Agent Pearce landed in pitch darkness on something elastic and unsta-ble, and only by the excellent support of his boots avoided break-ing an ankle. He crouched, a revolver in each hand, springs creaking rustily beneath him. Nothing grabbed him, and he heard nothing but the faint scut-tering of roaches. The air tingling his nostrils brought him the dusty mem-ories of bacteria and excretions, medicine and fused flesh, intestinal blood and menthol, industrial-strength cleansers and disease, disuse, and death.

  An abandoned hospital. Pearce swapped out a revolver for a flashlight and verified his location. He had landed in a sick ward, its steel beds stripped to the springs. By the lack of further damage to the bed on which he stood, he deduced that Lawrence and Daisy had landed on the floor and then dragged the bed over so they could stand on it and pull down flap to the Path. After sweeping the flash-light beam slowly over the shad-ows of the ward, Pearce straightened and arranged the exit flap until it was mostly closed.

  Judging by the levels of fading and grime—and allowing variance for adverse weather and limited lighting—Pearce estimated that this hospital had been abandoned for between three and four years. The abandonment had been swift, but it had not been a panicked flight. That indicated that either it had not been caused by the Horror, or it had but Horror was cyclical rather than permanently active. The Heart’s limited activity was furthered evidenced by the hospital not becoming impassible after abandon-ment: for what-ever had not been carted away or spilled by the evacuation had later been looted, and graffiti marred the walls.

  Pearce reserved further conclusions. His next step was to discover the mur-derer’s modus operandi, and preferably deduce its form and abilities. If Horror was like Mystery, the murderer would match its environment. Mystery liked to produce “reasons” to explain its scenarios, and exploited tools already in its infection zone: the jealous wife, the disaf-fected butler, the bored genius. Any might be pushed to murder or detec-tion. By the same logic, Horror might fuel its scenario with some old atrocity—a mass murder or tormented slave, desecrated graveyard or abusive asylum. Lawrence had never suggested such a connection in her reports, but Lawrence wasn’t a detective.

  Pearce consulted the compass once, briefly, tilting it. The Heart was above and to the north. That was the way Lawrence and Daisy must have gone; he would have to make sure to stay back from them.

  Softening his footsteps and skirting the undersides of beds, Pearce passed into the hallway. The door creaked as it opened (could no one hang a door properly?) and a perfectly ordinary water stain on the opposite wall formed the impression of a face. A vile smell emanating from one room indicated incompetent plumbing and rusted pipes, and stray cockroaches brought life to the barren cupboards.

  Ah, here was the first corpse.

  It had been hanged in the middle of the narrow hallway with a wire coat hanger. Male, Caucasian, forties. Certainly murder. Not because of the lack of stool to stand upon—anyone might have removed that afterward. No, it was the way the tips of the fingers were wedged between chin and wire. Death had been by strangulation rather than of a broken neck, and the man had not been dead for more than a couple of days: rigor mortis had come and gone and the blood sepa-rated to pool in the legs, but rot remained in its early stages.

  Pearce returned his magnifying glass to his pocket and considered the man in the beam of his flashlight. This death was likely the work of the Heart, but why and how? Had he been strung up for purposes of display? Was the Heart a habitual strangler, or did it kill by a variety of methods? It wasn’t impossible that this Heart was an ordinary opportunistic murderer, but that struck him as incongruent with the abandoned hospital and didn’t allow for the speculative element that Lawrence’s cases typically incorporated.

  Pearce swept his flashlight again around the hallway, to make sure the murderer was not approaching. The compass still indicated the Heart was above, though now further east. For the first time, he felt the lack of Ken watch-ing his back.

  Returning to the corpse, Pearce deliberately lowered his anti-illusion spec-tacles. Instantly, the corpse sprang to life, thrashing. Blood streamed down the man’s hands and neck, and he made small, ghastly noises as he tried and failed to scream.

  It was a very lifelike rendition. Pearce himself might have been taken in, if caught unawares. Possibly, it was an exact replay of how the man had actually died, a snippet of history brought back as illusion. The unwary victim would focus all his attention on the illusion, possibly springing forward to save the already-dead man, possibly running, but definitely lowering his guard.

  Pearce pushed his spectacles back against the bridge of his nose. The corpse became once again a corpse, silent and dead. So that was one piece of it. But was this illusion directed specifically at him—in which case, he had cause for concern—or was it preset to catch anyone who wandered by?

  Pearce retraced his steps, flashlight tracing corners and walls. He checked each room both with and without spectacles. Not much changed between the two, except that the world without spectacles looked . . . glossier was perhaps the best word for it. Or gorier. Both more vividly pigmented and more disgusting. The faint smells of a hospital were stronger, the shad-ows deeper, the false shapes of shadows more disturbing. Occasionally, there were friendly glints of lootable drug bottles and other simple traps. Even in areas without added objects, however, the illusion lay over everything. Good: that meant it was a general lure, not a targeted trap. A spider’s web that raised the alarm when its insect struggled. Once alerted, the Heart could trans-form its illusions as it liked, making escape nearly impossible for anyone without anti-illusion glasses.

