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Tessa turned back to me. “Oh, I know. I was so very young. But Rhyzkahl was merely acting on his nature after being dragged unwillingly through the portal. He took the vengeance he needed to satisfy his honor. Greg’s mother … it was hideous what Rhyzkahl did to her, but … I could see her face. I don’t think she felt any of it. I think Rhyzkahl did it solely to further torment Peter Cerise.”
I struggled to grasp how my aunt could be so accepting of the Demonic Lord’s actions. “What happened after he was gone?”
Tessa took a deep breath, beginning to recover some of her color. “I grabbed Greg—dearest powers of all, but he was hysterical. I was just trying to not think about it. I hated Greg’s dad, hated him so much for making my mother do this thing, hated him for not treating his wife properly. I dumped Greg upstairs, then went back and ran to the garage …” She trailed off.
“Greg told me,” I said gently. “Told me that you burned the house down to cover up what had happened.”
“He didn’t tell you everything. He didn’t tell you what he didn’t see.” Tessa’s voice was flat.
“What didn’t he see?”
“I dumped the gas down into the basement, then lit a towel off the stove and threw that down as well.” She looked at me. “I stayed there long enough to make sure that the place was going to catch fire. I stayed long enough to make sure that the stairs had caught, so that Peter Cerise couldn’t get out.”
I felt as if I’d been punched. “What? I thought he’d been killed by Rhyzkahl.”
“No. He was alive. Rhyzkahl broke his legs and left him to watch it all. He knew that it was a greater revenge to make Cerise live with the memory, the guilt.” Tessa gave her head a sharp shake. “I wasn’t thinking that elegantly. I just wanted him dead.”
I stood. “Aunt Tessa. Are you sure he died in the fire?”
Her thin eyebrows drew together. “When they finally put the fire out, the basement was a mess. And since we never saw him again, I …” She smacked her hand to her forehead. “I never even thought of him!”
“Basements usually have windows or doors, other ways out in case there is a fire,” I breathed. “He’s alive. He’s alive, and he wants to summon Rhyzkahl. It makes sense. That explains how he knew Greg.” I grabbed my aunt by her shoulders. “Aunt Tessa, do you know what he looks like? Do you have old pictures of him? Anything?”
Tessa shook her head. “No, sweets, nothing like that. And if he stayed around here, he must have changed his appearance, because Greg always thought he was dead too.”
“Aunt Tessa, I have to go,” I said, as I snatched up my cell phone and took off for the door. This was almost worse than not knowing. I knew who the Symbol Man was now, but I had no idea how to find him.
I had my cell-phone headset jammed into my ear even before I got the car started. I punched Ryan’s number in as I backed out of my aunt’s driveway. “Come, on, Ryan. Pick up!” I muttered.
“Good morning, Kara,” Ryan said as he answered.
“Ryan! I know who the Symbol Man is,” I said in a rush. “It’s Greg Cerise’s dad, Peter Cerise, who was supposedly killed in a summoning, but I think he wasn’t killed after all. And now he wants revenge on Rhyzkahl and everyone else for letting his wife die, even though it was his own damn fault to begin with!”>“Was there anyone else with him?”
Michelle shook her head. “Nah, not really. I mean, he talked to the people who hung out there, but he didn’t have anyone with him or anything.”
“Did you ever see any of the pictures he drew?”
“Yeah, it was some wild stuff. Comic book or something, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Yeah. It was cool. I talked to him once, y’know? He was nice. He told me that he was a lot better at drawing people with a picture to start from, not real good at drawing from just his imagination. He gave me twenty bucks and he took a bunch of pictures.” She looked down at the drawings. “Why are you asking me about him? Did he do something wrong by paying us? I never fucked him, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No. I’m the lead investigator on the Symbol Man investigation.” I waited for it to process through the girl’s head.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed. “He’s the Symbol Man?”
“No. He was killed by the Symbol Man.” I put the drawings back in the folder, noting that the girl looked at them wistfully.
“Oh, my God. He’s dead?” To my surprise, tears began to well up in her eyes. “Oh, man, he was nice. That’s horrible.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Michelle sniffled and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “So why are you asking me all of this stuff about him if he’s dead?”
“Well, when we went into his house, we found a bunch of pictures and drawings—people he’d taken pictures of around town.” I kept my gaze on her. “It turns out that all the victims of the Symbol Man had been photographed and drawn by Greg already.”
The girl paled. “Wait. You mean—”
