Prologue 
 

      It was a Christmas present—quite the best present he’d ever had. He’d opened it with shaking hands, and for the first time in two years, was able to tune out his stepdad’s berating voice.

      Merv Wilkins thought the camera was a stupid idea. Cameras used film which cost money. Stupid to give a kid gifts which needed “refuelling”. Stupider still to give a kid a gift which needed developing before it was any use.

      And now, Merv and his mom were yelling again. When the boy came reluctantly downstairs, his first sight was something he would carry with him always: a look of abhorrence, almost of horror, in his mother’s eyes. He’d never thought she could look at him that way, and for a moment, the unshakeable structure of his kid’s world crumbled.

      It was surprising that the thing which gave it back was the harshness of his stepfather’s voice. “No more than I expected,” he was saying grimly.

      Meeting Wilkins’ dire expectations was something Shawn seemed to do regularly. Whatever he’d done this time couldn’t be any worse than usual.

      He was wrong.

      Merv tossed a photograph onto the table, then another, and another.

      In front of Shawn’s face. Where he couldn’t avoid looking.

      Where he couldn’t avoid seeing...

      Gooseflesh tightened on his arms and legs, then danced down his back. “They’re not mine,” he said.

      But they were. This room. This house.

      These were pictures of The Hollowing—the same thing he felt at nights, when he awakened anchorless from screaming dreams.

      And in a moment of near-adult wisdom, Shawn suddenly understood his stepfather’s revulsion. No wonder he hates me...

      The Hollowing was a bleak and empty hole; a crater which threatened to suck him in. It was that moment of wakefulness when his nightmares were still real, and his world was filled with despair.

      His eyes focussed on the nearest photo, and he swallowed convulsively. This Hollowing wasn’t empty. He’d filled it somehow.

      The woman was dead. She was lying there, in the centre of their lounge, a shadow with far too much substance. What was even more horrifying was the way the angle of her body had changed as the photographer had shifted around the room. She was a 3D image imposed on a 2D medium.

      Merv picked up the photos and threw them and the negatives into the fire. Shawn tore up the stairs and grabbed his camera. Then, before he could think about it, he tossed the camera into the flames, too.

      It was the first time he and Merv had agreed on anything.

*

      Chapter One 
 

      “It—was—Shawn’s—car.” Dos enunciated each word slowly and deliberately, so Rhys wouldn’t have any trouble getting the point.

      Rhys nodded absently. “Uh-huh.” He was only half-listening. It was lunchtime, and he was trying to catch up on some work. Leave it to that dumbshit Dos to call him here. “If you’re so sure, why don’t you ask Shawn about it?” He was hanging up when he heard Dos’ retort. He lifted back up the receiver but it had already disconnected.

      Gritting his teeth in annoyance, he punched in Dos’ cellphone number. “What was that?”

      “Gotcha.”

      Rhys could picture Dos’ grin. He rolled his eyes. “Spare me the levity, Dimwit. What did you say?”

      “I tried his phone. It’s disconnected.”

      For the first time, Rhys was really listening. He frowned. “Sounds like Shawn has trouble.”

      “He’s about to get a whole lot more.” Dos clicked off.

      Rhys shook his head, amused. Dos would take something like this personally. He was Shawn’s second cousin—just about the only family Shawn had left. They’d rarely seen each other growing up. Shawn’s stepdad, Merv, hadn’t approved of Dos’ side of the family.

      Rhys idly punched in Shawn’s number, and listened to the annoying disconnection tones.

      There could be a perfectly logical explanation—other than the obvious, of course. But, knowing Shawn the way he did, Rhys had a feeling logical wouldn’t cut it.

      The dumbass...

      He’d never been able to ask for help—not even when Merv the Perv was beating the shit out of him. He’d preferred to put up and shut up while he tried to work things through on his own.

      Rhys glanced at his watch again. Lunch. He grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

*

      Shawn whistled softly as he patrolled the long alleyside of the building. He wanted to flick on the flashlight, but that would make him a target.

      So will the whistling, you fool.

      He bit his lips and tried not to crunch as he moved across the asphalt. These buildings made all kinds of weird noises at night.

      Get used to it. Ignore it. Get past it.

      It didn’t stop the dark flashlight from shaking in his hand, or his legs from feeling wobbly.

      Security. He’d never felt less secure in his life.

      He turned, just as a soft glow silhouetted movement behind the dirty glass. The disturbance was on the second floor, and the aged panes were too crusty to see anything clearly.

      He walked down to the old office door and checked the padlock. Still secure. Obviously, they weren’t getting in here. With shaking fingers, he twisted the key in the lock and undid the hasp.

      Before he went in, he took out his phone and then stopped, wondering whom he should call. Police? This was low priority. They didn’t give a damn if The Majestic Mill burned to the ground.

      The owner? The man who’d offered him this security job half out of pity, half out of guilt? Shawn couldn’t picture Arn Farnsworth coming down here in the middle of the night. He’d probably be happy if the place burned down. Then he could collect the insurance. He’d done everything he could...even hired an inept security guard...

      Buildings had a way of burning down in this neighbourhood.

      That’s probably why he bought it...

      Shawn stared at the phone a second longer, wondering whether this job was worth the price of his paycheque.

      You must’ve thought so when you agreed to it...

      And basically, that’s all there was to say. He’d agreed to the bargain, and made his deal with the devil. Time to pay the price.

      He walked in, down the hallway, and past the offices. Moonlight filtered erratically through the window, stained and defined by bars.

      Like working in a prison...

      At least, in his old office, confinement had been more amenable to the human condition. They’d attempted to fool them with a facade of light and air, low partitions and heat pumps.

      But here, every time he looked up, there were bars...

      He was letting himself get sidetracked. Putting off the inevitable. Shawn wove his way between ancient desks and toppled chairs. When they’d closed the Mill, they’d left it all to rot, and walked away. Only mice had walked here since.

      And real estate agents.

      Shawn wondered whether Arn had ever been inside, or whether he’d bought it on the advice of his money man.

      The stairs were a dark hole in the distance. For just a moment, Shawn froze, as gooseflesh did its devil dance along his skin. Déjà vu...

      The Hollowing. Like his dreams. The hole, where everything caved in beneath his feet.

      Stupid. Childish. A kid’s name for a night-time fear.

      Fool.

      “Coward.” Merv’s favourite word. What did a man do with a son who was afraid of everything?

      Abuse him. Tear him apart to build him over. Build other people’s security on his bones.

      If Merv could see me now...

      He’d finally feel he had a son worth respecting. No wisdom—just treading the balance between balls and brawn.

      Shawn suspected Merv had hated him till the day he died. He hadn’t thought of the man in years, and Shawn didn’t know why he was now.

      Because I haven’t been this afraid since Merv...

      But, he’d survived that, and he’d survive this. Shawn tightened his jaw and headed for the Hollowing in the distance.

*

      It was a massive room. These were the windows he’d seen from below, and the place was filled with moonlight. There was no movement, no sound. Could the light have been a reflection from the building next door? Some stray radiant echo he’d failed to see?

      He took a step, then peered at the dust impressions from his work books. There were no similar disturbances marring the dust layer, but he forced himself to prowl the room just in case. There were no other exits—only the stairs.

      Fire trap...

      He couldn’t explain what had happened, but he’d done his job. Checked out a disturbance. Now, he could scribble his report.

      Relieved, he made one last tour, then headed for the door.

      And stopped, mid-reach.

      Open the door.

      But he couldn’t. His arm was rigid, his fingers clenched.

      And he couldn’t make himself touch the knob.

      Safe. Stay where you’re safe...

      There was something waiting for him on the stairs. His impression of darkness—of The Hollowing—hadn’t been exaggerated. He stood there, shaking, and listened. Beyond the wooden partition, the thick silence was giving way.

      Breaking down the barriers...

      Little whispers, small thuds, soft rustling cascades of movement.

      Rats. Only rats.

      Thuds and thunks. Rattles and clatters. And then, a sound Shawn couldn’t attribute to anything else: the squeak and echo of a heavy tread on wood.

      Someone was ascending the stairs.

      Shawn was holding his breath, so he could listen. He didn’t even realise it until his heart started throbbing in his ears. He stood there stiffly, and listened to it coming.

      The door’s unlocked. An invitation, if ever there was one...

      The knob was ice-cold beneath his fingers. The chill spread up his arm, but he didn’t let it sway him. He squinted his eyes, and yanked open the door.

      The noise swept through him, carrying with it a rancid stink and a flurry of movement. He couldn’t see anything but darkness, and there was noise all around him.

      It was a fire. The crackling flames leapt up, roaring, popping, hissing. Screaming sizzles, mini explosions, whines of venting gas.

      And then it was merely screams. Shouts which escalated to howls and shrieks. Terror. That’s what this was: terror. Old emotions, dredged up and waiting. The stink of must mingled with the rancid odour of burning hair. Shawn dropped to his knees, sick and sweating.

      He fell down the stairs, hitting the landing with a gigantic crash. He couldn’t hear it, though—couldn’t hear anything over the cacophony in his ears. In a half roll, half dive, he splatted to the bottom floor, and crawled, then pushed himself to his feet and staggered for the outer door.

      It was closed. Locked. He yanked on the knob, fumbled with the lock, but it wouldn’t give. He couldn’t get the hinges loose on the door. The pins were as tight as the lock. No way out...

      He ran to the window, and slammed the glass with a chair. Glass gave, bars didn’t. He rattled, and shook, and pounded.

      Phone...

      He yanked out his cellphone. It was dead.

      Like me.

      Around him, the air seethed. It was transmitting itself to the furnishings. Chairs scraped, dust spiralled, papers flew.

      Shawn barely noticed over the smoke pouring into his eyes.

