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  Aidriel and Dreamer were scratched and bloodied, both shaking and incapable of answering any of the orderlies’ or responding nurse’s questions. Aidriel was vaguely aware of the restraints they placed on him to keep him bound to the bed. A droopy-lipped nurse told him that it might be temporary as she bandaged the deep gouges in his skin. Dreamer had already been led away, and while Aidriel listened and watched the door for a return he wouldn’t see, he was uncomplaining.

  Though he loathed admitting it, he was relieved. No one had ever been directly influenced by his Passer like that before. Often well-meaning people had tried to restrain or even protect him, but none of them had caused any change in the Passer, neither had they been affected themselves. But Dreamer felt the claws too. Now someone would believe him.

  A woman in a lab coat sat down noisily beside Aidriel’s bed while he was drifting off to sleep and abruptly awakened him. Her hair was styled in an elaborate twisting updo secured with bobby pins, and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses was balanced on the end of her nose. She reviewed her clipboard in silence for several minutes while he looked around dazedly.

  “Would you prefer to be called Aidriel or Mr. Alkimos?” she asked in a no-nonsense tone.

  Aidriel just shrugged and ran his tongue over his lips. They must have given him some kind of sedative and it was making him groggy.

  “Mr. Alkimos it is, then.”

  “Akimos,” he corrected her.

  “Ah. Right.” She wrote a few quick notes, then crossed her legs at the knee. “I’m Dr. Ana deTarlo. I’m a psychologist, and will be taking over your mental health treatment for the time being.”

  “Dr. St. Cross is my shrink,” he murmured.

  “St. Cross has retired and has yet to be permanently replaced.”

  “He was here a few weeks ago.”

  “There was an accident,” Dr. deTarlo said, looking distracted. “Why did you attack the phlebotomist?”

  “I didn’t.” Aidriel’s voice was improving.

  “You didn’t.” It was obvious by the psychologist’s manner that she didn’t believe him.

  “My Passer did.”

  “Your Passer attacked the phlebotomist.”

  Her tone was making Aidriel angry, and it didn’t help that he was still bound to the bed and wanted to sleep.

  “Yes, my Passer did it. It attacks me all the time; all Passers do. But all of you quacks and eggheads brush it off and tell me I’m wrong. I’m not wrong, you’re all just too damn arrogant to listen to me.”

  “What’s your Passer’s name? Is it nearby, that I might have a talk with it?”

  She pretended to look around the room in case the ghost was visible to her. Aidriel didn’t answer for a long time and glared at the shrink.

  “Its name is Rubin,” he spat finally. “If it was around, it’d be sharpening its claws on me.”

  Dr. deTarlo didn’t seem to be listening, and was writing on her clipboard.

  “Have you been vigilant in taking your antidepressants?”

  “No.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I’m not depressed.”

  The faintest of smiles curled one side of deTarlo’s lip as she transcribed.

  “Why did you attempt to take your own life, then?”

  Aidriel shifted uncomfortably and looked listless.

  “Your wording makes it sound like I tried to steal something,” he evaded.

  “Suicide is illegal.”

  “That only encourages people to make sure they’re successful.”

  “Is that why you tried to hang yourself? To break the law?”

  Aidriel began to laugh, his voice rough. It hurt to use his throat that way, but he was too bitterly affected to stop at first.

  “That is the dumbest theory for suicide I’ve ever heard,” he commented. Ana allowed the slightest hint of agitation to show on her face.

  “Why did you try to kill yourself?” she asked again, her tone relaxing.

  “I know you’ll be shocked by the answer,” replied Aidriel with hostile sarcasm, “but I tried to kill myself because I want to be dead.”

  DeTarlo effortlessly smoothed any expression off her face.

  “And why do you want to be dead?”

  “You’ve got my file. Do your research.”

  “You claim that the Passers attack you.”

  “Yeah, I just told you that.”

  “Passers are not aggressive like ghosts used to be.”

  “You and I are not talking about the same Passers.”

  “Know Passers well, do you?”

  Aidriel chuckled humorlessly.

  “You could say that.”

  “Do you want to die to become a Passer?”

  Aidriel stared at her in unpleasant surprise before answering. It never failed to shock him when a shrink said something to him that was more out-there and crazy than anything he could fathom. Perhaps psychosis was contagious.

  “I want to die,” he said, lowering his voice, “because life’s a burden, and death is better.”

  “How can you know?”

  “I’ve done it before. It can be sudden or gradual, but peace overtakes the fear and pain. It’s like a dream that is all the more intoxicating and vivid because it’s real.”

  “Have you been planning your suicide for some time?”

  She had not heard a word he had said. He wondered what she would hear.

  “For years,” he answered indifferently.

  “Why haven’t you tried before now?”

  Aidriel allowed the emotional reaction to the question to sink in without realizing it, and once more showed a glimpse of vulnerability.

  “I never thought I’d need to,” he murmured painfully. “I have lived for years believing I would be dead by the next day. If I only have today, there’s not much point in killing myself.”

