But Dani had no intention of waiting there and was already moving herself, slowly, carrying the live-energy cloud with her.

At first Marc thought the energy was draining her, but she turned her head slightly and sent him a quick, clear look, and he realized in that instant what she was doing.

"Make it a weapon."

It was dangerous, what she was doing. Potentially deadly. Because a conduit could only accept and channel so much energy without being destroyed in the process.

He didn't know where she was drawing the energy from, though he guessed it was the storm still feeding her, even this far underground. Clearly, she'd been right in believing this place would help contain energy.

Hell, maybe the bastard had chosen his trap well, knowing he could use it, having had the time these last weeks to test his little energy nexus.

Dani had no time for experiments or theories or practice. All she had was her instincts and desperation. All Marc had was the certainty that she was risking her life, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.

Bishop had managed to slip past Dani without disturbing her crackling aura, but when he reached the door, there was-nothing. No knob or handle, no lock, just a featureless expanse of solid steel.

He looked back at the others and shook his head grimly.

Nobody had brought anything with which to batter down a door, there was no lock to pick, and even hinges weren't visible, much less accessible.

As she reached the end of the hallway, Dani said very quietly, "I'll get the door. Just-move fast once I do. I don't know what will happen if I-Just move fast."

"Dani, for God's sake, be careful," Marc said, just as quietly. He thought he was braced for anything, but in the last few seconds, as the energy cloud intensified and she visibly gathered herself, he saw two of her inside that aura.

"Oh, Christ," he said.

The sound was like an explosion. Was an explosion. A literal wave of pure raw energy surged forward from Dani with an eerie silence that made the thunderous craa-aack! of the door blowing inward all the more deafening.

Marc followed Bishop and Roxanne to the doorway of the room but not into it, remaining in the corridor, his arm around Dani as she sagged abruptly against him, all her energy spent.

What he saw was more than a little surprising, and from their frozen positions he knew the others were just as stunned by the scene that greeted them.

A very ordinary-looking man most anyone would have passed on the street without a glance cowered in the far corner of the room, what looked like a scalpel in his hand as he slashed wildly at the air around him, making guttural sounds that might have been rage-or terror. He appeared to be fighting, or attempting to defend himself, but whatever his weirdly flat, shiny eyes detected as a threat was invisible to the newcomers.

But to their immense relief, in the center of the room, strapped to a stainless-steel table that was tilted about forty-five degrees up at the head, was Hollis.

She was more than a little bruised and battered, and it was clear the monster had begun to cut her clothing off before he was… interrupted… but she was very much alive.

"Hollis?" Bishop's normally cool voice was unsteady.

She turned her head and looked at him, and her swollen lips smiled, if only a little. "Boss, I want a raise. Either that or a new job."

"What the hell did you do to him?" Roxanne asked, her gaze fixed on the desperately struggling monster.

"You can't see them, but I have a posse in the room. All his victims have come to visit their murderer. And lemme tell you, they're pissed. Right now, they're telling him all about hell. In Technicolor."

Bishop gestured for Roxanne to keep her gun on the monster, and holstered his own weapon as he went to free Hollis.

"All his victims?"

"Well, most of 'em. I got scared and opened a lot of doors." She winced slightly. "Ow."

Roxanne said, "I may have to shoot him just to get the scalpel away from him."

"Feel free," Marc said. Then he looked at Dani. "Are you okay? That looked-"

" Paris helped. Right at the end."

"Is she…?"

"She's gone." Dani didn't know when she had started to cry, but she couldn't seem to stop. She felt empty and knew it wasn't because of what she had done, but what she had lost. "I think she just stuck around as long as she did so she could help."

It wasn't much solace to Dani to remind herself that, deep down, she and Paris had both known, for weeks, that this was going to happen. It didn't help to recognize that they had, at least, been granted the time to begin to say good-bye.

Half of her had been torn away, or nearly half; Paris had given her twin her abilities, even her life force, and Dani felt that too. She knew she was not quite as alone as others would perceive her to be.

That didn't help either.

"I'm sorry. God, Dani, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, me too." She tried for a smile and knew it was no more than a shadow. "Even if I knew all along it would happen."

"Did you?"

"I knew. Paris knew too. That's why she gave me her abilities when she could."

"He came after you instead of her."

"Maybe he tried to get to Paris first and found the guardian. Or maybe he intended to go after me all along. But I think I surprised him, maybe even hurt him. I don't think he realized that I could learn so fast to channel energy. Neither did I, really."

She looked at the monster that had taken so much from her, from so many people, and even through her numb sense of loss, an uneasiness stirred. "I don't think…"

"What?" Marc asked.

"I'm too tired to reach out, really, but what I feel from this monster is… it's sick and evil, but… I just don't think-"

"Christ, look over there," Roxanne said, nodding toward the wall where photo collections detailed the stalking and torturing of his victims. "I don't think we'll have any problem convincing a jury this is our killer. Assuming it even gets to trial. Want my take, I say he picked this place because the universe told him it was where he belonged. In an asylum."

Dani avoided looking at the trophies, but she could feel herself frowning. "I wonder if this monster was ever human."

"Dani?" Marc's arm tightened around her.

She realized he didn't have to ask the question for her to know what it was. "Out there in the hallway… what I felt during that attack. It was never from this room. It was never in this room, Marc."

"What do you mean?"

"This is the killer, I know that." Even exhausted and aching, she knew that, felt that. "There are so many dark and twisted things inside him it's like worms. Maggots." She closed her eyes briefly, trying to shut off the unwelcome information. "Audrey…"

"His mother." Hollis, freed from her stainless-steel prison and cautiously testing her bruises, said, "His victims got an earful about her by the end. She doted on him. In a very unnatural way."

Dani shook her head. "He was born twisted; she just made him worse."

"Yeah. Well, before they started putting the fear of hell into him a while ago, one of his victims told me we might want to take a look into the room closest to this one. She seemed to think we were in for a surprise."

Even before they began exploring, they had a baffling mystery on their hands, because when Marc touched the killer he was able to confirm what Dani had already sensed.

"He's not psychic."

"Maybe burned out?" Roxanne suggested. "That last attack against Dani was a fierce one. Maybe too much for him?"

Still surprisingly calm, Hollis said, "If you're talking about whatever energy blew the door in, I doubt he had anything to do with it. He was fully occupied, believe me, for at least ten or fifteen minutes before you guys got here."