A long pause. “Will do, Kal,” he whispered.
An hour later ….
“Done.” Alex wiped the sweat from his eyes.
Ornias’ body lay on the floor, the spell Shapes gone, the silver put away. His breathing was slow and even and his heartbeat seemed steady enough.
I sat there next to the body and pondered the situation. I’d basically forced Ghost into my scheme of placing his consciousness into Ornias’ body. The first spell Shape had trapped the demon, the second had forced the demon from the body and kept it from returning. The body had been identified as a lawyer who suffered traumatic brain injury in an automobile accident … had basically been brain dead. However, the body disappeared from the ICU before the staff turned off life support and all records showed no next of kin. He’d been all alone in the world—the perfect vessel for Ornias.
Now it was just a matter of seeing if the implantation worked. If it didn’t, then had I just murdered my friend? Or had I saved the world from a potentially lethal threat? I was at the crux of a whole ends justifying the means issue and sure felt conflicted about it.
“When will we know?” I asked.
Alex flopped back on the thick carpet. “When and if he wakes up.”
“You feeling some way about this, Alex?”
“Yeah, all bad.”
I leaned over the body. “We had to. We were losing him anyway.”
“I know.”
Brown eyes opened.
* * *
Look for the next From the Files of the BSI adventure:
Talladega Nightmares
* * *
Born in Helsinki, Finland, Mark Everett Stone arrived in the U.S. at a young age and promptly dove into the world of the fantastic. Starting at age seven with The Iliad and The Odyssey, he went on to consume every scrap of Norse Mythology he could get his grubby little paws on. At age thirteen he graduated to Tolkien and Heinlein, building up a book collection that soon rivaled the local public library’s. In college Mark majored in journalism and minored in English.
Mark has published six other books with Camel Press: Things to Do in Denver When You’re Un-Dead, What Happens in Vegas Dies in Vegas, I Left My Haunt in San Francisco, Chicago, The Windigo City, and Omaha Stakes (Books 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the From the Files of the BSI series) as well as The Judas Line, which was a finalist for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award in the Fantasy Category. Mark lives in California with his amazingly patient wife, Brandie, and their two sons, Aeden and Gabriel.
Next up: Talladega Nightmares and two books that continue the story that began with The Judas Line.
You can find Mark on the Web at markeverettstone.wix.com/mysite-1.
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