“No, no, no!” Anne cried, clawing at the wall as if seeking a handhold. A second later, I knew why. As if she were nothing more than a feather in a breeze, her small body flew across the room. Feathers rarely make such a sickening crunch when they collide with walls, though. She crumpled to the floor in a deathly still heap. I tried to run to her, but my feet were immobilized.

“Anne!” Before Max could move, an invisible force pinned him to the wall.

Oddly, my fear fled. The Oracle’s voice blocked out the sound of Max’s frantic urging for me to run. She insisted I come closer, and I couldn’t find a good enough reason not to.

I slid under the brass rail and crossed the space to the tank. Each step reverberated through me like a thunderclap. As I drew nearer to the glass, the Oracle began to move, taking long, lazy steps through the blood. Suspended, she looked as though she walked through air.

The Oracle reached for me. I pressed my palms flat against the tank, expecting the glass to be cool and feeling slightly sickened when I realized the blood behind it was body temperature. I thought she would bring her hands to meet mine on the glass. Instead, she twisted them into claws. At the same time, my throat crushed closed.

I wouldn’t die from not breathing, but I was fairly certain I’d die from having my head twisted off my neck.

No! I pleaded in my mind. I’m not going to die like this. Why would you give me this information only to let it die with me?

Her hold was broken. The lights flared up in the room and darkened in the tank. Max’s arms were suddenly around me, pulling me from the room. Vampires in white coats rushed in to tend Anne.

“What the hell was that?” Max repeated over and over at my side as we raced down the hallway.

I couldn’t answer him. The voice of the Oracle echoed in my memory.

He will become a god.

Cyrus jerked awake screaming.

The Mouse sat up beside him and put her arm around his bare shoulders. Her skin felt too hot and dry, magnifying the slick, cold sweat coating his body.

“You had a nightmare,” she said. There was no emotion, just a matter-of-fact statement.

His first instinct was to slap her, but the now-familiar shame washed through him, and he restrained himself. He rose from the narrow bed they’d shared. He’d reveled in the feeling of holding her as she’d slept. It was a sensation he couldn’t compare to anything in his vast, lurid experience. Now, in the harsh light of day that streamed weakly through the small basement windows, the night seemed dirty somehow.