Rafe was already dead by then. It couldn’t have been him.
They worked their way south to Midway Geyser Basin and slowly walked it, reading the signs, staring at the features. Taz’s gut tightened, remembering how Rafe looked that day, how he tripped and fell when she slammed down her mental defenses against him from the other side of the basin.
She sat on the boardwalk near Grand Prismatic Spring, where she sat with Matthias that morning. Closing her eyes, she remembered how the day looked and felt. Today it was hotter but still comfortable. There were fewer people that morning. She remembered the feel of Rafe trying to probe her mind from across the basin, the gentle caresses.
“Like this?” And a familiar, gentle caress swept across her mind.
Her eyes snapped open. Robertson was ten feet away, reading one of the signs. He didn’t have that kind of power to touch her mind like that.
And it was Rafe’s voice.
She looked around, stood, dizzy. Robertson sensed something was wrong and turned to her, saw her face.
He returned to her side. “Taz, what’s the matter?”
“I heard him. I just heard his voice.”
Robertson took her hands. “Taz,” he said gently, “Rafael is dead. You’re just remembering things. You’re overwhelmed.”
She shook her head. “No, listen to me, I just heard Rafe!”
“Taz, honey, he’s gone. You’re hurting and in a lot of pain.”
She fought back the tears. “I can hear him! He’s not dead! He can’t be.” She sobbed, and he put his arms around her, holding her, trying to mask his own concerned thoughts.
He managed to get her to look him in the eye. She was so powerful now, and he wasn’t sure she’d let him take control of her, but she did. He calmed her, talked her into going back to the car. He helped her into the passenger seat, still in control, amazed she let him do it.
“Taz, sweetheart,” he whispered, “go to sleep for a few minutes. You’ll feel better when you wake up, all right?”
She nodded, turned her head to the side, and went to sleep.
He sighed, closed the door, and took out his BlackBerry.
No reception.
“Dammit.” He climbed behind the wheel and drove them back to Old Faithful.
At the cabin, he talked her into her room and put her to bed where she went to sleep immediately. He sat with her a few minutes, probing, trying to see into her mind. She was exhausted and deeply asleep, that much was obvious, but he couldn’t pierce her thick mental barrier. The long drive combined with her emotions had finally taken its toll.
There was something else, too, something he wasn’t sure what to make of, but he didn’t have the strength necessary to search deeper in her mind.
Taking her room key, he locked the door, walked to the restaurant, and got them both something to eat. Back in the cabin, the smell of food awoke her and they ate in silence. She didn’t ask him how she got there. He was still amazed, knowing her power, that she’d allowed him to do it.
After lunch they sat on her bed with her curled next to him, her head in his lap, the silence occasionally punctuated by her questions. He knew not to push her, to let her sort through it at her own pace.
“What will happen to Caroline?” she asked.
“I don’t know. That’s something you and Matthias must discuss with the Tribunal. She tried to kill both of you, and she murdered Rafael. Regardless, she’ll never be a free woman again.”
“Ever?”
He shook his head. “The Tribunal doesn’t tolerate rogues. They are far too dangerous.”
“Will they kill her?”
“I don’t know. That’s difficult to say. At the very least she will remain alive until they are certain they have extracted all useful information from her.”
“I want to be there if they execute her.”
“Taz—”
“I want to watch her die, want to watch her face the way she watched Rafe’s. For him.”
“He wouldn’t want you to be vindictive.”
“He was a good man.”
“I know.” He stroked her hair. Her mental anguish radiated from her. And something else, a nervous, different energy he’d never felt from her before. Come to think of it, he noticed it started the morning she was shot, which would have been after her succubus session and Rafe’s death. He’d known her all her life and never sensed this from her before.
“Let’s go practice. Try to take your mind off things, shall we?”
He took her room key and handed her Rafe’s jacket. He knew who it belonged to, knew it would comfort her. “Come along, sweetheart.”
He led her down the boardwalk to Old Faithful. An eruption had finished minutes earlier, so the crowd had thinned. They sat on one of the benches, and he gripped her hand.
“Something easy,” he whispered. About thirty yards past Old Faithful, a bison grazed in the basin. Overhead, an osprey circled. He squeezed her hand. “See the osprey?”
She nodded.
“See if you can take it over and make it land on the bison’s back.”
She shot him a dubious look.
“Seriously. It shouldn’t take too much effort, especially not for you.”
“I won’t pass out?” Her earliest training sessions with Matthias left her practically incapacitated.
“No, not something as simple as this. Not now.”
She shrugged and focused on the bird of prey. Finally, its lazy circles changed, became erratic, and it looped lower and lower.
The bison, oblivious, continued grazing unmolested.
Tim watched as Taz focused and tried to control the bird. She managed to get it to circle lower, lower still. It swooped and—
Crashed headfirst into the side of the bison with a squawk and explosion of feathers.
Her eyes widened. “Whoops.”
Dumbfounded, Tim exploded with laughter. She joined him.
The osprey hopped away from the bison, who looked up and over its side at the bird. Eventually the stunned bird flapped and flew up to its nest in a nearby lodgepole pine, apparently none the worse for wear.
Robertson and Taz laughed, hard and hearty, leaning on each other. Finally, when she could get her breath, she sighed. “Oh, God. That poor bird.”
“Surprised it didn’t leave a skid mark on the bison,” Tim quipped.
She gasped, exploding into laughter again. They both watched as the bison turned its ass to them and sauntered away.
He patted her on the leg. “I think that’s enough.”
“I’m sure the bird thinks it is.”
That sent them both into one last round of giggles. Tim thought how good it sounded to hear her happy, to see her smile.
They found a quiet bench away from the boardwalk, between the ranger station and Old Faithful Lodge. “Okay, no birds this time.” He paused while she snickered. “I want you to open your mind and listen for people.”
“What people?”
“There are at least two hybrids around us, right now, in close proximity. They are visible.”
Her eyes widened. “There are?”
He nodded. “Don’t worry, they work for Matthias. Well, technically. I know who they are. I want to see if you can identify them.”
“How will I know?”
“That’s something you must figure out. You don’t need to take anyone over. Simply listen with your mind, explore. Gently, patiently. Once you find the first, you’ll easily find the second.”
Taz lowered her mental barrier enough to sense the thoughts of those around her. She let her eyes skip along the people strolling the boardwalk, sitting outside the Old Faithful Lodge, in the parking lot, walking to the ranger station. She couldn’t focus and needed a mental image. Picturing a radar screen, she tried homing in on a signal different from the human thoughts bombarding her. She tried to tune out noises, thoughts, let them muffle and fall away. Eventually she isolated a different sound.