“Wants? Needs? That implies a consciousness. In fact, it damned well demands one.”
“I’d agree with that.”
“How can energy have a consciousness?”
“Like I said, it could be coming from a disembodied spirit or spirits. Jacoby himself could be a psychic whose abilities became active due to some event we have no way of knowing, or due to the sudden onset of mental illness of one kind or another; psychiatric patients are usually at the mercy of their illnesses, and that is one of the psychic triggers we’ve recently identified.”
“One of the scarier ones,” Luther noted dryly.
“Yeah, most of us feel a little too out of control a little too often as it is. The threat of maybe going crazy isn’t exactly reassuring. One reason I’m glad I was born with my abilities and have never had a new one triggered.”
Luther was wishing he could say the same on both counts.
“Anyway, the dark energy could come from Jacoby for whatever reason. Or it could be the place, the area around that cabin or the cabin itself that’s somehow soaked up the negative energy of something horrific: a battle, maybe a murder or murders. Energy that’s been trapped there a long time, growing darker and darker because it’s been trapped there. Energy that is, in a sense, holding him hostage. Possible. Possible he’s trying to deal with something he’s never before had to deal with. Maybe gaining control. Or not. As I said, I know he hasn’t strayed very far from the place since he got here. Not far at all, in fact.”
She frowned. “I don’t know how he was able to escape the agents, but all through that part of the story his actions were careful, methodical, planned, precise. Organized. And unhurried. He didn’t try to run right away, he took the time—and the risk—of staying in the same area long enough to get his dogs. Maybe long enough for something else we haven’t yet discovered. He had the cabin rented and waiting, probably the Jeep hidden somewhere waiting for him, maybe the other vehicles as well, and all of them turned out to be untraceable. He had supplies stashed, or got them somewhere along the way where no one recognized him and no security camera we know of recorded it.”
“And I guess both likely and unlikely stores were checked.”
“By some very good technical analysts, yes. Between traffic cams and cameras at ATMs and security cams at a lot of businesses, and especially given the relatively small area, there was a good chance of catching him on security footage somewhere. At least, that was the logical thought. But he wasn’t spotted anywhere on camera. No sign of him shopping. Or getting gas, for that matter. No recordings of him at all. Just a witness here or there who’d never have noticed him except that his picture was all over TV and the Internet.” She smiled faintly. “Never mind the BOLO. Today it’s TV and the Internet that brings more witnesses forward. And he hasn’t shown up on any cell-phone-captured videos on YouTube yet. We have people monitoring that too.”
She drew a breath and let it out slowly, thoughtful. “He was headed this way all along, and both before and during the trip was sharp enough and careful enough to lay false trails miles away from his destination. He had a plan for his escape and it was a good one. He picked a place to hide, and it was a good one—at least on paper. It really wasn’t until he got up here that his behavior became very obviously erratic.”
“Which makes it at least possible he wasn’t nearly so dangerous until he arrived here and became affected by something in the area. Something in that cabin or in the area around it.” Luther thought about it. “But you said taking away the memories of those agents was a negative thing, something he did before he got here. The first step he took in escaping.”
“The first step that we know of.”
* * *
COLE JACOBY WAS
in a very dark place. He felt an enormous pressure, as if something with incredible strength and will had backed him into a corner or put him inside a box or wrapped him tightly in something, and was holding him still.
He couldn’t see.
Couldn’t move.
Couldn’t hear even his own breathing, or feel his heart beating, or sense anything in the darkness except that, except the impenetrable blackness of
nothing
.
Was he dead?
No. No, because . . . because he could smell something. Something rusty. Something metallic. Something very, very old that made him afraid in a way he could never remember being afraid. And something that smelled a lot like . . . Well, it had to be sulfur. Had to be. Even rotten eggs didn’t have the bite, the sharp, eye-watering sting, of true sulfur.
There was nothing else like that. Except . . . maybe . . . brimstone.