      There was only one way out. The upstairs room, with its cool moonlight and empty spaces. Shawn flattened his hands over his ears, squinted his eyes and headed for the steps. His flesh was burning as he crawled, clambered, and wriggled up the stairs.

      At the top, he slammed back the door and dove...

      ...onto a pyre of flame.

*

      It had taken the morning light to convince him he wasn’t burned. Shawn had sat there for hours, listening to the world burn around him. Popping, hissing, sizzling. Screams, sobs, and shouts. The wail of sirens. The hack and bash of the axes. The splash, pound, and hiss of the hoses.

      Then it was gone. He remained sitting, under a window, moving only with the moonlight. The last thing he wanted was to be alone there, in the dark.

      But he wasn’t ready to challenge the stairs. The experience was like a charley-horse, and he had a fear that like a muscle spasm, it would take only his presence to stir things once more.

      He didn’t know what had happened, but he never wanted it to happen again.

      So, he’d sat there, huddled, and waited for the light.

      At five thirty-three am, his dead phone suddenly came back to life. He had ten messages, most of them from Dos. Since he couldn’t be bothered answering his calls, or taking notes off his door, he damn well better come to breakfast.

      Breakfast. Real life intruding. In moments, as the sun’s rays dusted motes with glistening light, the tight knot of tension relaxed. The night’s terror wasn’t anything he wanted to live with.

      Wrong place, wrong time.

      A dream. Imagination gone wild. Nerves, over blowing a job he hated.

      Better than no job at all.

      When he opened the door to the stairwell, Shawn hesitated only briefly, and when the alley entry opened easily he didn’t even question it.

      But as he refastened the padlock, and headed down the road to breakfast, he couldn’t help but wonder why the smoke smell lingered in his nose.

*

      Shawn yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Weirdest night,” he muttered.

      “Who was she?” Dos grinned. “You must like her a lot if you’re selling Gretchen to support her.”

      Shawn followed him over to the booth. His cellphone was working this morning, but his brain wasn’t all there yet. “What?” he asked.

      “D’you want coffee, Fool?” Dos shook his head. “Never mind. He needs tanking up,” he told the waitress. “Bad night.”

      Shawn gave a trace of a smile at that, but it was obvious he was still lost in thought. Finally, he stuck his sleeve in Dos’ face. “What’s that smell like to you?”

      Dos took an experimental sniff, then frowned. “Barbecue?” he suggested.

      “More like ‘Rare Roast Shawn’.” Shawn smiled at the waitress, then took a big slurp of coffee.

      “You playing fireman now?”

      Shawn shook his head. “Night watchman.” Dos’ silence prompted an explanation. “Cyrco had a layoff.”

      “That was over a month ago.” Dos’ voice held a trace of anger. He couldn’t believe Shawn had been trying to live on nothing for a month. “Did you get unemployment?”

      Shawn grinned. “No need. Got a job instead.”

      Dos was still frowning. “Night watchman,” he said flatly.

      “Security.” He smirked at Dos’ expression. “Hey, makes me feel more secure. I’ll even buy your coffee.”

      Dos guessed Shawn had barely enough in pocket to buy his own. “Like hell,” he said. “This one’s mine.” He studied Shawn for a moment, then said, “You don’t look too roasted to me. Fried, maybe.”

      Shawn stuck his feet up on the opposite booth, and took another big sip of his coffee. Stupid to have mentioned it at all. The last few weeks of unemployment had undermined his confidence—and taught him a little about circumspection. “Security’s not all I’m doing,” he said calmly. “I’m changing fields: computer graphics. Specifically, animation. One of those ‘Get paid while you train’ courses.”

      “You’ll do anything to get paid—”

      “At this point, yes,” Shawn told him honestly. He was facing the kitchen, and his eyes unconsciously fixed on the pancakes and bacon drifting past on a tray.

      Dos flagged over the waitress. “He may say he’s sticking with coffee, but bring him hotcakes anyway. A bacon side and two eggs, over easy.”

      “Hairball—”

      “I’m not eating in front of you,” Dos told him dryly, “and I’m not going without breakfast just to satisfy your fuckin’ pride.” Shawn was frowning, so Dos changed the subject. “Why go for CGD? Thought designers were a dime a dozen.”

      “Needed a goal. It’s a popular field, but there’s still a chance to make my mark.” Shawn added excitedly, “It’s not only the graphics—it’s the design. Designers can work on anything from furniture to architecture to gardens.” His eyes lit up. “All that engineering background—”

      “Which served you so well in your last field,” Dos reminded him.

      Shawn’s lips curved in a smile. “Engineering will give me an edge,” he finished.

      “I thought it was talent that did that.” The voice spoke from behind Shawn’s back.

      “He’s not worried about a little thing like that,” Dos retorted.

      “So the man’s going back to school,” Rhys mused. “Didn’t you get enough of that the first time around?”

      “It’s a Visual Arts certificate. Ten months, and I’ll have a portfolio.”

      “Stocks?” Rhys joked.

      “That comes later—after I’ve made my mark.” Shawn grinned.

      “So tell us about this security detail,” Dos prompted. “Does it come with a gun?”

      “Maybe one of those shiny badges and a pair of handcuffs?” Rhys grinned.

      “Building owner hired me on the cheap,” Shawn admitted, amused. “A flashlight, and I carry my cellphone, just in case.”

      “You weren’t last night. I must’ve tried it a dozen times. It wouldn’t even take a message. Just dead air.” The way Dos said it, made it sound as though Shawn had done it intentionally.

      “That’s because I was inside, Fool. No reception.”

      “It should still have taken a message—” Dos argued.

      Rhys cut in with a “No reception? Not too safe. Where’re you working?”

      Shawn avoided his eyes. “Majestic Mill. Arn Farnsworth bought it last year.”

      “The jerk with the czar complex,” Rhys remarked, his look suggesting Farnsworth’s name said it all. “He must love having you work for him,” he continued. “He’s not the only employer in town, ya know.”

      Shawn shrugged, and Dos jumped to his defence. “Easy money, Rhys. I say, use the man, for all he’s worth.”

      Rhys was more astute. “Did he have anything to do with your layoff?”

      Shawn shrugged again. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

      “Payoff for the layoff,” Dos muttered angrily. “Sue the bastard.”

      “That’s your answer to everything,” Rhys complained. “‘Use’ and ‘sue’ are not interchangeable.”

      Dos grinned. “Modern day equivalent to ‘chop off their heads’. Take ’em out at the knees, instead.”

      “Did they ever have a fire there?” Shawn asked abruptly.

      “At the Mill? Not that I ever heard,” Rhys told him. “Why? Bad wiring?”

      “Lousy.”

      “If you’re thinking about starting one,” Dos said sternly, “I wouldn’t. Even Arnie would conclude you were the source.”

      Shawn didn’t say any more, and Rhys changed the subject. He didn’t even bring up Gretchen, and her sudden appearance in a used car lot. He sensed Shawn’s pride had been pounded enough. If Shawn had wanted to talk about his money problems he would have done it weeks before.

      When Rhys and Dos went off to work, Shawn took off for the library. Classes started this afternoon, but he needed to sort a few things out—like why he was imagining fires where none had existed. Dwelling on human tragedy.

      Sick. For the first time since Merv had died, Shawn’s confidence in his own stability was shaken. Merv had always claimed he wasn’t “normal”. It was the biggest sin he could have committed in Merv’s eyes.

      And, after that day with the photographs, his mother had listened a lot more readily to Merv’s claims.

      But that was all a long time ago. Merv hadn’t really known anything about him, except that he suffered from nightmares. Shawn had mostly kept his thoughts to himself, away from Merv’s scrutiny. Nearly two decades had passed, and Shawn had outlasted Merv’s opinion. Over the last dozen years, in the long haul from teenager to independent, fully-functioning adult, he’d forced himself to forget the last of the Merv indoctrination. It had long ceased to matter whether Merv liked or accepted him. Merv was dead.

      And it was that which led Shawn to the library. Dammit, but he hadn’t thought of the man in years! Now, he was there, at his back.

      Rhys had been right. There’d never been a fire at The Majestic Mill. the Mill had been built in 1911, on the site of The Majestic Theatre. Hence, the name.

      I never knew...

      Shawn closed the file with icy fingers and walked away. He didn’t need to read any more; there wasn’t a school kid in Grantham who didn’t know the story of the old Majestic.

      Dancers, stage shows, vaudeville, even Shakespeare. Actors and singers, opera and burlesque, symphonies and soloists. The Majestic had done them all. It was the pride of a then-small community, and Grantham’s world had built up around it. There was a picture they pulled out once a year, and plastered on the front of the newspaper: grandes dames and gentlemen stepping from carriages in front of heavy Grecian columns, and moving up carpeted steps to elaborate double doors. The peek into yesteryear with its massive entry, curved stairwell, and enormous chandelier...

      Just as The Majestic’s presence was a matter of pride, its destruction had been the town’s worst tragedy. During a ballet, on the last night of the season, The Majestic had exploded in a mass of flame. Lightning had struck the copper dome at the front of the building, and a haze of green light had lit up the interior with an eerie glow. The newly installed wiring had overheated, to a sizzle and pop, and the oiled wooden panels had gone up in a blaze of heat and smoke. Over three hundred people had died—Grantham’s nobility, the upper echelon of its business rulers, its international connection to the expanding world. That day had marked a change in the social structure, and a move from an elite aristocracy to a much less wealthy—and far more corporate—bourgeoisie.

      The furthest thing from Shawn’s mind now was sleep. It would be far from dreamless, he was sure. That reminder of last night’s Hollowing was better than No-Doz, for keeping him moving. And it wouldn’t do any good to remind himself that his reactions might be overblown, due to his sleepless night, or that his subconscious was merely manifesting something he must have unknowingly heard, years before.

      Not when his clothes, his skin, the hairs in his nostrils, for crissake—held the rank scent of wood smoke.

