That was almost the exact description Sam had given of the man she knew as Joe.
The man she seemed to place so much trust in, the man who seemed to hold so many answers about her past, was not only a murderer, but he might very well be the man they'd been hunting for so many years. The man who had vowed to subjugate or destroy the human race.
Sethanon.
* * * Sam crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.
The flock-patterned wallpaper scratched at her back, even through her sweater. Impossible, she knew, given the thickness of her sweater, and yet still her skin itched. Maybe it was just uneasiness. The growing sense that something was very, very wrong.
She frowned and scanned the old theater's foyer for the umpteenth time. The only ones standing out here were the usher, the pacing Wetherton and herself. Everyone else had gone inside to watch the show. And the usher didn't appear threatening—he was just a gray-haired old guy wearing a crisp blue suit and a bored expression.
There wasn't even a tingle along the psychic lines—no crawling knowledge that something was here that shouldn't be here.
And yet something was.
Or rather, someone was.
She could smell him. His scent was sharp, almost acidic, and though she couldn't immediately put a name or a face to the scent, recognition hummed through her.
And then it hit her.
Duncan King. The redheaded, green-eyed man who'd accompanied General Lloyd to their meet at Han's restaurant a few months ago.
At the time, she'd thought him to be nothing more than a psychic "drain," a leach who tried to suck all that he could from her mind via a seemingly harmless handshake.
But he was obviously a whole lot more. He could do invisible, for a start.
His scent was coming from the right—the same area where the bored usher stood, but more towards the corridor that led to the men's room.
There was no one actually standing there, of course. Even her psychic senses weren't coming to the party, which was odd.
Or maybe it wasn't.
When she and King had shaken hands in the restaurant, she'd not only felt the leaching sensation, but a power that was similar, and yet different, to the kind of energy that she felt in storms—one that was a little more "earthy" in feel than the ethereal energy of the storms, and yet not the same as the energy she'd drawn from the earth during her dream.
Who was to say that he hadn't been trying to use that energy to somehow make him immune to her senses? Maybe she wasn't even supposed to remember King's presence, let alone see him.
So why was he skulking around this foyer? Who was he here for?
Wetherton? Her? Or someone else altogether?
Either way, her best option right now was a cautious retreat.
Better safe than sorry when confronted by someone more than human—someone who didn't need a weapon to be dangerous.
Her dreams, and her experiences with Hopeworth of late, had taught her that much, at least.
She pushed away from the wall and approached Wetherton.
"Minister, I think your date has stood you up."
He scowled and glanced at his watch. "It's a business meeting, not a date. And I have no doubt he'll be here—the matter was important."
"He's over half an hour—" Her phone rang, stopping her mid-sentence. She grimaced and took it from her pocket, stepping away from Wetherton but making sure she kept within viable protecting distance just in case the scent that was King moved or attacked.
"Agent Ryan speaking."
"Sam? Gabriel."