PsyCop 5: Camp Hell (31 page)

“Mm.” He couldn’t really give me a more detailed response without stopping what he was doing, and it’d been so long since anyone had touched me, except to shove a needle in my arm, or to steer me down the hall when I was pumped full of experiments. I’d rather he kept going than to shore up the conversation.

Stefan slipped his hands underneath the hem of my T-shirt and ran his fingers over my ribs. He loved my ribs, said he’d never actually seen his own, other than in the X-ray that was taken for the admission physical. His hands moved higher and his fingers fixed on my nipples. I squirmed and clutched his hair with one hand, held my dick steady for him with the other. His lips brushed my fingers with each downstroke. I peered down past the bunched-up wad of my T-shirt to look at them, black with permanent marker, and I felt the peak start to creep up on me.

“I’m close,” I said, once he’d sucked me to that sharp-edged point where there was no turning back. He stopped sucking and switched to his hand. He pumped fast, and trailed black-lipped kisses over my heaving stomach. I held him against me with both my hands tangled in his hair, and I struggled to keep quiet while I came so hard, it felt more like pain than release.

-THIRTY-

Stefan and I barely fit on my bed together, but if we held on tight, we managed. “Why do you think they’re giving you such a hard time?” he asked me. “When I do what they tell me to do, they leave me alone.”

“Yeah. But you test well. You can tell them what color card the subject is looking at. And how it makes him feel.”

He stroked my long hair, and held my face against his chest. “How come you don’t?”

“I don’t what?”

“Test well. It doesn’t make any sense. You told me you spotted the haunted grave right away during that field trip, remember? Before Faun Windsong, even.”

“Well, yeah. But that’s ‘cos a ghost was there. All the stuff they’re giving me to look at and touch? It’s empty. Nobody’s home. I think the people who get reads off dead people’s trinkets? They’re a little bit clairvoyant—and I’m not. I’ll spot a ghost in two seconds if there is a ghost to see. But I can’t do shit with their possessions.”

Stefan kissed the top of my head. “What were they testing today that’s got you flying so high in the sky?”

“Enhancements.”

“And even then…?”

“Even then. Nothing. Because there was nothing to see.” I slipped a hand between his legs. He was wearing silky drawstring pants, black with gray skulls on them, and no underwear, judging by the feel.

Stefan slipped his hand into mine and wove our fingers together. “No, not now. We don’t have time.”

“Really? How come?”

“I feel them in the hall, confused. They’ll probably come around and do an unscheduled check on everyone within the next few minutes.”

“I’ll be fast. I can make you come in two minutes.”

“I can do that myself. I never get to see you anymore—I’d rather talk to you.”

That had to be the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me, and I went all gooshy inside.

“Maybe if you try to test better,” he said, “you can get certified and get out of here. I heard they’ve started placing the Psychs with good track records.”

I had a track record, but it was the opposite of good. And anyway, I didn’t actually believe we’d get out—because how could they replace us? Now that that psychic abilities were no longer a one-way ticket to the nuthouse, who would be stupid enough to sign away all their civil liberties, and their medical rights, on top of it?

“What’re you gonna do when you get out?” I said.

“Me? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

Either had I. “We should get an apartment, in Boystown. Paint the walls black.”

“It has to have a bathtub,” he said. “If I never see another shower in my life, it’ll be too soon.”

“And windows that open. Without bars on them.”

“And a pizza place next door. Or Chinese takeout. Or a bakery. All three.”

“Or a record store.” I’d had a record collection, once upon a time. Not extensive, but hard-to-find pressings of bands who’d never made the top forty. I wondered where they’d ended up. Probably in a garage sale at my last foster home. I could find those albums again. And Stefan and me, we could mingle our record collections.

“So there wasn’t anything you could’ve told them tonight to get them off your case?” he asked me.

“Like what?”

“I dunno. You didn’t even get a little glimmer? Not from anything?”

I watched the lazy Susan revolve in my mind’s eye. “Nope. Nothing. They thought I did, though. I opened the box and—get this—there’s a wig inside. A fucking dead lady’s wig. I think I laughed. I mean, who wouldn’t? And when I put the wig back in the slot, it just came rolling back out again. Over and over. It was funny, for maybe fifteen minutes.” I really hated to admit that sometimes I lost my ability to find humor in the absurdity of it all. “But they kept showing me that wig…for maybe, I dunno…twelve hours.”