      It was worse at home. Gratitude was waiting for him there. Gretchen was parked in his drive, and her keys under his doormat. And inside her, on the front seat, was Rhys’ camera. “On loan,” the note said, “to the new graphic designer.” There was nothing to explain Gretchen, or her sudden presence. They’d known each other long enough. Words would only embarrass them both.

      The part which bothered Shawn the most was an objective awareness that his pride should be smarting; that the forefront of his concern should be Rhys’—and no doubt Dos’—generous contribution to his welfare. That wasn’t what was getting to him, though. He was rattled far more by the sight of that camera, resting on the front seat. He hadn’t touched a camera in nearly twenty years.

      You’re letting yourself get spooked...

      And it suddenly made him furious. He was letting himself be crippled by his own insecurity—and that’s why he was overreacting. He’d tasted poverty, been short on food, lost the phone, and nearly lost the power. It had been like The Hollowing of his dreams. Nothing he’d done had fixed it—yet. Gretchen hadn’t sold and he wasn’t sure whether he could cut it as a graphic designer. He’d been away from school for eight years, and his field had never been the “arts”. But it was the best class on offer in the programme, and the only one which would lead somewhere he wanted to go.

      He’d be damned if he’d be a security guard forever. He needed to have the hope that he could excel at something, and without Arn’s reference, he didn’t have a fool’s chance of getting work in his own field.

      He could guess what Dos would say about his “nightmare”. “It’s your psyche, Man—trying to find any excuse to escape the monotony.” It would have bothered Shawn more if he could have denied the rationale, but God knows, Dos would have the right of it. Shawn hated the nightwatch thing, which was why he was going back tonight.

      Get past it.

      It was grudging, but he didn’t call to thank them for Gretchen. He was too angry with himself for his failure.

      He shaved, showered, and headed off to class.

      First assignment, photography segment: a black-and-white pictorial essay of Grantham’s history. Shawn put his doubts firmly out of his head, and slipped Rhys’ camera into his pack. the Mill, with its dust-laden furnishings and toppled chairs, would make a great subject.

      He was going to make his job anything but monotonous tonight.

*

      There was no reason to go inside. He spent the night prowling the perimeter, in-between long observation sessions in his car where he nibbled on sour cream-and-chives potato chips, drank chocolate coffee, and thumbed through a photography book he’d checked out of the library.

      Not such a bad job after all...

      There was only one heart-jolting episode, and he ignored that, too. It would never have happened if he hadn’t been primed by the panic from the night before. He was walking down the alley when a flicker of moving light danced in his peripheral vision. Flickers of yellow and orange, casting scorched silhouettes onto the window glass. He turned, and stood there, and made himself look.

      Nothing. It’s nothing. No fire. No flame. He moved on, and gradually his heart slowed back into a rhythm he could no longer feel.

*

      He never thought he’d get so excited over developing a few pictures. They were in the gang dark room, and he wasn’t the only enthusiastic one.

      I guess photography grows on you...

      He’d shot a roll of black and white that first night, then grew confident enough to shoot a roll inside the second night. He’d blocked the door with a chair, then quickly aimed and shot—a kind of staccato-blast camera assault that left his vision overlain with odd white flashes.

      He guessed nothing would turn out. No electricity, and only the camera’s flash for lighting.

      But even if nothing turns out, I’m getting a feel for the camera...

      As long as he didn’t spend too much on film, he could spend as much time developing it at Tech as he liked.

      The next day he stood there, with the other students, impatiently timing the negatives. As he lifted the film out of the dryer, he could see shadows on the frames. He was grinning like a buffoon, all traces of coolness gone; as excited as any other student in the class.

      He took the film over to the light box, and peered down at the negatives. His first thought was disappointment. Someone else’s shots. He’d pulled the wrong film off the drying rack.

      Dammit.

      He was about to discreetly return it when something caught his eye. He picked up the tethered magnifying glass and peered intently at the small sign. “Stage Door”.

      No.

      Gooseflesh was lifting the hair on his arms now as he went from shot to shot. It was a building he’d never seen before.

      No, that wasn’t quite true. There was one part of it he’d seen before, every year on the fifth of May.

      A black and white scene on the front page of the Grantham Gazette.

      At the Mill entrance, where fence and boards now blocked any entry, the barricade was a barely discernible grey, in a picture where the dominant images were immense columns and elaborate stairs.

      The figures were so tiny it was difficult to make them out.

      “Double exposure,” he mumbled. It had to be. Somehow, he’d overlain the shots. Except there shouldn’t have been people in any of them. If there was a distinct drawback to his job, it was its solitary nature.

      It sure didn’t look that way in the photos...

      Especially in one shot. He’d been in the alley, and he remembered aiming at the door. In a moment of photographic enthusiasm, he’d gone for the drama shot—wanting to capture the peeling paint and gouged graffiti of the padlocked door. “The Majestic Mill Today”: a statement in urban decline.

      The door was there—again, barely discernible. It was too eclipsed by a more novel facade. It was also blocked by a heavyweight with enormous fists and a bad attitude.

      Blocking the door. Keeping them out.

      Burly enough to keep people in? Shawn had a horrifying recollection of his own hands tearing at the doorknob, desperate to escape.

      Shawn’s limbs were ice as he went over to the drying cabinet, and pulled out the second roll of negatives. Better to walk away now...

      But he couldn’t. Death wish. Death watch.

      Don’t do it...

      He lifted the magnifying glass once more.

      The Majestic was a busy place. Lots of people, white as ghosts in the negative. Tidily translucent, and caught within the trappings of their time. The one that got him, though, was the last. Apparently, it had taken a few minutes before he’d gotten their attention. Now, they’d lined up for the shot.

      They were all looking, right at him.

      The cold in his limbs seemed to hit his chest then. The next moment Shawn was passed out on the photo lab floor.

*

      Chapter Two 
 

      Rhys was waiting when Shawn got home. “Jack Riley called me,” he said. “You remember ‘Jumping Jack’?”

      “King of all our college babe fests? How could I forget?” It was said lightly, but Shawn knew where this was heading. This was no casual inquiry. He’d seen Jack less than half an hour before.

      “He happened to mention you ‘dropped by’ this afternoon.” Rhys frowned. Shawn was white as a ghost and his hands were shaking. “He looked it up, by the way. Your course is sponsored by the university. You’re covered if you want to stay. I can drive you back.”

      “Thanks,” Shawn mumbled. He kept seeing all the faces in the photographs. He bet if he enlarged them, he’d be able to pick them out in a crowd. He tried to hide the shudder, but gooseflesh was roughening his skin.

      “Shawn—” Rhys began, seeing it.

      Shawn met his eyes then, and Rhys gripped his arm. He’d never seen Shawn look like that, even when Merv was beating on him. Desperation and something more. Terror.

      Rhys didn’t waste any time. He took the key and ushered Shawn inside. Time to have this out, before it got any worse. Whatever was bugging him, it went beyond money or bill problems. Jack had said Shawn was brought into the ER in deep shock. He hadn’t talked about drug panels or more extensive blood tests, but Rhys had already figured out what Jack wasn’t saying. Jack had covered a lot of ground by suggesting mild concussion, and he’d really tried to get Shawn to stay.

      It wasn’t “normal” for someone to fold that way, but nothing Jack had seen indicated recreational drug use. He’d done the basics, but the bloodwork was okay. If there was an underlying health problem, Shawn should be seeing his GP. An underlying psychological problem? Well, Jack had called Rhys because he didn’t think Shawn should be alone. If there was some kind of psychological trauma involved, Shawn needed support.

      If. The last thing Jack wanted to put on his chart was a recommendation for a psychiatric evaluation.

      Rhys made Shawn sit on the couch, then went in the kitchen and brought back an instant coffee. Shawn wasn’t relaxed or resting; he was tensely perched on the edge of the couch. When he took the mug, the fingers which gripped it were white-knuckled. What bothered Rhys the most, though, was the way Shawn’s eyes kept watching the corners of the room—warily, as though he thought something was lurking there.

      Maybe it is drugs...

      “Tell me about it,” Rhys ordered. “I don’t care what it is, Shawn.” He knew there was a possibility Shawn may have gotten in over his head. Dealing, burglary; maybe selling things from the Mill to make ends meet. Not his usual style, but he could picture Shawn doing that sooner than asking for help. If it was something illegal, or something which would get him killed, he needed to stop. “Whatever it is, Shawn,” Rhys assured him, “I won’t judge.”

      Shawn’s smile flickered, but there was doubt in his eyes. “That’s what you say now,” he said quietly.

      “Material for my next book.” He sat down on a chair and put his feet up on the coffee table. “I’m waiting.”

      Shawn’s eyes fixed on Rhys’ feet. Damn hard to know where to start...

      “When I was ten, my mom gave me a camera for Christmas,” he whispered.

      Rhys looked surprised. This clearly wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. “Sooo?” he asked obnoxiously.

      Shawn smiled. “I wasted a whole roll—”

      “Let me guess: Merv the Perv’s words.”

      Shawn nodded. “—on the living room, my bedroom, stuff like that. It was raining, so I couldn’t shoot it outdoors—”

      “But you couldn’t wait, either. I remember how squirrelly you were.”

      “Mom had the pictures developed. Merv insisted on seeing them first, just so he could prove what a dumbshit I was.”

      Rhys grunted. Merv had always hated Shawn. Obvious now, from an adult perspective, that the man was jealous. Sharon had always put Shawn first.

      “This time he was right.” He hesitated, and stared blankly at the table. “I could hear them yelling as I came downstairs. Mom was crying.”

      “He hit her?”

      “No—I did.” Shawn smirked. “Biggest blow she ever had. It was never the same after that.” Rhys didn’t comment, so Shawn went on. “The pictures were perfect. Every detail of our house...past and present.”

