Raintree: Inferno (Raintree 1)

He rubbed his cheek against her hair, and she felt his lips move as he smiled. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, if you don’t want to build shelters, see if you can tell what’s causing the problem. Close your eyes, mentally search around us, and tell me if you’re picking up anything, like any changes in energy patterns from a particular area.”

That suggestion seemed a lot more practical to her than building imaginary shelters for imaginary mirrored crystals. She would rather be doing something to stop these sudden sick feelings instead of merely learning how to handle them. She did as he said, leaning into him and letting him support part of her weight while she closed her eyes and began mentally searching for something weird. She didn’t know what she was doing, or what she was “looking” for, but she felt better for doing it.

“Is this really supposed to work?” she asked against his shoulder. “Or are you just distracting me?”

“It should work. Everyone has a personal energy field, but some are stronger than others. A sensitive has a heightened awareness of these energy fields. You should be able to tell where a strong one is coming from, sort of like being able to tell from which direction the wind is blowing.”

That made sense to her, put it in terms she could understand. The thing was, if she was a sensitive, why didn’t she sense stuff like this on a regular basis? Other than the time in Chicago when she’d been suddenly terrified of what lurked in that alley, she’d never been aware of anything unusual.

Some are stronger than others, Dante had said. Maybe she had been around mostly normal people all her life. If so, these feelings must mean that there were now people near her who weren’t normal and had very strong energy fields.

The strongest of all was holding her in his arms. Concentrating like this, she decided to use him as a sort of standard, a pattern, against which she could measure anything else she detected. She could physically feel the energy of his gifts, almost like static electricity surrounding her entire body. The sensation was too strong to call pleasant, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Rather, it was exciting and sexual, like tiny pinpoints of fire reaching deep into her body.

Keeping a part of the feeling in the forefront of her consciousness, she began widening her awareness, looking for the places that had stronger currents. It was, she thought, like trout fishing.

At first there was nothing other than a normal flow of energy, albeit from many different people. She and Dante were surrounded by police officers, firemen, medics, people who had come to their aid. Their energy flow was warm and comforting, concerned, protective. These were good people; they all had their quirks, but their baseline was good.

She expanded her mental circle. The pattern here was slightly different. These were the onlookers, the rubber neckers, the ones who were curious but weren’t moved to help. They wanted to talk about seeing the accident, about being stuck in traffic for X number of hours, as if it were a great hardship to endure, but they didn’t want to put out any effort. They—

There!

She started, a little alarmed by what she felt.

“Where is it?” Dante whispered against her hair, his arms tightening. Probably the people around them thought he was comforting her, or that they were clinging to each other in gratitude that they’d been spared any harm.

&nb

sp; She didn’t open her eyes. “To my left. About…I don’t know…a hundred yards out, maybe. Off to the side, as if he’s pulled onto the shoulder.”

“He?”

“He,” she replied, very definitely.

“Our friends missed completely,” the Ansara follower said in disgust, lowering the binoculars he held in one hand to concentrate on the phone call. “He wrecked the car, but they aren’t hurt.”

Ruben cursed under his breath. He guessed this just proved the old adage: If you want something done right, do it yourself.

“Call off surveillance,” he said. “I have something else in mind.”

Their plans had been too complex. The best plan was the simplest plan. There were fewer details that could go wrong, fewer people to screw things up, less chance of the target being warned.

Instead of trying to make Raintree’s death look like an accident, the easiest thing to do was wait until the last minute, when it was too late for the clan to rally to Sanctuary, then simply put a bullet through his head.

Simple was always best.

“I see who you’re talking about,” Dante said, “but I can’t tell anything from this distance. He doesn’t seem to be doing anything, just standing outside his car like a bunch of other people.”

“Watching,” Lorna said. “He’s watching us.”

“Can you tell anything about his energy field?”

“He’s sending out a lot of waves. He’s stronger than anything else I’m sensing out there, but, um, I’d say nowhere near as strong as you.” She lifted her head and opened her eyes. “He’s the only unusual one as far as I can tell. Are you sure I’m not just imagining this?”

“I’m sure. You need to start trusting your senses. He’s probably just—”

“Mr. Raintree,” one of the policemen called, beckoning Dante over.

He gave Lorna a quick kiss on the mouth, then released her and strode over to the cop. Willy-nilly, Lorna followed, though she stopped as soon as she was able, when the compulsion was no longer tugging her forward.