The central characters of Poltergeist: The Legacy do not belong to me –

they are the property of Trilogy and MGM, and I’ve only borrowed them for a while.

All other characters were created by me. Hope you enjoy …

POLTERGEIST: THE LEGACY

THE DEATH OF SAINTS

Chapter 1

Nick

It had blown up a week before. A huge argument over nothing. But that was what most huge arguments were over – nothing. Arguments about something, now they were vicious, white hot, but short lived because there was a subject. Once it was beaten to death, there was no reason to continue with it. This particular argument had erupted over nothing, and, a week later, it was still going on.

The actual shouting hadn’t lasted long. It hadn’t started out as shouting at all – just a quiet request from Rachel to Nick for a few minutes of his time. Like a blind fool, he’d walked right into it by agreeing with a pleasant “Sure, what’s up?” and an attentive expression.

Rachel had steered him into the lounge, and closed the door. That was his first sign that something big was about to go down. She’d sat opposite him, her face earnest, her eyes concerned, and she’d leaned forward very slightly.

“Nick, I want you to go to bereavement counseling.”

“Why?” he’d asked in a rock steady, painfully controlled voice.

“Because you’re a widower.”

Nick had taken great exception to that. He’d tried very hard to hold on to his temper. He’d tried to keep the resentment from shadowing and underscoring his voice, and, to a degree, at first he’d succeeded.

But Rachel had just gone on and on about Peri being dead, about how he needed to come to terms with his grief, about talking it out with total strangers and how doing that would make him feel better, about …

Nick had erupted. He hadn’t meant to – it wasn’t Rachel’s fault, after all. He understood she was coming at him from a place of concern. But she was still coming at him, and it wasn’t necessary. Merlin wasn’t dead. Nick wasn’t a widower. He had no reason to grieve or to come to terms with it, and he sure didn’t want to talk with total strangers about something so personal as his life with Merlin.

Rachel, of course, had only nodded sadly, her eyes, her face filled with compassion and sympathy – and that had been exactly the wrong thing to do. Nick had gotten up, stalked to the door, flung it open, and only then paused to look back.

“Rachel, this isn’t any of your business. Just leave me alone, okay?”

“But, Nick – ” she’d begun – and that had been exactly the wrong thing to say.

“I don’t need counseling. I don't need people keeping on about this.”

“Fine! Go your own way! Deal with it on your own! I am only trying to help you, but you don’t need help. You can cope.”

“Yeah, I can,” he’d replied – which had been exactly the wrong thing to say to her.

The argument had begun, and, a week later, they were still continuing it thru frosty silences. Nick wasn’t angry anymore but he didn’t want to raise the subject and start the shouting again. Rachel assumed he was having a monumental sulking fit and refusing to talk with her about anything. It wasn’t quite a case of ‘Alex, please ask Nick to pass the salt’ or ‘Derek, please tell Rachel I’ve got the search results she wanted’ but Alex and Derek both felt like a buffer zone between two silently warring parties.

So, on the morning of May 14, a beautifully calm, sunny Monday morning, Nick decided it was past time to try for a truce. In fact, it was way past time to bring this war, and his reason for fighting it, to an end. He would come clean, and then head out to the airport to meet Jazz’s flight. Jazz was going to be in the city until Wednesday morning and they had a whole lot of catching up to do.

As he approached the kitchen, it was almost as if he’d become telepathic. Nick grinned. He could almost hear the quiet exchange between Rachel and Alex, but it wasn’t telepathy. He hadn’t suddenly developed a strange, new ability. It came down simply to the fact that he knew both women well. Right about now, Rachel would be saying …

“He’s taking it a lot better than I ever thought he would,” Rachel confessed. She considered for a few moments, her eyes distracted as she gazed over the Bay toward the city. “It’s almost,” she went on, turning, “like he doesn’t care .. and I know he does.”

