Steven was trying to get the door open, and having a hell of a time of it. “What’s the matter?” I shouted, my voice trying to rise above the commotion in the hallway.

“The door won’t open!” Steven said, pulling fiercely down on the handle and trying to yank it away from the doorjamb.

“Is it locked?” I asked, flipping on the light so that he could see better.

Steven grunted as he again attempted to heave the door open, but it wouldn’t budge. Meanwhile the fight outside seemed to be raging on, full force. “I’m calling the front desk,” I said, hurrying to the phone on the nightstand. “Look out the peephole, Steven, and see if you can give me a description so I can have the desk alert security.”

As I lifted the phone and pressed 0, however, the noise from outside our door vanished, and with a whack I heard our door open so quickly that it hit Steven right in the face.

“Ungh!” he said as he fell backward to land flat on his back.

“Front desk,” announced a woman’s voice into the earpiece of the phone.

“What the hell?” I gasped, looking at Steven clutching his forehead and swearing in both Spanish and German.

“Hello?” said the desk clerk. “Can I help you?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but the situation was so freaky I didn’t know where to begin. Finally I said, “There were two men fighting outside our door, and I think they hurt my boyfriend!”

“How badly is he injured?” asked the desk clerk, clearly alarmed.

“Steven,” I said, bending down next to him and pulling at the hand covering his forehead. “Let me see, honey.”

Steven resisted for just a second, still swearing; then he sat up awkwardly and moved his hand. I sucked in a breath as I spotted the deep vertical gash right above his left brow and told the clerk, “He’s going to need stitches.”

She responded by speaking rapidly to someone nearby, but she was obviously covering the mouthpiece, because it was muffled. Then she said, “I’m sending security right up, ma’am. Please stay in your room and lock the door until he arrives.”

I leaned out over Steven and spied the open door. No one was evident out in the hallway, and as my mind tried to grapple with what had happened our door abruptly slammed shut so hard that it rattled the walls. “Holy crap!” I screeched, jumping to the side. It was then that I became aware of the goose bumps running up and down my arms.

“Steven,” I whispered hurriedly while tossing aside the phone, “honey, I’ve got to move you over to the bed.”

“My head,” Steven said, his bloody hand going back to his brow. “Jesus,” he added. “I’m bleeding.”

All of a sudden my chest became tight, as if my heart were caught in a vise. “Oh, no!” I said, feeling my breath quicken. “Steven!” I insisted, tugging at his arm. “Get . . . to . . . the . . . bed!”

“What’s the matter with you?” I heard him say, but focusing on him was now intensely difficult. The tightening in my chest grew worse, and I felt as though I could barely breathe. “Someone’s trying to take me over.” I gasped. “You’ve got to get away from me!”

“What do you mean, take you over?”

I gasped again and felt myself being tugged backward, as if a black hole had suddenly taken hold of my energy. “Leave . . . me . . . alone!” I managed, trying to pull back from the incredibly powerful energy tugging at every fiber of me.

“M.J.?!” Steven said in a voice filled with urgency and alarm. “What’s happening to your face?”

I tried to focus on him, but my vision began to close in, and the tunnel I felt I was looking out of seemed to lengthen. “Get . . . away!” I shouted, willing myself to stay in control of my body. But the energy that had jumped into mine and was attempting to literally hijack me wouldn’t let go.

As if from a distance I felt myself being shaken, and Steven’s voice echoed into my thoughts. “M.J.!” he was yelling. “What’s happening to you?”

“Nooooooo!” I said, curling my fingers around his arms, struggling with everything I had to hold on and resist the sensations assaulting me.

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. There was a hideous voice that kept echoing loudly through my brain, and I felt my lips moving and strange sounds coming out of my mouth, and then someone was pounding on the door, and I focused as hard as I could on the sound, like a drumbeat calling me back.

Finally I felt the shivers, and such a deep sense of cold that I didn’t think I’d ever feel warm again. And then my vision came back, and I could see Steven clearly again, his gash bleeding badly and such a look of concern on his face that it shocked me.

“Is she having a seizure?” I heard another voice ask.

“I don’t know,” Steven said, relaxing just a bit when he saw my eyes blinking at him.

“I’m okay,” I finally managed to say as my teeth chattered.

“Can you hand me the bedcover?” Steven asked the man standing in the room wearing a gray shirt with a badge and black pants, who was obviously hotel security.

The security guy yanked the coverlet off our bed and helped Steven wrap me in it. “Sir, you’re bleeding pretty bad,” the guard remarked, getting up and hurrying to the bathroom.