      “Lost me.”

      Shawn looked up. The terror was back. Rhys heard the quaver in his voice. “Our furniture, plus some we’d never seen before.”

      “Double exposure,” Rhys suggested. 

      “There was a woman in the centre of the floor. Got her from all angles,” he added, with a trace of hysteria.

      It clicked. Rhys’ voice was hoarse as he asked, “Dead?”

      “Yeah. My mom thought I’d done it on purpose, to get back at Merv.”

      “Staged the shots?”

      Shawn nodded. “She knew her, you see, and thought I must, too. It was her mother.”

      Rhys’ heart was pounding, and he knew if he looked in the mirror, some of Shawn’s pallor would have been echoed in his own face. But his voice was calm as he said lightly, “So you had a psychic episode. Big deal! My dad saw his mom in the kitchen the day she died.”

      “That’s not all,” Shawn admitted. “I was okay with the photo thing—I mean, hell! It was years ago. It was the other thing, that happened today.”

      “Do I want to hear?” Rhys asked, allowing a trace of his horror to enter his voice.

      “Probably not,” Shawn told him, “so it’s better if I show you.” He glanced at his watch, and Rhys was pleased to note some of his colour had returned. “I have a keycard and the access code. If you have the time, I have all the research material you could want for your next book.”

      “No way,” Rhys told him, as he followed him out the door. “I only do fiction.”

*

      Rhys sat in Shawn’s house later that night, staring warily at the camera. At the moment, he felt much the way Shawn did, but he had it easy. He could always walk away.

      One thing was sure: Shawn couldn’t go back to the Mill. Not alone, anyway. Rhys had been certain it was a bad idea after he’d examined the negatives. Once Shawn had haltingly revealed his “dream” of the night before Rhys had been adamant. There’d been nothing imaginary about the smoke stink emanating from Shawn’s clothes at the restaurant—it had been one of the things that Jack’s comments had brought to mind. Unless Shawn was deriving his dream experience from too liberal an exposure to “smoke” he had a real problem.

      Rhys relaxed a little. Shawn’s dilemma appeared to be site-specific. He’d had that camera event years ago, apparently because his grandmother had died at home. Not that unusual, even though capturing it on film was. If Shawn was right, and The Majestic Mill was the site of the old Majestic Theatre, then hundreds of people had died.

      No point in Shawn joining their numbers...

      Jack had been worried that Shawn was in danger. Even if Jack hadn’t warned him, Rhys would have known it at the last. When Shawn had been showing him the negative with the posed figures, it had been a near thing. Rhys had practically had to carry him out of there.

      He’d phoned Jack as soon as they’d returned, but now he wondered whether that was a mistake. He didn’t want to force Shawn into any more revelations. One confession a day was bad enough—to make admissions repeatedly to a pack of nonbelievers was a killer.

      And it looked to be a pack. Dammit if Dos hadn’t heard about Shawn’s problem. That was Dos, though. He knew everybody and everybody knew him. One of the people in Shawn’s class had probably spread the word that Shawn’d had to be carried out on a stretcher.

      Rhys looked at the other things on the table. He felt absolutely no inclination to rest his feet on there now. The coiled negatives reminded him of coiled snakes. He could swear they’d taken the temperature down ten degrees since he’d pulled them out of the bag.

      If Shawn felt like talking, he’d probably never find a more sceptical audience. It’d be interesting to see what Dos had to say about something that didn’t “compute”.

      On the plus side, Rhys thought, booting the table and watching the roll of negatives give an unpleasant wriggle, there was plenty of proof to expand the narrowest mind.

*

      “Are you out of your mind?!” Dos’ question wasn’t addressed to Shawn, which Jack would have expected—he was talking to Rhys. “Do you know what kind of opportunity this is?”

      Jack frowned, and Rhys looked blank. Shawn, on the other hand, was staring at Dos as though he thought he was out of his mind.

      “Enlighten me,” Rhys demanded.

      “History. We’re not talking hypotheses, or theoretical scenarios—we’re talking history the—way—it—happened!” He paced the room, his voice rising with excitement. “Do you know how incredible this is?!” He looked at Shawn with something close to awe, then sighed deeply. “This moves me—”

      “Prunes do it for me,” Jack whispered to Shawn. In a voice loud enough to match Dos’, he said, “I get it. You want him to photograph things as they happen—or, in this case, happened?”

      “Right.” Dos mused, “Wonder if the effect would be the same with a digital camera?”

      “The effect on Shawn,” Jack reminded him, “would probably be pretty similar.”

      “Don’t most mediums pass out after a seance?” Dos asked reasonably. “Shawn didn’t pass out until he realised what he’d done—”

      “So that makes him better than a medium,” Rhys translated, his voice amused.

      “So, if it were you,” Shawn said sarcastically, “the whole ‘dead people walking’ thing wouldn’t bother you a bit.”

      Dos snorted. “Of course it would! But it’s not me—it’s you. You’ve had three psychic photo events, and you’ve survived ’em just fine—”

      Jack shook his head and raised his eyes in a bid for patience.

      “—so maybe you’re built to take it. It’s your gift, ya Dick! Face it!” He gripped Shawn’s shoulders, and shook him. “UUUse it!”

      “‘Use it or lose it’!” Rhys said brightly.

      Shawn shook off Dos’ hands. “I’d rather lose it.” His eyes were dark, and he was obviously distressed by Dos’ enthusiasm. “It’d be like inviting them in...” He choked off at the last.

      Rhys tossed a magnifying glass to Jack. “Take a look at that final frame. You, too,” he told Dos angrily. “Enough to make you think twice.”

      Jack was grimly silent while he examined the film.

      Dos studied it briefly, then tossed it onto the table. “They knew you were there,” he said, sounding neither shocked nor even particularly surprised. His lips curved in amusement. “I wonder how you were manifested to them.”

      “As a photographer, would be my guess,” Rhys said dryly.

      “Right. But are we talking about Shawn possessing somebody else, and appearing in conventional garb, or is this a case of ‘weirdo snapping pictures, so put up and shut up’?”

      Shawn couldn’t help but be amused by Dos’ practical approach. “The one I was worried about,” he said sarcastically, “was the ‘dead people wanting to latch onto the living’ scenario.”

      Dos snorted. “Ego trip. With all the living people out there, why would they want to latch onto someone like you?”

      “Because they can?” Rhys replied. “Because he’s made a connection.”

      “That’s bullshit,” Dos retorted. “Lots of people ‘connect’.” They were all looking at him strangely now, and Dos hastily explained. “I mean, look at the people who claim they’ve seen dead relatives, Rhys.” He offered Rhys an obnoxious smile. “What I see here is opportunity. Shawn doesn’t just capture people—he captures things.”

      “Shawn is not capturing anything,” Shawn told him.

      Dos ignored it. “Ghost people are a dime a dozen. You can’t mention the word ‘ghost’ in a crowd without ten people spouting off about some personal experience they’ve had.” He looked pointedly at Rhys. “It’s the furniture and the building that are important here. Layout, personal effects, artefacts in use.”

      Jack cleared his throat. He’d intended to be here merely as an observer. If he’d known this was going to degrade into some kind of ghost exposé he would never have come. He wasn’t big into the spiritual scene.

      Rhys said what he was thinking. “Afraid all your failures’ll come back to haunt you?”

      Jack glowered. He asked Shawn, “Did any of this bother you at the time? When you were taking the photos?”

      “Or did you only fold into a heap afterwards?” Dos asked kindly. “‘Photo-sensitive’, after the fact?”

      “Shut up, Dos,” Rhys said.

      Shawn smirked. “I thought I was filming the Mill. I didn’t expect to see much besides dirt and a whole lot of black space. Practice sessions,” he explained. “I knew I might be wasting film, but I didn’t want to wait.”

      “Typical.” Rhys grinned.

      “So you planned on going back,” Jack said.

      “I work there,” Shawn reminded him flatly. “Arrive a little early, stay a little late—it’s all the same.”

      Jack shrugged. “I don’t see a problem with it, unless you let Dickhead here...” he gestured at Dos, “...scare you into anticipating more than what you actually see.”

      “So you consider this a ‘transient episode’—” Dos began.

      “Just one more psychic burp to fertilise the grapevine,” Jack told him sourly.

      “Shit and more shit,” Rhys mumbled, glaring at Shawn.

      It was a wasted effort. Shawn wouldn’t meet his eyes. Apparently, he’d decided not to tell them the rest of it, about the fire. That’s what had Rhys really worried, but he’d already blabbed enough. Any more revelations and Shawn would feel more like a freak than he did already. The man’s self-confidence was rattled enough. Since none of them had a job to offer him, destroying what he had wasn’t going to help.

      “No pictures tonight, okay?” Rhys said.

      Shawn nodded, pleased to see that Rhys wasn’t going to push things. “Wouldn’t think of it,” he said.

*

      Shawn went to work when it was still daylight. He reckoned it’d be a lot easier to face his fears if he could see things as they really were, instead of inventing unwanted details in his imagination.

      He stood there, staring baldly at the decomposing structure. Had Arn ever taken the time to actually investigate his investment? It was a massive construct of cracked brick crusted with ancient lichen. Where the rain had run down one side, black and green algae stains mingled with mould and mildew.

      He held his breath and lifted his head to glance at the windows—half afraid to see someone glancing back. The crud coating the insides of the glass was more than dirt. It was old mildew, which meant the building was way too wet inside.

      So, maybe his nightmare was brought on by reaction to some fungus, growing in the building. That didn’t explain the photographs, but it made Shawn feel a little better. He’d barely poked his head in the door last night, when he’d taken the “group” shot, and if he didn’t enter tonight, he’d do fine.

      Face your fear.

      There were some things you couldn’t run from; that you were better for facing. Facing Merv had gotten him kicked out of home, but hell, he’d been better for it...

