Compelled by the story of how these three disparate men-cardinal telekinetic, a.s.sa.s.sin, priest-had come together, she leaned forward, her arms around his neck. "What changed your mind?"

"The Ghost had a conversation with Father Xavier Perez." Eyes of obsidian potent with memory. "He understands evil better than any other person I've ever known. We disagree in how to eliminate it, but we do not disagree that it exists."

"I hope I can one day meet them both," Sahara said, knowing she owed Judd Lauren and Xavier Perez in a way the two men would never understand. They'd not only kept her Kaleb from walking always alone, they had questioned his choices, and in so doing, kept him from becoming the darkness that lived in him. "Will you continue to maintain your shadow ident.i.ty?"

"It may come in useful on occasion." His hand around her throat, drawing her closer. "The Ghost is a hero to many people, while Kaleb Krychek is a threat. So perhaps the Ghost will endorse Krychek after a suitable period."

Laughing at the calculation on his face, she bit down on his lip. "Do you ever think in straight lines?"

"Only when it comes to you."

It wasn't until she was about to fall asleep in his arms that she realized he'd deftly avoided going anywhere near one particular subject, the same subject her mind still kept from her. Sahara had a dark suspicion she knew what it was-but given the reaction of her body the last time she'd tried to access that particular memory, she made the decision not to force the issue.

It was, she thought as sleep took her under, going to take every ounce of her intelligence to dance with Kaleb. Spreading her hand over his heart, she smiled and thought of a phrase she'd heard one of the DarkRiver guards use when issuing a friendly challenge to a packmate: Game on.

PSYNET BEACON: BREAKING NEWS.

*Hong Kong fire contained. Unknown number of casualties-estimates range from two to three hundred thousand dead.

**UPDATED** Pure Psy sends letter to all major comm networks. Text as follows.*

We take total, unmitigated responsibility for the Hong Kong strike. It has never been our intention to hide what we do-because what we do is necessary to awaken our people to the reality of our ruined society.

Our actions could not have been successfully completed had the world been under the leadership of a strong Council. It is the weak who lead us now, and that weakness will destroy us all. Silence is the only way to counter what has proved to be a fatal flaw.

Without Silence, this is who we will be-a people without protection or will, a people who can be picked off by the inferior races until the world is ruled by savages. We will not permit such a future to come to pa.s.s.

This is a call to arms to all who believe in Silence, in the superiority of our race.

Join us.

PSYNET BEACON: LIVE NETSTREAM.

The letter is nonsensical gibberish. Where in the Protocol does it mandate wholesale slaughter?

Y. Schulz (Munich) It is not the "inferior races" who masterminded this attack, but our own. Does that not make us the savages?

R. Gueye (Riyadh) Whatever their actions, one thing is incontestable: Pure Psy is not afraid to speak the truth. We have lost our place as the leaders of the world and it is the fault of those at the top. Though Councilor Krychek, at least, has shown significant power. Such a man could rule not only the PsyNet but the world. It is my belief that, together, Councilor Krychek and Pure Psy would make an invincible ruling junta.

K. Choi (Kingston) Kaleb Krychek's actions in a.s.sisting to save lives in Hong Kong are to be commended. As a cardinal Tk, he did not have to get involved. That he did speaks highly of his ability and willingness to protect the people he no doubt seeks to rule.

J. Jantunen (Nadi) It is clear Kaleb Krychek is using these unfortunate events in order to consolidate his power base. Which leads to the question of whether he is, in fact, behind the attacks and is the puppet master who manipulates Pure Psy's destructive strings.

No name given (Hohhot) Our race can stand tall today-when the worst happened, our people did not flinch. Kaleb Krychek and his men are to be commended, as are Ming LeBon and his team.

Pure Psy, on the other hand, must be eradicated. They are a pustule on the face of our society.

B. Oliveira (Santiago) A number of the individuals clad in black with the single star on their left shoulders who a.s.sisted in the aftermath of this attack, and several previous ones, are rumored to be part of the shadowy and powerful Arrow Squad, rather than simply Kaleb Krychek's personal forces.

If so, and if they now belong to Kaleb Krychek, he already has the PsyNet within his grasp. As we have seen today, he could take it by sheer brute force. That he hasn't makes me hypothesize he seeks a rational solution, and such thinking is something I can support, in a way I cannot support the irrational violence of Pure Psy.

T. Saowaluk (Vancouver) The "Pure" should be burned in the same fires as those that consumed their victims. If they have no reason to hide their actions, why aren't they standing in front of us, willing to publicly own their cause?

G. Barrie (Tasiilaq) Pure Psy "FOOLS." VASQUEZ DROPPED out of the PsyNet after reading a sampling of the thousands upon thousands of citizen opinions that had come in since Hong Kong burned.

