Behind me, I heard Catherine say: “My God, it’s beautiful.”
I could feel those waves of emotion hitting me, but I was ready this time. Palming my ghost knife, I lifted my hands toward my face. Once my arm was curled, I would throw it as hard as I could right between that thing’s eyes. If that didn’t kill it, I’d fetch that revolver and box of ammo from the kitchen.
From behind me on the left, I heard the distinctive sound of a round being chambered.
I ducked down and to the right just as a gunshot boomed beside my head. I dropped to one knee, spun, and swept my ghost knife upward.
I missed the gun in Catherine’s hand but hit her wrist. She gasped and her hand opened. The weapon clattered to the floor. I lunged for the pistol but I didn’t need to rush. She didn’t do anything but clutch her wrist and say: “I’m sorry.” I could barely hear her above the ringing in my left ear.
It was a small stainless steel Smith & Wesson with a plastic handle. Where had she gotten it? I looked back at the window. The sapphire dog was staring at me.
I’d already thrown my ghost knife at it once, when it was much closer to me, and it had vanished. Now that I’d lost the chance to surprise it, I tried something else. I lifted the S&W and emptied the clip into it.
I saw the bullet holes in the glass, so I knew some of my shots had hit their mark. The sapphire dog didn’t react at all. It didn’t recoil or flinch, and no bullet holes appeared on it. It was like shooting a hallucination.
The old woman in the kitchen above thumped her gun against the floor. I glanced up, then back at the window. The predator was gone.
Catherine stared at me sheepishly. She apologized again. The ghost knife had worked on her, even though she’d been under the sapphire dog’s influence.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, holding up the gun. I tried not to shout.
She handed me a spare magazine. “I took it off Lois Conner,” she said, and in that adrenaline-fueled moment I had no idea who she was talking about. It didn’t matter. The sapphire dog was gone, and I had to go after it.
“Go to the car,” I said. She was already nodding obediently. “Drive to the fairgrounds and wait for me. Stay away from people, okay? If you can’t avoid someone, don’t do what they ask you to do. Just do what I told you.”
“I will,” she said. Her eyes were wide and blank. “What if I see the sapphire dog?”
“You can try to run it down with the car, if you think you can hit it.” I ran for the steps, then stopped. She was still staring at me with a passive, helpless expression. “On second thought, don’t try to run it down. Don’t do anything. Just hide. Hurry.”
I ran upstairs. In the drawer by the back door, I found a flashlight. I took the phone off the hook and dialed 911. I felt a stabbing headache so strong that I could barely understand the operator who answered. Could it have been a delayed reaction to the gunshot? I said what I needed to say and hung up. My headache eased up almost immediately, and I put it out of my mind.
I ran outside. When I reached the bullet-ridden window my ghost knife was in my hand, but I didn’t have a target. The sapphire dog was gone.
The soup-can footprints were right where I expected, running along the edge of the house into the woods. I followed the trail.
Catherine came out of the house and lightly jogged toward the car. I guess that was the best version of hurry I could expect after the ghost knife had done its work on her.
She didn’t have a white mark, like Penny, but neither had Ursula. So why had my spell worked on Catherine but not Ursula? Maybe the predator had used its influence on her many times over the years. Maybe, after all that time, she had lost her ability to feel anything else, just like the people with the mark.
But this wasn’t the time to speculate. The footprints led to a horse trail. I peered into the woods, trying to see if the sapphire dog was hiding in the shadows, but I couldn’t see anything. Was it behind a bush or tree, waiting to feed on me when I got close? The thought of that bone-white tongue touching my face made me shiver. Maybe my iron gate would protect me, but I didn’t want to bet my life on it.
I turned on the flashlight. Lois Conner’s reloaded gun was in my pocket, and my ghost knife was in my right hand. The tracks led straight down the center of the trail—almost as if it was avoiding the greenery. I started after it.
Of course, it wasn’t native to this planet. Maybe it was afraid of the underbrush and the more mundane predators that it might run into there.
Which made me immediately think of Catherine. I couldn’t help but wonder who she might run into. What if she met the bartender again, and he invited her back to his place? Had the ghost knife taken away her ability to say no?
Damn. Maybe I should have asked her to come with me, but after I saw the look on her face, I didn’t want her anywhere near the sapphire dog. Catherine was smart and tough when she was herself, but the ghost knife turned people into victims.
The wind rustled the tree branches. I froze in place. Could the sapphire dog climb trees? It didn’t have hands or claws, but underestimating it could get me killed.
I had to put Catherine out of my mind for now. If I’d made a mistake in sending her out on her own, it was too late to fix it. I had to focus on the job at hand.
