Colors, shapes, and motion flashed behind his eyes, trying to get past his mental barriers to form themselves into images. It had taken him years of meditation and self-discipline to learn how to block them from his thoughts, and even now it did not always work. But fortunately the keyboard had been recently manufactured, and had not had the time to acquire too many impressions. The older and more used an object was, the harder it was to keep its entire history out of his head.

Once the unrealized visions faded, he was free to use the keyboard without impairment. He brought up the Internet server and logged on to the account he maintained under the name of an ancient alchemist.

He hadn’t thought to check his e- mail while he’d been away, and more than three hundred new messages appeared on the inbox screen. A third of them were from Vulcan, and to save time he opened the most recent.

Subject: Aphrodite Lost

Date: 10/30/09 4:34:40 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

From: [email protected] /* */

To: Paracelsus

Only three things matter to us. The goddess Aphrodite prays for lost loves and no other divine contact means anything. Since this is the 14th through 16th prayers we call on Saint David to bring White magic back a.s.a.p.

Live Long and Prosper.

Your lucky Lotto numbers are: 62 7 64 35 25 20.

The code was simple, and determined by the numerical sequence of words in the second and third sentences of the e-mail. Taske read it again, this time picking out every third word: Aphrodite lost no contact since the 16th call David White a.s.a.p. The Lotto numbers provided the telephone number, and from the area code, it appeared David White was currently somewhere in northern California.

The news was distressing to Taske. Aphrodite was one of his oldest friends among the Takyn; the first he had discovered through the Internet. Over the years she had helped him in innumerable ways, especially in finding disciplines to help him control and refine his ability. Like him, she wrestled with a powerful talent that had scarred her emotionally, and while she had never discussed it in detail, he knew enough to guess that she was one of the few Takyn who could shape-shift.

Vulcan would not have requested him to call unless the situation was urgent, so Taske didn’t bother returning the e-mail. After putting on his gloves, he took a small device from his jacket and attached it between the desk phone’s base and the line leading to the wall jack. After switching it on, he picked up the receiver and dialed the Lotto numbers.

A voice answered in the middle of the first ring. “White.”

Although they had never spoken over the phone, Taske felt an immediate sense of recognition. They all shared a nameless connection that made them aware of one another in such strange ways. “It’s Paracelsus. I just received your message. Has there been any word?”

“Nothing yet. Is your line secure?”

“Yes. Tell me everything.”

Quickly the man he knew as Vulcan related the details of Aphrodite’s disappearance. The last time she had e-mailed Taske, she had told him that she was relocating to Boston, and would be out of touch for a week. Now she had gone missing for two.

“Why was she in New York City?” he asked when Vulcan had finished.

“I don’t know,” Vulcan admitted. “Maybe she wanted to see her adoptive family. I know she was raised there.”

Taske recalled one late-night IM session, during which Aphrodite had been unusually forthcoming about her youth. “She would never go back to them voluntarily; she’d live on the streets first. GenHance?”

“I’ve been trying to hack into their database, but I haven’t found a way in yet. Our watchers in Atlanta say no new acquisitions have been delivered since we lost Savannah.” He hesitated. “She left Matthias, and not on entirely good terms. She’s nursing a broken heart.”

He sighed. “Aren’t we all.”

“What I mean is, it’s possible that she wanted to go off the grid, break all contact with us.”

“Not Aphrodite,” Taske said firmly. “Have you checked the hospitals?”

“I’m monitoring them daily.” Vulcan sounded bleak. “No one matching her description has been admitted.”

That decided matters for him. “I’ll drive down to the city tonight. E-mail me the map with her last known position, a description of her motorcycle, and any photographs of her you may have.”

Vulcan uttered a dry chuckle. “And here I thought I’d have to talk you into going.” His voice grew serious. “Whatever has happened to her, we need to get her back.”

Taske looked at his gloved hand. “My friend, I won’t stop searching for her until we do.”

Chapter 10

Nella Hoff waited until Elliot Kirchner was engrossed in the view from his microscope before she let herself out of the secured analysis lab. Since she’d embarrassed him in front of Jonah Genaro, she’d been expecting some kind of chauvinistic backlash, probably in the form of making her into his personal gofer, but the chief geneticist’s attitude toward her remained seemingly unchanged. That disappointed her, because if he had been angry she might have used that to push him into a sexual encounter. Men loved to fuck women they despised; it was their favorite way of settling accounts and exerting dominance.

