Visions of Heat

CHAPTER 12

Faith woke just in time to see Vaughn pulling himself through the skylight. He was so agile, so strong, and so exotic that she couldn't help being fascinated.

"What are you doing to me?" she whispered long after he'd gone.

Last night, she'd fragmented, broken conditioning and felt. But it had come at a high cost—her mind had literally stopped as she'd slipped into sleep. And there had been pain, such excruciating pain. She hadn't let Vaughn see the extent of it, somehow knowing that her pain would hurt him. But now she allowed herself to remember the agony, remember the cold emptiness of her mind shutting down section by section.

She'd been reacting to the changelings ever since she'd met them, reacting to Vaughn. Not only had she let them push her into feeling, she'd begun to consider the possibility of breaking Silence. Today she knew differently. The blocks couldn't be so easily bypassed. Yes, she'd somehow skirted the upper levels of prohibition, been able to bear some touch, experience some emotion. But the second she'd tried to go deeper, she'd been punished with vicious swiftness.

It was now starkly clear to her that of course pain had to have been built into the conditioning for it to hold. It was a classic Pavlovian technique—pain for "bad" behavior, rewards for good. As an adult she could reason out the method, but as a child she would've been vulnerable to an extent that was unimaginable.

All they would've had to do was hurt her enough times for "inappropriate" behavior that she shied away from the pain and complied with their demands. It was also certain that the focalized pain wasn't the sole method used to ensure compliance. However, she'd guess it to be one of the major components of the behavior modification section of the Protocol.

Did her knowledge of the underlying basis of conditioning mean she might be able to break it? The harder question was, did she want to? Last night, she'd said she wished to be more than the woman she was. But to become that woman, she'd have to give up everything she'd ever known, turn her back on her whole world. She'd have to abandon her father, her PsyClan, her very people.

And all she'd gain would be a life on the outside with a race so completely unlike her own. She had no idea how to deal with them, a race that considered her an abomination against nature. No, she thought, that wasn't completely fair. Vaughn didn't seem to think her an unfeeling machine. But even he wanted her to change, to not be what she was, to shatter Silence and live a different life.

But giving up her identity as Faith NightStar, Cardinal F-Psy and linchpin asset of the NightStar Group, was no easy choice.

Vaughn catnapped on the high branches of a tree for a few hours before relieving Mercy of her watch. When he saw her waiting dressed in human form, he realized she wanted to talk. Shifting, he caught the pants she threw him and pulled them on. "What is it?"

"Nothing major," she said. "I wanted to know if you could cover my grid two Fridays from now. I have a late shindig." Mercy worked for CTX, a communications network funded by DarkRiver and SnowDancer in concert. It was a good position for a sentinel—work took a backseat to Pack business and management fully understood. Possibly because management was made up of wolves and cats.

"No problem."

"How's it going with your latest piece?"

"It's done." He'd already begun a new project. A sculpture in marble of a woman who was passion and heat, temptation and mystery. "If you run into Barker, can you tell him it's ready for pickup?"

Mercy nodded, her red hair blowing softly in the wind. The color reminded him of Faith, though his Psy's hair was darker, more like ripe cherries. "Will do." She waved goodbye. "Catch you later."

Vaughn decided to run part of the watch in human form—his speed and strength were more than enough to take on most intruders. As he moved, he considered his new piece. He knew it would be stunning, the best he'd ever done. He also knew he'd never sell it.

The forest zipped past him as he ran, his mind on the curving lines of a woman with night-sky eyes. But he wasn't so distracted that he missed the blur of leopard yellow where there should have been only forest. Backtracking, he followed the scent to find two cubs engaged in a- mock battle. His growl had them splitting apart and staring at him. They knew they were in big trouble.

