Mind Tamer, page 20
Then she noticed the rest of her bedroom. Her armoire drawers were left ajar and her lingerie hung over the edges in carefully arranged rows. The canister of pepper spray she kept in her bedstand drawer rested on the floor below a dripping yellow cloud on the wall where it had been sprayed point-blank. That explained the musty jalapeño smell itching her nose and eyes.
The vandalism to her bookshelf was obvious only to herself; her careful system of cataloging had been ransacked. Modern novels were mixed in with classics and nonfiction. She thought it was random until she noticed a pattern: if she took the first letter of each author’s last name, beginning with Dumas, Emerson, Asimov, it spelled, Death is coming but slowly for you. Then it was a jumbled succession of disturbing words, as though he’d enjoyed a private game of Scrabble with her book collection. That he had touched her books bothered Lyssa nearly as much as him handling her violin and underwear.
It was the same all around her house. Nothing appeared to have been stolen, only vandalized in a manner clearly intended to frighten her. It was working. Nightmarish lipstick drawings on the bathroom mirror, the food from her fridge smashed and smeared on the counter, every cord and cable on her sound system unplugged and coiled into a hangman’s noose… The mocking disarray made her head spin.
The rancid burnt-dairy smell was too much; her stomach heaved, and she ran to the sink just in time. Kyros wordlessly brought her a towel and a toothbrush with toothpaste still in the packaging he must have found under the bathroom sink.
She tried to quit fretting over the disturbance of balance and order she’d carefully established throughout her house. Did Merodach know it would trigger an attack in her mind? Anger alone kept Lyssa from sinking into the chaos pounding in her brain. She would not allow him that power over her.
One glance at the front room, and she clutched the back of the sofa for balance. Her box of sheet music had been upended. Thousands of dollars worth of music, imported or out-of-print, full of markings from teachers no longer living—all ruined. At first she thought Merodach had ripped out the pages and left a crumpled heap on the floor, but then she saw they were folded. Human figures, posed in…
She slapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream.
Kyros rushed over, and cursed. “X-rated origami. That’s his trademark.” He made a sound of disgust and turned Lyssa away. “I’ll get someone to unfold it. We’ll salvage as much as we can, okay?”
Merodach had either brought help or broke in only moments after she left. It took time to make this sort of mess. Wait—he couldn’t have been inside with her before she left?
Kyros held her before she realized she’d swooned. She gasped for air as Kyros cleared her mind and kept a tight hold on her while she settled the dizziness.
“You have to fight it. This is his weapon—fear, an illusion of omniscience. He’s an expert brain washer, and he’ll destroy you from the inside out if you give him half a chance.”
“Well, that’s marvelous, since I’m already halfway insane.”
She was the junior member of the Justice League, and she couldn’t take care of herself yet; her swooning near-miss a moment ago proved that. What if Kyros was busy fending off Merodach, and she lacked the ability to defend herself from a deliberate mind attack? She already knew the answer, and it was depressing. It also gave her anger a hardened edge of resolve. “We’ll just have to get him first.”
Kyros assented, but he seemed distracted. She knew he wasn’t telling her everything. “Pack what you need, then let’s get out of here. This was obviously a strategic insult and nothing more. We can deal with the mess later, all right?”
Lyssa made a valiant effort to ignore the chaos as she packed a few pieces of luggage. Then she wanted to check on Mrs. Rupert, her adorable British landlady who lived downstairs. Kyros stopped her by the arm and led her toward his car instead.
“I already looked in on Mrs. Rupert. You can check in with her later.”
His meaning struck her—the blood on the mattress!—then her mind went blank. Something niggled her as important, but she couldn’t grasp it, and it went away. Kyros rubbed her shoulder and gave her a sympathetic look, and she didn’t know what for.
Four suitcases was a lot to ask a European sports car to fit, but they managed. Cat sat atop the pile, seemingly satisfied with being the tallest. An uncomfortable realization—the weird episode with Cat not letting her out the door yesterday was probably not nothing. If Merodach had been stalking her apartment, then Cat had probably saved Lyssa by keeping her indoors.
