Curse of Salem

Washington, D.C.

Hollis Templeton opened her eyes and blinked at a ceiling that looked . . . odd. She reached out a seeking hand with what had become habit, encountered only smooth sheet, and sat up abruptly.

The bed beside her was empty of her FBI Special Crimes Unit partner and lover, Reese DeMarco. That was strange enough, and unsettling enough, that it took Hollis another moment or so to realize that wasn't the only wrong thing.

The sheets she knew were pale blue looked gray. So did the duvet cover, which was supposed to be a muted but attractive print of several colors. She touched with tentative fingers and found that it felt normal-except for the chill. She felt chilled, which wasn't all that surprising since she wasn't wearing a nightgown or pajamas and it was March.

Still, the cold Hollis felt was due to something other than a chilly room and her own nakedness. It was a slightly familiar chill, and just acknowledging that made her feel even colder, especially when she also recognized the very faint, almost elusive odor that was, in an oddly primal way, unpleasant and difficult to identify.

But familiar.

Even so, she fixed her mind on calm mode and made no attempt to reach through the easy telepathic connection to Reese in order to wake him. In fact, she eased the "door" on her side closed. Because he could share her dreams, even from time to time walk with her through them, especially if she had a nightmare or was otherwise upset, and she did not want him sharing this place even if he could. Which she was reasonably sure he couldn't. At least he hadn't ever before.

And she'd probably need him to anchor her on the living side, in case she got into trouble. Or even if she didn't.

She looked up, finally, to examine the room. A pleasant bedroom in their pleasant condo, it was spacious and decorated simply and comfortably because they agreed about such things and how a home should feel even if they were seldom present to enjoy the comfort of home for very long.

But it was gray.

And it wasn't supposed to be gray.

Hollis hesitated a moment, then pushed back the duvet and sheet and slid from the big bed. She found the nightgown she had briefly worn on the floor, which was where it usually ended up, and put it on. The robe that matched it was silky and not made to warm up the body, but she found it lying over a chair near the bed and put it on as well, tying the flimsy little strings beneath her breasts.

She wondered, fleetingly, why she bothered, because it wasn't like she was really here. Or really here in body, at least. She didn't suppose her spirit required clothing, although she couldn't recall ever seeing a naked spirit. Then again, if she encountered anyone else-and she particularly wanted to encounter at least one other person, presumably also in spirit-she preferred to be dressed.

Hollis wasted a moment or so wondering if she really had dressed her spirit, or if she hadn't but had only gone through the motions because one did. If she saw herself clothed because she wanted to see herself that way. And if she saw other spirits clothed because she preferred to see them clothed. It struck her as one of those imponderable questions that often littered her life, especially in recent years, and she decided not to ponder it further. Not right now, at least.

She was very careful not to look back at the bed at first, not wanting to confirm what she knew was happening and half-afraid, as always, that she'd freeze solid like Lot's wife. But Hollis was nothing if not curious, so she finally looked back over her shoulder and saw what she expected, even if it made her feel even colder. And totally creeped out.

Herself. Lying there seemingly alone, her face peaceful in sleep, her body a bit curled near the center of the wide bed, under the covers and comfortable, one arm flung out as though it were lying across a broad chest that was not visible because Reese was not visible.

She wondered, suddenly and disturbingly, why she was even able to see her own body in the gray time. Because her spirit was here? Was that why she couldn't see Reese, because he was in their bed body and spirit, in the normal realm of existence for them?

And not this cold and gray realm of . . . wherever?

An icy finger traced up and down her spine.

"Shit," she said, and heard the peculiarly hollow sound of her own voice that was normal in the gray time. She forced her gaze away from her sleeping self in the bed and took a moment to look slowly around the room again. Everything was gray and oddly one-dimensional and featureless. The framed prints on the wall looked like smudges; even the two very colorful paintings she had attempted in recent months and Reese had had framed looked gray; and the paneled woodwork looked flat. And gray. Furniture was one-dimensional, no depth or light or shadow. And gray.

Everything was gray.

That was the overwhelming sense she got, that everything around her was gray and cold and empty, really, of color or dimension, light or shadow. Or life. Desolate. She always forgot how utterly desolate this place-or time-was. Until she was in it. She felt very, very alone.

She found a slipper half-hidden beside the bed, having to kneel on the bedside rug and reach under for its partner. She got up, slid her feet into them, and turned away toward the room's door.

Hollis wasn't a woman who hesitated much, not when it counted and these days especially, but she felt unusually adrift in uncertainty. This wasn't her world, her realm, even though she'd been warned, they both had, that the first experimental trip Hollis had taken into Diana Hayes's gray time had formed a connection between her and this . . . place. A connection that allowed, perhaps demanded, her to walk here.

Because only spirits walked here. Hollis was a medium as Diana was a medium, and she could be drawn here, especially whenever Diana opened a door into this place or time or whatever it was. Still, it had never happened suddenly, unexpectedly, when they weren't on a case.

Thinking about it, Hollis wasn't even sure where Diana and her husband and partner, seer Quentin Hayes, were at the moment. In the real world. She and Reese had completed a difficult case successfully, one for the good guys, had returned late on Friday, and had been given a rare long weekend off. They had fled Quantico before Bishop could change his mind or another case popped up. Even Reese had been tired; they'd needed a break. And had thoroughly enjoyed their rest and recreation for two days. (Friday night and well into Saturday morning had been pure exhausted sleep.) But they still had one day to go, which was why there had been no reason to get up early today, Monday.

