Caressed By Ice Read online

Page 8

 

  " - is being very careful not to do anything that might narrow the focus of inquiry as to his, or her, identity," Faith completed.

  "Good strategy. " The jaguar at her side finally spoke, his thumb continuing to stroke over her nape. "The Council's got to be pissed if this rebel is leaking classified data. "

  "Yes. " Anthony turned back to Faith. "The Ghost was active while you were still part of the Net. Do you recall the explosion at Exogenesis Labs?"

  "The place where they're theorizing about implants that might lower the percentage of defects?" She spit out the last word. It was the label the Council used to describe those who refused to buckle under the emotionless regime of the Silence Protocol. "They want to cut into developing brains and initiate Silence on an organic level. "

  Anthony didn't react to her open emotionalism. "The Exogenesis strike killed two of the lead scientists on the implant team and destroyed months of work. "

  "Your Ghost isn't afraid to kill. "

  Faith heard no judgment in Vaughn's tone - her cat had killed to protect the innocent. And children, the first victims of implantation should the procedure be put into practice, were the most innocent of all.

  Chapter 7

  "It appears not. The explosion was investigated by both Enforcement and the Council, but without active support from a majority of the populace. "

  "Why?" Vaughn asked, his body heat so seductive she found herself leaning ever closer to him, her hand on the hard muscle of his thigh. "Wouldn't this implant make the Psy even more efficient?"

  Anthony nodded. "In a sense. But the dissidents argue that Protocol I, while ensuring universal compliance with Silence, would have the unavoidable side effect of linking our minds together. Not as the PsyNet does, but on a biological level. "

  Protocol I.

  That it already had an official name was a bad sign. "They're talking about a true hive mind. " Faith couldn't control the disgust that laced her words.

  "Yes. It's nothing that appeals to those of us who prefer to run our enterprises free of interference. That would become impossible should the entire race begin to act as one entity. " He picked up his organizer - the thin computer tablet ubiquitous among the Psy. "From the pattern of attacks, it appears the Ghost shares our goals, but without knowing his or her identity, we can't coordinate our efforts. "

  Vaughn leaned forward. "The more people who know a name, the higher the chance of exposure. I say let the Ghost do his - or her - thing, and ride the wave it generates. "

  "Your conclusion mirrors mine. " His tone signaling the end of the topic, Anthony brought up something on his organizer. "BlueZ has been waiting for its latest prediction for a month. Can you move it to the top of your list?"

  Faith picked up her own organizer. "I can try. " She still hadn't cracked the secret of bringing on visions to order. It was beginning to appear that that was one thing the Council hadn't lied about - maybe there was no way to harness her gift that far.

  Anthony moved on to another item on the agenda. Half an hour later, they were done and she was hugging him good-bye. He didn't return the gesture, but did pat her lower back once. Only a former inmate of Silence could have understood the incredible impact of that act. She had tears in her eyes when he pulled away and walked out the door.

  Barker, a DarkRiver soldier, was waiting to escort him out of the pack's financial HQ. Located in downtown San Francisco, near the organized chaos of Chinatown, the building was both public and highly secure.

  "Come here, Red. " Vaughn dragged her into his arms, melting the lump in her throat with his rough brand of affection.

  It scared her sometimes, the strength of what she felt for him. "He's important. The Ghost. " She'd had a knowing, not a vision as such but a hint of how things might be.

  That was when it hit her. A true vision. A split-second image of the future.

  But this one had nothing to do with the Ghost. It was about Brenna. Death. The SnowDancer was surrounded by death, her hands drenched in blood. Whose blood? Faith didn't know but she could smell the raw-meat scent of it, the desperation, and the fear. Then it was gone - so fast she wasn't even left with an afterimage on her retinas, much less any of the disorientation that sometimes accompanied the flashes of foresight.

  It had given her nothing concrete, nothing she could share with Brenna, but it did serve to back up her instincts about what the other woman had told her on the phone. Hugging Vaughn, she returned to the topic at hand. "Do you think I should contact the NetMind about the Ghost?" A sentience that was at home in networks of minds, the NetMind was the librarian and some believed, the policeman of the PsyNet. Faith, however, knew it to be so much more.

  "This guy seems to be working fine alone. You sure you want to mess with that?"

  "I should've known you'd take the side of the lone wolf," she teased, delighting in being able to do so.

  He growled and she felt the vibration against her cheek. "Don't compare me to those damn feral things. "

  Tilting up her face, she smiled. "Damn wolves. " It was an imprecation often muttered by DarkRiver cats.

