Chapter 24

Enlightenment

Part 3

"I just got a message from Shaun."

All three of us jumped like startled rabbits and spun around. Wish was standing behind us. Burnett looked like he was trying to swallow his heart. My own heart was doing pretty close to sound speed itself; Running Fox was the only one who managed to display any aplomb whatsoever.

He simply looked at her and rumbled, "What are you doing here?"

She flashed a trace of her usual impish smile at him and told him, "You forget with whom you are dealing. I slipped Nathan's grip as soon as we got out of sight of you and dropped a little suggestion into his mind. Right now he thinks he's walking me back to the others, and I'm being as meek as a little lamb."

That was my Wish; if the situation hadn't been so damnably grim, I would've laughed outright. She caught my reaction on the Psi level, I guess, because she flashed me a quick smile and concluded, "He's going to be so confused when he gets back there and no one sees me with him but him!"

She gave me a fierce hug and then looked at me and said, "Shaun found Razor. He led him to Tommy. They're both okay; apparently Nicodemus released him after he had him deep inside the cave. All he really wanted him for was to serve as bait for you."

Burnett finally managed to find his voice. "Where's Shaun now?"

She nodded toward the overpass. "He's gone back to lead them out. They're in deep; Nicodemus took Tommy in almost three miles before he released him. It's going to take some time to lead them to safety."

Running Fox bent a curious look at her. "How did you creep up on us like that? I had my perceptions spread wide. It should not be possible for an ant to sneak up on me, much less something as large as a human being!"

Wish gave him that impish grin again---a little bigger this time. "Oh---that. I did it like this."

And, just like that, she was gone. She didn't fade away, she just wasn't there. I couldn't even see any trace of her shadow.

And then I heard a giggle in my ear, and felt a kiss full on my lips. I could smell and taste Wish, even though I still couldn't see her. An instant after that she was back again. She didn't fade in, or pop in---she was just there. It was confusing, to say the least. I gulped and asked, "How'd you do that?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I've noticed that when I'm using it, peoples' pupils contract to a pinpoint when they look at me. They don't seem to be aware of the fact that they're not seeing anything when they look at me; somehow, their awareness of the fact seems to be as blocked as their sight. They can look straight at me and not be aware of my presence unless I touch them, speak or make some sound loud enough to catch their attention. They can't even see my shadow or my reflection. It's as if I'm sending a telepathic "I'm-not-here" signal that's so powerful that it overrides conscious awareness of my visual presence completely."

I began to understand what she'd been talking about when she told me she'd had to do something "drastic" in order to keep Razor from waylaying her in the hotel lobby, the evening she and I had been thrown together in Tommy's room. It was a little like discovering that I was married to a comic-book character.

Running Fox shook his head thoughtfully. "An interesting hypothesis, but invalid. If it affects the visual cortex, as you believe, it wouldn't block out psychic perceptions at all. Unless everything we've learned about the subject is completely mistaken, psychic perceptions are processed by an altogether different part of the brain than sight is. Granted, a lot of psychic perceptions are interpreted as sight, since that's the sense we use to gather the majority of our consciously-processed information on the world through. I suppose that could explain why I didn't detect you."

He shook his head uncertainly.

Burnett picked up on a new angle on the subject: "Maybe you could use this psychic-invisibility trick to advantage against Nicodemus?"

That set off alarm bells in my head. "Uh-uh. I have a terrible feeling Shaun's caution against the two of us going in there is based on a really good reason. For starters, we don't dare go into the Vortex physically; pure suicide. Secondly, Castevet's no longer occupying a physical body, so a Psi Gift that works predominantly against the sense of sight would probably be useless against someone who doesn't even have a physical body right now. And thirdly---have either of you taken a really close look at the two of us, on the psychic level?"

They both looked blank at that. I explained: "Remember the silver cord that stretches between the navels of the physical body and the astral body during astral travel?"

They both nodded, and Burnett grunted, "Basic kindergarten stuff. So?"

I drew a line in the air between my heart and Wish's with a fingertip. "Take a good look right here."

They focused their attention on the indicated place and their eyes went a little out of focus as they shifted their primary focus of awareness to their psychic senses.

Almost simultaneously their eyes widened, and Burnett gulped, "Holy Moses!"

Running Fox was a little more circumspect. In a voice that betrayed his amazement only slightly, he commented, "I have never seen anything like this before!"

Wish looked down at the immaterial, iridescent silver cord that connected us heart-to-heart and plucked at it with a fingertip. It responded to the tug by vibrating slightly, even though it had no actual physical structure. "We first noticed it only a few days ago. We have no idea how long it's been there. It may have been there since I was born, for all we know, or it might have appeared only a moment before we first discovered it. We have no idea whether this is unique to us, or a fairly common phenomenon between people in love. All we know for certain is that it's happened with us, and we've never seen it happen with any others. The point is, if Wish went in there in this invisibility mode of hers, even if it did work against Castevet's Psi senses, this heart-cord would almost certainly give her away. If you two can detect it, it's a cinch that Castevet could detect it too."

Burnett sighed in disgust. "Of course! That's why Shaun warned against you two going in there! If you did, that cord would stick out like a sore thumb, and Nicodemus would find some way to use it against you! He may not be able to sever silver cords, but he can do damage to them!"

Running Fox shook his head dourly. "Then we are back where we started: a nonphysical attack. So, that leaves one question to be answered, and I suspect only Shaun can answer it. Wish, can you contact him?"

Wish shrugged uncertainly. "I'll try. What do you need to know?"

Running Fox looked as if he almost didn't dare ask this question, but: "The heart of the Vortex: Is it here in the physical plane, or on the astral plane?"

Wish's eyes drifted out of focus for a moment as she turned her attention to her Psi perceptions. After a moment, she murmured, "He says it's on both, but the focal point of the Vortex in the physical world is deep inside solid rock. There's no way to get to it physically, even if it were safe for us to go in there physically. The only way to get to it is astrally."

Burnett sighed unhappily. "Uh-oh?sounds like trance time."

Running Fox nodded agreement. "Samuel is right. If Nicodemus is in purely astral form just now, the only place he would go would be to the Vortex's focal point. We will have to project to him and battle him on his own ground."

Burnett turned toward the overpass and set off. "Let's eat first. I hate to project on an empty stomach. Growling stomachs make it too hard to maintain focus."