Where the hell was Pratt, anyway?
The flashlight beam could reach about ten feet—a respectable distance but not enough to show me the tops of the trees. I crouched beside a tree trunk and played the light along the path. The weird round footprints continued for as far as the beam could shine.
Of course, I’d seen the sapphire dog’s tracks lead in multiple directions—it might have left this trail for me to follow while crouching in the shadows to ambush me. I kept moving forward, putting all my thought, all my attention, into my sight and hearing. I examined every shadow, every rustle. My shoes had soaked through from the mud, and I spared a single, stupid moment envying the Fellows and their hiking boots.
Then I pushed that thought away. I crept forward, thinking about the sapphire dog, its glowing eyes, and its long, floppy ears. I didn’t know how fast it could move or how far it could travel without rest. I just kept going, determined to destroy it or be destroyed.
It didn’t ambush me, but I didn’t catch up to it, either. It was fleeing and I was being careful. I was never going to catch up to it this way. I increased my pace, my feet squishing loudly in the mud.
At the top of a rise, the trees and underbrush suddenly thinned. After fifteen feet of gentle slope, the ground flattened into the fairgrounds. Farther out there was a ring of halogen lights on poles set in a circle, and all the lamps were on. The locals were setting up the fair, although my view of them was obscured by the whitewashed buildings and a set of bleachers.
To my left was the high-peaked church. The back door was open, letting yellowish light into the yard. From this angle, I could see a little house behind it.
To the right were more woods, open fields, and darkness.
I shone the flashlight down into the mud. The sapphire dog’s trail split into three directions, just like on the Wilbur estate. On the left, the trail led across a muddy patch and then into the high grass beside the church. In front of me it led down the slope, and to the right it went through the bushes.
Crap. I ignored the footprints that led to the right into the underbrush—if the predator had avoided that sort of cover for this long, I doubted it would take it up now.
On impulse, I started down the slope toward the fairgrounds. The footprints were more difficult to find among the tree roots and hard soil of the hill, but they were there. They led straight out into the grass.
Maybe if I’d grown up a hunter, with weekend trips into the woods with deer rifles and orange earflap caps, I could have followed the predator’s tracks across the newly mown lawn. But I’d grown up on baseball and video games. I couldn’t find the trail or even tell if it ended suddenly like the ones on the Wilbur estate.
I didn’t like the way this looked. So far, the sapphire dog had been drawn to people and buildings. It had fled from its captors, sure, but it had gone from one house to another, feeding and controlling the residents.
The only people on the fairgrounds were the ones out in the lights setting up. If the sapphire dog was going to go for them, it would have had to angle more to the left, not straight ahead into the dark open space of the lawn.
I scrambled back up the hill. The left-hand tracks pointed directly toward the church and the open, lighted door. I followed them.
After about fifteen feet, the tracks disappeared. As expected. The grass was unmowed and dripping wet. By the time I was halfway there, my pants were soaked from the knee down.
A pickup truck backed up to the open door, and a short, wiry man began unloading boxes from the bed and carrying them inside. I switched off my flashlight and I walked toward the open door, the ghost knife in my hand and the gun in my pocket. On the near side of the church was a neatly mown lawn. On the far side was a cracked asphalt parking lot.
The night must have been darker than I thought; the man unloading the truck didn’t notice me until I was close enough to tap the edge of the truck. I startled him. He was wearing a clerical collar and had the quick, limber movements of a karate teacher.
He looked me up and down. I could see by the light shining from the inside of the church that his expression was carefully neutral. “If you’re looking for money,” he said, “we don’t have any. We’re a rural church. If you’re hungry, though, you’ve come to the right place.”
I looked into the bed of the truck. It was half full of grocery bags of canned food and boxes of premade stuffing. I glanced down at my clothes. I was still wearing the shirt Yin’s men had torn, and I supposed my eye was still ugly.
“I’m not looking for food or money,” I said. “I’m looking for a dog.” Maybe it would have been better to say it was my dog, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. “It has fur that’s been dyed blue, and it’s sick. Contagious, actually.”
“Contagious?” I had his attention. “I haven’t seen any dogs running loose, and I’ve been driving around picking up donations. I can make a couple of calls, though. Help me carry some of this inside, and we’ll see what we can do.”
He grabbed two grocery bags in each hand and turned his back on me, confident I’d follow. I looked around but didn’t see the predator. I picked up a crate filled with boxes of muffin mix and went inside.
It was a wide, shallow room filled with cheap metal shelving. Almost half the shelf space was filled with food donations. There was a second door nestled between the shelves. A dead bolt held it shut. A chipped wooden desk stood in the corner. A cheap portable stereo on the edge of the desk played seventies disco.
