A TRAIL of blood splashed to the ground from his hand as Phil hurried up the blacktopped drive. It had been salted so no snow had accumulated there, though snow from the yard gusted across it in dusty bursts before melting.

He kept glancing behind him and up into the trees as he went, hoping that his avian attacker wouldn’t return. What could have done this to him, anyway? Not a bird, and a bat just seemed unlikely despite its proximity to a cave, which left exactly no explanation. A pterodactyl, maybe? Yes. Because pterodactyls lived in Oregon caves in the twenty-first century. They probably hung out with their T. rex friends on the weekends drinking beer.

Phil shivered as he trudged onward. Would this driveway never end? It had to meet up with the main drive at some point, though he didn’t remember seeing it branch off last night when he’d pulled in, not that he’d been paying attention.

The lane sloped downward a few dozen yards, and through the thinning trees Phil could see the side of the main house in all its imposing glory. In the back he spotted a glassed-in room that must have contained the swimming pool Vance had mentioned the previous evening. He couldn’t see anyone through the glass. Thank goodness.

He turned to the left and halted when Vance’s blacktopped driveway met up with the main cobblestone drive. Last night he’d parked his Taurus right in front of the mansion, but now it was gone.

He clenched his fists, and his bleeding hand stung even more. Coming here had possibly been the worst mistake of his life. This was why rashness didn’t suit him—he didn’t think things through thoroughly, and it all came back to bite him.

Or scratch him.

Panting, Phil’s gaze roamed over to the multi-car garage sitting to his left. His short stature wouldn’t enable him to peer in through the square panes in any of the garage doors, so he hurried around the side and tried the man-sized door, heaving a relieved sigh when the knob turned.

Not surprisingly, his Taurus had been stowed inside—those who lived here probably thought it an eyesore on their otherwise pristine property. He opened the passenger side door and plucked his black tote off the seat, then unzipped it and pulled out a bottle of disinfectant and a cotton ball.

Soap and water would have been more ideal, but he wasn’t about to go back into that house and ask to use their bathroom.

He gritted his teeth and dabbed the alcohol-soaked cotton ball onto the three gashes, sending fire through his hand. These gashes looked deep enough to require stitches, and while he had the supplies and the knowhow, he didn’t have the nerve to sew himself up. Even he had his limits.

“Do you really think that’s going to help you?”

Phil whipped his head to the side. Vance leaned against a workbench along the garage’s back wall with his arms crossed again, looking almost bored.

“How did you get in here?” Phil asked, dropping the bloody cotton ball to the garage floor.

“That’s my little secret. One of them, anyway. I do have a few.”

Phil’s mouth felt too dry. “The cave,” he said.

“Now what cave might that be?” Vance said, feigning innocence.

“I was in there once already. I don’t understand why you lied about it.”

Vance’s lips twisted into a wicked grin. “I suppose that was silly of me. You’re too big a coward to be any real threat. Worry, worry, worry, that’s all you know how to do. I’m surprised you even came out here in the first place. It’s more like you to just mope around with a bottle of beer and a churning gut.”

Phil’s face burned with indignation. “How would you know any of that?”

Vance gave an innocent shrug. “Call me a good guesser. Like right now, for instance, I’m guessing you think I’m one of those poor, possessed schmucks you dedicated your life to saving.”

The thought had started to cross Phil’s mind. It would explain the man’s omniscience, but not how he’d entered the garage ahead of Phil.

“How does that hand feel, by the way?” Vance craned for a better look, but Phil tucked it behind his back.

“What was that out there?” Phil asked.

Vance’s smile broadened. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?”

“How could I have done that when I can barely see five feet in front of my face?”

Vance strode three steps closer to Phil, who remained rooted in place despite his urge to run. “Can you see any better now?”

Phil clenched his jaw. He did not appreciate being mocked.

Vance’s eyes glimmered as he continued. “That little thing you ran into out there, that gave you those cuts?”

“What about it?”

“That was me.”

BOBBY OPTED to sit next to Kaori on the flight west while Carly and Matt sat one row in front of them. Bobby’s throat burned even more fiercely now that they’d left Ohio behind, and his guilt at leaving without saying goodbye to Charlotte and Jonas burned stronger than his guilt at accidentally blowing up Main Street.

He had sent Charlotte a text letting her know he was alive, but maybe Jonas was right. Maybe Bobby was a terrible person for abandoning what little remained of his family. But people needed him. They were counting on him to do the right thing, even if he didn’t necessarily know what that right thing was.

“You seem like you’ve got some heavy thoughts,” Kaori commented after they’d been in the air for an hour.

“You’d be having them too if you’d just caused a car accident.”

Bobby flopped his head back onto the headrest. Part of him wished he’d had the time to see a doctor at the urgent care and get a prescription that would knock out whatever disease was trying to kill him. Couldn’t Kaori have showed up in town after he’d seen a doctor? Her timing wasn’t doing any wonders for his health.

“I’m curious as to why Thane chased you,” Kaori went on in low tones. “If he’d been orchestrating the Servant’s downfall for years, it seems odd that he’d charge after you with a knife in broad daylight.”

“That’s probably because of you, no offense. He didn’t anticipate there being two of us, and he probably freaked and flipped his lid. And how in the world did he get healed? The last time I saw him, he was completely immobile from the neck down.” Bobby thought of Phil and Kevin Lyle, both of whom had once been gifted with the ability to heal with a touch. Thane might have scoped out someone else with such a gift and forced them to make him better.

Bobby had to commend him on that. It certainly wasn’t something he’d expected.

“I have the feeling that’s not even close to our biggest concern right now,” Kaori said. “Paralyzed or not, this Thane isn’t going to handle us getting away very well. The next time we meet, assuming he survived that fireball, he’s going to be at least twice the bastard he was before. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that from experience.”

“You’ve met people like Thane?”

“Yes, but they don’t have superpowers. Like Gerald, this creep who’s been after me for months. I cleansed his fortune-telling daughter earlier this year, and he didn’t take kindly to that, and the other day he finally caught up with us and tried to kill me. Some people just don’t appreciate a good thing.”

“I’ll bet you showed him.”

“I sure did. I called the police on him.” She winked.

Bobby gazed past her to see out the window, where the winter-brown land speckled with ant-sized houses spread out like a diorama five miles below them. From up here it all looked so serene, like nothing could ever be amiss.

“They’re going to be thrilled to meet you,” he said.

Kaori cocked an eyebrow at him. “Who?”

“My friends—the ones who used to be like us. Randy. Phil. Frankie. Even Father Preston. They’ll be glad to know I’m not alone.”

“How are you going to break the news to them?”

Bobby took a moment to imagine himself unveiling Kaori to his friends like some magnificent and rare work of art, then shook his head. His fever really was getting to him. “I’ll just tell them,” he said. “I don’t need to make anything more complicated than that.”