“Then let’s go.” Dan headed off to a brightly lit hallway off the lobby in his reality. In Isabella’s, the hall became a black tunnel, the kind of place where the bogeyman might be hiding, waiting to eat me up. Swinging the flashlight I clutched in a death grip to ward off any beasts lurking in the dark, I followed Dan. The channel’s legs wandered as I navigated the rubble-strewn floor, making me reel like a drunkard.
“Wait up!” I called to the rapidly moving Dan. “This body doesn’t want to do what I’m telling it to. God, it would be easier walking in quicksand.”
Lana was there, her bulk warm against my side as she put an arm around my waist. “Lean on me until you get your sea legs, honey.”
I wrapped my arm around her gratefully. “Thanks Lana. Take my advice. When you die, don’t ever do this.”
Over her happy chuckle, Dan said, “Come on, Brandilynn. You’re tougher than this. Stop being such a baby.”
I bared Isabella’s teeth at him. “Oh, you haven’t seen baby yet. You just wait.” Isabella’s feet nearly tripped over themselves, and he grinned at me.
I was so getting him back for this indignity.
I gained the hallway entrance and found it wasn’t as Stygian black as Isabella’s eyes had first informed me. Light emitted from wide doors at the far end of the hall, like a beacon in a storm. The sound of muttering voices came from there, and that’s where we headed.
While the dead version of the King George’s hallway looked much lovelier with its patterned tile floor and gilt-framed paintings, I focused my vision on Isabella’s view of the blackened carcass. The ceiling here remained intact, though soot obscured it. The floor had been swept clean, but it buckled in places, creating numerous tripping hazards. I already had to concentrate hard just to maneuver. Getting through the humped areas was like navigating an obstacle course on stilts.
As we reached the lit doorway, Dan announced, “This is the old ballroom. Tristan has converted it for his use.”
We stepped into the room, and my two different views of my surroundings slid together in a harmonious whole. The feeling of vertigo dissipated, and I no longer felt so wobbly as I took in my surroundings.
The ballroom existed in both planes exactly the same. As it was in the living realm, so it was in the netherworld. Large chandeliers hung overhead. The parquet wood floor no doubt set someone back a bank account or two.
It left prettiness behind after that. Three rows of utilitarian desks marched across the room. It looked like office hell in sumptuous surroundings with computers, ringing phones, and people bunched here and there in watercooler gangs. At the far end of the room, two large dark wooden desks sat on a bandstand. The desks, both high-end enough for Fortune 500 CEOs, were also outfitted with computers. A giant whiteboard hung on
the wall behind them. I could see scribbling on the board, but at this distance I couldn’t make out what was written.
What I could see was that all the people in the room weren’t exactly people in a human sense. I’d stepped into Paranormal Central. I suddenly felt very vulnerable in Isabella’s too mortal body and wondered what would happen to me if she died while I remained trapped inside her.
I let go of Lana and tottered a bit despite the absence of vertigo. I felt like I might overbalance at any moment. I fought hard for my equilibrium and dignity. “Why is this so hard? I was in a physical body only days ago!”
Lana patted my arm. “This isn’t your body. Usually the spirits Isabella channels don’t have to walk around. If you ask me, you’re adjusting very well.”
I smiled at her kind words, feeling all too well how the facial muscles under my command worked. Gosh, this was so weird.
We advanced into the room, and I gawked openly at the ‘people’ working. Most were weres, their shifter identities obvious from the animal-like characteristics blended with human forms.
The ‘Zoo Flu’ that turned humans into shapeshifters wasn’t a flu at all. Usually, victims that survived the animal-hopping virus possessed genetic abnormalities that predisposed them to becoming weres, needing only the illness to finish the job.
A location’s predominant flavor of werecritter depended on the local fauna in the area. For southeast Georgia, we have mostly alligators, feral hogs, and rattlesnakes. The werepanthers, once major players in Fulton Falls’ shifter community, are now rare as the Southern panther itself has gone extinct. All that keeps that particular population of shapeshifters going is passing the virus from were to human. Since humans are very leery of hanging out with weres, the panther shifters are on the brink of extinction themselves. You won’t find a ‘Save the Werepanther’ movement, as no sane person contracts Zoo Flu by choice. The virus kills more often than not.