“In the trunk,” said Cal.
Dee went rigid. “Is that—is that safe?”
“So long as no one rear-ends us,” said James cheerily.
The drive to Beaverton took about thirty minutes. Cal had a map and called out directions from the backseat, guiding Cora into what looked like a half-deserted neighborhood. Dee caught a glimpse of a wall that was more spray paint than concrete, and newspapers sagged in the sewer drains. Despite her quip to the Daemon, there were good parts of Beaverton. This just wasn’t one of them.
Cora took a sharp right, pulling down an alley. Thenanother left turn, and she slowed the car to a halt. Theyparked beside what looked like a decrepit brick building.
Fear fluttered in Dee’s chest like a caged animal, struggling to get out. But something was strange, off; it was because there was no thudding heartbeat to accompany her fear. She was used to feeling it throb, set aflame by adrenaline, and she had never felt its absence more keenly.
James was whistling an off-key tune when they trudged toward the broken building. It was an old garage, if the struts and large glass door were anything to go by. But the place was deserted—the glass glittered upon the ground and a heavy layer of dust covered the interior.
The old building smelled of gasoline and rust, and small flickers of movement darted away from the beam of Cal’s thin flashlight—more rats.
The explosives were in a duffel bag. Cora hefted the bag over one shoulder, ignoring any offers of help as she strode through the broken door without any hesitation. Dee froze.
What would they say if they were caught? Four teenagers, breaking into an abandoned building, a duffel bag full of C-4. They wouldn’t be let off with a warning. They’d be branded hard criminals, maybe even terrorists—
A hand touched her elbow. Dee looked up, saw James looking at her. “We don’t get caught,” he said, so quietly that the others wouldn’t be able to hear. “Trust me. The Daemon makes sure of that. We’d be useless to him in jail.” He held out a thin flashlight, smiling just a bit. Not as if he were mocking her, but as if he understood.
Silently, she took it and switched it on.
The beam of the flashlight swept around another corner, and the sound of small, skittering claws intensified. Dee felt something pass over her foot—luckily, she was wearing her uniform-standard loafers rather than flip-flops, but the sensation made her shudder.
There were still old tires, flat and useless, piled around the room, and boxes of old steel bolts and shelves of other detritus not deemed valuable enough to be stolen.
And there was a void. A shimmer, a ripple, like heat rising from the pavement on a hot summer’s day. It hung just a few inches off the grease-stained floor.
The others saw it, too, and they moved forward with an ease born of practice. Cora knelt before the shimmering patch of air and reached into her pocket. She came up with a small aerosol can of spray paint. And before Dee could ask why Cora was suddenly into tagging, Cora shook the bottle once, twice, then sprayed the air just in front of the void.
The paint misted through the air, then swerved right. Before Dee’s eyes, the red paint simply vanished—but not before she saw the clear outline of the void’s mouth. Well—it was certainly a more precise way of finding the void’s entrance than tossing an empty bottle at it.
Dee glanced about the room, trying to take in everything at once. It seemed there was only one way in or out—the door they’d walked through. The broken windows were too high up for escape. She turned in a circle, and her foot hit something.
She stumbled, her flashlight falling to the concrete floor. She scooped it up, hands shaking, and aimed the beam down.
The light fell upon a rat. Unmoving, still, and dead.
It had been impaled—a thin metal rod shoved through it the way a child might pin a butterfly to a corkboard.
And then she saw what the creature had been killed with.
It was a knitting needle.
“He’s been here,” said Cora quietly.
Dee jerked in surprise. The other girl had approached while Cal and James talked between themselves.
Cora’s cool gaze slid over the needle. “You see what he is, right?” There was a low, almost confidential tone to her voice. As if she were sure she spoke to an ally. “The others forget that he’s a demon, but you don’t. I know you’re scared of him—and you should be. They’re not right; they’re not like us. We have to stick together.”
Dee looked at Cora and for the first time wondered what she was doing here. Cora belonged in some high-powered internship, holding a clipboard and ordering people around—not standing over the body of a rat. “You made a deal with him, too,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but at the same time, it was.
Cora looked away. “I made a mistake,” she said curtly.
Before Dee could ask what she meant, James called over. “Charges ready and timer set!”
“You mean,Ireadied the charges and set the timer,” said Cal. “While you stood there and critiqued how fast I did it.”
