Still looking at that haggard face in the mirror, at eyes staring back at her with a feverish intensity that belied the chill shivering through her body, Riley said, "I don't think that's it. The start of it, maybe. Probably. The first step. Only it wasn't intended to take me out of the game. It wasn't intended to kill me. It was intended to weaken me. To make me vulnerable."
"What are you talking about?"
"The biggest piece of the puzzle, Ash. It's me."
He turned her around to face him, keeping his hands on her shoulders. "How could that be? Honey, all this occult shit started weeks before you got here. Weeks before you had any intention of coming here."
"But it was a dandy lure, wasn't it?" She was working it out even as she spoke, slowly putting together what had seemed to be disparate facts and events. Ragged memories and uncertain visions. "Possible occult activity in a sleepy little seaside community, nothing violent or vicious, no need for a whole team to come investigate. Just one. Just me. Just the unit's expert in the occult."
His hands tightened on her shoulders. "Gordon Skinner is the one who called you down here. Someone you trust. Right?"
"Yes. And that had to be part of the plan. Going into a situation knowing a trusted friend had my back if necessary, I wouldn't have felt any hesitation in coming alone."
"Are you saying he's involved?"
"No." Riley shook her head, hesitated, then lifted her hands to grasp Ash's wrists. Almost instantly, she began to feel a little stronger. Her head was clearer, thoughts and conclusions falling rapidly into place in her mind.
She was right about this.
It's about connections. And this is a connection I need to work this case. Hell, maybe I need it just to survive.
"No, I don't believe Gordon's part of it. Willingly, at least. Knowingly. But he could be a pawn. Maneuvered just like so many other people and events have been maneuvered."
"Riley-"
"Ash, this isn't natural, what's happening to me. It shouldn't be happening. What damage the Taser did my brain should be repairing, even now. Which means there's something else here, something else affecting me. Something that was here from the beginning. Stealing my strength, my abilities, playing with my memories, my sense of time, of what's real and what isn't."
"What could be doing all that?"
"Negative energy. Dark energy. Created, controlled, channeled, directed by someone."
"Another psychic? You said that wasn't likely."
"I don't think it is another psychic. Or at least not like any psychic I've ever heard of. I think this is someone who went looking in very dark places for enough power to achieve whatever it is they're after."
"Which is?"
Slowly, she said, "Whatever it is, I think it has everything to do with me. I had a flash of memory just now. At least, I'm pretty sure it was a memory. Of Sunday night. Of reaching the clearing, finding the body hanging there, already dead. I was alone. But I felt uneasy, my senses didn't seem to be working well. And then I stepped inside the circle."
"The circle made up of salt?"
"Yeah. It had been left unbroken. When I stepped over it, stepped into the circle…I was trapped. Caught. I couldn't move. Couldn't hear. Everything was going dark. That was when I was Tasered. I was held in place like a fly in resin, then deliberately electrocuted."
"Held? How? Are you talking about elemental forces? Or something supernatural?"
"Both. I'm talking about someone with the ability to harness negative energy. Torturing and killing a human being? That's about as negative as it gets. Suffering generates power. Dying violently creates an incredible amount of power; destruction always creates something to replace what's destroyed, even if it's only sheer energy. Couple that with a black-occult ceremony intended to generate even more dark energy, and you'd have enough psychic poison to cripple even a strong enemy."
"You?"
"I'm the one who walked into the trap. I'm the one who woke up crippled."
"I'd argue with that assessment, but never mind. You're saying it was all designed for that end? To disable and then harm you? Using energy?"
His doubt was clear, and Riley hardly blamed him for it. What she was suggesting was incredible.
I bet that's the conclusion I'd come to just before the blackouts, what I began to explain in the report, that-incredible as it seemed-someone was manipulating energy deliberately, dark energy, and that it had all been a setup to get me here. And then destroy me.
But there was something Riley's enemy hadn't counted on, she was almost sure of it. Something she herself was only beginning to understand.
The wild card was Ash.
Chapter 18
Riley-"
"Ash, there's nothing magical about it. Nothing unnatural, except in how it was used. It's…the corruption of a perfectly human ability to manipulate electrical and magnetic fields. We all do it every day in small ways; our bodies are filled with electrical impulses firing off all the time. Automatic. Unthinking. But in this case, someone has found a way to absorb dark energy, negative energy, and use it, even direct it back outward for a specific purpose."
"Riley, is that even possible? To absorb energy from something else? From someone else?"
She drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I really hope this doesn't creep you out. Take a closer look at my face."
He did, and his frown deepened. "You look…your face doesn't seem so thin. So exhausted as it did a few minutes ago. What-"
Ash was nothing if not quick. His gaze dropped to her hands gripping his wrists-and he got it.
"Wait a minute. You're pulling energy from me? From us?"
Glad he had added that last bit, she nodded. "I'm pretty sure, yeah. Feeling stronger by the moment. It's not something I've ever been able to do before. And we've tried, believe me."
"We?"
"The SCU. One of the ways Bishop matches some partners is by complementing abilities. Matching a strength with a weakness. My weakness has always been that I use so much energy during a case I end up exhausted, sometimes at very critical moments. So he tried matching me with team members who have…energy to spare. But that never worked, because I could never tap another source, even someone I trusted, someone entirely willing to share. Bishop said-"
"What did he say?"
Riley hesitated. But however uncertain her memory, her body knew, had clearly known for some time, at least one truth.
"He said there's a rare kind of trust he's only seen between some siblings and lovers. A trust so deep and so absolute that all the barriers that separate people from each other disappear. He's like that with his wife; they share their thoughts, their abilities, everything they are. Like two halves of a single soul."
She drew another breath and finished, "He said I'd probably find that when I fell in love. And if I did, I'd also find an amazing source of strength I'd be able to tap into. He and Miranda are precognitive, so when he says probably, you can pretty much take it to the bank."
When Ash didn't immediately respond, she added hastily, "It's not like I'm an energy vampire or anything like that, it's just-"
Ash kissed her. Long, slow, and impossibly deep.
When she could, Riley murmured, "Wow."
He smiled, but his voice was husky when he said, "Honey, the first time we made love, we generated enough heat to ignite a small star. So believe me when I say that I understand how human beings can create and channel energy. Especially the right human beings in the right combination."
She cleared her throat. "Man, I wish I remembered that."
"I'll remind you tonight. If not sooner." He kissed her again, briefly this time, and added, "Whatever energy you're drawing from me at the moment, I'm more than willing to give, especially if it's helping you. Besides, far as I can tell, it's nothing I can't spare."