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Gamigan skittered around the edge of the building to the far side where it was cloaked in shadows but still dimly visible. It crawled part of the way down the wall, grotesque with its broken-looking human limbs and the unnatural way its eyes shone, like those of a cat at night.
It didn’t get all the way to the ground, instead deciding to crawl along the wall vertically. The dress it was wearing billowed lightly in the night breeze. When it came back into the light, Gamigan was totally sideways, and in the place of two human female eyes, it had eight shining spider ones again.
?
?Oh my God.” Tansy covered her face with her hands.
Seeing yourself turn into a monster was an ordeal. She was experiencing it twice in one night, first metaphorically and now literally. But when Gamigan was gone, she’d still need to deal with what she’d really become.
I couldn’t bring myself to muster the slightest iota of sympathy.
Wilder and Cash sidestepped towards us, as far as they could get away from the demon without crossing into the salt circle.
“God can’t help you now.” Gamigan chuckled.
There is nothing more frightening to hear than a demon telling you God has turned his back on you.
Nothing.
Tansy sat down.
More accurately, she lay down next to the ceremonial knife and curled into the fetal position.
“Eugenia McQueen,” Gamigan went on, ignoring the other girl entirely. “You are a killer.”
“And are you here to avenge all those rabbits and deer?”
“You are a killer,” it repeated. “You make the host feel guilty, but you are a murderer.”
I thought of Timothy Deerling, of his head exploding into a fine red mist. But I hadn’t been the one to kill him. I’d played a part in his death, but the woman who’d pulled the trigger was a sheriff’s deputy named Josie Dwyer.
“I’ve never killed anyone.”
The form Gamigan had taken stuttered, and a waft of sulfur and burnt skin assaulted my nostrils. I covered my nose as my eyes started to water, and when I wiped the tears away, there she was.
Skin, burnt and peeling, limbs assembled in disarray like a broken doll, the dead woman teetered towards me, her scent sickening and her appearance twice as bad.
All my confidence vanished.
I’d thought she was gone.
This same apparition had been following me months earlier, but I hadn’t seen her in a long, long time. I’d chased away the memory of her charred skin touching my face. I’d pretended she wasn’t real, that she had been nothing more than a bad dream.
Judging by the expressions on Wilder’s and Cash’s faces, I wasn’t the only one seeing this.
Just like the kids at the party, it seemed so real, even smelled real, but wasn’t. That’s how deeply this thing could get into our minds.
“Tell me again how innocent you are,” Gamigan demanded.
The burnt woman froze like a paused videotape and reformed itself as spider-faced Tansy. “Tell everyone how you’re not a killer.”
“You’re lying,” I whispered.
“Or maybe you’re the one lying to yourself.” It made a clucking noise with its tongue. “I won’t be the last one to come for you, Eugenia McQueen. There are much worse things in store for you.”
“No.”
It cocked its head to the side, blinking all eight eyes at once. “What was that?”
