"I'm not crazy," she said, her voice sharp, edged. "I know what you're thinking."

I had to cough before I could talk, and it made pains shoot through my belly again. "That wasn't what I was thinking."

"Of course it wasn't," the girl snarled. She rose, all lean grace and tension, and stalked toward me. "I know what you were thinking. That they'd shut you in here with that stupid little whore."

"No," I said. "I … that isn't what—"

She hissed like a cat, and raked her nails across my face, scoring my cheek in three lines of fire. I cried out and fell back, the wall interrupting my retreat.

"I can always tell, when I'm like this," Justine said. She gave me an abruptly careless look, turned on the balls of her feet and walked several feet away before stretching and dropping to all fours, watching me with an absent, disinterested gaze.

I stared at her for a moment, feeling the heat of the blood welling in the scratches. I touched a finger to them, and it came away sprinkled with scarlet. I lifted my gaze to the girl and shook my head. "I'm sorry," I said. "God. What did they do to you?"

"This," she said, carelessly, thrusting out one hand. Round, bruised punctures marked her wrist. "And this." She held out the other wrist, showing another set of marks. "And this." She stretched out her thigh to one side of her body, parallel to the floor, to show more marks, along it. "They all wanted a little taste. So they got it."

"I don't understand," I said.

She smiled with too many teeth, and it made me uneasy. "They didn't do anything. I'm like this. This is the way I always am."

"Um," I said. "You weren't that way last night."

"Last night," she snapped. "Two nights ago. At least. That was because he was there."

"Thomas?"

Her lower lip abruptly trembled, and she looked as though she might cry. "Yes. Yes, Thomas. He makes it quieter. Inside me, there's so much trying to get out, like at the hospital. Control, they said. I don't have the kind of control other people have. It's hormones, but the drugs only made me sick. He doesn't, though. Only a little tired."

"But—"

Her face darkened again. "Shut up," she snapped. "But, but, but. Idiot, asking idiot questions. Fool who did not want me when I was willing to give. Nothing does that. None of them, because they all want to take, take, take."

I nodded, and didn't say anything, as she became more agitated. It might have been politically incorrect of me, but the word LOONY all but appeared in a giant neon sign over Justine's head. "Okay," I said. "Just … let's just take it easy, all right?"

She glowered at me, falling silent. Then she slunk back to the space between the wall and the washing machine and sank into it. She started playing with her hair, and took no apparent notice of me.

I got up. It was hard. Everything spun around. On the floor, I found a dusty towel. I used it to sweep some of the grime off of my skin.

I went to the door and tried it. It stood firmly locked. I tested my weight against it, but the effort made a sudden fire of scarlet flash through my belly and I dropped to the floor, convulsing again. I threw up in the middle of it, and tasted blood in my mouth.

I lay exhausted for a while after that, and might have dropped off to sleep again. I looked up to find Justine holding the towel, and pushing it fitfully at my skin, the fresh mess.

"How long," I managed to ask her. "How long have I been here?"

She shrugged, without looking up. "They had you for a while. Just outside this door. I heard them taking you. Playing with you, for two hours, maybe. And then they put you in here. I slept. I woke. Maybe another ten hours. Or less. Or more. I don't know."

I kept an arm wrapped around my belly, grimacing, and nodded. "All right," I said. "We have to get out of here."

She brayed out a sharp laugh. "There is no out of here. This is the larder. The Christmas turkey doesn't get up and walk away."

I shook my head. "I … I was poisoned. If I don't get to a hospital, I'm going to die."

She smiled again, and played with her hair, dropping the towel. "Almost everyone dies in a hospital. You'd get to be someplace different. Isn't that better?"

"It's one of those things I could live without," I said.

Justine's expression went slack, her eyes distant, and she became still.

I stared at her, waved my hand in front of her eyes. Snapped my fingers. She didn't respond.

I sighed and stood up, then tested the door again. It was firmly bolted shut from the other side. I couldn't move it.

"Super." I sighed. "That's great. I'm never going to get out of here."

Behind me, something whispered. I spun, putting the door at my back, searching for the source of the sound.

A low mist crept out of the wall, a smoky, slithery mass that whirled itself down onto the floor like ethereal lace. The mist touched lightly at my blood on the floor where I'd thrown up, and then began to swirl and shape itself into something vaguely human.

"Great," I muttered. "More ghosts. If I get out of this alive, I've got to get a new job."

The ghost took shape before me, very slowly, very translucently. It resolved itself into the form of a young woman, attractive, dressed like an efficient secretary. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, but for a few appealing tendrils that fell down to frame her cheeks. Her ghostly wrist was crusted with congealed blood, spread around a pair of fang-punctures. Abruptly, I recognized her, the girl Bianca had fed upon until she died.

"Rachel," I whispered. "Rachel, is that you?"

As I spoke her name, she turned to me, her eyes slowly focusing on me, as though beholding me through a misty veil. Her expression turned, no pun intended, grave. She nodded to me in recognition.

"Hell's bells," I whispered. "No wonder Bianca got stuck on a vengeance kick. She literally was haunted by your death."

The spirit's face twisted in distress. She said something, but I could hear it only as a distant, muffled sound accompanying the movement of her lips.

"I can't understand you," I said. "Rachel, I can't hear you."

She almost wept, it seemed. She pressed her hand to her ghostly breast, and grimaced at me.

"You're hurt?" I guessed. "You hurt?"

She shook her head. Then touched her temple and drew her fingers slowly down over her eyes, closing them. "Ah," I said. "You're tired."

She nodded. She made a supplicating motion, holding out her hands as though asking for help.

"I don't know what I can do for you. I don't know if I can help you rest or not."

She shook her head again. Then she nodded, toward the door, and made a bottle-shaped curving gesture of her hands.

"Bianca?" I asked. When she nodded, I went on. "You think Bianca can lay you to rest." She shook her head. "She's keeping you here?"

Rachel nodded, her ghostly, pretty face agonized.

"Makes sense," I muttered. "Bianca fixates on you as you die tragically. Binds your ghost here. The ghost appears to her and drives her into a vengeance, and she blames it all on me."

Rachel's ghost nodded.

"I didn't kill you," I said. "You know that."

She nodded again.

"But I'm sorry. I'm sorry that me being in the wrong place at the wrong time set you up to die."

She gave me a gentle smile—which transformed into a sudden expression of horror. She looked past me, at Justine, and then her image began to fade, to withdraw into the wall.

"Hey!" I said. "Hey, wait a minute!"

The mist vanished, and Justine started to move. She rose, casually, and stretched. Then glanced down at herself and ran her hands appreciatively down over her breasts, her stomach. "Very nice," she said, voice subtly altered, different. "Rather like Lydia, in a lot of ways, isn't she, Mister Dresden."