The walkway brought him to the brink of the office door. Bracing his knees to withstand the sudden cessation of velocity, Alec jumped off. He removed a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. He turned his hand.
The door opened without resistance.
Alec swore and stepped hastily inside. He had given Ted strict orders never to leave the front door unlatched. It didn’t matter if he was inside or not. The door must always be locked.
Shutting the door, Alec took a step forward. As soon as he did, he knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
He felt Ted Mencken, and Ted Mencken was dying.
A wave of agony swept across Alec’s mind and sent him down to his knees. He grabbed his head in his hands and screamed, trying to bite down on his tongue to shut off the cries. “Good God,” he moaned, as wave after wave of suffering ran through his mind.
He knew he was weeping like a baby with the secondhand agony he was forced to endure. “Ted, Ted, Ted,” he whispered, unable to make himself heard. Mechanically, without thinking, his knees swiveled toward the door, but his muscles seemed frozen stiff-turned to ice by some dreadful magic-and he could not move an inch forward. “Ted, Ted,” he whispered again. They had come. The others. Today of all days. They had come and got Ted.
