He reached the sleeping loft and flattened himself on the floor. Rex vaulted up the steps to join him. A low wooden barrier surrounded the loft but Slade could see around the edge of the staircase opening. From that vantage point he had a clear view of the front door and a portion of the kitchen. He settled down, gun in hand, and prepared to wait.

“They’ll be coming back soon to retrieve Sylvester,” he said to Rex. “They won’t want to take a chance on anyone else getting to it first. These guys have to know that if the Bureau or Arcane or the Guilds get wind of that toy they’ll have more trouble on their hands than they can possibly handle.”

Rex growled a response. All four of his eyes were open.

Slade glanced at his watch. It would not be long. The killers probably had a way to deactivate the mechanism from a safe distance. It was the only explanation that worked.

Ghostly fingertips iced the back of his neck. Not the usual hunting vibes. More like the bad energy he’d picked up shortly before he’d gone into the lab on the island four months ago. His intuition was letting him know that something about the plan was about to go badly wrong. Nearby Rex muttered uneasily.

Charlotte.

Slade knew then beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was in danger. As if on cue, his cell phone rang. He grabbed it off his belt and looked at the screen. The incoming number was Charlotte’s. Of course it was. He went cold.

He contemplated the phone as if it were a snake. Everything in him was urging him to answer the call. It was the only way to make sure that Charlotte was all right. But the hunter in him knew better. It was too late. They had her.

The phone rang again.

You’re supposed to be dead, he reminded himself. They’re making sure. Stick to the plan.

The phone went silent. Slade put it quietly on the floor. He listened to the wind prowling through the trees that surrounded the cabin and forced himself to think.

Charlotte was still alive. The bastards had spotted her coming from the house and decided they couldn’t take any risks. They had grabbed her.

But they would not kill her until they got her into the house. He was sure of that. They would figure that they might need her for a hostage. When they knew for certain that he was dead they would probably try to stage a murder-suicide scene. It was all they had. Given his parapsych history no one in the Bureau or Arcane would be surprised to learn that he had gone crazy and killed his lover and himself.

Rex snarled silently. He was suddenly intent on the kitchen. A few seconds later Slade heard the footsteps on the porch. Three sets, not two. They had Charlotte with them.

The kitchen door opened. Slade watched two men move cautiously into the house, pushing Charlotte ahead of them. Her glasses were gone. Her mouth was covered with a strip of tape. Her hands were bound behind her back. She looked pissed.

“Move, bitch,” one of them said. He shoved her forward. She stumbled and went down on one knee.

The other man jerked her back to her feet.

Slade suppressed the rage that was setting fire to his blood. Emotion of any kind was not a good thing at a time like this. He would be of no use to Charlotte unless he stayed stone cold.

Her captors were dressed in windbreakers, trousers, and boots. One of the men had his hair pulled back into a ponytail. An earring glinted in the ear of the second man. They both wore billed caps, just as Devin and Nate had described.

Slade sincerely hoped the pair would not remove their caps. The bills would tend to block the upward view of the room. Ponytail had his mag-rez out. His gloved fingers were wrapped around Charlotte’s upper arm. The other man held a large, old-fashioned gold pocket watch in one fist. The face of the watch was pointed away from him. As if he’s aiming it, Slade thought.

“The body will be in the living room,” Ponytail said. “That damned doll should have wound down by now but don’t take any chances. Use the watch on it.”

“If you’re so worried about the doll, why don’t you turn it off?” Earring snapped. “I’ll handle the woman.”

Now this was interesting, Slade thought. There was a lot of jittery tension in the room and it wasn’t coming from Charlotte. She was scared as well as furious, but these vibes were different. Ponytail and Earring were nervous about the prospect of dealing with the Sylvester weapon.

“Shut up,” Ponytail said. “We’ve wasted enough time because of the woman. Make sure of that damned doll and double-check to be certain the cop is dead. Move. We need to dump the bodies before someone else comes nosing around.”

“Yeah, sure,” Earring muttered.

They weren’t even going to bother to set up a plausible murder-suicide scenario, Slade realized. Definitely not high-functioning thugs.

