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Ella slumped down into her seat behind the conference table and tried to conceal her yawns as Vadim Morosov wrote on the whiteboard. He turned to look at her, pen in his hand, a pained expression on his face.

“Am I boring you, Ms. Walsh?”

He underlined Christa Morehouse’s name with a ferocious screech of the pen that made her cringe.

“Nope, carry on.” She smiled at him. “It’s fascinating.” While Vadim outlined the cases he and Alexei had dealt with in Russia, Ella worried about Laney and the files from the SBLE database about the serial killer. Guiltily, she brought her full attention back to Vadim who was just summing up the evidence for the third murder.

“At that point we deduced that the victims were all female, and obviously, all empaths.”

She sat up. “And how did your empath feel about that?”

He turned toward her, his expression neutral. “She felt much as you did. Shocked that nothing seemed to remain in the victim’s head, and puzzled as to why any murderer would want to do that to his prey.”

“Was she worried about her own safety?”

“I can’t say that I noticed.” Vadim shrugged. “She seemed okay about it.”

“So at that point you would say she was still behaving in a professional manner?”

“Yes.” Vadim stared at her and then glanced across at Feehan. “Is there a point to these questions?”

“I’m just interested as to when you started to believe your empath had lost touch with the case and become a liability.”

Vadim’s face became a mask and Alexei cleared his throat. “We all noticed something was wrong on her twenty-seventh birthday. No one was prepared for her to implode so completely.”

“Why didn’t you take her off the case?” Feehan asked.

Vadim put the pen down with a definite click. “Because we were so caught up in the matter we couldn’t afford the time to bring another empath up to speed. We needed her input and right up until the last moment, she seemed perfectly fine.”

“Even though you all thought there was something wrong with her on her birthday? You just assumed that was normal for an empath?” Her question was general, but her gaze remained on Vadim. “Even though you in particular, Morosov, knew her really well?”

“She assured me that everything was okay. I believed her.”

Ella thought about the files she’d read the night before. “You sure did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged. “Just that you fucked up.”

Feehan frowned at her. “That’s an inappropriate remark. Apologize.”

“Why should I? Morosov isn’t exactly leaping to his own defense, is he?” Ella tapped her laptop. “Didn’t you read the files, Mr. Feehan? He fucked up. He didn’t double-check the information she fed him about the murderer and almost got himself and his whole team killed.” She waited until everyone was looking at her. “So all this shit about the empath letting everyone down? How about looking at who let her down?” She glared at Vadim and Alexei. “Her whole team knew she was under considerable stress, and yet they put their need to get the killer ahead of her.”

Vadim made an impatient gesture. “That’s not the way it was. If Natasha was under stress, all she had to do was ask for help. She chose not to and her choice put the whole team in danger.”

“Don’t you understand anything about empaths? They don’t have many choices at all. Natasha might not even have realized her gift was so depleted.” Ella sat back. “She killed herself. You have to accept some of the blame for that.”

Vadim held her gaze and she saw it then—the emotion behind the cold exterior, the pain …

Feehan clapped his hands and stood up. “Let’s move on, shall we? Does anyone else have any more questions for Vadim about the older cases?” He nodded at Liz and Alexei. “I’m sure you two will work this information into your webs as soon as possible and let me know anything useful.”

“Of course, Mr. Feehan.” Alexei nodded, as polite as ever. He looked across at Liz. “Perhaps we might have lunch together?”

“Sure.” Liz smiled. “That would be great.”

Feehan picked up the pen Vadim had placed on the table and strode back to the board. “Let’s recap. Christa Morehouse rented the apartment in the city so that she could spend the summer getting to know her OCOS mate, George Ralston. Mr. Ralston is due to arrive today at the airport, where we will pick him up and bring him here for questioning.”

“Does he know about Christa yet?” Liz asked.

“I don’t think so,” Feehan replied. “We’re interested to see how he reacts to the news.”

“Well, if he’s only just arriving in town, he can’t be the murderer.”

Ella forced herself to stop staring at Vadim. “I’ll confirm that when I meet him. He’s only one-sixteenth Fae, but he should give off some kind of vibe that I can read and match to my memory of Christa.”

Alexei looked interested. “You can pick up signals like that?”

“Usually, although with Christa’s mind being wiped, I’m not so sure.”

“I don’t think Natasha had that ability,” Alexei mused. “It might have helped.”

“Maybe it was one of the things she lost. Some empaths lose their facilities really fast the day they turn twenty-seven.” It was hard to speak so casually about something that might soon be happening to her. “What time will Ralston be here?”

