“What makes you think I’m telepathic?”
She smiled. “While I am not telepathic myself, I am sensitive to the use of psychic power. Generally, it feels like the caress of a warm summer breeze that swirls across my skin—something I can sense but never catch.” She paused, tilting her head slightly to one side, her amazing blue eyes seeming to follow even my slightest movement. How was that possible? This woman was blind—I was certain of that, if nothing else.
“With you tonight,” she continued, “it was not a breeze, but a cyclone. An overuse of power if ever I felt one. Has no one ever taught you control?”
“I shield. I can protect myself. What else is there to know?” And Jack had been coaching me, but I couldn’t exactly admit that.
“Power of any kind should be treated similar to an onion. There may be many different layers, but you should only ever strip away as many as you need to get the job done.” She smiled as she reached forward and took a small cloth from a compartment under the seat opposite, then handed it to me. “The only time problems generally arise for the trained is when the power is still new, or it increases in strength for some reason.”
I wrapped the cloth around my bleeding arm. “How would either of those cause problems?”
She shrugged lightly. “You cannot control something when you do not know its boundaries.”
That made sense. But was that what was actually happening? I’d been telepathic most of my life, and the last test done at the Directorate had not indicated any increase in psychic output.
Of course, those tests had been done several months ago. Who knew what the result would be now.
“But psychic strength doesn’t alter.” At least, it generally didn’t with normal people. “You get what you’re born with, don’t you?”
“Sometimes. But puberty has been known to set off wild changes in psi-skills.”
“Puberty? Do I sound like an adolescent to you?”
But even as I said the words, I had a feeling she’d hit the nail on the head. Thanks to the fertility drugs that had been forced into me by past mates, I’d recently begun menstruating for the first time in my life. Which in turn meant I was going through a form of puberty—if puberty was defined solely as going through the change and moving from a child’s body to a woman’s. Not that anyone would ever accuse me of having a child’s body. I’d been D-cup since I was sixteen.
“No, you don’t sound adolescent. But that doesn’t alter the fact your power seems very uncontrolled. You are extremely lucky you caught those vamps unawares. Lucky, too, that none of them were particularly strong psychics.”
“Why’s that?” I rubbed a hand across my forehead. The needles were beginning to ease, but my brain still felt like it was on fire. If I didn’t get some pain-relief tablets soon, I was going to have one doozy of a headache.
“Because by dropping your shields as totally as you did, you left yourself wide open for a counterattack.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t even thought of that. Not when I’d attacked Quinn, and certainly not when I’d attacked those vamps. Quinn might have been too much of a gentleman to attack, but those vamps certainly could have.
She tilted her head to the side again. The brown hair fell to one side, revealing slivers of silver running underneath. She wasn’t wearing a wig, because the silver and brown ran into each other. It was almost as if someone had dyed her hair but only done half a job. Odd, to say the least. “Did your parents not teach you to use your gift?”
I snorted softly. “My mother was a wolf groupie who considered the half-breed she gave birth to little more than an inconvenience to her sex life.”
“And your father?”
“She never knew for sure who he was. I certainly don’t.”
“Sad.”
“That’s me,” I said sarcastically. “A sad and sorry tale.”
She smiled again. “Do you have a name?”
“Poppy Burns.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? And what are you doing here in St. Kilda, Poppy Burns?”
Something in the way she said that had uneasiness stirring. I shrugged, and did my best to ignore those damned butterflies. “Looking for work, a place to stay. Usual shit.”
“So where did you live before?”
“You’re getting awfully nosy, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “Given what you said to me before those vamps showed up, I think I have the right to be nosy.”
I sniffed, and didn’t reply.
“And given your so bluntly put opinion of me,” she continued, “why would you then go on and save me?”
“Who says I was saving you? Those stinkers had me in their sights just as much as you.”
“Maybe.”
“If we’re going to be nosy, then tell me how you can be blind as a bat, and yet can walk around as well as any sighted person?”
She went still, and for a moment I thought I’d blown it.
“How do you know I’m blind?” The warmth that had been in her tones until now was replaced by cold steel, and a chill went down my spine.
It was a timely reminder that this woman—however nice she seemed—was one of the five clones and in league with the man I was trying to bring down.“Easy. Though your gaze appears to look directly at people, there’s no true life in your eyes, no response to the smaller movements people make, and no real response to facial expressions. It’s like you can see, but only from a distance, so that up close things aren’t clear.”
Amusement warmed her expression. “You are very observant.”
“You have to be when you live on the streets.”
“True.” She paused, considering me. “Are you after work now?”
I shrugged. “Depends what it is.”
“You will earn more in two weeks than you could in a year of regular work.”
“Lady, that sounds a little too good to be true. What’s the catch?”
“You’re being paid to have sex with strangers.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“No ‘and.’ The resort is owned by my…employer.”
Employer? Starr was more than just that. “So you’re not just a scamming psychic? You’re a pimp, as well?”
She stiffened ever so slightly. “I am not pimping you. I am simply offering you an opportunity to make a lot of money.”
“Yeah. By having sex. It’s called pimping, whether you like it or not.”
I studied her for a moment, wondering how fine a line I should walk between reluctance and acceptance. But given Poppy’s supposed history, she wasn’t likely to be trusting anyone too quickly.
“This is one of those sex-slave scams they’ve been talking about in the papers lately, isn’t it? You know, lure innocents with the enticement of money, then ship them off to parts unknown, to be held captive and abused. Well, I ain’t interested, lady.” I banged on the glass partition between us and the driver, wincing as the sound echoed through my head. “Hey, you, stop this crate and let me out.”
“I promise, this is no scam.”
“Yeah, right.”
She reached into her pocket and drew out a business card. Only it wasn’t from the employment agency Jack had mentioned, but one of her own cards. And it was her personal address, as well. “If you are interested in hearing more about the job, come and see me tomorrow.”
I looked at her, then the card, and finally reached out to take it. “You never did answer my question, you know. About being blind.”
She smiled again. “No. But perhaps I will later, if you accept the job.”
“If that’s supposed to be an enticement, it ain’t working.”
“If you want an enticement, then perhaps I can teach you to use your telepathy without dropping all your shields.”
The car slid to a stop. I wrapped my fingers around the door handle but didn’t open it. “And why would you be offering to do that?”
“Because you need it.”
“And do you often run around offering psychic training to those who need it?”
“No.” Her gaze came to mine. “Only to those who will save us.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that, and it’s no clearer now than it was before.”
“I guess it isn’t.” Her gaze fell away as she leaned back in the seat. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It was a dismissal and a statement of fact, all in one. I frowned, but thrust open the door and climbed out. The night had grown colder in the brief time I’d been in the car, the breeze chill. Goose bumps ran across my skin. Thank God I wasn’t actually sleeping on the streets tonight. I slammed the car door shut and watched Dia’s black limo disappear into the night.
“So,” I said, rubbing my bare arms as I looked around to see where I was. “You heard it all?”
“Yes. And I’m mighty disappointed you didn’t tell me about the fluctuations in your telepathy strength.”
“It’s only just started happening, boss. With everything else that’s been going on, it just slipped my mind.”
“That’s not good enough, Riley. We need to keep a close check on what is going on with your psi-abilities.”
“So I’ll try and remember to tell you the next time anything strange happens.”