      Had Merv seen something in him, even then? Something which scared him shitless the way Shawn was now scaring himself?

      Don’t go there, Shawn. It’s site-related. That’s what Rhys said.

      Wrong place, wrong time.

      Easy fix...

      Besides, there was an even easier fix most people used.

      Ignore what you don’t want to see.

      Works for me.

      He’d waited until Rhys, Jack, and Dos had left, then headed out. Rhys had been the most reluctant to go, but then, only he knew about the fire incident. Shawn had half-expected Dylan Ogden Smythe, AKA Dos, to hang in, just to squeeze out a few more details, but he’d been the first to take off. Shawn had wondered at his parting words, though: the “See you later” had sounded suspiciously like a threat.

      Jack must have thought so, too, because he’d grumbled something under his breath.

      Jack had been anxious to go, then, but no more eager than Shawn to see him off. Interventions were not his thing, and he couldn’t help but resent Jack’s phone call to Rhys. Apparently, medical ethics be damned if it was someone you knew. Shawn was feeling sorely tried and completely out of patience by the time Rhys pulled away. If he’d known his admissions to Rhys were going to be blown out of proportion this way, he would never have made them. There was a simple solution to freak photographs: stay clear of a camera. There was no simple solution to manifested smoke and flame.

      Rhys was so damn practical, Shawn had never expected him to take things so seriously. At this point, he would have felt a lot better if Rhys had scorned him—told him it was all in his imagination. Instead, he’d been concerned—worried, even.

      Don’t I feel like the fool...

      If Rhys had suspended belief at that point, Shawn would have taken a step back, and looked at his experience objectively. He realised now it was at least half the reason he’d bared his soul: because he’d wanted Rhys to talk him out of it. To tell him he was letting his imagination go wild, that he was allowing his nightmares to get the better of him—i.e., to suck it up, stick the psychic shit where it belonged, and get on with it.

      Instead, Rhys had joked around about exorcism with Jack—a stupid effort by both of them to set his mind at ease. The “if you have the right tools, anything can be fixed” attitude. It’s real, Shawn, but you can cope—or we’ll get you the tools to cope.

      Shawn knew he wasn’t being fair, but he couldn’t help it. It would have been a lot easier to put this behind him if he hadn’t put it in front of so many other people.

      Collapsing at the photo lab was a nice touch, too. Jack no doubt thought his paranormal experiences owed more to abnormal amounts of illegal substances than to any supernatural intervention. When he got back all the test results, he’d probably decide Shawn Walsh was, simply, out of his mind.

      Shawn reached out and ran his fingertips, hard, over the rough brick edge.

        Real. Coarse brick, mouldy cracks, cracked and dirty glass.

      Nothing more.

      Jack’s parting shot to Rhys had been a joke about his camera. “Get the damned thing exorcised, Harrigan.”

      “Or at least cleaned,” Rhys had replied.

      Shawn looked at his dirt-coated fingers, then slammed the flat of his hand against the brick. Dammit if he’d take any more crap—from the living or the dead. If he was scared, it meant someone had won.

      He just couldn’t figure out who.

      A little reluctantly, he reached out to test the lock on the side door.

      He tried to keep his eyes off the knob.

      If it jiggles, or wiggles, or moves in any way, I’m outa here...

      The joke about exorcism was haunting him. He kept thinking someone—or something—in the ether would pick up that diabolical threat of expulsion, then jump out to expel him.

      He couldn’t help it: he flinched, squinting his eyes closed as he touched the padlock.

      Sweat broke out on his brow. All secure.

      As he moved away down the alley, he stared blankly at the street ahead. Exorcism wouldn’t cut it—not when the numbers of those to be exorcised so far exceeded the ones doing the exorcising.

      Outnumbered.

      It almost makes you wonder whose rights are being violated...

      The thought sent icy gooseflesh lifting on his skin once more. He stared sightlessly up at the window, where flames had leapt the night before. He’d assumed he was the victim here, in his claim to ownership, on behalf of Arn Farnsworth.

      Because I’m alive.

      Did all rights—to ownership, and kinship—stop with your last breath?

      It had never occurred to him to question what rights the dead had.

      He shivered, as he thought about the many ways people sought to challenge those who challenged them. Were the dead any more magnanimous than the living? Did death insure instantaneous wisdom, or everlasting patience?

      “What I don’t get is why they’d want to relive their deaths.”

      Shawn jumped, startled, and nearly toppled. His heart was racing in his chest.

      “Sorry, Shawn,” Dos told him, genuinely contrite.

      Shawn was as white as the negative image of one of his ghosts. Dos, uncertain what he should do, hastily handed him a cappuccino, then said quickly, “I mean, think how stupid it would be to replay your last moments. If I’d died here, I’d want to clear out.”

      “Maybe they don’t have a choice.” Shawn sipped on the coffee.

      “Hell’s bells.” Dos argued, “So, they have less of a choice when they’re all wispy and insubstantial than they do when they’re solid and have to lug a bod around?” The way he said it made it sound preposterous. “Stupid.” He shook his head in disappointment. “I suppose, considering the IQ of most people you meet, you can’t expect ghosts to be particularly brilliant—”

      Shawn snorted coffee out his nose. It was so close to what he’d been thinking, but Dos had said it so much better. Shawn choked and coughed and sneezed coffee, then coughed some more.

      Dos looked disgusted. “Waste of caffeine,” he complained. “I felt sorry for you, so I even had them add some of those little marshmallows. Did you snort those, too?”

      Shawn grinned. “Probably. You want ’em back?”

      “Now, see this! Perfect example.” Dos gestured excitedly. “Human interaction! Would you expect me to stop insulting you just because you were dead?”

      Shawn grinned. “I hope you’d feel some remorse. All that angst, beyond the pall, where I couldn’t reach you.”

      Dos sobered then, his eyes becoming serious. “Maybe.” He said it lightly, but there was nothing light about his expression. “People don’t change—that’s the maxim, isn’t it? Mellowed by time...maybe mellowed by circumstance,” he mused, staring up at the building’s silhouette against the waning light, “but basically the same.”

      “Unfinished business.” Shawn’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Enough to make it worth their while.”

      Dos nodded. “Selective repetition.”

      “Like chanting to create a mood,” Shawn said.

      “Yeah,” Dos agreed. “You know what they say—”

      Shawn nodded. “Practice makes perfect,” he said.

      “‘And if circumstances permit...’” It was their old high school principal’s catch-phrase for success.

      “‘...it may even get you where you want to go’,” Shawn finished.

* 

      Rhys sat there brooding, staring unseeing at the film. He’d taken it with him when he’d left. Shawn hadn’t argued.

      It had been a tough decision to bring it inside his house. Some part of him wanted to lock it in the trunk, and park a block away. Once inside, though, he was filled with a nearly overwhelming inclination to cleanse those nasty pieces of plastic with a roaring blaze in his fireplace. The only thing that stopped him was the recollection that Merv Wilkins had once done something similar. Any agreement with Merv’s methods required a major rethink. 

      So, in the end, he did nothing. The film was sitting on his desk, rather than stowed away in his trunk, and he didn’t even bother to start a fire.

      The cost of his photographic interlude had been high for Shawn. Besides the damage to his self-image, it had brought back spectres of his stepfather’s cruelty and his mother’s neglect. He was a man, and Rhys knew he’d put it all behind him, but when everything else in your life was falling apart, there were usually some memories of better times to fall back on. Shawn, Rhys thought morosely, seemed destined for disaster. He’d pulled himself out of one hole, only to fall into another.

      Sharon Walsh—his mother—had always loved him, but Rhys realised now she’d also been afraid of him.

      But then, toward the end, the poor woman had been afraid of everything: Merv, her failures, even her son. At the time, Rhys had considered her a fool, in that dismissively teenage way which fails to look for causes, but reflects on failure. Sharon Walsh had married Merv Wilkins because he was strong, and she was weak. As simple as that.

      Except it wasn’t Sharon’s second marriage which had alienated the rest of her family. Rhys remembered hearing things, about Sharon—about the way she kept to herself, and how she’d never been popular. About why Rhys Harrigan shouldn’t spend so much time with her son Shawn. Apparently, Rhys’ parents had thought he’d be susceptible to “influence”. Exactly what kind had never been explained. All Rhys knew was that none of it was good. When Dylan Smythe—“Dos”—had started hanging out with them too, there’d been a major conflagration of Rhys’ home fires. Only his threats to walk had ended the arguments.

      But they’d never been able to give him one good reason to distance himself from either cousin. In the twenty years since then, Rhys had never seen or heard anything to make him wonder—until today.

      As an adult, Rhys had always secretly suspected Sharon of some “perversity” by his parents’ standards: something like homosexuality, which his mother would have deplored, and his father would fear could rub off.

      Teenage pregnancy, perhaps?

      Maybe she slept around, and her name was synonymous with syphilis...

      Curious now, and feeling vaguely guilty as though he were violating Shawn’s trust, Rhys picked up the phone and rang his mother. What she couldn’t reveal to a teenage son, she might be willing to share with another adult.

      Fifteen minutes later, Rhys sat back in the chair. Jackie Harrigan’s dislike for Sharon Walsh dated back to a party thirty-five years before. It had been a weekend thing—a slumber party for a group of girls. They’d played around with the Ouija Board and had scared themselves silly. Jackie didn’t know how much of the noise was real, and how much imagined, but she did know they’d conjured up a pack of trouble.

      And it had centred on Sharon Walsh. What had started as a bunch of noises had turned really nasty—the invisible hands-flinging-objects kind of nasty. Shattered mirrors, cracked windows, obscene whisperings, slaps, pinches, and punches. Broken dishes and ripped linen. Sharon had been victimised the most, but her exodus had also marked a lessening in the violence, “which showed us who was responsible,” his mother reported. Unfortunately, there’d been enough residual activity in the house, that Sophie Maxwell and her family had been forced to move. “That’s how I lost my best friend,” his mother claimed.

