"Wake up. The man wants to see you in an hour. You need to use the bathroom?"

"What?" Leah tried to focus on his words. An hour? What time was it? Who was...?

Del.

Her thoughts grew clearer, cutting their way through the leftover haze of whatever they'd dosed her with. It was morning, and Del had some kind of demonstration planned, something that involved her.

Rough hands shook her.

"Hey! I said-"

"I heard you." Her words were as dry and cracked as her throat felt. "Bathroom. Yes."

She let the man haul her to her feet. The bathroom turned out to be one door down in the hallway. At one time it had been a public restroom with two urinals and two stalls. The guard started to close the door and Leah called out to him.

"Wait. My hands." She held up her hands, still bound at the wrists by a heavy plastic tie-wrap.

"No." He shut the door, leaving her alone in the musty room.

"Thanks a lot," she whispered, staring at her bound hands and trying to figure out how to get her pants down. In the end, it took a series of contortions before she could pee. Then it was a five-minute struggle trying to get her underwear and pants back on. As an act of defiance that meant little but made her feel better, she left the toilet unflushed. After splashing water on her face and struggling to get paper towels out of the dispenser, she tapped on the door to let the guard know she was ready.

A large cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee was waiting in her cell, and she rushed across the room to it, the rich, dark aroma a siren call to her caffeine-starved body. Sipping the hot liquid, she found herself amazed at the human ability to find a bit of pleasure even in the most awful of situations. Here she was, most likely hours from her death, and still able to appreciate the simple joy of drinking coffee, experiencing an almost-sensual gratification from the complex flavors and scents.

If this has to be my last meal, I'm all right with that.

A morbid thought, but a real one. She'd been prepared for death since the renegade priest in the warehouse condemned her. She didn't want it-every fiber in her being craved life-but she was ready to accept it. Better death than a life of endless Curing and killing as someone's slave.

The door opened without warning, and she wondered if the room was soundproofed. And if so, why? What kind of place had this been before Del took it over for his own purposes?

Just like the last time, the long hallway stunk of stale blood and dead flesh, a metallic, bitter odor that coated her tongue and nostrils and kick-started her nausea again. It surprised her that she'd grown accustomed to the disagreeable smells, or at least to the less potent levels in her cell. In school she'd never gotten used to them, and had often felt like they lingered on long after she'd left the lab and showered, a phantom stench living inside her sinuses.

Either immune to the death smell or better at masking his displeasure, Del was at his desk when she arrived, still dressed in the same clothes as the previous day. She figured it was a good bet he'd stayed up all night, crafting whatever nasty surprise he had in store for her.

"Good morning, Doc. Sleep well?" he greeted, never looking away from the computer screen.

"What's going to happen to me?"

He shrugged. "Like I told you before, that depends on you. Are you ready to get started?"

"Please don't hurt John. He's been through too much already because of me." Leah's stomach churned as she spoke, her nausea mixing with guilt and anger at being in a situation that reduced her to begging.

"Well, you can relax. Your boyfriend's safe. At least for today," he added, and the guard behind her chuckled.

Del stood up and pointed at a second door across the office. "Right through there, Doc. Just do your magic and in an hour you can be holding hands or knocking boots or whatever you feel like with Mr. Police Officer."

Do your magic. Oh h.e.l.l. Should I- "I can't." Leah's feet, much like her mouth, suddenly decided to act on their own and she came to a stop by the door.

"What?" Del came around and stood in front of her, his face even with hers. The expression on it was not a pleasant one. Behind her, the guard gave her arm a little twist, making her wince. "What do you mean you can't?"

"I can't Cure anyone. Or anything. My Power. It's gone." Leah closed her eyes, antic.i.p.ating a physical reaction. A punch, a slap. A broken arm.

"Bulls.h.i.t."

The door opened on squeaky hinges and hands pushed her forward. She opened her eyes as she entered a much larger room. This one contained a video camera on a tripod, a computer and eight monitors lined up on a table. More cameras were mounted in the corners of the ceiling.

"Doc, this is no time to try and pull a fast one on me. I know all about you. I've got video of you killing one of my best a.s.sociates, not to mention curing that cop. Bet you didn't know that, did you? I'm not an idiot. I plan things down to the last detail. You think I could set something like this up without proof? Now, you're gonna do as I ask or things are gonna get real painful for you."

Del took her arm and moved her to a position in front of the table.

Leah shook her head but didn't try to resist. "You don't understand. The explosion...in that warehouse. It...it did something to me. The doctor said it was exhaustion, and maybe a concussion. Ever since that day, I haven't been able to... I've been a normal person."

She looked at him, the man who'd caused her and John so much pain and suffering, and some of her old defiance rose up.

