“Hollis?”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not okay. You’re in pain.”
“Stay out of my head.”
“I’m not in your head.” He took her arm and turned her to face him, frowning. “What is?”
Hollis realized her eyes were closed, and opened them slowly to look up at him. His aura was . . . very bright. It made her head hurt even more. It also made her squint.
“Hey, keep a lid on it,” she said.
“What?”
“Double shield. Top one’s wide open.”
After a moment, he said, “No, Hollis, it isn’t. Because of the energy up here, I’m closed up tight. Both shields.”
“Reading me.”
“Only your expression and posture.”
That surprised her. “I’m not broadcasting?”
“Not exactly.”
She wished her head would stop hurting; just because she could handle it didn’t mean it wasn’t a hell of a distraction. “Then what? Exactly?”
DeMarco hesitated, frowning. “Whispers. I can just barely hear them. Fading in and out, like a radio station almost out of range. Coming from you. But not you.”
Even with all the pain, Hollis felt a chill that didn’t owe anything at all to the cold wind picking up all around them. “Not me? You mean that bastard’s in here?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not yet. But trying.”
“What’s stopping it? I don’t have a shield, no matter what Brooke said. I don’t know . . . if I can keep the bastard out.”
DeMarco put both his hands on her shoulders. “We know what happens when I try to pull you into mine,”6 he said. “It muffles all your senses and makes it nearly impossible for you to use them the way you have to use them. You said the dead seemed more alive than the living.”
Hollis was doing her best to think clearly. “That was in a hospital. With lots of spirits. I haven’t seen any spirits up here. Give it a shot, will you?”
“I don’t like taking chances that might harm you, Hollis.”
“Listen, my head’s gonna explode if we don’t try something. And if Samuel is trying to get in, I’d really rather he didn’t. Try that dampening field of yours, and let’s hope it keeps that son of a bitch out. Please.”
There was no way he could deny that plea, especially when he knew better than most the sort of threat Samuel was capable of, the sort of damage he could do, so DeMarco closed his eyes and concentrated. Because he had done something like this before, and to protect Hollis—or try to—it was much easier than other times when he had been intent on preventing a very powerful psychic from using the full strength of his abilities.
He simply visualized a kind of bubble surrounding them both, protecting them.
He felt a sharp jab of pain in his head, just that one quick burst, and then, as he opened his eyes, he saw Hollis relax.
“Okay,” she said. “Better, much better.” She squinted a bit as she looked up at him. “But you still seem awfully bright. Your aura is like a hundred watts or something.”
“Your pupils are contracted,” he told her. “All the way.”
“Are they? Well, that would explain it. I wonder why they are.”
DeMarco didn’t let go of her shoulders. “What do you see when you look at the house.”
“The parsonage?” She turned her head, squinted again, then muttered, “Damn, I’d hoped it wouldn’t be red. It wouldn’t happen to be red to you, would it?”
“Actually, yes, it is.” Part of DeMarco was deeply relieved that he saw what she saw, because it told him the connection between them still existed—no matter how much Hollis would wave aside or even deny its existence.
But part of him, the trained investigator with a great deal of psychic ability and experience, was more than a little wary. Because he had no idea what this was. And he understood now why Hollis had found the experience of her dream so . . . creepy. Because it wasn’t like looking at a building painted red. It was looking at something . . . unnaturally coated in red.
“Well, I’m glad I’m not alone in seeing it,” she said and heard the relief in her own voice.
“I can see how you would be. Odd doesn’t begin to describe it.” He studied the parsonage. “And it seems a bit wavery.”
Since that was more the sort of word Hollis would use, she found it odd coming from him. “Wavery? What does that mean?”
“There’s a shimmer. Like heat off pavement. But not the whole building. Just places here and there.”
“But still a red building?”
“Still red.”
“And still red to me, more or less.” She looked at the second-floor window on the left and was relieved not to see the shadow man watching them.
Of course, that hardly meant he—or it—wasn’t waiting for them in the house.
“Still feel you need to go in there?”
“Yeah. More than ever. I don’t want to, but . . . It has to end here.”
“And you have to end it.”
She nodded.
“Do you know how you’re going to end it?”
“No idea. Brooke said I’d know when I had to know. Or something like that.”
“Not sure I like putting so much faith in a spirit.” He had seen her once himself, through that deeper connection with Hollis that had come from her channeling an enormous amount of energy while literally holding on to him as her anchor.
But he hadn’t seen any spirits since then, whether because Hollis hadn’t either or because that had been a temporary thing.
“Everything’s connected,” she said suddenly, as though answering a question he had asked.
“Yeah. Including us.” He shifted his hold so that their hands were linked. “Extending my shield seems to come easy when it’s you, but let’s not tempt fate, okay? Don’t let go.”
As they resumed walking toward the parsonage’s front door, she murmured, “You always seem to be protecting me or anchoring me or connecting to me.”
“I wondered when you’d notice.”