"I thought I heard Tamsyn say you were going to spend today with Sascha." He folded his arms across his chest, wondering how Tamsyn—DarkRiver's healer and the cubs’ mother—dealt with her double dose of trouble without tearing out her hair. "What are you doing way out here?" Cubs were curious by nature—it wasn't unusual for them to wander off while exploring, and they were safe within Dark-River lands. But they still needed limits. And the first rule was, no moving more than a mile outside the home they were supposed to be in.

The cubs dropped on their bellies and mewed, trying to charm their way out of this.

"I'm not Sascha or your mother," he told them, though he was amused. These two would make good soldiers when they grew up. They'd also attract women the same way Kit, one of the older juveniles, currently did. "Let's go."

Getting up, they started to pad their way in front of him. Identical twins in human form, Julian and Roman were identical in cat form, too. Only those who knew them very well could distinguish one from the other. Vaughn had always been able to do so, perhaps because his beast was so close to the surface. Herding them back into the safe zone, he crouched down to their level. "You know the rules. They're for your protection and to ensure the women don't go insane." That was no lie. The maternal females were already driven to the brink by some of the stunts the cubs and juveniles pulled. "You want Sascha to go nuts looking for you?"

Small shakes of kittenish heads.

"Then stay in the perimeter." He knew Sascha could track the twins using her psychic gifts, but that didn't alter the rules.

One small clawed paw scratched at his arm. Another joined it on the other side of his body. He chuckled. "No, I'm not that mad. Come on, let's go tell Sascha you're okay." Shifting, he allowed them to playfight with him for a few minutes before he escorted them back to the aerie from which they'd made their escape. Sascha was standing at the foot of the tree.

"I think I'm going to put a leash on you two," she said, sounding very, very sure and very, very Psy. "And didn't I say something about turning you into rats if you misbehaved?"

Both cubs froze.

"What do you think, Vaughn?"

He nodded in agreement. Julian looked at him like he was a traitor and Roman tried to hide behind a tree. Laughing, Sascha picked Roman up by the scruff of his neck and kissed his furry face. Julian ran over and started growling for attention. As she scooped him up, Sascha nodded at Vaughn. "Thanks for finding the Terrible Twosome. I swear, I turn my back for a second and they're gone."

He made a deep, throaty sound to let her know that was alright.

"I'm working with Zara on a revised plan for one of the new houses in the complex," she told him, referring to their outside-Pack design consultant. "Apparently the wolves aren't happy." When he snarled, she smiled. "Yes, I know. Damn wolves. You're as bad as each other, not one of you ready to fully embrace the new treaty."

Julian and Roman wiggled in her arms and she looked down. "Okay, okay. We're going into town to meet Lucas and Nate." At the mention of Nate, their father, the cubs got excited. "I've got clothes for you two little beasties in the car."

As Vaughn was about to turn to leave, Sascha said, "How is she?"

He shook his head. Faith was nowhere near where he needed her to be. And he wasn't comfortable with admitting he needed anyone that deeply.

Faith had just produced a lucrative forecast for FireFly Industries when her comm console chimed. She used her remote to flick it on, but the call was cut off before she could speak. Shrugging, she put it down to an incorrect code and got off the chair. "I'm going for a walk," she said to the M-Psy on this shift. "Tell the patrols not to approach me." It was the same request she made after every time she had a particularly strong forecast. Her Psy senses always seemed to function at a higher level following such visions. She ended up hearing everything around her, including chatter from the guards' supposedly shielded minds.

However, today she felt none of the usual hypersensitiv-ity, was in fact in total control in spite of what had happened the previous night. And she wanted privacy to think about why that might be. Deciding that her simple ankle-length dress would do, she stepped out into the cool afternoon air.

She couldn't see the guards, but knew they were there. Not that they were apparently much good—Vaughn was slipping in and out without problem. And she didn't mind in the least. Last night she'd accepted that she felt fear at the murderous rage of the dark visions. Today, she permitted herself to admit that she liked Vaughn, liked his wildness and even his danger. But any stronger emotion continued to be beyond her reach.