He returned a moment later with a washcloth and a towel. “Maybe I should call an ambulance for you two?”

“No,” I said, sitting up and clutching at the coverlet. “I’m fine.” But then I realized that Steven might be more hurt than he looked, so I quickly added, “Unless, Steven, you feel you want to go to the hospital by ambulance?”

My boyfriend took a long time to answer. He’d let go of me and was holding the wet washcloth to his forehead, applying pressure to his head wound. The look on his face was both frightened and suspicious. “No,” he finally said. “No ambulance. I brought my bag with me,” he added, his eyes roving to the small medical bag he usually carried everywhere he went. “I’ve got medical glue in there that I can seal the cut up with.”

“You a doctor?” the security guy asked. Steven nodded absently. There was an awkward silence before the guard asked, “Would either of you two like to tell me what happened?”

I looked at Steven and he looked at me, as if to ask each other who wanted to explain the unexplainable. I took the lead. “We heard a fight break out in the hallway. It sounded violent, and my boyfriend here went to investigate, but the door got stuck and wouldn’t open. And then it gave way, and it hit him in the forehead.”

“Did you see who was fighting?” asked the guard.

I shook my head, and Steven said, “No. We didn’t. But it definitely sounded like two men.”

“It was so loud I can’t imagine we were the only ones who heard it,” I added. “If you knock on a few of the other guests’ doors, I’m sure they heard it too, and maybe they saw something.”

“Okay,” said the guard, taking out a small pad and jotting down a few notes. “I’ll ask around. Ma’am,” he added, looking at me with concern while I shivered in my coverlet, “are you sure you’re all right?”

“Of course,” I said, and realized I probably didn’t look convincing, so I tossed in, “I’m hypoglycemic—low blood sugar. Sometimes it can give me the shakes.”

“Can I get you a candy bar?” he suggested kindly.

I forced a smile. “That’d be great, sir. Thank you.”

The guard quickly left, promising to return in a few minutes, leaving Steven and me alone in awkward silence. “You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” I finally asked.

Steven shook his head. “I can fix this, no problem.” I noticed he was still looking at me oddly. “M.J.?”

“I was hijacked by a spirit,” I explained before he had a chance to ask the full question.

“What is this ‘hijacked’?” he asked.

“It’s only happened to me one time before,” I explained, remembering a tricky bust Gilley and I had done when I was still fairly new to this medium stuff. “Some ghosts are superaggressive, and when given the opportunity they can attempt to literally take over your body.”

Steven’s jaw dropped in horror. “You were possessed?”

That made me chuckle. “Not exactly,” I said. “At least, not like they portray it in the movies. But I suppose that technically, yeah, I was a little possessed. Usually spirits who do this sort of thing can only hold on for a short period of time, but while they take over your body, you’re completely unaware of what’s going on.”

Steven’s expression looked haunted. (Forgive the pun, but it really did look like that.) “Something happened to your face. You looked . . .” He paused as if he were searching for the right word. “. . . masculine.”

“I did?”

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “Your face was angry, and your eyes . . . M.J., I swear they turned brown.”

For the record, my eyes are naturally gray. “That is freaky!” I said, half fascinated, half completely creeped out.

“And your voice changed too,” Steven added. “It got very deep, and you started speaking Portuguese.”

I felt my brows shoot up. “Really?” I was now very interested. “Could you understand what I was saying?”

Steven’s lips pressed together, and he gave a curt nod. “It was some scary shit. You said you were the eater of flesh. That you were looking forward to a meal of virgins and babies. That you wanted to quench the blood thirst of your ancestors.”

I gaped at him. “Whoa,” I whispered after a long pause. “This guy is one sick son of a bitch.”

“It was most upsetting,” Steven agreed.

“Did he mention a name? Did he tell you who he was?”

“No. After telling me you wanted to eat the babies, your face changed back to look like you, and then your eyes rolled up, and you fell back on the floor.”

“That must’ve been when I was able to fight him off,” I said with a shiver. “I felt him leave my body right when the security guard began knocking on our door.”

“Is this spirit still here?” Steven asked, his eyes warily roving the room.

“No,” I said, feeling out the area with my antennae. “He’s gone.”

“Do you think he’ll come back and do this hijacking again?” Steven whispered nervously.

“I sure as hell hope not,” I said, rubbing my neck, and when I noticed that Steven still looked intensely worried I added, “Now that I know this character is on the prowl, I can do things to make sure he doesn’t take me over again.”

“Like what things?”

