesitated, then nodded. She beckoned Mr. Z into the front lab and began talking to him. Kaitlyn followed slowly, warily.

  She couldn't hear everything, but what she heard stopped her breath. Joyce was defending her, championing her to Mr. Z.

  "The Institute can use her," Joyce said, her tanned face earnest-and strained with what looked like repressed desperation. "She's well-balanced, conscientious, reliable. Unlike the rest of-" She broke off.

  "She'll be an asset."

  And Gabriel was agreeing.

  "I can vouch for her," he said. Kaitlyn felt a surge of gratitude-and admiration for his level, dispassionate gray eyes. "I've probed her mind and she's sincere."

  Even Lydia was chiming in-after everyone else, of course.

  "She wants to be here-and I want her for my roommate. Please let her stay."

  Listening to it, Kaitlyn was almost convinced herself. They all sounded so sure.

  And somehow it worked-or seemed to work. Mr. Z stopped shaking his head regretfully and looked thoughtful. At last he shifted his jaw, drew a deep breath, and nodded.

  "All right, I'm willing to give her a chance," he said. "I'd like to see a little more penitence in her-some signs of remorse-but I trust your judgment, Joyce. And we could certainly use another remote-viewer."

  He turned to give Kaitlyn a benevolent smile. "You and Lydia go along to dinner. I want a word with Gabriel."

  It's over, Kaitlyn realized. They're not going to kill me; they're going to feed me. Her heart was only beginning to return to its normal rate. She tried to hide the trembling in her legs as she followed Lydia.

  But it slowed her down, and before she could get out of the front lab she heard Mr. Z speak to Joyce again.

  "Give her a chance, but watch her. And have Laurie Frost watch her, too. She's intuitive; she'll pick up on anything subversive. And if she finds something. . . you know what to do."

  A sigh from Joyce. "Emmanuel. . . you know what I think about your 'final solution'-"

  "We'll send her out on a job soon. That ought to prove something."

  "Kait, are you coming?" Lydia called from the kitchen.

  Kait went through the door, but dawdled on the other side. Mr. Z was speaking again.

  "Gabriel, I'm afraid you've been careless."

  Gabriel's voice was restrained but defiant. "About the shard? You haven't heard"

  "Not about that," Mr. Zetes said in his unhurried way. "Joyce explained that to me. But there was a man found half-dead on Ivy Street. He had all the signs of someone drained of life energy. The police have been making inquiries."

  "Oh."

  "Very careless of you to do that in our own neighborhood-and the man might talk." Mr. Z's voice dropped to an icy whisper. "Next time, finish the job."

  Kaitlyn was shivering when Gabriel came through the door. She was barely able to give him a smile of gratitude.

  Thanks.

  He shrugged. No problem.

  Dinner started off quietly. Joyce served bacon cheeseburgers, fare that never would have been allowed in the old days. The psychics eyed Kaitlyn from around the long table, but didn't say much. Kait had the feeling they were biding their time.

  "So where was everybody this afternoon?" she asked Lydia, trying for normalcy.

  "I was in Marin. Riding lessons," Lydia said in subdued tones-she never seemed to talk loudly around the other students.

  "I was asleep," Gabriel said lazily.

  No one else answered, including Joyce, who returned to the kitchen. Kaitlyn dropped the subject and ate fries. It was interesting, though-the ones who'd been out were also the ones who would have been involved in testing. Could they have been in San Francisco? In Mr. Z's house-with the crystal?

  She made a mental note to follow up on the question.

  What Joyce said next might have been coincidence.

  "So you've seen the isolation tank."

  Kaitlyn almost inhaled a fry. "Yes. Have-has anybody really been in that thing?"

  "Sure, it's cool," Bri said. She shut her eyes and leaned her head back. "Cosmic, man! Groooovy." Her expression of ecstasy was marred by the fact that her open mouth was full of half-chewed hamburger.

  "Shut your face, you slut!" Frost snapped, flicking a pickle chip at her.

  "Who's a slut, you bimbo?" Bri returned cordially, chewing. "Jimbo bimbo. Mumbo jumbo."

  They both laughed: Frost shrilly, Bri gruffly.

  Jackal Mac glared. "Quit with the freakin' noise," he said brutally. "You make me sick with that freakin' noise." He had been eating with fervent single-mindedness, the way Kaitlyn imagined a coyote might eat.

  "I like to see girls have a good time," Renny said. He was eating with finicky precision, gesturing with a french fry. "Don't you, Mac?"

  "You making fun of me? You making fun of me, man?"

  Kaitlyn blinked. It was a non sequitur; she didn't follow Mac's logic. But it didn't take logic to read the sudden fury in his slitted eyes.

  He stood up, towering over the table, leaning across to stare at Renny. "I said, you makin' fun of me?" he bellowed.

  Renny let him have it with a hamburger in the face.

  Kaitlyn gaped. The hamburger had been dripping with ketchup and Thousand Island dressing. Renny had thoughtfully removed the bun, so Jackal Mac got the full benefit of the condiments.

  Bri shrieked with laughter. "What a pitch, what a pitch! Pitch, snitch!"

  "Think that's funny?" Jackal Mac seized her by the hair and slammed her face into her plate. He began to grind it around and around. The giggles turned to screams.

  Kaitlyn was now gasping. Frost plunged her long nails into a bowl of coleslaw and came out with a juicy handful. She threw it at Mac, but it scattered over the table, hitting Renny, too.

  Renny seized a bottle of Clearly Canadian water- the fizzy kind.

  "Time to go." Gabriel caught Kaitlyn by the arm

  above the el
bow and neatly lifted her from the chair out of the way of a burst of carbonated water. Lydia was already scuttling out of the room.

  "But he's going to kill her!" Kaitlyn gasped. Mac was still grinding Bri's face into the plate.

  "So?" Gabriel piloted her toward the kitchen.

  "No, I mean, really. I think that plate cracked; he's going to kill her."

  "I said, so?'"

  There was the sound of shattering glass and Kaitlyn looked back. Jackal Mac had stopped grinding Bri's face; Renny was now slashing at him with a broken Clearly Canadian bottle.

  "Oh, my God-"

  "Come on."

  In the kitchen, Joyce was washing dishes.

  "Joyce, they're-"

  "It happens every night," Joyce said shortly. "Leave it alone."

  "Every night?"

  Gabriel stretched, looking bored. Then he smiled. "Let's go up to my balcony," he said to Kaitlyn. "I need some air."

  "No, I-I want to help Joyce with the dishes." There was no point in trying to deceive him about such a minor thing, so she added, I want to talk to her a minute. I didn't have time earlier.

  "Suit yourself." Gabriel's voice was unexpectedly cold; his expression was stony. "I'll be busy later." He left.

  Kaitlyn didn't understand why he was angry, but there was nothing to do about it. She was a spy, she had information to gather. Picking up a dish, she said abruptly, "Joyce, why do you put up with it?"

  "With Gabriel? I don't know, why do you?"

  "With them." Kaitlyn jerked her chin toward the dining room, where yells and crashes could still be heard.

  Joyce gritted her teeth and scrubbed viciously at a greasy pan with a soap pad. "Because I have to."

  "No really. Everything's so crazy now-and it seems like it's against everything you believe in." Kaitlyn was getting incoherent-maybe the scare before dinner was still affecting her. She had the feeling that she should shut up, but instead she blundered on. "I mean, you seem like the kind of person who really believes in things, and I just don't understand-"

  "You want to know why? I'll show you!" With a soapy hand, Joyce seized something that had been on the counter, underneath the Chinese take-out containers.