Dark Choices - I. T. Lucas Page 0,24

Atzil and Ruvon. “You are welcome to join.”

Kalugal offered her his hand. “How have you been, Jin?”

Rufsur tensed. Had his boss forgotten what the girl could do with one touch?

Shaking his head, he tried to signal to Kalugal that it was a bad idea, but his boss ignored him.

“Excellent.” Holding on to Kalugal’s hand, Jin smiled, revealing a pair of small, pointy fangs. “They don’t hurt as badly anymore.”

“So who is going to the house?” Theo asked.

Rufsur looked at the butler. “Can you take our stuff and unload it in the house?”

Okidu bowed. “Of course, master.”

“Then I guess no one. Kalugal and I can walk.”

The moment the two golf carts drove off, Rufsur leaned to whisper in Kalugal’s ear, “Are you out of your fucking mind? Why did you let her touch you?”

Kalugal shrugged. “I forgot. But I’m not afraid of her tethering me again,” he said out loud even though Jay was trailing only a couple of feet behind them.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because now I know how it feels. Tethering me again would have amounted to an act of war, and I don’t think that is what my cousin has in mind.”

15

Kalugal

Kalugal pulled out the list of potential talents he’d gotten from Roberts and put it on the conference table. “How do you want to handle this?”

Kian reached for the list and scanned it. “Twelve names. Not bad for one week’s worth of collection.”

“Most, if not all, are probably worthless, but we won’t know until we check them out.” Kalugal pulled the list back. “The question is, who do we send to do that, my men or yours?”

“Before we do that, what about the program’s recruiters? They will also investigate these people. Do we wait for them to do that first and move in after them, or do we try to beat them to it?”

Kalugal had given it some thought. “Since this is all new, and we are still testing the waters, I suggest that we observe how they work and gather information. First order of business, your hackers should monitor the potential new recruits’ cellular and email communications. I can send men to plant listening devices in their homes as well. Based on the information we collect, we will decide on how to proceed.”

Kian nodded. “I like your cautious approach. By the way, is Eleanor, aka Marisol, still in the picture?”

Kalugal shook his head. “My men didn’t see her entering the facility since she left for the weekend last Friday, and I confirmed with Roberts that he’d fired her.” He chuckled. “He’s afraid of her.”

“The woman is a piece of work. Do we know what she’s up to?”

Kalugal frowned. “I thought that you were tracking her.”

“If she uses any major airport in the country, our facial recognition software will flag her, and we might assign her a tail if we think it’s worth our trouble. But we couldn’t put anything on her. It would have been detected by the sensors in the facility. Except, she probably doesn’t want Roberts to know what she is doing, and she might take precautions, like wearing specialized eyewear. There are new clear models available that look like prescription glasses.”

Kalugal crossed his arms over his chest. “I wonder what she will do next.”

Kian chuckled. “She might give you some competition. That’s the most profitable way to use her compulsion talent.”

The comment was a little insulting, especially since he was no longer doing that, but Kalugal let it go. “I hope that’s all she will do. Immunes make me uncomfortable.” He smiled. “Except for my wife, of course. Her immunity is actually beneficial to our marriage. I would have hated it if I unintentionally compelled her to do things that she didn’t wish to do.”

Kian arched a brow. “Does that happen to you? I thought that you were in complete control of your talent.”

“I have good control, but not complete. If I get angry or frustrated, my tone occasionally slips into the compulsory range.” He rubbed his chin. “I would love to find out how it works. It must have something to do with sound waves, but I tested mine, and there was nothing special about them.”

“It’s more than that,” Turner said. “Bridget has a theory that compellers are projecting another sort of force field or wave that we can’t detect, and it only hitches a ride on sound waves.”

“Fascinating hypothesis.” Kalugal leaned back, the gears in his head spinning fast in response to Bridget’s idea. “I should have realized that my ability stems