Two men outside cursed loudly. Dukkies quacked up a storm.
Fear pricked along my spine. Our patrols didn’t usually monitor the minefield unless they suspected a threat had made it past our defenses.
Their voices calmed, and once again, we heard them speaking low to each other as they approached. My heart sped up. The air inside the showers hung heavy and hot. A drop of perspiration slid down my chest. I couldn’t make out the words the guards spoke, but I knew these two weren’t out to party in the minefield—or at the rocks.
Seven hells. I was hiding out with the enemy.
I wondered what they’d do to him if they caught him here. I pressed closer to Marc without even thinking about it. His arm tightened around me. The last time, our side had tried to execute him.
“Hey now,” I heard a familiar voice say. It was Father McArio. He was usually in camp during the day.
“Have you seen any suspicious activity?” one of the men grunted.
“Yes,” Father said with conviction, and my heart sank. “Out by my hutch. I was just coming to find you.”
Thank heaven. I about collapsed against Marc as Father McArio led the men away.
I caught myself and drew back, bracing my hands against his chest. Desert dirt dusted the stiff, rough material of his field jacket. He’d always been lean, but now he was coarser, harder.
His gaze raked over me. His fingers traced me like he was trying to memorize every breath, every touch, every nuance of my expression as I watched him. I should have stepped back, but I didn’t.
“I can’t believe you just waltzed into my camp,” I whispered.
Marc drew a hand down my arm, as if any moment I’d bolt. A wry smile twisted his lips. “I didn’t think they’d forward a letter.”
Most people I knew grew more cautious with war. Marc had grown more reckless. And while I’d never been a big believer in the rules, I knew which ones to follow in order to stay alive.
I shook my head. He was nuts to try to find me. It was too cocky, too bold. “Can you at least try to be practical?”
The corner of his mouth tipped into a grin. “I am. This was the best way to find you.”
I snorted. “You still haven’t told me what you want.”
His humor fled. “It’s complicated.”
I’d figured.
He checked his watch. “I need to get back soon. I’m with the MASH-19X. We’re set up about thirty miles away on the other side of the Great Divide.”
That was even crazier. “How’d you make it over?” The Great Divide was the line of demarcation for the immortal armies.
He shrugged a powerful shoulder. “I flew out just before dawn.”
I gaped at him. Sure, he was a shapeshifting dragon, but you couldn’t just breeze over hostile territory.
“I had help,” he said, drawing me into the light. “This is important. I’ve been working on a big project with Dr. Keller.”
He had to be kidding me. “Dr. Keller from Loyola?” He’d been Marc’s mentor and one of my professors, too. Keller was tough but good.
Marc nodded. “We were conscripted at the same time. Last winter, he called on me to help him develop a new medicine. Supposedly.” He frowned. “Research is overseeing it.”
“Interesting.” The gods tended to shun new technology, thinking the old ways were superior. Any new medicines were usually the result of little labs like mine.
The light played off Marc’s face. “We were only given one part of the project. That alone is unusual. But there’s also something off in the chemical structure. I don’t think it is what they say it is. It could be dangerous.”
“This is war,” I reminded him. Heck, I’d already blown up my lab once trying to come up with a simple anesthetic that worked on immortals.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Believe me, nobody’s ever seen anything like this. I covered for Keller while he ran some special experiments,” he said, his tone grim. “Off the books.”
“That sounds like Keller.” And Marc.
“Until the night I was on call in the OR. He stayed in the lab. He was on the verge of a big breakthrough. I hadn’t seen him that excited in months.” He paused, his lips pressed together. “Then he disappeared.”
My stomach twisted. I’d heard about how people disappeared in the Old God Army. “Maybe he was transferred,” I said. It could happen.
Marc shook his head. “We both know that’s not true.” He drew in a breath. “Now there’s a ghost in the lab. It’s destroying everything, and I don’t know why.”
My heart squeezed a little. “You think it’s him.”
He gave a long sigh. “No one has been able to get close, but I’m pretty sure it’s Dr. Keller.”
Marc was the only other person besides Father McArio and Galen who knew my secret. And while Father McArio would take it to his grave, and Galen had sacrificed to hide me, Marc’s intentions were suspect. “You want to expose me.”
“No,” he said, hard, unrepentant. “I only want you to talk to my ghost.”
“To a murdered soul,” I whispered under my breath.
“In all likelihood, yes,” he admitted. “But I’ll stand with you,” he promised. “I’ll do anything you need to keep you safe.”
But he wouldn’t see what I saw. The souls couldn’t touch him.
The men who died in battle rose up, noble, their missions complete. Murdered dead were traumatized by the sins of their killers. They were unpredictable, angry. If they moved on, they could be restored. Until then, they were lost in darkness. Their rage gave them wild and unpredictable powers.
“I told you about the spirit of the murdered girl in Laveal Swamp,” I said. I’d steered my boat out to her. She’d dived straight for me, burrowing into my skin, greedy to get inside me. For a brief moment, she’d possessed me.
I’d blacked out, lost myself, and felt only the sheer, startling pain of her tortured soul crushing me.
Not only did murdered souls become mindless and vicious, they became obsessed with the desire to live again. They’d do anything to find an easy host—me.
“I know what I’m asking,” Marc said, his words low and unapologetic. “I’ve thought long and hard about this. You’re not a teenager anymore. And I wouldn’t ask this if it weren’t important.” He fixed his gaze on me. “Can you talk to him?”
My mouth went dry.
It was very likely that Keller had been slaughtered just so he couldn’t talk.
I drew a hand over my eyes. It might be too late anyway. “How long has he been gone?”
“Two nights ago,” Marc said, regret coloring his words.
Dang it. There was a good chance he’d be around. Spirits often lingered where they died, especially in the cases of violent death.
“In your lab. In an enemy camp,” I said, trying to wrap my head around it.
He looked at me steadily, willing me to say yes. “I can get you in.”
It was nuts. “I’m not even sure how you got out.”
“Look here,” he said, drawing a small military map out of his back pocket. He unfolded it over his leg. “The armies are dug in at the edge of the fourth quadrant, both in a U-shaped pattern.”