In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

  ~ Theodore Roosevelt

  After tying up the moaning guards, Tomas retrieved another gurney for Mr. Fleischer. Then Sarah led the way toward the vault exit, pushing the gurney that held the sleeping Marilyn and the face coffin that held the dispossessed Dr. Maerwynn. Jill’s unmoving mask lay near Marilyn’s head.

  Just before Sarah reached the vault threshold, Eirene hissed, “Sarah, stop! Hekha.”

  “What?”

  “Hekha.” Eirene repeated the word, her expression looking more concerned than when she’d been fighting for her life against the doctor.

  She pointed at the thick posts of the threshold. Only then did Sarah notice symbols carved into the steel. They looked like some kind of runes, made of a mix of hieroglyphics and Chinese.

  “What is that?” She reached out to trace one that recurred often, made up of three simple marks that gave the impression of a long-eared aardvark.

  Eirene snatched her hand away. “Don’t touch. Hekha are known by many names, but their work is not to be trifled with.”

  Sarah wiped her hand against her leg. “So why are we stopping? Let’s get out of here.”

  As Tomas and the three toughs clustered close to inspect the runes, Eirene shook her head. “We cannot pass with dispossessed. I recognize a few of the runes. Bad things would happen if you tried to exit with your friend and Maerwynn as they are. Tomas, did you know of this?”

  “No. It must be one of Maerwynn’s assistants.”

  Sarah snapped her fingers and glanced back into the vault. “That’s right. Mai Luan came in here with the others, but she headed off alone. I don’t see her now.”

  Eirene turned toward the dim expanse of the vault stacks that stretched out of sight in both directions and, as Sarah began to ask another question, raised a hand for silence. “Those runes suggest she may be extremely powerful. We’re in grave danger. We must neutralize her quickly. Tomas, take the right. The rest of you stay here.”

  Tomas scooped up the knife from the gurney, and the two moved swiftly in opposite directions into the stacks. Sarah watched them go, torn with indecision. Part of her wanted to join them, to stay close, but she didn’t want to leave Marilyn and her own body.

  When they escaped the vault, she wanted to ask Tomas about his involvement with Eirene. Tomas had used all sorts of skills that no normal medical technician should have.

  Would he tell her, though? She had to trust him, but it was clear she’d stumbled into a far greater conflict. Did she really want to know more about it? Would they let her walk away if she asked too many questions?

  The three toughs waited by the door, eyeing it as if wondering if it was worth the risk of rushing through, despite the vague danger Eirene feared. One of them gave Sarah an appraising smile, and she was grateful her clothing had mostly dried. It no longer clung so closely to her figure.

  The man asked, “So, what do you do for fun around here?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  He shrugged and dragged a sleeve across his bloody nose. “Right now I’d believe just about anything.” He examined his arm more closely and muttered, “I don’t feel like myself at all.”

  Another of the convicts, a thick-necked fellow, gave a startled cry and pointed at the gurney. “Hey, that mask just moved.”

  Sarah leaned over Jill’s mask-like face as the shrunken lips twitched. A whisper-thin voice barely reached her ears. “What’s happening to me?”

  “It’s an experimental transfer, like the dolls . . . on steroids.”

  “Cool.”

  The convicts drew further back. One of them crossed himself and made a gesture to ward against evil. Sarah had seen it once on TV.

  She glanced back into the stacks, but both Eirene and Tomas had disappeared into the gloomy expanse. Eirene’s concern about Mai Luan made Sarah deeply nervous. She’d only known Eirene a few minutes, but the woman seemed so confident and so terrifyingly compentent, despite having been imprisoned for what sounded like a long time. If she feared Mai Luan, Sarah wanted nothing more than to escape immediately.

  Then she got an idea and turned back to the convicts. “Are there other bodies back there?”

  The closest one shrugged again, “Baby, right now if someone told me there was a dragon back there, I’d believe it.”

