And no one in the room said it might have been something other than Jonah’s shot that took away Bast Getty’s cancer for good. His cancer, and his scarred, scarred face and head.
Because it just exploded.
Like an overripe melon.
EPILOGUE
“Just tell me you didn’t know it would happen,” Robbie said steadily.
The storm continued to rumble around them as though trying to make up its mind whether to make an unutterably bad night even worse. The bodies of Sebastian Gettys and Dante Swann had been taken away by medics whose haunted faces were mute testimony that they had already seen too much for what had been a peaceful life in a small town.
And Bishop and Miranda had arrived.
Robbie was staring at Bishop, and he didn’t look away.
“I didn’t know it would happen. We didn’t know it would happen.” He never showed emotion much, Bishop, but the grief and anger in his pale sentry eyes were obvious, and the scar on his left cheek stood out whitely, more obvious than any of them had ever seen before.
Miranda stood beside him. Her fingers twined with his, and she said to Robbie, “We send teams out every time knowing it’s possible. Knowing that maybe our skill won’t be good enough—or our luck will just run out.” Her free hand lifted briefly, so briefly, to touch her lower abdomen, then fell away. “Even when we get the bad guys, we don’t always win, Robbie. There’s always a price. A price somebody has to pay. You know that.”
“You’re both here. I know that. Why weren’t you here before? Why weren’t you here in time to—to do something?”
“Man plans,” Bishop said, “and the universe laughs. We should have been here hours ago. But the wind had taken down a huge tree, and there was no other way. Not even a place for a chopper to land. We had to wait for a road crew to clear it away.”
Robbie’s arms were crossed over her stomach, and her eyes were shiny. “I don’t know if I believe you. I want you to know that.”
“We do,” Bishop said.
“What am I? Can you tell me that? What am I now?”
“You’re a telepath, Robbie. You know that.”
She drew a breath. “I know it wasn’t just Jonah’s bullet that took that monster’s head off. I know it was mostly me. What I did. What did I do?”
Miranda glanced at her husband, then said steadily, “You wanted to save your partner. And that was enough to focus the energy inside you.”
“And turn it into a weapon.”
Bishop said, “All of our abilities can be used as weapons one way or another. If we need them to be badly enough. It’s why we learn control, Robbie. It’s why we test our limits.”
Hardly louder than a whisper, Robbie said, “I should have read the fine print.”
Sarah glanced at them, and then went to Robbie and took her arm. “I have a bottle of wine and a boyfriend I can kick out for the night,” she said. “Come on.”
It seemed that Robbie would resist for a moment, but then she allowed herself to be turned and guided, and Sarah took her out of the makeshift command center.
Miranda looked at Jonah, who was sitting at the conference table with his big gun lying on it, gazing at nothing.
“Jonah, there are always monsters,” she said. She waited until he looked at her, then said, “Always. You didn’t make Bast Gettys a monster any more than we made any one of our many enemies monsters. The world makes them. Fate makes them. Life makes them. All we can do is fight the ones in our paths.”
“Do you really believe that?” he asked finally.
“I have to. There have been . . . a lot of monsters in my life. Personally and professionally. Battles I won, and battles I lost. Unbearable prices I had to pay. But I keep fighting, just like Noah fights, like our teams fight, because when we’re done, there’s usually one less monster in the world. And I can live with that.”
“Teach me that, will you?” Jonah requested with a ghost of a smile.
“We were hoping you’d ask,” Bishop said.
And Jonah had one of those feelings he’d had before, that everything was going to change.
This time, for the better.
SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT AGENT BIOS
(in order of appearance)
NOAH BISHOP—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Job: Unit chief, profiler, pilot, sharpshooter, and trained in martial arts.
Adept: An exceptionally powerful touch-telepath, he also shares with his wife a strong precognitive ability, the deep emotional link between them making them, together, far exceed the limits of the scale developed by the FBI to measure psychic talents. Also possesses an “ancillary” ability of enhanced senses (hearing, sight, scent), which he has trained other agents to use as well. Whether present in the flesh or not, Bishop always knows what’s going on with his agents in the field. Always.
Appearances:Stealing Shadows, Hiding in the Shadows, Out of the Shadows, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Sense of Evil, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Sleeping with Fear, Blood Dreams, Blood Sins, Blood Ties, Haven, Hostage, Haunted, Fear the Dark
LUCAS JORDAN—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Job: Special Agent, profiler, weapons expert.
Adept: Neither fully telepathic nor empathic, Luke nevertheless possesses a combination of both abilities, the sum of which enables him to quite often find people who are lost. Lost by accident, the victims of crimes, even sometimes abducted and taken far away. And yet when he is able to use his abilities, Luke can feel the pain and fear of someone in trouble, even home in on their location. It’s an ability he’s worked very hard to master, and his control has improved steadily since joining the SCU—and since Samantha came back into his life.
Appearances:Hunting Fear, Fear the Dark
SAMANTHA JORDAN—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Job: Special Agent, profiler—and excels at a number of esoteric skills picked up in her life growing up in a carnival.
Adept: Seer, clairvoyant. Precognition is not an ability she controls, but she is able, with astonishing power and accuracy, to pick up information by touching objects. And sometimes by touching people. She is also linked in a very real way to her husband, that contact helping him to focus his abilities—and enabling him to pull his wife from whatever distant place or time her abilities take her; each is in a very real sense the anchor for the other.
Appearances:Hunting Fear, Fear the Dark
MIRANDA BISHOP—FBI SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT
Job: Special Agent, investigator, profiler, black belt in karate, and a sharpshooter.
Adept: Touch-telepath, seer, remarkably powerful, and possesses unusual control, particularly in a highly developed shield capable of protecting herself psychically, a shield she’s able to extend beyond herself to protect others. Shares abilities with her husband, due to their intense emotional connection, and together they far exceed the scale developed by the SCU to measure psychic abilities.