The Man Who Fell Read online

  “Don't you want to know?”

  “Know what?” he called back. “That you're gone? Back to your high class nut house? Yes!”

  “No. Why they did it?”

  “I already know. The guy was a psychopathic nut bag, and my wife somehow fell under his sway. Probably while she was screwing him.” That was fairly obvious to him. What wasn't so obvious was why it still bothered him so much. Maybe the thirty story fall had marked the memory indelibly into his brain. Or the fire he had seen flowing under her skin.

  “About the drugs.”

  “They were high. So what?” And it had been fairly obvious to him even as he was being thrown through the bedroom wall that the man was high on something. Before he'd thrown him out the window, roaring like a wild animal every step of the way. And Celeste had clearly taken something too. From the way she was yelling and shrieking enthusiastically at the top of her lungs. That still bothered him. He'd thought she was screaming, but he hadn't imagined it was with pleasure. She'd never screamed like that for him.

  The police had guessed the same when they'd walked into the apartment after the emergency call, only to discover the two of them still screwing each other like bunnies having thought they'd just killed him. Now the lover was in a coma clinic and Celeste was with her mother. She'd recovered somewhat from her drug taking, but her lover never would. The tattooed freak was according to the doctors, brain dead – but for some reason his body wouldn't stop breathing.

  “They were on the soldier drug.”

  “I don't know what that is,” Dale replied tiredly. “And I don't know who you are either. Some kid looking for fifteen seconds of fame at my expense? But I don't care. Just get off my property.” He continued his walk back to his house. Though maybe not to bed. To the kettle and some coffee. That worked on hangovers sometimes. More importantly, now that the girl had brought up the past he knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep.

  Now he just had to face his demons down again.

  Damn it all! Why the hell did she have to be on his property? Whoever she was? Why couldn't people just leave him in peace?

  Maybe coffee with a dash of something, would help more.

  Chapter Two

  Lara was pissed! Royally pissed! The bastard was immune! She hadn't expected that. Of course she'd known from the start that he was immune to the Ilans' gift. But that was a completely different thing. Their gift, however exactly it worked – and she was going to find that out – was chemical. Maybe it was a pheromone that their men breathed in and which turned their minds around. Maybe it was a hallucinogen in their sweat or other bodily secretions. And usually the Ilans did sleep with their lovers to take complete control of them. But her family's gift wasn't chemical at all. It wasn't physical. They made people see things purely through the power of their thoughts and their voice.

  But he was immune to that too!

  The police would never have spotted her in the tree. Not even if she'd fallen out of it! Hell they wouldn't have noticed an elephant falling out of it! But he had. And that while he was clearly nursing a hangover, had bloodshot eyes and could barely see straight.

  He should have been totally at her mercy. But instead she'd somehow ended up at his. People were going to be upset when they heard that. Her House was going to be upset. The Domani did not like it when people were immune to their suggestions.

  But that was a matter for later. As was the fact that he had shocked her with the way he looked. He was what, thirty? He looked ten or twenty years older than that. And he was scruffy. His hair was unkempt. And she suspected he'd lost weight despite the booze he was obviously drowning himself in. If there was anyone who didn't look like a professional architect, it was him.

  She'd seen photos of him from before he'd become the Birdman, and it was clear to her that the last few years had not been kind to Dale Fall. On the other hand he was lucky to be alive. So whatever had gone wrong for him, it was better than being dead.

  For the moment though, the question was – how had the police found her? Could this be Athena's doing? She worried at the thought.

  But it couldn't be! The woman had no idea she was around. She'd never spotted her – never looked for her. And there was clear evidence that her thoughts were confused. When she studied her Lara couldn't help but see the way things slipped in and out of focus in her mind. And feel the way she covered up her panic at the realisation that her mind wasn't operating as it should, with anger. And that was a bad thing in a woman with the strength of the gods in her hands.

  “So how did you guys find me?” she asked. If this was Athena's doing, she needed to know. And then she would probably need to run.

  “Phone.” One of the officers answered her simply.

  “You tracked my phone?!” That shocked her. How did they even know her phone number? Unless her parents had given them the number of course. They were worried about her.

  “Not your phone. Mr. Berryman's. He left it in the car.”

  “Oh!” Mr. Berryman she assumed, was the man she'd borrowed the car from. She hadn't actually asked him his name. Just made a few suggestions at the airport after the police had turned up at arrivals to take her away to the Pacific Centre. And that actually was her parents doing. They didn't want her going head to head with an Ilan. They wanted her home and safe.

  But the man she'd borrowed the car from shouldn't have even wondered that he didn't have it any longer for at least a week. She'd put a fair amount of strength into her suggestion.

