She was so cold.

With fingers that were slowly going numb, she reached out to touch the walls around her. After several minutes, she touched a ledge or narrow table and upon it found rows of pillar candles connected with the wispy, sticky threads of cobwebs.

She jerked her hand back, wiping it fastidiously against her thigh, and for a moment had to stand perfectly still and breathe evenly. It was all right. Nothing here could hurt her. Because she wasn’t really here, was she? She was…well, she was somewhere else. So nothing in this place could hurt her.

But it could scare the hell out of her.

She forced herself to go on, searching the darkness with every sense except sight. The cavernous sensation had diminished as she had grown accustomed to the dark, and she was aware now of a roof of some kind not many feet above her head. In one small room, she found stacks of old furniture, the wood splintered and smelling of rot. In another, she found the tattered remains of some kind of cloth in moldy piles against the cold earthen walls. In still another, she found shelves and cabinets containing dusty, rusted objects she tentatively identified by touch.

She kept going, and after she passed through what she thought was the back of a closet, she found herself in a low-ceilinged corridor that felt like a tunnel. It was leading her away from the rooms and the place where she had gotten up from the floor, and though the air around her lightened and she was aware of climbing as though out of a pit, it disturbed her to get so far away from what she had left behind.

It was important, though, so she kept going. Until, finally, she pushed her way through heavy brush and found herself standing only a few yards from a rocky shore. The ocean, she realized, watching waves lapping against the rocks. She turned to look back at the tunnel’s entrance, finding that it was cut into almost solid rock with a cliff rearing steeply above it.

She lifted her gaze beyond the tunnel, beyond the cliff. And in the twilight, etched sharply against the sky, she could see a cross.

Behind her, something tugged sharply.

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then bring her out of it, dammit.”

“She has to find her own way back. If we disturb her now, she could lose the connection.”

“Look at her. Her skin’s like ice, she’s barely got a pulse—and she’s been like this for nearly an hour. What the hell is going on?”

“I told you. She’s out of body.”

“Christ. I thought she was just going to reach out to Mackenzie, not go visit him.”

“She did reach out. And since he was unconscious, it seems this was the only way she could find out where he is. By going there.”

“There must be a better way.”

“I don’t think so. My God, Brodie—she is the one!”

“She’s going to be the dead one if we don’t get her back soon. Sarah? Sarah!”

“Brodie—”

“Sarah!”

“What?” She opened her eyes, abruptly and completely awake and aware, and found three pairs of eyes staring at her. Their expressions varied from Cait’s half-fearful fascination to Leigh’s excited interest. Brodie just looked relieved.

“Jesus. Don’t do that again.”

Sarah shifted a bit in her chair and found herself a little stiff, but curiously refreshed and no more tired than she’d been before. Either this was getting easier, or she had borrowed some of Tucker’s strength. Or else this new thing required much less energy. But her hands were very, very cold. She rubbed them together. “How long was I gone?”

“You realize you were gone?” Leigh asked.

“Sure,” Sarah replied, absently stretching her arms out before her to ease the stiffness. “How long?”

Brodie glanced at his watch. “Since you closed your eyes, an hour and five minutes. You became a zombie about ten minutes into the procedure.”

She smiled at him. “A zombie?”

“Soulless,” he explained frankly. “A body with a beating heart. Creepy as hell.”

Rather to her surprise, Sarah found that his honest aversion didn’t make her feel like a freak. Or maybe she was just getting so accustomed to this that acceptance had built its own armor. “Sorry I creeped you out.”

“Oh, don’t mention it. I find this sort of thing happening with alarming frequency these days. You’d think I’d get used to it.”

Leigh cut in impatiently. “Sarah, were you there? With Tucker?”

She nodded. “It was dark; that’s why it took me so long. I had to feel my way around until I found the way out.”

Bewildered, Cait said, “I thought the way out was back through Tucker. Leigh said that’s how you got there, and—”

Sarah didn’t blame her for being confused. “I got there through Tucker, and I came back through him, but I was looking for a physical way out. One we could use when we actually—I mean physically—go there.”

There was a part of Sarah that couldn’t believe she was discussing this so calmly and matter-of-factly. Yet to another part of her, it seemed perfectly normal and nothing to get upset or excited about.

“A way out,” Brodie said. “As opposed to a way in?”

Sarah looked at him. “They believe there’s only one way in, and they’re all around it—that’s the trap they’ve set. I go in, and no matter what happens inside, I can’t get out, because they close the way behind me. But I found a back door we can use, an entrance they know nothing about. How we use it depends on the plan we decide on.”

“Where is this place?”

“It’s an old, abandoned church right on the coast. Outside the city, but not too far away. Tucker is being held in the cellar, and it’s a big one. Lots of rooms and a rabbit warren of narrow corridors. And there are tunnels spreading out from the church; I think they were built and used for storage, and to get to other buildings when the weather was bad. Most of the tunnels are probably caved in now, but one leads through the rock and out to the beach. At that point, in that place, no one paying attention to the church would see us go in.”

Brodie frowned. “Do you know how many of them are there?”

Sarah felt herself shiver and looked down to watch gooseflesh rise on her arms. “I…couldn’t count them. Couldn’t…differentiate between them somehow. Just shadows lurking around me, and above me in the church. But I know there are several of them, at least. Maybe half a dozen. And one very close to Tucker, keeping watch.”

“Did they know you were there?” Leigh asked.

“No.” Sarah looked at her. “I was very careful not to touch any of them. I knew it was vital that they not find out I was there. Because if they had, they would have killed Tucker immediately.”

“Why?” Cait asked, still baffled.

Softly, Leigh said, “They would have known how she got there. They would have understood that she was already lost to them, her potential fully realized. Worse, they would have known that she was able to move among them, unseen. Find out things about them. They would have had to destroy her. Killing him would be the quickest, easiest way to do that.”

“If they aren’t psychic,” Cait said, “could they have known she was there?”

Leigh looked at Sarah questioningly.

Slowly, Sarah nodded. “If I had touched any one of them…they would have known. They may not be psychic, but they—somehow—instantly recognize the paranormal when it comes into contact with them, I’m sure of that. If they had touched my…my spirit, the energy of me that was there, they would have sensed and recognized me. And if any one of them touches me physically, they’ll know I’m connected to Tucker.”

This time, Leigh looked at Brodie. “There’s something new, something we didn’t know. We can recognize them by touch—and they can recognize us.”