Feehan consulted his watch. Ella noticed that apart from the two Russians, he was the only one wearing a traditional watch. Everyone she knew used cell phones to check the time.

“He should be here in about two hours.” He glanced around the table. “Can you all make sure you’re available?”

There was a brisk knock and Sam stuck his head around the door.

“Hey, Dr. Clegg wants to know if you want to go and see the body or wait until he types up his report.”

“I’ll go down,” Feehan replied. “Does anyone want to come with me?”

“I’ll come.” For some weird reason, she felt like she needed to be there for the dead empath to protect her from everyone else. She simply couldn’t believe that there was nothing left. It didn’t make any sense.

She followed Feehan out of the room and down to the lower level that housed the small morgue and the underground parking lot. Footsteps behind her meant that someone else had joined them. She assumed it was Vadim, as the Fae had a horror for human death, but she didn’t bother to look around and confirm it. Feehan punched in the code to the morgue and held the door open for her. She shivered as the temperature dropped and a blast of disinfected air that failed to cover the undercurrent of death engulfed her.

She closed her mouth and tried to breathe sparingly through her nose. They didn’t get many human corpses in the SBLE morgue. They tended to be Otherworld creatures that came to the city to wreak havoc before they died. She had no idea why it was such a popular pastime, like lemmings jumping off cliffs. But it made her job difficult. Creatures at the end of their lives were much harder to scare back to their own side of the divide and much more likely to cause chaos.

* * *

Behind Ella, Vadim allowed the heavy door to close and then stood quietly checking out the space. Feehan went down the hallway to talk to someone, leaving them in the main room. The morgue was small and kept scrupulously clean. He almost wished he’d worn sunglasses as the lighting was so bright and the walls were painted something equally shiny. Gutters ran in parallel across the tiled floor ready to sluice away anything unmentionable. He slowly inhaled and tasted the taint of magic, both good and bad, on his tongue.

Ella nudged his arm. “What’s up?”

Today she wore jeans, a green flowered shirt that was missing too many buttons and a pink bra that pushed her breasts up in a way that made him want to bend down and bury his face in her cleavage. She smelled like coffee and pizza and bubblegum, which was far more appealing than dead magic.

“Morosov, are you staring at my bra?”

“It’s rather hard to miss.”

“Laney made me buy it. She said it’s like a sheepdog.”

More than willing to be distracted, Vadim frowned. “Why?”

“You know—” she cupped her breasts and shoved them upward, “—round them up and pen them in.”

“Ah. That’s a new one on me.”

“I’m sorry about earlier.”

Vadim raised his eyebrows. “Which particular part?”

She had the grace to blush. “All of it, I suppose.” She fidgeted with her top button. “I just get so pissed off when everyone starts blaming the empath.”

Vadim kept his gaze on her rather superlative bosom. He tended to date tall, thin women who weren’t so well endowed but looked spectacular on his arm.

“I suppose I should be grateful. You could have said a lot more than you did.”

“About you and Natasha?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you didn’t like empaths?”

“I did until I met her.”

“She destroyed your faith in us?”

There was a hint of skepticism in her voice that made Vadim wary. “No, she destroyed my faith in true love.”

“Yeah, like you believed in that.”

He met her derisive gaze. “Actually I did, but unlike most humans, I don’t assume it makes the participants happy.” God forbid she ever met his parents. She’d see what he meant.

“So you’re a reformed romantic.”

“Exactly.” He lowered his gaze to her chest again. “I like sex, though. Good, uncomplicated, sweaty, uncommitted sex.”

“So do I, and stop staring at my boobs.”

He manufactured a sigh. “It’s a shame you don’t fraternize with your workmates.”

She stepped away and shot him a dark look. “Stop playing your little games with me.”

“What games?”

“Morosov, your shields are very good, but I’m an empath. I know when you’re talking shit to distract me.”

“From what?”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Feehan reappear and beckon to them. Ella started to walk away pausing only to shoot her final remark over her shoulder.

“From your guilt about Natasha.”

He opened his mouth, then realized she wasn’t even waiting for an answer. Did he feel guilty about Natasha, or was he just still angry with her for letting down the team? He’d tried hard not to let his personal devastation leak into his work, but Ella had seen right through him. She seemed to understand him better than anyone except his own mother. That idea made him want to puke his guts up. He glanced surreptitiously around. If he did want to puke this was the place for it. The whole vibe made him uncomfortable.

