Levitating Las Vegas

16




The moment Kaylee heard her office door burst open, instinctively she changed the intruder’s mind about changing her mind. Sure enough, the first person through the door was red-haired April, one eye closed against the headache Kaylee was giving her.

Carter came right behind her. “You don’t have her?” he asked April, eyes on Kaylee.

“We’re at a stalemate,” April murmured.

Kaylee knew how April felt. Neither of them could let go of the other. And neither of them could stay in this painful limbo for long. But she had more experience than April, and she knew the appearance of strength was almost as important as strength itself.

Then Nate pushed into the office, cowboy hat first. Kaylee’s will almost faltered. He was a mind changer himself, weaker than Kaylee or April, but he and April working on Kaylee together might just get through.

Kaylee couldn’t use up any space in her mind for that kind of thinking, and she couldn’t give away to mind-reading Carter how intimidated and outnumbered she felt. She held Nate off. She held April off.

As Violet slammed and locked the door behind all of them with her mind, Kaylee called boldly, “Did Isaac send you? Too scared to face me himself?”

Violet called back, “We want Holly and Elijah. Give them to us and we’ll leave the casino alone. For a while.”

Not daring to take her eyes off April and Nate, Kaylee blindly felt in front of her until she touched Holly, who hadn’t spoken or moved a muscle. She seemed paralyzed with fear, plastered against the front of the desk. Kaylee gripped Holly’s arm and hurled at the intruders, “Go get Elijah yourselves if you can. Good luck with that. But you’re getting Holly over my dead body. And yours.” With her other hand she reached into her holster, pulled out her Beretta, and pointed it at April. “See if you can change my mind about this.”

“Don’t,” Holly whispered. “Let me.”

The chair Holly had been sitting in launched across the room and hit Violet in the chest, knocking her against the wall, her gauzy purple skirts a swirling riot.

“Let’s go,” Carter said quietly, offering a hand to help Violet up, watching Kaylee.

Violet waved off Carter’s hand.

Carter and April and Nate flattened themselves against the wooden paneling. Kaylee ducked behind her desk. People with power knew better than to come between two levitators in an argument.

The chair flew toward Holly. Score one for Violet. Suddenly it diverted to one side, tumbled over the end of the desk, and thudded to the carpet. Score one for Holly.

Violet rose into the air unaided. Toes barely brushing the ground, she pointed at Holly. “That’s twice, bitch. Third time’s the charm.”

Holly hurled the chair back at the intruders. Next she threw Kaylee’s desk chair. Papers. Pens. Kaylee’s computer screen and keyboard. All these objects seemed to bounce off a force field around the intruders as Violet protected them.

Violet opened the door behind her and hovered in the doorway. Carter slipped past her, then Nate. She and April exited at the same time, Violet shielding both of them from Holly’s wrath while April shielded them from Kaylee changing their minds. The last thing Kaylee saw was April’s cherry-red hair before the door slammed shut.

Holly had run out of loose objects to throw and was proceeding to remove the framed and autographed photos of Elvis and Sammy Davis Jr. from the walls when Kaylee popped up from behind her desk. “Stop! Coast is clear.” With a sigh of relief, she released her death-grip and reholstered her Beretta. Her fingers ached. Then her adrenaline spiked higher at the memory of what Violet had said to Holly. “What did Violet mean when she said this was twice?” Had Holly been to the Res already?

“They came after Elijah and me in Icarus,” Holly said.

“Oh, God.” Kaylee’s mind spun. Not many people had known where Holly and Elijah had gone. To get that information, the Res had read someone’s mind. Possibly her own. She turned once more to the bank of camera monitors. “Where did you go, you bastards?”

“Elijah!” Holly cried, rushing to the monitor where they’d seen him sit down at his mom’s table. But as they watched, he threw down his cards, nodded to his mom, and headed for the door. The Res hadn’t had time to reach him. He was safe. For now. Then a strange movement on a monitor caught Kaylee’s eye. “Oh, no.”