Nella understood because she felt the same way about men. Nothing turned her on more than cutting some self-important prick down to size between her thighs.

Since Kirchner wasn’t providing her with any new opportunities to get what she wanted, it was time for her to switch to her backup plan. After she visited the restroom to prepare, she took the elevator down to the security section.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Hoff,” the receptionist greeted her. “How may I help you?”

“I need to speak with Mr. Delaporte, if he can spare a few moments,” Nella said, glancing at the closed door of his office. “It’s in regard to some security measures in the lab.”

“Just a moment.” The receptionist picked up her phone, pressed an intercom button, and repeated what Nella had told her. Then she said, “Yes, sir. Thank you.” She hung up and smiled as she collected her purse out of her desk drawer. “Go right in, Dr. Hoff.”

Nella watched the receptionist leave, and then went to Delaporte’s door. She took a moment to fluff her hair before she went in.

“Dr. Hoff.” The chief of security stood up behind his desk. He indicated the chair across from him. “Please, have a seat.”

Nella smiled her thanks as she sat in the chair, allowing her skirt to ride up over her knees as she positioned herself. She pretended not to notice in order to give Delaporte an excellent view of her legs up to mid-thigh, where her stockings ended and her garter belt straps began.

Don Delaporte was one of Jonah Genaro’s most devoted sycophants, and normally Nella would never have trifled with him. He was overweight, mug- faced, and had the personality of a cardboard box. But on her first day at GenHance, when Kirchner had introduced her to him, she noticed a minor shift in his body language. The cues were subtle—slight tension in the shoulders, the droop of his eyelids, the not-too-firm grip he used for their handshake—but they told her he was attracted to her. Later, after some discreet chats with other female employees, she learned that the security chief had a thing for petite women—the smaller, the better.

“His last girlfriend was this little Asian girl,” one of the secretaries from accounting told Nella over lunch. “We thought she was his stepdaughter or something until Dave over in distribution found out she was divorced and had a kid and everything. Do you know what she called him, even in front of other people?” She snickered. “Big Daddy Don.”

A background check revealed more about Don Delaporte’s predilection for tiny women. The security chief had spent a considerable amount of time of his younger days in the military, and after being discharged had graduated to mercenary work. While his military and civil records were spotless, some of his former colleagues had attested to his fondness for spending his off-duty hours with the very young prostitutes. When he had served in Thailand for a year, he had even installed a teenage whore in his household, telling the other men that she cooked and cleaned for him.

It seemed “Big Daddy Don” Delaporte liked women whose bodies reminded him of the good old days, when he could buy a night with a tweenie for twenty bucks.

It sickened Nella to think that the only reason the security chief was drawn to her was because of her girlish build, but it had given her an advantage with him that she might otherwise not have. Now that she had gotten nowhere with Kirchner, she would have to use it.

“I told your assistant a little white lie,” Nella said, ducking her chin and twisting her fingers together in a nervous fashion. “I’m not here about the security of the lab. I need to report something I saw.” She deftly altered the pitch of her voice so that it sounded younger, more uncertain. “Something I don’t think I was supposed to see.”

Delaporte flipped open a notebook and picked up his pen. “Go ahead.”

“Do you have to write this down?” She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m very conflicted about this. You see, I’ve had some disagreements with the way Dr. Kirchner runs the analysis section. Reporting this, well, it might seem like sour grapes on my part.”

“The chairman expects us to do the right thing for the project and the company,” Delaporte told her in a distinctly paternal tone. “If you’ve seen something that in any way violates the rules or poses a threat to our security, you have to report it, Nella.”

Now she was Nella instead of Dr. Hoff. Appealing to him like some adolescent twit was working.

“All right.” She exhaled slowly, tremulously. “The other night I stayed late to monitor the simulations that were running. I could have checked them in the morning, of course, but with the project at such a crucial stage in development I feel I need to monitor everything closely. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”

He nodded his approval. “Go on.”