FOUR

TALIA woke to a blinding brightness. Unforgiving hands pushed her down into a cruel bathtub of water filled with invisible icy knives. She fought, but the hands would not release her, and the blades speared ever deeper into her muscles.

Shivers racked her body in mean waves, and her heart galloped like a runaway horse, tripping on her chest and beating her deeper into the water.

A face leaned over, the overhead light shining like a solar halo around his head.

“Dr. O’Brien,” a low, male voice said. “You have heatstroke. We’re trying to bring your body temperature down.”

Heatstroke? That was a lie. She was freezing.

She cowered back and squeezed her eyes shut, intensifying the throb in her skull. They can’t find you in the dark. She gritted her teeth, but they still rattled in her head. Please don’t let them find me.

Her body knotted, clenching in her calves and at the small of her back. Her clothes, heavy and twisted, seemed glued to her skin. A sound echoed out. A cry building to a scream. She bit her lips—no screams, no dark devil—and grasped at the arms that held her.

“Patty says she’ll be cramping up pretty bad. She says we need to massage her legs and calves,” another said.

“Then get in here and hold her, so that I can,” the first answered.

The shape of a man crept low next to her.

Her stomach spasmed; she choked, felt herself abruptly lifted, and then she vomited over the side of the tub.

“Damn,” the second man said under his breath.

They settled her back in the water. A hard bar of an arm fell across her chest while merciless hands stroked deep into the muscles of her calves. Hurt. Bruised. The hands moved up to her thighs.

Strange hands on her body. No! She kicked again. A backlash of water swamped her.

“Settle down, Dr. O’Brien. You’re going to be okay. You need to drink a little. Can you do that for me?” The first voice again.

Something skimmed her lips. A straw. Her tongue felt too big to work it right. A splash of sour, sweet fluid hit her mouth and mingled with the acid of her vomit. Made her choke and cough.

“That’s it. Just a little more.”

She tried, but her shakes were too bad.

“More,” the voice commanded, losing its kindness.

She wanted to cry, but she did as she was told. Took in a deep drink.

“Watch her temperature,” the other man said. “We don’t want it to drop too low too fast. That’s supposed to be bad.”

A hand pressed on her forehead. Lingered there long enough for her to sense a well of great strength within its bearer. Then it was gone. “Still feels hot to me, but the ice water screwed with my hands. Did Patty say how long to keep her in the tub?”

“Until her temp comes down.”

Another hand touched to her head, too light and brief for her to sense anything. “I think she’s better.”

“Okay. Let’s get her up and her clothes off. Go get me something to wrap around her. Nothing heavy. Pull the sheet off the bed.”

The first man took hold under her arms and hauled her out of the water to stand dripping on the floor. In her clothes. Strange. He knelt before her, working the button on her cut-off jeans, peeling them downward, and shifting her weight so she could step out. He paused at her panties, but then stripped those down, too.

Mortifying, but she shook too much to do anything about it. She glanced away from his ministrations and got a brief impression of a small bedroom, spare and utilitarian. Smelled like a garage.

“Scissors,” the man stripping her called.

A sudden sob escaped her. Her weight swayed forward and she dropped her hands to the man’s shoulders.

A warm arm went up around her waist to steady her. His hand, hot on her waist, branded her with a sense of his strength and purpose. Cued a sensory memory of that very same arm turning her in darkness so that her body was sandwiched—shielded—by his and the wall of a building. The monster not three paces away…

Scissors started up her shirt. They parted her bra, too, which didn’t make any sense because the clasp was in the back. Then he shrugged the sodden fabric off her shoulders like a jacket.

A deep freeze wafted over her shoulders as a white sheet billowed open and swaddled her. The man lifted her off her feet and gently placed her on a hard chair.

“Drink,” he said.

She complied. The sour fluid made her stomach roll.

“Did you ever find a thermometer?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No. Not part of the first-aid kit.”

The hand went heavy on her forehead again. “Is the plane ready?”

