Deadly Reckoning — Val Chanda

Tyler came out of her reverie, disquieted. She focused her attention outward, but the only presence with her was the wind. Still her thoughts had momentarily felt alien to her. Tyler sighed. It was time to go back to the hotel. She stood up. She shifted her weight as she prepared to walk away, but she never took the step. She froze. With a chill of apprehension, Tyler realized someone was near, someone who could not be a conventional perceiver. Someone who had screened their presence as only another psy perceiver could screen. Someone she had almost missed, except that a couple of minutes ago the careful screening had failed for a glimmering moment. She had dismissed it then, but not this time. A murmur of words answered her thought. "No. Not this time." Certainty formed in Tyler and with it an uncanny sense that an inevitable confrontation had finally arrived. Then Tyler heard her name, but this time the voice she heard spoke only in her mind. --Tyler.-- With the impartment of her name came regret, a strange prophetic sorrow for a loss that had not yet happened. And Tyler felt afraid because the sorrow and regret were for her.