The vast majority were virulently antiPure Psy, which only went to show the extent of the decay corrupting their society. Rather than seeing in Pure Psy their chance for redemption, the populace saw only what their weak minds had been programmed to see-Psy who weren't toeing the line, weren't being the sheep they were meant to be.

It had reached the point that the Silence of his faithful was being questioned. That could not be permit- Sir! The mental voice of one of his trusted deputies, the tone urgent. I've walked into a trap! Krychek's men are closing in.

Do not allow them to take you! Vasquez ordered. You know too much.

I won't let you down, sir.

Two minutes later, came a final message-Absolution in Purity-and then the nothingness that indicated the deputy had ended his life rather than risk betraying the cause.

Vasquez deleted the man's name from his mental list. It was the fourth name he'd crossed off in the past thirty-six hours, all belonging to individuals high in the Pure Psy command structure. If he'd had any doubt that the Arrows had been shot at Pure Psy, it had just been erased.

There was a decision to be made, and it was not one he had thought to make so soon, but their enemies were getting too close. For Pure Psy to achieve its goals, it must survive to continue the fight, because without Pure Psy's leadership to lead the Psy race out of the darkness, their people would soon be extinct.

Sending out a simple code via a single-use cell phone that he dismantled straight afterward, he made his way to a comm unit he would destroy as soon as this was done. All of his surviving deputies called in one after the other within the next minute, each utilizing a single-use mobile comm. He could see their faces, but they couldn't see him or one another, which meant they could not give up their fellow soldiers if caught.

None spoke, aware they had only a two-minute window.

"We are being hunted," he told them. "And our enemy is strong. It's time to initiate the Phoenix Code."

Men and women alike, they gave brisk nods, and he knew the task would be done. That was why he had handpicked each deputy, chanced trusting them with critical parts of his plan. It was the only option. "Do not delay. You've already lost four of your brethren. You must put your pieces in play and disappear."

Knowing the caliber of the opponents on their trail, he knew that speed alone wouldn't be enough. "I, together with a small team, will personally instigate a diversion to a.s.sist you. Make use of it." It was of concern that the plan for the diversion was one he'd had to put together in haste and without the necessary reconnaissance, but things did not always go according to plan in a war. "You have your orders."

"Sir."

Chapter 39.

KALEB TELEPORTED INTO h.e.l.l.

Screams echoed through the air; dusty, b.l.o.o.d.y children with huge, helpless eyes sat in the debris; first responders tried to make order out of chaos. But there could be no easy order out of this. At first glance, it appeared Pure Psy, the fanatical group having already claimed responsibility, had lost any sense of reason, any sense of their "mission," and attacked no target that could advance their cause.

The Worldwide Student Caucus in Geneva was a weeklong event, held for the best and brightest students from around the world, ages spanning twelve to eighteen. Supervised and challenged by teachers who were experts in their fields, they came to discuss advances in science, engineering, the arts, music, and medicine.

The caucus had been created by the educational branch of a lobby group but now received funding from governments across the world. Every country sent at least one student, many on scholarships funded by large corporations that hoped to one day lure some of these bright minds into their workforce. None of those corporations, however, were permitted to influence the curriculum carefully chosen by an independent body of educators. Kaleb knew all that because Sahara had been invited to the caucus at fourteen.

Deemed too divisive in the quest for pure knowledge, the two subjects not on the agenda were politics and religion. There could have been no formal discussion here that threatened Pure Psy. Yet, according to field estimates, more than a quarter of the students and faculty were dead, the majority of the rest injured or trapped.

They weren't the only casualties-the blast had come at half past noon, when hundreds of people from the nearby office towers had been in restaurants in the pedestrian mall that surrounded the convention center, some with small children they'd picked up from day-care centers attached to their places of work.

Kaleb was already shifting debris to uncover trapped survivors as he took in the carnage. In the first five minutes he worked, he heard French, German, English, and Russian, as well as a number of languages he couldn't identify . . . and realized that Pure Psy had targeted the caucus for a very rational reason: to create an inciting incident that would affect every country on the planet.

If the situation wasn't immediately managed, someone, somewhere, would interpret this as a personal attack and launch a counterstrike against the Psy. The ensuing war would engulf every country, every race, every individual. And when the dust finally settled, it was the survivors who'd create the new world.

"Some things need to be broken to become stronger."

The fact that Pure Psy was working from the same playbook he himself had done was not lost on him. But Kaleb would allow no one to sow the seeds of destruction-not now, when Sahara had asked him to find another way to create a better world. And children . . . children should always be off the agenda.