“Oh, I noticed. You know damned well I noticed.” She didn’t look at him. And changed the subject. “I wonder if the key is still under the flowerpot.”
“Bound to be. Small town.”
“And predictable.”
“Habits. Same thing, I guess.”
DeMarco was perfectly aware that they were talking the way kids whistled in a graveyard: because their surroundings made them uneasy. His inner shield tended to guard his thoughts and shut out the thoughts of others, but that had never been easy with Hollis; in fact, it had been all but impossible.
If he wasn’t careful, even her dreams seeped into his own sleep.
And the nightmares he was pretty sure she never remembered and he could never forget.
Something he wasn’t about to tell her.
Just as Melanie and Annabel burst into the door of the sheriff’s department, the whole place went dark. They froze instinctively, hearing several confused voices call out. And then the emergency generator kicked on, and the lights came on, flickering for several seconds.
Deputies and other staff settled back at their desks, frowning over equipment as various pieces rebooted. Or not.
“What the hell?” Melanie said.
The receptionist, a woman no more than a few years older than Melanie, stood at her desk instead of sitting and ran fingers through short, spiky hair that looked as if she’d been clutching it. A lot.
“Dammit, the whole place is going haywire,” she said. “Phones ringing with nobody on the other end, computers crashing—and now the power. And the storm isn’t even here yet.”
“Did Carl call you? The security guard from my building?”
Sadie shook her head. “If he did, he didn’t get through. I was barely able to talk to the sheriff before she and Agent James took off.”
“Took off where?”
“Up the mountain, I gather. After the other two agents.”
&n
bsp; “Why? I mean, why are they all going up there?”
“I don’t know,” Sadie replied, her tone the sharp one of someone pushed beyond normal limits. “Nobody was telling me anything even before the power went.”
Melanie leaned on the reception counter. “Listen, we have to start a search. Toby Gilmore vanished at least half an hour ago, maybe a bit longer.”
“What do you mean, vanished?”
“I mean she’s gone. She could be the murderer’s next target.”
“Miss James—”
“You have to get word to Trinity and Deacon, and the others. They have to know Toby is missing.”
Sadie stared at her for a moment, looked past her at Annabel’s frightened white face, then sat down and began trying to raise the sheriff.
Nothing except static greeted her efforts. The radio, the phone, every channel, every line—static.
“Hank, Joey,” Sadie said, turning to summon two of the deputies in the bullpen, “you two head up the mountain to the old church and tell the sheriff Miss Gilmore’s missing. Move it.”
She might not have been one of the deputies, but clearly Sadie’s word was law, because the two deputies lost no time in hurrying out the front door.
Melanie was about to say something else, but a sudden bolt of pain made her instinctively grab for her head. “Damn. Oh—damn.”
“Melanie?” Annabel was beside her, worried.
It felt like someone was trying to ram a spear through Melanie’s head. A hot spear. She bit back a groan and pressed her hands harder to each side of her head. What could be—
Melanie. Let me in, Melanie.
She hadn’t realized her eyes were closed until that inner whisper, oozing darkness, made her stare wildly around the room. Too familiar. That horrible slimy voice was too familiar.
But it couldn’t be. Because he was dead. She knew he was dead because she had felt it happen, months before. Samuel was dead.
“Melanie, what’s wrong?”
She looked at her friend almost blindly for a long moment, and then it was as if something clicked in her head, like a door quietly closing.
The pain was gone. And so was the voice. Thank God.
“Melanie?”
Annabel’s face came into focus, and Melanie heard herself saying calmly, “I’m fine. Really.”
And she felt fine, actually better than she had in at least a week. For about another minute and a half. And then the front doors opened, and two deputies with bewildered faces came in.
Sadie said, “I told you two to go—”
“We can’t go anywhere,” the older deputy said. “Two Jeeps outside and neither one will start. Dead as doornails, both of ’em. And that’s not all. There are a dozen people along the street standing beside their cars saying they won’t start, either.”
Annabel looked at Melanie, her face even whiter. “This feels like with the TV,” she whispered. “Like something else is in control.”
“Or trying to be,” Melanie said grimly.
—
“WHAT?” TRINITY ASKED her passenger.
“The pain’s gone. My headache. Gone.”
She sent him a glance, noted her dog’s position, then said, “You think it was Braden?”
Deacon reached up a hand to scratch the dog gently behind one ear. “Well, you said he wants to help. If he stopped the pain, he sure as hell helped me.”
The black dog made a soft little murmur of a sound, then lifted his head off Deacon’s shoulder.
Deacon instinctively braced himself, but the pain did not return.
“Well?” Trinity asked.
“Gone. If Braden didn’t do it, he has a wonderful sense of timing—and I have a different question. It could be that I’m just not feeling Hollis’s headache anymore. Which worries me a bit.”
“We’re almost at the church,” she said.
Only a few seconds later, they were there. Trinity parked her Jeep beside the black SUV, and they got out. Braden was already heading for the parsonage, with Trinity and Deacon following.
