Cloak of Deceit

Chapter Ten

After a little more prodding, it turned out that Monique had already thought of using one of her hokey crystal inhibitors on me. She presented me with another prototype unit: a collar. If I hadn't already been on thin ice, I would have said hell no. Number one — I didn't want to be anyone's guinea pig. Number two — I was already enough of a pariah. I didn't need to walk around with a collar, like some freak experiment gone wrong.

Monique was kinder as she explained to me how it would feel awkward to have all of my psychic abilities nullified. There is a certain amount of psychic shielding and ability we all have naturally, a subconscious sense that protects us from interference in the environment and allows us to perceive fluctuations in the currents of energy around us.

The difference between "psychics" and regular people is just how developed this sense is. I could tell Monique counseled people on metaphysics for a living, and grudgingly had to admit she was good at it. The idea of less shielding in my situation sounded like reverse logic to me, but Monique sounded certain that inhibiting my "psychic center" was the only way to block out the Grigori completely. They had formed a link to me since my awakening, and blocking all psychic energy put me back under their radar as if I had never realized my powers. I knew arguing would get me nowhere — Julian was sold on the idea and seemed to trust Monique implicitly.

As vain as it was, most of my concerns about the collar were about how it would make me look. Yet on the inside, it made me uneasy too. Until then I had never recognized the senses she was talking about, or how much I relied on them, even before my real powers had come online. They're the tiny feelings in the back of your head that can alert you to danger, tell you when someone's lying, or give you a compulsion to take the long way home. You take them for granted, until they're gone. I felt completely naked, and I didn't like it one bit.

After she fitted the collar on me and activated it, Julian wanted to talk to Monique alone. I didn't like that idea either, but no one asked me. I got directions to find Carl, and petty or not, felt gratified to see a faint trace of irritation in Julian when I brought him up, which I decided to interpret as jealousy. At least it wasn't a one-way street with us.

When I left them to discuss their private business, I wondered if Julian would keep his word and tell me what they discussed if I asked. Sure, he had a history with Monique. But this time it had been me that brought Julian here. The least he could do was keep me in the loop.

I didn't know Monique, but even before the collar, it had been extremely difficult to get a read on her. Her aura appeared hazy in my mind — just a cloud of grey I knew wasn't real, like a smokescreen. She knew more about me and my abilities than I did. She definitely knew more about Julian than I did. I could have forgiven her all that, if she hadn't practically purred his name.

Ick.

She was gorgeous, and exotic, and obviously in the know. But really, what had Julian seen in her? Or, what did he see in me? We couldn't be more opposite.

I was running through a list of our dissimilarities as I made my way down the largest corridor in the building, and I must have turned down the wrong side hallway. They all looked the same — wood floors, evenly spaced sconces, and six panel doors with roman numerals on them. I turned a corner and tripped over something hard and sharp.

"Son of a!" I gritted my teeth and bent over to rub my shin. The metal contraption I had walked into rolled back, adjusted course and then came forward from around the corner. It was a motorized wheelchair, and a twenty-something man with spiked brown hair and glasses blinked brown eyes alight with laughter up at me.

"I'm so sorry." He had a cute Australian accent. "All right darling?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry! I didn't hear you coming."