As he should've been. As Sahara should've been.

Aden, he said, having set the Arrow on a particular task, do you have the information?

I've examined one of the devices that failed to detonate. It's standard-no improvements to extend range or casualties. Placement of the devices was also haphazard, else we'd be dealing with triple or quadruple the casualties.

It could be a sign of Pure Psy crumbling under the pressure the Arrows and Kaleb had put on them in the two days since the Hong Kong fires were contained, but it seemed too fast a result. Why would the group sacrifice such a high-visibility target with a clumsy strike? Aden was right-done correctly, the entire convention center could've been collapsed on the delegates, and with the convention having begun just the day before last, Pure Psy would've had four more days to put their plan in place.

Wait, Aden said. Initial death estimates are being revised downward by a significant degree. Fifty percent of the delegates were away from the convention center for a scheduled day of visits to laboratories, museums, and specialist firms.

Half their targets out of range? It left hundreds of potential casualties, but Pure Psy had always gone for maximum damage. This was too big a mistake. And given Vasquez's intelligence and training, that meant it wasn't a mistake. This is a diversion, meant to occupy our attention while they set up something bigger, he said, 'porting an injured girl directly to the triage station at one end of the blast zone. I need trackers now. The team that put this in place will be a skeletal one with few resources. We need to run them down, and this time, I want them alive for interrogation.

I'm pulling Abbot and Sione, Aden replied. They're the best trackers on the squad.

Kaleb agreed with that a.s.sessment, but finding the Pure Psy strike team wasn't the only problem. Already reports were trickling into the PsyNet of ordinary Psy being hara.s.sed in countries around the world, as hotheads screamed for vengeance for the blood of their young, forgetting that the Psy had also lost a number of their own young. If he was to head off a global war, he had to do so now, and in such a way that no one would be left in any doubt that Pure Psy was a fringe element and did not represent the Psy race as a whole.

Entering the PsyNet, he blasted a message that would be heard in every corner of the psychic network, carried by the violent wave of his power PURE PSY ARE Ma.s.s MURDERERS WITH NO CLAIM TO SILENCE AND AS OF THIS NOTICE THE MOST WANTED FUGITIVES IN THE WORLD. IF YOU KNOW OF ANYONE WITH AN AFFILIATION TO PURE PSY, CONTACT A MEMBER OF COUNCILOR KALEB KRYCHEK'S PERSONAL OFFICE.

THE SENTENCE FOR ANY INVOLVEMENT IN THESE ATTACKS WILL BE DEATH. THE SENTENCE FOR HARBORING PURE PSY WILL BE TOTAL REHABILITATION OF THE ENTIRE FAMILY UNIT. THERE WILL BE NO MERCY GRANTED FOR CRIMES THAT CAN HAVE NO RATIONALE EITHER IN SILENCE OR IN EMOTION.

He streamed live images of the broken bodies of the children he continued to 'port to the medics or to morgues, and he stamped the transmission with a glowing platinum star that could not be duplicated or erased.

If Pure Psy wanted to challenge him, they had to be prepared to pay the price.

Silver, he said, dropping out of the Net. Alert the offices.

It's already in progress. A pause. Sir. My family is sending our telekinetics to Geneva in high-speed airjets, to act under your authority. They are not teleport capable, but they can take over some of the rescue work so the Arrows and your teams can focus on the hunt for the fugitives.

Understood. Kaleb sent the information to Aden while continuing to talk to Silver. More medical teams will be needed. Geneva sent a large group to a.s.sist in treating the burn victims in Hong Kong, as did a number of other nearby regions. All of those medics would be exhausted and unable to a.s.sist here, even if Kaleb diverted Tks to pick them up.

The problem, of course, was that a large percentage of the world's strongest Tks were also exhausted after Hong Kong, leaving a dangerous gap. Find out who has spare medics close enough to be useful, and get them here any way you can.

The M-Psy Union is sending me a list, Silver answered. I'm also coordinating with major changeling groups and the Human Alliance to get all useful personnel to Geneva.

I didn't realize you had a contact within the Alliance.

I don't-their security chief just made the contact. A pause of several minutes. Sir, the Alliance heard about your broadcast and have thrown their public support behind the call to apprehend Pure Psy.

Good. It would ameliorate the world's growing anger if they saw the races working together to hunt down the perpetrators.

They also have a large medical warehouse less than an hour's flight away, Silver continued. An airjet is already in the air with equipment and necessary drugs.

Switching telepathic channels when he felt Sahara's touch, he listened as she said, I heard your message, and I called Vaughn to tell him. He says it's being communicated to all groups with whom the pack has any kind of a link.

