From Black Rooms (38 page)

became especial y glad for the Peruvian hat the woman had given her in Cajamarca, for its bel shape and broad, drooping brim kept most of the rain off her as Abe escorted her to the smal est tent in the camp, which had been set up as an interrogation room for her

summoning sessions. Nathan Azure had to stoop to

keep from brushing the canvas ceiling as he stood to welcome her inside.

"Ms. Lindstrom! Good morning. I trust you slept better than I did." He indicated the vacant director's chair opposite him at a table draped with white linen. "Let's get started, shal we?"

"Sorry if I kept you waiting," Natalie said, taking her seat. Behind her, she heard Abe zip up the tent entrance as if sealing a body bag.

Azure waved off the apology with one gloved hand.

"Not at al . Forgive me for disturbing you so early, but I felt that the sooner we got started, the sooner you could get home to that charming daughter of yours."

"Yes. Thanks."

The lantern that hung above the table revealed a large oblong object covered with a satin cloth. The hidden item was probably the touchstone Azure wanted her to use, and the sight of it aroused the customary anxiety Natalie felt prior to an inhabitation. But what she didn't see bothered her even more.

There was no SoulScan unit.

Natalie had already taken the hat and wig from her head before she noticed the machine's absence. Her

apprehension growing, she inventoried the tent's

contents with another glance.

Azure arched his eyebrows. "Something wrong?"

"Don't you want...verification?" She tapped her scalp, cal ing attention to its tattooed node points.

"That won't be necessary." The tycoon relaxed into the sling of his chair's canvas back. "I have complete trust in you."

Natalie fidgeted with the wig in her lap. As much as she detested the SoulScan--hated the barnacle adherence of its electrodes to her skul --she now longed for it like a child pining for her security blanket. She remembered the scarlet cruelty of Francisco Pizarro's face in the Ransom Room painting, imagined that

bestial nature subjugating her mind with its violence. Natalie knew from experience that, although the nervesearing discharge from the SoulScan's Panic Button was painful, it was better than being the slave of another soul's psychosis.

You could fake it, a voice inside her suggested. Simply
use your protective mantra, then pretend that you failed
to summon the Spanish creep. Azure won't know the
difference; he'll just get mad and send you home,
getting you out of this mess.

Across from her, Nathan Azure drew the cloth from the object on the table, exposing a rusty breastplate etched with a faded family crest. He nudged it toward her.

"This should suffice, I think."

The temptation to abort the summoning without tel ing Azure nearly overwhelmed Natalie in that moment. She hardly cared whether she enraged the mil ionaire or lost the money he'd promised her as long as she could

return to her safe, comfortable condo with Cal ie. But her own unwil ingness to admit that she'd made a mistake--that she'd put herself and her family through this whole experience for nothing--egged her on. She could handle Pizarro. He was merely another sociopath, and she'd dealt with his type before. In the Corps Crime Division, he would have been just another day at the office. She couldn't wimp out now, not when Cal ie needed therapy and her dad had inadequate health

insurance.

As she spiraled her consciousness into the circular holding pattern of the spectator mantra, Natalie laid her palm over the cuirass's engraved crest.

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily!

Life is but--

She hiccoughed, lungs col apsing as if punctured by the intersecting swords in a magician's box. She had

encountered souls before who relived their deaths when summoned, but never had she endured more than one death simultaneously. Now she felt herself stabbed, shot, lanced, strangled, bludgeoned, and exploded al at once. The sensations of hundreds of men and women, captured in their final moment of mutilation, fused in Natalie's mind into a single excruciating fugue of annihilation.

Francisco Pizarro suffered the memories of far more murders than his own.

The flimsy director's chair wobbled as Natalie doubled up, her mantra forgotten, her thoughts smothered by an avalanche of agony. White to black, her perceptions flared to supernova brightness, then winked out

completely.

A Bantam Book / November 2006

Published by

Bantam Del

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Al rights reserved

Copyright (c) 2006 by Stephen Woodworth

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN-13: 978-0-553-90312-6

eISBN-10: 0-553-90312-8

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