“Should be, yes,” the other answered. “The doctor will be a few more minutes.”

Plane? The straw hit her upper lip.

“Drink,” the man commanded, again.

She pulled some fluid into her mouth.

“What is this?” Her throat felt raw, voice scratchy. Speaking took too much effort.

The man crouched down near her feet. His eyes were gray-blue, like the ocean, but steady and intent under dark brows drawn together in concentration. An angry abrasion pebbled with scabs crossed his forehead below a short crop of dark hair. He had tan skin, lined slightly at the outer edges of his eyes, but not with laughter. It was a serious face, handsome in its symmetry and lines, but tight with care, disquiet, and trouble.

“It’s just water and sugar.” His voice was back to kind, its low timbre soothing and warm.

“Lime Gatorade,” the other one amended.

“Talia, I’m Adam Thorne. This is my friend, Custo Santovari. We’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

A million questions seeped through her confusion. They hurt almost as much as her body. But one superseded them all and was worth the energy it cost to form the words.

“Am I crazy?”

He smiled. “No. The world’s gone crazy, but you’re just fine. It took an amazing amount of courage to elude the wraiths for so long. You’re safe now. I won’t let anything touch you.”

Adam stooped and lifted her. Her body pressed against his chest, an arm pinned uncomfortably tight between them. He smelled good—a hint of citrus coming off his jaw, darkened by the labor of the day.

At her hip, wetness spread as the dry sheet absorbed water from his clothes.

Down a narrow hallway. Concrete floors. Long, fluorescent tubes running overhead. Then out into the night across a tarmac to a small plane, white stairs folded down as if awaiting the president or vacationers from an island getaway.

Adam didn’t pause at the stairs, but powered up them, his heart drumming against her side with the extra work of her weight. He maneuvered her inside, passed the bulk of a wall and through a door to tuck her into a buttery leather seat.

She was hot, sweat prickling at her scalp, and she couldn’t quite seem to catch her breath. He reclined the seat to engage a footrest. A drink appeared at her side from an attendant she had not noticed on boarding. The cabin both spun and tilted at the same time.

Adam brought the glass to her lips. “Easy now.”

Cool fluid filled her mouth, splashed her throat, and dripped down her chin. The cabin lost its color and dimmed. Her darkness rolled over her. Claimed her again.

“Where’s the goddamned doctor?” Adam shouted.

She reached out blindly for something to hold on to, desperate to keep from drowning. She found Adam, his strength an anchor in the storm of shadows shuddering around her. And beyond their deep, layered depths: Glowing red eyes. Black wind. The devil lurking in the darkness.

Adam watched as Talia descended into a series of tremors, black irises swallowed by dilating pupils.

He dropped the glass he held to her lips and found it again when his knee crushed the broken shards as he knelt to restrain her hands, striking out in clumsy defense at imagined attackers. The cabin went black, lights dimming as the sound of the engine distorted to a hiss, then roared back to life.

Shit. One emergency at a time, please.

Adam fought through the dark to grip Talia’s wrists so that she didn’t harm herself. The lights flickered back on. Good.

He peered down into her eyes, willing her condition to stabilize. “Help’s coming. You’re going to be all right. Stay with me, Talia. Just hold on.”

Her trembling abated, breath ragged, pulse wild under his fingers. Skin burning again.

Behind him, the plane’s door thumped closed as the handlebar engaged to lock for flight. Adam glanced over his shoulder. Custo accompanied a short Asian man bearing two large satchels marked with a red cross and a middle-aged woman holding another.

“She just had some sort of a seizure,” Adam informed them.

Talia shuddered again under his arms, but he held fast. He caught the moment her lids closed over the whites of her eyes. And—damn it—the lights of the airplane flickered into darkness as the engine whined again.

“Doctor!” Adam barked, then said more quietly, “It’s okay, Talia. Hold on. Help is here.”

But help didn’t arrive. The cabin of the plane remained blackened while Talia trembled uncontrollably on the seat. Adam’s heart thudded as he tried in vain to control and comfort her simultaneously.

