The terrible sounds of gunfire, magic, and the screams of dying men and spirits still ringing in his ears, Kyle walked slowly across the basement to the clusters of swollen shapes the larger roach spirits had been guarding. He approached cautiously, his senses still existing primarily in astral space. They were alive, somewhat, pulsing with energy and existence, but there was an alienness about them. Some of the auras leaking from the meter-and-a-half-long objects were cool and constant, others flickered as if fighting something unseen, and the remainder showed echoes of duality, of two spirits overlapped. All, it seemed, were very slowly fading. Kyle reached the first cluster, six of the objects piled almost haphazardly on top of each other, the bottom one all but buried. He touched it, and felt coolness, a rough skin, and the faint wisps of fear, longing, and despair echoing from inside it. And something was inside it—it lurched at his presence, thrashing, the sensation of fear growing from it. The clear outline of a hand, a child's, pushed against the outer covering.