The Elders (Mind Dimensions #4)(7)

One butch-looking lady grabs Mira’s shoulders from the front and the other pushes me aside. In a fluid motion, the cop locks her handcuff around Mira’s right wrist. Before I even register it, both of Mira’s hands are securely handcuffed.

“That was smooth,” I tell the cop, even though she probably won’t remember it later.

They gently lower Mira to the ground, ignoring her thrashing legs and screams.

Handcuffed and disheveled, but still futilely trying to reach me, Mira looks like a hot zombie. It’s eerie.

I phase into the Quiet.

In the silence of my safe place, I can finally think about what’s happening.

Someone is doing to my friends what I did to Kyle. Someone else can reach Level 2, the psychedelic netherworld that’s so unlike our everyday reality.

This someone Pushed my friends.

Did this person attempt to Push me too? I’m guessing not. If he or she had, it’s likely I would’ve been pulled into Level 2 with them. If they could get inside my head, they probably would’ve Pushed me to commit suicide, making this whole ordeal with my friends and the cops redundant.

So who’s doing this?

I recall the telltale signs of Pushing I discovered inside Kyle’s mind at the science conference, the signs I wanted to investigate but couldn’t because Kyle’s head was in the process of blowing up from Victor’s shot. Could the ‘voice’ in the minds of the cops belong to the same Pusher? Damn, I wish I’d Read Kyle far back enough to hear the actual Pushing instructions. Then I’d have some reference to compare this voice to.

In a moment of political correctness, I decide to call this new mystery Pusher a ‘she’ until I know more details. Also, to distinguish her from all the others, and given what she can do, I decide to call her the Super Pusher. For all I know, I might be right, and it could be some powerful girlfriend that Kyle was dating without my knowledge. If the Super Pusher is actually a guy, well, calling him her is like calling him a bitch—which is fitting, since this individual is one.

I walk around the graveyard and closely observe my surroundings. Wherever the Super Pusher is, I assume she wouldn’t have bothered walking too far in the Quiet to Push my friends, which means she might be hiding in this very cemetery. My guess is that it’s one of the Guides from the wake. She probably followed us to the cemetery and is now hiding like the coward that she is.

I inspect all possible hiding places in about a fifty-foot radius before realizing how futile this endeavor is. There are too many places where one can hide in a cemetery. You have crypts with doors, tall trees, large tombstones, bushes, and many other hidey-holes. Hell, she could even be sitting inside her car in the parking lot.

Wait a second. That’s actually a good place to check.

I run toward the parking lot, thinking that if I were this Super Pusher, that is where I’d be.

The parking lot is relatively empty, considering its size. There’s a long line of police cars off to the side, which I check first.

Two Honda Odyssey minivans catch my eye, probably because they’re parked right next to Lucy’s Crown Victoria, so close that unless they move, we can’t leave the lot.

I approach the nearest van and experience my third shock of the day.

Inside it, I see the familiar bald-headed, orange-robed figures.

The monks from the Temple of the Enlightened.

I even recognize the Master, the monk whom I fought at the Miami airport.

Shit. I run to look inside the second van. Besides more monks, I find someone much worse.

Caleb.

I’m not sure why I’m so shocked he’s here, since I know he works for the Enlightened. I guess I was hoping he would still be occupied with whatever trouble my aunt had gotten him into at that airport.

But no, here he is, riding shotgun with grim determination on his face. Whatever happened to him, he’s going to take out that frustration on me if he gets the chance. As Eugene likes to say, trouble doesn’t travel by itself.

I try to stay calm. They’re most likely here to take me back to the Temple, so that my grandparents and the rest of the Enlightened can continue persuading me to ‘do my duty,’ which they define as screwing Julia, or whoever else they deem worthy of carrying my baby.

Unless they somehow sniffed out the truth about my new ability. Then they’d want to use me for whatever it is they need my future offspring for.

No, this latter possibility is less likely.

Regardless of why they’re here, this development changes everything.

I barely escaped this crew in Florida, and that was in a crowded airport without some Super Pusher hunting me.

I debate pulling Caleb in and telling him about this Pusher. If he believes me, he’ll probably get out of here. After all, the Super Pusher could take control of him as easily as she took control of Thomas.

The thought chills me. I hate the idea of dealing with Caleb in general, but especially so if an unseen enemy is controlling him. Of course he won’t believe me, and the likeliest outcome of me pulling him in would be me becoming Inert, with the tiny chance of me phasing into Level 2 as he brings me close to death. No, thanks. That option just doesn’t work for me. I need to have my powers if I’m to have any hope of getting out of this alive.

I evaluate my options as I hurry toward my body. It doesn’t take long to realize I have only one: I need to run, thus getting the attention of this Pusher and these monks away from my friends and family. If I’m lucky, the Pusher and the monks might fight over me.