Her Last Whisper (3 page)

“Sure?” Creason persisted.

Charlie nodded. “Yes.”

The smell of alcohol was sharp and unpleasant. The institutional green concrete-block walls gave the room a cold feel, or
maybe the chill that had taken hold of her was because she was suffering from a little bit of delayed shock; she couldn’t be sure. The overhead fluorescent lighting made Creason’s skin look too pale, and glinted off the metal examination table and the oversized steel watch that hung loosely around her wrist, which looked far too slender to support it.

With good reason: it was Michael’s watch, sized for his powerful forearm. Heavy and warm from her skin, it was inscribed with the Marine Corps motto of
Semper fi
, and it was the only solid piece of evidence supporting his claim of innocence. Maybe it was a foolish feminine failing (the alliteration she’d tagged it with added to the self-mockery she experienced whenever she forced herself to consider the cold hard facts, which overwhelmingly came down on the side of him being guilty as sin), born of an intense attraction to a really hot (dead) guy, but in her heart of hearts she no longer believed he was a serial killer. The watch had gone a long way toward convincing her of what she’d wanted to believe anyway. When it had shown up after his death, Michael had given it to her, he’d said, because she was the only person left in the world who gave a damn about him.

As she instinctively touched the smooth metal bracelet, a hard knot formed in her chest.

Oh, God, where is he?
Much as she hated to face it, Spookville was just about the only option. Would he be trapped there? Forever?

The fear settled like a concrete block in her stomach.

Creason picked up her injured hand and said, “You want to watch this closely. If it turns red or starts to swell—”

“I know the drill.” Pulling her hand from his grasp, Charlie decided that, okay, maybe she was sounding a little abrupt. Creason had been both kind and competent, and didn’t deserve to be snapped at. It was just that she was in a hurry to get out of the infirmary, to rush back to the room where Michael had disappeared to see if, perhaps, there was some trace of him there, or some way of making contact. If not—she stopped the thought before it could add to her burgeoning panic, and even managed a quick smile for Creason. “Thanks for taking such good care of me.”

He smiled back, his hazel eyes warming on her face. “My pleasure. If you’ll stop in tomorrow, I’ll change the bandage and—”

Phlatt
. Just like that, the lights in the infirmary went out in a quick shower of exploding sparks. Thrown, without warning, into sudden pitch darkness, Charlie gave a start of alarm. She grabbed the flimsy plastic arms of her chair as a way of staying oriented in the complete absence of light. A bubble of nervous dread rose in her throat.

Creason exclaimed, “What on earth?”

From the other room came a tangled burst of shouts and curses from men she could no longer see, and a shattering shriek she thought must have come from Spivey. A loud clatter of metal in the main room was followed by a yell and a heavy
thud
, as if something large had fallen.

A sudden crawling sensation, like a spider running over the back of her neck, made her suck in air. Her shoulders lifted in instinctive self-protection. She looked sharply around. It was too dark: she couldn’t see a thing. Making herself as small as possible, she pressed her spine back against the molded chair.

Something wicked this way comes
 … Those were the words that popped unbidden into her head, accompanied by a shiver and the electrifying corollary thought
Michael
—but the energy she was sensing didn’t feel anything like his.

This felt—evil.

Then the lights flickered once and came back on as, Charlie presumed, the emergency backup generator system kicked in.

Overreacting much to a power outage?
she asked herself derisively. But that, she recognized even as the words formed in her mind, was nothing more than pure bravado. Because whatever had just happened, she was pretty sure it wasn’t a simple power outage.

But with the lights on again, everything seemed perfectly fine.

Letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, allowing her tense shoulders to slowly relax, Charlie unobtrusively sat up straighter—and found herself looking at a floating wisp of what might have passed for heat shimmer if the room hadn’t been cold as ice. The nearly transparent disturbance in the atmosphere drifted
until it hovered directly in front of Creason. It hadn’t been present before, and she was just telling herself that it must be some sort of vapor from the malfunctioning light fixture, when it surged toward Creason. Purposefully. Like there was consciousness at work there.

What …?

Lips parting with surprise, Charlie was on the verge of calling out a warning. But there was no time—besides, she knew that communicating any of what she was seeing and feeling in terms Creason could grasp would be impossible. All she could do was watch in silent horror as at the last second the energy bunched into a ball that struck Creason right in the middle of his chest and then—dis appeared.

Not dissipated. Vanished. Inside him.

She blinked at Creason.

“Babe, we need to get out of here. Right now,” Michael growled urgently in her ear. His voice was low and guttural, almost unrecognizably so, but still she did recognize it and practically fell out of her chair in reaction. Her heart had been a poor, frozen thing and she hadn’t even realized it until now, as it warmed and throbbed with relief and started to beat properly again. She was so thankful for his presence she barely registered the sense of what he was saying. Instead she turned her head sharply to find him crouched beside her, ephemeral as mist but
there
.

Feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, she barely had time to mutter a worried “You’re see-through” at him before he barked, “Leave her alone,” in a deep and fearsome voice as he rose to his full, intimidating height. He wasn’t talking to her, that was for sure. And even as she glanced around in surprise to see who he
was
talking to, he surged forward to stand protectively in front of her. He seemed to be addressing Creason, who of course couldn’t see him—she was
almost
sure. But from what she could see of Creason—and she was looking at him through the shimmery translucence that was Michael, so her vision was admittedly a little compromised—he seemed to be staring at Michael. No, glaring at him. Threateningly.

Which was impossible. Creason couldn’t
see
Michael.

Could he?

Unwillingly, she remembered that vanishing ball of shimmering air.