      All Sharon’s fault. “Sharon Walsh was a witch.” That implied something a whole lot darker than accidental PK. Even these days, those words delivered in that tone were a condemnation. Had Shawn’s mother actively practised the dark arts? Rhys felt a sudden reluctance to ask for details. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Shawn’s upbringing had been difficult enough.

      Maybe she didn’t marry Merv because he was strong, Rhys thought wryly. She was on the hunt for devils, and Merv was the first one who came her way.

      From his enlightened point of view, it was obvious that Shawn’s mother was some kind of psychic, maybe even a medium. Adept at mind-over-matter—psychokinetic activity.

      I knew her. Rhys made himself picture her the way he’d seen her last. She was a sad woman, unhappy in her life choices. She hadn’t been a user or abuser, and for a moment Rhys could only wonder at his mother’s intolerance. Blame had been cast, but it was Sharon who’d had to live with it. Sophie Maxwell’s family may have suffered a little, but the victim of the piece, who’d gone on suffering, was Sharon Walsh. His mother—and, undoubtedly, the long-lost Sophie—had vanished into self-righteous smugness.

      The scary one in that household hadn’t been Sharon Walsh—it had been Merv Wilkins. Whatever formidable abilities Sharon may have possessed, they were dwarfed by Merv’s meanness.

      It did a lot to ease any lingering fear, and get Rhys’ mind working again.

      I’m not my mother’s son for nothing, he thought, self-derisively. Get past it...

      Rhys dug around on the Net for nearly an hour, before he came up with a camera reference that fit.

      Thoughtography. The photographer recorded what was in his head, imprinting those images on film. It was a trick some of the great psychics—Uri Geller, for one—had performed. In Shawn’s case, it was probably a little bit of PK, exacerbated by his scare of the night before. Shawn had been afraid of seeing ghosts, so he’d invented a few.

      But that didn’t discount the other incident, where flames and smoke had come out of nowhere. Shades of Sharon Walsh? Where she’d “obviously lured something in” (Jackie’s words)?

      It suddenly occurred to Rhys that if such were the case, the “something” might still be there, at the Mill. After Sharon’s episode, the damage had lasted for months.

      Had the damage to Sharon—the slapping, punching, pinching—lasted for months as well? If so, the worst victim of her psychic interlude had been herself.

      And Shawn might be walking into something he didn’t expect. If he’d known what his mother had done, and what he might be capable of, he might also have found a way to prevent it.

      Avoiding places with an overdose of history would be a good start...

      Rhys had known Shawn for twenty years, and the man had never manifested anything like this before. It wasn’t likely to become a habit.

      This time when Rhys picked up the film, it was without the frisson of terror which had niggled at him before. Shawn had been primed, and these were, more than likely, products of his imagination. What was more important was what he may have stirred up, down at his “work”. If, as in Sharon’s case, Shawn became the focus of enmity, he was in a dangerous place to deal with it.

      Rhys grabbed his cellphone, an extra flashlight, and a first aid kit, then headed out the door.

*

      Chapter Three 
 

      Dos was discreet about it, but Shawn couldn’t miss the soft whirr. “Dammit, Dos!” he complained.

      Now that Shawn had figured it out, Dos didn’t bother to hide it any more. “Didn’t want to freak you out,” he admitted, grinning. Instead of running his digital video from his coat pocket, he lifted it up and aimed at the alleyway door. “It’s logical, Dumbass. Don’t you want to know whether it’s you or...” He took a wary look around, then lowered his voice.“...them?”

      “I get it,” Shawn whispered back. “Process of elimination. Funny how the word ‘elimination’ always brings you to mind...” He tried to keep it light, but he couldn’t quite control the quaver in his voice. He had a horrible fear the camera would trigger a reaction.

      Some performance on cue...

      “...so if it’s circumstance—you know, the ‘wrong place, wrong time’ scenario...”

      Dos talked on, but Shawn was only half-listening.

      Wrong time. Dos’ words sat uncomfortably in his stomach. Shawn was so tense now his gut was tied up in knots.

      “Besides, when it gets dark, I won’t be running any experiments, scientific or otherwise.”

      “No light,” Shawn concluded flatly. It was enough to make a man wish it were dark right now.

      “No spine. My backbone’s at home with my other shoes.” Dos chuckled. “No way am I going to issue any challenges.”

      “And that’s supposed to make me feel safer.”

      “Works for me.” Dos panned the length of the building, focussing on the windows. Then he made Shawn stop while he rewound it and played it.

      Nothing. An old building, crusty and sufficiently derelict to be considered historic. Shawn relaxed enough to smile.

      Dos, however, was frowning. “Huh,” he grunted, annoyed.

      “Yeah,” Shawn said, relieved. “Your basic, ugly building.”

      Dos snorted. “If it was ‘basic ugly’ I wanted, I would have started with you.” He smirked at Shawn. “Who ever heard of someone being haunted by a building, anyway?”

      “Maybe I was dreaming.”

      “Or maybe you got slipped a bad coffee,” Dos suggested. “Laced with something stronger than sugar.” He turned and studied the length of the alley. “Is this all you do?” he asked. “All night?”

      “I walk around a lot,” Shawn offered. “Read in the car. Drink lots of coffee—”

      “Ever encounter any vandals?” Dos asked hopefully. He liked to be doing something. Not to put down Shawn’s job or anything, but, “This kind of slow pace would drive anyone out of his mind,” he mused. He didn’t even realise he’d said it aloud until he saw the glint of anger in Shawn’s eyes.

      Did it this time, Dos, he thought. Put down his job and told him he was crazy in one swoop. Nice going. He opened his mouth to correct his mistake, figured he’d only mess things up more, and changed the subject instead. “Why don’t I go for more coffee?” he asked.

      “Because you already did,” Shawn said practically. It was fully dark now, and Dos was already glancing at his watch. Shawn lowered his head to hide his smile.

      “Food,” Dos said. “That’s what I forgot. Stoke those inner fires. Yours appear kinda burned out.” He looked up to find Shawn frowning. “What?” he asked defensively.

      Dammit if I’m not getting to be a moron, Shawn thought. “Nothing,” he said. “Just having a dumbass moment.”

      “You’re getting to be really self-absorbed,” Dos told him. “I think it’s all a plot.”

      “By the Kodak people?” Shawn retorted dryly. “A conspiracy in every spool.”

      Dos smiled darkly. “Used film, rewound onto the spool.”

      “There were two rolls.”

      “Coincidence. Stranger things have happened.” Dos widened his eyes. “No good, huh? Try this one: sunspot activity.”

      “Cellphone electromagnetism, casting images onto the film.”

      “Now you’re getting it. Damn Coke, spilled—”

      “—onto the camera,” they both finished together.

      “The ‘I didn’t do it’ scenario—”

      “—neatly tagged into the ‘don’t look at me!’ denial.” Dos glanced at his watch again. “Feeding time. I’ll be back in fifteen.”

      “Thrilling,” Shawn retorted, grinning. “Don’t look for me too hard when you get back.”

      “I’ll get something I like, so if you’re not up to it, I can eat it for you.” Dos cupped his hand around his ear. “What’s that you said? Oh, yeah. Pizza with anchovies.”

      “I hate anchovies.”

      “Good,” Dos retorted. He dangled the video camera in front of Shawn. “Don’t even think I’m gonna leave this with you, because I won’t. Fumblefingers Walsh can’t even take a decent photo of a door.”

      With a rude salute, Dos jogged down the street to his car.

*

      Shawn would never have admitted it to Dos, but he stood there for a full two minutes after he’d left. Dos would be gone maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes, tops.

      Shawn lingered, tension growing in his stomach, and fear making him wish he could wear blinders, like some of the horses who used to clip-clop along these streets. Stare straight ahead. Don’t think. Don’t see anything that doesn’t belong.

      His tension left him feeling irritated as hell. If Dos hadn’t turned up, the worst would have been over by now.

      Ingrate. Shawn could almost hear Dos saying it.

      Maybe I should sit in the car, and wait for him to get back...

      Shawn’s grin flickered at the tempting nudge of cowardice, but he resisted.

      He made himself study the aged bars and blackened glass. The daylight was gone. He’d have to face his demons in the dark...alone.

      No problem. He lifted his head and squared his shoulders.

      Dos and his damned camera had actually done a lot to reassure him. As Dos had been quick to point out, paranormal experiences were relatively common. Lots of people had psychic episodes, but the reason they were so memorable was their singularity. If Mary Smith had spoken regularly with her dead aunt, it wouldn’t have been nearly as shocking as that one-off glimpse of her Aunt Mathilda’s spirit.

      Just like your little fire session. Shocking, terrifying—but only because it was so totally unexpected.

      Shawn suddenly realised his cousin must think he was running scared simply because he’d taken some aberrant photos. Dos doesn’t know about the fire. Only Rhys does.

      He must think I’m a real dick, Shawn thought, embarrassed. There goes Shawn Walsh—scared of the dark, photos, and his own shadow—not necessarily in that order.

      The flush of embarrassment helped dispel the last of his trepidation. Dos was right. His psychic interlude was a singular event, unlikely ever to be repeated. Completely distinct from the camera thing.

      And if it came to the film problem, he was letting himself get spooked over nothing. The film may have been doubly exposed, or dropped too close to his cellphone. Even if he were to consider the film images as “ghostly” (he snorted), the occurrences were separated by a twenty-year gap.

      Nothing to contact the Psychic Hotline about...

      It made him feel a lot better. The odds were actually in his favour. Now that he’d had his little psychic experiences, he was unlikely to have any more.

      And nothing major had happened—no visions, no locked doors, no flames in his face—since that first night.

      The photos?

