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chatter with a sound of dismay. "Somebody could be doing this without knowing it."
"They could be eating bodies, stripping them of their souls, and leaving the corpses on unmarked territory
without knowing it?" Billy's voice rose sharply enough that the handful of remaining detectives looked around
at each other again, then, to a man, started mumbling about coffee breaks. In a rustle of coats, heavy boots and
slamming doors, we were alone. Billy glowered after them. "Nobody offered to bring us a cup back."
"I wouldn't have, either. Look, I'm just saying it's possible. Maybe not probable, but the human psyche is
messed-up territory. So we need to pursue this, but for the first time I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't go in with
all guns blazing."
My cell phone gave its six-note warning that a text message was coming in as I finished speaking. So did
Billy's. We both went still, my tense expression mirrored on his face, and I silently put a fist on one palm. He
echoed the motion and we beat our fists against our palms in tandem, one two three.
I came up scissors. He came up rock. I swore and stood up to pull my phone out of my pocket, reading the
message out loud: "Possible new victim. Positive identification, oh, shit."
"What?" Billy was on his feet, leaning toward me like the tension in his body would negate whatever I had to
say. "Who?"
I pressed my hand over my mouth, fingers icy, belly cramping. "I'm sorry, Billy. I'm so sorry. It's Mandy
Tiller."
And it was unquestionably my fault.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mandy was still breathing when we got there.
We were fast: the paramedics were only just pulling into the driveway when we reached the Tillers' home, a few
blocks away from Billy's. The fact that there were paramedics at all pushed some of the churning terror in my
stomach aside and made room for something almost worse: hope. No one else had needed a paramedic. I fell
out of Billy's van and ran across the Tillers' lawn, skidding across snow to reach Mandy's side.
Unlike the other victims, she had only one bite mark. A stretched-out wound had torn her coat and shirt and left
a broad toothy gash in her forearm. A pool of blood stained the stairs under her head, which was both horrible
and wonderful. All the others had been found in clean sites, and I knew for certain Mandy hadn't been attacked
miles away and been dumped on her own front steps. I'd been with her barely an hour earlier.
A paramedic put a hand on my shoulder. "Excuse me, ma'am."
I whispered, "Ten seconds. Just give me ten seconds. Please," and let the Sight wash over everything.
Blood seeped from her skull, a simple but significant wound that cried out for healing. I clenched my hands,
wishing I had time, wishing I didn't have an audience. But the paramedics could care for the head wound; what I
was more worried about was the utter nothingness which had surrounded all the other victims. And though
unlike them, Mandy still breathed, she also had no spark of life. Her aura didn't even lie flat against her skin,
giving me some hint of her well-being. It was just gone.
What I could See were vestiges of my own power, familiar silver-blue tendrils still lingering from our adventure
earlier in the day. I jerked around to look at Billy with the Sight, searching for similar remnants around him, and
found nothing. But it had been weeks since I'd used my power on him, and even then it hadn't been the kind of
physical shield I'd used on Mandy. I didn't know if the residue had protected her in some way or not, but even if
it had, that didn't exactly balance out setting her up as a potential victim in the first place.
While I was looking at Billy, the paramedics swooped in and got Mandy onto a stretcher. Jake Tiller sat on top
of the porch steps, wrapped in a huge winter jacket and blank-gazed with fear. One of the paramedics offered
his hand. Jake took it blindly, letting the man guide him down the stairs toward the ambulance. The poor boy's
aura was static white, shock too great for his true colors to wash through. Billy, a few yards away, was talking
to the cop who'd texted us, and I heard the guy say, "The kid came home from ball practice and found his mom
lying on the steps. He called 911. Probably saved her life."
"He's smart," Billy agreed. "Friends with my son." I let the rest of their conversation fade away as I turned my
gaze to the snow-littered steps and yard.
Anybody else and I might've thought she'd slipped on the stairs and cracked her head, but I knew Mandy Tiller
hadn't received a gash-toothed bite on her arm that morning. I'd have healed it if she had. So the thing had come
after her, and somehow, it had failed to walk away with her life. I was less certain about the safety of her soul.
There were imprints in the snow on the uncovered porch, just like the ones I'd seen yesterday morning. I didn't
touch them this time, afraid I'd flatten them into nothing and destroy any chance of a lead. I'd seen, that
morning, how far this thing could jump in a single bound. And it did jump, traversing space like it was real. But
then, so did I, when I separated from my body. I didn't float through walls or fly up to rooftops. I walked
through the doors and climbed stairs, treating the astral world essentially like the real one.
It was a paltry thing to go on, but at least it was something. I stood up and followed their imprints' potential
trajectory, scanning the yard and sidewalk and street without finding a hint of where the thing might have
landed. Neighbor's yard, across the street, empty. No trees bigger than bushes to ricochet off anywhere in easy
sight.
A quick wash of snow, unsettled by the rumble of ambulance engines, slid off the roof and poofed into the yard,
narrowly missing the porch. I flinched, reminded of the avalanche.
More snow flopped down, less vigorously than if someone had shoveled it, but with a certain amount of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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