Dagger Magic

Two of the photos were overall shots of the smashed Austin Rover, the third a detailed enlargement. Claire gave the pictures an initial cursory glance, then stiffened in her chair and subjected them to a closer look. The color drained from her face.

"What kind of stupid hoax is this?" she whispered.

Adam had been watching her intently. Warning McLeod to silence with a quick glance, he said to Claire, "It's no hoax, I assure you. Does the name Tom Lennox mean anything to you?"

"No." Claire gave her head an emphatic shake. "I've never heard of him before. Who is he?"

"A professional photojournalist who works for the Edinburgh Evening News," Adam said. "He doesn't know you either. But for the past six months, he's been doing the photo coverage for all the accidents along Carnage Corridor. And ever since the beginning, your image has been turning up in his photographs."

So saying, he handed over the rest of Lennox's pictures. Claire leafed through them, her fingers none too steady, only staring at the last photo for a long moment before absently squaring up the stack.

"I don't understand," she murmured, not looking at him. "I was nowhere near the scene of any of these accidents. This can't possibly be me. How could it be?"

She was visibly shaken. Adam decided to take the plunge. "I have a theory about that," he told her. "But I'll warn you right now it's going to sound a bit unorthodox."

"Tell me anyway."

"All right. First answer me this, though: Would you consider yourself a religious person?''

Claire's jaw tightened. "There was a time when I would have said I was. Now…" She broke off with an embittered shrug.

"Let me rephrase the question, then. Do you believe that you possess an immortal soul?"

Swallowing audibly, Claire bowed her head and looked away. "I don't dare believe otherwise," she said with bleak candor. "If I thought this were all the life I was ever going to have - " She shook her head bitterly. "What has any of this to do with your theory?"

"Perhaps everything," Adam replied, dropping to a crouch to put himself more on her level, aware that he was embarking on precarious ground. "Allow me to lapse into my lecturer's mode for a moment. If we grant that a soul exists at all, then it is not stretching credulity too far to suggest that it exists as a subtle emanation of energy. Researchers into the paranormal have demonstrated time and again that photo and X-ray films both are sensitive to such emanations. Given the present circumstances, I'm tempted to suggest that what Mr. Lennox has inadvertently captured on film are images of what students of modern occultism would call projections of your astral self. Or, if you prefer, your wandering soul."

When Claire offered no comment, only looking off into the fishpond, he forged ahead.

"It's a documented fact that many people have experienced the sensation of their souls parting company temporarily with their bodies. By virtue of special training, the ascetics and holy men of the Far East profess themselves able to control the comings and goings of this spiritual aspect of themselves.

"Here in the West, where such experiences are not governed by any formalized religious tradition, such periods of astral separation tend to occur spontaneously and unconsciously, usually in response to acute physical pain or intense emotional stress. I expect you may have heard of out-of-body experiences in connection with near-death episodes. The individual doesn't necessarily have to believe in the possibility of astral travel in order to experience it, if the triggering circumstances are sufficiently extreme."

Claire's gaze hardened incredulously. "Is that what you think I'm doing? Astral travelling?"

Adam raised an elegant eyebrow. "I'm suggesting that it could account for your likeness in these photographs."

"But - this is crazy!" Claire protested. "Even if you were right - which I don't believe for a minute! - what possible reason could I have for wanting to visit the scenes of these accidents? Believe me, that's the last place I want to be!"

"That's precisely what I've been wondering myself," Adam said. "It may be worth noting that all of these accidents have occurred in almost the exact same place as your own. Perhaps your astral self is being drawn to the scene of these later accidents because you need to search out and retrieve some forgotten piece of evidence that would help the police track down the driver of the car that hit you."

Claire was shaking her head, as if in blank denial. The look in her eyes, however, told Adam that she was almost convinced.

"This whole thing is insane," she muttered. "Even if I were astral travelling, wouldn't I have some memory of having done it?"

"No conscious memory, perhaps," Adam said. "What the unconscious mind records may be another matter. Hypnosis might allow me to test the theory. If you could bring yourself to reconsider it."