Both of them stopped at the same instant.
“Do you see—?” Trinity began.
Deacon said, “It wasn’t red yesterday, was it?”
“No. It’s never been red.”
“It is now.” He stared at the parsonage, which was not only red but decidedly odd in a way he couldn’t really define. Maybe . . . distorted somehow. Maybe. But only when he moved his gaze from place to place, as if he saw it through a lens that was made up of different thicknesses. Or as if he saw it through very old glass, before machine polishing had made it all perfect.
Braden was waiting for them, paused on the steps, head turned as he waited.
The front door appeared to be open.
“Trinity?”
“Yeah?”
“When did it snow up here?”
“The question,” she said, “is why the snow is only around the parsonage and graveyard.”
Deacon drew a breath and continued walking. Following footprints in the snow. Braden’s footprints.
“You know,” he said absently, “for someone who claims to have no experience with the paranormal, you’re handling all this very calmly.”
“It’s my nature.”
“To take things calmly? Or to suppress everything you’re feeling?”
“Are you trying to read my emotions?” She sounded very calm.
“No, I’m doing my best to keep my shields up,” he said frankly. “Because everything about this feels—to me—wrong. The snow, the red parsonage, the fact that Reese and Hollis came up here, all of it. Wrong. Yesterday there was a murder victim not too many yards behind us in front of the church, and today there’s a winter storm on the way—and I’m feeling pushed.”
“As if we’re going where we’re supposed to be. Where someone wants us to be. Their wishes and timing, not ours.”
Deacon noted she had not made it a question. “You feel that, too, huh?”
“Only since I saw the red parsonage.”
“Braden doesn’t seem bothered.”
He didn’t, just standing there waiting for them to join him on the steps.
“I don’t know if I feel safer with him,” Deacon said, “or if I should be even more worried.”
“He’s never led me into a dangerous situation,” Trinity noted.
“Just to two dead bodies.”
“There is that.”
“Think there’s another body in there?”
“If there is, it isn’t one of the surviving members of The Group. We know where every one of them was as of an hour ago, at least if everybody stayed put or didn’t break usual habits.”
“Except the other ones,” he noted. “The ones who were already dead before this started.” Still a yard back from the steps, he stopped and looked at Trinity. “Dead.”
She had stopped as well and frowned at him. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Hollis is a medium. A medium with a history of drawing spiritual energy to her. A medium who has a knack for handling all kinds of energies—in unexpected ways.”
“And that’s why we’re seeing the parsonage red? Why we’re seeing snow all around it? You think she’s opened some kind of door?”
“It’s as good an explanation as anything else I can think of.” He looked at the parsonage. “Although . . . if that’s what she’s done, Bishop’s going to have to add a whole new section to her file. We have another medium capable of pulling somebody into a spiritual realm she visits herself, but not in the flesh.
“You and I are wide awake and we’re definitely here. And I’ve never heard of anything like this before. My understanding is that there always has to be at least some kind of connection between the medium and whoever is also able to see and feel whatever comes through that open door.”
“Connection?”
“Yeah. Physical, emotional, psychic—or blood, as in a sibling or child or parent.”
“None
of that seems to apply to us, unless you’re connected to her psychically.”
“I’m not,” he said immediately. “The fact that I felt her headache was way more her than me, and whatever that was, it wasn’t a connection. More like . . . a shock wave. Or several.”
“Because she broadcasts.”
“I guess. But my shields are up and as strong as I know how to make them.”
“So you shouldn’t be affected by her psychic abilities.”
“No, not under normal circumstances. And you certainly shouldn’t.” He gestured with one hand toward the parsonage. “And yet.”
After a moment, and still oddly calm, Trinity said, “Maybe Hollis opened more than a door. Maybe she opened a portal. One much larger than for just a single person, or even two, to step through.”
“As in—a time portal?”
“Maybe. Or one into a different dimension. You’d know more about this stuff than I do.”
“Oh, no, I don’t,” he objected. “I’m an empath. I feel things other people feel. In this time, in this dimension.”
“You mean normal time and normal dimension. For us. Which I’m thinking is back there somewhere.”
It took him a moment, but then he realized. “We’re already in it. Whatever she did, whatever Hollis opened—we’re inside.”
“I’d say so. Inside—where the parsonage is red and just a little distorted, and where there’s snow all around.”
Deacon looked at the house, at the wide open door, at the dog waiting patiently on the steps. “And where we don’t know the rules,” he said slowly. “If it’s a different dimension, the rules are going to be different. The way things work. The way things are.”
“Still feeling pushed?” Trinity asked him.
“Or pulled. Hard to tell which. All I know is that I need to go inside.”
“Then let’s go,” she said.
—
YES, COME. COME into my world. Let me show you what I can do here.
—
BOTH DEACON AND Trinity were startled when, upon entering the weirdly red parsonage, they found Hollis and DeMarco standing calmly in the foyer, clearly waiting for them.