Alex gave an uneasy shrug. She was uneasy because they were openly discussing Nick and, specifically, Nick’s personal life. Nick didn’t like that. He preferred his personal life to be his own business – that was no secret. He wasn’t the uptight, keep it all locked away inside individual he’d been before but there was a clear line. Alex felt they were walking dangerously close. Of course, if Nick had been away, she would have happily taken part. But Nick was still in the house. He could walk in at any moment. Their concern over his total non-reaction to Merlin’s death wouldn’t have been seen as concern. It would, as he’d already demonstrated to Rachel, been interpreted as gross interference. It might trigger another, bigger outburst. After all, Alex justified, this past week hasn’t exactly been a garden of delights around here.

“I don’t understand it myself,” Alex said cautiously, keeping her voice low .. just in case. “I’ve given up trying.” She shrugged again. “He knows I’m here if he ever wants to talk. I can’t push him into it, Rachel.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“But you should.”

Rachel gave a wry smile. “I’m supposed to know what I’m doing.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. “There’s a predictable sequence of events which a person experiences when a loved one dies. First, there’s shock. Then denial, then there’s anger, and then, finally, grief and mourning, and the realization that .. life goes on. We know Nick went into shock. For days, he hardly spoke – ”

“He has been angry,” Alex pointed out.

“With me, yeah. Not with Peri. The anger he’s displayed has come from what he perceives as me interfering. There’s been no sign at all of him being angry with Peri. There’s been no .. why did you do it? No .. you’ve left me on my own for the rest of my life. Alex, I’ve been there, I know what happens. You think that, because I loved Patrick, I didn’t get furious with him? I did. I raged. How could he be so stupid? What was he thinking? Why didn’t he slow down? But,” she sighed, “Nick hasn’t done that. Nick .. it’s almost like .. he’s skipped straight to the end zone. Life goes on.”

“Hardly,” Alex protested softly.

“It’s been twelve weeks, Alex. Nearly a quarter of a year. When I say life goes on, I don’t mean I expect him to start dating again,” Rachel explained quickly. “It’s way too soon for that. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, it does. When a marriage is breaking or has broken down, when both partners have fallen out of love, a sudden death is shocking but that’s about it. When the couple are as close and loving and supportive of each other as Nick and Peri were, no. He won’t date for a long time. He wasn’t exactly a gad-about-town before he met her. What I mean by life going on is .. he’s here, he’s working, he isn’t drifting off into memories, he isn’t crying or getting drunk, or .. anything like that. He isn’t exhibiting any of the classic signs.”

Rachel sighed then looked up. “Remember how he was before? When Peri was missing?”

Alex nodded slowly.

“The anger was very close to the surface. The only difference between now and then is that Nick knows she’s dead. He was there, he saw it, he couldn’t stop it. I can understand shock. We all felt that. I could understand anger. I’d expect anger, especially from him. I have to say .. we’ve felt more loss than he appears to .. and that isn’t right.”

“Maybe .. he knows it was down to the rules. It wasn’t easy for her, but she broke them. This is the punishment and Nick has accepted that.”

“Maybe.” Rachel sat back, one hand playing with her coffee cup. “I guess I’m just dreading the moment when the big melt-down comes. The longer it’s put off, the worse it’s gonna be.”

The door opened and the subject under discussion came in. Nick looked at them briefly then went to get his coffee.

“You are gonna have to find someone else to talk about,” he commented. “My ears burn so much, it’s a miracle I still have them.” He joined them at the table. “Either that or talk to my face instead of behind my back.”

“You know I’m concerned,” Rachel instantly responded, grasping the opportunity with both hands.

“About?” he queried.

“You know what about. Your reaction to Peri’s death,” she said and Alex winced.

“Why?”

“Because .. you’re not reacting,” Rachel explained.

Nick sipped his coffee. “I don’t need to.”

“Nick, Peri can’t have come to visit you,” Alex warily began. “Have you spoken with Joe or Shauna?”

“No.” He looked away for a moment. “How do you feel about her?”

“I miss her, terribly,” Rachel answered. If she wanted honesty, she had to give it and she couldn’t hesitate.

“What about you, Alex?”

“How can you ask? I miss her, of course I do. I could always talk with her.”

