The terrible visions slammed through him without warning when he touched the corner of the steel garbage container. The images were searing and fairly fresh, no more than a month old.
Suddenly he knew what had happened in this alley. He saw it all from Lawrence Quinn’s perspective.
…A dark figure approaching swiftly out of the shadows. Confusion and then skyrocketing terror. The sickening knowledge that he had been a fool to believe them. A death’s head loomed. Eyes like bottomless black holes…
…Then there was an unearthly cold seeping into him. He was on the ground. The death’s head reached down, leaning over him, snatching something from his numb fingers…
The door to the nightclub opened. He jerked his hand away from the metal, turning quickly. The visions evaporated the instant he was no longer in contact with the metal but he could still feel the emotional punch of a man who knew he was facing his own imminent, violent death.
Raine plunged out of the doorway, moving incredibly fast in her fragile high heels and tight black dress. She came straight at him, her small clutch purse extended in her right hand. She did not speak as she closed the distance between them in long, lethal strides.
Not Raine, his para-instincts screamed. Everything was wrong.
But the disconnect between the physical appearance of the attacker and what his senses were telling him created an instant of jangled chaos in his mind, slowing his reaction speed.
A second figure flew out of the doorway.
“Look out,” Raine shouted. “He’s got a knife.”
The real Raine.
She threw her purse at the attacker. It bounced off the fake Raine’s back and landed on the pavement. The blow couldn’t have done any real damage but it caused the phony Raine to glance back over a shoulder for a split second.
The distraction must have interfered with his control because for a couple of heartbeats the fake Raine wavered and disappeared. A familiar-looking figure in a black ski mask appeared.
Ski Mask dismissed the real Raine as a source of danger in the blink of an eye but that gave Zack time to get his gun out of his shoulder holster.
It was impossible to line up a clear shot, however. The hunter-illusionist was moving too fast. In addition, Raine was behind him. If the bullet missed its target, which it probably would under the circumstances, there was a chance it might strike her.
Ski Mask morphed back into Raine. He was only a couple of feet away now. Zack intuitively knew what he was going to do next and managed, just barely, to evade the lunge.
He reeled back behind the end of the steel container marked GLASS, reached inside and grabbed the first empty bottle he touched. Then he crouched low.
The fake Raine rounded the corner, black clutch purse extended. Too late the apparition realized that his target was no longer on his feet. He tried to adjust, slashing downward with the purse. The clutch purse changed into a knife in mid-thrust. Ski Mask was back but the transformation disturbed his balance for a second or two.
Zack seized the opening, going in low. He slashed the bottle against a black-clad leg. The blow shattered the glass. He was already rolling out of range. He didn’t have a chance to see if he had drawn blood because Ski Mask abruptly danced back out of reach. He was switching back and forth between the fake Raine and his ski mask persona so quickly now that Zack couldn’t focus long enough to get a clean shot.
It was obvious that the attacker had completely lost control.
“No,” Ski Mask/Raine wailed in a high, keening shriek of panic and rage.
He whirled. Still clutching his knife/purse, he fled toward the mouth of the alley.
Zack pounded after him, going straight past a stricken Raine. But it was hopeless. There was no way he could catch the fleeing man. Ski Mask might have lost control of the psychically induced illusion, but he still had a hunter’s speed.
The running figure raced out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. He turned left and vanished from sight, footsteps echoing in the night.
A heavy engine roared. Tires shrieked.
The getaway car was waiting for him.
But this time there was a sickening thud and then the sound of a highly revved engine.
Zack hesitated a few seconds at the mouth of the alley. There was no point running straight into an ambush. But when he risked a quick look around the building, there was no sign of the getaway car.
All he could see was the body sprawled on the pavement in the intersection.
Thirty-five
“The cops are calling it hit-and-run,” Zack said into the phone. “He was dead when I got to him. No ID. No one saw the car.”
“What about you?” Fallon asked.
“I didn’t see it, either.” He paced Raine’s serene living room, trying to work off some of the excess energy that was still pumping through him. Batman and Robin trotted at his heels, trying to figure out if this was a new game. “But it sounded like the same SUV that was waiting for him in the motel parking lot last night.”
“Are the police paying any attention to you and Raine?”
“Not at this stage. They read it as an attempted robbery gone bad. I told them I went to the restroom and then stepped outside to get some fresh air. The guy surprised me. Had a knife. He took off running when Raine came outside to see what was going on.”
“All true,” Fallon said.
He sounded satisfied. Everyone knew the Number One Rule. Stick to the truth as much as possible but don’t try to explain the Arcane Society and its problems with Nightshade to the authorities.
On the whole, it was a good rule, Zack thought. There was just no way a conversation about the Society and Nightshade would go well with a cop. See, Officer, I work for a psychic detective agency that’s on retainer to an organization devoted to paranormal research, and there’s this other crowd that stole a secret alchemical formula that can enhance a person’s psychic powers…
Yeah, right.
Once in a while the Arcane Society found itself in the pages of the tabloids right next to breaking news about new appearances by Elvis and innocent women getting impregnated by strange creatures from other planets. That was bad enough, as far as Fallon was concerned. He had no intention of compounding the problem by allowing J&J to become a joke among law enforcement agencies.
“The cops are, of course, very interested in the car that hit the robber,” Zack said.
“Even if they find it, I doubt it will lead them anywhere. Whoever took out Ski Mask will make sure of that. The way I see this, his handler inside Nightshade gave him one more chance to remove you from the equation. When he failed, they had a Plan B ready, just for him.”