Nobody in the changeling world could understand what it was like to spend a lifetime without emotion and then suddenly be invaded by it on all sides. The darkness had brought menace and evil, psychopathic lust and sadistic need into her life. She might've buckled under the weight had Vaughn not brought pleasure, desire, and playfulness. He wasn't an easy male to deal with, but that was part of what made him so incredibly fascinating. Last night she'd come face-to-face with the animal who lived so close to the surface of his humanity and—

"Faith NightStar."

She stared at the slender, almost delicate brunette who'd appeared from the shadows of a dark-green fir. No one should've been in these grounds but her and her guards. "Who are you?"

A cold smile that did nothing to light up those pale blue eyes. "Interesting. You're so isolated that though you've done considerable work for us, you're unaware of my identity."

Memory flickered at the sound of that voice. "Shoshanna Scott." A member of the Psy Council and its beautiful and photogenic public face.

"I apologize for intruding on your privacy, but I didn't want this conversation recorded."

"You called earlier," Faith said, knowing with the sense in her that knew these things. She also knew she was in the presence of someone very dangerous, a woman who might strike without warning and with none of the control of the "animal" she'd faced only hours ago.

"Yes. We were checking the monitoring. It's extensive."

Faith waited for whatever it was that the Council wanted from her. Their requests had always been conveyed through the PsyClan, but perhaps this was a forecast they wanted to keep completely under the radar.

"Your accuracy is impressive, Faith."

"Thank you."

"Shall we walk?"

"If you please." She knew how to speak to the Council— she might've been isolated, but she wasn't stupid. "Was there something you wanted me to try to forecast?" Try, because forecasting didn't work on command. But if Vaughn was right, she might be able to teach her mind to control the riming of the visions that did come. It was a seductive thought.

"I simply wanted to talk to you." Shoshanna linked her hands behind her back, her black-on-black suit making her fingers appear skeletally white. "Do you usually wear this type of clothing?"

Faith knew it wasn't the normal Psy mode of dress. "It makes it easier for Medical when intervention is necessary." However, the reality was that she preferred ... liked, wearing dresses.

"Of course. I've never really spoken to one of the F designation. What's it like to see the future?" Pale blue eyes bored into hers as they stopped beside a small pond.

"Having never lived any other way, I can't make a comparison," she said, reminding herself to be very careful. One slip and Shoshanna would know that something wasn't quite right about this particular F-Psy. "However, it did give me a purpose at a time when most Psy remain unformed."

"You've been forecasting since you were three?"

"Officially. But my family has records that state I was making erratic but accurate non-verbal predictions even earlier." She admitted that because she believed Shoshanna already knew her history—Councilors made it their business to know things about those they wanted to talk to.

"How did passage through the Protocol affect your abilities?"

The Protocol. Silence. A choice made generations ago to wipe out violence, but that had also succeeded in wiping out joy, laughter, and love. It had made the Psy an emotionless, robotic race that excelled in business and technology but produced no forms of art, no great music, no works of literature.

"My ability to fine-tune the visions grew apace with my progress through the Protocol. Instead of needing several markers to trigger them, I began to need only one or two." What she didn't say was that as she'd progressed, she'd also stopped having the dark visions.

The unexpected memory had appeared in a quicksilver flash. It was as if Shoshanna's prodding had unlocked a secret compartment within her mind, opening her eyes to the fact that there had been a time in her childhood when she'd seen darkness. Keeping her expression calm became an exercise in self-restraint.

"Interesting." Shoshanna began to walk once again.

Faith followed in silence. The other woman was beautiful, but she was part of the Council—no one reached that post without having shed blood. Her mind's eye flickered and, for one instant, she could literally see the deep red substance staining the Councilor's hands. The vision was gone as quickly as it had come, but she heeded the warning. Because she'd more than seen blood, she'd had a knowing, too.

One day soon, Shoshanna Scott was going to have Faith NightStar's blood on her hands.

