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Jon put both hands over his face and made a sound like he was crying on the inside.

I was perfectly willing to join him, for the record.

I hated to add more bad news, but felt I must. “I can trace the portals, but it’ll alert the psychic. What are the odds of him knowing his compatriot has been discovered? That we’re onto him?”

“We don’t know,” Donovan admitted heavily. “It’s been less than twenty-four hours, though, and Carrington isn’t acting like he’s late for anything.”

A thought occurred and I asked, “Wait, you said the wife was cleared. So why was she here at the house? Oh. Oh, shit.”

Jon’s mouth went Muppet shaped, all tight lipped. “Yeah. We’re pretty sure she was meant to be a sacrifice. According to her, their marriage was very much on the rocks. They’d taken a vacation here to have a long, uninterrupted talk about how to move forward. A last ditch effort on her part. She was horrified at this scene, had no idea he was up to his kind of shit.”

Poor lady. So much therapy in her future.

Alright, so we might have a chance of catching the others? Then let’s not screw it up. “Jon, you said you could sort of read the energy here, can you tell where these people are?”

“Sort of?” Jon stared intently at the blood. “Hospital, that I’m getting, which makes sense if they’re likely in comas. This is more an educated guess, but…” I watched him lift his head, turn more east. “I think they’re at Hadley General Hospital, near the Parthenon?”

Huh, didn’t expect that kind of pinpoint accuracy from him. “Why there?”

“Well, sadly, the hospital in that area sucks ass so…the experience people have there is never a good one and that impacts the psyche. I can’t say with certainty its there, it could be another equally bad hospital, but they’re definitely in a hospital. That I’m sure on.”

A bad hospital would explain why so many coma patients had been sucked into this situation without anyone raising a warning.

Lachlan caught my eye, and I could see on his face he knew what was coming next. “Leannan, you best say the quiet part out loud.”

Grimacing, I felt my shoulders slump, as I didn’t want to. He was right, though. Best to give them a heads-up. “I’ll need to undo the portal with each patient, to make it safe to even approach here, as I said before. But if the coma patient is weak enough, undoing the portal might end them. We might lose a lot of people. But it must be done. They’re doomed either way, really.”

“A living corpse,” Donovan murmured, voice soft and sorrowful.

Yeah. Unfortunately, that was about the size of it. I’d do my best to avoid such an outcome, and perhaps with Jon at my side, we might be able to find a way to mitigate the number of deaths.

One way or another, though, the people who’d done this? Their days were numbered. I’d make damn sure of that.

5

Donovan called Borrowman before we were even out of the house. Seiji was walking the house’s perimeter and the yard, making sure there weren’t any other tripping hazards. Lachlan stayed one foot behind him the entire time, like a guard dog casually on alert. It was always fun for me to watch their kind of dynamic. You could see the energy, the focus Lachlan had wrapped around Seiji’s form in this ever so subtle shimmer, and it was like a silent love poem from one man to the other. A silent, steady presence of I am right here, you are safe. Gave me fuzzy shivers. It was really a shame most people couldn’t see this from their significant other.

I listened with half an ear as Donovan read our favorite detective in, and wasn’t too surprised when my husband bumped my elbow and put the call on speaker. “Yeah, I’m listening.”

Borrowman sounded like he hadn’t slept well, chosen to drink his meals all day via coffee, and was honestly considering a fourteen hour power nap. “I’ve had a judge cued up since yesterday, and he’s hot under the collar to get this wrapped up, no one wants a cannibal wandering around, much less a damn cult of them. All that said, Jon, you sure of the location?”

“It’s seriously an educated guess, I can’t be one hundred percent sure. That said, I’ve unfortunately encountered too many people who’ve suffered because of Hadley.”

A pregnant pause. “Shit, seriously?”

“Yeah. The location of a place reflects pretty accurately on the psyche if it was something that left an impact.”

Donovan knew this well, as the first time I’d met him, I’d known he’d spent a year in a physical rehab facility, as the location was linked to the healing of his scars. There was perfect understanding on his face, in his lines, as I explained.

“I’m not one hundred percent sure everyone is at the same hospital, the blood’s mixing so badly it’s playing havoc on my eyes, but at least some of them are there. I’ll bet anything you care to name on it.”

“Shit, then we need to really nail down the location so your expert can get going. Can you still come in? Carrington ain’t saying much of anything, and his phone’s locked down enough it’s giving Sho some trouble. I think even a name of an accomplice can blow the case wide open.”

“You’re likely correct. I’m on my way.”

“Thanks.”

Donovan hung up, pocketed the phone, all while looking at me with deep concern. “You going to need therapy after this?”