Out of Body

by Stella Cameron

  “I don’t know what you mean. I have never failed you.”

  “We shall see.” He must regain the chinoiserie house. How long had it been gone? Where was it now? Was it safe? He choked on his own misgivings.

  With each dragging step his torment grew. The red house was his access to the renewing chambers of the Lower Place, Safehold as some citizens called Embran, where he had begun his existence centuries ago. Weeks back he had been warned that it was time to return, but unfinished business here had tempted him to gamble on how long he could put off going for the infusion that brought him back to his full might.

  He had obviously waited too far beyond his own limitations and an enemy had used his rare lapse in judgment to attempt to eliminate him.

  Who was it? Did he know? Had he already unearthed the identity? The possibility that his suspicions were correct made it almost impossible for him to go on.

  He paused to take a package from his robes. From inside the string-tied brown paper he removed a handful of dust and tiny bones. These he crammed into his mouth while he closed his eyes and waited for even the meager flush of strength the compound could bring. Eating the crushed shell and the bones of the dead Embran young inside had become his panacea for weakness. In the Lower Place, live young were used, but they could not be kept fresh on a journey to the Earth’s surface.

  A minute passed. And another. Nothing.

  He couldn’t wait any longer.

  Slowly, he stumbled down the stairs that led to the basement and his possible answer. Soon he would find out if his worst fear was a fact. If so he had to work fast, and do whatever he must to save himself.

  He heard his companion’s hoarse breathing and took a small pleasure from this one’s fear.

  The cold of the basement helped calm the throbbing in his thickened skin. Ignoring everything but making it to the ice vault in the farthest corner, he wrenched open the door and fell to all fours. Crawling, he made his way deep into the vaporous compartment. He didn’t bother to look up at the swinging hooks—his tools to cause ultimate fear.

  When he reached the first of the long row of white caskets, he started to count.

  Grunting, he pulled himself forward. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…there it was. Fourteen.

  With draining effort he hauled himself to his feet, tore off a hasp and raised the lid.

  Empty. His human wife’s body was gone. “How can this be?” he shrieked, turning on his companion. “Where is she? Your only duty has been to look after all of these.” He indicated the lined-up iced caskets.

  This was his way of making sure no one ever had proof that so many missing women were not only dead, but connected to him. Here, they would never be found and he was safe—unless some fool betrayed him!

  “She must be there,” the other one said. “I check the cooling systems regularly.”

  “You have not checked regularly enough.” He had come himself until every move he made became a decision. How long ago could that have been? Six months, seven—while the Lower Place had kept demanding his return? Then came the final desperate order and still he had ignored it—he had been so sure he could make it back at the very final moment. “When was the last time you opened this to make sure of the body’s condition?”

  A blank expression met him and rapidly turned to horror.

  “You have not been checking the body,” he whispered.

  He leaned over and scrabbled to pick up a folded piece of paper on the bottom of the casket. Once unfolded, the paper revealed familiar flamboyant handwriting:

  So now you know, husband. Did you forget the truth about me? I could always choose when I wanted to use my body. You should have made sure I was in my human form when you tried to kill me, old fool. I could not die if I wasn’t there.

  I have taken my body with me this time, After all, at last I can dance whenever and for whomever I please. You can’t stop me now. So you are welcome to sleep where you intended me to sleep forever. After all, you will need to keep as cold as possible—for as long as possible.

  But in the end you will give up and be gone forever.

  Your flesh will rot from your bones first—can you smell it decaying already? Then your organs will slough away. Your foul carcass will trap you long past the moment when you beg for death. Your loving wife celebrates your hell, Belle

  He screamed. Such a short time ago his frailty had forced him to leave that plantation house on River Road, and to leave Marley, who must know where Belle was. Belle knew too much, could make too much trouble. She could not be allowed to exist, but his only connection to her now was through Marley Millet.

  If only he was as he should be, he could have made her take him to the chinoiserie house.

  He must find a way back to her and force her to help him return to the Safehold in the Lower Place. Better yet, he would bring her to him here and get the information he needed. Dealing with Belle could wait.

  Slumped against the casket, he renewed his personal promise: a woman who displayed herself in lewd dance while men watched had not deserved to live, not if she had the honor of being his wife. Belle’s days were numbered.

  But it was the jazz singers who were his ongoing mission. Even he protected his own and one of his own had suffered through the arrogance of one of those singers. Somehow he would hang on until he had the revenge he had promised himself.

  He smiled. There he was making progress. Fear soaked the city. With each singer’s disappearance, others had become too afraid and given up. The most annoying were gone or ruined. Dealing with them had become an unexpected thrill beyond compare.

  His hide contracted painfully over his flesh and he stifled a howl.

  When he was renewed and returned with the use of a powerful young human body, he would be showered with the female attention he deserved, and this time he would be single-minded in his purpose—apart from allowing himself some small diversions to boost his powers. When he came back to this great city it would be to finish his work for the Embran and eliminate the rest of the Millets from the face of the earth.

  He struck his pathetic offspring who had let him down. “Worthless,” he told him. “You could not even make sure your mother was dead.”