“Well,” I said, getting up and moving over to my suitcase, searching through the zippered pocket to find a certain crystal I’d brought along. “This is sphalerite,” I said, holding up a gray, knobby rock for him to see and feeling an immediate sense of heaviness all through me, as if an invisible weight were pressing down on me. “It’s an ore found in zinc. As long as I keep it close by, my energy is too heavy for this creepy spirit to want to bother with me.”

Steven got up too and went to peer at his wound in the mirror above the dresser. “I don’t understand,” he said. “The stone is heavy?”

I came to stand next to him as he inspected his gash. “Not exactly.” I winced as he dabbed at the blood still leaking out of his wound. “But it does make my aura heavy. See, normally my energy is really light—I sort of raise my vibrations so that I can communicate with other spirits. And this is what is so attractive to negative spirits like this hijacker. I’m fairly easy to take over because my energy is vibrating so fast. But this little crystal slows those vibrations way down, and it’s much, much harder for someone to enter my auric field when that happens.”

Steven moved over to his bag and began lifting out tubes and a small bottle of antiseptic. “Are you sure it will work?” he asked, and I could tell he was still unnerved by what had happened to me.

“Yes,” I said softly, pulling out a chair and motioning for him to sit down. When he did I took the antiseptic from his hands and began to gently clean around the gash for him. Once I’d wiped up the blood, the cut on his forehead didn’t look nearly as serious as I’d thought.

“Let me see,” he said, and swiveled toward the mirror. Poking around the edges of the wound he said, “This is not too bad.”

“I should get you some ice,” I offered, and at that moment there was a knock on our door and the security guard stepped back in, along with another gentleman who looked like he’d had a rough day.

“I got you a Twix,” the guard said, holding out the candy bar to me. “And this is Murray Knollenberg, the general manager of the Duke.”

“I understand you were injured this evening, Dr. Sable?” said Knollenberg. “I’m terribly sorry,” he added when Steven turned to face him and the GM got a good look at the gash on his forehead. “Can I provide you with transportation to the hospital?”

Steven shook his head. “I’m fine,” he insisted, grabbing his medical bag and moving toward the bathroom. “I’ll just need a few minutes in front of the mirror with some light. If you’ll excuse me,” he said.

“Do you want some help?” I offered.

“No,” said Steven, giving me a small grin. “You stay with these men and tell them what happened.” And with that he closed himself inside the bathroom.

“This is all very distressing,” said Knollenberg. “I’ve never had so many disturbing incidents happen at the Duke in one day.”

“Well, they say bad things come in threes,” I said, then realized I’d said the wrong thing when Knollenberg’s face visibly paled. “But that’s just an old wives’ tale, I’m sure,” I added, clearing my throat and ripping off the wrapper of the Twix to take a bite.

“Mr. Knollenberg and I have secured this floor,” said the security guard. “There are very few guests here due to all the construction we’ve got going on, and whoever was fighting out in the hallway has apparently gone.”

“Have you asked any of the other guests if they heard anything?” I asked.

Knollenberg turned to the guard. “That’s right, Gary. You were going to do that next.”

“I’m on it,” he said, and headed out the door.

“Again, I’m very sorry that your evening has been so disrupted,” said the GM while wringing his hands. I really felt for the guy.

“Mr. Knollenberg?” I asked, thinking of something.

“Yes?”

“I know the Duke is haunted,” I said, thinking back on the notes Gopher had sent to Gilley. “But in the literature I read, all of the spirits that have been identified did not include anyone from Portugal, correct?”

Knollenberg blinked at me for several moments, his eyes roving from the Twix bar in my hand up to my face, as if waiting for me to deliver the punch line. Finally he said, “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your question, miss.”

I sat down on the bed again and shrugged out of the comforter now that I wasn’t shivering anymore. “There are several ghosts that haunt the Duke, correct?” I asked, again referring to the literature.

Knollenberg nodded, and his face flushed. “According to legend, yes,” he conceded. “Sir Phineas is said to be one. His daughter, Sara, is said to be another, along with Mickey O’Reilly—he was a bellhop who worked here for nearly sixty years—and then, of course, the unfortunate woman who committed suicide in 1987.”

“She committed suicide?” I asked, thinking that I knew one of the ghosts was a rather recent addition, but I didn’t realize she’d committed suicide.

“Yes. Carol Mustgrove,” said Knollenberg. “That was the first year I began working at the Duke as a desk clerk. I was actually the person who checked her in to the hotel.”

