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She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was like she was having a vision of a vision. Seeing things in the future going dark again.
But Zach wasn’t around anymore. So, what –
Laura blinked, back in the room with Chris.
“Did you see something?” he asked, his voice tense again. “Something to do with moving in?”
“No,” Laura said, and frowned. “No, not that. I think… I think I have to give a friend of mine a visit soon. Something’s up and I don’t know what. Actually, maybe I should give him a call.”
“Go, go,” Chris said, and then grinned. “It’ll give me a chance to get the champagne out and a couple of glasses.
Laura smiled at him. “You do that. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve spoken to him.”
She walked away, down the hall, putting the cell phone to her ear as she went. She dialed Zach’s number and waited, holding her breath. She needed to know if he was alright. There was a tight feeling in her gut she didn’t like, a breathlessness in her chest.
The phone rang to voicemail, a stern robotic voice telling her to leave a message. Laura wet her lips. “Zach,” she said into the machine. “I really hope you’re just busy right now and haven’t seen your phone ringing. Just… just let me know if you get this, okay? Call me back. It’s Laura.”
She ended the call and tapped the phone against her chin. She felt worse, now. Like there was something awful about to happen. The Titanic going down or a tsunami or that boat that had sunk off South Korea with all the schoolkids inside.
Maybe it wasn’t water-related at all, but she still had a very bad feeling.
“Chris,” she called out, hearing how even her own voice sounded strange now. “Maybe hold that champagne. I think I have to go see him. Something’s not right.”
Chris appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, holding a chilled bottle of champagne and a slightly crestfallen look. The bottle wasn’t open, though. Laura had called out to him in time. “Do you need me to come with you?”
Laura thought about it. She had a reputation for rushing into things on her own and getting into trouble, she knew. Nate was always on her back about it, and now Chris was, too. But if she took along someone who didn’t have the same powers that she did, or even the basic ability to defend themselves, then she could be leading them into danger.
And someone needed to be here for the girls.
“No,” Laura said. “No, I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll just go and come right back. Hey, why don’t we have dinner tonight – you, me, and Amy? Somewhere nice?”
“Sounds like a great idea,” Chris said, brightening slightly. “I’ll make the reservation.”
“I’ll be home soon,” Laura said, and the grin he gave her as she turned to leave was enough to lighten the whole rest of her day.
If only she actually believed what she’d said, that Zach wasn’t in any trouble at all. Because she had a nervous feeling she was about to walk into the most danger of her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
The psychic leaned forward on his hand, admiring the fear in the old man’s face.
“You know what the best part of hunting down psychics is?” he asked. “It’s the fact that none of them know it’s coming. It’s hilarious, isn’t it? The one thing that could save your life would be having your own vision of your death – but because I’m here, you can’t see anything at all.”
“I saw it,” the old man said. Zach, his name was. He was behaving very calmly, but it was nonsense. The psychic could see the fear on his face. He was just trying to buy time, trying to figure out a way to get out of the ropes tying him to the chair. “I didn’t know how it would happen, but I knew I was going to die. I’ve been feeling it for a long time.”
“Oh?” the psychic said, barely interested but playing along. As much as he loved killing other psychics and draining their powers, it was sometimes useful to listen to them for a little while first, too. They could tell him things he wasn’t going to learn any other way. Sometimes one of them even knew a trick, or a technique, that he didn’t know. That was another of the ways in which he had managed to continue to become the strongest of them all: to steal their knowledge first before their power.
“It’s funny,” the old man said, and the psychic just barely held back from rolling his eyes. “I thought it was all over when I had a heart attack. They resuscitated me from that, and I suppose I thought that was it – I’d beaten death. But of course, then I had that same feeling again afterwards, and I knew. My time is up. It wasn’t the heart attack I was waiting for. It was you.”
“And here I am,” the psychic said, spreading his arms wide dramatically. So much for learning anything useful. If all psychics got a vague premonition about their own deaths beforehand, it was something he would learn by himself sooner or later. And since he’d never experienced anything like that, he figured he wasn’t going to die any time soon. “Well, enough talking. I think it’s time we get down to business.”
“Why are you doing this?” Zach asked, interrupting him just as he was getting up. “You must be a psychic like I am. That’s why my powers aren’t working. So, why are you doing it?”
He smiled slightly to himself. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked. “When one psychic kills another, the survivor gets to take their power. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been – stronger than anyone who ever existed.”
“Why?” Zach asked.
The psychic stopped, staring at him. Was he serious with that question? Why?