Even as that realization surfaced, he decided to ignore it. He was just . . . sleeping, that was all. Caught in some kind of weird nightmare. That had to be it, because it couldn’t be real.
Could it?
No. A nightmare. It explained why he couldn’t move. Why he couldn’t see. Or speak. Or feel anything except blackness and terror.
And nightmares were unpredictable, he knew that. It explained why he could smell when he couldn’t use any other sense. And then . . . it explained why he could suddenly hear with a painful clarity.
It just didn’t explain what he heard.
It didn’t explain the screaming.
* * *
LUTHER NODDED. “TRUE,
attempting to control the guards may just have been the next step for him. Maybe because he’d already tried whatever his psychic sense is and realized he could only influence one or two minds at most. Or couldn’t control them long enough for his purposes. So he had to figure out a way to get out of prison, even temporarily. His actual first step may have been to offer the feds just enough information, or the promise of it, to persuade them to transfer him. He either took the chance or was reasonably sure he could exercise some kind of control over the two agents. Maybe they were all he could handle.”
“Makes sense,” Callie agreed.
“He had to have practiced in prison. We may know little about psychic mind control, but common sense says nobody learns how to successfully control the minds of two other people the first time they try, and he was in there for weeks waiting for his trial, and months after his conviction. He must have taken every chance to practice when he was relatively alone with someone else. His cellmate. Maybe a guard or two. Even his legal counsel. Especially his legal counsel.”
“Privileged communication and so not monitored even within a highly monitored prison,” she agreed. “That would have been a good chance. Except that he had no visits from his attorney.”
“None at all?”
“No. A couple of phone calls, but there wasn’t much chance of an appeal. The prosecution had him cold. They caught him with about a hundred grand on him, all of it from the robbery. Security footage from the bank when it was actually robbed wasn’t much use because of a glitch, but they had footage of him pretty obviously casing the place the day before. They had his fingerprints. Even his DNA.”
“Should I ask how they had that at the scene of a bank robbery?” Luther asked warily.
Callie smiled. “The place was busy when he got there, and he killed a little time while he was covertly studying the layout pretending to fill out a deposit envelope. Which he licked.”
“Not very bright.”
“Well, in fairness to him, the camera footage shows him shoving it into a pocket. His bad luck that it fell out before he left and was missed by the cleaning crew that evening. Fingerprints on the envelope matched those later discovered in the vault.”
“He didn’t wear gloves?”
“Latex ones. One of which he left behind in the vault; the techs got his prints from the inside of the glove.”
Luther shook his head and frowned as he thought. “So he’s caught, tried, convicted, sent to prison. Talks to his legal counsel only over the phone. What about visitors?”
“No visitors.”
“What, none at all?”
“No.” Callie was certain. “Or mail. And no Internet connection. At all. In fact, no computer access; prisoners only get that after proven good behavior. Once he was inside, and except for a couple of brief calls from his attorney, he only had contact with the people inside.”
“No family?”
“A half sister, considerably older. Not so much estranged as complete strangers; her mother got total custody after a young, brief marriage, and Jacoby’s father apparently never saw her again. He remarried, then started a second family when his son was born. Far as we were able to determine, Cole Jacoby never met his half sister and likely doesn’t know she even exists.”
Luther frowned. “Okay. So no visitors maybe makes it even more likely that Jacoby had to spend a lot of time practicing, figuring out what he could do. And maybe easier on strangers. He still could have been trying to control other minds a long time before he escaped.”
“Trying, yeah. But even being semi-alone with his cellmate, or a guard or two now and then, it wouldn’t have been easy even for an experienced psychic to control any abilities, especially such a specific ability, with so many violent minds all around. So much negative energy. Prison bars can hold prisoners, but their violent energy permeates the place. It . . . soaks into the walls and floors. The older the prison, especially a high-security prison, the more negative the energy. Where they kept Jacoby the energy was very dark and very bleak.”
After studying her for a moment, Luther said, “You appear to speak from experience.”
