The Strange Power
Chapter 14

"This is my study," Mr. Zetes said, ushering them into a room deep in the large house. "I spend a great deal of time here. Why don't you sit down?"
The study was walnut-paneled and darkly furnished, with leather chairs that creaked when you sat on them. On the walls were gold-framed pictures of horses and what looked like fox hunts. The curtains were a deep, lightless red, and the lamps all had rust-colored shades. There was a bust of some old-fashioned-looking man on the mantelpiece and a black statue of a foreign-looking woman on the floor.
Kaitlyn didn't like any of it.
But Gabriel did, she could tell. He leaned back in his chair, looking around appreciatively. It must be a guy thing, Kaitlyn thought. This whole place is so masculine, and so ... Again, she had trouble finding a word. The closest she could come was old money.
She supposed she could see why Gabriel, used to living on the road o!r in a cell with one bunk and a metal toilet, might like that.
The dogs lay down on the floor. Mr. Zetes went over to the bar-there was a full bar, with bottles and silver trays and crystal decanters-and began pouring something. "May I offer you a brandy?"
My God, Kaitlyn thought.
Gabriel smiled. "Sure."
Gabriel! Kaitlyn said. Gabriel ignored her completely, as if she were a fly buzzing around the perimeter of the room.
"Nothing for me, thanks," she said, trying not to sound as frightened as she felt. Mr. Zetes was coming back with only two glasses, anyway-she didn't think he'd even meant to include her in the offer.
He sat down behind the desk and sipped golden liquid out of a ballooning glass. Gabriel sat back in his chair and did the same. Kaitlyn began to feel like a butterfly in a spider's web.
Mr. Zetes himself seemed more aristocratic and imposing than ever, more like an earl. Someone important, someone who ought to be listened to. This whole study was designed to convey that impression, Kaitlyn realized. It was a sort of shrine that drew your attention to the figure behind the large, carved desk. The figure with the immaculate suit and the real gold cuff links and the benevolent white head.
The atmosphere was beginning to get to her, she realized.
"I'm so glad we're able to have this talk," Mr. Zetes said, and his voice went with the atmosphere. It was both soothing and authoritative. The voice of a man who Knew Best. "I could see right away at the Institute that you were the two with the most potential. I knew that you'd outstrip the others very quickly.
You both have so much more capacity for understanding, so much more sophistication."
Sophisticated? Me? Kaitlyn thought. But a part of her, a tiny part, was flattered. She'd been more sophisticated than other kids in Thoroughfare, she knew that. Because while all they'd been thinking about was cheerleading or football games, she'd been thinking about the world. About how to get out into the world.
"You can conceive of... shall we say, broader horizons," Mr. Zetes was saying, as if he'd followed her train of thought. It was enough to bring Kait up short, to make her look at him in alarm. But his piercing old eyes were smiling, bland, and he was going on. "You are people of vision, like myself," he said. He smiled.
"Like myself."
Something in the repetition make Kaitlyn very nervous.
It's coming, she realized. Whatever it is. He's been building up to something, and here it is.
There was a long silence in the room. Mr. Zetes was gazing at his desk, smiling faintly, as if lost in thought. Gabriel was sipping his drink, eyes narrowed but on the floor. He seemed lost in thought, too.
Kaitlyn was too uneasy to speak or move. Her heart had begun a slow, relentless hammering.
The silence had begun to be terrible, when Gabriel raised his head. He looked Mr. Zetes in the eyes, smiled faintly, and said, "And just what is your vision?"
Mr. Zetes glanced toward Kaitlyn-a mere formality. He seemed to assume that Gabriel spoke for both of them.
When he started talking again, it was in a dreadful tone of complicity. As if they all shared a secret. As if some agreement had already been reached.
"The scholarship is only the beginning, of course. But naturally you realize that already. The two of you have such . . . enormous potential. . . that with the right training, you could set your own price."
Again Gabriel gave that faint smile. "And the right training is . . . ?"
"I think it's time to show you that." He put his empty glass down. "Come with me."
He stood and turned to the walnut-paneled wall of the study. As he reached out to touch it, Kaitlyn threw Gabriel a startled glance-but he wasn't looking at her. His entire attention seemed fixed on Mr. Zetes.
The panel slid back. Kaitlyn saw a black rectangle for one instant, and then a reddish glow flicked on as if activated automatically. Mr. Zetes's form was silhouetted against it.