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“Her fiancé left her for another woman,” Knollenberg said. “She arrived at the Duke on the morning of what was to have been her wedding day, Friday, April sixteenth, 1987, for a three-day stay. She then went on a shopping spree and rang up ten thousand dollars on her fiancé’s personal credit card, which she had apparently stolen. That night she came back to her room, placed a Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob, and settled herself in the bathtub with a pillow over her chest before shooting herself in the heart with a small handgun.”

“She really wanted to make a statement, didn’t she?” I couldn’t help thinking how sad it was that this poor woman had made such a bad choice.

“She did,” agreed Knollenberg. “One of our chambermaids found her two days later.”

“No one heard the shot?” I asked.

“No.” Knollenberg frowned. “At least, no one reported hearing it. And it’s likely that if anyone did, they either didn’t want to get involved or thought it was the television.”

“What room did this happen in?” I asked as a thought occurred to me.

Knollenberg opened his mouth, then caught himself. His eyes grew large as something triggered in his memory, and I knew immediately what room it was. “Room three-twenty-one,” he whispered, confirming my suspicion.

“Freaky!” I exclaimed, because it really was.

There was an odd little silence before Knollenberg spoke. “You know, I’ve never really believed in ghosts. That is, until a few months ago, when I was working very late and I kept hearing a man just outside my office call out the name Sara over and over. Each time I went to investigate there was no one around, until about the sixth or seventh time. I was really angry and I stormed out into the hallway, only to come face-to-face with this man dressed in formal attire who asked me if I’d seen his daughter, Sara. When I said that I hadn’t, he vanished in front of my very eyes.”

“Let me guess,” I said, somewhat amused. “He looked just like the portraits of Sir Phineas, correct?”

“The spitting image,” Knollenberg agreed with a shiver.

“Doesn’t surprise me, but do I remember right, in that his daughter, Sara, fell down the main staircase?”

“She did,” said Knollenberg. “We’ve had many, many guests over the years call the front desk to report a little girl playing on the staircase with no sign of any parental supervision.”

In the back of my mind I filed that away. I had every intention of helping poor Sara cross over, because it was my firm belief that no child ghost should be left to wander the confusing and often frightening grounded realms of the living. But there was no way I was going to mention this to the Duke’s GM. I couldn’t risk his saying no because he felt little Sara was best served up as some sort of morbid tourist attraction.

“You were asking me if any of our deceased residents were from Portugal,” Knollenberg reminded me, shaking me out of my thoughts. “Was there a reason you wanted to know that particular fact?”

I nodded. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I’m one of the mediums featured in that television show that’s filming here tomorrow.”

“Yes,” said Knollenberg with a shy smile. “I spoke with Detective MacDonald after you’d given him your impressions about that horrible incident earlier this afternoon. He mentioned that you were quite talented.”

I laughed. “Glad to know he found me credible. Anyway, the reason I asked you about one of your hotel ghosts being from Portugal is that I believe Dr. Sable and I were visited by this spirit here tonight.”

Knollenberg’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but just then Steven came out of the bathroom, wearing a thin white bandage on his forehead. “All better,” he said when he saw us.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked. “Ice? Pain reliever?”

“Both sound good,” said Steven, walking over to lay his medical bag on the dresser.

“Be back in a flash,” I said to the two of them, and darted out of the room. I figured the ice machine was likely located over by the elevators. I passed Gary out in the hall; he was still knocking on doors. “Any luck?” I asked.

“No one has answered the door,” he said, glancing skeptically down the corridor. He was several rooms away from ours. “We’re down to about a third of our capacity, due to all the construction. No one wants to stay in a hotel when there’s the potential for a lot of noise.”

“So we’re the only two guests in this area?”

Gary shrugged, then glanced at his watch. “Looks like it. I’ve called downstairs to try to get a list of occupants, but they’re pretty busy at the front desk. Many of our guests are checking out early.”

“They are?”

Gary sighed heavily. “Dead bodies on the pavement and noisy construction seem to be motivating a lot of exits.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I can kinda see their point.”

Gary winked conspiratorially. “Me too. Are you feeling better now that you’ve gotten some sugar?”

I smiled. He seemed like a nice guy. “I am, thanks. I came out to look for the ice machine. Steven’s patched himself up, but the ice will help with the swelling.”

“That way,” he said, pointing farther down the hallway. “Next to the elevators.”

I thanked him and gave him a pat on the back before moving off in that direction. I reached the elevators and found the small nook where the vending and ice machines were. I took one of the plastic buckets from the shelf and filled it with some ice before turning to the vending machine, and was relieved to see a small tube of Advil could be purchased for seventy-five cents.