  Still it wasn't Athena. The woman was still completely ignorant of her presence as she hunted down her quarry.

  And her quarry was completely ignorant of her presence in the country too. Or anything to do with the Ilan House.

  One thing had swiftly become clear to her when she'd seen Dale Fall – he had no idea what his ex-wife was. Celeste had clearly kept him in the dark. Lara had expected that. Ilan women were very careful to keep their husbands from discovering the truth. Any of it. That they were unnaturally strong. That they could make their lovers the same. And of course that they had lovers. They needed their husbands blissfully unaware and utterly loyal and they worked hard to keep them that way. More than that, they worked tirelessly to keep them happy. To make them believe that they were living in a blessed world.

  In truth they controlled every aspect of their lives very carefully. Shaping their careers precisely. Shaping their ambitions. Using them to advance their own ambitions and the needs of the House. And above all making certain that their husbands never found out the truth. And they were good at it. It couldn't be easy for them. Their husbands were immune to their gifts so they couldn't control them that way. So instead they controlled their husbands through the age old techniques of seduction and manipulation. Ilans learned the techniques from a very early age. It was almost an art form for them. It had to be, because when it went wrong, someone, a husband, might well go flying out of a thirtieth story building.

  Often she found herself wondering if the Ilans cared for their husbands at all. Or if they too were just tools for them to use as they advanced their family. Just like the lovers they took. There was certainly no desire involved in the marriage. Not for the wives. It didn't matter to them if their husbands were young or old, tall or short, fat or thin. It was only their potential that mattered. The men they married were always wealthy or able to become so. They were talented too. Perfect specimens for them to push and prod and shape into the success stories they wanted them to be. Men who would bring them wealth or status. Sometimes political power. They certainly never told them the truth.

  And apparently Celeste had done such a good job with Fall that even now, having seen her with another man and felt the ungodly strength of her lover, he still had no idea of the truth.

  She'd mentioned the soldier drug for a reason. To test his reactions to it. And he'd had none. He hadn't recognised the term or anything about the drug. Why would he? She'd made it up. But he also hadn't rejected it. If he'd known the tru
th, that their strength was a gift not a drug, a part of him would have instinctively rejected her claim. And she would have felt that. But he hadn't denied her claim on any level. He hadn't known. Celeste had trained him well.

  Or maybe he simply hadn't been curious as others were. Now he clearly didn't want to know. He was broken, and he couldn't deal with any more pain. So he just blocked it all out behind a wall of drink. And the only emotion she'd felt from him was fear. From the very instant she'd mentioned his past. The man stank of fear. More than fear, horror. But then he had been hurled out of a skyscraper. Shit only knew what sort of nightmare that must have been for him for those few seconds he'd spent expecting to die. And then the pain.

  For the moment though her concern wasn't him. It was getting out of the police car. Because she didn't want to end up down at the station giving details. If someone did a check on them later, they might notice a few other things out of the ordinary, such as the fact that according to customs she'd never entered the country at all! Passports were over rated! And the nice Customs people were always happy to just wave her through!

  Besides, her parents would be upset if they found out she'd been arrested. Or rather when they found out. And then there would be the lectures. The Clarkes did not get arrested.

  “So guys, nice trip out in the country?” She settled her nerves and got the ball rolling. Feeling their reactions to her question, to her voice. Listening to them almost as though they were her own. It was tricky having to bend the thoughts of two men at once, but she could do it. She could actually just force her will on them if she had to, but that was harder and it might leave her with a headache. It was better just to use a little suggestion. To get them to help her voluntarily. She just had to get them in sync. Thinking the same thoughts at the same time.

  “You think you're going to talk your way out of being taken back to the Centre?” the officer in the passenger seat asked. His companion chuckled. They both thought she was a runaway from the institution, just like a thousand others they'd no doubt picked up over the years.

  “Just making conversation. It's good to talk isn't it?” And the point was that they both responded to her question the same way, with suspicion underneath their instinctive agreement. They were police officers. They'd both been trained the same way, seen the same sorts of things and heard the same lines. They shared a very similar world view, and had almost the same reactions to whatever they heard. The officers were already almost in sync before she began. That made her work easier.

  “It's still not getting you out of here.”

  “But we both know that I'm not trying to do that,” she began, pushing a little more of her will on to them. Making them believe her. “Because I'm not a crazy person.”

  Lara reinforced that message on them. And another one about her not being a criminal. The more she reinforced that on them, the easier the rest would be. Because they locked up criminals and crazy people. If she wasn't one, why would they want to lock her up?

