Blood Ties by Kay Hooper

else.
    DeMarco’s unique double shield made him hypersensitive to the various energies associated with paranormal abilities, but only when he allowed the outer, protective shield to drop and concentrated on using what made the inner shield so remarkable: If his focus was good enough, he could either make that second shield vastly stronger and more impenetrable or else turn it into a kind of magnet that drew in and interpreted—so to speak—psychic energies.
    He couldn’t steal anyone else’s ability, but he could hamper their power to project anything forceful outward, and he could tune in to whatever frequency was being used.
    “Like a radio,” Quentin had once noted helpfully. “And every other psychic is on a different channel.”
    Which simplified an ability that was incredibly complex but defined it well for all of that.
    DeMarco was pretty sure somebody in the house was experiencing psychic phenomena. What he wasn’t sure of was whether that person was a threat—or was being threatened.
    Either way, it didn’t bode well.
    Swearing under his breath, DeMarco sat on the edge of the bed, then closed his eyes and began to concentrate, dropping his outer shield completely and attempting to tune in to whatever was happening.
    Almost immediately, he was hit with a wave of stark terror.
    F rowning, Diana said, “October? That was when you guys were tracking the killer of all those women in Boston, including Senator LeMott’s daughter, right?”
    “Yeah. The monster in this place—or a place identical to this—was the killer.”
    “Who was taken out of circulation. Locked up.”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “Then why are we here?”
    Hollis drew another of those get-a-grip breaths and said, “The end of that case turned out not to be. It was connected to what happened later, in January, in Grace.”
    “In North Carolina. The church, Samuel. Yeah, that was the party I didn’t get invited to.”
    “Be glad. We lost some good people there, and very nearly lost a lot more.”
    Diana didn’t like to think of Quentin—of the team —in danger, but she had read the reports and knew what had happened. She knew how terribly high a price had been demanded of them in order to stop that killer.
    “Samuel is dead. The church now is made up of a group of mostly bewildered people who aren’t even sure they want to be a church anymore, none of them a killer and none claiming apocalyptic visions. It’s over.”
    “Maybe not,” Hollis said, staring down each of the endless, featureless hallways in turn. “Maybe we only thought it was over.”
    “Hollis—”
    “Shouldn’t there be a guide by now?”
    “Maybe. Sometimes I have to walk a bit on my own before I find them. Or they find me.”
    “I really don’t want to explore these hallways, Diana.”
    “Hollis, this isn’t real. I mean, it’s like a dream; we aren’t here in the flesh. Nothing can hurt us here.”
    “Nice try, but I know enough about your gray time to know that if our spirits—our consciousness—get trapped here, somehow cut off from our bodies, then we don’t come back.”
    It was another reminder of something Diana didn’t like to think about, but she nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure that’s rare. Besides, I can handle it. I’ve been doing this nearly all my life, and I’ve never not found my way back out.”
    “First time for everything.”
    “You had to say it.”
    “Sorry. Diana, I find your gray time unnerving enough in concept, but to be here in this place is … Let’s just say I’ve been in some majorly scary situations, and this one is right up there with the worst of them.”
    “Okay, then, we leave. Now.” Diana gripped her fellow agent’s wrist and said, “Close your eyes and concentrate on the place you want to get back to. Your room in the B&B.”
    Hollis wavered visibly. “We might learn something here—”
    “Fear is weakness, and neither one of us wants to be weak here, trust me on that. We’re