Stefan clasped me against his chest tighter.

“D’you think they take shifts?” I told him. “Krimski would have to pay ‘em overtime if they watched me for more than eight hours.”

“I don’t know. Focus on the sound of my voice. Feel your feet on the floor, and your body where it rests against the couch.”

What? That didn’t make any sense. I wondered if Camp Hell’s funding had been cut, like Krimski had told me it would if nobody started to perform, or if now they could afford to pay the psy-goons overtime to watch me while I stared at a dead woman’s wig for twelve hours straight.

“Five, you’re breathing, you’re relaxed. You’re firmly anchored in your body, and you’re tuning in to the present.”

Jesus. I was in Stefan’s office. My holster felt clammy against my side. I was hungry. What with the fire ghost and the emergency regression, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

And I was a little…excited. Oh God. Did it show? I had a boner, it had to show. Unless it just looked like my pants were bulging, the way cheap dress slacks sometimes do…except that wouldn’t slip by Stefan. He was an empath. If I was turned on, he’d totally know. Shit.

“Two, you’re refreshed, and you’re centered, and you’re fully awake. Did you hear me, Victor? You’re fully awake.”

“I heard you.”

“All right, then. One. Open your eyes.”

I opened my eyes, half-expecting to find Stefan with teased black hair and permanent marker on his lips. But, no. It was present-day Stefan, with his black turtleneck and his pointy sideburns. I looked away.

“Want to talk about what you just saw?”

Where he sucked me off? And we talked about moving in together, and then a month later I disappeared into the Police Academy without so much as a
Thank you, ma’am?
No, not really. I slid down to the opposite side of the couch so I could get up without fear of prodding him with a really inopportune hard-on.

“I’m starving. I need to eat.”

“I have a diet shake in the fridge. You can drink it if you’re having a low blood sugar headrush.”

I tried to pull on my blazer, realized it was inside-out, then shook out the sleeve and yanked the thing on, spraying cinnamon sugar. “No thanks.” I glanced at the windows, planning to say that it was late, that Jacob was expecting me, that I should get home…and I realized that the windows were all dark. I looked at the wall clock. It was nearly nine. “Is that right? It’s nine o’clock?”

“You were so eager to locate this particular training session, it seemed like I shouldn’t bring you out until you were ready.”

“Oh God.” I flipped open my phone, which had been in my overcoat, set to vibrate. A message from Zigler. One from Jacob. And one from Unavailable.

“Really, have the shake. And you can tell me what you’re so upset about. Because the regressions are only half of the healing process. You’ve got to make sense of them.”

“Look…thanks. For everything. Really. But I gotta go.” I slapped a few hundred dollars on Stefan’s desk without counting it, and I drove like a madman all the way home.

**

In a way, it was good that a half-hour drive separated me from Jacob. I felt like I’d just cheated on him—without meaning to, of course. All I’d wanted was to figure out how to exorcise an evil spirit. I’d gotten a fourteen-year-old blowjob from Stefan instead.

Stefan’s countdown had been exactly the same as always. I’d been aiming for exorcism. So why jump back to a moment with my pants around my knees? Why now?

I parked in front of Jacob’s Crown Vic, slammed the car door, jammed my hands deep in my pockets, and crunched up the rock-salted walkway. I wondered if I could activate a twenty pound bag of sidewalk salt to make it that much harder for remote viewers to spy on Jacob and me. And I suspected that I could.

Jacob thundered down the stairs from our loft as I hung up my overcoat in the foyer. He skidded to a stop in the doorway and looked at me, all smiles. I was trying to figure out what to do with my sportcoat.

“Did you put a donut in your pocket again?” he asked me.

“I’ve just had one sorry-assed day.” I dropped the jacket on the floor. He picked it up and draped it over his arm, and followed me into the kitchen.

I opened the fridge, dug around for a minute, and found a few cold pieces of pizza wrapped in foil. I unwrapped a piece and ate it while I leaned over the sink so that I didn’t have to wash a plate. Jacob stood beside me and watched.

