Vision

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  Fictionwise

  www.Fictionwise.com

  Copyright ©2001 by N. D. Hansen-Hill

  First published by Argyle House Press, November 2001

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Cover painting and design by N. D. Hansen-Hill

  To Gordon L. Hill, Sr.

  Vision

  The blind illusion of logic bent,

  Clarity strewn when reason went,

  Torqued and bloodied thoughts adrift

  A truth-entangled genetic rift.

  So, clear the head and fill the mind

  As past and present are left behind,

  Blow the then and blast the now,

  History shorn in a shattered vow.

  Enter the beasts and demon spawn

  To manipulate the naive pawn,

  Genetic mayhem and twisted schemes

  Cursed in parabnormal dreams

  Where prophecy rules the first is last

  Death reverts to life aghast,

  Insanity reigns—there lies the fault,

  Only murd'rous mayhem can force a halt.

  —by N. D. Hansen-Hill

  Prologue

  The day was split—overlain with the shuddery thunder of a heavy tread on sedimentary soils.

  Soils that were soft and non-impacted.

  Soils that were still new.

  He stood there, blind and deaf to any world but this. His vision was trapped here, while his body lingered in a world a hundred million years—maybe several hundred million years—away.

  Past experience had warned him not to move. In a place like this it could be deadly. Because, over the aeons, so many of the land's physical features had changed.

  What you see is not always what you get...

  He could only watch, paralysed by his vulnerability, as the monstrous shape came toward him. His eyes fixed on the long talons, the ripping teeth, the daggerlike spine—almost like a scorpion's stinger—at the end of the tail. The stinger was what caught and held his eye. He forced himself to focus on it, as the creature did a series of bounding leaps in his direction.

  It can't see me, he thought, trying to bolster his confidence.

  It didn't do much to help. Because there was a gleam in the predator's eye now, and Dustin could swear it was aiming right for him.

  The mud slapped with each heavy step, and now, there was mud flicked in his eyes. Flicked in his eyes and flecked on his face. Sweat on his skin and terror in his heart.

  The mouth opened so fast, he knew he'd never stand a chance. No hope to outrun it on terrain he couldn't even see.

  Not true. It's because you see too much...

  It's not here! You're not here!

  But it didn't help. He was in a world stinking of methane and sulphur, and rotting meat on three-inch teeth. Where enormous lizards snapped jaws at man-sized morsels.

  And it didn't do him a damn bit of good to tell himself he wasn't here.

  Because he'd never tested it before. He'd learned not to move, because his own world could kill him. But he'd never deliberately sought to place himself “somewhere else".

  His existence had never been at risk before...

  I can't sit here and be eaten...

  The monster was confused by his stationary pose. It was accustomed to having its prey flee, squealing. At the very least, it was expecting some evasive manoeuvre: head bobbing, counterattack, dodges—something any prey with a gram of intelligence would do.

  And, suddenly, it was no good. "I need out!" he hissed urgently. “Josh!"

  It was the panicky squawk the creature had been waiting for. The eyes widened, and in that second, Dustin knew it was going to strike. The jaws snapped once, and he wasn't imagining the saliva. As the head lunged forward in a snake-like strike, he dove to one side.

  But the tail moved even faster.

  This time, when the man's mouth opened, it wasn't with shrieks of terror—it was with an even shriller howl of pain.

  Chapter One

  “Dusty!” Someone was shaking him roughly.

  Josh.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I can hear you,” Dustin replied mechanically. He waved a hand in front of his face. "His breath was better—” He squinted his eyes open, peering at his surroundings. Dried, reddish soil. Bright blue—not the sullen overcast of dinoland.

  There was a note of tension in Josh's voice. “Did you see one?”

  Dustin wiped his face. “Could be-e...” He dragged it out, but Josh's sigh made him snigger. Put him out of his misery. “Nasty things, those Drepanosauruses—” He left it hanging, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Sweat, and something else. A gritty something, that stank of sour soils.

  Josh's hand gripped his shoulder so hard it hurt. “You saw one?!” He twisted him around so Dustin was forced to look at him. “Did it—” At this point Josh swallowed hard, his voice barely above a whisper. “Did it have a spine?”

  “Yeah—” Dustin said, a little distractedly. He was thinking of the weight behind the impact. The force of the blow that had left him stunned.

  Or stung... There was a tingle of pain in his leg—like the nerve-jabbing sting of a cold sore.

  No way. That's impossible, he thought, trying to calm the lurch of panic that sent his heart racing again. I'm an observer. Only an observer.

  The pounding of his heart was suddenly matched by a throbbing pulsebeat in his left leg. The throb gave way to a searing, stabbing jab that shot down between his toes and back up to just beneath his jaw. “Josh—” he gasped, his eyes widening. He gripped the front of Josh's shirt with his fist. Dustin's face was white, his teeth clenched.

  "Shit, Dusty!” Josh said worriedly. Was he having a heart attack or something?! "What's wrong?"

  Dustin grimaced, but pushed himself up, so he could look at his left leg. See, he told himself, an icy wash of relief running through him. All normal. The relief lasted until the next agonising jolt of pain hit him. This time, he felt it in his gut, too.