Kaleb knew he had no need to explain the importance of that communication given DarkRiver's strategic position, not to Sahara, his lover with her brilliant mind.

The pack has a man in the area, she added five minutes later. He's confirmed the local changeling trackers are happy to work with Psy teams to find the bombers. Changeling rescue and healing/medical teams should also be reaching you within twenty minutes.

Focusing on lifting a ma.s.sive piece of the outer wall that had fallen inward, he took a second to reply. Silver's direct line is in the cell phone I gave you. Route her into all communications dealing with rescue and medical so she can coordinate available resources.

I'll get the number. She disappeared for a minute before returning. Kaleb, the Forgotten also have someone in the area who might be able to a.s.sist. She'll come in with the DarkRiver male and requests no one attempt to shadow her as she works.

The Forgotten, having dropped out of the PsyNet at the inception of Silence, had been marrying humans and mating with changelings for over a hundred years. As a result, Kaleb was well aware they had some very interesting new abilities in their genetic line, abilities they preferred to keep under the radar. No one will interfere with her.

Seeing a b.l.o.o.d.y but breathing child curled up in a cavity formed by pieces of debris that had saved his small body from being crushed, Kaleb called out for a paramedic. A minute later, and two feet deeper, he found a child who hadn't been as lucky, her eyes staring blindly into death, grit across her irises. Going down on one knee, he brought her eyelids down in an act that he knew came from the voice in the void.

All the while, he could feel Sahara tucked against his mind, staying with him as she'd done at the university, and in the aftermath of the inferno that had engulfed Hong Kong Island.

Never again, he thought, would he be alone in the dark.

SAHARA'S heart ached at the indefinable emotion she sensed from Kaleb across their telepathic bond. He would speak to her about it when he was ready, of that she had not a single doubt in her mind. Her dangerous lover was learning that she'd become even more stubborn than she'd been at sixteen-she had claimed Kaleb and she would not turn away, no matter what.

Now she met the cat-green eyes of the DarkRiver alpha. Lucas Hunter had turned up at her aerie soon after the news of the bombing went live, his eyes glowing against the early morning darkness on this side of the world. The pack, he'd told her, had no one connected to the Net, and so she was their information source when it came to what was happening on the psychic plane.

"I'm linking in with Kaleb's aide, Silver," she said, and he nodded at her from where he was talking on the phone with the leader of the Forgotten, the four slashing lines on the right side of his face a silent reminder of the predator that lived beneath his skin.

Kaleb's ice-blonde aide, her hair in a flawless twist, was expecting her call. "Do the groups to which you have access," Silver said without further ado, "have any translators willing to a.s.sist the medics? We can comm them in-with a number of the on-site translators dead or critically injured, there aren't enough to help the medics and keep the survivors calm. Multiple languages needed, some of them esoteric."

"I'm a translator," Sahara said. "All languages." It seemed a safe enough claim, given the tests she'd been running on herself while out and about in the city. Anytime she heard an unfamiliar language, she'd listen . . . and then she'd understand, without ever activating her ability.

Whatever it was she could do, it worked on the subconscious level. "A minor psychic gift," she explained to Silver. "No official designation."

The aide's eyes sharpened. "That's useful enough that I can justify diverting a Tk to pick you up."

"I'll take over as liaison," Lucas said, entering into the comm frame so Silver could see him. "Give us a couple of minutes to organize an image your teleporter can use as a lock."

Soon afterward, Sahara was in the trees a short distance from her aerie, and Lucas was tying a brightly colored rope around the trunk of an otherwise nondescript pine-just because the pack wanted to help didn't mean they intended for a strange Tk to have a permanent image lock inside their territory.

Taking a snapshot with her cell phone, she sent it to Silver, as Lucas said, "Good luck," his eyes grim.

Vasic was the Tk who teleported in-not surprising, given the distance-and as a result, she was in Geneva seconds later.

"Thank G.o.d," the man in charge of the field hospital said when she told him what she could do. Slapping the symbol of the Rosetta Stone on her shoulder, he pointed her in the direction of a boy on a stretcher about ten feet away. "Obscure mother tongue. He must have something of one of the major world languages, but he's lost it in the shock."

It took Sahara half a minute to comprehend what the boy was saying. "It's okay," she rea.s.sured him when he began to cry at the realization that she understood him. "You're not alone anymore. Now, you need to tell the doctor some things so she can help you."

That was the first of many similar conversations she had over the hours that followed, as Geneva went from light to dark, the stars bright overhead. Someone brought her a meal when she began to fade, and that kept her going until the early morning hours. Deciding to crash for an hour to head off a collapse, she curled up on one of the cots set up for rescue personnel. Have you eaten? she asked the cardinal Tk who, she knew, would not sleep.