Atonement Sky, page 6
part #9 of Psy-Changeling Trinity Series
Perhaps she wouldn’t have to ask him to let her finish this task after all. While she didn’t know how changeling packs and clans functioned except on the most basic level, she did understand that the people at the very top of the hierarchy were highly protective of those who looked to them for leadership.
Of course Adam Garrett would want to excise the Sandman out of the place his clan called home.
“It’s easier if I show you.” Eleri gathered up a few nearby bits of rock and stone, put them in a pile, then cleared a section of the sandy ground.
The dust and grit clung to her gloves, tiny flecks that highlighted her inability to protect her own mind.
“This is Raintree.” She put a gray rock in the center. “This is where the body of Vivian Chang—his first confirmed victim—was discovered.” A small black stone to mark the place where Eleri had brushed sand off the body of the cellist whose hands would never again create music soaring and haunting.
“This is where the body of Kriti Kumar, his second confirmed victim, was found.” Another petite young woman with dark eyes and hair. That was all Kriti had been to the killer. He hadn’t known or cared that she dressed up as a fairy for her much younger siblings’ birthday parties, or that she was the bubbly, vibrant center around which her friends spun.
As he hadn’t cared about Vivian’s spoiled pet dogs who’d refused to eat for days after she vanished, their eyes trained on the door as they waited for her to return. It was Vivian’s father who’d told Eleri that, his own face hollowed out.
“Why are you handling this instead of Enforcement?” Adam asked, even as he hunkered down beside her.
“I work with them,” she said. “Specialist attached to the serial crimes unit, and presently specifically to the Sandman Task Force.”
“Full-time?” A question with an edge. “I figured you’d be needed in the court system.”
“I’m a worn-out J.” Just a simple fact. “No longer any good for the basic work of the Corps, but it turns out many of us old Js are excellent at hunting serial killers.”
When Adam tapped the side of his head, she shook her own. “No, nothing psychic. It’s due to our years of experience walking in depraved minds. We’re each profilers in specific subsets of criminals, depending on which crimes we worked on most during our tenure.”
Eleri had never compared their workloads, but one thing she knew: all senior Js had scars. Losing her ability to react and respond, to feel, was nothing in comparison to the price demanded of the others. Saffron eaten up by her fury until she overloaded in seizures, Yúzé so calm and precise and insane in ways that would show up on no PsyMed test, Bram with a brain that couldn’t shut down to sleep without heavy chemical inducement that left him locked in night terrors.
“There are a lot of serial killers on the loose at the current time,” she added because this was a brutal truth that should be widely disseminated, should be exposed to the light. “The Psy Council protected a large number because the killers were useful to them in some capacity. At least half that group managed to slither away in the aftermath of the Council’s fall without anyone being the wiser of their proclivities.”
She could feel Adam staring at the side of her face, the intensity of his attention a near-scald that should’ve made her afraid…only she’d lost the ability to feel fear first of all, her mind burning out on the overload of it as she walked in minds so horrific that she wished she could go back in time and end their genetic lines where they began.
“This is where I discovered the body of the third victim, Sarah Wells.”
“You, personally?”
Eleri gave a curt nod. “I had a tip-off.”
• • •
Adam’s gut tensed as he stared at the primitive map she’d laid out in front of him. Unless she was fucking with him—and no reason for her to do that, not when she had to know that as the head of WindHaven, he’d have access to the kind of people who could verify her claims—she was right.
Raintree sat at the direct center of the body dumps, the sun with all its horrific satellites. “Chance you’ve missed abductions that don’t fit into your pattern?”
“Low.” A firm answer, no hesitation.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Rising, she said, “The answer’s in my vehicle.”
Adam followed her without a word, and because he was behind her, he caught the slight sway of her body. It was instinct to reach out—but he stopped himself with conscious force.
He couldn’t touch her.
Not her.
“Careful.”
“I’m fine.” A response that was neither defensive nor explicatory.
It just…was.
Going around to the back of her SUV while he was still scowling at her beyond-robotic affect, she opened the trunk, then lifted out the trunk liner to prop it up against the side of the car. Below, where in most vehicles would be tools for the car or an emergency battery, were three locked cases.
Including one that he knew must hold a weapon.
Eleri reached for the one next to it.
After pulling it out, she placed it atop the one that held the weapon, then unlocked it using an iris print combined with a numerical code. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when she lifted the black metal lid, but it wasn’t a thin pile of what looked to be paper letters that had been removed from their envelopes. Said envelopes lay neatly bound in a stack below.
Pulling out the letter at the bottom, Eleri handed it to Adam.
The handwriting was fluid and stylish, the words altogether sickening.
My dearest Eleri,
You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? I feel like we know each other so well…though I suppose you won’t even remember our meeting. In fairness, it wasn’t a real meeting. I wanted it to be, but they’re so strict in the places you most often go, aren’t they? Courts, jails…and, well, where else do you go?
As far as I can figure out, you don’t have a home.