“But you couldn’t in Colorado,” Nick pointed out. “You hated her.”

“I hated the situation,” Alex clarified. “I hated what she was being forced to do.”

“And that turned into hatred of her. She wasn’t ‘one of us’. She never could be. Imagine, for a second,” he invited, “that we didn’t see her die, that we’d all come back here.” Nick watched them. “What would it have been like?”

“Difficult,” Rachel said. “There would have been .. an atmosphere. Strain. Tension.”

Nick gave a short laugh. “It would’ve been hell. Peri wasn’t stupid. She looked ahead and she knew you’d make her life a nightmare, that she be forced to defend her actions when she really didn’t have to. So .. she did the only thing she could, and she did it for us, to make it easier all round.”

Rachel carefully eased closer. This was more straight talking from Nick about Merlin than she’d heard since they’d returned from Colorado.

“What about you, Nick?” she asked. “How do you feel about her?”

“I love her as much as I’ve ever done. More each day, in fact. I don’t blame her for doing it, not now I see why she did it. I’m not angry.”

Rachel slowly shook her head. “You haven’t grieved, Nick. You haven’t let her go.”

“I don’t need to. Peri isn’t dead.”

Rachel sighed. “Denial.”

“No, I really mean .. she isn’t dead.” He studied them. “She faked it. She could do that. I doubt she was ever in that house. Rather than put up with being accused for no reason, she made it easy for us by letting us think she was gone.”

They accepted this in a cautious silence. Then Alex leaned forward. “Have you seen her?”

He shook his head. “She isn’t ready for that yet. But maybe the time’s close. Think about it. You both miss her. You’ve both .. accepted what’s happened. You understand now she was just working to a different set of rules from us and not being different or obstinate or a cold-blooded killer for the hell of it. She was just being herself, like she’s always been. Maybe I’ll call by Paradise Drive an’ see if she’s around. Pass on the news that it’s okay to come back.”

“She’s been just across the Bay all this time and you haven’t been to see her?” Alex frowned, wondering.

“I don’t think she’s been there,” Nick admitted. “She covered her ass before the showdown in Colorado. She asked Profelis to be around because she wouldn’t be. He told me that.”

“But we all saw her die, Nick,” Rachel gently persisted. “I understand your reasoning but you can’t argue with the evidence of your own eyes.”

“People have faked their deaths before,” Nick said, his voice stubborn, his eyes flickering with resentment.

“Sure. Derek’s done it. But not right in front of us. And .. he came back within a few days. It’s been over twelve weeks now.”

Nick hesitated at that. “If Peri was anyone else, sure, I’d have to agree with you. But she isn’t anyone else, Rachel. She’s an Enforcer. She can be two places at once. Profelis was in that house, with us. Peri wasn’t. She .. was just an illusion to trick us.”

“How do you know all this to be the truth?” Alex asked rather bluntly.

“I didn’t, not at first. I fell for it like everyone else. Even Profelis was suckered. That’s how good she is at it. It wasn’t until Derek came back an’ told us what Profelis said about not holding a memorial service that I realized what she’d done. He said that, in the circumstances, it would be inappropriate. These people hardly ever tell it straight where they’re concerned. They can’t. They protect themselves. But Profelis told the truth. It was as close as he could say to tell us that she isn’t dead so don’t bother.”

“You don’t feel that it would have been inappropriate because she’d broken the rules and she was damned?” Rachel ventured. Nick looked up sharply. “That’s the other, more obvious meaning, Nick.”

“No, I don’t feel that.”

“So .. that’s why you didn’t believe it was Peri we saw in Hell,” Alex murmured.

Nick finished his coffee. “That’s right. She isn’t there. She isn’t dead.”

“That’s a pretty strong belief.”

He shrugged and got to his feet. “You gotta have faith. I’m .. heading into town, don’t know when I’ll be back exactly. Jazz is flying in from San Diego. I’m meeting his plane.”

They nodded. “Enjoy yourself.”

“I will.”

They watched him go out, waited for the door to close, then they looked at each other.

