Blood Dreams

of me.'

'There you go, then.'

'Okay. But-'

'Listen.' He touched her cheek with his free hand. 'I don't want you to leave yourself open to any sort of attack, with this guy probably ready for us and lurking around somewhere, but can you forget about the vision for just a minute and feel what this building is telling you? Because it's talking to me.'

As soon as she stopped trying to recall the vision, as soon as she let her mind go quiet, Dani heard the building loud and clear.

'Basement. There is a basement.'

'Yeah. With a cold and slimy monster as tenant.'

'Guys.' Roxanne appeared suddenly in a hallway to their left. 'This way. Bishop's found the stairs.'

In less than a minute they were there, looking down at welcoming lights.

'Well,' Dani said, 'that's the same. But why make a trap so obviously a trap? I would have expected something a lot more subtle from him.'

'Maybe that's why he made it obvious,' Marc said. 'Doesn't really change anything, though.'

Dani nodded agreement. 'I can feel Hollis now.'

'Is she-' Bishop stopped himself.

'She's alive,' Dani said. 'But… hurting. Let's go.'

They went down the stairs very cautiously but at the bottom found only a central area from which stretched several long corridors with blank, featureless doors.

'Shit,' Dani whispered. 'This does look familiar.' But not from her vision. From the dream walk with Paris and Hollis. Worse, there was too much iron and steel in this place, too many hard, reflective surfaces that could easily help channel and focus any kind of energy.

'Solitary?' Roxanne was tense, alert.

'Probably,' Marc said, and added, 'We are not splitting up down here.'

Very familiar.

Dani felt herself move toward the middle corridor, following a pull so strong she was vaguely surprised not to see an actual rope stretched out before her. 'This way. At the end, I think.'

'Dani, wait-'

But she was already three steps into the corridor, and even though Marc and the others followed quickly, she was well ahead of them and isolated by just enough space when they all saw her aura become not only visible but also begin to shimmer in a rainbow of colors.

'Dani-'

'I know,' she said. Her hands moved out to her sides, almost as if she explored an enclosure. 'He's coming after me. I'm just not sure… how he's able to do this. I don't hear his voice… the way I did before.' She drew a quick breath, and Marc saw her pale. 'We have to get to Hollis. Now. I might be able to… keep him occupied… just long enough.'

He tried to get to her, but the aura surrounding her began to crackle and spark, and Marc quickly drew back his hand, afraid he would only hurt her more. 'Move,' he said to the other two.

But Dani had no intention of waiting there and was already moving herself, slowly, carrying the live-energy cloud with her.

At first Marc thought the energy was draining her, but she turned her head slightly and sent him a quick, clear look, and he realized in that instant what she was doing.

'Make it a weapon.'

It was dangerous, what she was doing. Potentially deadly. Because a conduit could only accept and channel so much energy without being destroyed in the process.

He didn't know where she was drawing the energy from, though he guessed it was the storm still feeding her, even this far underground. Clearly, she'd been right in believing this place would help contain energy.

Hell, maybe the bastard had chosen his trap well, knowing he could use it, having had the time these last weeks to test his little energy nexus.

Dani had no time for experiments or theories or practice. All she had was her instincts and desperation. All Marc had was the certainty that she was risking her life, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.

Bishop had managed to slip past Dani without disturbing her crackling aura, but when he reached the door, there was-nothing. No knob or handle, no lock, just a featureless expanse of solid steel.

He looked back at the others and shook his head grimly.

Nobody had brought anything with which to batter down a door, there was no lock to pick, and even hinges weren't visible, much less accessible.

As she reached the end of the hallway, Dani said very quietly, 'I'll get the door. Just-move fast once I do. I don't know what will happen if I-Just move fast.'

'Dani, for God's sake, be careful,' Marc said, just as quietly. He thought he was braced for anything, but in the last few seconds, as the energy cloud intensified and she visibly gathered herself, he saw two of her inside that aura.

'Oh, Christ,' he said.

The sound was like an explosion. Was an explosion. A literal wave of pure raw energy surged forward from Dani with an eerie silence that made the thunderous craa-aack! of the door blowing inward all the more deafening.

Marc followed Bishop and Roxanne to the doorway of the room but not into it, remaining in the corridor, his arm around Dani as she sagged abruptly against him, all her energy spent.

What he saw was more than a little surprising, and from their frozen positions he knew the others were just as stunned by the scene that greeted them.

A very ordinary-looking man most anyone would have passed on the street without a glance cowered in the far corner of the room, what looked like a scalpel in his hand as he slashed wildly at the air around him, making guttural sounds that might have been rage-or terror. He appeared to be fighting, or attempting to defend himself, but whatever his weirdly flat, shiny eyes detected as a threat was invisible to the newcomers.

But to their immense relief, in the center of the room, strapped to a stainless-steel table that was tilted about forty-five degrees up at the head, was Hollis.

She was more than a little bruised and battered, and it was clear the monster had begun to cut her clothing off before he was… interrupted… but she was very much alive.

'Hollis?' Bishop's normally cool voice was unsteady.

She turned her head and looked at him, and her swollen lips smiled, if only a little. 'Boss, I want a raise. Either that or a new job.'

'What the hell did you do to him?' Roxanne asked, her gaze fixed on the desperately struggling monster.

'You can't see them, but I have a posse in the room. All his victims have come to visit their murderer. And lemme tell you, they're pissed. Right now, they're telling him all about hell. In Technicolor.'

Bishop gestured for Roxanne to keep her gun on the monster, and holstered his own weapon as he went to free Hollis.

'All his victims?'

'Well, most of 'em. I got scared and opened a lot of doors.' She winced slightly. 'Ow.'

Roxanne said, 'I may have to shoot him just to get the scalpel away from him.'

'Feel free,' Marc said. Then he looked at Dani. 'Are you okay? That looked-'

' Paris helped. Right at the end.'

'Is she…?'

'She's gone.' Dani didn't know when she had started to cry, but she couldn't seem to stop. She felt empty and knew it wasn't because of what she had done, but what she had lost. 'I think she just stuck around as long as she did so she could help.'

It wasn't much solace to Dani to remind herself that, deep down, she and Paris had both known, for weeks, that this was going to happen. It didn't help to recognize that they had, at least, been granted the time to begin to say good-bye.