Down below the loft, Earring moved gingerly into the living room, careful to keep the watch aimed straight ahead. Two more steps brought him within range of the sleeping loft but Slade let him pass. Earring was not the one with the gun and for the moment, at least, he was completely focused on locating and deactivating the deadly toy.

“I don’t see the cop,” Earring called to his companion. He peeked cautiously down the hall. “Or the doll.”

“Check the bedroom and the bath,” Ponytail ordered. “The cop might have made it that far before he collapsed and the doll might have kept moving for a while before it shut down.”

Earring took a hesitant step into the hall. He was getting more nervous by the second. The pocket watch in his hand shook a little.

“Shit,” he said, backing quickly out of the hall. “This isn’t good. I can’t see the cop or the doll. The door of the bathroom and the bedroom are closed. I know they were open when we set up the doll.”

“Don’t panic.” Ponytail shoved Charlotte ahead of him and followed her out of the kitchen. “The cop probably staggered around before he collapsed. Maybe he made it into the bathroom or the bedroom. Check both rooms.”

“What about the doll?”

“Listen, you idiot, do you hear it?”

“No,” Earring admitted.

“Then it switched itself off like it’s supposed to after a few minutes. Find the body.”

Earring disappeared into the hall. Slade heard the bathroom door open slowly. The light came on inside and spilled out the opening.

There was a short, tense silence. Ponytail pushed Charlotte a couple of steps farther into the living room. He was directly under the sleeping loft now.

“We’ve got a problem,” Earring shouted. “We need to get out of here.”

“What the hell?” Ponytail said.

His attention was focused on the hall. Instinctively, he focused the gun in the same direction. Energy flared in the small space. He had jacked up his talent.

Charlotte looked up and saw Slade. She kicked Ponytail hard in the leg. It was a slick, calculated move that caught Ponytail in the vulnerable spot at the side of his knee. He staggered violently and yelled in fury but he did not go down. His hunter-talent reflexes kept him on his feet.

“Bitch,” he snarled.

He swung the gun toward Charlotte. But Slade was already falling toward him. The force of the impact took them both to the floor. Slade heard the gun clatter across the floorboards but there was no time to grab it. Ponytail was fast. He twisted with the lithe, wiry energy of a specter-cat and produced a knife.

Slade tried to grab the man’s knife hand. He missed. Ponytail’s eyes blazed with fury and psi. The guy was strong, Slade realized. And cat-fast.

Slade went hotter, flying straight into the stormlight at the end of the spectrum. He did not need any instruction this time. He did not have to run an experiment. With his senses running wide-open he could see the dangerous psychic currents of Ponytail’s talent. He knew exactly what to do. He pulled dark energy and focused it.

Ponytail stiffened as though he had been struck by lightning. An instant later he went limp.

There was no time to comprehend what had happened. The second man was shouting.

“Get it off, get it off,” Earring shrieked.

Slade rolled to his feet in time to see Rex clinging to the back of Earring’s neck, small claws dug into the windbreaker and probably some skin as well.

Frantic, Earring tried to back up against the nearest wall, intending to squash Rex.

“Rex,” Slade said. “That’s enough. I’ve got him.”

Rex leaped nimbly free, twisted in midair, and landed lightly on his feet. He faced Earring, snarling silently.

Earring was clearly traumatized but he produced a gun from under his windbreaker. Oblivious of Slade, he aimed the weapon at Rex.

Slade moved. He caught Earring’s gun arm, jacked up his talent, and reached into the storm.

Earring went limp and collapsed to the floor.

Slade went quickly around the room, collecting weapons. He found two pairs of handcuffs in his desk drawer, FBPI issue, and used them to secure the wrists of the unconscious men.

He went to Charlotte. She watched him with wide, psi-hot eyes as he gently pulled the tape off her mouth.

She gasped, taking in great gulps of air. He dug out his Takashima pocketknife and went to work freeing her wrists.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

“Yes, sure, never better,” she managed. “Scared to death, though. And they broke my glasses. Bastards.”

“What happened?”

“They were watching the house, like you said. They blocked the entrance of the drive with their car. The creep with the ponytail made it clear he would shoot me through the windshield if I didn’t get out of the car.”