Feehan was talking to a tall man in a white coat Vadim assumed was Dr. Clegg. Ella joined the group and started to listen as well, her expression intent. Vadim had already noticed how quickly she slipped from lazy inattention to complete alertness.

The three of them moved away and he made himself follow. The good doctor might think that everything in his morgue was dead, but Vadim knew better. Some of the lost souls floating around needed to be dispatched before the atmosphere became even more polluted. Not that “souls” was the right word for what remained here. Most of these creatures had no belief in a Christian god. Dr. Clegg unlocked a door and ushered them inside.

Vadim leaned against the wall and watched as Feehan and Ella approached the corpse as if it might wake up and start talking. There was nothing there. Even he could sense that. No humanity, no magic, no nothing. He focused his attention on Ella, who had paused by the victim’s head, her hand on the pillow almost touching skin.

Dr. Clegg glanced down at his notes. “We have a twenty-seven-year-old female empath. Apart from higher than average levels of alcohol in her bloodstream, she was a very healthy woman.”

“Were there any signs that she had been tied up or abused?” Feehan asked.

“Nothing to indicate that at all.” Dr. Clegg pulled aside the thin cotton sheet that covered the body. “A couple of bruises, but nothing significant—apart from the fact that her brain seems to have been traumatized.”

“Yes, I was going to ask you about that. I think Ella mentioned what she’d sensed—or more importantly— what she hadn’t sensed, when she tried to get a reading.”

Ella shrugged. “I could’ve been wrong.”

Vadim considered her. She sounded almost uncertain. Was she beginning to lose it, too?

“No, you were right, Ella. There’s a distinct lack of activity.” Dr. Clegg hesitated. “When I did an MRI, I discovered her hippocampus appeared to have been liquefied.”

“What exactly is that?” Feehan asked.

“It’s a part of the brain located in the medial temporal lobe that we think plays an important role in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term.”

Vadim glanced at Ella who looked as shocked as he felt. He didn’t recall the pathologist in Russia mentioning the hippocampus. But it made a sick kind of sense. Dr. Clegg continued speaking. “I used conventional scientific methods and Otherworld diagnostics, but I couldn’t pick up anything else.” He shook his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“And I hope you don’t have to see it again,” Feehan said. “But we’re pretty much convinced we’re on the trail of an Otherworld killer.”

“I thought as much.” Dr. Clegg wrote something on his clipboard. “Humans have been known to eat each other’s brains, but they tend to make rather a lot more mess getting to them.” His gaze traveled over the dead woman. “This was very precise.”

Dr. Clegg headed for the door, followed by Feehan. Vadim lingered to watch as Ella wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked around as if she hadn’t realized he was still there.

“I was just trying to see if I’d missed anything, if there was something…” Her words trailed away.

“From what I read in your report, at the time you were pretty certain there was nothing left. What’s changed?”

She met his gaze. “It’s your fault.”

He raised his eyebrows. “As is everything, apparently. What did I do?”

“You reminded me about how crazy empaths get around their birthdays.”

“You’re not twenty-seven yet, are you?”

“Not for a few weeks.” She walked up to him and he straightened against the wall. “It’s okay, we can go now. I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.”

“And you didn’t. She’s dead and something liquefied her brain.”

She winced as she opened the door. “Thanks for the visual.”

He followed her out into the main hallway and almost bumped into her as her steps slowed.

“What’s up now?”

She appeared to be listening to something. “This place needs help.”

He barely repressed a shiver. “I know.”

Her interested gaze swung back to his. “What do you feel?”

“What do you feel? You’re the expert,” he countered.

“Trapped souls screaming in torment, and magic gone awry.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Why, does it bother you?”

He started walking again. “Not particularly.”

“Liar. If you feel it, it bothers you.”

“I can live with it. The question is, can you?”

She cocked her head to one side and wrinkled her nose. “Nope.”

He watched, fascinated as she drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. Time seemed to stop, his heartbeat slowed and he couldn’t have moved even if he’d wanted to. She raised her hands and held them palm up as if she was begging.

“ Come to me .”

Her lips didn’t move. He realized the words were resonating through his skull and the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. Around her swirled things and emotions he couldn’t quite identify and didn’t want to. She took another deep breath. The swirling turned into the roar of a tornado, which seemed to coil tighter and tighter and disappeared into her hands.

He felt a visceral tug deep inside his chest and resisted an urge to wrap his arms around himself and curl up into a little ball. No wonder they were called the gatekeepers. He’d never witnessed an empath channeling lost souls back to Otherworld and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to again. When he opened his eyes Ella was on the move, her smile in place. “That’s better. Thanks for reminding me. I meant to come down here last week and see to it, but I forgot.”