“Custo!” No answer. Adam couldn’t see a damn thing in the darkness. Where the hell was the doctor? Where the hell was Custo?

Securing a new plane, Adam hoped. This one was obviously not fit for flight.

Talia’s tremors subsided until only her chest hitched in shallow hiccups. Adam found her hot cheek and brushed away the twisted strands of hair that covered her face. Her chin quivered under his fingertips as she wept without tears.

Adam understood. Between the constant terror of the wraith’s pursuit and her current physical condition, Talia would need considerable time and care to return to health.

“You’re safe with me, Talia. Just rest. Everything is going to be fine.” I hope.

Adam’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark until he could just make out the shape of her face condensing into solid form. Her skin gleamed against the backdrop of shadows. Downright ghostly. Disturbingly so. Her gaze sought his, the set of her eyes unusually slanted, and she seemed to relax. The cabin lightened further.

Her features and coloring were a study in contrasts. He found the combination interesting. Strangely so. She reminded him of Jacob, perfect in some otherworldly way and yet, not. But it was the simultaneous lightening and darkening of the surroundings with her seizures that jarred him. Coincidence?

The nurse and doctor rushed forward and dropped their bags on the floor. Adam drew back, knees smarting from glass, to allow room for them to work.

No. The concurrent return of Talia’s lucidity and the shift in their environment from mute darkness to light could not be denied. The same damn thing had happened with her in the alley when darkness had blotted out the stars, the light from the street, even the glow from the apartment windows above. The wraith approached, and what had she said? Use the dark.

The wraith had not attacked until Talia had passed out, when the darkness receded.

Talia’s gaze sought Adam, her oddly tipped eyes looking to him for assurance. He forced himself to smile and nod: You’re going to be okay, now.

As Adam glanced out the window, he was surprised to find the plane had taken off during the blackout without incident. Adam lowered into a seat across the aisle from Talia and her doctor, his mind blazing through the implications.

Talia hadn’t altered the environment, only his perception of the environment. Altered the wraith’s perceptions in the alley, too.

Handy, that. No wonder the wraiths were so determined to fi nd her.

Whatever had happened, the event was localized to her immediate area. The plane and its captain were unaffected, taking off, business as usual.

“Did that scare the shit out of you, too?” Custo put a hand to the back of his neck.

“I think we’ll be okay,” Adam said. “Talia’s doing it.”

“You can’t be serious.” Custo dropped into the seat opposite Adam.

Adam continued his thoughts aloud. “The dark. The strange sounds. She’s doing it somehow. I figured the wraiths were after her because of the Shadowman mention in her paper, but maybe it’s something more. She’s not normal.”

“Wraith?” Custo’s gaze shifted to Talia’s supine body.

Adam took in her white face, the deep circles under her eyes.

“No. She’s seems to be having a typical response to the extreme heat. Frankly, I don’t know what she is. We may have stumbled onto something here that will finally give us some leverage against the wraiths.”

The idea made him both cautious and excited, as if he had just found a rare butterfly in an urban jungle. He dropped his gaze to the floor. He needed time to think events through. To disregard all his conclusions and open himself up to new ones.

He took a deep, steeling breath. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I want all the information there is on her. I want friends, professors, neighbors questioned. I want birth records, medical records, report cards. Anything and everything.”

“We have a good start already from our missing-persons search. I’ll go back further, dig deeper,” Custo answered. “And for chrissake, when the doctor is done with Talia, make sure to have him take a look at you. You look like hell.”

Gray. The perfect color. A little darkness, a little light. Talia was comfortable here.

The wind whispered a nonsense of soft, punctuated s’s. “…she’s stable. Sleeping soundly…”

Talia opened her eyes. She lay in an unfamiliar twin bed, covers folded across her chest and tucked under her arms. The walls beyond were painted a soft yellow, unadorned. A bare table stood at the foot of the bed. No windows.

She glanced down at the shape of her body. It seemed foreign to her, a long and shallow mound under a light blanket. A clear tube tethered her to a bag of fluid in her peripheral vision.

