Adrenaline floods into place.
Jude has gone inside the Overlay.
This is our signal to begin phase two.
I can feel the mark on my arm—the tingle has become a burn, an itch begging to be scratched, one I have resisted all day. Now, I push up my coat sleeve and stare at the glittering pattern of dots. The last time I tried opening a rift, I almost died. But that was with a plant. This has become a part of my body, one that has grown increasingly insistent.
I gather up my backpack.
Rafe picks up the jerry cans.
And I press my finger against my wrist.
The air tears open immediately, obediently. Like opening a rift was nothing at all. Rafe steps through first. I follow him into the dark and twisted world, where the hedges crawl and writhe and the snow turns to shadow and the fountain is a swirling void and the rift isn’t just a rift, but a bright red beacon shooting up into the black maw overhead.
“I guess we don’t have to lure him,” Rafe says.
As if on cue, the ghastly bay of hounds sounds in the distance and another alert vibrates my phone.
He’s coming.
Rafe hands me a jerry can and together, we douse the hedges. We retrace our steps, racing through the labyrinth until we are out in the open and I find myself wishing for the storm. Anything but this terrifying, disorienting abyss.
The howling grows louder.
Rafe takes my hand and pulls me toward a copse of trees.
We ditch the jerry cans and sink low to the ground.
My breath feels too loud.
So does my heart.
My arm burns like it’s attached to the fiery beacon rising from the center of the maze.
We wait for him to step into view.
To see the beacon.
To enter the maze with his hounds so we can set them all on fire. But he doesn’t appear and his hounds have gone silent.
A twig snaps behind us.
Rafe and I turn in tandem. We peer into the shadow when a beast lunges out of the dark. It knocks Rafe to the ground, snarling and snapping, its blackened fangs dripping with saliva. Its claws tear through Rafe’s coat and shirt. I grab the hilt of the machete and in one fluid motion, swing at the creature. The blade connects and with a keening shriek, the hound retreats.
Rafe scrambles to his feet.
Glowing, ember eyes blink at us from the dark.
Too many of them.
We run out into the open.
Low growls emit from the shadows, pressing us back toward the maze. I fumble inside my backpack for a lighter and an explosive when out from the fog steps the Hollow Walker—unnaturally tall and thin, more shadow than flesh, his long coat stirring behind him like smoke in water. His face isshadowed by his hood and the ruby necklace pulses around his neck, throbbing with Jude’s life.
I light the rag stuffed inside the bottle and hurl it at him.
With a flick of his head, he changes the trajectory. The incendiary flies in the opposite direction and explodes in the distance.