Not that Hollis knew if it was early or late. Here it was just gray, without light or shadow or time, without night or day. As she moved out of the bedroom, she took care not to look at a clock because they would all be featureless and that was one of the creepier aspects of the gray time.

She stepped through the bedroom doorway into what should have been a short hallway that led to the open-concept living area of the condo, with the kitchen, breakfast nook, and a comfortable den, and another short hallway beyond that with a half bath and an extra room they had decided to use as a studio/office rather than a second bedroom.

Only that wasn't where she found herself.

She was standing on what appeared to be the slope of a cold gray mountain, slightly unbalanced for a moment as the surface beneath her feet slanted suddenly. She was looking down on what she assumed was a town in the distance.

Blinking away a momentary dizziness and disorientation, she looked harder. Not that the spider senses worked here, she had learned that, but she could see what there was to see. A fairly small mountain town in a fairly large valley, she decided, holding on to calm with an effort as she studied the scene. Gray. Varying shades of gray, but gray all the same, like some creepy eternal twilight. No lights, no people, no cars moving. Just gray squarish shapes that were probably houses and businesses, and gray streets that might have been only lines drawn on paper, and beyond them a valley vaguely marked with squares that must have been pastures and fields, and slashes and squiggles that were roads. And all around hulking gray mountains reared against an ugly grayish sky.

Everything was so utterly still. Quiet.

Lifeless.

Hollis wasn't sure what she was supposed to do now that she was here. She didn't have spirit guides, like Diana's, appearing to tell her where she was supposed to go or what she was supposed to do.

And besides, this was Diana's realm, not hers, a place where her friend and fellow agent knew the rules-such as they were.

Hollis had, so far, learned a gray-time rule only when she stumbled and fell over it.

But one thing she had learned from bitter experience was that the gray time was exhausting for the living, for even the spirit-or consciousness, or mind, whatever-of the living. The longer she remained, the more exhausted she would become. And unlike Diana, Hollis hadn't had the better part of thirty years to get familiar with this place.

So she started walking, down toward the town. And hadn't gone more than three paces before she heard a voice

"Hollis?"



Diana Hayes had, in her more than two years with the Special Crimes Unit, grown somewhat more comfortable with the mediumistic abilities that had been hers from birth. She would have been far more comfortable with them by now had her autocratic father not believed, from her childhood, that the "symptoms" of her psychic abilities were a mental illness that required keeping his only surviving daughter medicated to the point of literally drifting, uncaring and almost unseeing, through her life.

Far too much of her life.

But Elliot Brisco was no longer part of Diana's life, his authority over her first severed by a doctor who saw something of the truth and had quietly weaned Diana off all the medications so she was able to see what had been done to her, and then by Diana herself, fighting for her independence and gaining it, at last, in a court and by a judge's ruling.

The final severing between Diana and her father had come when he used his money and power to back a monster in his efforts to regain control of Diana. An attempt that not only failed but had resulted in countless deaths and nearly killed his only child. She had turned her back on him for good after that. She had been unmoved by even the ruthless vengeance of another powerful man, another father, grieving and embittered by the loss of his own daughter and bent on destroying Elliot Brisco and his empire. Elliot Brisco's actions had far-reaching consequences.

And one of them was that Diana's life was her own to live as she wished.

She had resisted giving up any of her hard-won independence for a long time, which was why Quentin had had to be very patient. It was, Bishop had told Diana privately, very good for Quentin, who was inclined toward recklessness and was known for his humorous, somewhat flippant attitude, to learn patience. Even if he had to learn it the hard way.

Personally as well as professionally.

But the horrific injury in the middle of a deadly, hectic investigation had landed Diana in the hospital, had very, very nearly killed her, and that had taught her that protecting something Quentin would never take from her anyway had been a true waste of time and of her life. Their lives.

She'd wasted more than enough time.

Her life was busy now. She and Quentin had arrived back at Quantico only late on Sunday after a very disturbing case had been thankfully resolved and, after reporting in, had gone home to pretty much just fall into bed and sleep.

So when Diana opened her eyes after what felt like only a few hours and then sat up in bed, her first reaction was to mutter, "What the hell? I can't get even one night off, for crying out loud?"

Her voice sounded hollow, though she barely noticed that because it was familiar. Like the faint, unmistakable odor, which was, she had decided, as close as she ever wanted to get to the smell of brimstone.

She knew she was alone in their bed, or appeared to be; she was reasonably certain Quentin was sleeping there with her, that they were sort of wrapped up in each other under the covers, which was normal and wonderful.

But not something she was supposed to enjoy for the moment, clearly.

Dammit.

She didn't look behind her as she slid from the bed and found her nightgown and robe, knowing she would see herself lying there wrapped around invisible Quentin, which would be disconcerting even for her.

Though the connection they shared was different from that of some other bonded pairs in the SCU, not directly mind to mind because neither of them was a telepath, they had discovered that each maintained a sense of the other, an emotional closeness, of course, but also a certainty of physical nearness, and she knew he was near physically. There, in the living world, holding her.

But not with her here in the gray time, something for which she was thankful. She'd managed to get out of the gray time for a good many years without him, of course, but there had been scary awakenings in dangerous places, and she much preferred the certainty of Quentin's hand drawing her back safely, her bedrock anchor in the living world.

She found comfortable, slip-on shoes that wouldn't, she knew, protect her feet from the cold any more than her clothing would; it didn't matter what she wore in this place or time, because she wasn't here in the flesh and because the gray time was always cold.

Always.

She didn't bother to look around the cozy bedroom, because it would be gray and featureless and she didn't want that in her mind rather than the warm and colorful comfort it actually was. Instead, she just went out the door into what was supposed to be a hallway.