  38

  Gray reached Marley and bent over her. He found a pulse in her neck. With his heart pounding, he turned her onto her back.

  Relief was short-lived. She looked bloodless and her flesh felt so cold it was hard. Her fisted hands pressed into her chest.

  “Nat,” he yelled, struggling out of his jacket. “I need the blanket from your kit. And anything else warm.”

  In seconds Nat skidded into the room. He looked from Gray to Marley and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He tossed it at Gray and ran out.

  Gray pulled his own shirt over Marley’s head, drew Nat’s on top and wrapped his jacket over everything. Marley’s eyelids flickered. She looked at him, but her eyes rolled to one side.

  “Don’t you die on me,” he said, shaking her. “I won’t let you die. Don’t try it.” He grabbed and held her against him, sat on the edge of the couch and chafed her back hard. He pulled the T-shirts down as far as they would go which, given her size, was knee-level. Wrapped against his naked chest she sent a deep chill all the way to his heart.

  “Hey, hey,” he murmured. To warm her hands he forced her fists beneath his arms. “Stay awake. Nat’s gone for a blanket. I’ll get you thawed out and you’ll feel better.”

  Her lips moved, but she didn’t speak.

  Nat pounded in and skidded to a halt beside Gray and Marley. He threw down an old plaid blanket, then snapped open the silver sheet from his kit. The thing wanted to float rather than be wrapped around her.

  “Rub her arms and legs,” Gray said, and they worked, side-by-side, pulling first one, then another limb free of the cocoon they had wrapped her in.

  She began to shake, a steady, rhythmic shuddering from head to foot. Her eyes were wide-open now.

  “You’re going to be oka
y,” Nat said. “We’d better call 911.”

  “No.” Marley croaked out the word. “I can’t do that. Don’t try to make me.”

  Gray could feel her panic. “Okay, okay. Calm down.”

  “I won’t go,” Marley said.

  “You don’t have to,” Gray said. He had been warned to take care of her himself and he wouldn’t fail.

  Nat kept rubbing an arm. “Let’s get her home, then,” he said. “She’d be better off in bed. It wouldn’t take too long to get her there.”

  Marley shook her head, no. She pulled away and sat on the couch with her hands clasped between her knees. “I can’t go there.” She hung her head forward.

  “Just let us get you home,” Gray said. He massaged her shoulders and held her face in his hands. “Being in your own bed will feel good, Marley.”

  “No,” she said through chattering teeth. “I’ve got things to do. I can’t go home.”

  She extended one fist and unfurled the fingers. A scrap of torn black fabric lay bunched in her palm.

  Nat moved closer to look. “Is it from someone’s clothing?”

  “Mine. In the warehouse…that thing, the creature tore my sleeve and he must have kept this. Tonight…here, he gave it back. He was letting me know he’s the one who took Pearl Brite.”

  “He was letting you know he can find you, too,” Gray murmured.

  Nat opened the space blanket bag and held it out. “Drop that in here,” he said.

  Marley did as he asked and turned her face into Gray’s shoulder.

  He met Nat’s eyes and the other man made a motion with his head, offering to leave. Gray nodded.

  “I’d better get back,” Nat said. “But I need to know where you’ll be.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Gray said. Marley still seemed as cold as ever.

  “My family would try to stop me,” she said and Gray knew what she meant. “Only because they love me and want to look after me,” she added quickly.

  “I’ll take you to my place,” he told her. He wanted time alone with her to go over not just the case, but what was happening to him. While he had waited for her outside this room—after the voices had faded, he had felt and visualized things he must understand and he needed to talk to Marley about them. “Gus will get the wrong idea when he sees you, but why not give him that pleasure?”

  Nat laughed, but Marley’s expression remained dull.

  “Is it okay to go to Gus and my place, Marley?” Gray said.

  She nodded and put her mouth near his ear. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to be, but I am.”

  Rather than answer, he picked her up and carried her to the front door where Nat let them all out.

  The night had turned heavy with the promise of another storm. A thick layer of tight warmth pressed in and the air was still. Gray hurried to put Marley in his car and as soon as the door was shut he walked around, passing Nat on the way.

  “This isn’t my first time with this kind of stuff,” Nat said, looking straight into Gray’s face. “Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I think so.” He didn’t want to be the first to reveal that he put a lot of credence in areas not readily accepted by all.

  “Before I met Wazoo, I thought it was all bunk. It’s not. There’s a lot we can’t see or touch, but it’s there. I feel we’re close to breaking this case.”

  “I don’t disagree. But I have to look out for Marley. She’s very vulnerable.”

  “I know,” Nat said. He gave a lopsided smile. “Now you know what it feels like to…Ah, hell. What it feels like to love someone with a side you can only guess at.”

  “Maybe.” He wasn’t giving everything away.

  “They get so deep under your skin, you can’t dig them out.”

  “So why aren’t you doing something about being with Wazoo all the time?” Gray felt Nat had opened the door to the question.

  “What makes you think I’m not trying?” Nat said and got into his Corvette. He waited until Gray left the property with Marley.

