“You’re trying to kill everybody.”
“Everybody dies anyway, Ray. I’ve seen it. If things keep going the way they are, what happened to Caramella will look like passing peacefully in your sleep. And you know what? Drapes and cousins and sapphire dogs—that shit is really painful and scary for people. But I’m not about that. Just because I plan to euthanize the world doesn’t mean I want to be a dick about it. My plan is supposed to make things easier. Make it, you know, quick and painless.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” I said.
“Too late. I already decided. Ray, do you want to know why the outsiders are so anxious to get here, to our world? Do you know why they’re desperate to escape the Deeps?”
“What outsiders are you talking about?”
Wally touched a lump on his face. “The society calls them predators, which is correct but doesn’t really describe everything they are, and calls their home the Empty Spaces, which is a pretty stupid name for a place that’s so full of weirdness. Ray, do you know why they want to get here so badly?”
I didn’t like being instructed by Wally, but no one else ever wanted to explain things to me. Certainly not Annalise. “Tell me.”
“Because there’s no death there. I’m serious. The Deeps are teeming with outsiders, but they can’t feed on each other because they can’t kill and eat each other, because nothing there can die. So they’re stuck out there, desperate and starving. You think what happened to your friend was bad? She probably had a couple days of pain before she died. Maybe less. The outsiders hurt for decades—centuries, maybe—waiting for a chance to feed again.”
“And you want to help them to a snack.”
He sagged and looked disappointed. “No, Ray. I’m trying to save everyone from …” He stopped and looked around the room. The woman with the book had left, and no one had taken her place. In fact, the diner was only half as full as it was when I entered.
Wally sighed again. “Never mind. I had to try, okay? I owed you that. I know the Twenty Palace Society has brainwashed you, but I still think of you as the guy who stood between me and Rocky Downing at the edge of the basketball court. I know you have your heart in the right place, you just need to get your head there, too. Keep your eyes open, Ray. That’s all I’m saying. You can’t trust those society people. And you may decide soon that you want to stand between me and the bullies again.”
Wally swallowed the remaining two eggs, again without peeling them. Then he folded his soggy bacon, speared it with his fork, and gulped it down, too.
“Don’t get up,” he said as he stood. “I’m serious. You’re a great guy, but the truce only lasts while we’re here. I’m skipping town now anyway, so you should deal with the, uh, drapes. We’ll see each other again.” He laid a couple of bills on the table. It was more than enough to cover the check. “And I wish Curly-Head had waited on us. That was supposed to be part of the plan.”
Damn. He was leaving, and I hadn’t gotten anything truly useful out of him. “Wally, at least tell me how to stop the drapes.”
He snorted. “Is that how you’ve been doing it? Please please tell me what to do? Come on, I want to see some of your mad skills.”
I stood out of my chair and turned toward him. He stepped back, looking up at me in surprise and delight as though I was a plot twist in an exciting TV show. I reached into my pocket for my ghost knife.
But Wally had already placed his fingers in his mouth. He pulled out something small, wet, and red as blood. It was round like a Ping-Pong ball and gleamed like metal. Then it unfolded legs as long and slender as needles.
Wally tossed it over the counter into the kitchen. “Choices, choices,” he said and took one step backward. He passed through the wall like a phantom.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Damn. I was tempted to run out the front door after him, but a scream from the kitchen changed my mind. I vaulted over the counter.
The tile on the other side hadn’t been mopped recently. I landed on grease and nearly fell on my ass. I heard a clatter of shell on stone and a man’s cry of fear and disgust from the kitchen. I pushed through the door into the back.
It was a kitchen much like any restaurant kitchen. Everything was stainless steel, and the three Hispanic men at the stove were dressed in white with black hairnets. The tallest of them shrieked like a little girl and staggered back, away from the creature that was scuttling across the floor at him.
A short man snatched a huge pot of water off the stove and dropped it onto the creature. Boiling water splashed into the air, and the heavy pot clanged like a muffled bell.
Then it fell on its side. Steaming water rushed at me, and I jumped back too slowly. It sloshed through the fabric of my shoes, scalding my feet.
The little predator wasn’t affected. It charged at the man who’d dropped a pot on it and jumped onto his leg. Then it began to dig.
The man screamed and grabbed a ladle. He hit the predator with all his strength, trying to knock it away, but the ladle crumpled and the predator didn’t move an inch.
Blood splashed onto the floor and the predator burrowed deep into his flesh. The man fell, screaming full-throated now. His co-workers backed away in terror, screaming themselves.
I charged through the scalding water, grabbed the cook’s torn pants, and ripped them up to his thigh. The predator was visible as a bulge moving under his skin. I took my ghost knife and slashed through it.
My spell passed through the man’s flesh without damaging it, but the creature inside him was another matter. It exploded into a fireball as large as a basketball.
The cook, mercifully, fainted. I snatched a pot off a hook and filled it at the sink. Then I poured it over his burning clothes. The other cooks stared at me, dumbfounded. I said: “What do you think? Ambulance?” One of them blinked and lunged for a phone.
Wally’s waitress was standing at the edge of the kitchen, her body hunched in shock, her mouth hanging open. Behind her, also dressed in a waitress uniform, was Violet. “Vi, check your voice mail!”
I didn’t wait for a response. I ran out the back door into the parking lot, desperate to find Wally again.
I sprinted to the side of the building where Wally would have come through the wall, but there was no sign of him. I scanned the area, looking for a blob of a man in green. Nothing. The predator he’d thrown into the kitchen had distracted me, but not for more than a minute or so. I didn’t think he’d had enough time to get into a car and get away.
Unless he’d brought a driver. That would have been a smart play, but I didn’t believe for a moment that Wally had a friend in the whole world. Which would mean he was still on foot. Was he in one of the other stores, watching me? Was he walking through them, building after building, wall after wall, down the entire block in a place I couldn’t see him?
Did you know that some outsiders don’t use light to see? Now I’m sharing that gift, too, and it’s wild. Maybe he was watching me through a brick wall, waiting to see what I’d do. My skin tingled at the thought of it.
Violet came outside and edged toward me. She looked afraid of me. “Ray, what the hell is going on?”
“How well do you know the guy I was sitting with?”
Under other circumstances, she would have snapped at me for answering a question with another question. I wondered what my expression looked like. “Not at all,” she said. “He’s just a creep who’s been coming around lately.”
She was lying again, but I didn’t have time to press her on it. “All right. Listen: I think he’s still nearby, watching. I think he’s going to make sure he lost me before he goes back to wherever he’s staying. So I’m going to walk away, and you’re going to stand in the window of the café and watch for him. Understand? I’ll be back in five minutes or so.”