Something suddenly clamped down on my right biceps. It looked like an eagle’s talon, but it was huge—easily bigger than my own hand—and it was mottled, greenish, and flaking. It squeezed, and the pressure was enormous.
My ghost knife was trapped in my right hand. I placed the revolver against the thing’s wrist and fired off another shot. The sound of the gunshot near my face was like a whole new kind of punishment, and burning gunpowder struck my lips and ear.
The bullet deflected off the thing’s bones, but not before tearing through its thin flesh. The pain must have startled it, because it released me. I pivoted into the corner of the closet. The room was still dim and gray at the edges, and I could see the talon where it had reached out of the darkness. I swung the ghost knife up at it, but my arm wouldn’t work right, and I struck it along one talon instead of straight through the leg.
The end of the talon fell away, clunking onto the floor, and the crackling hiss turned into a sort of grinding shriek.
The darkness was flowing around and against me now, and I could barely see. The weight of it held me against the wall and made it difficult to lift my arms. The section of the wall I’d cut burst with a loud crack, and I felt the darkness moving toward it like a current of water. I pushed toward it, almost blind now, desperate to get out into clean, breathable air. As it grew heavier, the shadow around me began to feel like worms crawling on my skin. The darkness was not an effect, like a squid’s ink cloud. It was part of this thing’s body.
I grabbed the edge of the hole, but the plaster broke off in my hand. At that moment, I heard and felt the whole wall buckle outward. The predator, whatever it was, was entering our world, and it was too big to fit in Wally’s bedroom.
I reached the hole in the wall just as a talon scraped along my back. I cried out; each talon was like a slashing knife, and I could feel the darkness inside my nose and sinuses, wriggling and alive. I shot at it again, but my grip was all wrong and the recoil knocked the gun out of my hand.
Then I was through the hole, stumbling across the back of a toppled shelving unit and falling to my hands and knees. This predator had gotten inside me, and it hurt; I had to get outside. At least I’d be able to breathe out there, and run.
A talon caught my right ankle. I spun immediately to swipe the ghost knife through its wrist, but it was so strong that it was already dragging me back. Fast, so fast—I knew I’d be pulled into that dark line before I could cut myself free.
The back door burst open and Talbot charged in, revolver at the ready. I could barely see him through the gray, but I shouted: “It’s got me! Shoot it!”
There was nothing to shoot, not really. There was only a hole in the wall and a growing shadow spreading through it, but Talbot aimed his weapon into the darkness and squeezed off five shots, handling the recoil better than I had, and sending each round at a slightly different angle.
The talon released me after the third shot. “Let’s go!” I shouted. He pulled me through the door, my injured ankle banging painfully across the back of the metal shelves. I struggled to get my good left foot under me and hopped along beside him, fleeing the house as fast as I could.
Annalise was running toward us. “Boss—” I yelled, but I didn’t get to finish because just then the washing machine smashed through the wall and flew by me like it had been flung by a tornado.
Talbot jumped away, even though it had already gone by. I lost my balance, stepped onto my injured foot, and fell.
All the windows along the front burst outward, shutters and boards along with the glass. The whole cabin buckled out like an aboveground pool overfilled with water. I heard the groans of straining wood along with the bursts and cracks of breaking beams. The roof split and began to spread apart.
Annalise plucked a green ribbon from her vest and threw it into the open doorway.
At the same moment, that claw came rushing out of the darkness. The ribbon fluttered between the predator’s fingers and disappeared into the darkness. With her left hand, Annalise caught the middle of the creature’s three talons, holding it at arm’s length.
But although she had the strength to hold the predator off, she didn’t have the mass. Her boots slid in the gravel as the thing pushed at her. The other talons tried to scrape at her.
Green light flared inside the house. Annalise leaned back, pulling on the predator’s talon just as it tried to retreat. She braced against the crooked doorjamb with her right hand, holding the creature in place while the fire burned. The hissing crackle became a grinding shriek again, but this time it was three times as loud.
The green light shone on her face, and I’ll never forget her expression. She was fierce and joyful, her eyes wide and wild, her teeth bared.
Then the darkness spilling out of the doorway retreated back inside. The talon went limp in her hands, and the limb it was attached to dropped as though someone had let go of the other end. Annalise tossed the talon behind her without looking back, and it nearly landed on me. The thing had been burned off above the elbow. The talons twitched, scraping at the gravel, and for a moment I was sure it was going to start crawling at me, like a hand from an old horror movie.
But it didn’t. Annalise walked into the house. The building groaned and shifted, but it didn’t collapse on her. Yet.
I turned and saw Talbot standing at the edge of the gravel lot. He stared at the house—at us—in amazement, his mouth hanging open. If this was his first real experience with spells and predators, he was having pretty much the same reaction I’d had—stunned disbelief.
Of course, I’d been a citizen. Talbot was already a wooden man; he should have been better prepared. Had the society warned him what this was going to be like? I doubt Csilla would have, but somebody should have.
Something moved in the woods behind him. “Talbot!” I said in a harsh whisper. “Come here!”
He stared at me as if I was a talking dog. A shadow behind him moved against a darker shadow.
“Wake up! Get over here!”
He didn’t want to come any closer to the house than he already was. Then he realized I was glancing over his shoulder and turned, taking a few tentative steps toward me. The wind hissed through the trees, but suddenly it didn’t sound very much like wind at all.
Damn. There was another one out there.
Talbot hurried to me and crouched low. “Call your boss out here,” he said, as though he wasn’t allowed to talk to her.
“Shh!” I struggled to my feet, using Talbot as a support. I hadn’t seen any eyes on the one inside, but that wasn’t necessarily unusual. Did it hunt by sound? By smell? Maybe it could feel its prey with its expanding shadow. Then again maybe it saw “with something other than light.” Whatever, I wanted to be as still and quiet as possible until Annalise finished whatever she was doing inside.
The security light at the front of the house flickered and went out, making the whole area clear in the moonlight. To the left, I saw another dark patch moving against the faintly lit background. Then another and another.
Christ, how many of these damn things had Wally summoned?
I watched them, hoping they were moving away from us. Maybe there was a deer or something they could hunt. It wasn’t happening. The darkness was getting larger, blocking out the moonlit leaves and underbrush. Were they growing or just moving closer to us?
Either way, to hell with keeping still and quiet. “Boss!” I shouted. “There are more out here!”
Talbot backed toward the house, and I hopped to keep up with him so I’d have someone to lean on. I didn’t trust my ankle enough to walk on it. Annalise still hadn’t come out. “Boss!” I shouted again.