My picture! Kaitlyn thought.
It wasn't, exactly. Mr. Zetes wasn't wearing a coat, for one thing, and the red light wasn't as bright. Her picture had been more a symbol than an actual rendition-but she recognized it anyway.
"Right this way," Mr. Zetes said, turning to them almost with a flourish. He expected them to be surprised, undoubtedly, but Kaitlyn couldn't work herself up to pretending. And when Gabriel entered the gaping rectangle and started down the stairway, she realized she couldn't protest, either. It was too late for that. Mr. Zetes was looking at her, and the dogs were on their feet and right behind her.
She had no choice. She followed Gabriel.
This stairway was longer than the one at the Institute, and it led to a hallway with many doors and several branching corridors. A whole underground complex, Kaitlyn realized. Mr. Zetes was taking them to the very end.
"This is ... a very special room," he told them, pausing before a set of double doors. "Few people have seen it. I want you to see it now."
He opened one of the doors, then turned toward them and stopped where he was, gesturing them in, watching their faces. In the greenish fluorescent light of the hallway his skin took on an unhealthy chalky tone and his eyes seemed to glitter.
Kaitlyn's flesh began to creep. She knew, suddenly and without question, that whatever was in there was terrible.
Gabriel was going in. Mr. Zetes was watching her with those glittering eyes in a corpselike face.
She didn't have a choice.
The room was startling in its whiteness. All Kaitlyn could think at first was that it was exactly what she'd imagined the laboratories at the Institute would be like. White walls, white tile, everything gleaming and immaculate and sterile. Lots of unfamiliar machinery around the edges, including one huge metal-mesh cage.
But that was all incidental. Once Kaitlyn was able to focus on anything, she focused on the thing in the center of the room-and then she forgot everything else.
It was . . . what? A stone plant? A sculpture? A model spaceship? She didn't know, but she couldn't look away from it. It drew the eye inevitably and then held it fast, the way some very beautiful paintings do-except that it wasn't beautiful. It was hideous.
And it reminded Kaitlyn of something.
It was towering, milky, semi-translucent-and that should have given her a clue. But she couldn't get over her first impression that it was some horrible parody of a plant, even when she realized that it couldn't be.
It was covered with-things. Parasites, Kait thought wildly. Then all at once she realized that they were growths, smaller crystals sprouting from a giant parent. They stuck out in all directions like the rays of a star, or some giant Christmas decoration. But the effect wasn't festive-it was somehow obscene.
"Oh, God-what is it?" Kaitlyn whispered.
Mr. Zetes smiled.
"You feel its power," he said approvingly. "Good. You're quite correct; it can be terrible. But it also can be very useful."
He walked over to the . . . thing . . . and stood beside it, the dogs padding at his heels. When he looked at it, Kaitlyn saw that his eyes were admiring-and acquisitive.
"It's a very ancient crystal," he said, "and if I told you where it came from, you wouldn't believe me. But it will amaze you, I promise. It can provide energy beyond anything you've ever imagined."
"This is the training you were talking about?" Gabriel asked.
"This is the means of training," Mr. Zetes said softly, almost absently. He was still looking at the crystal.
"The means of sharpening your powers, increasing them. It has to be done gradually to avoid damage, but we have time."
"That thing can increase our powers?" Gabriel said with scorn and disbelief.
"Crystals can store psychic energy," Kaitlyn said in a small voice. It sounded small and distant even to her. She had the feeling of someone who'd walked into a nightmare.
Mr. Zetes was looking at her. "You know that?" he said.
"I... heard it somewhere."
He nodded, but his eyes lingered on her as he said, "You two have the potential-this crystal has the power to develop that potential. And I have . . ." He stopped, as if thinking how to phrase something.
"What do you have?" Gabriel said.
Mr. Zetes smiled. "The contacts," he replied. "The ... clients, if you will. I can find people who are willing to pay considerable amounts for your services. Amounts that will climb as your powers are honed, of course."
Clients, Kaitlyn thought. That letter-the letter from Judge Baldwin. A list of potential clients.
"You want to hire us out?" she blurted before she could stop herself. "Like-like-" She was too overwrought to think of an analogy.
Gabriel could think of one. "Like assassins," he suggested. His voice chilled Kaitlyn-because it wasn't at all outraged or indignant. He sounded quite calm-thoughtful, even.