April walked unchallenged across the casino floor, clearing the way, followed by Nate in his cowboy hat, then Carter. Violet brought up the rear. It was hard to see exactly what she was doing because the cameras were mounted high in the ceiling, and the matchbooks were small. But Kaylee knew what Violet was doing. It was an age-old game at the Res. With her mind, Violet struck matches and raised them high to the luxurious draperies framing the arched doorways. The strange movement Kaylee had seen was flames.

The fire alarm clanged overhead.

Holly dashed for the door.

Kaylee made Holly think going out that door was not a good idea.

Holly stopped short in confusion. Then she whirled to face Kaylee, her brunette curls flying. Kaylee could tell from the outrage in Holly’s eyes, accentuated by the wild green eye shadow, that she’d figured out the mind-changing game. “Kaylee, not now!” she wailed over the clamor of the fire alarm. “The casino is on fire! All those people! Elijah’s mom is down there!”

Kaylee divided her mind into three compartments. In the first compartment, she maintained her hold on Holly. Holly would not go out that door.

In the second compartment, Kaylee played casino administrator. The sprinklers would put out the fire shortly. Extra curtains and lengths of carpet were rolled up in storage for an emergency such as this. She calculated how many minutes it would take to reopen the casino.

In the third compartment, she worried about the Res. The monitors showed the last of the gamblers hurrying toward the exits with their arms over their heads to shield themselves from the sprinkler shower. Security guards ushered them out. Elijah’s mom, Jasmine, gave the camera a thumbs-up, meaning she didn’t sense anyone with power on the casino floor. The Res was gone.

But they would be back. They’d already killed Mr. Diamond and set the curtains on fire. Next time would be worse. Kaylee wasn’t sure how many more assaults the casino could stand before their loose confederation of people with power started to fall apart.

And she had no idea how to stop it. She’d been away from the Res and Isaac a whole year, and he was still able to toy with her like a cat playing with a mouse before he killed her.

She ran her hands back through her hair, a nervous gesture she never allowed herself in public, as she surveyed the wreck Holly and Violet had made of her office. Kaylee would outmaneuver Isaac. She had to. But until she figured out how, all she could do was buy time.

She waved to the monitors showing the casino floor. “The fire is out,” she told Holly. “But I’ve got bigger problems. I’m putting you under house arrest until I solve them.”

“What!”

Just in case, Kaylee changed Holly’s mind about hurting her. At the door she put her hand on Holly’s bare arm. “People with power don’t like to have their minds changed. I understand that. I use it as a last resort. I’m in a difficult position right now. I hope someday you’ll forgive me.”

Holly didn’t say a word. She was a beautiful, disheveled, very angry showgirl at the center of Kaylee’s junkyard of an office, staring Kaylee down, trying to get out from under Kaylee’s spell and out the office door.

But she wouldn’t. At least Kaylee was confident in her own power. No matter what, she still had that.

She slipped out the door and closed and locked it behind her—not that this would stop Holly in the unlikely event she was able to escape Kaylee’s command. In that case, nothing would stop her. Kaylee simply didn’t want a hapless guard going in. He would be in trouble.

She emerged from the employee elevator onto the casino floor. The room reeked of smoke, but the air vents high overhead roared with double their usual force. All the doors had been thrown open to the bright summer day, with dealers stationed at them to prevent gamblers from coming in. Construction crews stood on ladders, removing the singed drapes, and janitors used industrial vacuum cleaners to suck up the water standing on the carpet. All was as it should be, if this were a normal casino, with normal employees, and normal arsonists. She pointed at Jasmine by the door, crooked her finger at her, and met her beside the barred cashier windows.

“There were four of them,” Jasmine reported. “I’ve sensed them here before. April, a mind changer, bright red hair like the young girls color it nowadays. Carter was a mind reader, Nate was a mind changer, and then there was a levitator. I didn’t catch her name because she was distracted, setting fire to the curtains.”

