“Man, I don’t know,” I told him. “But I intend to try. I have some questions for you, and I’m going to want to check out the black mark in your house, but I’m not going to be able to do any of that if you shoot me.”
Harlan looked down at the gun in his hand and blinked.
I kept my voice low. “Can I have that gun, please?” That was when we heard the sirens.
Harlan backed away and lifted the rifle. “I’m not crazy,” he yelled. “I was married. I had two little kids!”
Goose bumps prickled on my neck. “I know, Harlan. I believe you.”
“Someone in this town is going to tell me where they are. Someone knows what’s happened to them.”
“Harlan,” I said. His expression had become hard and distant. “You’re that someone. None of these people can remember. Only you.”
A police car turned the corner and stopped in the road, lights flashing.
Harlan looked at it like a man nearing the end of a big job. Suddenly, I understood. He was done. His kids were gone, and he was going to commit suicide by cop.
“Harlan, don’t do it. There are other kids in town,” I said, thinking of the two kids at the gas station. “You could help me put a stop to this. You might be the only one who-“
He leveled the gun at my chest. His face was calm. “Why don’t you go back into the diner now,” he said in a resigned voice. “Before something bad happens to you.”
He was aiming at my chest. Would the tattoos there protect me if he squeezed the trigger?
I had no idea how to talk him down. I imagine cops and paramedics are trained in that sort of thing, but I was just an ex-car thief.
I laid my hand against the pocket containing my ghost knife. I could feel it there, thrumming with life. If talking wouldn’t work…
Harlan turned away from the flashing lights on the patrol car and looked up the street. His eyes narrowed. I followed his gaze.
A wolf stood in the road. I’d never seen one outside a zoo before, but I recognized it immediately. The fur along its back was tinged with red, and it stared at us, standing sideways as though it wanted to present the largest possible target.
It was big. I don’t know much about wolves, but it looked much bigger than I’d have expected. Then again, when Harlan had pointed his rifle at me, it looked like a.90 caliber. Fear can do that.
Harlan swung the rifle to his shoulder and fired. I saw the bullet chip the asphalt between the animal’s legs. The wolf bolted, running down the street and out of sight.
Harlan worked the bolt of his rifle. I slid my hand into my pocket and took out my ghost knife.
Harlan saw me out of the corner of his eye. He spun and slammed the butt of his rifle against my hand, smashing it against my hip. The ghost knife fell onto the street, and I staggered a few feet away from it.
He aimed the rifle at my face. I didn’t have any tattoos to protect me there.
“It was just a piece of paper,” I said.
Harlan glanced at the ghost knife and confirmed that what I was saying was true. Without a word, he swung his weapon around and sighted down the street, looking for the wolf.
I had cast the spell that created the ghost knife, and I could sense it there on the asphalt. I opened my hand and
According to the spell book I’d copied it from, a ghost knife cuts “ghosts, magic, and dead things.” The wood and metal locks of the Bentons’ front door were dead things, and the ghost knife cut through them easily. It could also destroy magic spells like my tattoos or the sigil on Annalise’s scrap of wood; the results weren’t always pretty.
But every living person has a ghost in them. At least, the spell thinks so, because when I use it on people, it passes through their bodies as though they aren’t there and cuts at their “spirit.”
And that’s all I know about it. Even though I cast the spell myself from an old book I’d acquired under less- than-honest circumstances, and even though I’d used it a few times against people who were trying to kill me, I had no idea how it worked or what it truly did. As with so much else having to do with magic, Annalise, and her society, I was in the dark.
The ghost knife zipped across the few feet separating us and entered Harlan’s body just below his armpit. His shirt fell open where the ghost knife sliced through it, but the laminated paper plunged into his body without leaving a visible mark. A moment later, the spell exited through the other side as if he wasn’t even there.
Harlan sagged. His eyes dulled, and what ever was driving him to shoot up the town dwindled away. That’s what the ghost knife did; it stole away aggression and vitality for a while. The effects of the spell were temporary- at least, they seemed to be.
Harlan lowered his rifle. I stepped toward him, ready to take the weapon away. The left side of Harlan’s rib cage burst open. I never heard the gunshot. I only saw the exit wound. Blood splattered my left hand, and I felt the bullet whiz past me.
Harlan collapsed, falling onto his face on the street.
I looked up and saw a cop moving toward us, his revolver pointed at Harlan. “Move away!” the cop yelled. “Move away from the body!”
I was frozen in place. The cop pointed the gun at my face. He asked me who I was, and I told him.
He told me to move back again. I took a step back. The cop kicked the rifle just like they do on TV. It slid away up the street.