"So if you want to kill me, do it now."

She expected him to get angry, but instead Del just smiled, a grin that didn't reach his eyes at all.

"A concussion? Exhaustion? Sounds like a cop-out to me. Heard it all the time in the service. Psychosomatic bulls.h.i.t. I think with the right, shall we say, incentive, you'll see how fast those powers of yours come back." He leaned forward, and his smile disappeared. "At least, you better hope so, for the cop's sake. Now, if you'll excuse me."

He moved to the table and flicked the computer screens on. As soon as they lit up, each one showed a different man's face. Leah recognized all of them as criminals; how she knew it, she couldn't say for sure, but there was something about their looks, something hard and cruel they all shared, despite looking nothing like each other.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Del said to them, and they returned his greeting with gruff h.e.l.los or brief nods. "You all know why you're here, so I won't waste your time with explanations. This morning you will see the demonstration I told you about."

"Is that her?" one of the faces, that of an older, swarthy man with gray hair, asked.

"Yes. And here is our test subject." Del motioned to his guards, and one of them opened the door, revealing two more men leading a large, very nervous animal on a leash.

A pig? They want me to Cure a pig? Leah eyed the beast as the two muscular men walked it in. It fought against the leash, and it took both men to keep it from breaking free.

I don't even want to go near that thing. She'd never handled a pig before. She estimated its weight to be at least two hundred pounds, recognized it as a half-grown Vietnamese pot-belly variety. A smart, intelligent animal. And dangerous. A pig that size could do real damage with its teeth, hooves and ma.s.sive body.

One of the men drew a wicked-looking knife from his belt and held it against the top of the pig's fleshy neck.

"Gentlemen, what you are about to see will be-"

Before Del could finish, the pig emitted a loud squeal and leaped forward. It pulled the second guard to his knees and dragged him several feet before the leash yanked free.

"Shoot it!" Del shouted, dodging to one side. On the monitors, several of the video conference attendees called out, asking what was going on.

"A small delay," Del said, reaching for the keyboard. His hand never made it, as the pig changed directions, causing him to leap out of the way again. The man on the floor was crawling after his gun, which he'd dropped when he fell. The guard with the knife charged after the frantic pig, which was much more agile than its would-be captors.

Leah stood frozen, unsure of what to do. Thoughts of escape ran through her head, but brought with them an imagined bullet in the back from Del or one of his men.

Do something! she urged herself. Her body refused to obey, remaining locked in place. Then the pig was charging right at her, and it was too late to avoid it. At the last moment her paralysis broke but she only had time to get half her body out of the way.

The pig slammed into her at the waist with freight-train force, punching the breath from her lungs and knocking her onto her back. Hooves hammered her chest and face, shattering bones and sending thunderbolts of pain through her body. She tried to scream but a ma.s.sive wall of flesh fell on top of her, covering her mouth and nose and pressing down on her injured ribs like a giant boot. Something exploded near her head and the muscular mountain sitting on her emitted a high-pitched shriek.

Then the weight and pressure disappeared, leaving her free to draw in a gasping breath. When it released, the scream that had been waiting in the wings came with it, a long, drawn-out cry of pain that triggered even more agony in her chest. Her vision dimmed, everything taking on shades of gray. A loud ringing in her ears made all other sounds seem fuzzy. Only the misery in her bones was sharp and focused, dominating her entire world. Words reached her, but carried no meaning.

"Look."

"Holy s.h.i.t!"

"Get the camera!"

"I got it!"

"Put her in the chair."

"Ow! I got a shock!"

"Gentlemen, here is your demonstration."

Leah fought to breathe. Each movement triggered new agonies inside her until she grew numb to any further insults to her body. A wonderful feeling came to her, the pain washed away by a cool current, like sliding into a stream on a hot day or standing naked in a soft summer breeze. Her relief was a physical thing, similar to shedding a heavy weight from her shoulders. She felt free again and hoped she was returning to the dreamland she'd visited once before, the place she'd gone after the explosion in the warehouse.

The place she'd been longing for ever since she'd felt it. Heaven, or something so close it made no difference. A place of peace and rest and no worries.

Death.

"Thank you, G.o.d," she said to the encroaching darkness.

And then it claimed her.

Chapter Five.

Del McCormick wanted to shout with joy. From the ashes of destruction...

Things couldn't have gone better if he'd planned them. First the vet saying she'd lost her supernatural mojo, then the pig getting loose during the web conference-the potential for disaster was so high he'd been lucky to keep his cool in front of the prospective buyers, each of whom would've been more than happy to have him killed for wasting their time.

And then the miracle.