Beep. Her eyes flicked over. Beep. A monitor of sorts displayed a line dancing with sharp peaks and valleys. Beep.

Heartbeat. That was something, at least.

She tried her legs, twitching her feet and pulling a knee up. Her joints ached, and a prickling told her she had to pee.

She shifted her hips.

Something was already between her legs. Burned, that.

Her stomach tightening, she slid a hand under the covers to investigate.

No panties. Narrow tube. Oh, God.

“Hello?” she called. “Somebody?”

She held her breath, listening. Then tried again. “Hello?”

Abruptly, the door opened. A woman in a lab coat entered, smiling brightly. She was fiftyish, short, a little heavy, with sensible short brown hair. “Well, hello to you, too, Talia. I’m Dr. Riggs. Patty.”

Dr. Riggs lifted the covers at the bottom of the bed and raised a plastic bag half filled with pale yellow fluid. “Good girl.”

Her eyes rested on the heart-monitoring machine, then met Talia’s gaze. “Excellent. You’re doing much better. How do you feel?”

“Um…confused?”

Dr. Riggs’s smile broadened. “No kidding. You’ve had rather acute hyperthermia. Heatstroke. It can be very dangerous. Renal failure. Heart attack. You were in pretty bad shape when I got you, but you’re making excellent progress now. You’ll probably experience some lingering effects like confusion and temperature sensitivity. We’ll work on the confusion. Are you too hot or cold?”

“No…” Talia had much more pressing worries. “Where am I?”

“The Segue Institute. It’s a research facility.”

“What am I doing here?”

“You’re here for research. Adam will explain it better. Let me call him, and then I’ll take care of that catheter for you.” Dr. Riggs flashed her bright smile again and exited the room.

Talia froze. She was here for research. So someone could prick her and prod her until they discovered how she worked.

Put me in a maze like a rat. Might as well have left in me in that alley. At least those rats were free.

The door thumped, banged, then reopened. Dr. Riggs pushed in a metal cart and parked it at the side of the bed. “Adam will be right over. Let’s remove the catheter and get you comfortable. I’m sure you will have a lot to talk about.”

Dr. Riggs flipped up the sheet from the bottom and crouched embarrassingly low. “Can you bring your legs up? A little more?”

Did she have an alternative?

“This might be uncomfortable, but it will pass quickly.” Dr. Riggs wore gloves so Talia couldn’t gauge her intentions or personality by her touch. Frustrating.

Talia held her breath. A burning sting shot inside her.

“There, now,” Dr. Riggs said, standing. “You’ll have the IV until the rest of that bag empties, but let’s get you out of bed and moving.”

Talia nodded. The floor was icy on her feet, all the little bones painfully brittle, but she pulled herself up—Dr. Riggs at her elbow—and shuffled toward the door. The hospital gown gaped at the back, but she lacked a third arm to hold it shut. A cold shiver spiraled up beneath.

Dr. Riggs reached down to a lower shelf on the cart and grabbed a robe that Talia had not noticed. She helped her with the right sleeve. “We’ll just wrap this around your left side until you get the IV out.”

Talia hobbled out the door into…a large, comfortable lab. Of sorts. To one side, it seemed a typical research environment: Stainless-steel counters lined the wall and were placed at parallel and right angles in the middle of the room. Machines of several varieties vied for space. Smaller apparatus, microscope, and computers all had their corners.

The other side of the room was dominated by a flowery sofa set, tufted and pillowed with a matching chair. A colorful rug in an indistinct pattern of blues and reds covered the floor, over which a large coffee table hulked with elaborate rolled legs. A picture of a little white dog sat framed on its surface, next to an empty coffee cup, plate with crumbs, and some strange printout filled with rows of almost-microscopic numbers.

“The chair,” Dr. Riggs directed.

Talia was soon tucked in softness. Dr. Riggs reached down and assisted Talia to put her feet up on the table.

“You okay?” Dr. Riggs asked.

