As her far foot lifted for another step, I stared. Beneath the hem of the long gown, there wasn’t a boot, just something long and white, like a cane. Her lower leg bone, no foot attached, strings of dirty flesh hanging off it. The bone came down to meet the floor. A second’s pause as she struggled to get her balance, rocking forward, then back as she launched her good foot up and over, then rested her weight on it.

Dear God, how much willpower did it take to walk like that? But she had to. She’d been summoned, and had to obey.

When her face turned my way, I nearly gasped, biting my lip at the last second to stifle the sound. Her nose was a blackened cavity above another hole that had been her mouth, her teeth bared in a permanent skull-like grimace, her lips gone. Bloodied bone shone through her chin and cheekbones.

As I tried not to whimper, I told myself I was being ridiculous. I’d seen worse. Bodies torn apart by mutts. But they were dead! my brain screamed. Not walking around, living, breathing, conscious-

I pulled back before she saw me, but I moved too fast, and my elbow clanged against the file cabinet. The sound rang out as loud as a gong.

Rose let out something between a roar and a squeal, and started thumping in my direction. I wheeled out from behind the cabinet, and she flew at me, hands up, hooked into claws-bone claws, most of the flesh gone, half of her fingers missing. I veered out of her path, but she kept coming, lurching and lunging, faster than I would have thought possible.

As I backpedaled, one of those bony claws sheered my way. I acted on instinct, hitting the bottom of her arm with an uppercut. Her arm flew up with the blow, then fell limply to her side. Yet she kept coming, her good arm clawing at me.

As I dodged her blows, her limp arm seemed to be slipping…sliding from the sleeve.

Had I knocked her arm off? With a simple blow? Then how the hell was I going to subdue her? If I threw her down, I was liable to rip her in half.

She kept coming, eyes rolling with rage.

“Rose!” I yelled.

She didn’t stop coming at me, stumping forward, good arm clawing the air. When I called again, her gaze met mine, telling me she was still capable of hearing and processing words.

I let her get less than a foot away, then scampered to the other side of the room, leaving her yowling in rage.

“I can keep this up all night, Rose,” I said. “You can’t get me and you know it.”

She only snarled and flung herself toward me. I sidestepped past her. Just walked. Once across the room, I perched on the side of an old metal desk, as if making myself comfortable.

“I can give you what you want, Rose,” I said.

Her lipless mouth opened. Her words came out garbled, but I could make them out. “Good. Then come ’ere.”

“Still got a sense of humor? Pretty soon it’ll be all you have-”

She lunged. I pulled my foot back, caught her in the stomach and shoved as hard as I dared, knocking her to the floor. She didn’t rest for even a second, just struggled to rise on her good leg. As her body jerked with the effort, her severed arm slid to the floor. Seeing it, she let out a howl of rage and frustration.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” I said. “If you can still think as clearly as I believe you can, you know that was an accident. I have no interest in making things any worse for you than they are. All I want is to get Matthew Hull.”

Her eyes rolled up to mine and I knew she recognized the name. Had there been an inkling of doubt in my mind that he was the controller, it evaporated. She stared up at me, unblinking. She couldn’t blink. She didn’t have any eyelids. I forced my gaze away as my stomach rolled.

“What has he promised you if you catch me?” I asked.

“That it’ll stop,” she mumbled.

“So you can die in peace.”

Her body went rigid. “No. Not-can’t die. I’ll go to ’Ell.” She shuddered. “This is better. Close the gate. No more…it’ll stop.”

“The rotting you mean.”

“It’ll ’eal.”

“Heal? Is that what he told you? Maybe so, but is he planning to regrow all those parts you’ve lost? Your foot? Your lips? Arm? Nose? Eyelids? What you really want is peace, isn’t it? To die and go someplace peaceful, where you’ll be whole again. I can make sure that happens.”

She made a hiccuping noise that, after a moment, I realized was laughter.

“You don’t believe me? I have someone here who can help. The one who summoned you. She can make sure you cross over.”

“And go straight to bleedin’ ’Ell,” she snarled. “After all I’ve done, where else would I go?”

She had a point. Then I remembered Jaime talking earlier about Eve…

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I said. “I can’t tell you what’s on the other side. No one can. But there’s more redemption than vengeance. I’d say you have a shot at some peace in the next life. Especially if you finish this one doing some good.”

“She’s right,” said a voice behind me. “I don’t know what’s over there either, but I know plenty of spirits who expected to end up someplace far worse than they did.”

Jaime stepped forward. Her gaze lit on Rose and if she felt any revulsion or horror, none of that showed. Not even pity. She just walked over to stand beside me.

“Just lead us to Hull, and we’ll take it from there,” I said. “You’ll be free.”

Rose looked at us with her horrible lidless eyes.

“You don’t still feel some obligation to him, do you? Maybe you did, when you first realized he’d given you a shot at another life, but I hope you don’t forget he ended your first one. You’re a servant. A zombie slave, put in that portal to serve him. And serve him you have, haven’t you? He used you up, and let you die, and die again-and still threw you into our path. Who cared if you fell to pieces? He had a backup. A man. You don’t see him rotting this badly, do you? Did you think that was just luck?”

“Will you kill ’im?” she asked. “The wizard or whatever ’e is?”

“That’s the surest way to close the portal. And something tells me Hull isn’t going to get one of those ‘get out of Hell free’ cards.”

Her face contorted in a hideous smile. “Good.”

Betrayed

AS IT TURNED OUT, HULL DID HAVE SOMEONE WATCHING the hotel: Rose. I don’t know how he expected her to stop us if we’d tried to leave. More likely, Hull had been giving Rose a near-meaningless assignment to keep her rotting corpse away from them. Guarding us hadn’t been a high priority. Even if we left, he could find me.

But what could have been so important that it diverted his attention-and his primary resources-away?

Rose knew only that Hull was “getting something” related to his ongoing experiment, the one whose completion he intended to finance with my children…and the one that had landed him in dimensional limbo in the first place. Seems the only lesson he’d learned from that experience was that he’d better hurry and finish his work before someone else in the supernatural community learned of it.

Although she didn’t know where he’d headed, she could find him using a gut level sense that worked as well as any homing device. Yet we couldn’t pop Rose in a taxi, so we had to walk, at her pace, staying on side streets and skirting all signs of activity.

“Gettin’ close,” she mumbled an hour later, as we cut through a narrow service lane between buildings.

“Watch-” Jaime said, waving at a swath of broken glass.

I steered Rose out of the way of the glass, resisting the urge to shudder as her bone fingers clamped into my side. My arm was hooked around her, under the stump of her right arm, and her good arm was around my torso, which made her trip a little easier, and mine a little less so.

We’d hobbled two-thirds of the way down the long lane when that broken glass crunched behind us. I tensed, but forced myself to keep moving. Jaime slanted a “What’s up?” look my way.