"You didn't bring me into this," Liz said. "You saved me that day in the Crashdown."
"I should have stopped there," Max said. "When you came back around asking questions, I should have just walked away."
"You couldn't do that," Liz told him.
Max looked into her eyes and felt as if he were standing on the edge of a cliff. "No. I tried."
"Life's complicated," Liz said. "Maybe yours is a little more complicated than others', but I'm sure it could be worse."
"I don't know. Roswell seems to be full of ghosts because of us."
"No. The ghosts were coming. You… we… may be able to help." Liz nodded toward the television. "Those people out there don't have a clue, Max. River Dog doesn't know what to do. He told you that. But you and Michael and Isabel, maybe you three can do something about this. Maybe you were meant to."
"I hope so," Max said. There was a lot more that he hoped for, but he didn't dare put those thoughts into words.
"No matter how complicated your life gets," Liz said, putting her hand inside his, "I'll be there for you."
Max looked at her, elation pushing up through him and overpowering the hopelessness and fatigue that had been dogging him. "You will?"
"Yes," Liz said. "That's what friends do."
Friends. The word dropped like an anvil through Max's stomach. Sour bile rose to the back of his throat, but he managed to swallow it back down. Friends. Could he just be friends when he wanted so much more? Then he felt guilty. After the way he had treated Liz, he had no reason to expect anything more. In fact, he should be grateful that she was still willing to be his friend.
Max tried to speak but couldn't. The effort hurt, and he knew his words would come out strained. Instead he squeezed her hand reassuringly.
"Max," Liz said, her voice soft and low.
Max turned his attention to her, but before she could continue, Isabel jerked violently on the couch. A low moan escaped her lips.
Releasing Liz's hand, Max leaned up on his knees and searched Isabel's face. Her features contorted in fear or pain, Max wasn't sure.
"Isabel," Max called softly, not wanting to wake her too abruptly. "Isabel."
Isabel moaned again, then jerked and tried to roll. Max caught his sister before she tumbled from the couch.
"What's wrong?" Valenti asked, suddenly at Max's side.
"I don't know," Max said.
Isabel jerked and convulsed, moaning again.
"Isabel," Max said. "Come on. Come on back. Isabel!"
Isabel stood with her back to the locked basement door. She wanted to go back to Michael's house, but she knew she might not get another chance to dreamwalk Leroy Wilkins. The answer to some of what faced them lay in this room. She was certain of that.
Wilkins hauled back the pickax again, then threw the gleaming point forward, digging the pick into the wall. Concrete shattered and broke. Sparks leaped from the contact, buzzing out like burning embers. The old man gasped for breath, sounding like a bellows in the enclosed space.
But the maddening thump of the heartbeat continued.
Isabel forced herself to stay when everything in her wanted to go.
The pick passed through the concrete wall with a metallic crunch. Wilkins gave an insane whoop of glee. "I got you now, Swanson. I got you now. You ain't gonna crawl out of that grave an' come for me some night. I'm gonna finish the job I started all those years ago. Gonna put you back in the ground, an' you're gonna stay there."
Fractures spread across the concrete surface, marking out the roughly rectangular shape the body had been hidden behind. Chunks of rock fell onto the basement floor at Wilkins's feet. Once the hole was made, Wilkins dropped the pickax and seized the sledgehammer. He beat at the opening in the wall, smashing it wider and taller.
The battery-powered camp lantern threw a golden glow over the skeleton dressed in rags within the makeshift tomb. The thumping of the monstrous heartbeat reached a crescendo, and the deafening noise vibrated inside Isabel.
"It wasn't him!" Wilkins cried. Dropping the sledgehammer, the old man reached into the hole and hauled the corpse out. The weight was too much for Wilkins, though, and the dead man slipped free of his grip. The corpse clattered to the basement floor, raising a small gust of dust that eddied in the illumination given off by the camp lantern.
Isabel watched as Wilkins backed away from the dead man.
"That heartbeat wasn't him," Wilkins shouted over the thundering thump. "Heartbeat wasn't him at all. I thought it was, but you can see for yourself: He ain't got no heart."
Through the ragged shirt that was stained with old blood, Isabel looked at Swanson's empty rib cage. It was true: The man had no heart. Where was the heartbeat coming from? Was the noise just Wilkins's guilt finally catching up to him?
"It wasn't Swanson," Wilkins said. "It was that bug. That bug that he kept at his throat."
"What bug?" Isabel asked. She had to work hard not to get grossed out. The bones were filled with old spider-webs, and the husks of dead spiders knotted up inside the silken strands.
"Me an' him," Wilkins said, "we found this bug. A little metal bug. We found it at a dig site. Wasn't nothin' there. No gold, no uranium, no copper. Wasn't nothin' there but dirt. An' that bug he kept in that leather pouch at his throat. He thought the bug was somethin' the Mesaliko made. The bug was dead. As dead as Swanson." His eyes dropped to the corpse. "Only now the bug ain't dead, is it? And Swanson ain't dead either."
Spotting the leather pouch at the dead man's neck, Isabel recognized the article as the one Valenti had shown them back in Michael's house. Valenti had said something had torn through the leather.
As she watched, a gleaming silver thread poked through the side of the leather bag. Involuntarily Isabel took a step back. The silver thread worked quickly, joined by other silver threads, all of them clenching and unclenching furiously, like the segmented legs of a wasp. In seconds the side of the leather bag ripped out, leaving a ragged edge.
A silver shape emerged. Balanced on thread-thin legs, the improbable insect creature had the characteristics of a spider and a wasp. It spread two of the threadlike appendages, and a diaphanous foil wing pulled taut between them. The creature leaped and hopped as if trying to launch itself into the air, but never succeeded.
"I tried to kill it." Wilkins crept forward from the shadows, clinging to the wall. He took a fresh grip on the sledgehammer and raised the heavy head high. "I tried to kill it an' that's when Swanson come to life again."
Before he could bring the sledgehammer down, a ghostly form drew up from the tangled scatter of bones and rotting clothing. The man was taller than Wilkins, and thin as a rail. He wore an eye patch and a hard expression.
"You killed me, Leroy Wilkins," the ghost accused, leveling an accusatory finger. "You killed me, an' I come to kill you back." Moving with unnatural speed, the ghost closed on Wilkins with fists upraised and ready to strike.
Wilkins cowered against the back wall.
Using her power Isabel tried to erase memory of the ghost from the dreamwalk connection. Instead the ghost froze in midrun. The ghost probably wasn't, Isabel decided, much less scary frozen than it was while in motion.
Offering mute testimony to that fact, Wilkins cringed against the wall. He mewled plaintively, hiding behind his raised hands and arms.
"Mr. Wilkins," Isabel called softly. She approached the man cautiously, knowing he might attack her because he was so afraid.
"It's not Swanson," the old man whispered hoarsely. "But it is. He wants to kill me."
"This isn't real, Mr. Wilkins," Isabel said. "This is just a memory. A dream. This isn't happening. You don't have to be afraid."