I’ve seen you though, lots of times, and I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to have your mind inside mine. I’m shuddering now as I imagine the pleasure of it, of having you invade me like I invade my chosen ones. But to experience your psychic touch, I’d have to give up my freedom and I’m having so much fun out here.
Which brings me to this. I’ve decided that if I can’t get close to you any other way, then I’ll have to do something bad and clever enough that they’ll pull you out of retirement to deal with me.
Oh yes, I know you’ve retired from Justice. Saw the gloves—dead giveaway, no pun intended. Js who start wearing the gloves don’t tend to be around much longer afterward, but maybe that’ll change with this new Ruling Coalition?
I’m not taking the risk.
Consider this the first step of my courtship and our relationship.
Below the final line were what appeared to be GPS coordinates.
And right at the bottom was the closing salutation: Yours in admiration followed by xx.
Adam fought the urge to haul her close, spread his wings over her, even as his decade-old rage burned ever hotter. He wasn’t a man given to holding grudges or withholding affection—his sister had nicknamed him Bear for a reason—but Eleri Dias’s betrayal was a barbed thorn in his heart that wouldn’t let him forget.
He focused only on the here and now and the possible threat to his clan. “The coordinates?”
“Led to Vivian’s body. She’d turned seventeen two weeks prior. Kriti, the oldest victim, was still only a bare nineteen, Sarah six months younger.”
Eleri pulled out another letter. “After that initial letter, he began writing to me before each abduction, then after. He’s never given me exact coordinates for the bodies again, says there’ll be no ‘thrill’ in it for me if he makes it too easy—but he gives me just enough that I and my colleagues can figure it out.”
“Playing a game with you?” Adam said. “So you’ll run yourself ragged trying to stop the abductions?”
“No. He’s been careful not to say anything in those pre-abduction letters that could lead me to him or to his future victim.” Though Eleri’s face was motionless in the shadow of the canyon, Adam wondered if she really was as unmoved as she appeared.
He hadn’t missed the fact that she’d named each victim. Then again, perhaps it was easy for her because she didn’t feel.
No guilt. No grief. No anger for lives stolen.
As Adam unfolded the second letter, Eleri put away the first. “They’re not originals, just copies that I’ve handled until they look like it. The originals are in a forensic lab and have been analyzed both on the level of physical evidence and in terms of what the words might mean.”
“Still a big jump from fantasy to acting it out,” Adam said.
“The first kill wasn’t clean. From the state of her body, we believe Vivian almost escaped.” Eleri looked out at the water that, from here, was no river of blood but a glittering golden thread in the landscape.
“Animals are often the first target,” she added. “That may have been his practice ground.”
Neck rigid with tension, Adam didn’t interrupt.
“This particular pattern of abduction and murder, with the victims kept for what appears to be exactly seventy-two hours before he kills them with a massive telepathic surge that burns out their brains? That began with Vivian Chang.
“There are no other like crimes in any database to which we have access—and that includes the database set up by the Ruling Coalition in which they enter any and all data to do with psychopaths who may have been allowed to commit their crimes by the Council.”
“Who’s the we? Your Enforcement task force?”
“Yes. I also work with a network of Js who share information as we work our personal cases.”
“What does the task force think of your theory?”
A long pause before she said, “That I’m seeing ghosts because I’ve become too personally invested. They believe the important locations are the abduction and captivity sites, and that the body dumps are opportunistic—it would tie with the theory that he’s an individual with a transient job. Sales. Trucking. Road engineer.
“To date, we’ve only found one place where he held a victim—that was with Vivian Chang. She was kept captive in a warehouse meant to store road construction items; that’s how we found it. The roading crew turned up three weeks after she vanished and found her ID onsite, along with specks of blood.”
Adam narrowed his eyes, seeing where her colleagues were going—especially given that particular site. “What happens if you take the location of the abductions and that warehouse into account?”
“It triangulates to a totally different area.” Eleri put away the second letter. “Nowhere near Raintree.”
“I’m assuming your colleagues aren’t idiots, so why are they focused on the abduction sites and not where the bodies were found?” He watched her, wondering if she’d lie, try to spin things her way.
Instead, she said, “Because the abductions appear to be opportunistic—as if he was just passing by on one of his normal routes when he spotted them. Vivian was walking home from a late band practice, Kriti’s car broke down on a highway, and Sarah went to a party with new friends. No one remembers when she left or with who—but we know she was at the party, and that she never made it home.”
Eleri put the trunk liner back on. “The bodies, on the other hand…they’re posed in a way that takes considerable time. He builds open-sided shelters for them on the spot, then decorates the shelters like his fantasy of a woman’s bedroom. Silk hangings, vases of flowers, candles. That takes time, takes materials, takes tools—and the bodies aren’t decomposed enough when I find them.”
Her tone, Adam realized, hadn’t altered through the entire grim recitation. There was nothing in her eyes, either. As if he was speaking to an automaton.
His senses spiked in a rejection that wasn’t born of rage but of something else altogether, something that he’d succeeded in burying for ten long years.