  Can't be, he thought, through chattering teeth. Only in your imagination...

  He gripped his thigh. He sensed Josh's panic, but he could hear his voice only dimly through a fog. “M-Make it stop!" Dustin grunted, unaware that he was saying it aloud.

  “Make what stop?!” Josh almost yelled at him. “Tell me what's wrong!"

  The back of his pants leg was wet. Must be marsh mud, Dustin thought, confused. He lifted his fingers to look. The tips were bright with blood.

  “What the hell!” Josh shrieked, hitting the panic button. He forced his voice down a notch. “W-What have you done now?” He pushed Dusty over on his side—afraid of what he was going to find.

  There was blood soaking through Dustin's jeans. Blood leaching into the arid ground. A lot of blood. But, it could have been worse—undoubtedly, would have been worse—if there hadn't been a stopper in the hole.

  It was so coated with blood, that at first he couldn't figure out what it was.

  “I-Is it bad?” Dustin asked.

  “No,” Josh lied. It was a tooth—or, maybe, a spine.

  Josh's mind rejected it. It can't be... Reason told him he should leave it in
, to help control the bleeding. But something else—some other instinct—told him bleeding wasn't the worst of Dusty's problems. Better to make it bleed... With a shaking hand, he grabbed the back of the “tooth” and started to yank it back, out of the hole.

  It didn't want to come. It had gone all the way to the bone.

  Josh's gorge rose. Maybe into the bone—

  “Good,” Dustin was saying, and it took Josh a moment to realise he was responding to the “No". It bothered him that Dusty couldn't feel what he was doing.

  Dusty was still talking, but he didn't sound right. “Josh,” he muttered, “feeling a little weird...”

  His voice trailed off. His bloodied hand went limp. Josh swore he could feel it, when Dusty's head flopped down, onto the soil.

  * * * *

  “What do you mean, you ‘helped him set it up'?” Ren asked him angrily. “In other words, you set him up! You know what he's like!”

  “I know,” Josh admitted. “But when he heard what I was looking for—so I'd know whether to push for funding...” His words tapered off, a little dismally. It sounded like he was making excuses. “You're right, Ren. He knew it, I knew it.” He shook his head, his own eyes glassy. “I didn't know it could touch him like that! Hell, he didn't know it himself!”

  “It shouldn't have,” she replied, staring out the window. “It never has before.” She turned, to meet Josh's eyes. “You know how I knew, don't you?”

  “The telepathy thing?”

  “Don't sound so dismissive, Mr. Clairvoyant. Of course, it was the ‘telepathy thing'.” She rubbed her left leg. “I even felt it when it jabbed him,” she whispered.

  “Don't tell him,” Josh warned.

  She shook her head. For one who was supposedly “sensitive", Josh could be so dense. “Of course I won't,” she said impatiently.

  Josh grinned. “I get it. Because of the affection thing.”

  She averted her eyes. “Ridiculous,” she grumbled.

  “Hey—at least you're finally admitting you can read minds,” Josh told her annoyingly.

  “Hardly. Merely sympathy pains, brought on by—”

  Josh smiled, and put an arm around her. “—your sympathy for your subject.”

  She nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “You know, some day Dusty will get his mind out of the past, and back into the present where it belongs.”

  She couldn't believe she was hearing this from him. Her expression said as much.

  “Oh, I'm not saying he shouldn't visit the past from time to time—”

  She snorted.

  “—but he doesn't like it any more than you like ‘picking up vibes'. Do you realise I'm the only one of us with appreciation for my ‘gift'?”

  “Since nobody else appreciates you,” she said with a slight smile, “I guess you have to start somewhere.” She added, “Did you forget Dainler? He ‘appreciates’ his gift, too—that's why he has a limo.” Ren sounded disgusted.

  At the coffee machine, she turned Josh's way expectantly.

  “F7,” he supplied.

  There was a flicker of annoyance in her eyes.

  He grinned. “I had one earlier,” he explained, with mock innocence. “Dainler and I aren't in the same class. He stops ‘em from being buried, and I dig ‘em up.”

  She handed him his coffee, then punched in her own. “You know,” she whispered, with a shiver, and a glance toward the ICU. “If he doesn't feel better soon, I might give Erik a call.”

  “Dusty won't like it.”

  She looked over at him, her own eyes moist. “Better than having to communicate through Merrie. Besides,” she added, “if I don't, you can bet Valterzar will.”

  * * * *

  “Hey, Dusty.” Ren put a cool hand on his hot forehead, jerked it away, then, with trembling fingers, put it back again. So hot. So weak. When she touched him, she could feel the burning in his veins.

  Oh, crap. It was the signal. She'd halfway hoped it wouldn't be there, because it scared her witless. It had only happened once before. With her sister. Maggie had fallen from a tree and was bleeding when Ren had found her. She'd touched her and held her and cried her eyes out, while Maggie had screamed the whole time to go get Mom. In the end, it had been Maggie who'd had to run for Mom, and Ren who'd had the broken arm.

