“Does she walk on water too, Paul?”
“She doesn’t have to, it parts to either side so she can pass through it.”
“Smartass.” Anna stood up and stretched her arms. “I’ll come eat. I’d just rather not get bad advice from somebody I only just met.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t so bad.”
“Well, what do you think?”
Paul took longer than he should have to answer, and when she looked down at him he didn’t look back up.
Anna leaned over. “I’m with you now, all right? I don’t want to have to say it again.”
Paul stood up and wrapped his arms around her.
“You don’t have to. Let’s go get dinner.”
#
“You won’t hurt Andrew,” Josh said.
“We have no reason to. We want his uncle.”
“And if I lead you to him, you give me the books and bring my brother back.”
“Not quite. Here.” Jeremiah reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass vial filled with a gently luminescent yellow liquid. He tossed it onto Josh’s mattress.
“Take it. I don’t want to feel like I’m holding it over your head. The books are what I’m offering to trade.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You probably shouldn’t. Look at how far trust has gotten you. But I’ve had all the time I need with them. It doesn’t make any sense for me to antagonize you over something that isn’t any further use to me anyway.”
Josh closed the book, stared at the blank front cover, and put it down on the bed next to his pillow.
“There’s a spell in one of these that lets the person casting it know if anyone is in danger in a specific place. The places the last person to own the book had covered already were Andrew’s grandmother’s house, a park over by downtown, some land where a guy named Thomas lived, and a house out in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know anything about the house. Thomas seemed to have a lot of weird stuff going on, you might want to check him.”
“We know about Thomas. He’s not the problem. Do you have an address for the other house?”
“Yeah, I wrote it down.”
“Can you show me how to get there?”
“You want me to come with you?”
Jeremiah nodded.
“How are we going to get out without my father noticing?”
Jeremiah smiled.
“I’m sure we can come up with something.”
#
There was a blue station wagon parked down the street from Josh’s house. Jeremiah sat down behind the wheel, unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open.
It was only after Josh got into the car that he noticed a giant bald man wearing a leather jacket sitting in the back seat. He was holding a tiny cell phone up to his ear. His hand was enormous; there was a burn mark on the back of it, a block of squares, like a torn corner from a piece of graph paper.
“Yeah,” the man said. “They’re here.”
“Tell me where to drive, Josh.” The tone of Jeremiah’s voice was completely different. He was not smiling.
Josh hesitated.
“Better tell him,” the man said. “You’re in this now, kid.”
Josh guided them to Rose’s house. The man in the back seat repeated the directions into the phone.
They pulled over a little down the road from Rose’s house. A black van with dark windows pulled up behind them ten minutes later. The snow had been disappearing and reappearing all night, but it was getting heavier now.
“Stay here,” the bald man said. “Keep the kid here, too.” He got out of the car and walked around to the far side of the van.
Josh looked out the window at the van. “He knows not to hurt Andrew, right?”
Jeremiah stared out the windshield as though the car were still moving.
“He told me to stay here, and to keep you from running away,” Jeremiah answered. “But I can’t necessarily do both of those things at once. If you made a break for it when I wasn’t looking I’d have to choose between going after you and staying put.”
Josh was still trying to figure out what he was talking about when the bald man walked back towards the car.
“He’s in there,” the bald man said. “I’m tired of fucking around. We’re just going to take the whole house and get out fast. What should we expect?”
“Only the familiar. You should still have the white powder I gave you before. There shouldn’t be any other problems as long as you catch them by surprise.”
“Good.” The bald man turned as if to leave.
“There’ll be a boy about Josh’s age in there with them. You’ll need to be careful…”
“Slap yourself in the face with your right hand.”
Jeremiah lifted his right hand up into the air, held it there for a second, and struck himself hard in the jaw.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” the bald man said. “Just stay here.”
He walked away, and climbed into the passenger seat of the van. It turned around, spitting up gravel and leaving tracks on the fresh snow. It sped away towards Rose’s house.
“The only thing he told me to do is stay here,” Jeremiah said, rubbing his jaw. “That’s the only thing he said.”
Josh unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of the car, and ran.
#
Shadow wasn’t really sleeping. It was something that she’d seen other people do before she’d changed, but she was having trouble with it. She didn’t want Andrew to know, didn’t want him to think there was something wrong with her.
She gave up after a couple of hours. She was hungry; that was another new sensation but at least she knew what to do about it. She followed the smell of chili downstairs and saw Andrew, Anna, Paul, and Rose all sitting at the table.
“Should we say grace?” Rose asked, uncertainly.
The air was suddenly filled with the sound of gunfire and breaking glass. Paul grabbed Andrew and dove to the ground. Anna’s faced disappeared under a layer of blood. Rose cried out hoarsely. She sounded like a bird.
A man with a gun kicked open the front door of the house.