She wasn’t conscious of sighing until she heard Kyros notice it was her third in as many minutes. She sat with her violin case wedged between her knees, unwilling to stuff it in the trunk—what if they got rear-ended? She absently stroked the leather piping that trimmed the edges. The farther they drove away, the less she smelled that horrible stench, and the nausea abated. Still her hands trembled.
“What would make you feel better, Lyssa?”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“What bothers you the most, then?” It was uncanny, the way he turned to watch her instead of the road while steering and cruising at eighty-something miles per hour.
“I hate messes to begin with, but he ruined my personal things…”
“I’ll call in a cleaning crew tomorrow. You won’t have to deal with most of it.”
“The mattress?”
“I already poured a few gallons of Clorox on it. The cleaners will throw it out. Hopefully you won’t need a replacement.”
Huh? Oh. Oh! He meant she should be sharing his bed… She went back to the matter of the mattress, the blood—her mind blanked again. Her thoughts sloshed like water then settled into a calm that brought her surroundings back into focus.
“What else?” he continued, knowing what was still on her mind.
It took her a moment to grasp the idea nagging at the back of her mind. “I can clean my violin with polish and the fittings with rubbing alcohol, but I keep imagining his filthy hands touching my underwear, and I can’t stand it.”
“We’ll stop somewhere and buy what you need for now until you can replace it.”
She nodded in agreement and settled back against the headrest, then raised her brows at Kyros’s uncanny perception. He’d apparently paid attention to her one indulgence, imported European lingerie that couldn’t be replaced at, say, Target. The implication that he had such impeccable taste to recognize it… Her appreciation for Kyros warred with her disgust for Merodach, bending her thoughts into an uncomfortable distortion—
Lyssa, you’re doing it again. He interfered to clear her mind yet again.
He sounded exasperated. Was she stupid, or careless? Or perhaps she took his help for granted.
She concentrated on the purr of the engine and Kyros working the gearshift with the transmission in perfect rhythm. It reminded her of how the riders in those equestrian shows made a horse start and stop as though it was a dance. She listened for his slow, steady heartbeat and calmed her own to match it, and felt a little better already.
The more she thought over what had happened, the more the situation became black and white. Merodach was so going down. Somewhere along the way, she’d decided to trust Kyros, implicitly. Those two facts were all that really mattered.
“Kyros? Once we’re settled, I want you to tell me—” She’d been about to say, Tell me everything I need to know if I’m going to fight Merodach, and, I don’t want to be a liability, but her throat quit working. It made no sound, not even a whisper. She inhaled, puzzled by the strange fuzzy feeling in her vocal chords.
Sorry, Lyssa—
She swallowed and felt him release the damper he’d thrown on her voice. Before she could complain, he grunted in frustration and glanced in the rearview mirror.
Hang on. He swerved over three lanes of traffic and took the freeway exit with only two wheels on the pavement. We can’t go home yet. We’re being followed.
Chapter Sixteen
There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.
— Niels Bohr, 1885–1962
Kyros was 100 percent certain the car was bugged. The signal broadcasted a frequency near the AM radio band, which was why he hadn’t noticed the foreign buzzing at first. And even though he’d lost the black Escalade twice by exiting onto a northbound highway then looping around a shopping mall and through a suburb, the unmistakable headlights emerged only eighty yards behind, maintaining the distance.
Lyssa, the car is bugged. Talk about something inane.
She cleared her throat. As though she meant to continue, she said, “Once we’re settled, I want you to tell me about your experiments with the theory of relativity. I saw your notes, and I was wondering…” She chattered on about his notes, quoting equations and theory.
Excellent. Whoever was listening on the other end would be bored to death.
They both jumped as her phone rang. She glanced at the display. It’s my friend, Devanne. She’s at the Orff conference in Atlanta. Should I answer?
Kyros shrugged his assent. Don’t mention any names or locations out loud. Then he eavesdropped in her mind.
“He did what?”
Kyros heard Devanne answer in a slurred French accent. “Eez Mitch. He rode the mech—” She hiccoughed. “Mesh…mecca… The bull.”
