Blood Sins by Kay Hooper Page B

energy there is going to be . . . supercharged, for want of a better word."
    "You mean not just more but more powerful?"
    "Negative energy tends to be."
    Tessa frowned. "I can't say I like the sound of that."
    "None of us does. The problem is, most of us deal with positive energy--literally--in our own abilities. We don't know why, but that's what all the science we have to depend on is telling us."
    "Good guys equal positive? And bad guys equal negative?"
    "Weird, isn't it? Like I said, we don't know why that would be true. Maybe it's just a chemical thing in our brains; the same hardwiring that makes us inclined to be cops or investigators also makes our psychic abilities work from the positive pole. And whatever wiring gets crossed to produce a sociopath also causes any psychic energy to be negative in those particular brains."
    "Because it's all about balance."
    "That's the theory."
    "Mmm. So in this case my own abilities aren't going to work the way they always have?"
    "If I had to guess, especially after your experience today, I'd say probably not. Energy affects us. And negative energy can affect us in some really bad, really painful ways. I speak from bitter experience."
    "But there's no way for me to know just how my abilities may have changed--until the change becomes obvious?"
    "Yeah, pretty much. The good news is, it's seldom a drastically different ability but an expansion or enhancement of the ability or abilities you already possessed."
    Tessa had been warned about that, but as with so many things about being psychic, experience was really the only teacher. Up until now, she had never experienced any drastic change in her abilities--until she sat in that bathroom stall inside the Church of the Everlasting Sin and deliberately opened up her mind, expecting the usual jumble of thoughts and emotions.
    She had not expected actual physical sensations.
    Her body still felt sore from the waves of pain it had endured inside the church.
    And no use telling herself it had all been in her mind. Like most psychics, she had long ago discovered the often unpleasant truth that what happened in the mind could be and, in fact, usually was far more "real" than anything the outer five senses could claim.
    She tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, her mind replaying what she had seen and heard and sensed in that place, all the disjointed emotions and fragmented thoughts. Always circling back to that final, oddly chilling statement.
    I'm hungry.
    Who was hungry? Hungry for what? Everyone had certainly looked well-fed and, besides, every instinct told her it was not food that voice, that presence, hungered for. So what was it?
    And who was it that had offered the simple I see you ?
    A friend, or at least a potential ally? Someone trying to tell her that another mind up there was capable of communicating in silence and secret?
    Or bait on a hook?
    Tessa pulled her pillow around so that she was as much hugging it as resting her head on it, conscious of a strange, unsettling feeling. She kept wanting to look over her shoulder, though every time she did there was only her bedroom in the Gray family home, illuminated for her by the light she left on in her bathroom. It was, admittedly, a space that was still strange to her, but until this night she had not felt uneasy here.
    Not felt as though someone was watching her. Almost as though someone was, even now and very lightly, touching her back.
    Ridiculous. There's nobody watching. Nobody touching you. You're just tired and you need to sleep. So sleep. Get some rest, and tomorrow everything will be clearer. Tomorrow you'll have a better handle on what's going on here.
    Tessa wasn't at all sure she believed that, because a certainty inside her--deeper than instinct--insisted that during or after her trip to the Compound, something was different, changed, maybe even her. And it was a difference she didn't understand. She needed to understand, but her thoughts chased themselves in