were not born in this body; Billy Slade was. His is not an old soul that was

you

in a previous life. He clearly has his own separate identity. Your spirit

only

recently arrived and settled in his body. That's not reincarnation, my

friend.

That's possession."

"Now just...one.. .moment," Merlin said, sitting up with an effort. "Are you

actually implying that I'm a demon of some sort?"

"I'm implying nothing of the kind," said Makepeace. "What I'm saying is that

you

were never reincarnated into Billy's body because, in a manner of speaking,

you

never really died."

"What?" Wyrdrune and Merlin said simultaneously. Kira and Jacqueline listened

with fascination. Blood stared at them all, completely out of his depth, then

he

just sighed, shook his head, and sank down into an armchair with his Scotch.

"Naturally I wasn't there when your so-called 'death' occurred," said

Makepeace,

"but I can make an educated guess about what must have happened. At the

moment

when you realized that your death was imminent and that there was absolutely

nothing you could do about it, you were still unable to accept it. Your very

soul screamed its denial. Now, faced with imminent death, most ordinary men

would simply resign themselves to the inevitable, but you were no ordinary

man,

Ambrosius. You never were. You saw yourself hurtling down to your death, and

rather than accept the unacceptable, you flung yourself away from your doomed

body and your astral self flew out into the ether. And when you found, as you

put it so appropriately, a body whose genetic makeup provided the necessary

compatibility, you simply moved in, like the proverbial cowbird muscling in on

a

sparrow's nest."

"No," said Merlin. "No, it can't be. If that were true, then that would

indeed

be..." his voice trailed off.

"Admit it, Ambrosius," said Makepeace. "You possessed the boy."

"If what you say is true," said Merlin slowly, "then it would answer many

questions, such as why I don't remember dying, or why I have no memory of

anything that's happened between my so-called 'death' and my awakening in

Billy."

"You must have blanked it out subconsciously," said Makepeace. "Part of you,

your physical self, had actually died, though you had removed your spiritual

self from that event via an out-of-body experience. So, in one sense, you

died... and in another sense you didn't. You broke the rules, Ambrosius. In

effect, you became a ghost, trapped between this world and the next. Until

your

astral self was drawn to Billy.

"Anyway," Makepeace continued, "it seems to me that the important thing is

how