No Humans Involved (Otherworld 7)

She nodded. "But it was solid--or almost solid. The person inside could barely breathe."

I hurried back to the storage room and checked the shelf. The helmet was missing.

SUPERNATURAL CSI

HOPE PACED FROM ONE END of the storage room to the other. "No, it's not helping. I just keep seeing the same scene. That's usually how it is. If there's some way to see more, I haven't figured it out yet. I just get a snippet, playing over and over."

"Go through it again," Jeremy said. "In case I'm missing something."

From the frustration in Hope's face, I knew she thought he meant in case she'd missed something, but she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"Scene starts. Blackness. Can't breathe. Struggling. Restrained. First by hands, then those are gone but he still can't get away. There's a voice, but it echoes inside the helmet. Can't make out the words. Can't even tell whether it's a man or woman. Trying to scream, but can't, as if gagged, but..."

Hope opened her eyes. "It's like the person is gagged, but I don't feel one. Same with the restraints."

"A binding spell," Jeremy said.

"No, I've been caught in one of those before. It's not the same. This is..." She struggled for a comparison, then said, "Here, I'll try again."

Eyes closed. Back into the vision.

"Not a binding spell. Not restraints. The person wants to fight, but can't. Like his body won't respond. No--" She lifted a finger. "One more time. I'm getting it." Eyes closed. Deep breath. "The person is struggling. Screaming. But he's so weak, it doesn't matter." She opened her eyes. "That's it. Weakened. Like sedated but there's no feeling of being tired or sleepy. Just...drained."

"Magically drained," Jerem

y said.

"I'd say so."

"If it happened here, let's see whether I can find a trail."

I TOOK Hope to the office, saying we should take a look, see whether fresh eyes found anything new, but really, I was just giving Jeremy privacy. There's something very undignified about getting down on your hands and knees to snuffle the ground.

After about ten minutes, Jeremy called us back. The room was thick with trails. From our excursion the night before, he had a good idea which trails belonged to group members, but picking out "which of these doesn't belong" in the tiny closet was probably close to Hope's analogy of a bloodhound in a busy airport terminal. He'd sorted out three, maybe four scents he didn't recognize. One of them, presumably, was the victim.

"The others are probably cult members who missed last night's meeting. All the trails, though, eventually lead there." He pointed down at the trap door, having rolled back the carpet.

"Not surprising," I said. "If they're going to kill someone, that's where they'd do it."

"I'm not sure we have a murder victim. That was my first thought--that Botnick made contact with the group and they demanded proof of his loyalty."

"Human sacrifice," Hope said.

"But for all of the trails that go down, there's one coming back."

"Maybe Botnick lost his nerve," I said. "Or it was just a test to see whether he'd go through with it. In either case--" I pulled open the hatch, "--that means I'm not going to stumble across a corpse or a ghost screaming for vengeance, so I'm good."

"Hope?" Jeremy said. "A lack of a corpse won't make this any easier for you."

"I'll be fine."

HOPE STOPPED at the bottom of the ladder, rigid, as if she'd known this vision was coming, and braced for it. When it finished, she gave a soft sigh of relief.

"Same old, same old," she said. "He or she is in the helmet, can't see, can barely breathe, can't fight or scream. For chaos, it ranks about a four. Terror, but it's just fear of the unknown."

We looked around. The cavernous, crate-lined room looked exactly as we'd left it.

"Flecks of blood," Hope said, walking to the middle.