PsyCop 5: Camp Hell by Jordan Castillo Price Page A

after-hours lighting. He didn’t need to see my eyes to feel what I was feeling, but I think it helped. “People should think twice before donating their bodies to science. You’re strangely unperturbed. They must have given you some really tasty pills.”
    “I couldn’t see the body itself…. The corpse. It was in a body bag.”
    Stefan shuddered.
    “They gave me these pills and just left me there. Me and the body bag. It stunk. But I didn’t notice right away. Once I did, the thought of how much of it I’d already inhaled made me sick.”
    “Have another hit,” he said gently. “Want me to blow you while you’re high?”
    I sucked in a lungful of nitrous straight from the can and shook my head. It didn’t feel safe; we were too exposed. I spoke as I let the nitrous out of my lungs. “Later on.”
    “What were they trying to do?” he asked.
    “All I can figure was they were waiting for me to get a read on him. When he showed up, I described him, and they took my vitals and parked me in my room. Where d’you suppose the spirit was hiding for all those hours?”
    Stefan ran his fingers over the stubbly sides of my head, then tweaked my Mohawk up in the middle. “Maybe it wasn’t there. Maybe they gave you an enhancement, and then they got you to make a spirit show itself to you after it was already departed—call it back to the body or something.”
    I shook my head and the walls rippled. “No. They only give me enhancements in the green room. The one with lead walls, or Kryptonite or…whatever.” I felt nauseated. I told myself it was a decent high. “I think it was something else. The opposite of an enhancement.”
    “There is no such thing.” Stefan straightened my earrings. They were always getting tangled. I touched his black-dyed hair. It was crunchy with Aqua Net. He caught my hand, gave it a quick kiss, and then pulled away. If I wasn’t going to drop trou, then stolen dessert trumped me. “Well, at least they only kept you in there for a few hours. Could’ve been worse.”
    I nodded, which was probably not the best idea, and then I upchucked into the sink. Nitrous must not mix well with whatever it was they’d had me swallow. Stefan tactfully ignored me and continued shaving pieces off the brownies.
    I swished out my mouth and rinsed the puke down the drain. “I’ll come visit you tonight,” I said. I might not be fit for a blow job at that very moment, but at two a.m., when the overnight orderlies jockeyed for their lunch breaks? Oh, yeah.
    “Be careful. I don’t like the looks of the new orderlies.”
    “I’m always careful.”
    Stefan glanced at the clock. “Come back now.”
    “What?” Was someone looking for us already? We’d only been gone a few minutes. “Do you feel someone coming? We gotta hide—or they’ll catch us
fraternizing
.”
    “Ten. You’re focusing on the sound of my voice.”
    “Ten people? Fuck, they found out.” If I rolled myself up into a ball, I could fit under the sink. But Stefan? No chance.
    “Nine. You’re breathing. You’re relaxed.”
    I listened hard. I didn’t hear a group of people.
    “Eight. And the present begins to filter in. Focus on your right hand. And remember where it is, on the arm of the couch.”
    “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
    “Seven. I see you haven’t lost your edge, after all. You’re not in Camp Hell, Victor. You’re in my office. Sitting. On the couch.”
    I was sitting? No I wasn’t. I glanced back at the sink, and a wave of disorientation hit me. I was sitting. At least, that’s what it felt like.
    “…Three. Focus on the palm of your hand, make a fist, and open it again. That’s right. You’re very calm, and very relaxed.”
    “Stefan?”
    The room spun, and I realized the dimly-lit kitchen was actually a dimly-lit office—Stefan’s office. His face filled my field of vision, and my God, he was so old. I glanced down at my permanent press slacks, my standard-issue