I sighed. Logan hadn't actually given us anything we couldn't have found out via a little subversive hacking, so maybe his death had been nothing more than the face-shifter leaving no threads behind, no matter how small.
Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr. Logan—
"You could repay me by finding my limo, you know. It seems to have disappeared."
Just use your phone and call it, Mr. Logan. He wouldn't get anywhere with it, but hey, if it made him happy, then what the hell.
He made the right motions, and a somewhat fuzzy white limousine popped into existence. As Logan happily climbed in, I turned away. Time to return—
The thought was cut short by a scream.
A scream that suggested there was a woman on the astral plane in very big trouble.
I froze, not sure I could—or should—do anything. Then the scream echoed again, and it was so filled with fear and pain that goose bumps crawled across my imaginary skin. I glanced around for my watcher. He was standing about six feet away, his expression unconcerned as he looked in the direction from which the scream had come.
Are you going to do anything about that?
He turned to me, obviously surprised. Why would I? I am here to report your actions—nothing more, nothing less. But there is nothing to stop you from stepping in.
I guess not, I muttered, then closed my eyes and imagined myself standing near the screamer.
There was no obvious sense of movement, but I was suddenly somewhere I didn't know. The building outlines, though still shadowed, were sharper here, but rubbish lay everywhere, rats ran in full view, and there were vast puddles of putrid-looking water.
Not the sort of place I'd ever want to be—on this plane, or in life.
A woman stood ten feet away. She was reed thin, with limp blond hair and an almost gaunt face. Her clothes were little more than gray rags and seemed to be unraveling of their own accord, exposing jigsaw sections of her torso and legs. She wasn't trying to pull the threads back together, wasn't trying to do much of anything other than scream.
But maybe she couldn't do anything else. The man who stood in front of her had his palm pressed against her forehead and was burrowing ethereal fingers into her skull.