In the gray fog, she could see Luke standing near the light switch. He did not look the least bit nervous, let alone claustrophobic, just very, very focused. That was irritating. It would have been satisfying to know that he had a shred of vulnerability. Instead, there was a hint of energy in his eyes.
She suddenly realized he was watching her intently. That answered one question. He might be a no-talent compared to the other members of his family, but he was not without a psychic vibe. He had some paranormal-grade night vision. A useful ability for an assassin.
Bruce the hellhound was watching her, too. But that was not surprising. Dogs have pretty good night vision.
She turned slowly, examining the room. There were no bloodstains, no body, and no obvious physical evidence, but the energylaid down by violent death had soaked into the well-worn wooden floorboards and permeated the walls. The currents of dark light came in a range of colors that her second sight had learned to interpret, at least to some extent.
“How does this work?” Luke asked.
“I’m going to go into a self-induced trance,” she said. “I will narrate what I see. I’ll do my best to observe details but don’t try to ask questions or direct me in any way. You’ll shatter the trance.”
Before he could say anything else, she gripped the handle of the chimes in one hand and lightly tapped a metal bar with the mallet. A crystalline note echoed in the room, sharp and clear. It seemed to linger endlessly. She rode it into her other vision, across the borderlands that separated the waking state from the dreaming state. As usual, the journey was surreal and disturbing. For a heartbeat or two the panic threatened to overwhelm her. No matter how many times she went into the trance she never overcame the fear of being trapped in the in-between world.
And just like that she was inside.
The first ghost materialized near the window, a dark, shadowy figure in the luminous gray light. He was smoking a cigarette.
Two
Bruce alerted, ears sharpening. Sophycould have sworn that there was some serious energy in his amber eyes. He growled softly.
“It’s all right,” she said to the dog. “The ghosts aren’t real.”
She was in her trance voice now. She knew it sounded eerie, as if she was one of the ghosts. But the dog did not seem to care. Maybe he was accustomed to creepy voices.
He padded forward and stopped beside her. When he leaned against her right leg she realized he was shivering with battle-ready tension. She rested a hand on his head.
“I know the feeling,” she said. “But it’s not real. You need to think of this as an instant replay.”
When, as a teen, she had begun encountering the shadowy figures that hovered near scenes of violence and tragedy, she had been traumatized by the possibility that she was seeing ghosts. Aunt Bea had explained that the visions were her intuition’s way of making sense of the paranormal energy deposited in such places. Violence of any kind left a lot of residual radiation. The spectral shadows were just an example of metaphysics in action.
Her logical side accepted the scientific explanation for the manifestations but that did not change the fact that when she was in the zone the phantoms seemed all too real. Nor did it alter her emotional and physical responses. Those she had to suppress with raw willpower.
She studied the smoking ghost.
“The curtains are closed but I can tell that it is night,” she said in her otherworldly voice. “A figure is pacing back and forth. I can’t make out a face or give you a description but something about the way he moves tells me I’m watching a man. He’s excited. Sweating. Smoking a cigarette. Working himself up to do something…intense. Thrilling. There’s a vibe of madness. It’s as if he can barely hang on to his control.”
She watched the shadowy figure stalk around the small space for a moment, trying to pick up more insights, but nothing else about the apparition stood out. She resumed the narration.
“He’s got something in his right hand. A gun, I think. He hears a sound that makes him go to the window. He peeks through the curtains. Now he’s even more excited but in a very sick way. I can sense the anticipation of violence in the energy he left behind. I think he hears a knock on the door because he suddenly heads back across the room. His energy field is suddenly spiking. He’s hot. On fire.”
“What do you mean byon fire?” Luke asked.
His question slipped into the dream in the most casual manner. For a second or two she wondered if it was her imagination. No one had ever been able to communicate with her while she was in the zone, not without breaking the trance. The awareness of just how alone she was when she employed her talent at full strength was one of the many reasons she hated doing crime scene work.
“Are you referring to his talent?” Luke continued when she did not respond.
She had not imagined it. He was communicating with her even though she was deep in the trance. For once she wasn’t alonein the ghost zone. But why did Luke Wells have to be the one person who could reach her?
She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was a professional. She concentrated on Smoking Ghost. Fierce, erratic waves of energy crackled in the air around the figure.
“He’s got a powerful talent of some kind,” she said, aware that she was still in her trance voice. “I think he intends to use his psychic ability to murder whoever is at the door.” She hesitated, trying to read the energy around the ghost. “It won’t be his first time. He knows it will give him a rush.”
“So he’s the killer,” Luke said on a note of cold satisfaction. “And we know he smokes. With luck he will have left some cigarette butts here in the cabin. I’ll look for them later. Try to get a read on his talent.”
“Will you please shut up?” she said in her other voice. “I’m about to witness a murder. Do you realize how much I hate watching someone get killed knowing there’s nothing I can do to stop it?”
“The murder has already happened. You’re just reconstructing the scene. This is what you do. You told Bruce it was a kind of instant replay.”
