"Like a psychic."
Hope nodded. "All that stuff has to originally come from somewhere, right? By using that object and focusing, Adele can see you. I have no idea how big a window she gets – like I said, true clairvoyants are rare, so we don't know a lot about them. She'd use that view, though, to pick up clues about your surroundings – a street sign, a landmark…"
"A napkin with a café name on it," Robyn said, remembering the day before.
"Exactly. You said she's a photographer, that she took pictures of Portia for the tabloids. I guess that's how she used her talents."
Clairvoyant paparazzi, able to find their targets anywhere, watch and wait for that moment when they were most likely to do something tabloid-worthy, slip in, snag the shot and leave, while their colleagues chased and hounded and prayed they'd get lucky.
Robyn considered herself a rational person. Too rational, some said. The summer she'd been fourteen, she'd followed a friend to a camp for the arts. At the end of the two weeks, her creative writing instructor told her, as gently as possible, that not all people were cut out to be novelists and if she enjoyed writing, she might want to consider nonfiction instead. In other words, Robyn didn't have an imaginative cell in her body. She'd come to accept that.
But now, faced with the existence of people with real psychic abilities, even her too-rational brain was satisfied that this did make sense, given the evidence. Was it that preposterous, when there were branches of science devoted to studying such phenomena? As Hope said, the stories about ESP and remote-viewing had to come from somewhere. As long as they were talking about people seeing the present, not the future, then yes, Robyn could accept it.
"So Adele is part of this… group," Robyn said. "This community, of people with… extraordinary powers."
"We have some idea who Adele may have aligned herself with and, yes, it's an organization, but for now, the important part is that we know what she is. We'll be able to deal with her."
"But the larger group, community, whatever, the one made up of everyone with paranormal powers…"
"I wouldn't exactly call it a community."
"You know what I mean."
Hope sipped her coffee.
Robyn waited a moment for Hope to answer. When she didn't, she said, "So we have clairvoyants and…"
Hope added another cream. Stirred. Sipped.
"Clairvoyants and…" Robyn prompted.
Hope set her cup down and leaned back. "What else do you need to know?"
"I said I want to know – "
"Need," Karl said.
She looked from one to the other. Both met her gaze, expressions blank.
"So you won't tell me," she said finally.
"Won't, shouldn't, can't…" Hope said. "Anything you need to know, though, I'll – "
"Oh, this is silly." Robyn slumped into the chair, arms crossed. She felt childish doing it, but at least she managed to avoid pouting. "I'm not exactly asking for national security secrets."
"Aren't you?" Karl said. "Perhaps not national security, but certainly very valid security concerns for a group of people."
"Why? So what if the world suddenly discovered people who could remote-view?"
"Have you ever heard of the Inquisition?" Karl asked.
"Now that is silly. Yes, people were afraid of witchcraft in the Middle Ages. They also thought dragons inhabited the edge of the world. Are you honestly going to tell me that if people today knew about clairvoyants, they'd hunt them down and burn them at the stake?"
"Perhaps not."
"There's no perhaps about it, Karl. This isn't the Middle Ages – "
"What if you read a headline announcing the discovery of a mutant gene found in a very small group. This gene forces them to murder one person each year to stay alive, and to feed off people the rest of the year, like parasites. Would you say vive la différence? Live and let live?"
"Well, no, but whatever those people are – "
"Vampires?"
Robyn blanched. She didn't mean to, but she couldn't help it.
"But if there are… vampires, they aren't people," she said.
"I wouldn't try telling them that," Hope murmured.
Robyn looked at her. Were they serious? Or were they only giving the most outrageous example they could? She straightened and met Karl's gaze.
"Fine, I wouldn't approve of vampires. But that's not – "
"Let's take another example then. A slightly larger group. People with no biological imperative to kill, but with a strong – sometimes overwhelming – instinct to do it. An instinct to see man not as a conscious being, but as just another threat and food source. Many resist the urge, some successfully. Some don't bother to try. Should we exterminate them all? Just to be safe?"
Werewolves. He had to be talking about werewolves. And if what she suspected was true, it wasn't an imaginary example.
"No," she said. "You don't execute people because they might kill."
"Noble, but would everyone agree with you? After all, we're talking about a very small group. Perhaps thirty in North America. Wouldn't it just be easier to round them up and kill them, eliminate the contamination, just to be safe?"
She opened her mouth, but Karl continued. "Of course, not every supernatural is a predator. The majority are not, and wouldn't pose an obvious threat."
"Exactly my point, so – "
"Someone like a clairvoyant or medium or witch would be perfectly acceptable, as long as you don't pull religion into it?"
"Religion?"
Hope answered. "They're all considered, at least by Christianity, to be in league with the devil."
"Oh, that's – "
"Silly? Tell that to every other group that's been persecuted because there's something in the Bible that could be interpreted to mean God disapproves of them. If you had, say, demon blood, how quick would you be to announce it?"
Robyn considered that… and didn't care for the answer.
"And let's return to the original example," Hope went on. "Clairvoyants. Would you want people to know you could see what they were doing, anytime, anywhere? What would your friends think of that? Your husband or lover? Knowing you could spy on them?"
Robyn couldn't hold Hope's gaze. Yes, she had a point. But Robyn wasn't asking her to tell the world. Just her.
Damn it, Hope, she thought, I'm your friend.
"Yes," Hope said softly. "You are my friend."
Robyn looked up sharply. Had she spoken aloud? She looked into Hope's eyes, and knew she hadn't. And she shivered. God, she didn't want to, but she couldn't help it.
"Is that something you'd want to announce to your friends?" Hope said. "Is that something you really wanted to know about me?"
Robyn opened her mouth, but couldn't form words.
"I didn't think so."
Robyn quickly realized how foolish she'd sounded saying "tell me everything." Hope gave her only what she needed to know, with no mention of werewolves or demons or witches, keeping it all in the simplest terms possible. But even so, before long Robyn was totally lost.
Apparently the guy in the photo was an executive with a corporation… a corporation that employed people like Adele and Karl and Hope, and was known in their circles as the supernatural corporate Mafia. As for what that meant, how such a company operated, why no one ever noticed? Robyn didn't ask. The concept of a "supernatural corporate Mafia" masquerading as a regular business was enough for her to assimilate.
Hope was certain that what this Irving guy wanted was Adele. Apparently, being a rare race, clairvoyants were very valuable. As employees, Robyn presumed, though by this point, if Hope said he'd wanted Adele for a ritual sacrifice, she wouldn't have blinked.