She nodded. “Prisons were one of the places I visited when we were trying to analyze my abilities. Square foot by square foot, they’re the most negative places I’ve ever visited—and that includes psychiatric hospitals and trauma units. Even the federal country-club-type prisons where white-collar criminals are kept read as pretty damned negative, at least to somebody like me.”
“And the most positive place you’ve read?”
“So far, it was a monastery in Asia.”
He blinked, thought about asking her, then decided that was an undoubtedly interesting story for later.
Callie didn’t seem to notice. “So if Jacoby was able to open any kind of psychic door to his own mind in that prison, it’s dollars to doughnuts he let
something
in, and that was more than likely to be negative energy.”
“Let something in before he was able to escape the prison.”
“If he was practicing, especially something new to him, that’s a virtual certainty. We all tend to leave ourselves vulnerable when we use our abilities. We’re somewhat protected when we use them in a positive way. His way wasn’t positive.”
“And whatever he let in, he wouldn’t be able to control.”
“I wouldn’t think so. Not then. And I still think the more minds around him, the less likely he was and is to control a specific mind with any kind of accuracy.”
Luther frowned. “Negative energy. If he started trying to control other minds there, in prison, and didn’t really know what he was doing because the abilities were new, or he’d never tried to use them before, then wouldn’t he have been affected
then
? I mean, wouldn’t he have shown signs of erratic behavior during and right after his escape?”
Callie considered, then nodded slowly. “You’d think there would have been some sign. But I don’t know; if it was recent enough, he might have been able to hide what was happening to him. Especially if he was focused on escaping. If prison is where he first tried to control other minds, he likely would have failed except maybe in some really small way. But in just trying, and trying there, unable to protect himself even if he realized he should, he still could have . . . fed off negative energy. Even then. Unconsciously. Which could have given him more power, including the power to open a door in his own mind.”
“And let in something darker than he expected?”
“Maybe. Maybe he started shaping his mind, his abilities, and because he was in a negative place, that was the only energy he could use. He probably couldn’t tell the difference. Strong energy is strong energy; it takes experience to tell one from the other, usually.”
“And,” Luther said, “however he experimented, whatever the results, there was enough to convince him he could control other minds, if the conditions were right. That he had a shot at using whatever it is to escape federal custody. Maybe he had a successful experiment or two, and the authorities just never noticed.”
“Possible. Even likely. The paranormal tends to be the last possibility most people consider. Way easier to believe a sleeping guard just nodded off than that he was put to sleep by a psychic.”
“Let’s assume,” Luther said. “That he practiced. That there was success. But maybe he realized there were too many people around, too many minds to control. He had to figure out a way to get himself alone with just one or two. He’d been inside before, he knew about prisoner transfers, about deals made. Also knew what bait was most likely to get him out of there.”
“The money. No one knew where he’d hidden the rest of it. No evidence at all, and no sign of a partner.”
“So just him. And feds eager to question him, maybe make a deal. They make deals with serial killers; Jacoby wasn’t dangerous, never had been, and they didn’t see him as a threat.”
“Especially,” Callie agreed, “a psychic threat. Bishop was already suspicious, though I don’t think even he had any idea Jacoby was capable of escaping custody.”
“Or he would have sent SCU agents?”
“That, or made sure Jacoby was knocked out for the trip.” And when Luther lifted his brows, she added, “Best not to take any chances, would have been his reasoning.”
“Well, events proved that probably would have been wise,” Luther said dryly.
“Yeah.” Callie brooded for a moment. “But what’s here now, in Jacoby or around that cabin . . . I’ve never sensed anything that dark, even in a prison, and most certainly not at a distance. If Jacoby came up here with a . . . door open to darkness, with a latent ability suddenly gone active, or an old ability he was still learning how to control, if he didn’t know how to protect himself from a darkness that powerful, or even—stupidly—welcomed it because he thought it meant more power for him . . .”