I took out my ghost knife. When I killed the predator in Melly’s house, I’d had to cut it ten or twelve times before it died. Maybe it had a weak spot, but I didn’t know how to find it.
I took a deep breath; I’d need steady hands for this. Judging by the cheesecloth, the creature was spread thin over her skin. There was no way I could cut it without also cutting her. That was okay. The ghost knife wouldn’t hurt her while she was alive—it would just alter her personality for a while. The predator—this drape—was made partly of magic, so it
I heard movement somewhere nearby—this was an apartment building full of people. I imagined the Twenty Palace Society arriving and airlifting Caramella to a secret base in the desert somewhere, where a team of scientists in hazmat suits waited to save her life. Too bad I didn’t have a copter or a desert lab. I didn’t even have a pair of safety goggles. And the society, even though it was still hours away, would rather burn her to cinders than try to save her.
It was just me, and if Melly was going to come through this, I would have to cut the predator off of her by myself.
No more stalling. I moved the ghost knife close to her face, thinking I would scrape it along the skin of her cheek, possibly over her lips to clear her airway. How long had it been blocking her mouth and nose, or was it breathing for her?
The drape seemed to tense as I came close, and when the ghost knife plunged into it, the cheesecloth over Caramella’s rib cage suddenly jerked upward. I heard her bones crack, and beneath the cloth her mouth opened in a silent scream.
Then she seemed to sag, and her lips stopped trembling. Her head rolled slightly to the side. It wasn’t a big change in position, but it looked as though the strength had gone out of her. The predator had killed her.
I closed my eyes and lowered my head. Melly had just died in front of me—had just died
I wanted to tear the cheesecloth off her—she deserved a more dignified shroud, but if I did that, there would be no evidence of her at all. I heard more voices outside, and I quashed the urge to yell at them to shut up. People shouldn’t be shouting at their kids. They should have respect for the dead.
A strange buzzing voice spoke from somewhere near me. Then I heard a second and a third. Something groaned and creaked like a ship in heavy seas. Then there was another crack—this time not coming from Caramella’s body. This one sounded like the world was breaking open.
I slashed the ghost knife through Caramella’s head. A pale gray line appeared where I cut the predator.
I felt that strange keening again, and I took a savage joy in it. I slashed a second and third time, as the buzzing voices grew around me until they became that furious beehive noise I’d heard in Melly’s home. Was this drape calling to others like it?
There was a sudden thump on the couch above me, and for one terrified moment I thought another predator had landed beside me. But it wasn’t a drape; it was Jasmin. She’d broken away from her grandmother and run back inside.
“What’s that noise?!” she shouted.
Beneath Caramella, the floor vanished, revealing an opening into the swirling black mists of the Empty Spaces.
CHAPTER SIX
The shrouded figure of Melly dropped into the darkness, and I fought for balance at the edge of the portal. The back legs of the couch were also over the void. The couch tipped downward and began to slide into the opening, scraping the edge of the wooden floor.
Jasmin screamed as she pitched forward. I lunged at her, throwing all my weight over the gap. I didn’t think about it; I had no plan or courage. I just moved.
The couch pitched over backward as the front legs caught on the edge of the floor. I clamped my hand on Jasmin’s wrist, my knee slamming onto the arm of the chair, my ghost knife slipping from my grasp and tumbling into the darkness.
I wish I could say I’d been graceful about it, that I’d grabbed her arm and hopped lightly to safety. But in truth I scrambled across the tumbling couch, snagging my shoe on the arm and trying desperately to throw some of my body weight onto the solid part of the floor.
It didn’t happen. The couch floated away from me as my weight pressed on it. I slammed my left hand down on the carpeted living room floor and tried to keep my left foot in the solid world, too, but it slipped free and I swung out over the void.
My hand pressed down on the floor, stopping my fall. Once my body weight dropped below the level of the room, I wasn’t falling anymore. Like the couch, I had momentum, but the void didn’t pull me downward because there was nothing to fall toward. The friction of my left hand against Vi’s carpet held me in place, and I started to pull myself back up. I glanced down at Jasmin. She stared at me with huge, terrified eyes.
Suddenly, a strange pulse pulled me downward. It wasn’t like the tug of gravity—this felt as though something huge was trying to breathe me in. My mind only had room for one gigantic thought:
Something grabbed my left wrist, and I cried out in panic. I pulled myself high enough to see Maria on her knees holding my forearm like a baseball bat. For a moment I had an absurd fear that she was going to lift my hand and fling me into the void, but instead she pressed down, anchoring me in this world.
“Here!” I lifted Jasmin as high as I could.
Maria let go, snatched her granddaughter, and dragged her into the world. She pushed the little girl toward the door and, bless her, started toward me again.
“Get out of here!”
She grabbed my wrist again. “What’s happening? What’s happening?”
