Annalise was still lying on top of the desk, and as I expected, she wasn’t even singed. I kept looking at her, so small and frail-seeming, but so filled with power, because I didn’t want to look at what I’d done.
A shadow moved on the wall. I turned back and saw another person at the door. There were two more behind him and who knows how many I couldn’t see.
My dirty work wasn’t finished. I moved my foot through the murky water until I found my length of pipe, then I pulled it out of a pile of bones. They came at me.
“They” were a skinny boy of about fourteen, a middle-aged woman with the hunched back of a vulture, and an old man with too much belly and too little biceps. They were all holding hatchets. I could see by their expressions that they weren’t going to back down. I didn’t need them to. I had my pipe.
It took less than half a minute for me to put all three on the ground. I left them alive because I could, but they wouldn’t be bothering anyone for a while.
They screamed curses at me. I was the one who wanted to kill their beloved sapphire dog, and they were sure I deserved to die. I didn’t bother to disagree. I felt my ghost knife nearby and
I carried Annalise to her van and laid her in the back. Then I found a tow truck near the edge of the parking lot with a full ashtray and a pile of fast-food wrappers on the floor. I cracked the ignition and backed it into the corner of the church, smashing through the wood frame and breaking partway inside.
Then I cut my way into the building with the ghost knife and made a slit in the truck’s gas tank. I used a book of matches to set a grease-stained brown paper bag alight and let the flames spread. The pews were already engulfed when I ran back to the van.
Someone was going to investigate the deaths in Washaway. Someday. The fire was clumsy, but it would at least explain away the charred bones I’d left behind, as long as no one thought too hard about it.
I had Annalise and I had the van. Leaving town didn’t make sense, but I could certainly hide inside Steve’s house until another peer arrived. How long could that be? I’d failed to kill the sapphire dog more than once, and now it was with Zahn, a sorcerer strong enough to take out my boss. Sure, I’d surprised him once with a sucker punch, but he’d be ready for me next time. It wasn’t as if I had a big bag of tricks.
I had every reason to run. I didn’t even know where Zahn had gone, and I certainly wasn’t going to drive around looking for his Mercedes with more pets on the loose.
But then I realized there was only one way to transport the sapphire dog.
I turned the key in the ignition and pulled into the road.
My calf started to ache. I looked down and saw blood on my pants. I’d been stabbed. I was also wet, jacketless, and a fucking child-killer. I began to shiver and had to pull to the shoulder of the road until the feeling passed.
I turned the heat on and held my fingers in front of the vent. Then I found a first-aid kit behind the seat and taped a wad of gauze over the stab wound. It wasn’t a large cut, certainly not large enough to kill over. I rubbed my hands together to warm them. I’d think about those people tomorrow. Not today. Today I would think about the ones who still needed killing.
I drove past the Breakleys’ home and up the long hill toward the Wilbur estate. The gate was wide open. I drove up the long empty driveway and parked just out of sight of the house.
“Don’t go anywhere, boss.”
I climbed from the van and closed the door as quietly as I could. There was no sound other than the wind through the trees. I jogged uphill toward the house, keeping low.
Beside the house, at the edge of the asphalt parking lot, I found Esteban’s plumbing truck. I went around to the other side and found a half dozen corpses. They were pets, and they had been beaten to death. The nearest one was the pastor—he had a dent in the side of his head about the size of Zahn’s fist.
I couldn’t beat Zahn in a fair fight, and I didn’t see any reason to try. I ran to the corner of the building, squeezed between it and two well-trimmed bushes. The unlit woven Christmas lights snagged at my shirt. I peeked into the nearest window. The room had stacks of fabric and a little sewing machine set where it would catch the sun. No people, though.
I heard broken glass from the backyard. I hoped it was Zahn.
I was only going to get one chance. Jumping out of the bushes wasn’t good enough. I needed to hit him before he knew he was being hit.
I cut the lock on the front door, then rushed into the entrance hall. The house was dark, quiet, and smelled like spoiled pork. I rushed to the nearest door on the left and pushed it open. The stink of rotting flesh washed over me. Stephanie Wilbur lay on the floor, still in her green-and-gold outfit, and it was clear she’d been there awhile. Someone had shot her in the chest and closed the door on her.
I hurried to the windows. There were three of them, each twice as tall as me and arched at the top, but made of individual squares of glass no larger than my hand. They gave me a good view of the open back of the truck. I crouched low and pressed my face against the glass, looking toward the backyard. I couldn’t see far.
I heard them before I saw them. I stepped away from the window and curled my arm against my chest, ghost knife ready. They were talking very loudly, very excitedly. Or one of them was. Zahn spoke German in a low, somewhat bemused voice, while the other voice was loud but halting, as though the speaker was struggling with the language.
Then they came into view. Zahn was carrying the Plexiglas cage from the cottage, and Ursula was carrying a car battery. The sapphire dog lounged on the bottom of the pen, brightly lit by the floodlights at the corners. It was facing away from me. Ursula babbled enthusiastically.
They did not look up at the house and did not suspect I was watching. When they came about even with me, I threw the ghost knife.
There was only one target that made sense. Ursula wasn’t important, and Zahn was too powerful for me to take on. Any fight between us would just set the predator free again and get me killed.