      No camera, so no action. Nothing. This job might actually turn out to be the “easy money” Arn Farnsworth had claimed.

      Why had Farnsworth bothered? Was it as Rhys had suggested, that it suited Farnsworth to see him cowed? Or could it be guilt? Because he’d made Shawn Walsh cop the blame?

      Shawn smirked. Users like Farnsworth didn’t feel guilt. More likely it suited him to see Shawn Walsh become a bottom feeder.

      Maybe he thinks if I’ve accepted his dregs, I’ve accepted it all.

      Well, if using Farnsworth was what it took to keep from going under, so be it. Shawn wasn’t all that sure he wanted to work in an industry any longer where jerks like Farnsworth could get to the top, and stay there.

      Good thing, since I’m not in that industry any longer...

      So, get on with it. Do your job.

      Standing around doing nothing definitely left him too much time for thinking. Shawn flicked on his flashlight, and determinedly turned his back. He played the light at the walls, the door, then moved swiftly to the rear of the building, where a barricaded Emergency Exit needed a cursory check.

      He shone the light on the pitch black doorway, which had somehow been opened during the ten minutes since he and Dos had tread here last. The boards, and nails, and screws, and plywood—which had made it more a wall than a doorway—had been withdrawn and discarded in silence. There was only that far-from-inviting hole in the building’s face. A hole which didn’t belong. Which had supposedly been locked for the past forty years.

      For a moment, he wondered if someone—maybe Arn Farnsworth—was playing with his head. Doing this on purpose, for some weird reason of his own. But, for the life of him, Shawn couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone would want to frighten him. He had nothing left worth taking. Farnsworth had taken it already. His reputation was worth squat.

      Vandals. That’s why he hired you. This is the kind of thing vandals do.

      Leave ’em to it...

      That’s why you’re here. If they burn it down, it’ll be on your head.

      It was then Shawn realised Farnsworth hadn’t taken everything. Shawn Walsh still had the motivation which had goaded him into taking this job, rather than asking for help. He had his pride.

      And if the damn place burns down, when I could have stopped it, then Farnsworth really will have won.

      Shawn punched in Farnsworth’s number and left a message with his answering service: “Rear door is open. I’m going to inspect and secure the premises.”

      All neat and tidy.

      Shawn wondered whether he would have felt nearly as brave about this if he hadn’t known Dos was coming back. Now, it was a prod to get the job done.

      My fool pride...

      He didn’t want Dos to think he’d waited—that he couldn’t handle this on his own.

      He flicked off the light.

      No targets here...

      If someone had a light on inside, he’d see it.

      Probably some poor homeless guy, needing a place to sleep.

      Shawn cleared his throat, and lowered his voice an octave. “I’ve called the police,” he bellowed. “Better clear out now, before it’s too late.”

      He sucked in a deep breath, and—holding the dark flashlight like a baton—stepped silently through the door.

*

      Dos was waiting for his pizza when his phone rang.

      “Hello, Rhys,” he answered.

      “Shawn’s not answering his phone,” Rhys told him.

      “Could be because he knows it’s you,” Dos said practically.

      Rhys was silent.

      “I was just there. The place is dull as ditchwater. He’s fine. Bored out of his tree, maybe, but fine.” Rhys could hear the amusement in Dos’ voice as he added, “If it were anyone but Shawn, I’d say his job drove him out of his mind.”

      “Or you did. Oh, that’s right—you weren’t there the night it happened.”

      “You’re always putting me down. Good thing I have such a highly-developed self-image—”

      “More’n enough conceit to see you through.”

      “Speaking of self-images...”

      Rhys’ sigh came through the phone as a gusty static.

      “...I brought along my Sony.”

      “Why the hell did you do that?!” Rhys shouted.

      “To test it out,” Dos said practically. “It could be Shawn’s just had really bad luck in his choice of photo shoots.” 
 It was obvious Dos knew nothing of his family’s history—or Shawn’s side of the family’s history, anyway. “Did it work?”

      “Sure. Great shots of the building—but might as well have used a SLR for all the activity I got.” As he was speaking, Dos wandered over to the car, unlocked it and lifted out the camera. He rewound, then hit “Play” again. “Nothing, dammit.”

      “Who took the pictures?” Rhys asked.

      But Dos wasn’t listening. He’d put up the volume to replay his and Shawn’s conversation. The next second, he dropped his phone. He rewound the disc, then hit “Play” again.

      There was a voice on the film. Not his, and definitely not Shawn’s. Raspy, harsh, demanding. Furious...as hell.

      We were right there! We would have heard it!

      But he’d never thought of listening to the tape. It was movement he’d been watching for, not sounds.

      Gooseflesh crept down his arms and tingled the skin on his legs. He replayed it one more time.

      The harsh voice was silenced, by what sounded like a eulogy. “Thin line,” it intoned, “between Death... ashes to ashes, dust to dust...” Rote, by someone practiced in the task. There were background sighs and murmurs, as though from a crowd.

      Dos, his hands shaking, picked up the phone as he scrambled into his car. He tucked the phone under his ear as he drove. Rhys’ voice was a tiny squawk at the other end of the line, but Dos cut across it. “There’s a v-voice on the tape!” he shouted, sliding around a corner. The tyres squealed in complaint. “A-And he’s alone!”

      “Almost there!” Rhys yelled on the other end. He knew from the panic in Dos’ voice that this was bad. He came barrelling around the corner...

      ...and barrelled head-on into Dos’ car.

*

      It was cold. The gooseflesh had started rising on his skin once more, and then just wouldn’t go. He risked a glance back, but all he could see was black. Somehow, he’d thought the outside—the night sky with its streetlight underglow—would show up more brightly at his back. Instead, there was only a sensation of claustrophobia; of being locked in.

      Like before...

      No.

      But he couldn’t deny the sensation of fullness—as though the thick black was busy, moving, pressuring him forward.

      He was letting it get to him. Half of this paranormal stuff was self-hypnosis, and he was conning himself into believing the worst. Shawn closed his eyes, and forced himself to take slow, deep breaths. There’s nothing in the dark that isn’t here during the day. 

      Except cold. It was so icy in here now that Shawn’s breath came out as fog. It scared him at first—the dim glow showing up as an amorphous cloud before his face.

      If there was someone else here, he hadn’t heard him. At this point, he was much more likely to fall over something than be the target of a bullet. Relieved, and feeling a little stupid, Shawn flicked on the light.

      Only to jerk back in terror. He was in a storage room, full of props. False walls, scenery, wigs, faces everywhere. Masks and make-up; clowns and costumes; spangles and feathers. Cymbals and drums; harps and hoops. Lights and curtains and fringes and rope. A garish, gaudy clash of overbright colour.

      Shawn couldn’t take it in. Old storage, his mind supplied. Long abandoned.

      No. It’s the Mill. No storage for stage props.

      His breathing was fast and erratic now; his breath coming in gusty puffs of steam. Grimacing, he stretched out a hand and touched the harp.

      His fingers came away dusty.

      No, not dust, he realised, as another stray breeze sent the particles flying.

      Flimsy, irregular, grey-black leavings.

      Not dust.

      Ash...

      Shawn ran. Skirts fluttered in his periphery, and at his back, the harp twanged on strings which were no longer there. He tore down the hallway, back the way he’d come.

      It was barricaded. Gone. Part of the wall. No sign that he’d ever been here, and his feet cut new swathes through old dust.

      Oh, God!

      Somewhere behind him the cymbals clanged. He spun, his light catching flickers of bright white skirts.

      The dancers, preparing to go on stage...

      And, in that second, he saw her. She was tense with excitement, her white face strained and alight with anticipation. Her feet moved restlessly, and she was chattering to one of the blurred faces at her right.

      Her first performance. Her eyes, moist with thrill-riddled fear, searched the backstage, then focussed on him.

      She smiled, her eyes alight.

      Shawn gawked, stunned.

      And heard her giggle.

      Then the first strains of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake rose like motes on the air, stirred from the dust around him.

      There were other footsteps in the distance now. Halting, at first, they picked up speed, as doors slammed and shouts rose above the orchestra’s efforts. A man was running, in Shawn’s direction—sprinting toward the exit.

      No.

      Visions of bone-covered ash wavered behind Shawn’s eyes.

      I don’t want to see him...

      Horror sent Shawn’s own feet flying back the way he’d come. He tripped, and nearly fell, but he couldn’t afford to stop. The thing—the man—was coming up too fast at the rear. Dead men running...

      I’m right in his path.

      Shawn, think: it’s the homeless guy. The vandal.

      No. No stray opened that back door.

      There was a set of metal rungs to his left. Shawn was moving so swiftly now he nearly missed them. He reached out, and swung wildly in a half-arc, then tugged himself up. Panting, he climbed, hand over hand. The flashlight, held in his teeth, captured erratic pictures of curtains and rope, sandbags and pulleys. Drool dripped disgustingly down his chin, but he couldn’t afford to stop.

      The ladder was jiggling beneath him.

      Shawn climbed out onto a catwalk, and his flashlight dropped out of his teeth. It tumbled down, onto the stage below. It slammed and crashed, and the orchestra clashed in discordant cacophony as several of the dancers screamed.

      They heard it...

      Shawn stumbled and fell, facedown on the catwalk. Heavy feet stomped across his back, and slammed against his head. His nose was ground into the wooden platform.

      The pain was real. So was the blood spurting down his face. Shawn pushed himself up and followed the thudding footfalls. The catwalk vibrated beneath their running feet.

      Whoever—whatever—he is, he knows a way out...

      There was another ladder. Below, the music was beginning to lift once more, the vibration of the soundwaves making the air at this level stir. Shawn could hear the audience now. They were a low grumble demanding satisfaction. Backstage, in the wings he’d just left, there were still squawks and complaints. He could hear it all from up here.

