A stirring of energy across the far side of the room.
I stopped. Cat? Bear? Are you both okay?
They assured me that they were and then Cat added, But there is a ghost here.
The unease I’d felt when I first stepped into this room leapt back into focus. Given the number of women who must have been killed on this floor over the years Sal and his partners were dissecting and experimenting, there were plenty of reasons for ghosts to be here.
Plenty of reasons not to be afraid of them.
But this ghost was in the same room as the body of a man I’d murdered. And I really, really didn’t want it to be him.
Can you see it? Maybe even talk to it?
It hides its form, Cat said. I’m not sure it’s aware of our presence. It seems solely focused on what you’re doing.
The tension within me ratcheted another notch. Keep it that way, but warn me if it moves.
As their agreement ran through my mind, I pulled on the heavy gloves, then carefully undid the lids and lifted the first container.
But as I started to pour its contents over Sal’s body, the ghosts screamed a warning and the container was ripped from my hands. It flew across the room, spilling liquid all over the floor before skidding across a table and smashing into several glass vials.
Then, on the other side of Sal’s body, a figure began to form.
It wasn’t the ghostly form of any of the women who’d died here.
It was, as I’d feared, Sal himself.
Chapter 14
He looked so real it was tempting to reach out and touch him. To once again feel the heat of life in the man I’d once considered my closest—and probably only—friend.
But while he was real, his solidity was little more than an illusion. The newly dead tended to cling to the shape they’d worn in life, but over time, that necessity generally faded. Eventually, he’d become as insubstantial as any of the ghosts who inhabited my bunker.
His energy touched me, creating a link between us. It was an oddly gentle—almost tentative—caress, and yet there was nothing gentle or tentative about his expression or the steely, cold glitter in his eyes.
He knew who I was. Despite the fact that I’d changed my appearance, he knew me. But then, he always had.
How did you survive the poison I administered?
“I was able to get an antidote before it could take full effect.”
My Sal would have known the lie. But this one—the one who was a product of a rift and who contained the memories and the DNA of three others—seemed to remember very little about the war and our time together.
“Was it you who stole the two children yesterday?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You could hardly call it stealing; it was more a retrieval.”
Amusement touched his beautiful features, but there was something behind it that sent all sorts of warnings skidding through my mind. Sal had never been the type to stand around and chat. That meant he was doing so for a reason.
It was then I remembered that the rift hadn’t only merged their DNA, but created a mind link between them all—and there was no reason to presume that link had ended on his death.
Cat, Bear, you want to go watch the elevators and the stairwell? I’ve a bad feeling he might have called reinforcements.
As they raced off, Sal said, So why come back here? Why risk your life like that?
My smile held very little in the way of humor. “Why do you think I’m here?”
To erase my flesh so that it cannot be us