Hoven came to in a different place that was almost exactly the same as the place he’d left.

The bitch, Winters, and the tattooed man who had tried to hurt the Master, and the negro boy who’d kicked him and a girl he didn’t recognize departed down the hall. Meanwhile, soldiers swarmed in, setting up a perimeter; they were distorted blurs of motion, he could only see them out of the corner of his mad eye or when they passed through him—

What was this? Was he dead? Discorporate?

He turned to the Master, prone on the floor. No mere shotgun shell could have stricken the Master. He would rise again! He would! But no: the body was dissolving even as he watched. Hoven wondered at the magic of this, what weapon had done this or was this one of Master’s tricks? Master was clever.

The body melted into sludge. The sludge twisted and swirled upright, an inverted funnel, oil spiraling down a drain but upended. What Hoven took to be the corridor lights dimmed and the sound of distant flutes wafted towards him.