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He stood there for a second, just letting that sit, and then he climbed away. I stepped back and held my breath for a good long while, wishing it didn’t hurt so much to watch him go.
“What’re we doing here, blondie?”
“Just keep moving,” I replied.
I glanced past Ray Wagner at Bea, who was busy dragging family-slaughterer Tess Crowe out of her Jeep by the light of half a dozen cars’ headlights. All our friends except for Kevin—who was keeping watch on the weather vane in town—and Tristan—who was resting—were present. We’d decided that Bea should go first, since she claimed she was going to go insane if she had to spend one more minute in Tess’s presence. We stood back and watched as the woman gnashed her teeth and rolled her head around, Bea leading her by the length of rope that tied her wrists together. Jack Lancet slouched near the grille of Joaquin’s truck, his bulbous eyes wide, while Piper Malloy paced back and forth in front of Lauren and Fisher, her patent heels gleaming.
At the foot of the bridge, Bea slapped a coin into Tess’s hand.
“Happy trails!” she said loudly.
Then she shoved Tess into the wall of mist that surrounded the bridge. I felt a chill as she was engulfed, remembering vividly the horrors that had awaited inside that wall of fog. I half expected her to come tearing right back out of there, but as was normally the case with charges being ushered, she went in the correct direction. After a few seconds, we heard the telltale, louder-than-a-bullhorn sucking sound that indicated whoever was on the bridge had been ushered to their final destination. The stillness that followed felt unnatural, like some unseen hand had hit a giant button, pausing us where we stood.
“Here goes nothing,” Joaquin said, lifting his walkie-talkie. “Kevin, the first one’s gone over. What’s the status? Over.”
“Nothing yet. Over.”
The seconds dragged out as the wind whipped and the ceiling of fog overhead undulated and swirled. The current theory was that the cold was now keeping the fog aloft, but even if that was possible, I didn’t like it. I had never thought I would wish for the eerie fog to envelop me in its chilling, hissing embrace, but having it hanging above us was almost worse. Menacing. As if it had been biding its time up there these past few days, plotting its final attack.
“The weather vane is pointing south. Over,” Kevin announced.
I let out a relieved breath. At least the coins were getting this right.
“Rory, wanna go next?” Joaquin suggested.
“With pleasure.”
I just wanted to get this over with so I could get back to the jail and check on Pete’s status. Every second that passed that Darcy and my dad were still in the Shadowlands was a second too long. I took Ray Wagner firmly by the arm.
“Oh, so now you’re getting touchy-feely with me? Is that what this is about? You got a little crush?”
I tasted bile in the back of my throat as I walked him over to the bridge. Then I grabbed his hand and turned the palm up, pressing his coin into the meaty flesh.
“This is where we say good-bye,” I told him.
“Good-bye? What do you mean, good-bye?”
I turned him by the shoulders, gave him a little shove, and sent him on his way. The sucking void swallowed him whole, and we waited for the verdict.
“Pointing south again. Over,” Kevin announced.
Another sigh of relief. Joaquin quickly dealt with Jack, and then Piper was the last to go. Her final words to Fisher, with a big smile, were, “Call me!”
When it was done, and the only sounds left in the world were the whistling wind and the idling noise of our car engines, we stood around, waiting. I hovered somewhere between relieved and desperately scared, because the hard part was yet to come. And from the tense looks on my friends’ faces, everyone agreed on that fact.
“So when do we usher a good soul?” I said finally, voicing what everyone was thinking.
“Be advised,” Chief Grantz’s voice buzzed through the walkie-talkies. “The mayor is sending up one of Krista’s charges with Officer Dorn. ETA two minutes.”
Krista blanched. “She’s what?”
“Which charge?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Krista said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t have anyone on the bad-guy list. What is she—”
Headlights flashed at the crest of the hill, and we turned to watch, instinctively moving into a straight line as the patrol car bumped over the potholed road. The brakes squealed as Dorn turned the car to be parallel with ours, and then he cut the engine. He stepped out, walked around the front of the car, and opened the back door. Out stepped Myra Schwartz, the cut on her head healing nicely. She clutched her purse to her chest and looked around, not exactly scared, but intrigued.
“Where are we?”
