"We started with Danny. He went into a trance and began to moan. Professor Romney asked him who he was, and he answered "Lester..Lester."
-0-
"What's your full name, Lester?"
"Lester…Lester Fox."
"What do you do, Lester?"
"I... do… I do…"
Danny opened his eyes. "I cannot hold it. He broke free."
"It is all right. Rest Danny. We will try with Ms. Mattox."
-0-
"Whatever problem Danny had, I did not. I felt myself slip into this person… Zayda Nagy… I knew her name. I knew who she was…. Maybe it was because it was a previous incarnation. Maybe. In any case, I was back in time, dressed in gypsy clothes, and not too far away from where the chained coffin was.'
"And as I went there, I did not trust the Professor's word that the transfer would be instantaneous for me and for Amos… He could bamboozle Amos, but not me. I realized that by the time I got there Amos had experienced being locked up in the coffin again. It might be only a couple of minutes, but for him it would be very long minutes. He'd probably be out of his mind when he got out – mainly because he was inhabiting a body that was already experiencing panic and despair. I decided to play it safe, and I got myself a cross.
Then I went to where the coffin was, as Danny had described, and released him."
-0-
Amos jumped out, screaming. "No! Not again! You did this to me, Romney!
He saw the gypsy woman so close; He could smell her blood. She was near. That was enough.
Heather, in Zayda's body lifted the cross. "This is Heather, Amos. You are where you are supposed to be. You are free now."
The words did not fully make sense. All he could feel was the panic running through him. But the cross kept him from approaching her.
He flew out, and there, outside the Benchley mansion was this young woman in the garden, in the dark.
He fell on her and bit hard, feeding not so much his hunger as his pain. He kept drinking, not caring that it was reaching the danger point.
…And a rubber ball hit him.