  When she opened her eyes, Marley stared into complete darkness for a moment. Lightning pierced windows and slashed across a room where she lay on a bed covered with a mound of blankets.

  She lay very still, afraid to move even her head.

  Then she heard breathing.

  The covers were pulled tight across her. Someone was lying beside her on top of the blankets.

  Dull pain throbbed from her temples to meet over her eyes. The side of her head felt raw.

  The face of a young, beautiful black woman hovered inches above her and Marley barely stopped herself from crying out. High, rounded cheekbones, liquid-black eyes with an Asian slant, full lips parted a little to show perfect teeth, and brows that winged away. Hair pulled smoothly back and fastened at the crown and the most perfect skin completed a stunning woman who looked at Marley with a desperate plea in her eyes.

  Marley couldn’t speak.

  Thunder rolled, quite close, and wherever she was, the building shook. Within moments lightning struck again. She should be hot under all the many covers, Marley thought, yet she was so cold.

  “Tell me what you want,” Marley said at last, forcing the words past a dry tongue and lips. “How can I help you?”

  “Help me, please.”

  “I want to.” Panic overwhelmed Marley. Of course, this was the cottage in Faubourg Marigny where Gray and his father lived. How could this vision come to her like this? She was always called by the Ushers and guided where she was to go, the way she was drawn through the portal that appeared in the red dollhouse.

  “I don’t have much longer,” the woman said. “He told me. He said you should come with me. He sent me for you.”

  “Who are you?” Marley felt mortally sick. The perpetrator of the wave of disappearances and killings, that’s who this one spoke of. Now he wanted Marley. Why hadn’t he taken her at the warehouse, or earlier, at Myrtle Wood?

  Drops fell on her face.

  The woman faded.

  Marley wiped at her cheeks, wiped away tears shed by the other.

  “Pearl Brite,” Gray said beside her.

  Stunned, she shook her head. “You saw her, too,” Marley whispered, trying to turn toward him. “How?”

  “I don’t know, but I did. And I’ve seen her pictures. Nat showed me.” He lifted the blankets and climbed into the bed beside Marley, took her in his arms and held her tightly. “Do we need help from someone with greater…with more of whatever we need to deal with this?”

  She sighed and pressed her face against his neck. “Each of us—those of us with parapsychological gifts, must carry our own burdens. That’s a law we live by. I was given a task to perform and I must do it. There are people in my family who are stronger than I am, but this isn’t their task to deal with and in trying to protect me, they could do something I couldn’t bear. They could seal off any chance I have to get to the ones who need me.”

  “You mean you must try to save Liza and Amber, and now Pearl, on your own?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’ve heard and seen things, Marley. Just as you said, I have powers, too, and they’re getting stronger. There were voices that came out of a whispering mass that told me I must protect you. They said I must be prepared to fight for you. And I am. I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

  She heard the slow, hard beat of her heart. “The Bonding,” she said. “I had forgotten all its parts.”

  “Explain.”

  “We are bonded, you and I. By a physical, sexual dynamic that was preordained. You have felt the pain and the strangeness and so have I. We will never touch without total awareness of each other. There is more, but I’m too tired now. Because we have a Bonding, we are responsible for each other. The Ushers must have sensed what has occurred between us.”

  “Ushers—”

  “The voices you heard. They are my guides. To a degree, my protectors, although they tend to panic when they worry about me.”

  �
�I know how they feel,” Gray said. “Tell me more about this Bonding.”

  The thought intimidated her. “In time, Gray. I have an unusual heritage, more unusual than you’ve guessed.”

  “I doubt it, sweet cakes.”

  “Sweet cakes?” The words exploded from her. “I’ve never been called—”

  “Well, you have now. And I never called anyone that before, so you’re special.” He sounded smug. “What the hell do we do next? I’d better bring Nat up to speed.”

  “He can’t help,” Marley said. “It will be up to me.”

  “Who is the other one?” Gray asked. “The man on his own?”

  She let her eyes close. “What man?”

  “The one I saw. Tall with long hair that’s turning gray. His face is young.”

  Marley held her breath. “Where?”

  “In your workroom. Then at Myrtle Wood. He said he was your mentor.”

  “Mentor?”

  “I think…I think he’s a ghost.”

  He held her tighter. Her eyes were wide-open now and she stared at his dark shape. “Are you sure?”

  “How would I know? I never saw a ghost—”

  “No. Are you sure he said he was the Mentor?”

  For an instant he was quiet, then he said, “Yes, that’s it. The Mentor. He told me…he warned me to be watchful for you.”

  Gray had seen the Mentor, talked to the Mentor. There couldn’t be any doubt of his existence—it was all true. And Gray was Bonded to her.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “I will be. I’ll know when it’s time to go for Pearl. The Ushers will agitate.” She looked at the gleam of his eyes and wrestled with the notion that he could well develop a mirror image of her skills. How would he deal with that? Or not deal with it? “I need to eat first.”

  Gray leaped from the bed and said, “I hope to hell there’s chocolate in this place.”