Martin looked startled.
“What changes?” he demanded.
“I thought perhaps you had become the victim of some kind of mental illness that affected your parasenses.”
“I am not sick, damn you.”
“Yes, you are, but not because of some natural disease process. You did this to yourself. With a little help from your new friends, of course.”
Martin took a step closer. He didn’t look horrified. He looked eager. Excited. “You can see the effects of the drug in my aura?”
“A drug,” she repeated. “Yes, that’s the only logical explanation. Those two men supplied you with some sort of drug that affects your parasenses.”
“There’s an excellent likelihood that it will also increase my natural life span, maybe by as much as a couple of decades. What’s more, they’ll be good decades. I won’t be weak and frail. I’ll maintain my powers.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Martin, you’re a brilliant business-man. Don’t you know when you’ve been sold a bill of goods? The promise of longevity is the oldest scam in the world.”
“The reason the researchers aren’t certain about the extended life span is because the new drug hasn’t been around long enough to test the theory. Those at the top have been using the stuff for only a few years. But the lab data look very promising.”
“You’re a fool, Martin.”
“It’s true,” he insisted. “Even if they’re wrong about the drug’s ability to lengthen my life, that doesn’t alter the fact that the formula
works. It can kick a level-seven strategy talent like me all the way up to a nine or a ten.”
“You’re not a nine or a ten. I’d know. Something has changed in your aura, though. Whatever it is, it isn’t—” She broke off, groping for the right word. “It isn’t wholesome.”
“Wholesome?” He laughed. “Now there’s a silly, old-fashioned word. Do you think I care how
wholesome I am? For your information, you’re right, though. The drug they gave me didn’t elevate the level of my talent. It wasn’t intended to have that effect.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The drug can be genetically altered in a variety of ways to suit an individual’s psychic profile. The version I’m taking has provided me with an entirely new talent.”
“If you believe that, you really have gone off the deep end.”
“I am not insane,” Martin shouted.
The words seemed to echo around them. A few seconds of terrifying stillness followed. Then Martin’s aura flared with a sickening heat.
She knew, then, that the moment had come. He was going to try to kill her now. The only question was whether he intended to use a gun or his bare hands. One thing was certain, standing there at the end of the dock left her nowhere to run.
The mind-searing blast of energy came out of nowhere. It roared over her, bringing disorienting pain and the promise of an endless plunge into the abyss.
Not a gun. She fell to her knees under the force of the lightning that slashed at her senses.
Not his bare hands, either. A slight miscalculation on her part.
Martin stared down at her, enthralled with his own power.
“They were right,” he breathed. “They told me the truth about the drug. Congratulations. You are about to become the first person to witness what I can do with my new talent.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“I’m not going to touch you. It isn’t necessary. I’m going to incinerate your psychic senses. You will go into a coma and then you will die.”
“Martin, no, don’t do this.” Her voice was steadier now. So were her senses. She had recovered somewhat from the initial traumatizing shock. She was getting a handle on the pain, which meant that she was pushing back the invading waves of energy. “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe some of the experts in the Society can help you.”
“You’re pleading with me. I like that.”
“I’m not going to beg for my life. But there is one thing you should know before you do this.”
“What?”
“If you hadn’t come along, I would have owned that florist shop by now, a whole chain of flower shops.”
“That was always your greatest flaw,” Martin said. “Your dreams and ambitions were so much smaller than mine.”
He heightened the psychic heat of the dark energy he was generating, his face tightening with effort. She pushed back harder, pulling energy from her own aura. The pain lessened some more.
“Die, damn you,” he hissed. He took another step closer. “Why don’t you
die?”
Her strength was coming back. She was able to focus clearly on maintaining the energy shield that her aura had become.
Martin staggered but he did not seem to notice that she was fighting him. Instead, he appeared disoriented.
Angrily, he pulled himself together and took another step toward her, almost touching her. He forced more energy through the murky bands of dark lightning he was generating.
“You’re supposed to die,” he shouted.
He reached down to seize her by the throat. She raised her arms in a reflexive, defensive gesture. He grabbed her hands. She gripped his wrists.
Her palms burned. The world exploded, sending jolt after jolt of shock waves through her senses.
Martin Crocker convulsed once. He looked at her with the eyes of a man who is peering into hell.
“No,” he screamed.
He reeled, lost his balance and went over the side of the dock into the water. His aura winked out with terrifying suddenness.
She rose, heart pounding. For the second time in her life, she had killed a man. Not just any man this time—a very powerful, influential multibillionaire who just happened to be involved in a dangerous criminal enterprise.
And her hands still burned.
ONE
WAIKIKI . . .
The big man in the short-sleeved, orange and purple flowered shirt was going to be a problem in about five minutes. It didn’t take a psychic to sense the angry, volatile energy stirring the atmosphere around table five. Any experienced bartender would have picked up on it. For a bartender who just happened to be psychic and who was also an ex-cop, the invisible warning signs had started blazing neon-bright when Mr. Orange and Purple Flowers walked into the Dark Rainbow half an hour earlier.
Luther Malone gave the mai tai a quick stir with a swizzle stick and set it on Julie’s tray next to the beer and the Blue Hawaii. Julie leaned over the bar to pluck a cherry and a slice of pineapple out of the chilled containers.
“Got trouble on five,” she said quietly. “The idiot is picking on Crazy Ray. Fortunately for the big fool, Ray hasn’t noticed yet.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Luther said.
Although the hole-in-the-wall establishment was located in Waikiki, they didn’t get much tourist trade. Tucked away in a small courtyard half a block off busy Kuhio Avenue, the Rainbow catered to an eccentric group of regulars. Some of the customers, Crazy Ray among them, were more eccentric than others. Ray had long ago dedicated himself to the gods of surfing. When Ray was not surfing, he went into a Zen-like state. Everyone who knew him acknowledged that he was best left in that otherworldly zone.
“Be careful,” Julie said. She garnished the mai tai with the pineapple and the cherry. “A lot of that bulk is muscle, not fat.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I appreciate the tip.”
Julie flashed him a quick smile. “I’d really hate to have anything happen to you, boss. The hours on this job mesh perfectly with my work at the hotel.”
Like so many others employed in the tourist trade throughout Hawaii, Julie held down two jobs. Life in the islands had its benefits but it was expensive. Friday and Saturday nights she showed up at the Dark Rainbow to help with the dinner rush. Her regular day job was working the front desk at one of the countless small, faded, budget hotels that somehow managed to survive in the shadows of the big beachfront resorts and high-rise condos.