looked
half-dead.
“ If I hadn’t already made
plans for your body,” Lowen went on, “I might have taken it for
myself.”
He smiled with Theo’s
roguish expression, once playful, now demented.
“ Your body is a little too
old for my tastes these days,” he hissed in Wyn’s ear.
He walked around the table,
speaking more boldly, admiring his own lean arms and
hands.
“ The body I have now looks
young and handsome for your world. Don’t you think?”
He went to a nearby control
panel and pressed a button. It emitted a powerful electric shock
that coursed through Wyn.
He arched in pain, tensing,
clenching his eyes, and gnashing his teeth as electric currents
netted his sweaty body.
Lowen stood composedly with
his fingers folded together at his middle, showing an attitude of
scientific indifference. He cleared his throat before he
spoke.
Wyn had seemed
distracted.
“ It is time for your spirit
to leave your body,” Lowen told him objectively. “The scent of it
is sweet. Can you smell it? It has a hint of cotton candy and
peppermint.”
Wyn could only smell the
odor of flesh burning at a barbecue. He assumed it was
him.
Lowen crouched low so that
Wyn could look down at him, into his eyes.
“ Don’t worry,” he said with
a surprisingly sympathetic expression. “I won’t let you die. And
you will still be a Blood Vivicanti, or at least my own version of
one. Someone else needs your body. I’d like you to meet
her.”
He gestured to someone on
the other side of the room.
The figure was shrouded in
shadows, but Wyn could tell that it was a small girl.
She limped toward
him.
The miasma issuing from her
was awful, a pungent odor of burnt hair and flesh. The girl was
badly charred. Her skin was blackened. Her hair had been almost
entirely burned away, though there were still some clumps matted
together with charred skin. It looked like black paint
peeling.
One of her arms was
missing.
But there was enough of her
for Wyn to recognize the girl who had always been by Lowen’s
side.
“ Nell,” said Wyn in a weak
voice.
“ What’s left of her,” Lowen
said. “Thanks to your Mary Paige’s handiwork.”
Wyn laid his head back. He
knew what was coming.
Lowen leaned over him. He
showed all his teeth in a broad grin.
“ I did my best to make her
into one of your Blood Vivicanti. But without your Origin Blood, my
children lack some of our abilities. Nell cannot heal as fast as
you and I can. But once she is inside your body, and you are inside
hers, you’ll learn all about that.”
Lowen’s hands started to
glow with a violet light. It rose from him like mist. It was his
ghost form. It was a new trick. His ghost was learning that he
could do all sorts of new things inside Theo’s body.
The violet light
illuminated his face. His eyes turned completely white. His grin
broadened into silent laughter.
Lowen reached one hand
toward Wyn and the other hand toward the charred remains of
Nell.
The Kharetie ghost grew
larger, emanating, smoldering out beyond Theo’s body. His ghost
expanded, surrounding Nell on one side and Wyn on the
other.
The next moment, all three
were enveloped by the violet mist of the Kharetie ghost.
A few minutes
passed.
The sound of Wyn’s screams
stopped.
The sound of Nell’s weeping
began.
Lowen left his laboratory
and walked down the hallway toward his office.
He placed one hand on his
forehead and wiped sweat from his brow. He looked more tired than
he had ever been. He stumbled a little.
The diaphanous violet mist
of his ghost was trailing behind him like smoke.
Striding beside him was a
man. His body had been tortured, but he was healing quickly. It was
Wyn’s body, but Wyn was not inside.
Everything about him looked
just like Wyn – all except the eyes. They were the eyes of a young
girl who had been badly beaten and defeated by life, one who was
kidnapped in the fifth grade, hurt, rejected,