A younger guy appears from behind my car—Where the hell did he come from? He reaches my attacker in three long strides. He’s tall, really tall, with black hair and the same goggles covering his eyes.
I can only stare, open-mouthed, as Tall Guy grabs my attacker from behind in some kind of combat hold I’ve only seen in movies, one arm locked around the slimeball’s throat, and the other controlling his arm. Slimeball’s elbow flies back and catches Tall Guy in the ribs. Tall Guy sweeps Slimeball’s legs out from under him, and they both go down hard.
Slimeball moves like his shoulder didn’t just hit the pavement at an angle that could have broken something. He ends up flipped onto his stomach with Tall Guy’s knee pressed into his spine. Tall Guy forces a gag into Slimeball’s mouth.
I get a distant feeling that I should help. Should call 911. Do something. But my body won’t cooperate.
Old Man throws the empty salt bag aside and pulls a glass jar from a pouch on his back. The bottom half of the jar is wrapped in metal plates bolted together. He sets it down inside the salt circle and pops the top open.
Next to the jar, he puts down a big black dome on wheels that resembles a shop vac. Old Man uncoils a long tube from one side of the vacuum and plugs it into the base of the glass jar. He flips a switch on the side.
A sound cuts through the air, so low I feel it more than hear it, vibrating in my chest like standing too close to a bass speaker. It makes my teeth ache. Bob presses harder against my back.
“Vacuum on,” Old Man announces. Then he starts speaking Latin.
At least, I’m pretty sure it’s Latin. I only recognize it from the movies, so I’m not exactly an authority on the subject, but he sounds like some wizard character casting a spell.
Tall Guy wraps iron chains around Slimeball’s exposed neck and wrists. The second the metal touches skin, Slimeball screams. The sound is muffled by the gag but still loud enough to make me want to cover my ears, but I’m holding Bob tight and won’t let go for anything. The guy sorting bottles has noticed what’s happening. He backs away a couple of steps before running around the side of the building.
That oily substance pours from Slimeball’s eyes and nose, catching the overhead lights.
Old Man is still chanting, pulling items from his bag like Mary freaking Poppins—a vial of clear liquid, a rusted railroad spike, a book so old the pages are brown at the edges. He’s calm in a way that suggests he’s done this before. Part of me feels lucky these two men are here to save me, or be my very off-putting fairy godmothers here to deliver some vigilante justice. The other part of mereallythinks I should call 911.
I glance around to see if anyone else is noticing what’s happening. Are there no other people in this fucking parking lot?
Tall Guy forces Slimeball’s head back and pours liquid into his mouth around the gag. Slimeball convulses. His body arches off the ground, and then he’s vomiting. I retch from the coppery metallic smell, turning my face into my shoulder to keep myself from throwing up.
“You’re not yourself anymore,” Old Man says. “You died angry, and you’re still angry, but you’re not William. You’re just the rage he couldn’t let go.”
Who the fuck is William?
Old Man keeps talking: “You died in that cell. Alone. You’re nothing but an echo of that moment,and you don’t get to do this anymore.”
Torrents of that substance still pour from Slimeball, surrounding his seizing body in a rippling puddle. His fingers are curled into claws. His eyes are rolled back.
Old Man’s voice rises, sharp and commanding: “You areunbound. You are castout.”
Old Man slams his hand down on the device, and the low hum becomes a pull. I can’t see it, but I can feel it, like the air pressure just changed, like something invisible just shifted in the space between Slimeball and that weird contraption.
The gag drops away. Slimeball’s mouth opens wider than it should.
Then he buckles over and retches. Smoke billows from his mouth. Oily tendrils slip to the ground and writhe furiously. Slimeball collapses in a crumpled heap. The smoke rises above him, condensing… taking shape.
It’s a person. An actual fucking person made of smoke. It has shoulders. A head. The suggestion of arms that end in something like hands, except the fingers are too long, have too many joints, and are moving in ways that make my eyes hurt to track.
Bob lets out a volley of barks, as if daring the smoke-person to come toward us.Oh hell no.I try to clamp Bob’s muzzle shut, but it’s too late, and the smoke-person turns its head in our direction. Its features keep shifting, dissolving, and reforming like oil on water, but its eyes burn into my own.
The smoke-person tilts its head.
It smiles.
Pain explodes behind my eyes. I curl my entire body around Bob and cover my ears with both hands. I can’t see anything. Then I’m seeing two parking lots at once, one laid over the other like a double-exposed photograph.
The world smashes into one in time to see the smoke-person rushing toward me.
I pick up Bob and begin to scramble away, but Tall Guy steps in front of me, readying the crowbar in his hands.
Old Man adjusts a dial on the shop vac. The hum gets louder. The surrounding air shimmers and distorts. Smoke tendrils lash out, reaching for the unconscious man, for me, for anything to grab onto.