  “You know, the Pacific Centre's a really nice place,” she continued. She didn't actually know if it was. She'd never been there. She'd left the moment the police had arrived at the airport to take her there. As soon as they'd realised where she was going and why, her parents had decided they needed to put her somewhere, to stop her. To hold her until they could come and bring her back home. So they'd put out an international fugitive alert for her. They didn't realise how much her gift had grown these last few years.

  “In fact I want to go there. Don't you?”

  “Yes,” they answered her in harmony, and she knew she had them.

  Lara smiled. She always liked it when she persuaded someone to her needs. Simply forcing them was blunt and sometimes, she thought, wrong. But persuasion with just the lightest touch of pressure on someone's thoughts – that was artistry.

  “I mean, wouldn't it be good if one of their people could come and pick me up right now. It would save you a drive. And there'd be no paperwork.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know that the owner of that land didn't want to press charges. So really it's nothing but a complaint about an abandoned car. Five minutes work on the computer. And you have important work you should be doing.”

  “Yes.” They agreed.

  “Oh look, do you see a car up ahead?” Naturally she got the response she wanted. The road ahead was completely empty, but they saw the car. And they saw the markings on the side for the Pacific Centre when she told them they did. And then of course, they saw the logic in letting her go with the staff as it would save them a trip.

  Five minutes later she was standing on the side of the road while the two officers drove off thinking that they had done their job perfectly. And they would keep thinking that until something contradicted their memories of the day. After that they'd just be confused.

  Of course just as she was congratulating herself on a job well done, it suddenly occurred to her that maybe she'd made a slight strategic error. She was on an empty country road without any transport of her own. Her car – not that it was actually her car just one she'd borrowed – was still back on Dale Fall's property, soon no doubt, to be towed away. And then the man who had given it to her because he had simply felt so grateful to her for something, would be trying to explain to himself what he had been grateful for. In fact he'd already called the police about his phone since that was how she'd been caught. Something must have jarred him. Maybe a girlfriend asking him where his phone was, making him wonder.

  None of that mattered though. What mattered was that the road appeared to be deserted. There was no one around to give her a lift.

  Lara mentally kicked herself, and then started walking. Someone would turn up. Surely. Then she would get a lift back to Hamilton, pick up a new car and come up with a new plan. A plan that accounted for the unexpected fact that Dale Fall was completely immune to her gift. And while she was doing that she'd also have to work out where Athena Osgood was now and how many people she now had under her sway.

  But at least she had time. Athena had been nowhere close to working out where exactly Dale Fall lived. She wasn't a very bright woman, and not a particularly stable one either. Not at the moment. Not after she'd murdered her husband a week before. She was a woman on the edge and slowly slipping off. All her years of rigorous self control were starting to fail her.

  Lara wasn't sure why. Her husband as an immune should have kept her grounded. Instead something had gone horrible wrong there and she'd ripped his spine out in a fit of rage. Now he wasn't with her to keep her calm anymore. And she clearly wasn't able to control her impulses anymore either.

  Maybe that was why she hadn't taken any slaves? Her mind was slipping and so was her control. Maybe somewhere deep inside that mass of hormones and rage, the woman was starting to understand that things were going wrong.

  But what had started the cycle of instability? That was the question. Usually the Ilans could control themselves – at least until they no longer wanted to. Then of course things became a bloodbath and the House had to sweep everything away.

  And why was Athena suddenly looking for the mother, she asked herself as she walked? That was how she'd found her. She kept a track on the net of most of the Ilans from Manhattan. Just to see what their enemies were up to. And when Athena had turned up in New Zealand, started ranting and raving at the customs people about the mother and Dale Fall, and then escaped the airport by literally running through several walls, she'd seen her chance. Finally.

  But the mother was a myth, wasn't it? And even if it wasn't, what would make her imagine that it could be found here in New Zealand? With Dale Fall of all people? He clearly didn't have the mother. There was no mother. And he didn't know about the mother.

  After all, he was just a normal. Or an immune husband which was nearly the same. And they knew nothing. No more than a dog or a cat. They really were pets for their wives. Pampered perhaps, but still only animals.

  And Fall had been an excellent exa
mple of the breed. A rising star in the architectural world, he had the potential to not just make money, but to rise through social strata to become one of the elite. And maybe to provide Celeste with a daughter or two to continue the Ilan family's advance through the world. Until, of course, everything had gone wrong.

  Dale Fall's mistake had been to come home early from work one day. If he hadn't done that he would still probably be a happy little husband, completely unaware of who and what his wife was, and thinking his life was perfect. Until his wife ripped his spine out of course!

  Now though, Lara decided, it was her life that was the one that wasn't perfect. In fact it was very far from perfect. Her calves were starting to ache as she carried on walking down the road in heels. And the question for her was how long would it be before someone came along to give her a lift?

  Chapter Three