Page 128 of Return of the Nine

“Winara Elwin was last seen here.”

“How long ago?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

“Picture please.” Vida pulled the length of gauze from her belt.

An image of a smiling woman was held out by the detective. Winara liked to smile, it showed in her picture and that was another thing she had in common with the other women.

Vida stared at the image, closed her eyes and tied them shut. She turned her head and watched as Winara went shopping.

Being able to navigate with her inner eye was a peculiar skill. Her parents had both been functionally blind after a chemical spill in their research lab, so navigating in the dark had seemed normal to Vida. She had no idea that other people could not see clearly in the dark until she was a teen, and she didn’t know that she did it with her eyes closed until she finished school.

Binding her eyes helped her move around in daylight andseethe psychic traces left behind by the living beings on Gaia. She had to see the woman in her normal daily activities and lock on to her. If she panicked, as she would if she were being abducted, the animal side of her nature would preclude getting a solid fix on her.

Vida moved swiftly through the market, tracing the path that the victim had taken until she found the alley where theabduction had taken place. She felt the panic, the pain that Winara had experienced.

Without a word, she picked up her speed, running blindfolded down the alley and onto the street where the victim had been shoved into a vehicle.

She sprinted six blocks, glad that she made running part of her daily exercise. The detective and others were on skimmers behind her.

Winara had been dragged out of the vehicle and into the building. Her energy was pulsing hotly inside. A dark shadow appeared next to her, and Vida hit the ground with a bolt in her shoulder.

She ripped the gauze off her eyes and crawled out of the line of fire as the city law enforcement gassed the interior of the small house. The darkness that was laid over her vision disappeared. He had killed himself.

The officers rushed inside, and Detective Morser came out with Winara in his arms. She had puffy eyes and tears from the gas, but she was alive with only minor scrapes and bruises.

Vida struggled to sit up, and she pressed her gauze blindfold to her shoulder. “Officer, if you could get me a med kit?”

He stared at her and swayed as if he didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, Morser came back and ordered a second medical unit to attend the scene while he grabbed one of the kits from an official vehicle.

“Well, Ms. Senior, the bolt went right through you. You are bleeding on both sides.”

She snorted. “That is what it feels like. Why are your officers freaked out?”

“You ran six blocks blindfolded and led us to a serial killer without so much as an interview.”

“You know that it is what I do.”

He sighed and applied pressure on her wound. “I know thatand they know that, but even with the Nine in orbit, it seems a little spooky.”

She straightened and winced. “That is it! Orbit. I need to get up there.”

“You aren’t going anywhere. This wound needs work.” He paused. “Thank you, by the way.”

“I am only sorry that I didn’t find him sooner. Now that I know what his darkness looked like, I could have tracked him anywhere.” She hissed as he shifted his hands.

“Stay still, Ms. Senior. You are bleeding excessively.”

The medics arrived and bustled her into the second vehicle. The victim in the first vehicle looked at her curiously, but her medics closed the door and drove off.

“What happened, miss?” The older medic removed the gauze from her shoulder and looked at the wound.

She sat and let them tend her while the vehicle swayed on the way to the hospital.

With a small smile, she said, “I was finally in the wrong spot at the right time.”

Chapter Two

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