Page 96 of The Bride Wore White

“Forget it, Ella. You can’t hypnotize me. I’m immune. Probably because of my talent.”

“You have no idea what I can do with my ability,” Ella warned.

“Do you really believe that you can use a hypnotic suggestion to make me jump off a cliff? That’s what you’re planning, isn’t it? Forget it. You can’t make my death look like an accident. There is no way Jack Wingate will believe it, and he won’t stop looking for the killer, because he’s Jack Wingate. He likes answers.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Ella snapped, the musical currents vanishing from her voice as if by magic. “Get out of the car.”

“Good idea, because if you shoot me here, there will be a lot of blood and a great deal of evidence on the front seat. Then there’s the problem of the body. You’ll have to figure out how to get rid of it. Your clothes will be spattered with blood, too. Sadly, I’m afraid Jack Wingate will take one look at the scene and declare you to be an unhinged, poorly organized killer. How humiliating.”

“Get out of the car,” Ella hissed.

The pistol was starting to tremble in her hand. Her eyes were heating with a desperate energy. In another few seconds she would pull the trigger and worry about the blood-spattered front seat later.

“All right,” Prudence said. “I’ll get out of the car.”

She gripped the handle and opened the door.

Ella sucked in a steadying breath. The pistol no longer trembled.

“You really are a fraud, aren’t you?” she said.

“That has been suggested,” Prudence said.

She slipped out from behind the wheel, stepped down onto the ground, and started to back away.

“Don’t move,” Ella said, negotiating the process of getting out of the front seat while keeping the pistol aimed squarely at her target.

Prudence touched the crystal necklace and cautiously opened her senses to the dark storm of Ella’s dream energy. The fierce currents seethed and crashed, threatening to inundate her. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the pistol she feared, as dangerous as it was at such close quarters. It was the possibility that her mind might be overwhelmed, drowned, by Ella’s powerful talent.

This was what she had accidentally done to Julian on their wedding night, she realized. Now she understood the shock and fear in his eyes. She had glimpsed much worse in Tapson’s eyes before he collapsed on the floor of the reading room.

This is what it feels like to have a powerful psychic attack you, Prudence Ryland. But she knew how to fight back, because she was powerful, too.

She braced herself and began to focus her own energy, seeking to slip through the disturbing flashes of lightning, the darkness of nightmares, and the howling of the primal winds that swirled in Ella’s dream energy. She knew from experience that she could not fight such energy head-on. The key was to ride the waves to the center without being noticed.

Ella took a step away from the car. Her shoe skidded a little on the rough graveled drive. She steadied herself and motioned with the pistol.

“Start walking,” she said. The fierce currents of energy sang a Siren’s song in her voice. “The cliff.”

“Now, why would I walk to my own death?” Prudence asked softly. “You’re really not any good at this, are you?”

“There’s nothing to stop me from shooting you right here.” Ella tightened her grip on the gun.

“Have you ever actually fired a pistol?”

“I think I can manage. Turn around.”

Prudence hesitated and then slowly obeyed. The barrel of the gun pressed against the side of her head. Ella’s ungloved fingers touched the back of her neck. Prudence felt a terrifying energy burn through her senses. She knew then that Ella had learned that physical contact made it easier to gain and hold a focus.

“Walk to the edge of the cliffs,” Ella said in a powerful voice that would have done credit to a coloratura soprano.

The compulsion was almost overwhelming. Prudence felt like a leaf swept up in a tornado. But the physical connection between herself and Ella worked both ways. She fought her way through the howling winds of Ella’s dream energy. The process was exhausting. It took every ounce of strength she possessed to make progress without alerting Ella.

Suddenly she was there, hovering over the dark pit that fueled the other woman’s nightmares.

She gathered her nerve and her talent, and sent a lightning-fast burst of energy into the dark pit.

Ella stiffened. Her mouth opened on a silent scream. She convulsed.

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