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Something black and humanoid lay on the bed.
A body?
No. The firemen and the cops would’ve found it.
Couldn’t be alive either.
It seemed...flat. That must be a stain where something...or somebody had burned?
I gagged, my body rolling with the violence of it. Bitter burned the back of my throat, and I wiped the water away from the corner of my eyes.
Dammit. This was so not what I needed. No more corpses or death sites—they attracted the creatures.
My body threatened mutiny again, but I clamped down hard, fighting the spasm until it faded away. I drew air in through my cupped hand, an effort to stifle any noise, but it just left me sounding like an asthmatic mouse—a mouse creeping through the house of the dead.
The blackness moved.
Beginning with the head, it slowly peeled itself off the stained quilt.
A yawning void that flowed onto the floor, stretching in height until it brushed the ceiling.
Empty.
Soundless.
Like the scream stuck in my throat.
Tendrils wriggled.
It widened.
Blurred.
Shit! Was my sight failing?
Fear spiked cold as I imagined facing the thing blindly.Thiswas the price of leaving Val. Fucked if I stayed, fucked for running away.
I swallowed slowly.
Neme pushed past my leg and made the first noise I had heard from her—a growl that crackled as if a storm raged inside her.
“Good girl.” My voice was hoarse with gratitude. “I see it.”
Headlights flooded the room, a brief beacon of light before it swept away. The creature cast no shadow—much of its bulk refused to be illuminated. Behind, the wall writhed with flittered light, as if nothing was there.
If I can’t see it, maybe it can’t hurt me?
If I wished hard enough...clicked my glittery shoes.
This was a nightmare creature. Wishes were probably illegal where it came from.
I had the knife. Knife, gun?
Knife. I hadn’t peed on my bullets recently.
The tendrils strained toward me, and I backed slowly away. There was fighting. And there was stupid. Now was not the time to win a Darwin award.
As I drew the knife, it stuck to the sheath, coming out in tiny jolts. Every one of them a stab in my chest, my heart aching as it contracted in fear.