  The Heart’s design wasn’t perfect, but it was clever, and that cleverness concerned him. How far could the Heart take its abilities? Could it, for example, give the illu-sion to Lawrence of Daisy being perfectly fine, even as it strangled her? Could it silence her cries for help? Or were its powers limited to the inanimate objects within its domain?

  Rushing after Daisy would only play into the Heart’s plans, but he mustn’t delay either. The situation had changed; Lawrence and Daisy were more vulner-able than they supposed. It was time to stalk the murderer. According to his compass, the Heart was still above, but it had circled southeast. It was at least one floor above. He should head northwest and get behind it.

  Pearce found a stairwell half a minute later and was almost upon it when he discovered his second corpse. This one was more recent, between sixteen and twenty hours deceased. She had been strangled with her own purple paisley scarf and dragged into the corner. A middle-aged woman, mildly overweight and heavily bangled. Spiced cologne, mostly obscured by stench of released bowels.

  What was she doing in a long-abandoned hospital? She was no urban explorer, with those flowing clothes, yet her sensible sneakers indicated she knew she was coming here. To pilfer? That scarf was real silk.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Desperate people acted desperately. Pearce crouched and pushed up her sleeve, revealing the marks of an addict. The hanged man might have had them too; Pearce hadn’t been able to access the forearms. Drugs would have made the murderer’s illusions more effective.

  Weight settled on Pearce’s shoulders, and his head bowed. People were so irrational. Bad enough they went around murdering one another without them also murdering themselves and calling it recreation. Pain spiked through the base of his neck, the sure sign of an impending migraine. Too little rest and too much everything else—mystery solving, craning over books, hiking down stairs, and now this.

  He had to stay sharp. He could rest once Daisy was safe.

  Resolved afresh, Pearce heaved himself to his feet—and swung around as the overhead lights flickered on.

  Pearce’s drew his revolver and held next to his cheek, ready either to shoot or to ward off attempts at strangulation. He rotated, keen eyes picking out every edge and corner. When nothing jumped out, he cautiously lowered his spectacles, checking the corridor with and without them.

  The hospital hallway stretched in either direction, dirty with neglect and infestation. Refuse cluttered in the corners, darkened by streaks of urine. Pearce flashed his glasses down again and spotted bloody handprints and dark smears, and a strong impression came upon him: a false memory of the past overlying the present, as if the hospital in its heyday had been as it was now: this filthy, despicable place, with roach-ridden medicine and feces-smeared syringes.

  Yet again, though he noted the illusion, he wasn’t overly concerned by it, for it struck him as generic. There was nothing in it specific to him; there was only general matter that might disturb any-one.

  Which meant that either Daisy and Lawrence had fired up an old generator, the better to see what they didn’t know were illusions—or the murderer had turned it on, for the same reason.

  A cold hand gripped Pearce’s heart, and he was startled by the accuracy of a description he’d always assumed was melodrama. The accompanying adren-a-line was messing with his brain too, smearing the world and tearing the breath from his lungs, crippling his strength.

  What use is this emotion if it doesn’t help me save her? Pearce demanded of himself. He gasped and gritted his teeth, gripping the stair rail and pulling him-self up step by step. He would not falter now, not with the murderer making its move!

  He no longer planned to stalk it; there wasn’t time. He needed to find the others and tell them what he’d deduced. He pulled himself up harder, alert for some hint of where they’d gone.

  There! A voice behind that grimy white door. Pearce wrenched himself upright, and the impending migraine exploded, fire igniting down his spine. He snarled at the pain, aimed one leg, kicked the door open—

  And hit the floor under a hail of bullets. One caught his cheek, another grazed his arm, and a third punched through his liver. His ears thundered with the blasts and echoes, and his flesh burned and bled.

  “Name yourself!” a harsh voice ordered, and it took Pearce a moment to identify it as Daisy’s.

  “It’s Agent Pearce,” Lawrence stated. “I told you we were being followed.”

  “I thought you meant the stalker!”

  “On the Path.”

  “Oh! But—”

  “Listen,” Pearce wheezed, fumbling for a handkerchief to press upon the exit wound in his back, knowing he couldn’t staunch the bleeding without help. He had been shot before, and this was every bit as awful as he remembered.

  “Is it really him?” Daisy asked. It wasn’t, Pearce reflected, the presence of displeasure in her voice that altered it so much as the absence of cheer. “What is he doing here?”

