If she had been awake and in her physical body, she might have lost her battle with nausea. But she was dreaming and quite calm. She stood and moved to the edge of the boat so that she could better study the fabulous creature.

With a careful finger that could have crushed an ocean-faring ship, it tilted the boat to a more upright position.

You aren’t human, it said. It had a pensive, siren’s voice.

No, Mary said. I guess I’m not.

You look like one. That tremendous eye came closer to the water’s surface and regarded her with grave curiosity. The creature said, You are like the other one, my friend. You are older than I am.

I don’t feel very old, Mary told it. She perched on the rail and swung a foot. I think it’s because I’ve forgotten a lot of things.

The entity hummed, the savage euphoria of the storm lingering in its words, I could kill you and your companion.

She shook her head. She still was not afraid, although she probably should have been. You can’t kill us. You could only destroy the bodies we inhabit. Eventually we would come back again.

Why would you come back? The creature sang, its song yearning and mournful. How would you come back?

We have to come back, because our people owe a debt to this world. She leaned forward, caught by the absolute loneliness in that massive black eye. Now that the storm’s dance had been suspended the entity seemed forlorn, eternally sad. She held out a hand to it. We owe a debt to you.

And when you have paid it? it murmured.

She confessed in a whisper, We must still come back because we can’t go home. We have nowhere else to go.

The primeval fathomless eye seemed to smile. Sacred child, it crooned. Be at peace now and sleep.

Released, she yawned and nodded, and turned to walk back into the galley. There she climbed back into her body with the matter-of-factness of a toddler climbing into bed. She fell into a profound, deep sleep.

She had no more dreams.

Chapter Twelve

SHE WAS NEVER sure what woke her the second time.

It couldn’t have been the storm’s end. As she surfaced to wakefulness, she sensed that they had been stationary for some time. She might have been disturbed by the scratchiness of the wool blankets piled around her shoulders, or the lumpiness of the bed, or perhaps by Michael’s absence.

Whatever the cause, she yawned, rolled over and stared at the ceiling as she registered the changes in her environment.

A pale, thin light fell into the tiny wood-paneled room from the two portholes set high into the walls. The second change she noticed was the relative quiet. The roar of the storm and groans from the overstressed boat no longer assaulted her ears. Instead she could hear the quiet lap of water. The boat rocked gently as if it rested at dock, instead of pitching and tossing in high waves.

The air outside her nest felt damp and chilly on her exposed face and neck. She stretched and slipped one foot out from under the pile of blankets. Her questing toes told her the same tale.

Her body throbbed with phantom aches from wounds it hadn’t had the time to fully assimilate. She pushed down the covers and stared at herself, her pink ni**les crinkling in the cold. Silver scars dotted her torso. She touched one in wonder. It looked as if it were already months old.

Something insubstantial brushed into the room. The tiny hairs on the back of her arms rose. She yanked the covers up to her neck as she sat.

Nicholas’s transparent, shimmery form appeared, and he knelt in front of her. She received an impression of black military-short hair, hawkish features and the glitter of his intelligent eyes.

Relaxing, she anchored the blanket more securely around her torso. “Nicholas,” she said. “It’s good to see you. How is your father?”

He has not yet passed, Nicholas said. Perhaps there is still something that you can do for him.

Exhaustion pulled at her bones. Healing herself from so many gunshot wounds yesterday had sorely strained her body’s already taxed resources, but she tried not to let her weariness show on her face.

Just like any other family member of patients she had treated, Nicholas didn’t need to see her own struggle. She had survived more than one brutal shift in the ER. She would survive this too. “I’ll have to find some clothes,” she said. “I need to eat something too. Do you think he will be all right for that long?”

He seems to be resting comfortably enough at the moment, the ghost said. He regarded her for a moment. It cost you a great deal to come here so quickly. Thank you.

She had the impulse to deflect what he said, but the gravity in his indistinct gaze wouldn’t let her. Instead, she gave him a small smile. You’re very welcome.