Her pulse drummed in her ears as she realized that there was something off about Creason’s face. A distortion of his features, a look in his eyes—

“Charlie. Out the door,” Michael ordered in that new, fierce voice without looking around. Coupled with her own shiver-inducing reaction to Creason, Michael’s growl had her on her feet and moving toward the door without argument. Whatever was happening—and, though she had no idea what it was, she knew it was something very bad—she was sure that she wanted no part of it.

That it was dangerous.

“Um, I’m going back to work now,” she said to Creason, whose eyes rested on her with a chilling expression that was far removed from the doctor’s usual benevolent gaze. Creason didn’t respond, but his mouth twisted in a way that made her chest tighten.

The question that raised its trembling head was:
why
would Creason look at her like that?

“She’s off-limits.” Michael’s warning was addressed to Creason, and from the doctor’s expression Charlie was suddenly positive that he
could
see and hear Michael. Thinking about what that had to mean made her blood run cold.

“Go,”
Michael barked at her, his eyes never leaving Creason.

Charlie went. As she did, Creason followed. Slowly. Menacingly. Step by surprisingly awkward step.

His gait didn’t look right …

The hair stood up on the back of Charlie’s neck. If Michael hadn’t positioned himself between her and the doctor, she would, she feared, have broken into a run before she reached the door. But some instinct told her that would be a mistake, just like running from a snarling dog was a mistake.

Do not show fear
.

The last thing she wanted to do was provoke him to attack—

She broke off in mid-thought, aghast: provoke
Creason
to attack?

That’s when she consciously acknowledged what she had sensed
almost from the moment the ball of vapor had disappeared into the doctor’s chest: what was looking at her out of his eyes was not Creason.

That prickle around her hairline? That would be her breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Keep going.” Michael’s terse directive didn’t allow for argument, not that she had any intention of arguing. Getting as far away from Creason as fast as she could was what her every instinct screamed at her to do. As for Michael, she’d already endangered him enough with her carelessness; she couldn’t put him any further at risk. As see-through as delicately tinted Saran wrap at the moment, he was in no condition to provide her with any physical protection from anything in this world, and she had no way of knowing if he was psychically strong enough to protect her from anything out of it. And if he was to try to materialize again—Her stomach twisted. One of these days, he would go into Spookville and never come back, just as they had been warned. When it happened—and it would happen, sooner or later—she was afraid she would never recover.

Still, it hadn’t happened yet, and having him with her even in his present debilitated state made her feel like she had an army at her back. She must have made some small sound encouraging him to keep pace, because he shot a quick, hard glance at her.

It was then that she noticed with a cold little shiver that his eyes were dead black. Soulless.
That place does things to me
—she remembered him saying that the last time he’d managed to escape from Spookville, radiating brutality, eyes as black and feral as they were now. She’d understood him to mean it did
bad
things to him.

As in, turned him into the lowest, most savage version of himself.

Oh, God
. But even the lowest, most savage version of Michael was preferable to no Michael at all.

“Go!” he snarled, and she nodded and went. Her hurried footsteps on the smooth terrazzo sounded very loud to her own ears.

The air itself seemed to pulse with malevolence as she made it through the door and strode out into the infirmary’s main room. There she discovered one of the trustees picking himself up off the
floor. An overturned bucket disgorging soapy water plus a dropped mop near his feet made her wonder if he had tripped over the bucket when the lights went out. It would explain the sounds she had heard—

“Keep moving.” Behind her, Michael kept himself positioned between her and Creason, who had not said so much as a word. Which, it occurred to Charlie, was creepy as hell. In his new, rough voice, Michael ordered, “Get out into the hall,” to her, then snapped, “Stay back,” at the now standing trustee in the same threatening tone he had used with Creason.

Which was extra-terrifying, because Michael was perfectly aware that in the ordinary course of things no one besides her could see or hear him. Except it seemed that this particular trustee
could
, because he was regarding Michael with an ugly expression that made Charlie’s heart pound. Or was he looking
through
Michael, at her? There was no way for her to know, but she
did
know that his stare was unnerving.

The other trustee and the two orderlies on duty and the single guard she could see and the inmate/patients waiting in beds for treatment seemed totally oblivious to anything extraordinary happening in their midst. They had resumed what they’d been doing before the lights went out.

Of course, unless the universe was throwing a really nasty curve-ball her way, nothing had changed for them. They were perfectly normal. They couldn’t see Michael. When they looked at Creason and the trustee, they saw Creason and the trustee and nothing else. But there was no way she could tell for sure that none of the rest of them had been affected, so she dared not trust appearances.

Stay calm
.

Except for Creason and the one trustee, both of whom kept their eyes riveted on her, nobody paid any attention to her as she walked quickly toward the door. Having converged until they were almost shoulder to shoulder now, those two were coming after her and Michael—slowly, thank God! Although—too slowly? As if their bodies didn’t quite work properly? Feeling their eyes on her made her want to jump out of her skin.

Were they
chasing
her? Short answer:
I don’t want to know
.

“Hurry,” Michael growled. And despite the buzz of ordinary-sounding conversation and the resumption of ordinary-seeming activity behind her, Charlie could feel her stomach knotting as she hit the intercom button beside the door.

Hurry, hurry, hurry:
the refrain seemed to pulse through her veins.

“What can I do for you?” came the disinterested voice over the intercom.

Trying not to sound as panicky as she was starting to feel, Charlie answered, “Could you let me out, please?”

Security was tight in the prison, and passing from one section to another was not as easy as, say, just walking through a door and strolling down a corridor. After a moment a man’s meaty face appeared on the other side of the door’s small glass window to check her out, as was routine before unlocking the door. It could not have taken long, but her nerves were so jangled that it seemed like forever; it was all she could do to keep from casting quick, nervous glances over her shoulder the entire time, which she was loath to do because she didn’t want to show any more consciousness of something being wrong than she could help. Finally, what seemed like an interminable time later, the door was buzzed open.