CHAPTER 21
#
Paul knew Anna was dead right away. He knew what it looked like.
The first man through the door dropped a plastic bag filled with white powder. The powder was quickly siphoned away by something no one in the room could see. Paul climbed to his feet.
“Andrew, run away!”
He closed his eyes, thrust his palm towards the door, and exhaled. The man at the door stopped and looked around, confused. There were at least two more behind him, yelling at him to keep going. Paul pulled out his gun and pointed it at the doorway. Bang bang bang; he lost track of how many times he pulled the trigger.
Time seemed to stop. Everything smelled like gunpowder, and for a moment Paul forgot what was happening and wondered if it was the Fourth of July. He took a step backwards and his heel brushed up against Anna’s body. He glanced down. Her face was destroyed.
He heard more people shouting outside and remembered where he was. He ran into the kitchen and ducked down. He heard a voice through the window.
“Come out right now. We have the kid outside. Come out right now or we’re going to shoot him.”
#
Rose grabbed Shadow’s hand and ran upstairs. She pushed her into one of the bedrooms.
“Go and hide, now. Go and hide.”
She closed the door before Shadow could say anything and approached the room at the end of the hall. Her keys were still downstairs; she kneeled down, whistled a tune, and kissed the lock. The door opened with a click.
She had not entered this room in more than ten years. It was completely empty except for a book bound in black leather sitting in the middle of the floor. She kneeled down in front of the book, opened it, and started reading.
#
Paul walked through the front do
or with his hands in the air, stepping over bodies as he went. It was snowing, harder now than before. There were five men gathered in the driveway. One of them had his hand on Andrew’s shoulder.
“Where are the others?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Paul said. “You’ve got me.” He felt the snowflakes melting, the water leaking through his hair.
“We want everybody.”
“Why?”
None of them said anything.
“You don’t want to leave witnesses,” Paul said.
They didn’t answer.
Lightning fell from the sky.
#
Rose bought the book in a restaurant in a resort town on the South Carolina coast; the meeting took place in December and the town was more or less abandoned. The man selling her the book was very old— he was completely hairless and had dark blue veins running through his face.
“It’s dangerous, you know. It’s like shoving your soul into a balloon and holding it shut with your fingers. You can let a little air out and do amazing things, but you get a little greedy, open the hole a little too wide, and there it is.”
He stopped eating and stared off into space.
“I’m not actually sure if soul is the right word. It’s complicated, it’s all in the footnotes. You’re going to want to be sure to read those. I’ve heard of people that try to work off the real originals, the stone tablets, and just blow their brains out…”
She didn’t say anything, she just let him talk until he was done about an hour later. She put a backpack on the table and pushed it towards him. He nodded, stood up, put the black book on the table, and walked out with the backpack. She paid the check shortly afterward and left.
#
She’d paid dearly for the information in the book but had never used it. The first time she’d tried, she’d stopped halfway through the incantation. It was just like he’d said; each moment that went by there was a little less of her than there had been before.
Her head seemed to be floating as she walked down the stairs. She reached the bottom and looked out the window. She saw Paul with his hands up, surrounded by people she didn’t know. One of them was struck by lightning. He fell to the ground shaking; the snow around him evaporated, leaving a circle of green grass with a black spot in the middle of it. A gust of wind came down, sweeping two more up into the air like kites. The wind dissipated. They hit the ground not far from where they’d been standing.
There were two left. A second bolt of lightning struck one of them down. The other one was holding a gun in one hand and Andrew’s hair in the other. He was shaking, opening and closing his eyes, trying to make the spots go away.
He was suddenly buried up to his ankles in dirt.
He looked up at Rose.
“Wait…”
He disappeared, leaving behind what looked like a small anthill where he’d been standing.
Andrew curled up into a ball on the ground. Rose kneeled down next to him. She rested her hand on the side of his body.
“It’s okay, it’s…”
She couldn’t remember her name.
“It’s me,” she said. “It’s me.”
#
Paul stayed where he was, with his hands above his head, not sure what to do. He turned around and went back into the house. He kneeled down next to Anna’s body and pulled it up towards him, resting his head on her shoulder. It was still warm, but it was getting colder.
He went back into the front yard. The two men who’d been struck by lightning were shaking. Paul wasn’t sure if that meant they were still alive; he thought about shooting them but saw Andrew watching and decided not to.
Paul took Rose by the hand and guided her gently to her feet.
“How are you feeling?”
She didn’t answer. She looked up; a flock of birds flew slowly across the sky.
Andrew was still curled up on the ground.
“Get up,” Paul said. Andrew didn’t move. Paul grabbed his collar and pulled him to his feet.
“Take Rose inside, tuck her into bed, and stay put until I come get you.”
