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Something howled behind us, and we turned to face it with gun and blade lifted and ready. More faces emerged from the fog, stretched and horrible, eye sockets dark and empty, mouths gaping.“Go back,”they hissed, and swiped before we could dodge, pushing both of us backward. Ghosts from other directions joined in, shoving us with hands cold enough to suck the air from my lungs. They were maneuvering us south, I realized. Away from the gate and back toward Edentown.
“We aren’t going back there!” Theo shouted. “So do your worst!”
They took him at his word.
The ground began to shake again, throwing us into each other. The sound of falling bricks followed, and we turned back to see chunks of the gate falling away, hitting asphalt, shattering. Theasphalt under our feet began to crack, and the wind grew fiercer, sending a hurricane of rock and grit swirling in the air.
I hit my knees and nearly fell into a growing ravine in the road—and would have if Theo hadn’t grabbed me. Hand around the belt of my katana, he hauled me back onto semisolid ground.
“I think you pissed them off,” I said as he offered me a hand and helped me to my feet, knees singing with pain from the impact.
“My bad,” he said. “Who the hell did she piss off?”
“Or what?” I said. “Something that doesn’t want her leaving.”
Another rumble, and the ghosts amped up their assault. Stones began flying off the gate’s façade like they’d been propelled from a volcano.
“Car!” Theo yelled, his hand still on mine, and we ran for it, or at least in the direction we thought it should be. The fog was still thick, green, and nearly impermeable. And when the firmness of asphalt gave way to grass, we knew we were in trouble.
“Wrong way!” I called out over the screams and howls, and we turned around and were nearly crushed by a stone, half as tall as I was, that struck the ground in front of us like an arrow and with enough force to push its shorter end nearly a foot into the dirt.
“Keep your eyes open,” I said, and put a hand on Theo to keep him at my side. Then I closed my eyes and listened for more whistling of projectiles so I could determine our location relative to the gate.
“There!” I said, opening them again and pulling Theo toward the asphalt, straight ahead and then veering toward the right, where I hoped I’d correctly judged the SUV to be. If we missed it, maybe we could make our way to the edge of the fog and circle back without getting nailed by—this was Chicago, after all—future architectural salvage. I felt a moment of guilt that we’d left Rose in the car on her own, but it seemed safer for her in there than it was out here.
We shuffled through the mire, arms outstretched, until I heard the whistle on my left.
“Watch out!” I screamed and pulled Theo forward and out of the impact line—but I still heard the awful thud, the vicious crack, the sharp intake of breath.
I hadn’t gotten him fully clear, and fear was a band around my lungs.
“Fuck,” Theo said, and stumbled. I caught him, grateful for increased vampiric strength. And, being vampire, could smell the metallic scent of blood.
“Where?” I asked.
“Arm,” he said, and it took him two tries to get out the word. I couldn’t see it, not through the haze. But Theo was a former cop, and this wasn’t his first injury in the line. Anything that put that thick slur of pain in his voice had to be bad.
“We’re going to the car,” I said. With his uninjured arm across my shoulders, we limped forward again, ignoring the crash of stones to our left and right. I was listening for the sound of stone on metal, hoping they wouldn’t hit the car, for both Rose’s sake and ours. Five seconds later, my foot kicked tire, and even monster was relieved.
And then the world went silent.
As quickly as it had begun, the wind stopped, and along with it the howls and roars of ghosts. The greenish fog began to clear, the air to warm again.
“I think it’s over,” I said, but still scanned the area for any lingering attackers. I had no better idea about why it had ended than I had for why it had started in the first place.
“I think I need a doc,” he said, and I looked down at the hand that gripped his left arm. Blood that swirled green with magic—ghost essence?—seeped through his fingers.
A lot of blood.
“Shit,” I said, as I pulled away his fingers. Blood and bone weresickeningly intermingled. I breathed out hard through pursed lips. “You made a mess of yourself, Theo.”
The blood triggered my automatic vampiric craving, but I ignored it. This wasn’t the time or the place or the person...
“Don’t bite me,” he said, through his own clenched teeth.
“Oh, and that’s just so tempting, let me tell you.” I sheathed my katana. My blouse had a drapey tie at the neck. I ripped it away, fashioned it into a kind of sling, and tied it around his neck. It would at least keep the arm still until we could get help. And I realized I used parts of my clothes often enough to deal with wounds that I was seriously in need of a tailor.
“Only a few steps more,” I told Theo, opened the door, and helped him inside.