“Violet,” Kaylee said.

“You’ve met them,” Jasmine said, a statement rather than a question, because she could read Kaylee’s mind. “They were definitely from the Res and feeling like they need revenge for whatever happened up in your office.”

Jasmine had told Kaylee nothing she didn’t already know, but Kaylee touched Jasmine’s elbow. “Great job. I’m so glad to have you down here.”

Jasmine’s proud smile was fleeting. The corners of her mouth sank into disappointment. “Tell me another. I’m too weak to be any help.”

“Not true.” Most of Kaylee’s staff couldn’t read minds, or do anything out of the ordinary besides take out a target at two hundred yards. “The Res wants Elijah and Holly. I’m trying to figure out what their plan might be, and I was hoping you could give me some insight.”

“Why are you asking me?” Jasmine snapped. “Isn’t Isaac in charge out there now? You were his girlfriend. I’ve never met him.”

“No,” Kaylee said, holding fast to her patience, “but you knew somebody like him. You knew Elijah’s father.”

It was a gamble to bring up Elijah’s dad to Jasmine, but Kaylee desperately needed this information. The gamble didn’t pay off. Instead of opening up, Jasmine closed down. She crossed her arms. “Why aren’t you asking Mr. Diamond?”

“Mr. Diamond is otherwise engaged,” Kaylee said.

“With something more important than Elijah?”

The afterlife? “Yes, absolutely.” Kaylee left it at that, both verbally and mentally, reinforcing the wall in her mind between what she let Jasmine see and what she couldn’t tell anyone.

Jasmine put one fingertip to her temple. She was giving herself a headache trying to read Kaylee. Finally she said, “If you want my help, why are you blocking me so hard? What is it you don’t want me to know?”

A movement in the corner of Kaylee’s eye caught her attention. She and Jasmine turned to watch a ladder topple over and clatter to the ground, leaving a man hanging from the blackened draperies while his coworkers scrambled underneath to catch him. So much for the casino running like a well-oiled machine.

Impatiently she turned back to Jasmine. “The Res is after your son. Are you going to help me or not?”

Jasmine huffed out a sigh. “Here’s my theory. Isaac’s decided he wants more than the Res. Maybe he wants the casino. Elijah’s father had that thought, but lots of young people were protecting the casino then, and Mr. Diamond wasn’t putting the kids on Mentafixol. We’ve all gotten old and weak, and Isaac knows it. He sent some scouts in to read our weaknesses. I’m surprised he didn’t assassinate a few people to scare us and make us cower.”

Kaylee blocked Jasmine very hard. She couldn’t think about Mr. Diamond.

“You and Mr. Diamond thought you were strengthening us when you took Elijah and Holly off Mentafixol, but you played right into Isaac’s hand. He must have people reading you, me, Peter, any of the guards. He knew which kids were about to come into their power, and now the Res wants them before they’re loyal to us.”

This was very, very, very bad. Kaylee thought this and simultaneously tried to block the thought from Jasmine. The only way to survive the Res was to stop caring about people. But if Elijah and Holly were in love, there was no telling what an experienced mind reader could coerce them into doing for him by threatening one of them and then the other. She had to keep Holly out of there.

“Ms. Michaels?” called a security guard who’d stepped inside the casino doors. “You’d better come see this.”

What now? Kaylee thought, and Jasmine offered a bitter laugh of agreement. They both hurried through the burned casino air, past the tangle of employees blocking the doors, and into the fresh hot breeze and bright sunlight outside. The security guard pointed down the block. They jogged toward the cross street, where another security guard pointed them around the corner of the massive building. There on the sidewalk that continued back to the paved space where Peter had performed his impossible feat of physical stamina that morning, another crowd had gathered, pointing up at the fortieth floor.