“I’m more confused.” Talia’s gaze wandered the room for emphasis.

Dr. Riggs chuckled. “This is my personal lab. We all have our own work space, what we need for work, and enough creature comforts to tailor Segue to our personalities and needs.”

Dr. Riggs gestured to the photo of the dog as she took a seat on the sofa. “Handsome is in my apartment upstairs. He used to play with me in the lab, but after a little mishap two months ago, he’s been banished.”

Apartment upstairs?

Across the lab, two doors slid open and Adam entered, striding in as if he knew his way around. He wore dark slacks and a blue button-down shirt, open at the collar. He was taller than Talia remembered, and he’d shaved, though a scabby rash still smeared across his forehead to his temple. But the eyes were the same. Stormy ocean eyes.

Talia tried to sit up. Without him, she’d have lost herself.

He waved her back. “Dr. O’Brien, relax. Please.”

She let herself ease into the cushions, but inwardly she remained upright.

“I’ll be just outside,” Dr. Riggs said, meeting Adam’s gaze in a silent signal. Their communication set Talia’s heart beating faster.

Adam took a seat on the sofa and leaned back, arm propped on a pillow. The pose seemed relaxed, but carefully restrained energy hummed just below the surface. His gaze was cool, level, and appraising, belying the ease of his posture. Something about the man told Talia that he was rarely one to be still.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

That’s not important. “Where am I?”

“You’re at The Segue Institute. I founded it a little over six years ago to research the wraith phenomenon.”

Wraith. “Is that what was in the alley? A wraith?” The word felt strange in her mouth, but solid. Grounding. It was good to finally attach a name to the soul-suckers that had been following her for—she didn’t know how long. Another thing to thank Adam for.

“Yes. That was a wraith. He was once a normal person, but something—and we don’t know what—happened to augment his physical strength, senses, and regenerative capacity to the point of immortality.”

“And what they do…?” An image of Grady’s sick kiss, Melanie flailing, came unbidden to Talia’s mind.

Adam’s eyes darkened. “They feed on human life energy.”

Talia shook her head, remembering the echo of Melanie’s self as it was ripped from its moorings. “They feed on more than that.” She was certain they fed on something more distinct and individual than “human energy.”

Adam frowned, seeming to draw inside himself. “Perhaps. As far as we can tell, feeding does not sustain them physically. We think the act grounds them. Gives them a grip on humanity.”

Talia swallowed, hard. “And me?”

He smiled, although the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “And you wrote a very interesting dissertation. It was posted online by your anthropology department on April twenty-sixth, two days after you defended your doctorate.”

That wasn’t what she meant by her question—she’d meant, What do you plan to do with me?—but she let him continue. “So?”

“You had some provocative…suppositions about the boundary between life and death. I was ready to offer you a position here based on your work, but you’d disappeared.”

“I don’t understand. What does my diss have to do with wraiths?”

“The Segue Institute exists for the express purpose of discovering how to kill a wraith. We are trying to learn some other things along the way as well, but only as they support our first goal. We have on-staff physicians, academics, para-psychologists…and now I am hoping to get an expert on near-death experiences.”

Me. “But why all the fuss? There are others more knowledgeable on the subject. You didn’t have to track me down to an alley…” Or put your body in front of mine during an attack.

Adam held up a hand to stop her. “I’ve done my research and out of the handful of people dedicated to near-death, only you retain an objective point of view. Most of the others are dedicated to confirming life after death. Segue does not have any spiritual or religious agenda. Instead, I want to learn about the laws or forces that dictate what happens at the brink of death, and any ideas you might have on the exceptions to the rules.”

Still… There had to be a more specific reason he had selected her. Others were capable of unbiased research.

“Why me?”

Adam shifted into a more intent posture, leaning toward her, his shirt stretching with the breadth of his shoulders, elbows on knees. His fingers laced together, swollen and bruised across one set of knuckles.

His gaze locked on hers, watching. Evaluating. “One of your sources mentioned Shadowman, an individual I would very much like to learn more about.”