And it was better. The polluted atmosphere he’d sensed had disappeared.

He found he could move again, and hurried after her. Feehan waited for them by the main door still chatting to Dr. Clegg. He didn’t look bothered, so the extraordinary incident Vadim had witnessed hadn’t taken much time or been noticed by anyone else.

“Excuse me, guys.”

Just before she reached Mr. Feehan, Ella veered off course and headed into the bathroom. She emerged a couple of minutes later, looking even greener than she had before.

Vadim held the outer door open for her. “Are you all right?”

“Sure.” Her grin wasn’t good enough to fool him.

“Do you need to lie down or something?”

“I’m fine. What I need is half a dozen iced donuts and a chocolate milkshake. I’ll be good to go then.”

Vadim held open the elevator door. “You’d be better off having some protein and complex carbs.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“I’m just saying…” Vadim didn’t get to finish his sentence as Ella stormed off to take the stairs. He sighed as the doors started to close and her untidy yellow braid disappeared around the corner.

“Don’t worry yourself, Vadim. She’s like that with everyone these days.”

He turned to find Feehan watching him and tried to think of something neutral to say. He didn’t want to give the impression that he wasn’t a good team player, or he might get sent back to Russia. He decided to focus on the obvious.

“She doesn’t eat very healthy stuff.”

Feehan snorted. “She lives on the kind of junk food that would send most people to the hospital. I tried to talk to her about her diet when I first arrived here.”

“I assume she didn’t listen?”

“She informed me that she wasn’t planning on living past twenty-seven, so she’d decided to eat whatever she damned well liked.” Feehan paused. “I shut up after that.”

“She doesn’t plan on taking an OCOS mate?”

“She says not. Although, a lot of empaths change their mind as their twenty-seventh birthday approaches.”

“So I’ve heard.” Vadim spotted Alexei waving at him. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Feehan?”

“Sure. I have to go and pick up George Ralston from the airport. I’ll let you know when you can interview him, so stick around.”

“I think Alexei got us some lunch so we can eat here while we go over the case notes.”

“Great.” Feehan nodded and went into his office, closing the door behind him. Vadim went over to where Alexei was waiting in the smaller of the conference rooms that had become their temporary office.

“I got you a ham sandwich, okay?” Alexei handed him a wrapped parcel.

He sat down and realized his hands were trembling. If he still felt the effect of the bad atmosphere in the morgue, how the hell was Ella Walsh feeling? He’d seen the debilitating effect it had on her. Had she done it deliberately to remind him of the strain Natasha had been under? He shook his head. No, she’d just sensed a problem and dealt with it as quickly as possible.

“Are you talking to me?” Alexei asked, his sandwich poised in front of his mouth.

“No, I was just thinking about Ella Walsh.”

“She’s interesting, isn’t she? Powerful too.”

Vadim unwrapped his sandwich. “How powerful?”

Alexei shrugged. “Enough to make herself the center of my Fae-Web.”

“In what way?”

“I’m not sure yet, but she will have a profound effect on this case.” Alexei’s silver eyes took on a faraway look.

“Like Natasha?” Suddenly, he didn’t feel hungry anymore. Vadim sipped at his can of jasmine iced tea. “She’s not going to implode is she?”

“She’s not Natasha. She is connected to you, though.”

“We’re on the same team.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Don’t go all mystical on me. I’m not in the mood for it.” Vadim picked up his sandwich and took a big bite. It was surprisingly good. “I thought you were having lunch with Liz.”

Alexei pouted. “Her husband called and she decided to go out with him instead. I did get to meet him though. He seems like a nice enough guy.”

“With the flexible morals you require?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll need to get to know him a bit better. Speaking of which, are you free for lunch this Sunday?”

“I’m free every Sunday.”

“Liz said something about us all getting together for a barbecue.”

“Sounds fine to me. American beef is always excellent.” Vadim concentrated on finishing his sandwich. “The report from the morgue is that Christa Morehouse was not assaulted in any way.”

“I’ve already added that information into my web.”

Alexei shuddered. “If it is the same guy, he’s obviously getting better. The first victim was tied up, the second was choked, and the third only had a couple of bumps and scratches on her wrists.”

“Great. Maybe he does feed off their empath power.

Maybe it enhances his.”

Alexei sat up and his Fae-Web streamed out around him. “That’s an interesting possibility. Let me share it with Liz.”