“What d’you think?” Alex inquired.

“At last, he’s moved into stage two,” Rachel replied. “Full blown denial.”

*****

All the way into the city, Nick replayed the words in his head. He listened to them as an outsider might, and he groaned quietly.

“I sounded like a jerk,” he sighed. “Like a guy clutching at straws. Someone who won’t accept the truth. Why didn’t I just stay quiet?”

Because you know you’re right and they’re wrong. You know it, you feel it, you believe it. You gotta have faith. They don’t know the Enforcers like you do. No one’s come to see you to say how sorry they are, or even how disgusted they are that she abandoned her duty like that. There is a reason, Nick. She’s still alive. Don’t start second guessing yourself now, not after all this time.

All this time … Why hasn’t she made contact? Okay, maybe she doesn’t wanna come to the house but we could’ve met someplace else. Didn’t even have to be in this world – we could even have met in the forest, in my dreams. But we didn’t …

He closed his eyes briefly.

Over twelve weeks … The only thing keeping me sane is faith. Without that, what Rachel’s saying makes a lot of sense. But faith can work miracles.

Nick steered the Mustang into the parking lot at the airport, then went to the arrivals terminal to wait for Jazz.

Jazz strolled thru twenty minutes later, looking tanned, fit and healthy. His face broke into a broad grin when he saw his friend.

“Stormer! How you doing, man? You look great!”

Nick couldn’t help but grin too. “I look lousy an’ you know it. Still getting over a real nasty bout of insomnia.”

Jazz shrugged. “I was always the diplomatic one.”

“Your memory must be very selective,” Nick commented. “It’s because of you I got saddled with the name Stormer.” He paused, studying his old friend. “It’s great to see you, Jazz. You’re over all that .. what happened to you?”

“Sure. Never did find out what happened, not exactly. I just know you were there for me.”

Nick lightly punched Jazz’s upper arm. “Old habits, man. Hard to break.” They shared a quiet moment, staring into each other’s eyes and reliving a whole lot of memories in an instant. “C’mon, let’s get outta here and go to the hotel. I’ve decided to stay in town myself – cut down on driving time. Then I’ll show you round, get the tourist places done early so that, tonight, we can head off the beaten track.”

“I hear there are some pretty hot clubs in the area.”

“Yeah, you heard right,” Nick grinned, leading the way outside.

“Nick? Am I going to meet your wife on this trip? You haven’t spoken of her once. She .. isn’t coming with us tonight?”

Nick hesitated for a fraction of a second. His own personal Rubicon – back off and accept that Rachel was right, or cross and believe he had the truth of it. Nick decided to cross.

“Peri’s outta town. Don’t know when she’ll be back.” He shrugged tightly. “She has one of those jobs. Has to just go at a moment’s notice.”

“We know all about those kinds of jobs.” Jazz hesitated too. “Is everything okay between you an’ her?”

“Everything’s fine. I just miss her. It’s been a long time, this time.” He glanced back. “But you’re here and we’ll have a great couple of days.”

“Hell yeah,” Jazz grinned.

*****

Rachel was still gnawing over the Nick problem when Derek returned. Now that she had proof of a kind that Nick was proceeding along the accepted route, Rachel wasn’t worrying as much. Her focus had tilted slightly and she was wondering how long this phase had lasted. It usually was over quite fast, invariably but not always concluding at the funeral. Of course, Merlin hadn’t had a funeral. As yet, she hadn’t been the subject of a memorial service either. Rachel had warily accepted the idea when Derek had broached it and now she was beginning to think it might be good to hold a service fairly soon. It might jolt Nick from denial into anger, and then into grieving, mourning, and, finally, acceptance that his wife was, in fact and in truth, dead.

Alex, working alone with Rachel a frowning, silent figure at the other workstation, glanced up as Derek came in. “Hi, good trip?”

He nodded, his face distracted by something on his mind.

“How was Ingrid?” Alex persisted.

“Fine.”

Alex wondered whether to continue. He was clearly somewhere else if his expression was any indication. His responses were being generated by autonomic reflexes, not coherent thought. She decided to test her theory.