“Mechanical bull?” Lyssa supplied.
“Yesh. He fell off.” Devanne sounded just as drunk as Westbrook.
Lyssa slapped a hand to her forehead and shrank down in the seat, as though she could hide from the news that Westbrook had fallen off the wagon—and a mechanical bull—on the same night. “No way. He never drinks.”
“Puking eez guts out. What ’appened, Lyss?”
Lyssa exhaled noisily then confessed, “We, ah… He didn’t leave on the best of terms.”
“Aha. I see. So, you broke up? Is that so?”
Kyros raised his eyebrows, eager to hear for himself if his competition was vanquished. Lyssa said, “It wasn’t discussed, exactly.” Her eyes flashed guiltily to Kyros. “But in all fairness, he has every reason to consider himself back on the market.”
Kyros resisted the urge to crow.
“Ah, yes, tiens…” Devanne answered then hummed, and it was obvious she had more to say.
“Just tell me.”
“Euh, well, it would be good to know if… Merde! Comment dit-on… So, euh, you would not be angry if—”
Kyros flinched at Lyssa’s stab of remorse and jealousy as she comprehended Devanne was asking for Lyssa’s blessing to pursue Westbrook. Well, that was an unexpected turn. But then, all was fair in love and war.
Vive le France, he thought loud enough for Lyssa to hear.
Kyros, please. Lyssa sounded miserable, and he felt guilty for being snide.
Then he was distracted by the perfect opportunity to lose the Escalade. He swerved around a taxi and turned down the wrong way of a one-way street to follow a pizza delivery car. Once the car wove its way through a suburb and parked in front of a house, Kyros got out of his car and detached the tracking device hidden inside the tire well. He stuck it on the undercarriage of the pizza delivery car and drove away unnoticed.
He texted SITREP to Jack for the third time that hour. This time he followed it with EE-N, indicating they’d made contact with the enemy but not engaged.
Jack sent back CODE-1, A-1. All quiet, and on high alert.
His pulse slowed a bit, knowing Cassie was safe with Jack. Kyros texted XA-1, E-00. Cancel the high alert, and go on lockdown.
HUA, Jack answered.
Lyssa had finished her conversation and watched him with wide eyes. All clear?
“Yes. One more thing…” As he drove away, he dialed his Los Angeles executive steward and ordered two first-class tickets to Rio on the next flight out of LAX.
“What was that for? We’re going to Rio?”
“No. But Merodach’s minions will waste time tracking the pizza delivery car, and then spend more time looking for us at the airport when our names show up on the passenger list. That gives us time to get organized and make it home undetected.”
“So, you’re going to blow all that money for a cover up?”
Here came the money issue again. He wasn’t Croesus, but shouldn’t she assume that over the course of three centuries he had acquired some wealth? Again he had the feeling it was going to be a problem between them. At least she didn’t have a sugar daddy complex. He rolled his shoulders, uncomfortable. “Why, do you really want to go to Rio?”
“No.” She furrowed her brows, trying to figure him out.
“Trust me, it’s worth the expense to keep Merodach from finding our house.”
She flushed at his implication, our house, and it was enough to silence her on the other matter. Then he waited for Lyssa to fill him in on the last part of her conversation with Devanne that he’d missed.
She didn’t, and he couldn’t have pried it from her head if he wanted to. The percussive texture of her thoughts was discernible, but the dialog came filtered through a translucent wall of ice and a secondary layer of nasty barbed spikes she’d erected in her subconscious desire for privacy. He feared even the fledgling version of her mindshield. Tampering with it was a mistake he intended to make only once.
He’d grown accustomed to listening to her charming, offbeat thoughts, and as a result he’d come to know her thoroughly. That he would miss.
The passenger window reflected her wiping a tear, head turned so he wouldn’t see. She swallowed, likely to prevent alerting him with weeping sounds. She pinched her temples and shuddered, trying to draw breath without sobbing.