  That seemed to be a satisfactory response for deTarlo, who persisted in her detailed note-taking. The longer she wrote in uncaring silence, the more the tenderness of Aidriel’s emotional wound turned to the heat of anger. She wasn’t taking him at all seriously.

  “I’ll be reviewing your psychiatric record and talking to you further about these ‘attacks,’” she informed him finally.

  “How lucky for me,” he bitingly answered.

  Without replying, deTarlo got to her feet and left, passing Clifford loitering outside the door as she went. She noticed how paranoid the old man looked, but it was not an unfamiliar sight to her. Halfheartedly she shooed him away, though he came right back once she was out of sight.

  Making sure no one else was nearby, Clifford stepped into Aidriel’s room and swung the door closed behind him. Aidriel pulled against his binds, watching his visitor distrustfully.

  “Now don’t resist this, I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time,” Clifford stammered, looking around tensely. His arms had new scratches on them, and his face was injured also. He fumbled in the waistband of his pants, and brought out a pair of desk scissors.

  Aidriel took in a deep shaky breath, but didn’t speak. He kept his eyes locked with Clifford’s, hoping the old man would snap out of whatever psychotic state he seemed to be in. He recognized that look; he’d almost succumbed to it himself. But being in that state of mind for the brief time when he had indulged in it was far scarier than being aware and sober. There weren’t any rules in that no-man’s-land of insanity; no hope or lies to lessen the anxiety. The paranoia of what could happen had almost become worse than what actually did.

  Clifford held the scissors carefully in his knobby hand and examined them, exposing his yellow teeth in a smile again. It was anyone’s guess how he had managed to obtain a pair of such dangerous implements and why he wasn’t in a straitjacket in solitary. He drew nearer to Aidriel, who tightened up in an effort to lean away.

  “I want to tell you something
first,” Clifford said, sitting on the edge of the bed, still scrutinizing the blades. Aidriel scowled and opened his lips defensively, but remained quiet. He had, with difficulty, overcome this sort of mental torment, and he did not at all wish to fall victim to it again simply because this old guy had failed to resist it as he had.

  “There were many of us at the beginning,” began Clifford, “and we’ve been dwindling down, passing our portion of the burden on to the next one and making their load heavier.”

  He adjusted his grip on the handle of the scissors as if preparing to do something.

  Aidriel didn’t want it to be this way. He had spent hours planning his suicide, and stabbing had not been high on his list of ways to do it. Besides, if he was going to be stabbed at all, he wanted to be sure he would actually die of it. Judging by the half-brained manner of Clifford’s actions, Aidriel was not willing to trust the blow would be fatal and not just exceedingly painful.

  “Hey!” he called out, trying to sit up. “Could someone get in here?”

  Groping with his bound hand for the remote with the call button for the nurses caused the heavy wand to slip out of his reach and fall off the edge of the mattress. The straps around his wrists were too tight to allow him to press the button on the side of the bed.

  “Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” Clifford asked. “I mean there were others of us. Others tormented and ignored, written off as crazy, delusional.”

  “You don’t seem to be in your right mind to me,” Aidriel answered.

  Clifford just smiled again and sighed heavily, looking wistfully around the room.

  “I’ve had enough of it,” he said. “Your arrival’s my chance for escape.”

  “Someone get in here!” Aidriel yelled out again, ignoring the pain it caused to his voice.

  Clifford turned the scissors in his hand so his fingers were wrapped around the handles while the blades pointed down. He raised his arm, his eyes on Aidriel’s face, and murmured, “There used to be two of us.”

  He swung with surprising force for an old man, jamming the scissors without a hint of hesitation into his own stomach.

  “Someone get in here!” Aidriel yelled again, straining against the straps on his arms and legs. He couldn’t break his gaze away from Clifford’s eyes and watched as the life drained out of the old man’s face like a tap being shut off. Clifford clung to the edge of the bed for several painful minutes, his focused attention on Aidriel, who was helpless to do anything but attempt comfort.

  “It gets better,” Aidriel tried to ease the old man’s obvious fears. “It can be better on the other side.”

  Clifford grunted a couple times in response before too much of him was gone and the heat went out of him. His weak form crumpled to the floor with a low wheeze.

  Though Aidriel began once more to shout for help, it seemed that an eternity was passing and no one was coming. He couldn’t see Clifford’s face when the other man fell to the floor, but saw the ghostly mist forming around the body. Death was transforming the person swiftly into a Passer, and already Aidriel could see the pale silhouette rising back to its feet.

  “Someone help!” he yelled. This was not at all how he wished for things to be, and though he envied Clifford’s flawless execution, he knew it could not be the same for him. Passers were not like humans, that way. The wounds they inflicted were different.

  Clifford’s Passer was at first confused to find itself upright once again, but realizing what state it had changed to, its expression took on a glower of hatred. It happened even to the nice Passers. Technically, all Passers were nice, when they weren’t in close proximity to Aidriel. Even Clifford, a man himself tormented by the spirits while he was alive, became vicious and violent now that he was dead.