I swallowed the last corner of crust, which I usually throw out, but I was starving, so I didn’t. Then I turned on the tap, drank a few swallows of water to move the ball of congealed cheese and dough stuck in my esophagus down towards my stomach. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and I turned to face Jacob.

He looked like a kid on Christmas morning, trying hard not to smile, and failing miserably.

“What?” I asked.

“Did you get my message?”

“No, I….” I was busy avoiding my messages, because I didn’t want to hear the one from the FPMP. “I thought I’d just focus on getting home before sunrise.”

Jacob grabbed me by the biceps and pulled me up against his chest. He put his mouth to my ear, and whispered, “You were right.”

Really? No, seriously. Really? “About what?”

“I can do this thing…it’s like….” Whatever it was like, it left him speechless. He got his arms around me and crushed me against his rock-solid body. He squeezed all the air out of me, and I let myself dangle against him, because maybe if Jacob was this happy, some little corner of the world was still okay. He kissed me, clashing teeth with me in his impatience, and his hands roamed up and down my back. One hand traced the lines of my holster, the other one grabbed my ass hard. He broke the kiss, then pressed his mouth to my ear again. “I have a talent. For sure.”

I almost asked if he was sure he was really, really sure, even though I’d been the one who suggested that he might. Because now, when I saw his reaction to it, I realized that if I’d been wrong, he’d be devastated.

But he seemed positive, and that gave me hope. I spoke with the last of the breath in my lungs, a little croak. “So, what can you…do?”

“I can shut down other Psychs’ talents.”

He was so sure, in fact, that he said “other” Psychs, as if he was positive that he could count himself among our number. “Who did you test this with?”

“Don’t worry—just Carolyn and Crash. But Carolyn’s telepathy is accurate enough that after we practiced it, she could tell when I was blocking her and when I wasn’t. She said it was like I’d flipped the light switch off.”

“You’ve been together for years. How is it she’s never noticed before?”

“I never did it with her. It’s a very conscious thing I need to do to activate it. A mental shift.”

Like the beautiful woman in the mirror who turns into a skull. “Oh. I get it.”

“And even Crash could feel it.” Jacob smirked. “He says I used to do ‘that thing’ to him whenever we argued—so he just figured the blank sensation he’d pick up was the way he registered my anger.”

Two Psychs for two. I was guessing that if we wanted to broadcast to the whole world over our cell phones, we could call Lisa and verify that she couldn’t answer a
si-no
that Jacob asked while he was actively blocking her. But I didn’t think we needed to go there.

Jacob hustled me into the main room, where the books and reports from Dreyfuss covered the dining room table. They were all open, weighted down with knick-knacks, unopened cans of protein drink, even the TV remote. The pages bristled with colored sticky notes. Jacob circled the table once, then picked out a report that looked like it had been printed out on a dot-matrix printer and then photocopied through about twelve generations. “Here. Listen to this.”

He read: “The talent of the psychic partner will be balanced by the absence of talent in the non-psychic partner, and care must be taken in the selection of the NP. The candidate should score neutral in every category, over a minimum of five separate testing days. Further, he should prove resistant to clairsentient probing.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the original PsyCop proposal. And look.”

He thrust the document at me. The paragraph he’d been reading seemed to have some kind of printer malfunction toward the bottom. The last sentence was hardly more than a light pattern of dots. The only reason it read as a sentence to me at all was because Jacob had deciphered it. “Shitty copy.”

“But that’s not all.” Jacob pulled our current PsyCop handbook from the pile. He’d highlighted a section bright orange. The paragraph was the same, word for word. But the last line was missing.

I dragged a chair out and sat down hard. My gun dug into my ribs. “All right—that’s interesting and all. But I don’t think it’s earth-shattering. Everyone knows that Stiffs are harder to influence and possess, and that they’re supposed to balance out Psychs.”

“Because the balance is mentioned again later on in the proposal. But the key thing here in the testing is resistance to clairsentients, not the neutral scores in everything else. And the part that really mattered, that’s the portion of the test that was never instituted.”

“Why does it not surprise me that a Psych test evolved into half-assedness? Wait, scratch that. I know why. I took a modern test at LaSalle, and I scored as NP.”