He rose to his feet and turned away. She had seen him do that before when he prepared to leave. It was as if the ghost needed to go through the same kind of gesture that he would have done if he had been alive.

Impulsively, she said, “Nicholas.”

He paused to look over his shoulder at her.

No doubt this was not the time to talk about things. But she was afraid that there would never be a time to talk about things, unless she just made the talk happen.

She asked, “If you were offered a chance at resurrection, would you want to take it?”

That got his attention. He turned and kneeled in front of her, and his gaze turned piercing. There is no chance at resurrection, he said gently. My body has been cremated.

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean resurrection with your original body, and I’m not promising that I can make it happen.”

Nicholas lifted a wide shoulder in a shrug. What are you talking about?

While she knew she needed to move soon, right at the moment, sitting up straight seemed like too much effort. She leaned back against the nearby wall. It felt frigid against her bare shoulders.

At any other time, she would have taken a great deal of time to think about how to tactfully approach a difficult, delicate subject with a patient.

Now she said baldly, “Yesterday morning when I examined those injured drones, the only thing wrong with them was that their spirit was gone. Their bodies were strong and healthy. If they had been really alive, they would have recovered from their injuries just fine. I see that as a damn waste, don’t you?”

He was smart. He was really smart, and he was familiar with the Deceiver’s attributes and habits. She couldn’t see the details of his face very well, but when he rose to pace the length of the small cabin, she could see that she didn’t have to spell everything out for him.

Energy poured off of him. He said, his tone rapid and bitter, The Dark One has the ability to take over human bodies, but he isn’t human. I am.

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not human either.”

Listen to her, sounding all confident and accepting of who she was. She almost convinced herself.

He whirled to go down on one knee in front of her. Tension vibrated off of him in waves that were so tangible it felt nearly physical. She leaned forward, searching for any hint of what he was feeling in the blurred lines of his face.

“I really think it’s possible,” she said again, softly. “When I was looking at the two men, I could sense how the body and spirit were supposed to fuse together. But I can’t promise you anything. All I can do is ask if you want to try. Even if we did succeed, taking over a drone’s body would be a strange life for you, and I think in a lot of ways it would be a difficult one. What do you think? Are you willing at least to consider it?”

The hand he rested on his upraised knee tightened into a fist.

He said, Yes.

 • • •

NICHOLAS LEFT TO go back to his father’s side, taking his powerful, whirlwind emotions with him.

Left alone, she slumped back against the cold wall again until she started to shiver. The end of her braid had unraveled. She searched through the blankets and cushions until she found the rubber band. She snapped it back on the end of her tangled hair.

Then, starving, thirsty and curious, she climbed to her feet, shook out the top blanket and wrapped the bulky material sarong-like around her torso. With one hand, she held the blanket so she wouldn’t trip over the edges. With the other, she held it anchored across her br**sts. It was an awkward way to try to keep covered.

The bare floorboards were so cold they made the bones of her feet ache, but that couldn’t be helped. Her sodden socks and shoes were unfit to wear.

She stepped gingerly into the kitchenette and glanced around.

Not a kitchenette. Remember, think nautical. This would be a galley. Whatever, the galley was a kitchenette. A small refrigerator was built into the wall. She unlatched the door and peered inside, unsurprised but disappointed to find it empty.

When she saw Michael’s knife resting in its battered leather sheath on the table, she took the blanket, folded it in half and used the long blade to saw a slit through the middle of the fold. Then she poked her head through the slit to wear it like a poncho. The corners still dragged on the ground, but it covered better than before.

She looked for her clothes and shoes. Neither her nor Michael’s things were anywhere to be found. That seemed to be her cue to exit.

She ascended the stairs to the deck.

The first thing she saw was the placid surface of the Lake, glimmering in the silvery early morning light. The sun had yet to appear on the horizon. A thin layer of clouds draped across the pale sky like the last people to leave an all-night party. Land curved to either side of her, rising into a sharp incline from a rocky shore where gentle waves lapped at a jumble of rocks. The incline was covered with a thick cluster of pine trees and a tangle of underbrush.