  “Big help.” Sarah hefted the face coffin holding Dr. Maerwynn, but could not bring herself to lift Jill’s dispossessed face. So instead she leaned over Jill and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where you going?” the thick-necked convict asked as she headed further into the vault.

  Sarah paused to scoop up the taser dropped by the first guard, “Don’t touch that face and she won’t hurt you. I’ll be right back.”

  The tough guys drew another pace away from the gurney, and Sarah hid a little smile. Their nervousness would hopefully keep them docile for a while. Trying to show more confidence than she felt, Sarah headed straight back into the dimness of the vault, hoping to find a body to bring back for Jill.

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  She walked twenty yards, with aluminum stacks shining dully in the dimness to either side, and fought to keep from thinking about the horrific contents in those hundreds of vault boxes. She paused at a junction that cut through the long rows just as the unmistakable sound of a scream rippled out of the darkness to her left.

  For a moment Sarah froze, her heart in her throat. The darkness all around seemed to deepen, and her breathing came faster, and seemed very loud in the stillness. Then she heard another shout, this one angry. It sounded like Eirene.

  Without allowing time to second-guess her decision, Sarah slipped left, down the narrow cross-aisle that cut through the stacks, toward the sound. Silence descended again upon the vault as she crept through the shadows.

  She passed four long rows of vault stacks with no sign of life, only rows upon rows of those small locked doors. Could they all be filled with imprisoned souls? As much as she tried to ignore it, the horrifying thought lingered in the shadows at the outer fringes of her thoughts. Whispers of fear raised goose bumps on her arms. What would happen to them if Eirene failed to stop Mai Luan?

  Sarah had no idea what a hekha was, but the fate of any of them who failed to escape the spooky vault loomed on either side of her. If she got stuck in one of those little vault coffins, no one would ever find her. It took all her willpower to keep from turning and sprinting for the exit.

  No, Eirene seemed convinced that the only way to escape was to deal with Mail Luan, so Sarah forced herself forward to the next corner. She didn’t want Eirene angry with her for not listening either. Fighting to keep her nervous breathing quiet, she peeked around the corner and spotted Eirene.

  The woman stood far down the row, and was just picking herself up off the floor. Her hair was in disarray, and she looked shaken.

  Between Eirene and Sarah, standing in a glowing circle with her back to Sarah, stood Mai Luan. The circle spanned the entire corridor between the vault stacks, glowing with a harsh, yellow light. Inside the circle, inscribed right onto the light, were a series of black runes, similar to the ones carved into the lintels of the vault door.

  Mai Luan was adding more runes, and it looked like she planned to line the entire outer edge of the glowing circle with them. She drew them onto the light with her finger the same way a child would draw in the mud.

  Just outside of the glowing circle, two face coffins sat against the stacks, their lids open, soft rainbow light spilling from the interiors. Movement atop one of the stacks drew Sarah’s gaze. A shadow slipped along the right-hand stack above where Mai Luan worked. Then the shadow leaped off the stacks and the light of the glowing circle illuminated a face.

  Tomas.

  As he dove for Mai Luan, Sarah gasped, her heart in her throat. Mai Luan wasn’t looking. She’d never see him coming.

  It didn’t matter.

  Several feet above Mai Luan’s head, Tomas collided with an invisible barrier and bounced sideways like a basketball. He landed hard and rolled several times before coming to a stop beside Eirene.

  Mai Luan glanced up as Eirene helped Tomas climb back to his feet. “I’m insulted. Even a basic warder would shield every direction. You don’t even have the sense to run, as if that would help.”

  The casual confidence with which she spoke scared Sarah more than even the freaky glowing circle in which the woman stood. Whatever Mai Luan was doing, she appeared convinced she could easily kill them all, no matter what they did.

  With arm outstretched, Eirene approached Mai Luan, but struck the invisible barrier before she got within ten feet of the circle. The air crackled with amber sparks, and she jerked her fingers back.

