Angelique:

Nothing was the same after I walked through Russell’s front door. Past and present fused, became liquid metal flowing through my veins; it turned me into an alien beast that stepped through time, from one life to the next. I couldn’t stop the mad succession of images.

And through it all, I had to navigate in the present. I had to walk and talk and pretend like I didn’t want to curl into a ball, my hands covering my head.

I pushed my way past dead husbands and forgotten friends, invisible hands that reached out from the grave. A haze of hallucinations hovered around me; they whispered and pawed at me, their slippery fingers tugging at the hem of my dress, latching onto the soles of my shoes. Suddenly I remembered my names from previous lives.

Catherine MacKinnon, Rebecca James…

Then I knew what was wrong.

There should have been one more name. One more life.

As far as I could remember, in my first life I had been Catherine MacKinnon, and I had taken the resurrection chip when I was about sixty years old. Then that memory faded away, replaced by another: my second life as Rebecca James. In that life, I had been a lawyer and married a man named Jim. Then he got cancer and, even though I cared for him right up to the end, when he jumped, he deserted me. No matter how many lifetimes I have, I will never forget what he did. After that I wanted to change the way life plays out.

It was just a few months before my second death that I met him.

The bald man with the studs in his head, the man who put the marker in my hand.

He talked to me about the Nine-Timers, told me how they were working to solve the problems caused by resurrection. They were looking for faithful people to enlist. He recruited me, there and then, got me to agree to give up one of my lives for the cause, told me I’d get training, I’d get everything I needed. After I died, I was supposed to wake up in a fresh clone, custom-designed for the job I had to do. They were going to hook me up to their network, an underground mesh of agents working to change the world—

My lungs flattened as the last series of memories came back, too sudden, too strong. It felt like I was watching everything through a lung tunnel, images distorted, smells too strong. But it was me, I knew it had to be.

My name had been Ellen Witherspoon and I was reliving my death…

I worked late in the lab that night. Outside, thunder shocked the bayou and the world trembled beneath silver rain. The storm shook the windows, made me catch my breath. Everything was ending, sooner than I expected.

I turned in a quick circle, tried to think. I still didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, but it was finally time to make amends. If that was even possible.

I heard whimpering in the corner. Omega. He was still alive. I walked over to his cage and stuck my hand between the bars. He licked my fingers. After everything we’d done to him, that dog still loved me.

I was beginning to think he was more human than I had ever been.

I opened the cage door and slipped a collar and leash on him. The collar almost disappeared beneath the German shepherd’s thick black coat. I knelt beside the dog for a moment and nuzzled my face in his neck.

Chocolate eyes stared at me, a rough tongue licked my cheek. Then his lip curled and a low growl sounded in his throat.

We had to hurry. Somebody might be outside.

Together we headed out the side door of the lab, ready to run toward the bayou. Suddenly I realized that I had made a mistake. I bent down and unhooked his collar. Like everything else around here, it probably had a tracking device.

Then I ran, as fast as I could, the dog loping faithfully at my side.

Into the woods. Into the black, wet night. Into oblivion.

About an hour later, I returned, jogging through the dark as rain pelted my face, puddles growing deeper with every step. I paused at the edge of the parking lot, stared at the baptism of cement and stone that waited: the laboratory, a man-made technological fortress. Behind me an army of oak and cypress seemed to taunt, green demons that swayed in the wind.

I barely made it back in time for my shift. I had changed my clothes and washed all traces of mud from my shoes and hands. The storm still screamed overhead; its intensity seemed to drown out everything we’d been doing, making us seem insignificant. I felt like I had been playing a part from the movie Frankenstein, but I couldn’t remember if I was the monster or the doctor.

I had switched sides so many times that I didn’t know whose side I was on anymore.

Supposedly, there had been another undercover agent working in the plant, but I never found out who it was. And now, after what I had just done, he or she wouldn’t back me up if I got pushed into a corner.

I had broken every rule, everything I ever believed in.

I wondered if Omega would make it, if he could push past his sense of duty and let survival take over. Duty would bring him back to the lab, to an unending series of horrific deaths. Survival would take him—well, there would still be an unending series of deaths. I couldn’t undo that part of the equation. But he would be free. Alone, but free.

That was what I needed.

I entered through the front door. Only a few people here knew what projects I had been working on. I smiled at the anonymous faces I passed in the corridors. Along the way, I donned a white lab coat, joined the nameless crew that worked side-by-side in this factory of man-made horrors.

Just then the door to my lab swung open and a dark-haired man grabbed me by the arm.

“You’re late,” he said as he pulled me inside and closed the door. Then, when we were alone, he kissed me. It was an impatient and selfish kiss. I think that was the only kind he knew. He slid his hands inside my coat. “I told you to get here early. My wife is out of town. We can spend the night in that bed and breakfast in the French Quarter that you like.”

“Yes,” I answered. I didn’t want to go, but it would look too suspicious if I ended the relationship now. I needed to give Omega time to get away. And I had to make plans for my own escape. It wouldn’t be easy, the people I worked for wouldn’t appreciate one of their top-level executives just disappearing. But if I planned it right—

“You must think I’m a fool,” he said, his touch suddenly turning rough. That was the first time that I noticed the fire in his eyes.

I pushed him away and feigned anger. “Well, yes, I do. I’ve thought that for a long time. Any married man who gets involved with one of his employees—”

He slapped me, slammed me across the room where I crashed into one of the empty cages. I could have fought back, but I needed to give Omega more time, if that was still possible.

It wasn’t. That split second cost me a lot.

He jumped on me before I could get up.

“You’re a government plant, a spy. You came here to steal my research—”

“I came to help you, to make sure you got it right. Finally.”

He hit me again. Already one of my eyes was swelling shut, but I couldn’t let the pain distract me. I slammed the palm of my hand upward, toward his nose. A fraction of an inch to the left and I would have killed him, would have sent a shard of bone up into his brain. But I missed. Jammed him in the cheek instead. Sent him sprawling backward like a crab on his hands and knees.

I climbed to my feet and started to run into the plant. He wouldn’t dare hit me in front of his employees. But just then my foot slipped in something wet.

Urine. That gen-spike junkie had peed on the floor.

He grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me down. My right arm slammed against the cement floor and a shock wave of pain rocked through my body.

“You let the dog go, didn’t you?” he said as he pinned me down. “You think that’s going to stop me or my research? I still have all of our notes, all the files. I can just replicate the results—”

I didn’t have to answer him. The grin on my face said it all.

“You witch! What did you do with the files?”

His hands were around my throat then and I think some sort of madness took over. He didn’t care that his research was missing or that the dog was gone. I knew that later he would look back on this moment and wish that he had done things differently, that he had interrogated me, tortured me, done whatever was necessary to get the information back.

But instead, he just continued to press against my windpipe while I flailed helplessly.

Until everything turned black and I stopped breathing.

The memory faded and left me disoriented, confused. I closed my eyes and tried to remember more. For some reason, it had all been in shadows, the bayou, the laboratory—even my lover’s face. The only thing that really stood out was the dog.

Omega. I could smell his fur, felt the scratch of his tongue on my cheek.

I wondered where he was and if he was still safe.