  Ren had never spoken of it to anybody, but something had changed that day, between her and her sister. Maggie was two years older, and wary of a sister who could finish her sentences. As she grew up, and began to develop that secret life that all teens have, she'd grown as far away as she could from Ren. And, ever since that day in the orchard, there'd been a wariness between them.

  Dustin's eyes opened, and he looked at her. “Knew it was you,” he murmured. “Must be psychic.”

  Ren brushed a kiss across his lips, then took his other hand in hers.

  He sighed, and she knew he was glad to have her there.

  If he hadn't been so dazed, he might have realised what she was doing. Realised how much she might be risking. Might even have realised why she was willing to risk it.

  It was a risk, too. Josh would be furious, and feel more guilty than he did already; Dainler would feel violated, as though she'd intruded on his turf; Valterzar would smile and be pleased that he could add one more note to her file. And Dusty? Would he carry the same wary flicker in his eyes that Maggie had? Because she'd intruded far beyond his stray thoughts, and into his blood and bone?

  “Kitten?” he murmured, a trace of alarm in his voice this time.

  “It's okay, Dusty,” she whispered, trying to hide the huskiness in her voice. The quaver that might give away her fear. Because this was Dainler's gift, not hers. She'd always been afraid to use it. At heart, Erik Dainler was about as sensitive as stone. He could shunt away all the disease and injury because he never let it touch him. He never got involved with his clients; never took on their pain or their aches or their angst. She'd asked him about it once, wanting to know how he could heal without identifying with his clients’ pain. Erik hadn't always been this cold or distant, so he'd somehow developed this shell, this insouciance. She'd wanted to know how—needed to know how—because it was a way of protecting herself, in case anyone got too close.

  Like now.

  A flicker of awareness told her Valterzar was getting impatient with the delays. They were only allowing them in one at a time, and he wanted to “assess” the situation himself. It was more than that, though. Josh was going nuts out in the waiting room, which made Valterzar irritable. Josh was blaming himself for this, but he couldn't produce the spine the doctors had asked for. Because they would never understand how a spine, that should have been buried for a hundred million years—that should have become stone long since—could carry fresh toxin. How it could contain living cells. And antagonistic proteins.

  Shit!

  Kithren didn't wait any longer. Dustin was unconscious again, and his skin looked waxy. His breath came in uneven shudders.

  “Love you,” she whispered, close against his ear—relieved that he'd never know how she felt.

  A thing can be over-analysed. She ought to know. Science was her business.

  Ren closed her eyes, tightened her grip on his hand, and let his feelings come.

  * * * *

  The scream of the monitor brought Josh to his feet. “Oh, shit!" he gasped, wiping his eyes roughly with his hand. He and Valterzar raced down the hall. They ran into the IC unit just in time to hear the nurse shout angrily, "What the hell are you doing?!"

  It did, indeed, look like mayhem. Ren was leaning against the bed, one hand tangled in the cords, wires, and tubing running from Dustin's body. She'd triggered the alarm, and in that moment, Josh knew she wasn't even aware of doing it. Awkwardly—too sensitive in her current state to tune out the nurse's frustration—her hand fluttered to free itself of the paraphernalia.

  "Ren!" Josh yelled. He sensed she was wide open, like a raw wound. Defenceless. It didn't take
much to figure out what she'd done for Dusty. Josh remembered kidding her about being “too sensitive for her own good". His words came back to haunt him now, as she turned to look at him. The pain in her eyes made him suck in a quick breath.

  Ren, though, suddenly wasn't breathing at all. She gasped, and there was only a quick, occluded whine. Her hand went to her throat, and she stumbled away from the bed. Even now, she didn't want Dustin to see ... didn't want him to know...

  Fuck it, Ren! Why?

  Josh reached for her, but Valterzar was quicker. He caught her as her knees folded and stretched her out on the ground. He checked her airway then bellowed, "Get me a trach kit!" to the nurse. "STAT!" Then he tossed Josh his phone. His teeth were almost gritted as he ordered, “Punch four. Tell Dainler that if he doesn't get here soon, the first person he'll have to heal will be himself.”

  * * * *

  “I thought you said it was Mallory,” Erik Dainler complained. He grabbed Ren's hand, dropped it, then paced the room. “I can't,” he muttered. He ran nervous fingers through his hair.

  Lawrence Valterzar had regained some of his cool. He was personally monitoring Ren's functions, and he turned now to look coldly at Dainler. “Why not?” His voice was chilling.

  “Because it's Ren,” Erik said, and Valterzar guessed that for once he was being honest. Dainler was afraid to heal her because he didn't think he could keep his distance.

  “Because she's a sensitive?” Did he think she might give it all to him?

  Dainler cleared his throat. He shook his head.

  Valterzar saw his expression and nodded. “I understand.” The man had feelings for her. He didn't think he could distance himself because some part of him didn't want to. He looked at Dainler. “You know she did this for Mallory?”

  “Then maybe you should get Mallory in here, so I can get started,” Dainler said brusquely.

  For the first time since Erik Dainler had arrived, Lawrence smiled at him. An unselfish gesture. “Well-played,” he replied, knowing that Erik would understand.