Sonata’s “Weary spirits” rolled through the room and earned another flinch from everybody except Gary, who was evidently completely at one with the drum. I envied him a bit, then tried to tuck away emotion and get ready to slip through the walls of the worlds if Jason didn’t answer Sonata’s call. “I beg forgiveness, spirits, for disturbing you. I come seeking knowledge, not about what lies beyond the veil, but about what has come to pass on this side of it. I have come to a place of sorrow and violence in hopes that one among you may have answers to share with me. Jason Chan,” she said much more quietly. “I know you seek no vengeance, but your fading memories of this world may help us to save another life. Will you speak with me?”

All of us, even Gary, straightened up and peeked around, searching out ghosts. Sandburg looked both poleaxed and fascinated, like he didn’t believe he was participating in a séance and at the same time wanted it to be real with all the strength of a child’s hopeful imagination. Shots of pink zotted off his aura, fireworks-bright, and I had to think that if he was guilty, he wouldn’t be nearly so excited about the prospect of a ghost coming to point a finger at him. Too bad. It would’ve been easy for him to be the killer.

“Jason Chan,” Sonata repeated, then began a quiet, oddly respectful litany of the young man’s history on earth. His full name, Jason Matthew, and his birth date, the nineteenth of September. He’d been barely twenty-four. His family’s names, the towns he’d lived—all information available from his work record, and all of it meant to draw a dead man closer to the living’s world.

All of it meant to draw him closer to life, when there was an ancient, magical cauldron pouring warped vitality back into the dead, and when we already knew that it could help a ghost latch on to mortal magic and gain corporeal form.

Wow. I’d had some really bad ideas, but right then, this one was the prizewinner. I said, “Oh, crap” out loud, and let go of the real world as fast as I could, racing for the Dead Zone.

I wasn’t at all sure it was safer for me to go traipsing around the Dead Zone than it was to call ghosts back from the dead, not when the cauldron was doing its thing. I was, though, very sure that letting Jason Chan or any other ghost get a foothold back in the real world was a mistake, and the only way I saw to have my cake and eat it, too, was to fling myself into another plane of existence and hope like hell it worked.

My general impression of the Dead Zone was a bit Hitchhiker’s Guide: it was a tad smaller than incomprehensible infinity so the human mind could encompass just how really, really big it was. My few encounters with the dead—or anything else there, for that matter—had put me sort of in the middle of an impossibly large space, so that I could feel properly insignificant. It went on for-freaking-ever, and even when I moved around, it never let up with the hugeness factor, or gave me the impression of being near to anything.

Jason Chan stood right on the edge of infinity, about to dive over into the living world. Space and time and eternity spread out, all that enormous emptiness somehow unquestionably behind him, and the only thing standing between him and a twisted unlife was me.

I sprang at him, catching him in the middle with my shoulder, and we skidded halfway across the universe before coming to a stop. The edge of the Dead Zone disappeared, thankfully and familiarly an endless distance away. I flopped over, trying to calm a rabbit-fast heart.

Jason, upon whom I’d flopped, said, “Jesus Christ, lady, what the hell is your problem?” He flung me off in a tangle of elbows and knees, and I skittered onto my backside.

“Sorry. Sorry, I—”

“Are you crazy? What’re you doing tackling people like that? Are you—” He broke off, panting for breath and staring at me. After a couple of seconds his ire faded, leaving him with a little grin. “Okay, so this isn’t usually how I meet girls, and you’re nuts, but maybe I shouldn’t bitch if women are going to literally throw themselves at me.” He offered a hand. “Jason Chan. You always tackle guys when you want to meet them?”

It probably said something about my life that I actually had to think about it before saying, “I don’t think so,” and shaking his hand. “I’m Joanne Walker. Sorry about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” His grin broadened and we finished getting untangled from one another. “I’ve seen you before.”

Dude. Even the dead used the worst pick-up line in history. I said, “Er, no, I don’t think so,” again, and he shook his head.

“Yeah, I have. You were at the museum yesterday with that cop who was asking me about the cauldron. You were the other cop!” He scooted back a few inches and looked me over. “I didn’t recognize you right away. You look better now, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

He’d been dead when I was at the museum yesterday. I opened my mouth to say that, then decided it wasn’t the best way to keep a conversation going. I glanced at myself instead, discovering my astral self didn’t feel a need for bulletproof vests, and that I wore knee-torn jeans and an oil-stained white tank top. Work clothes, in other words, though the job in question was mechanic, not detective. I guessed I knew how my subconscious continued to define me. “It’s fine. You look better than you did yesterday, too.”

Because yesterday he’d had his head bashed in, which hadn’t been such a good look for him. Today his self-image was what he’d looked like alive: young, broad shouldered, short black hair, quick smile. He was cute, the kind of guy you’d bring home to Mom. “How’s your head? Billy said you had a migraine.”

“It’s gone,” he said with a mix of astonishment and satisfaction, then laughed. “The migraine’s gone. My head’s still here.” He clapped both hands against it, making sure of that, and grinned again. “So, did you guys have any luck with the cauldron? The other detective said he’d clear my going home with Sandburg, but he’s gotta be pissed. You’d think he’d given birth to that thing, or something.”

“We’re still looking for it. That’s…” Ice crept over my arms and made me shiver. Jason Chan apparently had no idea he was dead. I didn’t know what would happen if I pointed it out to him. “That’s why I’m here. I hoped I could ask you a few more questions.”

“Sure.” He glanced around, then came back to me with a smile. He smiled easily, this dead young man. I wondered if he had when he’d been alive. “Would it be unprofessional if I took you out for a drink while I answered your questions? This isn’t the greatest place to get to know each other.”

There were many aspects of my bizarre life that I was coming to accept. Getting hit on by a dead guy was not one I was eager to mark up as commonplace, or, in fact, as anything less than seriously creepy. “Maybe we’d better keep it professional. If you could concentrate on your surroundings, it might help you remember details that escaped you earlier due to your migraine.”

“Oh, sure.” Jason frowned, glancing around again. I had no idea what he saw, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t the rolling endless gray of the Dead Zone. “Like I said to the other detective, I came in to work with a low-grade migraine. Seemed like I’d had one all month, so my focus wasn’t at its best.”

“I’ve only had a migraine once. I thought I probably had a brain tumor and was going to die.” Embarrassingly enough, that was true. It certainly gave me sympathy for somebody who suffered them regularly.

Jason shot me a rueful look. “Yeah, basically. It wasn’t that bad, but—you know, it was weird, but I swear it got worse around that cauldron. I always get a light show when a migraine comes on, but just looking at that thing was like staring at the sun.”

The ice that had settled over my skin melted suddenly, turning to a trickle of interest down my spine. “Really? I know it sounds odd, but that might be important. Can you describe exactly what you saw?”