"Smith, L J - Dark Visions 3 - The Passion e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Lisa J)

"We all care about you," Rob said, never letting up the intensity. "And your place is right here. Come back to us and help us get rid of Mr. Z, okay? Okay, Gabriel?"
And then he made his mistake.
He'd been speaking vehemently, throwing his words into Gabriel's face, and Gabriel had been listening as if he couldn't help it. Almost as if he were hypnotized. But now Rob switched to nonverbal communication to punch his message directly into Gabriel's mind. Kaitlyn knew why he did it- telepathy was forceful and intimate. Too intimate. Her cry of warning was lost as Gabriel snapped.
Come back, Rob was saying. Come back, Gabriel- okay?
Kaitlyn felt fury building in Gabriel like a tsunami. Rob, she thought. Rob, don't-
Leave me ALONE!
The mental shout was like a physical blow. Literally. It threw Rob backward, body spasming in total reflex as the signals from his own brain scrambled. He fell with every muscle contracted, his face twisted, his fingers clawed. Kaitlyn felt a spasm of sheer terror on his behalf. She wanted to run to him, but she couldn't. Gabriel was between them and her legs wouldn't move. Anna and Lewis stood frozen as well.
I don't need any of you, Gabriel said, still with enough force to numb Kaitlyn's mind. You're wrong about me. I'm no part of you. You can't even imagine what I am, what I've become.
"I can," Kaitlyn gasped. She was thinking of what Mr. Zetes's crystal had done to him, what it had made him. A psychic vampire, who needed to drain life energy from others to live himself. She could feel the ghost of teeth in her spine, just at the base of the neck. As if a single sharp tooth were piercing the skin there.
The memory brought a certain fear, but no revulsion. And anxious as she was to get to Rob and help him, she wanted to help Gabriel, too.
"It's not your fault, Gabriel," she whispered. "You think you're evil because of what you can do with your mind, because of what the crystal made you do. But it's not your fault. You didn't ask for it. And you're not evil."
"That's where you're wrong." Gabriel had turned to face her, and she saw that he was calmer. But the ice was back in his eyes, the cold, lucid madness that was more terrifying than any rage. When he smiled, goose-flesh broke out on Kait's arms.
"I've known what I am for a long time," he said conversationally. "The crystal didn't change me, it just enhanced my abilities. And it made me accept myself." His smile widened, and Kaitlyn had a primal instinct to run. "If you've got the darkness in your nature, you might as well enjoy it. Might as well go where you belong."
"To Mr. Zetes," Anna whispered, her lovely, high-cheekboned face drawn with disgust.
Gabriel shrugged. "He has a vision. He thinks psychics like me have a place in the world-on top. I'm superior to the rest of the lousy race, I'm smarter, stronger, better. I deserve to rule. And I'm not going to let any of you stop me."
Kaitlyn shook her head, struggling with words. "Gabriel-I don't believe that. You're not- "
"I am. And if you try to keep me from getting that shard, I'm going to prove it to you."
He was looking at the desk again. Kaitlyn drew herself up a little. Rob was still lying helpless on the floor; Lewis and Anna seemed frozen. There was nobody but her to stop him.
"You can't have it," she said.
"Get out of the way."
"I said, you can't have it." To her amazement, her voice was fairly steady.
He moved closer to her, his gray eyes filling her field of vision, filling the world. Don't make me do it, Kaitlyn. I'm not your friend anymore. I'm your hunter. Go home and stay away from Mr. Z and you won't get hurt.
Kaitlyn looked into his handsome pale face. If you want the shard, you'll have to take it by force.
"Whatever you say," Gabriel murmured. His eyes were the color of a spiderweb. Kaitlyn felt the touch of his mind like a searing caress and then the world exploded in pain.
Kaitlyn!"
Dimly Kait heard Rob's shout, felt him struggling to get to his feet. Then, when he couldn't, beginning to crawl. She could barely sense him for the overwhelming pain in her head.
Anna and Lewis were closer and she could hear them shouting, too.
"Let go of her!"
"What are you doing to her?"
Gabriel brushed them away and kept on doing it. The pain increased-like fire. Kaitlyn had only one memory that would compare to it: being connected to the crystal. The big crystal, the impure one, the one Mr. Zetes used for enhancing psychic powers-and for torture.
Waves of red-streaked agony that peaked very quickly and died away just as another wave was coming. Kaitlyn's own muscle tension held her rigid, standing motionless under it. Kept her from getting
away, kept her from screaming. It wasn't heroism. She didn't have the air.
Stop it, damn you! Stop it!
Rob had gotten to her, somehow. His hands were on her, and golden healing energy flooded up to combat the red-streaked anguish. His powers were protecting her.
"Leave her alone," Rob said hoarsely, and pulled Kaitlyn away from Gabriel, toward the bed.
Gabriel regarded the cleared path in front of him thoughtfully. "That was all I wanted," he murmured.
He opened the middle drawer of the mahogany desk and took out the crystal shard.
Kaitlyn was gasping for breath. Rob put her down on the bed, one arm still around her protectively. Kait could sense his trembling anger, and the shocked fury of Lewis and Anna-and she was surprised to find that she herself felt very little resentment toward Gabriel. There had been a look in his eyes just before he blasted her-as if he'd had to turn himself off to do it. To squelch his own emotions.
Now he turned to face them, and the shard flashed in the bright light of Marisol's halogen lamp. It was the size and shape of a small unicorn's horn, a foot Jong, multifaceted. It glittered not like crystal, but like diamond.
"It's not yours," Anna said in a low voice. She and Lewis had flanked Rob and Kaitlyn, the four of them presenting a united front to Gabriel. "The Fellowship gave it to Kait."
"The Fellowship," Gabriel sneered. "Those gutless do-gooders. If I'd lived in the old days, I'd have joined a Dark Lodge and hunted them out of existence." Not gutless, Kaitlyn thought. Gabriel's words
brought the faces of the Fellowship to her mind: Timon, frail but wise; Mereniang, cool and discerning; LeShan, lynx-eyed and impatient. They were the last survivors of an ancient race, the race that had used the crystals. They didn't interfere with the affairs of humanity-but they'd made an exception for Kaitlyn's group. They'd given up their own power to give Kaitlyn a weapon against Mr. Zetes.
"And now Mr. Z is forming a Dark Lodge of his own," she said, looking at Gabriel steadily.
"You could call it that. A psychic strike team. And I'm going to lead it," Gabriel said negligently, stroking the crystal. That was dangerous, as Kait could have told him. One of the facets cut his finger and he frowned at the drop of blood absently. He seemed to feel no danger from the others; he didn't even bother to look at them.
"This would have been useless to you anyway," he said. "You were planning to take it to the crystal, right? Put them together and set up a resonance that would shatter both."
Kaitlyn didn't know what the scientific theory was. LeShan had told them that this shard would destroy Mr. Z's crystal, that was all. She watched a drop of Gabriel's blood fall onto the hardwood floor.
"But to do that, you'd have to get to the crystal," Gabriel continued. "And you can't. The old man has it under a combination lock-and PK won't help with that, will it, Lewis? Eight random numbers to guess?"
He sounded almost jolly-and he was right, Kaitlyn knew. Lewis could move objects with his mind using psychokinesis, but that wouldn't help him figure out a combination.
Lewis had flushed slightly, but he didn't answer
Gabriel's question. Instead he said, "Is Lydia still in this with you?"