“Did you know you’ve got a big bug on your shoulder?”

“Mmm,” Derek murmured, his voice distant.

“It’s purple with big yellow spots and a gazillion legs.”

“Really.”

Alex gave up, shook her head and turned back to the computer. If he’d driven back from Carmel in that mood, it was nothing short of a miracle that he’d arrived safely and not run headlong into another vehicle. At that moment, Rachel noticed rather belatedly that Derek was back from visiting his sister.

“Derek, I need to – ” she began.

“Where’s Nick?” Derek asked at the same time.

“Nick’s gone into town. He’s meeting his friend at the airport? He told us a couple of days ago and mentioned it again last night over dinner,” Alex prompted.

“Oh. Yes. I recall now. Thank you.” He swung round. “Rachel, you need to .. what?”

“Speak to you about something.”

“We’ll go to my office.” Derek led the way, paused at the bend in the passage and glanced back. “Purple, yellow spots and a gazillion legs ..? I think I would have noticed, Alex.” He winked and continued on his way.

Alex grinned too. Even when he wasn’t all there, he was there enough. It was comforting to know.

Derek closed the door behind Rachel and went to lean against his desk, assuming an attentive look of focused concern. He’d been careful to get as much rest as he could over the past two weeks. He’d eaten a sensible diet, taken exercise, done everything to look after himself. He couldn’t believe he had incurred Rachel’s displeasure by a flagrant display of overwork.

She paced slowly, her brow creased in a ferocious frown. Then she halted, turned to face him and shrugged expansively.

“It’s Nick.”

“Ah.” Derek nodded wisely. “You’re still concerned about him.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Did you fight again?” he inquired tactfully.

“No, actually I managed to have quite a long conversation with him without either of us blowing up,” Rachel replied. “Alex was there too which could have been a factor.”

“He hasn’t been ignoring you, Rachel.”

“No, he hasn’t. Just ignoring one subject.”

“But you managed to discuss it today.”

She nodded. “Did you know that Nick believes Peri isn’t dead? I mean, he’s worked out this entire thing. She faked it. She wasn’t even there. He’s in denial big time.” She paused. “Maybe holding that memorial service in the near future is the right thing to do. It could .. open his eyes to the truth.”

“But what is the truth?” Derek countered. “We saw it happen but was what we saw the truth of things?” He straightened slightly. “I don’t believe a memorial service would be either right or good, in the circumstances. Profelis was adamant about it.”

“But, Derek, Nick is stuck firmly in this mindset. It isn’t helping him come to terms. He’s just putting it off.”

Derek slowly walked round his desk and sat down. “You know I went to see my sister today, at the convent.”

Rachel nodded. “How is she?”

“Ingrid is very well. She hardly ever seems to change. The life there suits her.” He thought for a moment, his eyes distracted again. “Ingrid .. told me something today which has caused me to rethink a lot of things.”

Intrigued, Rachel came closer. “Such as?”

“What is the truth? Can we really believe what we have seen?”

“Sight is the dominant sense. Unless there’s a physiological condition in the brain affecting the optic center, what we see is what’s there.”

Derek nodded his agreement. “How then is it possible for Ingrid to tell me Peri visited her last month? Peri always visits the convent in April, and she did not miss her visit this year.”

Rachel fished around for a reasonable explanation. “She could have imagined it. She could have .. wished it into happening. When we miss someone – ”

“Ingrid didn’t know Peri was dead. It is not a physiological condition in her brain either, unless every sister in the convent has been struck down with the same condition. They all saw her. Peri came, did the rounds, had dinner with them, stayed overnight, and left in the morning. Her usual routine. It could not have been a ghost, not if she truly has been damned. On the other hand, if Nick’s belief is correct … Did what we see in Colorado really happen?”

“It happened, Derek. I was there. I saw it.”

“But was it the truth?” he asked quietly. “Or .. are you not so sure anymore?” She couldn’t answer. “In the circumstances, a memorial service now would not be right. We have to .. learn the truth. Maybe then we can reconsider the idea.”