Oh, you’ve cut your knuckles. Let me get a bandage from the first aid—
No, stay, it will heal up real quick. Changeling skin is tough.
Eleri. I’m Eleri.
Eleri. That’s pretty. My name is Adam.
Chapter 7
The Psy race considers humankind prey, our minds theirs to violate at will. Humans will never achieve our true potential as long as we have to conceal our light in order to escape drawing Psy attention.
—Bowen Knight, security chief of the Human Alliance (circa February 2077)
Shoving aside the echoes of a past that had destroyed the boy he’d been, Adam considered her words. “You think he builds the shelters ahead of time, then goes trawling for victims.”
Eleri turned those beautiful mutable eyes on him. “Yes, so they have to be in places he can reach on a regular basis—like after work. Sixty minutes in a high-speed vehicle to the furthest shelter, ninety if in a lower-spec car, three-hour maximum round-trip total.
“Add in a couple of hours of construction on the shelter and—if he finishes work at five or six—he’d still be in bed by eleven, midnight at the latest. I also don’t think the abductions were opportunistic; he’s just taken care to make them appear that way—I believe he goes out of his home range on purpose, to stop anyone tracing him back to Raintree.”
Adam agreed with her thought process, while being aware that he was only getting one side of the story. “What would your colleagues say if I asked them?”
“That he must prefabricate the shelters so he can put them up within an hour, and that he’s as opportunistic in the captivity sites as he is in his abductions. Several members believe he might even keep the victims in his truck or other similar vehicle.”
Adam held that gaze, his falcon in his eyes—both parts of him trying to see through to the truth of her. “And yet you think you’re right. Why?”
“Instinct,” was the toneless response. “The same thing that means I can track serial killers across the PsyNet by their psychic signatures.”
A disbelieving lift of his eyebrow, his gaze not human in any fashion as he watched her. Adam Garrett was a raptor designed to rend his prey to pieces, and he remained, Eleri thought, a breath away from doing the same to her.
“If you can track murderers on your Net, why all this?” He waved at her car, the evidence she carried.
“First, I need to pick up the scent. The PsyNet is a vast place.” What Eleri didn’t say was that for a J like her, a Sensitive on the verge of Exposure, the PsyNet was also a place she tried to avoid as much as possible.
Its psychic fabric teemed with millions upon millions of memories that had slipped free of people’s shields and now floated around in disembodied pieces. Those fragments didn’t affect undamaged Js, but Eleri could no longer claim that status; she risked the memories burrowing their way into her and setting up home atop the vicious memories of far sicker strangers.
“Funny,” Bram had said the last time the four of them had gotten together, “you’d think we’d want those random memories to settle in, dampen the ones from our work.”
Only, of course, it didn’t work that way. The fragments had razored edges that drew psychic blood, and when one embedded itself, it stirred older, darker memories to the surface, like a stone thrown into a still pond.
So no, memory shards weren’t a good thing.
The only time Eleri stepped foot in the psychic network anymore was when she was sure enough of the identity of a killer that she could stalk him on the psychic level. She’d led Enforcement to three so far by that method, and for two others…well, some people didn’t need any kind of a second chance to do what they’d done, and Js were experts at stealth assassinations.
Her mind opened the box of her own memories, time scrolling backward.
“Are you shocked I executed Prisoner 45TN?” Reagan, sitting across from her two years after the court case that had ripped the veil from her eyes.
He’d had a faded smile on his face that night. “It’s a madness in Js,” he’d told her. “It’s why the wardens and guards are meant to watch us closely when we’re in jails or other places with such prisoners. Something breaks in us and we no longer have control when it comes to ending deviant minds.”
Eleri had known her mentor too well by then to fall for that. “You were in control. You chose it.”
“Yes. Because 45TN’s crimes involved children. That’s the one thing I’m incapable of forgiving even to the extent of permitting the justice system to deal with them.”
Eleri had adopted the same line in the sand…and added a number more. And she’d bettered her mentor by becoming expert at inducing death in a way that left no trace of any external involvement.
She had every intention of using those skills on the Sandman. “I’m certain he’s here,” she said when Adam Garrett didn’t respond. “All I need is the time to track him down. After that, you’re free to do with me what you will.”
The falcon who had once looked at her out of a smiling young man’s face today stared at her with the grim visage of a wing leader. His talons weren’t out as they’d been in that courtroom, but she knew this man was far more dangerous than the boy she’d first met…the one who’d made her wonder for a blip in time whether her destiny wasn’t set in stone after all.
“Go,” he said at last. “Start your search. I’ll find you after I’ve checked on your information.”
Eleri nodded.
But he said, “Wait,” when she would’ve got in the car. “What are the chances he’ll strike in Raintree?”
“Low. If he does, he risks compromising his bolt-hole.” She hesitated, then shared the rest. “Unless he suffers a catastrophic psychic break, which he shows no signs of doing, I don’t think I’ll find him because he makes a mistake here—I’ll find him because he made mistakes at the other sites that give me clues as to who he is. I just don’t know what those mistakes are yet.”
