Out of Body

“I’m good, y’know,” the man almost purred. “No woman ever complained about being with me. They all want more when I’m finished. You’re lucky.”

Liza’s scream pounded Marley’s brain. She wanted to scream herself, to find a way to drag Liza away.

Very little light showed now. Liza was on her back, writhing from side to side, trying to escape.

“You’ll only hurt yourself,” the man said, intense excitement in his voice. “But struggle. I like it when they fight me.”

Marley heard Liza cry out and tried to shut out the noise.

A thud, followed by more and increasingly hard and rapid impacts made Marley’s mind feel dull. She was helpless and trapped inside the mind of a desperate woman.

As precipitously as her joining with Liza had begun, it ceased.

Revolving slowly, moving away from a scene she couldn’t see clearly and didn’t want to see at all, she felt herself begin to swim. There was the funnel, its opening facing her. She was so tired. Even lifting her arms was too much.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” came the Ushers’ cries. “She went the wrong way.”

She couldn’t concentrate on what they might mean.

“She wasn’t supposed to go back.”

Marley moved weakly, like an exhausted swimmer treading water.

“We must get her to the right place or it will be too late. She can’t stay much longer.”

A sound like a tornado, a freight-train roar, buffeted Marley. She felt consciousness slip.

Once more she spun and projected forward at a pace that shook her through and through. She looked, but couldn’t see anything but darkness. The sound turned into a screech like brakes fighting to take hold.

She landed on a hard floor against something hard. She touched it, but pipes and other pieces of metal were all she felt.

A wheel. Marley ran her hand over the tire and over a frame to a seat. A bicycle in a rack. Small items pressed into the underside of her thigh. She pulled out hard things; most she couldn’t identify, but there was a little pair of scissors, a round piece of rubber, a lipstick, a key.

Through utter darkness came a familiar sight, two glowing scarlet eyes with the quality of fire. She kept absolutely still.

Coughing. The thing coughed and wheezed to catch its breath.

Marley lost sight of the eyes as it must have turned away.

A breeze filled with a foul stench passed across her face.

Then the eyes were over her, burning down. This thing was aware of her presence, but she didn’t feel it had power over her. Closer it moved and made a slashing downward motion with those eyes. She threw up a hand and moaned inwardly. Searing heat jabbed her palm and dragged its way for several inches. She heard the sleeve of her T-shirt tear.

The coughing began again and the eyes were obscured.

Seconds later a door opened and an elongated neon sign on a nearby building flashed from top to bottom. A picture of an animal, or a bird. Marley wasn’t sure. Turquoise and yellow reflections slipped into the place where she was, across a dirty floor. An empty place, but for a figure crumpled in a dark heap.

Marley tried to reach the person, only to see him or her dragged over the floor.

The door closed again.

From outside came a low rumble, an engine turning over. Then the crunch of wheels on gravel.

“Now!” the Ushers gibbered with excitement. “Go now before it’s too late.”

Marley saw the funnel again and reached for it—but unconsciousness claimed her.

Chapter 26

Gray felt Marley move, or he felt something move inside her. “Marley?” He shook her. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

The electrical force that bound them whenever they touched had faded to almost nothing since he’d felt her leave him, but it was back. Not as strong, it was true, but stronger than it had been.

She stirred and made a faint sound.

He struggled with his automatic instinct to call for help, but he had heard the warnings. Under normal circumstances, he would have attempted to bring Marley around, but there was nothing normal about any of this.

There was nothing normal about his hearing voices rising out of patterns deep inside a rustling sound.

Or seeing a ghostly form assemble to speak to him.

“Marley?” He put his cheek near her mouth and nose and smiled when her breath lightly touched his skin.

Winnie lay on his feet and from her sleeping weight, she ought to be a much bigger dog.

What had happened to him? In a short space of time he had gone from worrying about not being able to find two women he had interviewed, to being embroiled in a murder case, discovering he had paranormal powers and getting involved with a woman he couldn’t stay away from even though her touch all but hurt him.

Her eyelids opened a fraction.

“Marley?” He didn’t want to stay away from her. He was addicted to searing encounters with her, dammit. “Marley, honey?”

She blinked, then seemed to drift back into sleep.

Paranormal powers? Stable, feet-on-the-ground men like him didn’t abruptly start thinking they were witches or whatever. Warlocks? Psychics? He was green when it came to all things you couldn’t see, touch, smell, possibly hear and always identify. This woman had played with his mind.

He had heard those whispering, implacable voices ordering him around. Heard them and done exactly what they told him to do.

They put people who heard voices in padded rooms.

Maybe not that exactly, not anymore, but there were medications and nasty hospitals, that much he knew.

“What are you doing?”

Marley’s question disoriented him. He stared down into her very green eyes.

She crossed her arms, if lethargically and in slow motion. “I asked you a question.” One forefinger rose to point directly into his face. “Where do you get off manhandling me?”

A lesser man would remind her that she didn’t seem to be trying to get away from him.

“How do you feel?” he asked her.

She took a long breath through her nose. “How would you feel? I’m tired. I’ve worked hard.”

The dog rolled off his feet and stood up. Tottering, she sniffed the air and yawned.

“What do you mean by, you worked hard? Where did you go?”

“’Scuse me,” Marley said and yawned wider than her dog. “I gotta get something.”

“Tell me what you want. I’ll get it for you.”

“I’m not an invalid.” But even when he helped her to her feet and stood up himself, she gave him a blank look and sat down again, hard. “Just tired,” she said.

She looked past him toward her big cupboard and attempted to get up again. “Anything chocolate,” she said. “In the cupboard.”

The bag of broken chocolate pieces was just inside. He took out a piece and handed it to her. Chewing it rapidly, she reached for the bag as she demolished what she had.

A thump turned him around. Winnie was in possession of her Great Dane bone and chomped on it with gusto, her teeth sliding from time to time with a sound that made him wince.