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So the blonde was definitely a brain. Lana wondered about her little brother. He was awfully quiet for a little kid.
“My grandfather disappeared while he was driving the truck,” Lana said, recalling that terrible day. “The truck crashed. And I was dying. I mean, bones sticking out. Gangrene. Then, it was like I could just heal. My dog. Myself. And I don’t know why.”
From beyond the wooden door came a sudden chorus of excited yelps.
“Pack Leader’s here,” Lana said. She crossed to the sink and picked up Hermit Jim’s kitchen knife. She turned to Sam, her expression fierce. “I’ll stab him in his heart if he comes in here.”
Sam and Edilio both drew their knives.
From outside the door, just inches away, came the strangled, snarling, high-pitched voice. “Human. Come out.”
“No,” Lana yelled.
“Human. Come out.”
Lana said, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.”
Astrid smiled. “Nice,” she whispered.
“Human. Come out. Human teach Pack Leader. Human say.”
“Lesson number one, you filthy, ugly, nasty, mangy animal: Never trust a human.”
That resulted in a protracted silence.
“The Darkness,” Pack Leader growled.
Lana felt fear contract her heart. “Go ahead. Go tell your master in the mine all about it.” She started to say that she wasn’t afraid of the Darkness. But those words would have sounded false.
“What’s this about a mine?” Sam asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then why is that coyote out there talking about it? What’s this darkness thing?”
Lana shook her head. “I don’t know. They took me there. It’s an old gold mine. That’s all.”
Sam said, “Look, you saved our lives. But we still want to know what’s going on.”
Lana twined her fingers together around the knife hilt to keep herself from shaking. “I don’t know what’s going on, Sam. There’s something down in that mine. That’s all I know. The coyotes listen to it, they’re scared of it, and they do what it says.”
“Did you see it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t really want to remember.”
There was a loud thump at the door and it rattled on its hinges.
“Edilio, let’s find more nails,” Sam said.
The dining hall of Coates Academy had always seemed like a strange, unfriendly place to Jack. In terms of design and decor, it was an attempt to be airy and colorful. The windows were tall, the ceiling lofty; the doors were high arches decorated with bright ornamental Spanish tiles.
The long, heavy, dark wood tables of Jack’s first year at Coates, tables that had accommodated sixty students each, had just this last year been replaced by two dozen smaller, less formal round tables decorated with papier-mâché centerpieces made by students.
At the farthest end of the dining hall a mosaic had been created of individually painted construction paper squares. The theme was “Forward Together.” The squares had been arranged to form a giant arrow pointing from the floor to the ceiling.
But the more they tried to brighten the room, the less friendly it seemed to grow, as if the little touches of color and whimsy just accented the crushing size, age, and irreducible formality of the room.
Panda, his leg not broken but badly sprained, slumped into a chair and looked mournful and resentful. Diana stood to one side, not liking what she was about to witness, and not keeping that feeling a secret.
