Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3)(92)

Crowd control. Terminal field.

Memory had no idea what those terms meant, but that didn’t matter at this instant. “What do you need from me?”

“See if you can work out if the person behind this is physically in Chinatown, or if he’s attacking via the PsyNet.”

Memory saw that Lucas and Alexei had the quartet corralled—all four of whom blinked as one right then and began to look around in confusion. “He’s moved on from that group.” Her mouth went dry, her heart thundering. “There are too many Psy here. Too many minds for him to grab, none of them as well shielded as the Arrows’.”

“You let us worry about that.” Sascha’s eyes were pure obsidian when they met Memory’s. “You focus on locating the threat—you’re the only one who can sense it.” The cardinal returned her attention to the street, and, a second later, Memory saw people stop in their tracks, their hands going to cradle the sides of their heads.

Squeezing her own eyes shut, she focused on the serrated presence of the huge, cracked mind. It hovered like a black cloud over the street, its intent to eliminate the Es. Hate and fear emanated from it, the toxic emotions directed at the Es. But it couldn’t capture empathic minds directly, kept sliding off.

That’s why it used other living beings as weapons. But there was something very wrong with this mind, a strange blankness where a sense of identity should be. Worse than at the compound. Then, she’d sensed his maleness and confidence both. Now even those basic elements were faded and dull.

There.

Memory caught the intruder’s psychic “frequency,” much as she’d caught Renault’s after he took Vashti. It was loud. “He’s here.” Lashes snapping up, she ran out of the doorway before Sascha could stop her.

Memory didn’t hesitate as she weaved in and out through the confused but nonviolent crowd.

Crowd control. Terminal field.

Whatever it was Sascha and the other Es were doing, it was working.

The air pressure changed again without warning, a second massive power entering the zone. Panic stuttered her heart, but this mind was ruthlessly sane, its discipline so precise that nothing leaked, not even the faintest edge of emotion. Only that sense of incomprehensible power.

Oh.

She hadn’t sensed him with her abilities at all, she realized. It had been pure survival instinct that alerted her to his presence. Still running, she spotted him up ahead: a terrifyingly handsome man in a black-on-black suit, his features all clean lines and his eyes cardinal starlight. She’d seen his face on the comm while buried in the bunker, knew he could raze cities and cause earthquakes: Kaleb Krychek.

His presence frosted the world in ice.

And his eyes, they landed on her. Hard to miss a woman running full tilt when everyone around her was preternaturally calm. Even the huge parade dragon had laid down its head, its controllers yawning as they leaned up against the dragon’s body.

Where? The single word was a crystalline telepathic contact, so pure her ears rang.

Far right of the street. Clenching her jaw against her dislike of psychic contact with unknowns, she sent him an image of what she could see—the black cloud with tendrils going from person to person, every new victim being aimed toward an E.

There were so many Es here. Why?

The compound—the empaths trained there see this as home ground. It was the same cold telepathic voice, frigid as winter snow, razor-sharp in its clarity and nearly painful with it.

She sucked in a breath. Get out of my head.

I wasn’t in it. Don’t broadcast your question so loudly if you don’t want an answer. He was gone a split second later, his body reappearing at the far end of the street.

Chilled to the bone—what did that much power do to a man—she continued to run in his direction. Her breath wheezed, her chest ached, and she knew her body couldn’t keep up this pace. She was far stronger than she’d been, but years of bad nutrition and lack of muscle strength would take time to fully undo.

A flash of gold in her peripheral vision, Alexei racing across the street to her. With barely a pause, he scooped her up in his arms and said, “Just point.”

Slinging one arm around his neck, she did. And Alexei moved, a predator with lightning-fast reflexes, his body primal grace.

I’m cutting off the assailant to the right. Tell the wolf to go left.

Memory winced at the icy chill of Krychek’s telepathic voice, but relayed the message. “The intruder can’t teleport.” He would’ve done so by now if he’d had that ability. “I think he’s trying to get out now. No more attempts to turn people.”

Empaths are madness.

Memory froze; that hadn’t been Krychek. It was a far less disciplined voice, a thing of fractures and need. Empaths heal wounds of the mind, she replied.

I had no wounds before the waking of Designation E. A kind of frothing energy against her, an attack her mind foiled without effort. You’re not like the others. A sudden quiet. You are darkness. You are like me.

Yes. It was the truth, at least in one sense. You need help. Let me.

It’s too late.

Less pressure. Then none.

“Stop.” She asked her wolf to put her down, then, one of her palms pressed against his heartbeat, she searched with her empathic senses and came up blank. “I can’t sense him anymore.” She relayed the same to Kaleb Krychek.