It was cold, and still, and empty.

She waited, aware of a nervousness that never went away because this was such an alien place. Or time. It never felt . . . natural.

She didn’t have to wait long.

“Hello, Diana.”

It was the spirit of a little boy this time, she saw. Though certainly he wouldn’t be little in any sense except appearance. He looked to be maybe ten or eleven, but she knew from experience he could easily be older than she was, with numerous lives behind him. Her child guides were always almost eerily mature.

“Hello,” she responded. “And you are?”

“Daniel.”

“Hello, Daniel. Why am I here?”

“Right to the point.” He seemed a little amused.

“Well, it saves time,” she explained. “And gives me at least a shot of getting out of here without being so exhausted I want to sleep for a day or two.”

“That is a point,” he agreed, grave now. “Because you’re going to need your strength.”

“Shit,” she said. “I seriously can’t get a night off? We just finished a case—”

“I’m sorry about that, but you’re needed here. And I need to tell you as much as I can first. Show you as much as I can.”

Diana frowned at him, aware again of crawling unease. “Show me? I really don’t like being shown things here in the gray time. That tends to go badly.” She vividly remembered a shocking glimpse of herself lying bleeding on a stark bright street, something she’d seen from the gray time only because she’d been connected to Quentin, and shivered.

“Why not just tell me what I need to do?” she demanded of the guide.

“Because it’s more complicated than that this time, Diana.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” she muttered, and glanced around them at the dense, sloping forest. “Well, where are we? I mean, where would we be out in the world?”

“Salem,” he replied.

“Salem?” Her frown deepened as she thought. “Assuming it’s the same one, there was a case here a couple of months ago. Gray and Geneva took care of things.”

“Yes, they did.”

Still remembering, Diana said, “They had help. An unusual dog. And a couple of psychics Bishop would really like to get on the team. As a matter of fact, aren’t there a lot of psychics in this town? I mean a lot more than you’d expect in a little mountain town? Like whole families of them?”

“Come this way, Diana.” He turned and began walking down the forested slope.

“Dammit,” she muttered, following and trying not to think of her numb feet, of the uneasiness still crawling over her cold skin. The spirit guides were worse than Bishop, she thought, ignoring questions they didn’t want to answer. It was annoying. And occasionally dangerous.

Usually dangerous.

But Diana followed, because she was a medium and this gray time had rules she had learned over the years, one of them being that she listened to and followed guides because they needed her help. Or knew of some situation that did.