The boat had been moored alongside a weathered pier, the nose pointed toward land, opposite a smaller, battered motorboat. As she gained the surface of the deck, she realized the pier was located in the relative shelter of a small, shallow bay.

Her socks and dingy jeans, the bullet-torn flannel shirt and her shoes were arranged on the deck to dry in the open air. Michael’s clothes had been spread out beside hers.

She heard quiet voices. As she turned the corner of the cabin, a steady breeze ruffled the edges of her makeshift poncho and brought with it the acrid scent of wood smoke. She shivered and pulled the wool closer around her torso.

At the land end of the pier there was a space of beach more or less level and cleared of rock. A path with rough staggered steps led from the beach up the incline into the woods. Michael and a tiny old woman were on the beach, sitting on two large, sawed-off logs in front of a small campfire.

Her gaze lingered on Michael. He wore rumpled black cotton pants with a drawstring waist and a flannel-lined anorak. His chest and feet were bare. Looking weary but relatively peaceful, he leaned forward to feed sticks to the bright, flickering flame. He was relaxed. Seeing that, she relaxed too.

Her attention left him and centered on the old woman, who leaned her elbows on knees almost as thin as the sticks that Michael fed to the fire. The ground around the woman was littered with bags, two thermos flasks and food containers. Her short white hair stood around her head in wild, fluffy wisps. She wore canvas mules without socks, baggy sweatpants, an overlarge knit sweater and a denim jacket that was at least a couple of decades old.

It was such a small frail body to house such a strong will. Mary swallowed in an effort to ease her dry throat and hesitated. For the first time, she realized she was jealous of the old woman, and afraid.

She hadn’t made any noise discernable over the Lake’s constant murmuring, but the pair on the shore looked in her direction at the same time.

Michael stood. “Good morning,” he said. His quiet voice carried over the water. “How are you feeling? Do you need help?”

Now she was on her feet and had been moving around, she wasn’t feeling as steady as she would have liked. Still, she shook her head. Under the combined weight of their gazes, she found a space in the boat’s railing where a hinged bar had been propped open. She stepped onto the pier.

A sharp gust of wind lifted a flap of the blanket and exposed the long line of one slender, honey-colored leg up to her waist. Though her thin nylon panties didn’t offer much cover, she was grateful she wasn’t totally nude under the poncho. She gripped the edges of the recalcitrant blanket to hold it in place as she walked toward the waiting pair.

The old woman watched her progress with a neutral expression. Her wrinkled face was classic. Mary could see in it the ghost of the beautiful woman who had appeared in her vision and the dream. With a pronounced bone structure and high cheeks, she could have been at home on an American Indian reservation, or a Greek island, or the streets of Moscow.

Michael said, “After the trip we had, I thought you would sleep longer. If I’d known you would wake this early, I would have brought you the dry clothes Astra brought. At least you’ve managed to find a solution for yourself.”

“It’ll do for now, but I could wish for a little less breeze,” she said wryly. “And my feet are freezing.” She shook her head at the seat Michael offered. Instead she held herself erect as she turned to meet the shrewd black gaze that watched her with an inscrutable patience. Feeling at a complete loss, she said, “Hello, Astra.”

Chapter Thirteen

ASTRA’S DARK, UPTURNED eyes filled with a sudden glitter of tears, and her delicate, papery expression reformed. “Thank you, Creator,” Astra breathed. “It’s been so long.”

Without warning, a huge, tangled wave of emotion welled inside of Mary, like the creature from her dream that had risen from an immeasurable depth.

Deep gladness, grief, anger and pain, and a baffled kind of love. To her intense shock and embarrassment, a sob broke out of her. The sound cracked through the quiet.

Astra lifted both hands to her. She sank to her knees and took them. Then she leaned forward to put her face in the old woman’s lap. Her shoulders clenched as she tried to rein in her emotion. Astra leaned over and held her tight.