While I was fishing around in my pockets for loose change I heard the elevator ding and the doors open. I didn’t give it much thought—I was too busy searching for quarters—but after a moment something odd happened. I heard the elevator doors shut; then not two seconds later the bell dinged again, and again they opened . . . but no sound of anyone entering or exiting came to my ears.

I stuck my head out from the nook and glanced curiously at the elevators. The double doors of the two cars stared back: one set open and empty, the other set closed. I looked down the corridor but didn’t see anyone who might have exited.

I shrugged my shoulders and went back to sifting through the change in my hand. In the background I heard the doors slide shut again, and just when I’d found the third quarter the familiar ding! of the elevator rang out again in the hallway.

I hesitated before placing the quarter into the coin slot. I couldn’t shake the unease that seemed to have come over me. I stepped out into the hallway and faced the elevators again. This time the other set of doors stood open, no passengers on board and no one out in the hallway. “Weird,” I whispered, and felt all six of my senses go on high alert. On the edge of my energy I could just feel the tiniest tickling sensation, and I knew there was spirit energy afoot—but whoever it was didn’t particularly want me to contact them.

“Hello?” I said anyway. Nothing happened—well, except that the doors to the elevator closed again. I waited there for a moment, watching the lights at the top of the doors, and sure enough, after about fifteen seconds the right elevator’s light lit up with a ding!

I waited, but the doors took a moment to open, and when they did my jaw dropped. Standing in front of me was five feet, seven inches of feathered, furry, and nearly unrecognizable gay man. “Nice getup,” I said as Gilley stepped off the elevator wearing a bright pink feather boa, a black leather vest with fur trim, and leopard-print chaps over skintight jeans . . . and by skintight, I mean I had to avert my eyes.

“Oh, hey!” Gil said when he saw me. “I was just coming to find you. I was reporting something to the desk clerk downstairs, and I overheard that security had been called up to your room. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, turning back in to the nook to get the Advil for Steven. After retrieving it from the slot and grabbing the ice bucket, I walked with Gil toward my room. “There was a fight out in the hallway, and when Steven went to take a look, one of the guys slammed the door into his forehead.”

“Oh, no!” said Gilley, stroking his feather boa like a beloved pet. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” I assured him. “Just a scratch, but that’s not the craziest part of the story.”

“Do tell.”

I opened my mouth to explain, but was distracted by all those feathers. “Where are you coming from, anyway?” I asked, looking pointedly at his wild outfit.

Gilley smiled. “I was just heading out, actually,” he said. “There are some fabulous bars not far from here, and I wanted to look my best.”

“Ah,” I said.

Gilley seemed to notice my wide eyes looking at his getup, and he asked, “Too much?”

I smiled. “Naw. You’re good.”

“You really think so?” he said, stroking the boa again.

“We’re in Frisco. Around here I’d count that as subtle.”

Gil seemed to relax and flung the tail of the boa across his neck. “Anyway, while I was leaving the hotel I saw this little girl on the main staircase playing on the railing. I tried to get her to stop, but she said her father always let her play like that. So I looked around for the dad, but I didn’t see anyone. I got her to tell me that her name was Sara, so I went to the front desk to report it. I mean, who leaves their kid out this late at night to wander unsupervised like that?”

I had stopped in my tracks as Gilley was telling me the story, and he’d walked on a few steps and was now looking curiously back at me over his shoulder. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

I walked to him and handed him the ice bucket and the Advil. “Can you please take this back to my room, Gil? There’s something that I need to check out.”

“Uh . . .” he said, blinking in confusion.

“Thanks!” I replied without explanation, then dashed back to the elevators and punched the down button. The doors opened up and I pressed the G for ground, hopping from foot to foot. “Be there,” I said, hoping the spirit of little Sara would still be at the main staircase. I knew better than to tell Gil that he’d actually had an entire conversation with a ghost. If Gil knew he’d just had a face-to-face encounter with a real ghost, he’d grow his own feathers and start clucking.

When the doors opened I hurried out and over to the main staircase, where I came up short. Heath was standing by the railing with his eyes closed and the most peaceful look on his face. I knew immediately that he was talking to Sara.

I approached cautiously; I didn’t want to interrupt or intrude. When I got to within ten feet I stopped and waited. It took a little while, but eventually Heath opened his eyes and blinked a few times, and a moment later he focused on me in surprise. “Hey!” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Likewise,” I said with my own smile. “Don’t tell me; let me guess: You’ve been doing some ghostbusting for a certain spirit named Sara.”