Thwarted, Rachel shrugged her defeat. “All right. We’ll give it a while longer. Derek, do me a favor, okay? Don’t tell Nick any of this. If it is true, he’ll find out in due course. But if it isn’t true, it could do terrible harm. It’ll reinforce a false belief, and, when he does come to confront the facts, it’ll make it a thousand times worse. We all care too much about him to want him to go thru that kinda pain.”

Derek thought it over. “You do realize he will accuse me of keeping things back from him, again?”

“If he does, I’ll tell him it was my idea, my recommendation, that I insisted,” Rachel declared.

He pursed his lips. “I do not want to see Nick suffer, that is true. Very well, I will remain silent on the subject.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said with a brief smile.

*****

“You .. don’t live in the city, do you?” Jazz asked, stretching out his legs, and nursing his beer.

“Nope. I got a place here. Own it but it’s just income. I don’t live there.”

“You bought a house?”

“Not exactly.”

Jazz slowly nodded. “Right. I remember. Matt said you’d married money. So .. where do you live?”

Nick pointed across the Bay. From the bar at the end of Pier 39, there was a great view.

“Alcatraz?”

Nick laughed. “That big island behind.”

“Wow .. what’s there?”

“Luna Foundation. S’where I work. Room an’ board provided .. on account of all the late nights I’m expected to put in.”

“Doing ..?”

“Mostly pounding a keyboard.”

“You quit the Teams to go work on a computer. Well, they do say we have to be just a little crazy to try for the Teams. Guess you’re the living proof.” Jazz sipped his beer. “Peri lives there with you?”

“When she’s home, yeah.”

“She doesn’t object to all the late nights?”

“She helps out. Two people working means it gets done faster.”

Jazz laughed softly, shaking his head. “Nick .. you got it made. Money in the bank, a wife, a job, a great place to live … Man, I envy you.”

Nick opened his billfold and removed a Polaroid photograph. “This is Peri.”

Jazz sat up to study it. “Whoa, she’s a babe. How’d you meet a looker like that? What she ever see in you?”

Nick grinned.

“Seriously. Did you meet here?”

“Actually, no. It was upstate. We hit it off straight away. Shared a cabin for a week. Then she left. Met her again over at Berkeley … Total fluke. Turned out she has a place in Tiburon, just over there,” he pointed. “Practically my backyard. From then .. it was just a matter of time. Had to happen. It was fate.”

“Destiny. You believe in that?”

Nick nodded. “Where she’s concerned, yeah, I do. We just .. fit so right, y’know? She understands me .. and I understand her.”

Jazz returned the picture and Nick tucked it carefully away. “What does she do?”

“She does work for the university. Collects artifacts for the Antiquities department of the History faculty.”

“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Nick shrugged. “She could be finishing one job then get a call to fly on someplace else.”

“But she can’t call you to tell you where she’s going?”

“Not all the time, no.” Nick drained his own beer and sat up. “Ready to go hit the sights?”

“I guess. Nick, how long has she been away?”

“Just over twelve weeks,” Nick admitted and braced himself for the comments.

“She’s on .. some kinda dig or something?”

“Yeah. Something like that. She could be back any day.”

“Gee, I hope she’s back by Wednesday morning,” Jazz remarked.

“Why?”

“Why’d you think? So I can try stealing her away from you.”

Nick smiled broadly. “It’d never happen but you can dream.”

“And, in the meantime, who knows who we’ll get to meet in some of those hot clubs, right?”

“Right,” Nick agreed on a groan.

Jazz grinned too, finished his beer and stood up. “Let’s go, buddy!”

*****

Derek went thru his mail and decided there was nothing there that couldn’t wait. There was nothing signaling imminent disaster and the San Francisco Legacy house was ticking over nicely. They had several projects on the go and none with a crushing deadline. Since telling London they were back online, London had reviewed their report on recent events and issued a rare order telling them to go easy for a while. Derek had been mildly amused when it had arrived. Rachel had remarked that it was just a sign of the times, meaning there was a new guy in charge. It would never have happened under William’s leadership. Paul Emery was stamping his mark on the Legacy in a subtle and caring way.

