Spirit Dances. C.E. Murphy

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      More than that, though, viewed with the Sight, they were preparing her, and themselves, for the dance’s final moments. Energy coiled inside each of the dancers, ready to be released. I leaned forward with my breath held, waiting for the climactic finale and the vast outpouring of healing power I anticipated.

      It happened so quickly I lost what breath I held. A surge hit the lead dancer, magic so blended it was incandescent white. She spun to face the audience a final time, arms spread in an open embrace so crisp I could see the design behind it, the intention to throw all that strength and beauty out to the audience.

      Instead the magic sucked upward out of her body in a bleak whirlpool, and she collapsed on the stage in silence.

      CHAPTER SIX

      The audience gasped, not sure whether they’d seen something deliberate or tragic. I popped to my feet, wanting to rush the stage, and Morrison followed my lead.

      Everybody else took it as the surge into a standing ovation, and people came to their feet all around us, cheering and shouting and applauding. Panic flared across the stage, the dancers at a loss until one of the men stepped forward to collect the woman who’d fallen. Her boneless form in his arms, he turned to the audience and led a troupe-wide curtain call. Fixed smiles looked like rictuses to me, but I could almost hear the axiom driving them: the show must go on. The audience was still going wild when they withdrew, and I knew they wouldn’t return for a second bow.

      “What’s going on, Walker?” Morrison’s voice was pitched below the exuberant audience’s catcalls.

      I flinched, becoming aware I was straining forward like I’d start climbing over seats and people to reach the stage. In fact, the only thing stopping me was Morrison’s viselike grip on my elbow, which I only noticed belatedly, despite the fact that once I noticed, I realized it was cutting off circulation. “Remember what happened to Billy in July? How he went to sleep because something was draining the life force out of him?”

      Poor Morrison gritted his teeth and nodded. I’d explained it all at the time, but there wasn’t much in the way of actual physical evidence for things like that. He believed me, but he didn’t like it.

      “Something like that just happened to her, except she’d gathered up all the focused power the dancers were creating. That kind of drain might have killed her, Morrison. I have to get up there!” And there was no way to do it. The aisles were already full in the way theaters always managed the moment a performance ended, even when the audience was going nuts with applause. I was sure it violated some law of physics.

      Morrison gave me one brief, searching look, then, as far as I could tell, employed some kind of secret law-enforcement signal code that I wasn’t yet privy to. Within seconds we were in the aisle, Morrison with his badge out as he politely but firmly created a path to the stage. Rubberneckers realizing something was wrong started to clog up the aisle, but somehow Morrison kept being right between me and them, full of professional apology as he got people out of my way. I wanted to kiss the man.

      We reached the stage and he did a two-step that landed him behind me. I went to vault up, not sure my dress would survive it, and to my astonishment, Morrison caught my waist and simply dead-lifted me up.

      I weighed in at about one sixty-five, which was by no means the featherweight division. I also had very long legs, made longer still by my goddamned high heels. I wouldn’t have thought anybody could lift me four feet straight into the air so smoothly I barely knew what was happening until my feet hit the stage. I stumbled out of pure amazement, and Morrison, who vaulted up after me, offered a briefly steadying hand before we both ran for backstage.

      The whole cast was gathered around the fallen woman. Their auras were painful with worry, shooting spikes that made my head hurt. Every one of them looked drained physically, emotionally and spiritually, which made sense. Not only had they danced their hearts out, but the power they’d been offering to their lead dancer had gotten sucked out in a way it was never meant to be taken. I was surprised they were still all on their feet, metaphorically speaking.

      A few of them glanced up as Morrison and I came through the wings. They were obviously expecting someone. Paramedics, maybe. Morrison said, “Police,” at the same time I said, “I’m a healer.”

      For maybe the first time in my life, nobody looked any more surprised at the one statement than the other. In fact, a couple of them just got out of my way, clearing a path to the dancer’s side. Morrison walked away as I knelt next to her, and I half heard him talking to stagehands, asking them to set up a barrier and refuse all nonofficial personnel access to the backstage area.

      The dancer wasn’t breathing. I’d known that on some level, right from the moment she’d collapsed. There were signs of fresh bruising on her chest, like they’d failed at CPR. “What’s her name?”

      Someone said, “Naomi Allison.”

      I whispered, “C’mon, Naomi,” put my hand over her heart, and went searching for her soul.

      Like the breath from her body, it was gone. Not almost-gone, not hanging on in hopes of rescue, but somewhere beyond the veil of death. There was no hint of life to her body, no aura clinging to her skin, no spark buried somewhere deep inside. If life essence was something that could be held in a pool, it was like someone had reached in and with one giant handful, emptied every drop. I had a whole shiny range of esoteric powers, but seeing ghosts didn’t rank among them. I was pretty certain if Billy were here, he’d already be talking to Naomi’s crossed-over self.

      I’d never brought anyone back from the dead before. I’d managed to bring people back from mostly dead a couple of times, but not from genuinely, full-stop dead. I wasn’t actually sure it was possible.

      From the outside—which was to say, from anyone who hadn’t been watching with my second Sight’s point of view—I thought her death must look like a heart attack. There was no other even vaguely feasible explanation for it. Of course, with my hand over her heart and my magic opened up, I could tell that there was no damage at all to her heart muscle. Nor were there any brain clots or embolisms or other physical symptoms that might explain a phenomenally fit woman in her early thirties suddenly dropping dead.

      On the other hand, there was nothing physically wrong with her, except the part where she was dead. If I could manage to catch her soul before it slipped away entirely, maybe I could bind them back together. Unfortunately, since I couldn’t see or communicate with ghosts, that really only left me one place to go.

      I called it the Dead Zone, and the first time I’d gone there chasing a wayward soul, I’d very nearly gotten myself and someone I loved killed. But I was a little better prepared these days. It didn’t take much to let myself slide free of my body, not with the amount of power I’d taken in from the dancers. Not so long ago, that would have bothered me. I liked being connected to the world. The idea that I could slip into a black empty place just a finger-length smaller than infinity would have scared the crap out of me. Tonight, though, I was glad I didn’t have to push myself through rituals to make it work. If Naomi Allison had any chance for life, she needed me to be as quick as I possibly could be.

      The Dead Zone really was impossibly, hideously large. I always felt like it presented itself that way semi-consciously, as if to make me aware of just how tiny I was. A speck of insignificance on an endless black plain: that was me in the Dead Zone.

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