  "Too right. " He kissed her. Hard. Fast. Vaughn.

  "I'll take your advice - I don't want to inadvertently trigger something in the NetMind. " Though the developing sentience was good, it wasn't completely free of the Council. "You know, I think the Ghost is going to be important to DarkRiver as well. Not now. But one day. "

  "A vision?"

  She shook her head. "Not even a knowing, really, more of a - " The words wouldn't come.

  "A gut feeling. "

  "Yes. " No wonder she'd been blocked - admitting to such a thing would've gotten her medicated in the PsyNet. "Oh, and, my darling cat, we're going up into SnowDancer territory tomorrow morning for a meeting. "

  "Who?" He fisted her hair in his hand, but she knew it was a gesture of affection.

  "Brenna Kincaid. " She decided not to mention that Judd Lauren would also be present. Vaughn had a decidedly negative reaction to the tall, dark, and very dangerous Psy. Judd. . . no, she saw nothing about him. Of all the people she had ever met, it was Judd who was the most opaque to her foresight. So dark. So brutally alone.

  Twenty-four hours after she'd bowed to Judd's demands, Brenna still wasn't sure about meeting with Faith, but it was too late to back out. They got together in a small clearing about twenty minutes from the den. Despite her misgivings about this, Brenna had to admit the DarkRiver pair had picked a beautiful spot. The snow was soft underfoot and a frozen waterfall glimmered a few meters away, the ice glazed to an almost painful brightness by the midmorning sun. Faith's dark red hair appeared aflame against all that white.

  Then there was no more distance between them. "Thank you for coming. "

  Faith smiled, but Judd spoke before the F-Psy could respond. "You chose a location extremely close to the den. Why not somewhere nearer your pack?"

  Brenna had wondered about that, too. The cats might be their allies, but the two packs were not yet friends. And the males of predatory changeling species' were notoriously protective of their women - mates, daughters, and sisters. She should know. Drew and Riley were driving her to madness. It had reached the point where she knew something had to give. She just hoped they all survived the explosion.

  But Faith seemed happy with her overprotective male. "Vaughn finds it amusing to get past your patrols without detection. "

  Vaughn looked unrepentant. "They're getting sloppy. Even with Red here stomping away, I had no trouble getting in. " He grinned when his mate gave him a warning look.

  Brenna felt something clutch in her stomach at the easy intimacy between the two, at the grin from a cat she'd never before seen smile. That was what she should be seeking - a sensual, affectionate changeling male. They didn't bother to hide their emotions, touched as easily as they breathed, laughed with their mates even if they didn't with anyone else.

  The
problem was that these days, only one man seemed to register on her feminine senses and he was a Psy who could give her nothing of what Vaughn gave Faith. . . even if he were interested. Which he clearly wasn't. Then why did she keep going to him, expecting him to fight her demons, to keep her safe?

  "So" - Faith looked at her - "let's talk about your dreams. "

  They were nightmares, not dreams. "Do you think we could do it alone?"

  Flickers of light came and went in Faith's cardinal eyes - white stars on black velvet. Sascha was a cardinal, too, but Faith's eyes were different from the other woman's, quieter, less open, touched with a stroke of darkness. Faith saw the future and her eyes said that that future wasn't always something good.

  Glancing over her shoulder to her mate, Faith inclined her head in a gentle gesture. Brenna was fascinated by the Psy woman's interaction with a cat who had always struck her as wilder, more animal than most. Maybe she could learn something from Faith about managing unmanageable males.

  Turning herself, she looked up at the profile of a man so lethally cold, she should have been too terrified to approach him. "Please. "

  Judd's hair lifted in the slight breeze and she had to curl her fingers to fight the temptation to touch. Because, rather than being crushed under the ice of his personality, her fascination with him continued to grow.

  "I'll make sure no one gets to you. " A promise so absolute, she felt it in her bones.

  "Thank you. "

  His gaze flicked to Vaughn. "I'll take the south. "

  "I've got the north. "

  With that, the men were gone, shadows that blended into the trees ringing the clearing. Brenna waited until she could no longer scent Vaughn, trusting that he'd hold to the changeling code of honor and go out of earshot of normal conversation. "I don't know where to start," she found herself saying.

  "You said you've been experiencing what might be called visions. " Faith had a very clear voice, hauntingly so. "Tell me what you see and when it began. "