Despite all the centuries I have studied them, I still cannot imagine what it must be like for mortals, limited to just one life as they are.

  ~Shahrokh, Head of the facetaker council

  Eirene slipped the dispossessed face under a cushion on a nearby couch.

  “He won’t suffocate?” Sarah asked.

  Dalal laughed. “You never used to keep fools around, Gregorios. You’re growing soft.”

  “Shut up.” He banged her face on the edge of the table.

  With eyes still burning purple, Eirene pushed Curly’s still-pale soulmask onto the body. It sank into the skull and flesh flowed up over it to seal it into position.

  For a moment, the face shook like jello as the soulmask bonded to the bone structure and altered it to fit the contours of its profile. Then the entire body began convulsing as the new soul connected.

  Sarah remembered that part all too well from the time Dr. Maerwynn had transferred her soul from the body of a china doll. Every transfer before that, she’d been drugged, awakening in the new host.

  That first moment when every cell, every nerve, connected with her consciousness had nearly overwhelmed her the one time she’d been awake for it. Tomas had explained that the longer the soul was dispossessed, the greater the shock. She had no idea how long Curly had been away from a body, but he recovered from the shock quickly.

  The man lay quietly and appeared to be sleeping. Sarah had worried he’d start screaming or struggle against the bonds, but he made no move. Gregorios dropped Dalal’s soulmask in the face coffin and locked it.

  Tomas checked Curly and said, “I think the alcohol in that host is going to be a problem."

  Eirene placed fingers along Curly's jawline, under his eyes, and in the center of his forehead. Her eyes glowed softly purple and she held her fingers there for several seconds. Curly gave a start, and his eyes blinked open.

  “I’ve blocked some of the input links,” Eirene said. “His muscles will still perform sluggishly, but his mind should function.”

  They gave Curly a few minutes to recover while Eirene repeatedly checked his vitals. Finally, she said, “He’s as stable as he’s going to be without weeks of rest.”

  Gregorios crouched next to the man, who they propped against the couch. “Can you hear me?”

  Curly started to laugh, a manic sound that raised goose-bumps along Sarah’s arms. His face might have looked handsome on a better body, but at the moment it looked a bit lopsided, as if not quite working properly.

  Gregorios and Eirene took turns prodding him with gentle questions. After several minutes of crazed laughter and incomprehensible babble, he began to sound a little more coherent. He rocked back and forth without seeming to be aware of the movement and started to speak in broken sentences.

  They learned that he was indeed an occultist who had worked with Dalal on the island project researching runes of enhancement. Sarah didn’t know what island they were talking about. She’d ask Tomas about it later.

  Eirene showed him the close-up photos of the runes on the machine. Curly stopped moving, his eyes widened in fear, and he clamped his mouth firmly shut.

  “Tell me about the runes,” Eirene pressed.

  He shook his head violently.

  Gregorios leaned forward. “Very well. If you won’t talk, we’ll put you back in the box with Dalal.”

  Curly screamed a long, tortured sound, then snarled at Gregorios, “You’re unworthy to see them, to touch them! The runes of ancient power are sacred.”

  Interesting. Sarah leaned closer. Runes of ancient power. Were those symbols somehow connected with her Path of Ancients?

  “Why?” Gregorios demanded.

  Curly’s voice dropped to a hissing whisper and his eyes bulged in their sockets. “The grand masters will destroy you all!”

  Gregorios slapped him. That shocked him back to something almost resembling sanity.

  “Talk,” Gregorios growled, his expression turning so grim that Sarah feared what he’d do to Curly next. Curly shrank back from Gregorios’s wrath, whimpering with fear.

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  Eirene moved between them, her expression kind. “I know you’ve suffered a lot. Tell me what you know, and I’ll make sure the suffering stops.”

  Curly sagged with relief and whispered, “The runes enhance the machine.”

  Gregorios shifted farther back while Eirene continued the interrogation. His rage vanished and he winked at Sarah.

  After almost an hour of questioning Curly, who repeatedly slipped into incoherence, Eirene leaned forward and placed glowing fingers on his face again. “Thank you. Why don’t you sleep now?”

  His eyes drooped as he succumbed to the influence of the alcohol in his system.

  Eirene sat back. “He won’t wake up any time soon.”

  “Did that make sense to you?” Sarah asked.

  “Some.”

  Gregorios said, “Either those runes can actually affect the reversal of at least some soul fragmentation, or Mai Luan’s convinced the council that they can.”

  Eirene said, “More interesting were the tidbits about accessing memories. He more or less confirmed my theory that the person wearing the second helmet can drive back through the memories of the person wearing the first helmet. I believe Mai Luan was using me to fine-tune the process. When she perfects it, she’ll control access to the victim’s entire life history.”

  “Two functions blended,” Tomas said. “But the council only sees one.”

  Sarah asked, “So what’s the danger to the council if the promise is a lie?”