Andrew didn’t look Paul in the eye, didn’t do anything. Paul realized that he was still holding onto Andrew’s shirt collar. He let go. Andrew turned away, grabbed Rose’s hand, and led her towards the house.
“Wait a second.”
They both stopped. Paul put his hand on Rose’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. She looked back at him uncertainly.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Just one last thing and you can go inside and rest.”
She looked at the ground. Her head tilted back, and for a second it seemed as though she was going to pass out. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.
“I’m tired…”
Paul took a look back at the front yard. There was a hole in the ground where there hadn’t been one before, about seven feet in diameter. Paul approached it and looked down. He kicked some snow over the edge and lost sight of it as it fell.
“Go inside. Get some rest while you can, I’ll be up in a minute.”
He heard the door shut behind him and waited a minute until he was sure they were gone. He grabbed the wrist of one of the gunman, dragged him to the edge of the hole and pushed him in. He did the same thing to the others.
He went into the house, picked up Anna’s body, and carried it outside.
By the time Josh made it to the house, the snow was so thick that he couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of him. He turned off the road and weaved slowly through the trees. He hoped he was going in the right direction.
He saw a black silhouette up ahead. As he got closer he realized it was Andrew’s uncle. There was nearly half an inch of snow resting on top of him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He didn’t move until Josh took a step backwards.
“Don’t try to run.”
He brushed the snow off his shoulders, leaving white specks on his hair and clothes.
“You told them where to find us, right?”
Josh didn’t answer.
Paul stood up. “I was trying to think of something to say, and I kept getting hung up because there wasn’t anybody here except me, and what’s the point of saying something nobody’s going to hear, right?”
He pressed the barrel of his gun to the side of Josh’s head. Josh told himself he was going to be strong but when he closed his eyes, he could feel his heart pounding like his ribs were a prison it was trying to escape.
“I’m fifteen…” he said, and flinched.
“You are,” Paul said. “What do you know about these people?”
“A guy called Jeremiah came to visit me…” He tried to think of what was important. “There was another one with a scar on back of his hand, he was wearing a leather jacket.”
Paul thought that over. He was surprised that Jeremiah would be in this, but he didn’t think the kid was lying. He hadn’t seen anyone with a scar on his hand. Maybe he hadn’t been one of the ones to rush the house. Which meant there could be more. He wondered how far away they could’ve gotten by now.
“What are you going to do to me?”
Paul looked down, almost surprised to find that Josh was still there.
“I was going to say that it didn’t matter whether or not you heard what I had to say, because she’d still be dead, and by then I thought I’d be mad enough to shoot you.”
Josh waited but Paul didn’t say anything else.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Paul didn’t answer.
“I didn’t mean it,” Josh continued. “They said they only wanted you. Andrew’s okay, right?”
A shadow passed over Paul’s face.
“Andrew’s fine.”
He took a step backwards.
“None of this really matters anyway, I’m sorry for wasting your time.”
Josh started getting nervous again.
“What do you mean?�
��
“They’ve only had a little while to run. Jeremiah’s got some tricks that’ll get him further away but I think if I just kill everybody in a hundred-mile radius that should do the trick.”
Josh’s mouth fell open. “You can’t…”
Paul pushed him backwards. The soles of Josh’s shoes slipped on the wet snow and he fell into the hole.
Paul crouched down and pressed the side of the gun against his temple. He rocked back and forth and whispered harshly, like he was yelling at someone over the phone and didn’t want anyone else to hear.
#
Andrew led Rose upstairs. They made slow progress. Every few steps Rose froze and started looking around, and each time Andrew had to tug on her sleeve until he got her attention and she was willing to follow him a little further. They made it to her bedroom. She sat down on the mattress.
“Just…”
Andrew rubbed his eyes and tried to ignore the sound of his heart beating.
“Try to sleep or something.”
She laid down obediently and closed her eyes.
He left the bedroom and walked back towards the stairs. As he passed one of the other rooms, he saw Shadow cowering in the corner. He paused in the doorway; she sprang up, ran towards him, and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him as hard as she could. Andrew was exhausted. He wanted to collapse but he couldn’t; he felt like a puppet, like there were strings tied to his shoulders, holding him up.
Paul came back into the house. He stopped by the kitchen and took a roll of duct tape from one of the drawers under the counter. There was a magnet strip above the oven with a set of steak knives attached to it. He put one of the smaller ones in his pocket and went upstairs.
He saw Andrew and Shadow holding each other in the hallway; Andrew looked over as he reached the top of the stairs. Shadow opened her eyes and stepped back.
Andrew crouched down.
“Why don’t you go into the bedroom for a little while? I need to talk to my uncle.”
Shadow looked up at Paul nervously. Andrew touched her shoulder and tried to get her attention back.
“I’ll be right outside. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”
She nodded her head, went into one of the bedrooms, and closed the door behind her.
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