Page 7 of The Darkest Night

Mae inhaled shakily.

Wait. Was any of that even real ordid I imagine it?!

The voice inside her head stayed silent. She looked around. Hodge lay unconscious some twelve feet from her.

Mae rose unsteadily to her feet. “Steve!”

Glass crunched beneath her shoe when she took a step toward the director. She looked at the glittering fragments on the ground before glancing at the ceiling and around the rest of the lab. The lights had all exploded, as had the glass in the cabinets where they stored equipment and autopsy samples.

A thousand questions stormed Mae’s mind as she carefully navigated the shard-strewn floor to her boss. She didn’t know what had just happened, but whatever it was hadn’t been natural. And she suspected even stranger things were about to unfold.

Though she couldn’t hear the voice whose heartbeat she had sensed, she knew the presence was still there. There was a warm spot in her heart and one in her belly that hadn’t been there before.

The words the voice had spoken flashed through Mae’s consciousness.

I am you and you are me.

Mae grimaced. She hated cryptic stuff like that; she had enough of that hoodoo from her grandmother. It dawned on her that she was surprisingly calm considering the circumstances.

Maybe I’m in shock.

She checked Hodge over and carefully rolled him onto his side. He started to come around.

“Can you hear me?” Mae asked anxiously.

The director groaned and opened his eyes. “Mae?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Hodge swallowed heavily and sat up, Mae supporting his back with one hand. A lump was forming above his left eye from where he’d banged his head when he’d fainted. He rubbed it gingerly before staring at her dully.

“What happened?”

Mae bit her lip.

I can’t exactly tell him I just got possessed by some kind of entity.

“I’m not sure. I think it was an earthquake.”

“Damn strange earthquake,” Hodge muttered as Mae helped him to his feet. “Did you see that red light?”

Mae shook her head and swore she heard her ancestors roll over in their graves at her next words. “I don’t remember much. I woke up on the floor a minute ago.”

The words “Liar, liar, pants on fire” flitted through her mind in Rose’s wry voice. Mae’s stomach lurched.

Rose! I hope she’s okay!

“We should get out of here,” she told Hodge briskly. “Let me grab my phone.”

She’d taken two steps toward the worktop where she’d left her cell when Hodge made a gargled noise.

Mae stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Steve?”

The color had drained from the director’s face. He was staring at something to her left. Mae followed his terrified gaze. She froze, shoulders growing tight.

Antonovich was sitting up on the autopsy table.

Chapter 5

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