Someone shouted "Look!" and he saw the lady vet on the floor, bruised, b.l.o.o.d.y and definitely hurt. Bad. He was no doctor, but her nose was obviously broken and she had to have some busted ribs from where the crazy pig had danced on her. She had cuts all over from its hooves.

And they were healing as they watched.

He wasted no time putting the camera on her so the deep pockets watching the fiasco could get a good look.

In the end, it was that same fiasco that convinced them-or at least most of them, two had dropped out-that DeGarmo's self-healing wasn't some kind of special-effects trick.

In less than a minute, every cut, every bruise, every broken bone had simply faded away, leaving behind an unmarked-and presumably healthy-woman.

After she was healed, he turned to face the six remaining prospects.

"Well, gentlemen, you've seen what she can do with her own injuries. She's just as adept at curing others, a talent I'm willing to demonstrate as well, but only in person. I take it all of you can be here tomorrow evening? Excellent. I'll text the time to each of you. Please come prepared with cash."

Del hit the End b.u.t.ton, closing down the webcams and the connections.

"What are we gonna do with her?" a hulking man name Cyrus asked, pointing at DeGarmo.

"Tie her to the chair. Carefully. Wear gloves. I have a little surprise for her when she wakes up."

Del eyed the unconscious woman. Lost your talents, huh? Either it was just a ruse, or that pig woke up whatever your concussion put to sleep.

"Either way," he whispered, "you're gonna be a star tomorrow night."

Tal Nova stared at the telephone and silently cursed the day he'd heard about Leah DeGarmo and her powers. He'd just received word that Del McCormick was holding her captive, had her locked away in some Podunk Upstate town and was planning an auction of some sort for the top organized-crime families in the world. To sell her to the highest bidder.

The past few days had been the worst Tal could remember since that night in college when his freedom had hung by a thread. After losing DeGarmo, first to McCormick and then to Emilio Suarez and his religious fanatics, he'd been called on the carpet by Marsh, who'd gotten wind of the whole s.h.i.tstorm through his own underground sources. Tal managed to give a slightly twisted version of what happened and succeeded in convincing the old man that he'd been double-crossed by McCormick (true enough), had tried to rescue the vet (not exactly accurate) and had failed (definitely true).

"Find her," Marsh had told him. "I don't care what it takes. She's too valuable to lose, dammit. This is on your head, Tal. Bring her back to me, alive, unharmed and grateful. And, Tal," he'd said, giving him one of those dead-serious looks of old, "I don't have to tell you what happens if you fail, do I?"

Tal hadn't heard that warning in many years, but he was well aware of the threat behind it. Exposure as a murderer, many times over. Sure, he had his own dirt on Marsh, dirt that would put the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d behind bars for the rest of his life. Maybe even enough dirt to get his own death sentence reduced to life without parole.

Maybe we'll get adjoining cells.

Of course, that would never happen. Marsh was a man with too many connections, too much money, to spend any time in the kind of prison where ordinary criminals ended up. No, he'd spend a few years free on bail while his lawyers fought the charges, and then if he did go to jail it would be a minimum-security facility where he'd get to watch TV, eat normal food and not have to worry about getting shanked in the yard.

And me? A black man convicted of multiple homicides? I'll be in general population, lucky if I last a month.

Which put him in a real dilemma, now that he'd located DeGarmo. If he brought the vet to Marsh, played the hero, she'd undoubtedly expose him to Marsh and the police for what he'd really done, and then Marsh would carry out his threat. And if he didn't bring DeGarmo back or she died in the process? Same result. So he was f.u.c.ked either way.

So what do I do?

There had to be a third option. There always was. He'd built his career by finding creative solutions to impossible problems, had always considered himself pretty good at what the corporate world referred to as "strategic planning". Sure, Del had bested him this time, but only because Tal had never expected a professional like McCormick, whom he'd worked with so often in the past, to double-cross him.

And that's on me. I should have known better than to trust anyone, not when it came to something as unbelievably valuable as DeGarmo. Should've had Suarez and McCormick killed the minute I was done with them.

That was a mistake he'd learn from if he had the chance. Now, though, there were more pressing matters. Still tossing ideas around in his head, he opened a stick of gum and folded it into his mouth. The cinnamon burn triggered a release of saliva and woke his senses better than the strongest coffee.

Options...options. Anything to avoid prison or death.

Wait. That's it. Death. Learn from your mistakes.

What was the way to deal with loose ends? You get rid of them. Like he should have done with McCormick.

And what was Marsh but a loose end?

Like the fiery cinnamon cutting through the staleness in his mouth, a new idea exploded in his brain, cutting through the fog of stale ideas.

Tal smiled and reached for the phone. If all went well, in less than forty-eight hours he'd not only have his current problems solved, but he'd be looking at a very rich retirement.