  When Mai Luan didn’t even bother to look up from the complex runes she was drawing, Eirene growled, “You can’t hope to escape.”

  The younger woman barked a laugh but didn’t pause. She completed a rune, one that looked like an Egyptian image of the sun, surrounded by a series of Chinese characters. Shuffling left, she began the next rune, her face profile to Sarah. If she continued working around the circle, she’d spot Sarah all too soon.

  Tomas pounded on the invisible barrier. “Alterego will fold, the authorities will find the vault and confiscate all your souls.”

  “They will find nothing,” Mai Luan said. She brushed her hair back and glanced up at Tomas. “Except perhaps bits of blackened bones. Haven’t you started running yet?”

  When he only glared, she cocked her head to one side and added to Eirene. “You were supposed to be some great legend. I’m surprised you haven’t already sacrificed your servant’s soul to try to stop me.”

  “I don’t work that way.”

  “Pity.”

  Sarah couldn’t bear it any longer. Eirene and Tomas were clearly at a loss for how to penetrate whatever shielding Mai Luan had erected, and just as clearly time was about to run out. Whatever inscription Mai Luan was building upon that glowing circle would obviously prove fatal for the rest of them.

  So Sarah threw the soul coffin.

  Just like Tomas, it rebounded off the invisible barrier about ten feet from Mai Luan’s back, a good six feet short of the nearest edge of the glowing circle. Amber sparks flashed in the dimness, and for the first time, Sarah heard the barrier crackle. The soul coffin clattered loudly against the hard floor as it bounced back to Sarah’s feet.

  Mai Luan glanced in her direction, startled by the light and the noise. Sarah wanted to cringe away into the shadows, but there was nowhere to hide from Mai Luan’s black eyes.

  “Sarah, you’ve just leaped into dangerous waters, without even a single soul’s protection.” Mai Luan smiled the way a butcher might smile at a hog about to be slaughtered.

  Sarah shivered. “I just want out of here.”

  “Too late.” Mai Luan turned back to her runes. Eirene called from the far side of the slender woman. “Sarah, only the doctor can help.”

  Mai Luan huffed, “Maerwynn can’t pass the wards either. Even if you haven’t killed her yet, she would never help you.”

  Sarah glanced down at the face coffin lying at her feet, and grasped at the hint she hoped Eirene was giving her. She unsnapped the lock, opened the box, and forced herself to pick up Dr. Maerwynn’s glowing face.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Maerwynn’s whisper-thin voice drifted to her ears as the thrumming rainbow mist of her soul caressed Sarah’s hand and started flowing up her arm.

  Before the dangerous light could reach her face, Sarah took a quick step forward and threw the mask toward the rune circle.

  Mai Luan, who had just shifted further to begin drawing the last rune needed to complete the circle, glanced up at the sound of her footstep. The mocking look fell off her lips and she gasped at the sight of the face tumbling toward her runes. It passed through the invisible barrier with a flash of crimson light.

  Mai Luan shouted with fear and lunged for the face in a dive that smeared two of the runes. She landed on a couple more, and caught Dr. Maerwynn’s face just before it struck the circle of light on the floor.

  She was still lying across the runes.

  For half a heartbeat, nothing happened. Mai Luan looked up at Sarah and their eyes met. Sarah cringed back at the sight of pure terror in the woman’s gaze.

  Then the black runes blazed like Roman candles. Mai Luan shrieked, although Sarah couldn’t tell if it was in anger or pain. Her eyes blazed with purple fire.

  “Sarah, run!” Tomas shouted. He and Eirene were already sprinting the other way, moving faster than anyone she’d ever seen.

  Sarah took a step back, starting to turn, but her eyes locked with Mai Luan’s, and she froze. Mai Luan looked furious, but also afraid, and something in her purple-eyed glare locked Sarah in place. She read her death in that gaze.

  Something deep inside of her rose up in response, a primal surge that made her want to snarl defiance. They held that gaze for an eternal heartbeat.

  Then the entire glowing circle exploded.