  “I’d think that was obvious,” Lawrence said.

  “I’m here to help!” Pearce cried, fighting for breath, for the words he knew he needed. Dizzy, moaning, rapidly losing blood, he levered himself to his knees and spread imploring hands. For the first time, he was able to look at the scene properly. It was most peculiar, and Pearce’s detective brain ticked over once before understanding:

  Daisy and Lawrence stood side by side, the nearer hand of each resting on the other’s neck. Their eyes moved senselessly, and Pearce realized in shock why Daisy hadn’t recognized him: she was blind. She and Lawrence must have temporarily blinded themselves as insurance against illusion. The hands on each other’s necks were to prevent the murderer from stran-gling one without the other’s knowledge. Those hands also held their weap-ons: Lawrence’s hatchet and Daisy’s modified Glock 22, a police gun proba-bly loaded with Agency-special rounds.

  “I can help,” Pearce explained, forcing the words through his tight throat. “I’m wearing spectacles. I can see what’s going on; I can direct you.”

  “You have night-vision goggles?” Daisy asked. “Is tech like that reliable in Horror?”

  “No,” said Lawrence.

  “I have anti-illusion spectacles,” Pearce corrected. “You must have seen the hanging man in the hallway—that’s how I realized. He’s been dead for days. The Heart’s modus operandi is to trick people into becoming distracted and then strangling them. Please, let me help you—or unblind yourself and take these glasses so you can fight.”

  Lawrence’s fingers tapped Daisy’s neck, and a wave of weariness nearly swept Pearce over. He wouldn’t last long, if he didn’t stop the bleeding. He just had to get them to accept his help first. Surely even Lawrence wouldn’t refuse him, not now. Not after how far he’d come. Daisy . . .

  “Did you really,” Daisy asked him, blind eyes seeking, “come running after us without knowing anything about the scenario?”

  “I had to.” Pearce crawled forward, trailing blood behind him. Kneel-ing at her feet, he unhooked the spectacles and pressed them into her hand. “I can’t let you get hurt, Daisy. I—I’d die for you.”

  “Oh, Tom,” Daisy said, holding his hand and the spectacles together, warm fingers steadying him. She lowered her other hand from Lawrence’s neck, along with its Glock 22. “You already have.” She fired once, a pile driver to his shoul-der.

  He found himself on the ground, Lawrence beside him. She pushed him onto his side and he, stunned, could not resist. She grunted with effort, and then a shrill, inhuman shriek tore the air. Lawrence grunted again, dragging him back-ward. No, not dragging him; dragging some-thing off him. Razor fingernails scraped his throat, and suddenly he could breathe. He curled up, gulping air, salt-water flooding his face. Then Lawrence hauled again, twisting, and the Heart’s barbed tail ripped out of his spine.

  The greenish hospital light vanished, leaving them in unbroken dark-ness.

  “Leaving” us in darkness? Pearce thought, between the walls of his agony. No, we have been in darkness all along. This build-ing has been abandoned for years and looted of all it was worth. It would be irrational to believe it could have a functioning backup generator.

  Blue flared to life as Daisy struck a magelight. Pearce tried to reach for her, and his body flopped again on its back, his head lolling to one side. His eyes helplessly watched Lawrence beside him. She was pinning the Heart face up, standing on its arms and leaning her full weight upon its neck. Strangling it as it had strangled the others. As it had been strangling him ever since he had crouched to examine the second corpse.

  Pearce blinked and lost time. Then he was gazing up at the agents’ faces, blue and obscure in the magelight. They were arguing, but he couldn’t inter-rupt. He couldn’t speak. He could only marvel in his new clarity. At how deeply he’d misunderstood, from long before entering the scenario.

  For a detective to base his conclusions on his assumptions—

  For him to hypothesize ahead of his evidence—

  A fatal error, Pearce sighed to himself.

  “Your aim needs work,” Lawrence was saying.

  “It was dark!”

  “You could have extrapolated his anatomy by the designation of threads.”

  “I got her off, didn’t I?”

  It doesn’t matter, Pearce wanted to tell her. It’s not your fault. I was dead from the moment I let it attach itself to my spine.

  From the moment it helped me see, so it could look at you through my eyes.

  The agents noticed he was awake; they stopped bickering to peer down.

  “Anti-illusion technology isn’t reliable in Horror,” Lawrence told him. “But if it’s any comfort, you might have saved Agent Allen’s life. Without you, one of us would have had to act as bait.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tom,” Daisy said, holding his hands in hers, corn-flower blue eyes filling his view. “You were very brave.”

  Pearce tried to smile up at her. He would have liked to have told her—but he suspected she knew anyway, and it didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that she was safe. He didn’t have to be afraid for her. And so, not afraid, he let his vision fade on her face.

  There could be no finer sight to die on.