      A trapdoor thudded above, and Shawn climbed the last few rungs and shouldered it open. He was back in the room—the windowed room with its flaming floors—the one he was in the other night.

      The night of the fire.

      He sniffed. That wasn’t smoke he was smelling now. It was something else.

      Cordite. The one who was here, in the room with him, was an arsonist. It wasn’t lightning which had burned down The Majestic.

      The man’s silhouette stood stark and black before the front window. He hadn’t yet done the deed. He’d set it up, but it hadn’t gone off—not yet.

      He’ll kill them all...

      The girl’s face floated before Shawn—scared, proud, excited. Her first performance. She was going against all the stigmas of her time—the censure of her parents. This was her daring first appearance. Shawn knew it, even though she hadn’t spoken a word. Her first performance, and her last. In hours, she’d be nothing but ash and bone. Her remains would be forever mingled with those of The Majestic.

      Shawn no longer knew when he was, or even where. He only knew he had a chance to stop it, if he acted now. He ploughed into the arsonist at a run.

* 

      Rhys pushed on his car door. The frame had been bent, and it squawked and groaned. He twisted, and booted it open enough to get out. “Dos!” he shouted, panicked. “Dos! You okay?!”

      Dos was out of his car, too. “No thanks to you!” he grumbled. At the last moment, as Rhys had crunched into him, he’d veered, and the front of his car was now embedded in the old Mill front. “Dammit, Rhys!” he yelled, mopping blood off his face. “What the hell were you—?!”

      He never had the chance to finish his question. At that moment, there was a shattering of glass overhead. Spikes of glass rain showered the ground, and Dos dove back into his car. The next second, the top of his roof caved, as something heavy landed on the metal.

      Rhys was swearing, and shouting for help into his phone, as Dos climbed back out of his car to see what had caused the damage.

      It was Shawn.

*

      Rhys was leaning back in the chair, lost in thought, when Dos walked out of the ER.

      Dos shrugged. “It’s nothing,” he said.

      Jack was behind him. “Mild concussion,” he corrected. “Go see your doctor on Friday. Any of those symptoms we talked about—”

      “Yeah, yeah,” Dos interrupted grumpily. “I’ll come back.”

      “How’s Shawn?” Rhys asked.

      Jack’s face went carefully blank. “Serious, but stable.”

      “Which says little, if nothing,” Dos muttered.

      “Okay,” Jack said patiently. “How about this one? Heard he did a number on your car, Dos.”

      “Don’t fish,” Dos retorted. “It doesn’t become you. I’m not going to be any more talkative just because Rhys is here.”

      “All he needs is a mirror for that,” Rhys agreed.

      Jack sat down in the chair across from Rhys and took the coffee he offered. “Security business must be pretty rough,” he said calmly. “Did he trip?”

      “You’ll have to ask Shawn,” Rhys replied.

      “I tried.” Jack’s expression was serious. “All he wanted to talk about were bombers and ballet dancers.”

      Dos’ eyes met Rhys’. This time, when he spoke, Dos kept his tone neutral. “Hand me my jacket, Rhys.” He pulled his video camera out of the pocket, and played the scene for Jack. “I filmed this with Shawn a couple of hours ago.”

      Jack frowned impatiently. “It’s the Mill. So what?”

      “So, don’t just look. Listen.” He cranked up the volume.

      Jack played it twice. Rhys could see goosepimples rising on his forearms. Good, he thought. He’s at least halfway there. Unless Jack vouched that this was an “accident”, there was no way—between the police report and the hospital report—that Shawn would avoid either an attempted suicide rap, or assigned time with a psychiatric consultant. In Rhys’ mind, if Shawn wanted to see a psychiatrist, it should be by choice.

      “Did you hear it?” Jack asked Dos in a whisper. The expression in his eyes told Rhys he was thinking about those photos Shawn had taken the night before.

      Dos shook his head. All traces of humour were gone as he admitted, “I didn’t even hear it when I replayed it for Shawn. I didn’t think of listening to it.”

      “So Shawn had no idea—”

      “—what he was getting into,” Rhys finished.

      Jack sighed. “Any chance it was faked?” At the expression on Dos’ face, Jack raised his hands defensively.

      “Process of elimination,” Rhys cut in. “If there was any trickery going on, it was Dos’. He took the video.”

      Jack snorted. “That’s sooo reassuring.”

      “No wonder they call them ‘Jack-asses’,” Dos muttered. “No tricks. No fakery. Wha’chou hear is wha’chou get.”

      “Did he jump?” Jack asked. “To get awa-ay?” His voice squeaked slightly at the end, and he hastily cleared his throat.

      Rhys shook his head. “I saw him fall.” He swallowed hard, in an effort to dispel the lump in his throat. “When the glass exploded like that, I looked up.” His eyes met Dos’ first, and then Jack’s. “I think he was thrown.” His voice became raspy. He could recall it clearly—that pallid face caught in the glare of the streetlight. “I could swear I saw someone else, standing near the window.”

*

        Wan afternoon light fought through grey cloud. Dos pulled back the curtain, so the dull sunlight flooded Shawn’s pillow. “Just what you need,” he said loudly.

      Shawn stirred and opened his eyes to Rhys’ smile.

      “Welcome back, Walsh,” Rhys said. “You with us this time?” Shawn had been half asleep and fully confused when Rhys had come by this morning. He wondered whether Shawn remembered.

      He’s not talking fiery deaths and dancing girls. That must be a good sign...

      Dos fidgeted with the curtain some more. He didn’t want Shawn to see how shaky his hands were. It’d be a while before he could tune out the memory of Shawn’s blood dribbling down his windscreen. “This is what you get for tackling vagrants—‘ghostly’ or otherwise,” he said caustically. “Why didn’t you stay outside where you belonged?” 

      “Just doing my job,” Shawn whispered. “S’posed to stop vandals.”

      Jack walked in on the last. “From what I hear,” he said, examining the black-and-blue contusion on Shawn’s head, “the one who did to do the most damage was you.” He smirked. “To the building, of course.”

      “And my car,” Dos added.

      “Good thing Farnsworth’s covering the bill,” Rhys said. “He is covering your stay, isn’t he?”

      “Should be,” Shawn muttered. I phoned him before I went in. Did an open door substantiate his actions?

      Of course it did. But Farnsworth might not see it that way, so he was doing the same thing he usually did: ignoring it all, until a bill was dumped in his lap. Shawn could guess now how it would go. Farnsworth would try to tie it up in an insurance claim. If that didn’t work, it’d be the old, “Pay it off, Shawn, and I’ll reimburse you...” Except, Shawn Walsh didn’t have any money. If the bill never got paid, Arn would never have to do the reimbursing.

      My own fault. Working under the table for someone you don’t trust is a fool’s game. And Shawn Walsh had been foolish enough to think that being forewarned was the same as being forearmed, against any of Farnsworth’s manoeuvres.

      “I hope so,” Dos said loudly. Shawn flinched at the noise. Dos didn’t notice. “I’d hate it if Jumping Jack, here, couldn’t buy himself another Mercedes.”

      Jack ignored it. “Follow my finger, Shawn,” he ordered. When he was finished, he turned to Dos, and lifted a different finger. “This one’s for you, Smythe.”

      “The police searched the building, Shawn,” Rhys told him. “The only footprints in the dust were yours.”

      The implications suddenly sank in. “You think I jumped?” Shawn asked, horrified. “Is that what the police think?” No wonder I haven’t heard from Arn...

      “No,” Rhys assured him. “I saw someone up there—” He hesitated.

      “—just after you ‘left’,” Dos finished. He noticed the expression on Jack’s face. “What?! You wanna argue it? Rhys saw someone.”

      Jack’s face remained discreetly blank and unperturbed, as he checked the swelling in Shawn’s fingers. Both his forearms were in casts. “That hurt, Shawn?” he asked.

      Shawn gave him a look that suggested he was the crazy one to ask.

      Jack grinned, until he looked at Dos. Dos had that tense-jawed, tight-lipped expression he usually got when he was trying to avoid saying something he’d regret. When Jack went out, Dos followed him into the hall.

      Rhys, guessing an argument was imminent, followed them both. “Be back in a minute, Shawn,” he said.

      “You saw the photos. You heard the tape,” Dos was saying. His eyes were narrowed, his arms crossed. “Don’t put anything in his chart he’ll regret,” he warned.

      “What’s this? Some kind of family vendetta, if I do my job?” Jack snorted. “Shawn’s studying graphics,” he reminded Dos, as though that explained it all. He’d had some time to think, and he’d be damned if he’d be overwhelmed by some special effects any first-year graphics student could fake.

      “He just started that class,” Rhys cut in coolly. He agreed Jack’s approach beat Dos’, but it didn’t bode well for Shawn. He didn’t think telling them about Shawn’s pyrophobic vision, or his mother’s psychic mayhem, was going to do much to convince Jack, either.

      Convince him Shawn’s seriously disturbed... 

      “Look at his hobbies,” Jack went on. “Models of aliens and monsters. You know why he’s taking graphics? He wants to do animation—‘to bring his models to life’. His words,” he added scornfully. “Not mine.”

      “He fell. Simple as that.” Rhys’ smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s what I saw.”

      “Loose brick, glass weak in the frame.” Dos picked at his nails. “Nasty things, old buildings.”

      “The police report won’t be as generous,” Jack warned them.

      “The police weren’t there...until afterwards.”

      “What about the ‘assailant’?” Jack asked Rhys. There was just enough disdain in his voice to tell Rhys what he thought of his attempted coverup. “You wanna do Shawn a favour? Get him some help. Farnsworth’s insurance may even cover it.” He turned and walked away, without another word.

      Dos pushed open Shawn’s door. “How does he explain the tape?” he asked Rhys, over his shoulder.

      Rhys shrugged. “It’s a fake—like you.”</