  “Severe soul fragmentation,” Gregorios said. “Even with mortals, that gets ugly.”

  “The ones we don’t put down right away usually end up making a huge mess,” Tomas agreed.

  Gregorios said, “Even facetakers feel the effects eventually.”

  “Like strange memories in your head?” she asked.

  “Exactly. Those are early symptoms.”

  “Usually degrades to psychosis,” Tomas said. “Think Jack the Ripper.”

  “Just like Irina’s nervous breakdown,” Sarah said, thinking back to the poor girl who’d disappeared from the program.

  “Yes," Tomas said. "She snapped and had to be put down. The same should have happened to you, but it looks like they improved the technology enough to keep you going longer."

  “Now they’ve added to it,” Eirene said.

  “I should’ve seen it,” Gregorios said. “I had just put down the last council member who broke the consistency barrier before Asoka set me up.”

  “What’s the consistency barrier?” Sarah asked, struggling to keep up with the flow of new information.

  “It’s the point where the integrity of the soul passes the point of no return,” Gregorios said. “The point where mental dissipation and soul fragmentation leave a person broken, with too many gaps filled with bits and pieces of lives from their hosts’ previous owners. At that point, be they mortal or facetaker, they have to be put down.”

  “You think they’ve been hovering at that point since the nineteen-forties?” Eirene asked.

  “It has to be,” Gregorios said. “I would’ve seen the signs. It was my job to remove them when they broke down. They saw me as a threat. That finally explains Berlin.”

  “They’ve hunted you for the past century, colluded in sealing me in a coffin for years, and gave their souls into the keeping of Mai Luan all out of a desperate attempt to prolong their final lives,” Eirene said angrily.

  “I think so,” Gregorios said softly, his expression grim.

  “So you think the new machine can actually reverse the process and restore their mental health?” Sarah asked.

  “Potentially,” Gregorios agreed. “It must do enough to appear convincing.”

  “If it really can . . .” Eirene said, voice tinged with awe.

  “There’s nothing stopping us from living forever.”

  “The only problem is that Mai Luan’s cui dashi,” Tomas said. “It’s clear she’s concealing the second function from them.”

  “She needs something from them,” Gregorios said. “She has access to the council. If she wanted to hurt them she could just detonate a bomb.”

  “No, she wants to strip their minds first, take every secret.” Eirene said. “Then she’ll kill them.”

  Sarah asked the biggest question they all seemed to be ignoring. “So?”

  “What was that, dear?” Eirene asked.

  “Why are you so worried about it? I mean, aren’t they trying to kill you? Why do we care if they do something stupid and Mai Luan kills them?”

  She surprised herself more than a little with the callous tone of her voice. She feared Mai Luan more than any living being, and she knew the cui dashi scared the others too. It made no sense to risk their lives for the council unless the council could eradicate Mai Luan for them.

  Gregorios shook his head slowly. “It’s not so easy. First, the council is involved in other things, and destroying them would have negative consequences on a global scale.”

  “Plus, I guarantee Mai Luan is worse,” Eirene added. “Blocking whatever knowledge she seeks to gain through this elaborate scheme will prove well worth it for our own well-being.”

  The logic made sense, but it still felt like they were taking on more risk than they should. It seemed unfair they worried about the safety of people who had treated them so badly.

  “There has to be more to those runes than he’s telling us,” Tomas said.

  “I agree,” Gregorios said. “That’s the key to the entire question, but it presents a problem.”

  Eirene grew very serious, her gaze fixed on Gregorios. “You’re suggesting we take a terrible risk.”

  “What?” Sarah asked. She still felt like she hadn’t understood half of what they were saying.

  “We?” Gregorios asked. “Are you really sure you want to go there after all these years?”

  “I had hoped to put it off another century or so.”

  “At least.”

  “We need to know,” Eirene added, “And they’re the only source of information.”

  “Who?” Sarah asked again, starting to feel frustrated.

  “The Hunters.”

  “Like the NRA?” Sarah asked.

  Gregorios barked a laugh and Eirene cracked a smile.

  “No,” Tomas said through his own grin. “Different type of hunters. Best rune experts in the world. If anyone knows what those markings mean, they will.”

  “Why is that a risk?”

  “They’ve sworn to kill us,” Eirene said.

  “Well, me in particular,” Gregorios added.

  Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to ask why again. It seemed everyone who knew Gregorios wanted to kill him eventually.

  “You’ll need to offer them something notable to survive long enough to ask their help,” Eirene said to Gregorios.

  He smiled. “I have just the thing.”

  “That’s your favorite toy,” Eirene said, sounding surprised.

  “I don’t see another choice.” Gregorios rose. “It’s settled. We’re going to Jerusalem.”

  “By way of Sweden,” Eirene added.

  Sarah crossed her arms. “I’m not going anywhere until you explain what you’re talking about.”