I felt a sudden rush of triumph and fury. I’d faced another creature from the Empty Spaces, and I’d beaten it. My mind seemed to rev into overdrive, but after a moment I realized I was just coming back to myself—the predator had tried to take my mind along with my body, but my iron gate had partly blocked it, and now I could think clearly again.
My whole body was drenched with sweat, and I gasped in heavy, ragged breaths. Damn, my whole head was really starting to burn.
I moved toward the bathroom. I’d definitely seen a second predator coming out of the tub, but was there a third, and a fourth? Was there a thousandth? As much as I was ready to take my victory and retreat, there was no one else here. I was the only one who could stop these predators. I had to open that bathroom door and fight.
The knob trembled slightly as something on the other side moved against the door. I reached out just as I saw a flicker of movement near the floor.
I jumped back. Another predator had pushed under the door, flowing through the narrow crack and protruding toward me. And I’d nearly stepped in it. I’d been so focused on the doorknob that I had missed the threat below me.
It struck at me like a hungry snake.
There was no time to think. I grabbed hold of the creature’s farthest end—it felt strangely like a muscle—and slashed the ghost knife through it. The predator collapsed, almost splashing onto the carpet, then vanished.
In a panic, I fell to my knees, gouging and slashing with my spell. I’d thought it had escaped somehow, and that I’d let a predator get loose in the world. Then the strange keening returned. The thing was still below me, but it had turned invisible. I kept cutting. After several more slashes, it turned a pallid gray and died.
Were there only two? If I opened the door, predators might flood out at me like a breaking dam. I crouched low, waiting to see if another predator would try to squeeze under, but I didn’t see anything. I swiped my ghost knife through the crack but didn’t connect with anything.
Fine. If there were more inside, they weren’t coming out. The stinging on my face and hands had become worse—it felt like every patch of bare skin the creature had touched was coated with a film of weak acid. The pain grew and grew, and eventually I had to act, because waiting made me think about the pain too much.
I shoved the bathroom door open, darted inside, and slammed it shut. The predators weren’t fast enough to have gotten out—at least, I hoped not. I yanked a towel off the rack and kicked it against the bottom of the door.
In the tub, I saw only a faint bath ring. The vast, deep darkness of the Empty Spaces was gone. Good. I didn’t have a way to close a portal into another universe.
But had more predators come through? I couldn’t see anything, but I hadn’t seen that second one after it went flat on the floor.
I bent down and swiped my ghost knife against the floor, barely splitting the linoleum, then I did it again and again. The marks spiraled out one from another, covering the whole floor and moving up the walls and cabinets. I made long vertical slashes six inches apart, then I stepped up onto the toilet and did the same to the ceiling.
I was especially careful with the window. I didn’t want to cut it open, in case a predator was looking for a way out. I did scrape through the wooden jamb and latch, though.
Then I fell to my knees and opened the cabinet under the sink. I cut through all of it, including the drainpipe. There was no keening sound, and while one of these predators might have escaped down the drain, I doubted it. The space under the door was much larger than the pipe, and it would have been a struggle to squeeze through.
Two. There had only been two. I was blearily glad that I’d turned on the air-conditioning and closed the bathroom window.
And I couldn’t stand the burning on my skin anymore. I’d forced myself to stay and search the bathroom carefully, but the pain had become unbearable.
I ran into the kitchen, stuck my head in the sink, and sprayed cold water into my hair. The effect was sudden and wonderful—my skin was still hurting, but the acid film dissolved and washed away on contact with the water.
I did my hands, my neck, and my face. Finally, I got a turkey baster out of a drawer, filled it with water, and sprayed the water into my nostrils several times.
Better. Better. I still felt the pain, but at least it wasn’t getting any worse.
I wandered back into the bathroom. It was all ruined, of course. Melly would need a contractor to come in here to fix what I’d done, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry. The pain was still there, and my fear was too recent. I picked up a bottle of aloe gel and began dabbing the stuff onto my face. It dulled the pain even more.
I glanced down at my sleeve. It was wet but perfectly clean. The predator had wrapped itself around my arm, but it hadn’t left a stain on my clothes.
The predators had hurt my skin in exactly the same way that Summer’s handprint had, and Caramella’s slaps. They were hard to see, too. When they were attacking they looked a lot like heat shimmers in the air. But the predator that had squeezed under the door had gone flat and vanished. I’d looked right at it and hadn’t seen it.
It was invisible. Just like Summer.
Summer had to have one of these predators on her, and she must have been protected from it somehow. Well, “somehow” wasn’t really much of a mystery. Someone had cast a spell on her. She was wrapped up by a predator that wanted to devour her but couldn’t.
The thought gave me shivers.
My face felt a little stiff and I looked like I had a bit of sunburn, but that was all. I’d gotten off easy.
Back in the living room, the pile of goop on the floor looked smaller. Was my mind playing a trick, or was the dead predator dissolving? I took a sock from a drawer in the bedroom and laid it beside the gray mess. Slowly, the goop receded from it. It was vanishing on its own. How considerate.
I took a chair from the desk and sat beside it. My hands were shaking. It was strange that my hands were shaking so long after the fight. I kept control. I breathed as slowly and as evenly as I could while the predator’s corpse vanished in front of me.
Under normal circumstances, I would have burned Melly’s house to the ground. These weren’t normal circumstances because this was Melly’s house. When she and her guy returned …
I looked around. The faint garbage stink was still there. The place felt empty. They weren’t coming back—I knew they weren’t—and to hell with this pretty little house.
I fetched a cotton robe, a candle, and a lighter from the bathroom, then closed all the curtains. I lit the candle and arranged it and the robe beside the edge of the couch. Then I lit the robe. The flames spread down to the throw pillows, and I knew that it would soon spread to the curtains and carpet.
The lock on the front door was still broken. I went out the back way, walked down the block, and got into my car. I didn’t drive by Melly’s house. I wouldn’t have been able to see the flames behind the curtains, and I didn’t want to try.
Five years ago, Melly had been a good friend to me. We’d been part of the same crew, had joked and laughed together. Now, as a wooden man in the society, I was burning her house down.
I didn’t want to think about that, but I felt like a complete bastard.
What to do next? It was after three in the morning; the sun wouldn’t rise for hours, and I’d never be able to sleep. There was no use going to Violet’s place. If Arne had gone out looking for cars to steal, he would have already quit for the night. At best, he’d be at Long Beach, loading stolen SUVs into shipping containers. The very early morning hours were no good for boosting cars, he’d always said. No one else was on the street, and it was too easy to get noticed.