A dark, jagged shape in the otherwise mirrored surface of the casino marked the place where Holly had broken Kaylee’s office window. Just below this, Holly descended slowly, holding herself up with her power but pantomiming a difficult and heart-pounding struggle down a flimsy white rope.

“Oh my God,” Kaylee exclaimed, losing her cool, “is that Kleenex she’s supposed to be climbing down? And she’s carrying her purse. I have got to talk to her about presentation.”

“What’d you do,” Jasmine asked, “change her mind about following you out the door of your office? Too specific.”

Kaylee glared at Jasmine.

Jasmine winked at Kaylee. “You want me to help you collect her?”

Kaylee glanced around at the sidewalk clogged with pedestrians in the early afternoon. Everyone who passed this corner looked down the alley, saw the crowd forming under Holly, and headed in that direction.

“We can’t worry about her right now,” Kaylee said, “not while we’re in public. She’ll just make another mess. We need to get the casino reopened before the news crews get out here. Besides, I know where she’s going.”

“To Elijah’s house,” Jasmine said slowly. “You’ll post a couple of guards on the street to alert you if the Res comes by, so you’ll know she’s safe. Once you get things cleaned up at the casino, you’ll go there yourself and take both of them into custody. Indefinitely.”

Kaylee was shocked that Jasmine had been able to lift this from her. She’d thought she was keeping a tight lid on her plans. She must be stressed and tired and losing her edge.

She shifted her attention from her own shortcomings to damage control. “No, of course not.” She put a hand on the shoulder of Jasmine’s dealer uniform jacket. “That’s your fear talking.”

Jasmine didn’t buy it. “I agreed to let Mr. Diamond put Elijah on Mentafixol to protect him from himself. I never agreed to let you or anybody lock him up. You can’t do that, Kaylee! I won’t let you!”

Kaylee changed Jasmine’s mind.

Then she pointed to a couple of guards with half power and motioned them over. With one hand on Jasmine’s back, she said, “This is delicate.”

The guards nodded.

“Be nice, but lock her up just in case. Don’t let her out until you hear from me. And for God’s sake don’t let her talk you out of it.”

As they walked away, Jasmine looked over her shoulder at Kaylee, tears in her eyes. This was the awful thing about changing the mind of a mind reader. Other people with power might guess, but Jasmine knew exactly what Kaylee had done to her.

Suddenly Kaylee sensed a tall presence inches from her shoulder. She glanced up into Shane’s blue eyes. Her heart thumped beneath her silk blouse. She’d never let him get this close to her. The mess with Jasmine had distracted her, damn it!

Shane set down his guitar case on the sidewalk and gazed up at Holly, who had made it down to the thirty-fifth floor or so. She faked losing her grip on the “rope,” and the crowd gasped underneath her.

“She’s good,” Shane drawled. “I can’t see the safety cables at all. It looks like she’s really doing something dangerous. But—is that Kleenex?” He glanced down at Kaylee again.

Kaylee had a hard afternoon ahead of her, and her head felt heavy with responsibility. But for a split second, she indulged in the fantasy that this man cared about her. They were both young, about the same age, running loose in Vegas. Between her clout and her power, she could get them into the best clubs any time she chose. They could have a terrific fling together. She could feel, for the first time, like she was twenty-two.

When she pictured fingering the slicked-back strands of his blond hair, she almost thought she saw his pupils dilate in the bright sunlight. This was her imagination. She was losing it.

He smiled. “You look tired. Rough day at the casino? Maybe I can help.”

She laughed at the idea. “When I need your help, Mr. Sligh, I’ll ask for it.”

He opened his mouth to say something else.

She changed his mind.

He closed his mouth. But he continued to stare at her, a knowing look that intensified the euphoric prickling sensation racing through her.

Without another word to him, she turned away and headed back inside. She had a lot of phone calls to make. Rounding up Elijah and Holly would take every available hand—including Peter Starr.