Panic flared, and she fought to keep her composure.

Shadowman. Her father. The dark and beautiful man she’d met once, right after the car accident when she was fifteen. The near-death experience that inspired her work. Her father, the enigma of her life, had come to greet her on her passing. She’d seen the tilt of his eyes and known with shattering clarity that she was like him, whatever he was. And she didn’t care what that was, as long as she wasn’t alone with her strangeness anymore. Then he’d been ripped away when she was zapped back to life by paramedics.

Now, of course, she’d have questions for her father. He’d know why the wraiths wanted her. He’d be able to tell her why she could do strange things no one else could. And he could protect her from the devil that came out of her scream.

She’d voice none of that to Adam. She owed him thanks, not herself. All Adam’s talk about her dissertation and near-death research was just that, talk. If Adam wanted to study Shadowman, who was not in this world, his only alternative was to study her. She might be “researching” near-death here, but she’d still be a little white rat.

“I have all your materials ready, your books and data. Not knowing if we would ever find you, we went through it.”

You would have gone through it anyway. Pressure grew in her chest, her heartbeat quickening though she sat stone still.

“And although you have detailed records, releases, and transcripts from all of your other sources, there is nothing that references Shadowman.” His gaze fixed on her face. “Who is the source?”

Talia kept silent, staring right back at him and concentrating on moving air in and out of her lungs. If he knew so much already, she certainly wasn’t going to tell him more.

He dropped his head for a moment, then raised it again with strain tugging at his eyes. “Okay, let’s set that question aside for the moment. Give you a chance to get set up in your own lab and look over your research. There’s something else, too. I’d wait until you were fully on your feet to discuss this with you, but I am a big fan of putting all the cards on the table. Your lab tests came back with some interesting results, off the wall, but strangely consistent with similar tests taken—and disregarded—after the near-fatal car accident you were in ten years ago.”

Lab tests. Of course. Lab tests wouldn’t lie. Lab tests would reveal abnormalities. Hadn’t Aunt Maggie warned her about doctors years ago?

“And you’ve got a reflex, I think linked to fear, that affects the immediate environment, as a chameleon blends into the bark of a tree, but opposite.” He smiled, tilting his head. As if any of this warranted levity. “The flight from Arizona was especially exciting. I’m guessing your gift played a significant part in eluding the wraiths for so long.” He paused again, then speared her with his gaze. “What are you?”

If he wanted an answer, he wasn’t going to get one. He was peeling away her skin to expose her quivering core to the frigid room.

He sighed heavily; his intensity dropped. “Dr. O’Brien, I’ve been at this a while now. I’ve seen some unusual things. I mean you no harm. You saved me in that alley just as much as I saved you. I think we could make good partners, if you’d allow it.”

Good partners. Who was he kidding? He wanted to get inside her head. Study her.

“The offer of a position here at Segue is open. You’d get your own offices, whatever you require. There are three apart-ments upstairs you can choose from. West wing is haunted, so if you value your sleep, perhaps stick to the ones in the east wing, although they overlook the parking lot.”

Haunted?

“I’d like to say the staff here is friendly—Dr. Riggs is certainly a sweetheart—but the subject matter we research tends to draw an interesting crowd. Don’t take anything personally until you get to know them, and even then…” He raised his hands in a shrug, then pushed himself to standing.

“Dr. Riggs will discharge you from her care, eh, probably later this afternoon.”

And then what?

“I’ll drop back by to answer your questions, give you a tour, and help you select that apartment. Until then, get some rest.”

Adam stared down at her for a moment, waiting. “See you later then,” he said, turning back to the door.

He’d crossed the room before a good question finally burned through Talia’s consciousness.

“Wait,” she called.

He turned back, expectant.

“What if I don’t want to stay? What if I’d rather take my chances with the wraiths?” If that snooping bastard was going to “put all his cards on the table,” he had damn well better flip that last one over.

He held her gaze. “I don’t think that would be in either of our best interests.”