"Not at all," Mr. Zetes said. "I think there would be very few assassinations involved. But there are a number of business situations in which your talents would be invaluable. Corporate espionage-industrial sabotage-influence of witnesses at certain trials. No, I would prefer to call you a psychic strike team, available for handling all sorts of situations."
A strike team. Project Black Lightning, Kaitlyn thought. The words scribbled on that piece of paper. He wanted to turn them into a paranormal dirty tricks team.
"I hadn't meant to explain all this to you so quickly," Mr. Zetes was going on. "But the truth is that something has come up. You remember Marisol Diaz, of course. Well, there has been a bit of a problem with Marisol's family. Several of them have become .. . unexpectedly difficult. Suspicious. I'm afraid that money has little influence on them. I need to quiet them some other way."
There was a pause. Kaitlyn couldn't say anything because she felt as if she were choking, and Gabriel simply looked sardonic.
"I thought we weren't assassins," he said.
Mr. Zetes looked pained. "I don't need them killed. Just quieted. If you can do it some other way, I'm very happy."
Kaitlyn managed to get words through the blockage in her throat. "You did it to Marisol," she said. "You put her in the coma."
"I had to," Mr. Zetes said. "She had become quite unstable. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, incidentally-if you hadn't mentioned it to Joyce, I wouldn't have realized so soon. Marisol had been with me for several years, and I thought she understood what we were doing."
"The pilot study," Kaitlyn said.
"Yes, she told you about that, didn't she? It was a very great pity. I didn't know then that only the strongest minds, the most gifted psychics, could stand contact with one of the great crystals. I gathered six of the best I could find locally-but it was a terrible disaster. Afterward I realized that I would have to expand my search-cover the whole nation-if I wanted to find students who could tolerate the training."
"But what happened to them?" Kaitlyn burst out. "To the ones in the pilot study"
"Oh, it was a dreadful waste," Mr. Zetes said, as if repeating something she should have gotten the first time. "Very good minds, some of them. Genuine talent. To see that reduced to idiocy and madness is very sad."
Kaitlyn couldn't answer. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck was standing up. Tears had sprung to her eyes.
"Marisol, now-I did think she understood, but in the end she proved otherwise. She was a good worker in the beginning. The problem was that she knew too much to be simply bribed, and she was too temperamental to be controlled by fear. I really had no other choice." He sighed. "My real mistake was to use drugs instead of the crystal. I thought a seizure might be very effective-but instead of dying, she wound up in the hospital, and now her family is posing a problem. It's really very difficult."
He might look like an earl-but he was insane, Kaitlyn thought. Truly insane, insane enough that he didn't realize how insane all this would sound to sane people. She looked at Gabriel-and felt a shock that sent chills up from her feet.
Because Gabriel didn't look as if he found it insane. Slightly distasteful, maybe, but not crazy. In fact, there was something like agreement in his face, as if Mr. Z were talking about doing something unpleasant but necessary.
"But we can take care of that problem," Mr. Zetes said, looking up and speaking more briskly. "And once it's over, we can get to our real work. Always assuming you're interested, of course?"
His voice had a note of gentle inquiry, and he looked from Gabriel to Kaitlyn, waiting for an answer.
Again Kaitlyn felt a shock of disbelief. Those dark, piercing eyes of his looked so acute-how could he not realize what she was feeling? How could he look at her as if he expected agreement?
She had exploded into speech before she knew what was happening. All the fear, all the fury, all the disgust and horror, that had been building inside her burst out.
"You're insane," she said. "You're completely insane, don't you know that? Everything that you've said is completely insane. How can you talk about people being reduced to idiots as if-as if-" She was degenerating into sobs and incoherence. "And Marisol, " she gasped. "How could you do that to her?
And what you want to turn us all into-you're just completely, totally crazy. You're evil."
She was having hysterics, she supposed. Raving. Shouting as if shouting were going to do any good. But she couldn't stop herself.
Mr. Zetes seemed less surprised than she did. Displeased, certainly, but not astonished. "Evil?" he said, frowning. "I'm afraid that's a very emotional and inexact word. Many things seem evil that are, in a higher sense, good."
"You don't have any higher sense," Kaitlyn shouted. "You don't care about anything except what you can get out of us."
Mr. Zetes was shaking his head. "I'm afraid I can't waste time in arguing now-but I honestly hope you'll see reason eventually. I think you will, in time, if I keep you here long enough." He turned to Gabriel.
