Free Seeing (Return of the Nine) by Viola Grace

Chapter One
     
     
    Vida walked through the memorial garden and touched some of the carefully cultivated flowers. Five and a half years since the Tokkel invasion and she still was frustrated by the dead end that her investigations led to.
    Every spare moment, she turned her mind to the stars and looked for those who had been lost. It was just too large a span to search.
    “Ms. Senior, we have an investigation we would like your assistance with.”
    The voice jarred her out of her remembrance.
    “Of course, Detective Morser.” She nodded toward the head of the colony’s police service. She blinked rapidly to clear the tears of frustration that always welled in the garden.
    “I am sorry to have intruded, but a woman has gone missing.”
    Vida straightened her shoulders and pulled her mind back to the here and now. “What does she look like?”
    “Same as the others, brown hair, brown eyes. It has been six years. I thought that this ended when the Tokkel came.” He muttered it as they walked out of the gardens.
    What he meant was that everyone in law enforcement had hoped that the killer had been one of those murdered by the attacking aliens. Apparently, that was not the case.
    “Do you remember how to do this?” Detective Morser spoke low as they settled in his car.
    “Yes, do you remember that I have to be where she was last seen? I can’t go to where the trail starts; I have to track her from earlier in the day. If I can’t see her before it happened, I won’t be able to find her.”
    “Yes, Ms. Senior.”
    He had tried to trick her the first two times, and it had resulted in the deaths of the two women. The third had been found in time, but it had been the day of the attack. Vina didn’t even know if the woman had survived the Tokkel after the other monster had taken her.
    Now, he was back again.
    The car rolled to a halt near the market place. She got out and looked around, getting the rhythm of the people in the area.
    “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 and see the 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 the abduction 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