Heath looked taken aback. “You could hear us?” he asked.

I laughed. “No, I cheated. Gilley said that he was down here just a bit ago, and he was worried about a little girl playing around on the banister without any parental supervision.”

“And he didn’t know Sara was a ghost?” he asked.

“I guess she appeared in full form,” I replied. “He had no clue.”

Heath nodded thoughtfully. “She’s a cutie-pie,” he said, and his chin lifted as he looked up toward the ceiling.

“You helped her over?” I said, thinking he’d done the right thing and assisted Sara in crossing over to the other side.

“I did,” he confirmed. “She’s a bit concerned about her father, though. I think he’s grounded somewhere around these parts too.”

“I have it on good authority that he is,” I said with another smile. “Maybe tomorrow we can team up and search him out together.”

Heath sighed tiredly but nodded. “Great idea. Let’s hope this production shoot doesn’t last all day and we’ll have time to work that murder case and do some more spiritual hotel housekeeping.”

Heath and I walked back to the elevators and he leaned in to push the up button, but before his finger could even touch it, the elevator bell dinged and we both looked at the double doors expectantly. “Huh,” I said when the doors didn’t seem to want to open. “That’s weird.”

Heath was looking up at the light above the doors, which clearly indicated that the car was on the ground floor. I watched as he leaned in again, and this time he pushed the button. “Hello,” he said to the elevator. “Open sesame, people!”

I smiled, but my humor was short-lived, because in the very next instant the doors rocketed open and clanged loudly as they bounced back against the doorframe, and something gray and smoky shot right out of the elevator and into Heath so hard that he flew backward through the air and landed with a loud whump! on the floor.

I’ll admit that I let out a yelp and ran to his side, but whatever had come out of the elevator car now seemed to turn on me. The gray smoke rose right next to Heath, who was trying to catch his breath after clearly having had it knocked out of him, and the violent presence reached a height of about seven feet, looming spookily above the young man.

I moved to my right, and the smoke wove eerily in that direction, resembling a cobra ready to strike if I got too close. “Heath!” I whispered. “Roll away from there!”

I kept my eyes on the smoke serpent and heard Heath gasp again for breath. A tiny moan came out of him, and I knew he was trying to do as I said. I moved to my left, and the head of the smoke serpent swiveled toward me. “Come on, ugly,” I coaxed, opening up all my intuitive senses, trying to get a feel for exactly what I was dealing with.

“M.J.,” I heard Heath groan.

“I’m right here,” I said to him, crouching low and edging close to him so that I could pull him away from the hovering smoke.

“No!” he whispered, and I looked at him and saw that his eyes were clearly frightened. “Run!”

And then, almost as if it were in slow motion, I saw the smoke serpent shrink down right before darting straight at me! I had no time to react, and in the very next instant I felt something like a lightning bolt hit my chest, and a searing pain so sharp that I cried out even as I tumbled backward to land like Heath on the cold, hard ground.

In my ears there was something like the sound of a hiss, but also words were forming that I couldn’t quite make out. I rolled around on the ground, trying to get away from the noise and the pain, and then I think I blacked out, because the next thing I knew I was blinking hard and looking up into Steven’s concerned face.

“M.J.,” he said softly. “Can you hear me?”

“What happened?” I said, staring first at him, then around at my surroundings. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the lobby,” he said, leaning in to put his arms underneath me and lift me up.

“Where’s Heath?” I asked, putting a hand to my head, which felt as if it had been slammed against a wall.

“I’m right here,” Heath said, and I squinted over Steven’s shoulder to see him walking behind us, rubbing his chest.

“You okay?” I asked as Steven bent down to place me on an overstuffed chair.

“Yeah,” he said, but by his pale cheeks and pinched eyes I knew he was feeling as bad as I was.

“What the freak was that?” I asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “Hell if I know.”

“Here’s some water,” said someone to my right. I looked over to see the manager, Murray Knollenberg, handing me a bottle of water. “I’m so sorry about this,” he added. “My bellhop told me he saw the whole thing. He’s having some sort of a melt-down in my office right now, and he wants to quit his job and walk off his shift immediately.”

I gripped the side of the chair as I took a sip of water. I felt really queasy and out of sorts and was struggling just to keep up with the flow of the surrounding conversation. “Murray,” I said after I’d had a few sips more and felt as if I could let go of the chair without falling out of it. “You’ve got a big problem on your hands.”