  “It passes on,” the spirit told him. It looked down at its hands and saw the nails were long, like all the other angry Passers. It held a paranormal equivalent of the bloody scissors still in its hand, and glanced from them up to Aidriel. The hatred deepened.

  Aidriel dropped back to the bed and closed his eyes, bracing himself for what he knew would happen next. He felt the bed shake when the Passer leapt up on top of him, pressing down so firmly it was hard to breathe. The first stab to his chest surprised him and he opened his eyes, staring up at Clifford.

  “There were two of us,” the ghost stated angrily, stabbing again and again with the transparent weapon. “I pass my burden to you.”

  Each blow felt as real as any natural blade would. Aidriel couldn’t breathe or call for help, and the metallic flood of blood in his mouth was spilling out at the corners of his lips. He turned his head to the side, unable to close his eyes but unwilling to look at the Passer anymore. It caught his notice that the battery-operated clock on the bedside table had stopped, and as the attack continued, the tube lightbulb in the wall fixture above his bed shattered.

  The door to the room finally opened; a nurse and two orderlies appeared, stopping to stare in shock at Clifford’s body on the floor and the effect the Passer was having on Aidriel. With a shriek, the nurse fled.

  “Oh my god,” one of the orderlies murmured, dropping to his knees beside Clifford and checking for a pulse.

  “We need help in here, stat!” shouted the other, gripping Aidriel’s shoulders and trying to hold him still.

  “Is he seizing?” the first asked.

  “Must have bit his tongue,” the second answered. “Look at all that blood.”

  Aidriel wanted to tell them that they were wrong; it was his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.

  The Passer stabbed him with the scissors twice more after the arrival of the orderlies, then stopped in its attack and leaned in closely.

  “All the burden,” it whispered in an inhuman voice, “is yours.”

  Aidriel felt as if his chest was deflating like a punctured life raft. His eyes remained focused on the clock on the table. The Passer stepped back to watch, still frothing with hate.

  The movement in the room continued on around the patient and his tormentor. He remained conscious, but very little registered. He’d stopped breathing, and when a defibrillator was brought in, it failed, just like the clock had. Though he could not see the Passer, Aidriel could hear its hissed wheezing. It faded away as the room became more vibrant. Once the Passer was gone, Aidriel could breathe again.

  “That,” panted a nurse, holding Aidriel’s wrist and shaking, “was the scariest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

  That night in Salvador, Bahia, on the southeastern shore of Brazil, a group of teenagers were gathered on the beach beneath the concrete wall supporting the city. Chattering in Portuguese and sharing cigarettes, the youngsters at first did not notice the cloudlike haze rising from the frothy sea in the darkness.

  One of the boys in the group glanced out and saw the vague pale shape, but dismissing it as the crest of a long wave, turned to his friends again. Several minutes later, when he happened to look out at the water again, he realized the faint line was still there and getting closer.

  “What is that?” he asked, pointing.

  At first, the other teens paid him little mind. He repeated himself twice, then his companions began to follow his gaze out to sea. All conversation faded into silence, and as the group of youth watched in awe, shapes began to appear in the glowing haze. Dozens of ghostly heads rose out of the water, approaching them. Frozen in shock and fright, the teens watched as Passers emerged from the sea, migrating without speaking toward the land. They walked out of the surf and up the beach, passing through the concrete barrier and entering the city.

  For several minutes after the Passers vanished, the young Brazilians looked at one another, mystified. Then they dashed off home to tell their parents what they’d seen.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Now this is an interesting case,” said Dr. Ana deTarlo, tossing a thick manila file onto her wide fabricated desk. The man sitting across from her r
aised an eyebrow, then leaned forward to pick up the folder and open it. His Passer watched in the background.

  Chester Williams was thirty-four and young for the influence he wielded as the leading voice in the country in Passerism, which along with Passerist, were terms he had coined for himself as an expert in the study of Passersby – or as they were commonly called, Passers. He did not take requests for medical consultations lightly, though he rarely reviewed them in person. That was what his assistants and affiliates were for. But the problem with a personal favor was that it had to be, well, personal.

  He smacked his lips in mock patience as he read the information in the folder, his icy dark eyes skipping quickly through it. More than once, Williams had been referred to as a “punk” or “arrogant little twit” by his critics, and he had the looks and attitude to support their statements. He even seemed to embrace conflict.

  “Why would you call this patient interesting?” he asked, his eyes still on the file. “I’m familiar with this name; I think St. Cross sent me information about this, but my people decided it was nothing and blew it off.”

  DeTarlo exhaled sharply as if in amused fortitude.

  “Keep reading,” she answered. She was at least fifteen years Williams’s senior and had played no small role in building support for his reputation in the psychological field; she never let him forget it.

  “Patient has been coming to the hospital with a variety of injuries and accidents for twelve years,” Williams summarized aloud, looking up. “Each time claiming that a Passer was responsible and offering no other explanation. There have been dozens of cases like this since the Sentience began. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Dr. deTarlo stood up and bent over her desk, rudely snatching the file back out of his hand and plopping it open before her. The light from her lamp reflected off the clean white sheets and illuminated her face in the semi-gloom caused by the closed blinds on her window.