immediately, and I put it out of my mind.
I ran outside. When I reached the bullet-ridden window my ghost knife was in my hand, but I didn’t have a target. The sapphire dog was gone.
The soup-can footprints were right where I expected, running along the edge of the house into the woods. I followed the trail.
Catherine came out of the house and lightly jogged toward the car. I guess that was the best version of
She didn’t have a white mark, like Penny, but neither had Ursula. So why had my spell worked on Catherine but not Ursula? Maybe the predator had used its influence on her many times over the years. Maybe, after all that time, she had lost her ability to feel anything else, just like the people with the mark.
But this wasn’t the time to speculate. The footprints led to a horse trail. I peered into the woods, trying to see if the sapphire dog was hiding in the shadows, but I couldn’t see anything. Was it behind a bush or tree, waiting to feed on me when I got close? The thought of that bone-white tongue touching my face made me shiver. Maybe my iron gate would protect me, but I didn’t want to bet my life on it.
I turned on the flashlight. Lois Conner’s reloaded gun was in my pocket, and my ghost knife was in my right hand. The tracks led straight down the center of the trail—almost as if it was avoiding the greenery. I started after it.
Of course, it wasn’t native to this planet. Maybe it was
Which made me immediately think of Catherine. I couldn’t help but wonder who she might run into. What if she met the bartender again, and he invited her back to his place? Had the ghost knife taken away her ability to say no?
Damn. Maybe I should have asked her to come with me, but after I saw the look on her face, I didn’t want her anywhere near the sapphire dog. Catherine was smart and tough when she was herself, but the ghost knife turned people into victims.
The wind rustled the tree branches. I froze in place. Could the sapphire dog climb trees? It didn’t have hands or claws, but underestimating it could get me killed.
I had to put Catherine out of my mind for now. If I’d made a mistake in sending her out on her own, it was too late to fix it. I had to focus on the job at hand.
Where the hell was Pratt, anyway?
The flashlight beam could reach about ten feet—a respectable distance but not enough to show me the tops of the trees. I crouched beside a tree trunk and played the light along the path. The weird round footprints continued for as far as the beam could shine.
Of course, I’d seen the sapphire dog’s tracks lead in multiple directions—it might have left this trail for me to follow while crouching in the shadows to ambush me. I kept moving forward, putting all my thought, all my attention, into my sight and hearing. I examined every shadow, every rustle. My shoes had soaked through from the mud, and I spared a single, stupid moment envying the Fellows and their hiking boots.
Then I pushed that thought away. I crept forward, thinking about the sapphire dog, its glowing eyes, and its long, floppy ears. I didn’t know how fast it could move or how far it could travel without rest. I just kept going, determined to destroy it or be destroyed.
It didn’t ambush me, but I didn’t catch up to it, either. It was fleeing and I was being careful. I was never going to catch up to it this way. I increased my pace, my feet squishing loudly in the mud.
At the top of a rise, the trees and underbrush suddenly thinned. After fifteen feet of gentle slope, the ground flattened into the fairgrounds. Farther out there was a ring of halogen lights on poles set in a circle, and all the lamps were on. The locals were setting up the fair, although my view of them was obscured by the whitewashed buildings and a set of bleachers.
To my left was the high-peaked church. The back door was open, letting yellowish light into the yard. From this angle, I could see a little house behind it.
To the right were more woods, open fields, and darkness.
I shone the flashlight down into the mud. The sapphire dog’s trail split into three directions, just like on the Wilbur estate. On the left, the trail led across a muddy patch and then into the high grass beside the church. In front of me it led down the slope, and to the right it went through the bushes.
Crap. I ignored the footprints that led to the right into the underbrush—if the predator had avoided that sort of cover for this long, I doubted it would take it up now.
On impulse, I started down the slope toward the fairgrounds. The footprints were more difficult to find among the tree roots and hard soil of the hill, but they were there. They led straight out into the grass.
Maybe if I’d grown up a hunter, with weekend trips into the woods with deer rifles and orange earflap caps, I could have followed the predator’s tracks across the newly mown lawn. But I’d grown up on baseball and video games. I couldn’t find the trail or even tell if it ended suddenly like the ones on the Wilbur estate.
I didn’t like the way this looked. So far, the sapphire dog had been drawn to people and buildings. It had fled from its captors, sure, but it had gone from one house to another, feeding and controlling the residents.
The only people on the fairgrounds were the ones out in the lights setting up. If the sapphire dog was going to go for them, it would have had to angle more to the left, not straight ahead into the dark open space of the lawn.
I scrambled back up the hill. The left-hand tracks pointed directly toward the church and the open, lighted door. I followed them.
After about fifteen feet, the tracks disappeared. As expected. The grass was unmowed and dripping wet. By the time I was halfway there, my pants were soaked from the knee down.
A pickup truck backed up to the open door, and a short, wiry man began unloading boxes from the bed and carrying them inside. I switched off my flashlight and I walked toward the open door, the ghost knife in my hand and the gun in my pocket. On the near side of the church was a neatly mown lawn. On the far side was a cracked