Panic drilled through him. She could be spiraling into another mind attack, and he couldn’t get in. Kyros swerved to take the next exit and drove westbound, looking for a beach. There had to be some external hook that could bring her back…
He parked near a boardwalk, lifted her violin case over his shoulder, and helped her out of the car. He stopped her from apologizing as she leaned into her shoulder to wipe a tear. She didn’t ask why they had stopped. Robotically she followed, leaning on his arm.
Sounds of a beachside salsa bar floated from the south. He led her in that direction, wanting to stay near a crowd—over a hundred years since Merodach had attacked in the open, and Kyros counted on his cowardice.
Lyssa sniffed and caught another tear, looking out over the water to signal she didn’t want to discuss it. Hopefully the rhythmic water sounds and fresh breeze would do for her what he could not… No. A muted wave of grief escaped her mind and slapped his entire right side. She squeezed his arm and her balance wavered. How long until she collapsed? If she fainted with her mindshield still down—
Tamping down his jolt of alarm, he swallowed over the bitter tang of an adrenaline rush before nudging her mind. It felt like wading through a legion of raised spears, but he whispered, Lyssa, sweetheart, are you okay? Let me in, I’ll fix it.
It was probably subconscious, mentally waving off the intrusion, but she pushed back against his connection, and a bolt of white fire seared behind his eyes. He cringed, couldn’t prevent his knees from buckling as his nerves short-circuited.
“Kyros! Oh no! I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
Her voice blasted through his raw head, rattling with unnatural amplification. For the love of all that’s holy, stop shouting. He steadied a hand on what must be her shoulder, and worked to push the aftershock back to its core. The pain intensified a moment while he funneled it. She gasped, probably feeling the secondary waves, then he flushed it. The rest was simply clearing a headache. He drew a handkerchief and wiped the blood leaking from his nostrils.
She shook her head, staring at the dark sand. “I really am a gorilla with a scalpel. Am I going to keep hurting people?”
Finally her mindshield lowered. He slipped inside, smoothed the frayed neurons, and guided her thoughts back into their proper pathways. She needed a dose of serotonin then was well again. “More like a baby T-rex,” he teased, desperate to chase the haunted look from her face. “You don’t mean to trample the flower garden…”
She cracked a smile, took his arm again, and he stayed at the back of her mind, trying to be inconspicuous. Her backup IV.
Once they neared a public wastebasket, Kyros stopped to open the back of his phone. He retrieved the small data card and tossed the phone in the trash. He held out his hand for Lyssa’s phone. “Sorry, yours has to go too, but you can keep your SIM card. I have replacement phones at my place. I can’t risk Merodach tracking us.”
Lyssa shrugged and surrendered her phone. “No big loss.” She added, “You were my new speed dial number six.”
They paced up and down the beach a few times, and Lyssa kept glancing at the people dancing and laughing on a patio lit with strings of lights.
It was stupid, but— “Do you want to dance?” He’d blurted it without making a conscious decision.
She blinked, flashing a memory of a man she thought of lovingly. She pictured his eyes crinkled in laughter. He’d worn long gloves to protect her sensitive skin. Sam Logan, her adoptive father, lifted her tiny seven-year-old self to stand on his shoes while they danced the box waltz. She squealed as he twirled her around. A sad emotion faded the vision as though splashing it with acid. “I don’t really know how. I never really could…”
But she wanted to. The salsa bar Lyssa kept watching was connected to a high-rise resort via a palm tree-lined footpath leading from the water to the hotel grounds. It called to her, and he gave in, foolish as it was. The opportunity to make her happy, to make her forget Westbrook bleeding his heart out, overrode his judgment.
Kyros scanned the patio, brushed the minds of both the revelers and the staff, and found no malevolence. He pulled aside a tall, athletically built waiter in a tuxedo and slipped him a large bill. Kyros instructed him to sit at their table with Lyssa’s violin case between his feet and the strap wrapped round his hand. At the same time, Kyros planted the compulsion to guard the instrument with his life. Kyros let Lyssa observe how he did it; the areas in the mind to stimulate, how to make the waiter’s intelligence, instinct, and fabricated loyalty work simultaneously to create an obsessive need to follow the command.