"Now-"
Then Kaitlyn did something she realized was stupid even as she was doing it. But her anger at Mr.
Zetes's insufferable smugness, his indifference to her words, drove her beyond any caution.
"You won't get any of the others to join you," she said. "Not any of them back home. Rob wouldn't even listen to it. And if I don't come back, they'll know something's wrong. They already know about the hidden room there at the Institute. And they're linked, we're all linked telepathically. All five of us. And-"
"What?" Mr. Zetes said. For the first time, a real emotion was showing on his face. Astonishment- and anger. He looked at Gabriel sharply. "What?"
"We are, aren't we?" Kaitlyn demanded. "Tell him, Gabriel." And tell him he's crazy, because you know he is. You know he is!
"It's something that happened," Gabriel told Mr. Zetes. "It was an accident. I didn't know it would become permanent. If I had"-he glanced at Kaitlyn-"it never would have happened."
"But this is- You're telling me that the five of you are involved in a stable telepathic link? But don't you realize . . . ?" Mr. Zetes broke off. There was plenty of emotion in his face now, Kaitlyn noted. It was dark with blood and fury. "Don't you realize that you're useless within a linked group like that?"
Gabriel said nothing. Through their connection, Kaitlyn could feel that he was as angry as Mr. Zetes.
"I was counting on you," Mr. Zetes said. "I need you to help me take care of the Diaz problem. If that isn't controlled . . ." He stopped. Kaitlyn could see he was making a great effort to get hold of himself.
And, after a moment or two, he apparently succeeded. He sighed, and the fury drained out of his face.
"There's no help for it now," he said. "It's a very great pity. You don't know how much work is wasted."
He looked at Kaitlyn. "I had great hopes for you."
Then he said, "Prince, back."
Kaitlyn had almost forgotten about the dogs-but now one came straight for her, hair bristling, teeth showing to the gums. It was completely silent, which only made it scarier.
Involuntarily Kaitlyn took a step backward-and the dog kept coming. As it reached her, she stepped back again and again-and then she realized what was happening. She was standing inside the metal cage.
Mr. Zetes had gone over to a kind of console across the room. He pressed a button and the door to the cage slid shut.
"I told you," Kaitlyn said tensely. "If you keep me here, they'll know-"
Mr. Zetes interrupted as if he didn't notice her speaking. Turning to Gabriel, he said, "Kill her."
Shock washed over Kaitlyn like an icy bath-and again and again. She'd realized, all at once, just how stupid she'd been. The cold reality of her situation left her unable to breathe. Unable to think.
"Don't worry; it's just a Faraday cage," Mr. Zetes was telling Gabriel. "It's built to keep out normal electromagnetic waves, but it's quite transparent to your power. It's like the steel room at the Institute, and you projected easily through that."
Gabriel was silent. His stony expression told Kaitlyn nothing, and she couldn't feel anything from him through the web. Maybe she was just numb.
"Go on," Mr. Zetes said. He was beginning to look impatient. "Believe me, there's no other alternative. If there were, I would save myself the work of getting another subject like her-but there's no choice. The link has to be broken. The only way to break it is to kill one of the five of you."
Gabriel's chest rose and fell with a sudden deep breath. "The link has to be broken," he repeated, grimly.
Kaitlyn did feel something then. She felt that he meant it.
"Then go on," Mr. Zetes said. "It's unfortunate, but it has to be done. It's not as if it's the first time you've killed." He glanced at Kaitlyn. "Have you heard about that? Drains his victims' life energy dry. An extraordinary power." There was a kind of macabre satisfaction in his face.
Then it turned to impatience again. "Gabriel, you know what the rewards will be with me. You can literally have anything you want, in time. Money, power-your rightful position in the world. But you must cooperate. You must prove yourself."
Gabriel stood like a statue. Except for that one sentence, he hadn't said a word. Something artistic in Kaitlyn's brain watched him with mad clarity, thinking about how really beautiful his face was in repose.
He looked a bit like his namesake, like an angel carved in white marble. Except for his eyes, which were definitely not an angel's eyes. They were dark and fathomless-and right now rather pitiless. Cold as a black hole.
One could very easily imagine an assassin having eyes like that.
Then something like sadness entered them. Because he's sorry to have to kill me? Kaitlyn wondered.