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And the way he smelled.
We needed to get out of here.
“The demon got out,” I said.
“I know. And it’s got its claws into everyone here, from what I can tell.”
This confirmed the suspicion I’d had since seeing Tansy part the crowd on the dance floor. There was an otherworldly quality to her now that hadn’t been there before.
Whatever was waiting for us on the other side of the wall, it wasn’t the same Tansy I’d met the previous day.
Which begged the question: which Tansy had been the one in Carlos’s memory? Had the real girl been the one to help kill the victim and steal the cinder block that had killed him, or was it the demon?
An unpleasant feeling in my gut reminded me the demon had been confined to the house—as far as I knew. Meaning demon-Tansy was stuck here. So the real version of Cash’s girlfriend had been the one in the alley and wasn’t nearly as innocent as she pretended to be.
I looked at my phone, which was still clutched in one hand, and saw that I’d lost signal when Santiago rescued me. I had no bars now, and no way to reach out to Cash or Wilder until we were out of…
“Are we inside the walls?”
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Santiago gave a half shrug and scratched the bare side of his head, below the rune tattoos. Was it my imagination, or did they glow a faint shade of blue when he touched them?
“It’s hard to explain. If I’d just pulled you into the wall, we’d probably be dead. What I’ve done is create a temporary dimensional shift between the living room and the closet under the stairs. We’re in both places, but neither. I’ve sort of…expanded the space that was already there.” He touched the walls on either side and gave a gentle push. Suddenly we had an extra six inches of room.
I poked at one of the walls, awestruck in spite of myself. He’d created space for us by sheer force of will.
“Whoa.”
The walls shrank back towards us, and he winced. “Problem is it’s temporary. Hard to maintain.”
“Oh.” I lowered my hands to my sides and glanced at him. His nose had started to bleed. “Oh. Shit, Santiago, move us into the closet or something.”
Before I realized what I was doing, I’d wiped the thin line of red off his face. When I pulled my hand back, my immediate instinct was to lick it clean. I wasn’t sure if that was the wolf or the magic of the house, but either way I resisted the impulse.
I rubbed my finger on the wall instead.
“Thanks.” He touched his fingertips to his nose and gave me a slightly too-knowing smile. “Let’s get out of here before I pass out and we’re both crushed by a dimensional flux.”
That didn’t sound like a great way to go.
He seized me, wrapping one muscular arm around my waist and pulling me close to him. I braced myself against his chest. “Whoa, I—”
My protests vanished as he pressed a palm against one wall and shoved. The wall yielded under his instruction and bowed outwards, forming a bubble of insulation and drywall. He squinted and inched forward, and with one final step we were suddenly out of the wall and inside a closet.
At least I assumed it was a closet. We were surrounded by jackets, boots, and various other things that might be abandoned until the right season rolled around. Even though the space was cramped and enclosed, the air wasn’t nearly as stuffy. I hadn’t realized just how difficult it was to breathe inside the wall, or how claustrophobic it had been. But now that a closet seemed roomy by contrast, I understood how squished we’d been.
“We need to get Wilder and go,” I urged.
“There’s something I need you to see first.”
“Right now?”
Santiago nodded. “You won’t believe me until you see it for yourself.”
“At this point there’s not much I wouldn’t believe.”
