Capital idea.

Alison/Fieldman took Brad by the shoulders and stared straight into his eyes, as if she could see right through the screen, down into the Brain Hotel lobby.

Sorry to do this to you again, Collective.

Before I had a chance to hurl a retort at the screen, we were all gone.

By now, this kind of thing was becoming familiar to me: the cold, the rigor mortis, fighting the strong tides of the decomposition process. But the rest of the souls were scared to death. All they saw was their new haven start to rot before their eyes. Amazing how closely linked physicality is with human creativity. With all this mind power in the room, we should have had no problem maintaining a clean, safe environment in which to live for any period of time. After all, I was living (sort of) proof that a human soul can exist in whatever physical form it inhabits. In other words, if a guy can survive in a toilet, he can certainly survive in a dead woman's body. Maybe not as dead as I'd thought.

Standing before me was a confused Leah Farrell. I hadn't had to absorb her soul; she was still here, in her own mind. Which meant there must be some brain activity left in her body. “Don't tell me this is the afterlife,” Leah said, frowning. “A bunch of hungry-eyed chumps, sitting around a fleabag hotel?"

“Leah,” I said. “Relax. I can explain. But I need you to help me first.

“Who are you? Do I know you?"

“We've had a few drinks together,” I said. “Don't you remember?"

“Look, buddy. I have a lot of drinks with a lot of guys. You can stop the happy talk and tell me how to get the hell out of this place."

I touched her shoulder. “First, tell me how you got here."

She slapped my hand away. “Don't fucking touch me."

“Tell me the last thing you remember."

It took quite a bit of coaxing (and even more sarcastic banter) but Leah finally told me enough to help me piece together what had happened before I arrived at the house. Right after Susannah had flipped and shot us at the Art Museum, Leah hauled ass to retrieve Ray. (They'd both rented a cheap room in Fairmount-oddly enough, not one mile from where Susannah had set up camp. Philly can be a small city that way.) She showed Ray the address Brad had stuffed down her shirt, and they decided to check it out. They hopped in a cab and high-tailed it over to Merion, then split up: Ray took the back entrance, Leah the front. Leah picked wrong. She opened the door and got a bullet in her throat for her trouble. The last thing she heard was glass shattering somewhere in the house. Then she ended up here.

“Your turn,” she said. “Start explaining."

“I'm going to borrow your body for a moment."

“What?"

“I'll be right back.” I created a pair of doors with my mind and walked through them. My eyes-actually, Leah's eyes-fluttered open back in reality.

All I can say is, thank the sweet Lord the bullet had severed Leah's vocal cords, because I would have screamed to heaven and awoken all the angels. This body hurt. I could barely suck down air, let alone stand up. But I was determined to go back to the living room. I threw out a hand, experimentally, and let it drop onto the rug. My newly borrowed fingers gathered up every fiber I could, then used it to turn the body over.

Then I started to crawl, hand over hand, down the length of the hallway. The rug created an almost insurmountable degree of friction; it was slow going. I could only imagine the electric shock I was building up. One touch from this body oughta kill the entire room. Halfway there I paused to cough. I was surprised to see blood jet from my mouth. No time to pause for lost fluids. I kept crawling toward the living room.

Finally, I reached an acceptable vantage point. I guess I'd missed a lot of pre-revenge chit-chat, because not much had changed in the living room. Ray was still skewered and tied to the couch. Susannah was still next to him, but now untied. Brad held a gun to her head. Alison was standing with her back to me. I wondered if the real Alison was in control again, or if Fieldman was still running the robot?

She removed a wrapped present from her purse, then tossed it to Susannah. “I believe this belongs to you, Ms. Winston."

Well that answered my question.

Susannah, to her credit, caught it mid-air. Most people aren't terribly agile with guns to their heads. She hesitated, then ripped the paper off. A stiletto.

I'm guessing it was the same one she'd used on Brad-although I can't fathom how they could have fished it out of the creek without me knowing. Maybe it was just the same make and model? I couldn't help but be impressed. Brad had this planned down the last sticking detail.

“Now use it,” Brad said.

“What?” Susannah asked.

Brad raised his pistol and pulled back the hammer. “You heard me. Use the knife on your boyfriend. I'm thinking fourteen or fifteen stabs ought to do the trick. That is, if you pick non-vital parts first."

“You're insane,” she said.

“C'mon, Lana-I fished it out of the creek for you and everything!"

Ray Loogan, for his part, didn't look like he was enjoying this part of the discussion. He started to panic and tried to crawl up the back of the couch, even if it meant pulling skewers through his skin. I almost felt bad for him. I couldn't help it. All this time I'd thought of him as this suave, genius killer who managed to elude me for the better part of a year. But now, all I saw was a kid who'd been overly trusting of the women in his life, and now he was scared out of his mind. He was going to die.

“Do it,” Brad said. He thrust the gun in her face.

“Sorry, Ray."

Ray started to cry. Susannah lifted the stiletto into the air and paused, as if trying to delay the inevitable. Then she struck down-hard. The blade slid into one of Ray's thighs. He howled. Susannah jerked it out, aimed, and plunged it again, inches higher. And again. Each stroke was more frenzied than the last. I couldn't see everything, because Alison partially blocked my view. But it was enough. And I could hear everything-every grunt, cry and thud.

Soon enough, Ray stopped crying. Susannah was covered in droplets of her ex-boyfriend's blood. She had the strangest expression on her face-part rage, part fear, part confusion.

“Good show, Susannah,” Brad said. “Wouldn't you say, sweetheart?"

Alison didn't say anything. She took a step back. Her heel dug into my outstretched hand. I shrieked, but it came out as a series of gurgles.

By way of pure reflex, Brad spun around and shot me in the shoulder.

“Owww shit,” I said, and rolled over. To be perfectly honest, my hand hurt a lot more than the bullet wound. I managed to spit out the words, “It's Del." As if it would matter to Brad.

“Christ,” he said. “Don't you know when to play dead?"

I would have shot a pithy remark back at him, but I was too busy trying to line my eyes up with Ray Loogan's. He was a dead man, of course. But luckily for me, he'd chosen to expire with his eyelids rolled up in his head.

“Looks like I'll have to teach you.” Brad took careful aim at my head and squeezed the trigger.

Or should I say, took careful aim at my ex-head. Because as the bullet was flying through the air, my soul was flinging across the space of the room, right into Ray's body. I was getting better and better at this. I jerked up my head in time to see Leah Farrell's head do a J.F.K.

And I'll be damned if Ray's body didn't hurt a hundred time's worse than Leah's abused corpse. I didn't know where to register pain first. I turned my new head to the left, experimentally, and saw Susannah staring at me in mute horror.