Blood was dripping from almost all of them, splashing onto the gray pavement of the street, and it was . . .

Hollis closed her eyes and turned her head away as shock rippled through her. “They aren’t gray,” she said in a voice that wasn’t in the least bit familiar to her. “They’re like real—I want to leave, Diana. I want to leave now.”

She opened her eyes, meaning to look at Diana, to say something or ask something, but what she saw was Daniel. He was still smiling. And there was something—

Hollis felt a tug that was inner, and familiar, and instantly let herself obey, closing her eyes again against the dizzying disorientation of suddenly being yanked back into her own body.

—

SHE WAS SHIVERING violently, and Hollis was inexpressibly grateful for the blessed warmth of covers and the very necessary embrace of a warm man underneath them.

“Jesus Christ,” she murmured without lifting her head, her voice shaking as badly as she was, eyes still closed. “I hope Quentin pulled Diana out.”

DeMarco used one hand to pull the covers up higher around her, then shifted just a bit so more of her was pressed against him. “You’re like ice,” he said, his voice as calm as it almost always was even though he’d been yanked out of sleep by the abrupt awareness of where she had been and the urgent need to pull her back. “I didn’t know anything was happening until something scared you.”

It was not yet dawn, so their bedroom was almost completely dark, with only the low light in the bathroom escaping a nearly closed door to peer out doubtfully, not reaching the bed. It hardly seemed worth the effort, but Hollis disliked totally dark rooms, so there was always something on.

She wasted a moment or two wondering why it was true that she could go away in spirit, leaving a warm body behind, but that the instant her spirit, chilled in the gray time, returned, her body became icy as well. She’d have to ask Diana. Maybe she’d know.

“I wasn’t scared at first,” Hollis said after a few moments, her voice not shaking as badly as she became less cold and her teeth no longer chattered. “Because I thought Diana would have to be there too. And she was. And one of her spirit guides. A little boy, only not. Creepy kid. But Diana was there, so I stayed calm. Until . . .”

He felt it again, that jolt of fear and horror that had awakened him in an instant, made him reach out psychically, mentally, and emotionally for the woman he had been physically holding. The woman who had returned to him, cold through to the bone and exhausted and horrified.

“Maybe you should rest before talking,” he said. “Sleep. Or take a hot shower first, to really get you warm.” DeMarco wanted to reach through their connection, to find out for himself what had so terrified Hollis, but knew better than to try that often handy shortcut now. She had shut down, either deliberately or instinctively, as she had done in the past, to spare him her own ragged emotions. Which meant the horror had lingered, was still with her.