enough.”
He took another step toward me.
I backed toward the Lexus, then around it to the work area. There were plenty of things there I could use as a weapon, but not against someone like him. I took out my ghost knife.
Wally laughed at it. From under his shirt, a half-dozen tendrils appeared, coiled like snakes. Would they catch my ghost knife or slap it away? I wasn’t sure which would be worse.
Wally floated upward as though he was being lifted off his feet. He looked pretty startled as he tumbled onto his side. At the same moment, Arne dropped his invisibility.
Wally fell inside the red circle. Arne fell on top of him.
I already had Arne’s gun in my hand. He turned toward me—maybe he wanted to say something, or maybe he wanted to meet my gaze one last time, the way friends do.
I didn’t give him the chance. I put a bullet into his head.
Skull and brain splashed out of the exit wound onto Wally’s ruined face. He laughed. “Oh, gross,” he said, “but it’s just what the doctor ordered,” then made as if to lick it.
He realized his error a moment too late. The floor vanished. Wally gasped as he fell into the upsurge of drapes. I could see his gaping expression of horror dropping away, distorted through a filmy screen of fast-moving predators.
Gone. Thank God.
Suddenly, a tentacle shot out of the swirling mass of drapes, crossed the red circle, and slammed down on the hood of the Lexus. The breeze it made as it zipped by my face ruffled my hair. I stumbled back, almost falling, as a second limb shot out of the dark and lodged itself on the undercarriage.
The Lexus lurched forward, knocking me onto the ground. One of the tentacles had punched through the underbody at just the right spot to grab the front axle. A third punched through the grill and secured itself against something inside.
I jumped to my feet and slashed the ghost knife through the nearest tentacle. It parted like smoke, then joined together again. A fourth tentacle snaked under the body, and all of them flexed, pulling themselves out of the Empty Spaces.
I ran to the passenger door just as the Lexus slid forward again, straining against its brakes. Damn if I wasn’t on the wrong side of the car, but there was no time to run around.
I yanked the door open and dove inside. I slammed the gearshift into neutral, then grabbed the parking-brake release.
I pressed the button and slammed it down; it let go and the Lexus wrenched forward. Metal under the hood strained and groaned. I scrambled backward, the idea of falling into the Empty Spaces in this ridiculous car giving me frantic speed. My feet hit the ground and my upper body spun as the SUV glided forward, the frame scraping across the concrete lip as the front wheels fell into the void.
Then I was out, on my hands and knees on the concrete, as the Lexus tipped into the opening and disappeared. The drapes retreated and the floor became concrete again.
Alone. I began to laugh.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My laughter didn’t last long. It only took a few moments before a terrible lonely silence came over me. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling overhead. It would be full dark soon. Maybe I could shut my eyes and sleep on the concrete.
I stood and walked out into the center of the circle. My feet scuffed against the concrete. A sudden bout of vertigo made me stagger, as if one misstep would topple me into the void after my friends.
But of course that wasn’t going to happen. The hole had sealed over and they were gone. Arne, Ty, Robbie, Summer, Bud, and, oh God, Melly … They had all gone down into a grave as deep as the universe, into a darkness where I could never follow, and I was left standing there breathing parched air and squinting against the light of the setting sun. The ground beneath me was unyielding, and I was alone.
Wandering through the building, I found, among other things, a suitcase with a bunch of clean unfolded laundry inside and a case of bottled water—Arne’s jump bag? I stripped off my pants and tossed them aside in favor of a pair of long plaid surfer shorts. They looked stupid, but they didn’t have Wally’s predator puke all over them.
I rinsed the ghost knife with a couple of bottles of water. The green goop stuck to the plastic, but I managed to wipe it off on a clean spot of my ruined pants. When that was done, I tossed my pants into the oil Arne had spilled.
Arne had said he’d run out of time to finish what he had to do, and now he was dead. I walked around the building to the digger and started it up. I had no idea how to use it, but a little trial and error made the basics clear.
I lurched the machine around to the back of the building and spent the next half hour scraping loose dirt out of the berm over Francois’s body. It was hard going at first, but I managed to finish just before sundown. It wouldn’t fool the cops if they decided to search, of course, but I thought it would pass a casual inspection.
The building was metal and concrete; I couldn’t exactly burn it down the way Annalise always did. Sure, there were plenty of flammable liquids, and cars burn real nice, but it wouldn’t totally wreck the place. It would, however, draw firefighters and cops.
I found an oil pan and slid it beneath the Audi, then cut the brake line and collected the dripping fluid.
There was a shop broom by the front door. I dipped the bristles into the brake fluid and scraped it over the painted floor. While I couldn’t burn the place down, I didn’t have to leave a functioning circle. I scraped at it until it was nothing but faint smears of red. Then I threw a bunch of Arne’s old clothes onto the floor and pushed them around with the broom until they were ruined and the circle was barely visible.
After that, I swept the spilled oil from the barrel across the floor until it washed around the green glop Wally had puked on himself. Cement building or not, that crap would have to burn. I tossed my ruined pants into the pile.