Unless she could change the future. That was why F-Psy were so valued—the future they saw wasn't fixed. Businesses could head off a rival if they knew that that rival was about to put out an important invention, or buy up shares in a firm that had been forecast to rise. Faith had never before seen something that had the potential to so directly affect her.

"Are you fulfilled by your work?" Shoshanna's voice was a cool sound that cut through the whispers of the leaves in the wind.

Faith didn't know what Shoshanna wanted so she chose to answer with the truth. "No. It's become too easy. I can forecast share trends in my sleep should I need to. There's no challenge to it." The Protocol may have stripped them of emotion, but it had done nothing to stem their unabating need for mental stimulation. "I'm the best in this hemisphere. The only one in the Southern Hemisphere who occasionally challenges me is Sione from the PsyClan PacificRose."

"Yet you've never applied for entry to a higher position."

Faith began to get an inkling of what this visit was about, but couldn't bring herself to believe it. "As it happens, I have been considering it recently. But since my age would be a barrier, I thought to wait and learn."

"Very efficient." Shoshanna actually sounded impressed by the lie. "No one would think to monitor an F designation cardinal for that kind of shadowing. Learned anything interesting?"

Faith decided on honesty one more time, on the basis that Shoshanna almost certainly already knew. "There are signs of dissent in the PsyNet. The loss of Councilor Santano Enrique in somewhat mysterious circumstances has engendered an unstable level of speculation."

"What do you think we should do to stem the speculation?"

Faith wasn't sure she wanted it stopped—debate and change had to be better for the Net than stagnant obedience. But to say that would be to attract the wrong kind of attention. "I'm sure the Council has thought of a solution far better than anything I could offer."

Once again, Shoshanna smiled that cold Psy smile, something Faith had never adopted. If she felt no amusement or hope, why should she smile?

"Don't worry about offending me, Faith. I want to know what you'd do."

"I'd give the masses an answer. A concrete answer. Nothing stops conjecture as quickly as an irrefutable truth." But what she'd glimpsed in the Net had held murmurs of a deeper dissatisfaction. The Council had already lost ground, important ground. No matter what they said now, some people would remain unconvinced.

Shoshanna stopped and Faith realized they'd circled back to their original meeting spot. "Your view is one I happen to share. Perhaps we can further discuss the subject in the future."

Recognizing the dismissal, Faith nodded. "I look forward to it, Councilor." Then she turned her back on the woman who'd one day have her blood on her hands and returned to her home with unhurried steps. Good thing Shoshanna wasn't a cat like Vaughn or the erratic beat of her heart might have given her away.

However, one good thing had come out of this encounter—she could lie to her father with a straight face and request privacy for "reasons previously discussed." She did exactly that upon entering the house.

"Have you been contacted?" Anthony asked.

"In a sense," she hedged, beginning to accept that her original lie had never been anything that simple. "I don't believe it's wise to talk of this on the general communications network."

"Of course. Let's meet."

That was the last thing she wanted. "Not yet, Father. Arousing any suspicion at this stage could be detrimental." To her health, certainly. She'd heard of the kinds of things aspirants did to get rid of the competition.

Anthony nodded. "Keep me updated. Next time, use the PsyNet."

"Yes, sir."

That night, the darkness didn't come. But neither did Vaughn. The rational part of Faith told her to use the respite from his constant assault on her Psy shields to tighten and bolster those lines of conditioning at risk of total failure. But that rational part stood no chance against her memories of the night before—bone-crushing terror and the dangerous safety of a jaguar's touch.

The truth was, she'd expected him to be here after the intensity of the previous night, had come to rely on his physical presence—she, a woman used to no one else in her space. And now he wasn't here. Not that it mattered. She was Psy, she told herself as she kicked off her blanket and punched her inexplicably uncomfortable pillow into better shape. She didn't feel anything. Certainly not disappointment and anger.