It meant that Derek could safely ignore the heap of mail for a while and let his active mind turn onto other things. Up till now, his visit to Ingrid had been the total of the ‘other things’. Then Rachel had spoken with him so now he had her opinions and Nick’s hearsay views to add to the mental cooking pot. It was turning into a rather savory stew.

Sight was dominant, he couldn’t argue with that. Derek had psychic sight too. And what he saw happened, no matter which way he saw it – whether it was in the now, or thru some flash into the past or the future. He had been in Colorado Springs and he had seen Merlin die.

Or had he?

When Derek had first met Merlin, at the Thanksgiving fundraiser party over a year ago, he’d received no indication when he shook her hand that she was anything other than Nick’s date. Merlin had defenses against that kind of thing. She could shield herself, not give away any information to anyone, be they possible friend or potential enemy. And then, on the following morning, he’d discovered that she was a Legacy Enforcer. Later that day, he’d seen her asleep on her bed in one of the guest rooms, and, moments later, as a living ghost. She had the ability to project her spirit from her body at will, and she could make it totally invisible, partially visible, or be as solid as anyone else.

It wasn’t just a party trick. It was a valid tactical option. The human body, the shell housing the spirit, that was the fragile thing. The spirit within was immortal. It couldn’t be killed although it could be captured. When Enforcers went to fight big wars, they never went in person unless there was no choice. They went in spirit form. That was how they’d gotten their reputation as the ghosts who came in the night, did the job, and vanished again. The strength of that reputation had only grown with time and it had kept many a Legacy member’s feet firmly on the straight and narrow path. You couldn’t stop an Enforcer. You couldn’t hurt one. Not if they came as living ghosts.

So .. examine the facts and the truth will be revealed.

He had seen Hekshakel – a very ancient, very powerful devil – clutch Merlin with all four of his arms and squeeze hard, breaking her spine. She hadn’t cried out, she hadn’t screamed, she’d smiled. She’d said something, a hole had opened in the floor, and both she and Hekshakel had vanished into it. The hole had closed up.

Those were the facts. But what was the truth?

Derek hadn’t seen Merlin die. He had watched her deliberately ignore a deadline, allow herself to be captured – she hadn’t fought Hekshakel at all – and he had seen her vanish into a gaping, red washed hole in the floor. From that, he had – as had everyone else in the room at the time – assumed that she’d been damned as a punishment. She’d ignored a deadline, and thus broken the rules.

A deadline. Their deadline. What if she had another deadline ..? What if Nick’s belief was right? Was there any proof to back it up? Hekshakel was powerful enough to demand the presence of two Enforcers. Merlin, given the choice, wouldn’t have come in person. She would have come as a living ghost – unable to die. Yes, that was all very reasonable but her spirit could still have been damned. It all came down to whether she had ignored the deadline or not.

But why go to such extremes of deception? Profelis had been shaken to his soul by what he’d seen. He’d believed it. There again, Derek considered, half the effect of a good illusion is audience participation. If Merlin hadn’t warned him what she intended, he would have assumed just like Derek had.

Something had happened between Colorado Springs that February night and Derek’s visit to Paradise Drive. A memorial service, in the circumstances, would be inappropriate. Oh yes, there was another way to interpret that. He could see it so clearly now, and he imagined he could guess what had happened in the interval.

Why had she done it? That was easy to answer. She’d done it to avoid a confrontation between people she had once considered to be her friends. She’d done it to step away, give them time to review the events and to understand what they meant. To remember the good, and put the bad and the evil aside for a while. Death has a way of uniting people – even bitter enemies – like nothing else can. The differences between them had been instantly forgotten in a tide of grief.

The truth was that they had all seen Merlin vanish but they had not seen her die. And that meant she could easily have visited Ingrid last month. What had happened between the night of February 16 and Derek’s visit to Paradise Drive .. was that Merlin had come back.

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