Prologue
Seconds after death.
The dead have thoughts.
In the seconds after death, as all oxygen leaves the brain, a surge of activity fires every neuron-like one last bolt of lightning. Every path lights up. Every connection, every potential thought, makes one final rush to the surface. No one knows what those thoughts are.
The dead can't speak.
But they can remember.
For those final seconds, they are more alive than when they took their first breath. The brain churns out thought, grasping for anything and everything. This will be the last.
By the time her face splashed into the dirty puddle in the cracked asphalt, her brain was flashing with every moment she had ever lived. Every breath. Every voice she ever heard. Every word she ever said. It was all there.
And just as quickly as it passed, it was over. Her head lolled in the hands that lifted it up from the puddle. She didn't feel her feet being dragged across the pavement or the loose gravel tearing holes in her pantyhose.
Twenty minutes after death.
The dead can bleed.
The heart has stopped, but for several minutes, blood continues to flow through the veins. By force. By memory. By sheer inertia. But then it stops. There is no more heartbeat, no more pressure. The blood stops, the capillaries empty, and the color of life drains away. Soon the blood will pool where it stopped, darkening to red and purple and black. But for a time, all is pale.
She was nearly translucent by the time the trunk closed over her. If she was still breathing, her lungs would have dragged the smell of cotton and heat into her lungs. Lips losing their moisture stuck to the cloth, but her eyes were closed. They couldn't have seen the dark.
Three hours after death.
The dead hold tight.
What takes months to build and grow takes only a fraction of that time to break down. But the body doesn't give up gently. It rages against death. It holds onto every shred of life. Within hours, as the brain lies dormant and the heart drains fully of blood, the muscles clench and tighten. The entire body goes stiff, holding the position it assumed upon death. It will stay that way for a couple of days before relinquishing itself to finality.
It was hours after the trunk closed over her that she was given over to the ground. She didn't know it was cold and wet, more mud than dirt. But the hands that dug down into it knew. It wasn't easy to get her into the trunk. It was harder to drag her curled, hardened body to the hastily dug grave. Harder still to dig around her, to force away more of the mud and tangled roots, so she would fit.
She could have ended up anywhere, yet somehow this felt like the only option. It was the only place that made sense. Here she wouldn't be alone. Even if no one ever knew where she was. And that was the plan. No one would ever know. She would just fade away, be forgotten.
But it was beautiful here. At least there was that.
That soothed some of the guilt.
The rest of the guilt was buried with her. Soaking through the cloth with raindrops. It stayed with her as the mud came down, and the earth swallowed her. It would cover her as time continued to pass.
Five days after death.
Two weeks after death.
Six months after death.
Ten years after death.
Twenty years after death.
The dead tell secrets.
Chapter One
“Dead?” Dean asks. “What do you mean he's supposed to be dead?”
“Exactly what I said,” I tell him, walking around the side of the car. “Darren Blackwell, better known as the Dragon. Major drug lord. Organized crime. He had airtight control over his massive syndicate. The Bureau had him under investigation for years. They wanted to close the case by sending somebody undercover. I was new and unknown. So, they chose me.”
“What happened?” Dean asks.
“A story for another time,” I say. “But the last I heard of him was that he was dead, buried in a prisoners’ field. Nobody claimed his body.”
“If he's dead, why would Lydia Walsh have notes about him for her little cold case website? And why would the members of Prometheus react to his name?” Dean points out.
“I don't know. But it wouldn't be the first time in my life somebody came back from the dead,” I note.
I climb in the car, and Dean gets in behind the wheel. We drive back up the uneven dirt road to the temple. What was a pocket of deep darkness earlier is now flashing in blue, red, and white. Different patterns and tempos to match the vehicles parked haphazardly on the grass.
“Why did they send a rescue squad?” Dean frowns as we pull up beside Sam's car and climb out.
“Standard procedure,” I say. “Any time they think there might be conflict, they like to have emergency response vehicles handy. Just in case.”
I meet his eyes, not needing to put out into the universe the words going through my mind. Various officers move in and out of the building. I jog up to the doorway and step inside.
There is a distinctly different feeling in the building now. It's hard to explain. It doesn't feel lighter, as if some sort of exorcism had occurred to cleanse it once the members of The Order of Prometheus left under cover of darkness. Instead, it's hollow. Like a shell. There should be something in here, and even though it isn't here now, the impression still lingers. It's the same feeling I get when walking through an old crime scene. There's energy in the air, an indelible mark on the atmosphere itself that I can feel around me.
"Emma," Detective Noah White calls over, coming toward me. "Good to see you in one piece."
"I don't suggest you make that your usual greeting," I comment. "But thanks for the sentiment. Are you sure everyone is gone?"
He nods. “The crew swarmed the place as soon as we got here and checked every room we had access to. We didn't find a single person.”
“The rooms you have access to?” I ask. “What do you mean?”
“Most of the doors in the building are locked. We were only able to get into a few of them, and they were pretty much empty,” he explains.
“Locked? That doesn't make any sense.”
“They weren't locked when you were here?”
“No,” I say.
Sam comes up behind me. His hand rests on my lower back like he's trying to steady me.
“What is it?” he asks.
“The doors are locked,” I tell him. “They weren't locked when Dean and I were here. We didn't try many of them, but there was an office and the sanctuary. Were you able to see either one of those?”
“No,” the detective says.
Sam shakes his head in agreement. “I haven't been able to see much of it, obviously, but from what I hear from the guys who've been here, they're not seeing anything that you described. Not that it isn't in here, just that the doors are locked, and they can't get through them.”
“So, open the doors,” I shrug.
Noah shakes his head. “You know as well as I do we can't do that. We can't go into any of the rooms that are locked or blocked. We don't have probable cause or reason to believe a crime is currently being committed. The word of an FBI agent who was in the act of breaking and entering when she saw those things doesn't work as cause.”