Had the sapphire dog come in here? The room was lit well enough that I could see the pastor didn’t have a white mark, and there were no discolored circles on the walls.
The pastor reached up and scratched the ear of a pudgy, long-haired cat. “Those muffin mixes go there.” He indicated a high shelf.
I set the crate there. “If you see that blue dog, don’t go near it. In fact, stay far away. I’d be grateful if you would spread the word.”
I started toward the door. One circuit of the church should tell me if the sapphire dog had gotten in through the walls; then I’d check the house. If I didn’t find anything, I wasn’t sure where I’d go next.
He took out his cell. “Let me make a couple of calls.”
I nodded. “Be right back.”
Outside, I played the flashlight across the lawn but didn’t see anything interesting. I walked around the truck, then the church. There were no openings the predator could have used and no dark circles that indicated it had gone through the wall.
I was on my way to the house when the pastor came out of the church. “Are you Ray?”
“I am,” I said, still walking.
“I’m Aaron,” he said. It seemed weird to think of him by his first name instead of Reverend Surname, but what did I know? Maybe he’d invite me in to play Guitar Hero. “I spoke with the manager down at the fairgrounds. No one down there has seen your dog, but they’ll keep an eye out. Also, Steve Cardinal asked you to wait here for him. He’ll be over as soon as he can.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t about to wait, not if the sapphire dog was as close as I thought. I wished he hadn’t said the dog was mine, though.
I walked around the porch, shining the light on the base of the walls. It wasn’t until we reached the far back corner of the house that I saw it: a dark circle on the brick beneath a kitchen window.
“Crap.”
“What is it?” Aaron knelt beside the mark.
“Don’t touch it,” I warned him as he reached out. “I need you to get away from here.”
“Is it in my house? I have … I have family inside. Loved ones.” He looked jumpy.
“Leave them to me,” I said.
“You said your dog was contagious. Will they have to be quarantined? Does your dog bite?” His voice was going high with stress.
“Aaron, go to your truck and stay there.”
He turned and ran back along the house, then vaulted over the porch rail with the ease of a gymnast. I shouted his name, but he was already at the door. I ran after him, but I heard the door close and lock before I could even reach the porch.
I climbed up over the rail after him, but much more slowly. Maybe I should take up parkour, if I survived.
I dropped the flashlight into my pocket and took out the gun. I slid the ghost knife between the door and jamb, then hesitated. The pastor and his family didn’t know me; I didn’t want to charge into his home with a gun in my hand. I put it back into my pocket and hoped I wouldn’t get killed because of it.
I cut through the locks and pulled the door open. The house lights were on but the place was completely quiet.
“Hello!” I shouted. There was no answer. Had Aaron found the sapphire dog already? Maybe not. Maybe he was in his room hiding his porn.
I crept into the living room. The couch was covered with stacks of newspapers and old travel magazines. There was an uncluttered easy chair by the fireplace and an empty office chair beside the desk. The biggest piece of furniture in the room was another four-foot-high cat playground. The room smelled like damp carpet and cat litter. What family did the pastor have in here?
The kitchen was cleaner but didn’t smell any better. The trash overflowed with pizza boxes and teriyaki take-out cartons. There were three kitty-litter trays in the corner.
The sapphire dog wasn’t in there, either. The back door was locked and the basement door had a discolored circle at the bottom.
I twisted the knob and jiggled the door. The discolored circle collapsed into a billowing cloud of dust. The sapphire dog must have entered the basement and come up through there. I went back into the living room and found a flight of stairs leading to the second floor. I started up, avoiding stacks of cheap paperbacks by the rail.
I heard something slide upstairs and called Aaron’s name. Again, no answer. Footsteps sounded above me.
I rushed to the top of the stairs. There were three doors up there, and one was partly open. That was the bathroom, and it was dark. I went through the door on the left.
It was the master bedroom. There were clothes all over the floor. Below the window was a double bed with piles of dirty laundry on one side. Three big cats stared at me from under a clothes bureau.
Damn. The pastor didn’t have a family in this house. He had run toward a predator because of his damn cats.
I raced into the hall, then into the other room. It was storage, with banker’s boxes stacked against the walls.
The window was open. I rushed to it. The pastor had climbed down the porch roof and was already on the lawn. He opened the door to his truck, and something low and blue slithered into the passenger seat.
I reached for the gun in my pocket, but it snagged on my jacket and clattered to the floor. I cursed at myself as I picked it up. It was only a second’s delay, but it was long enough for Aaron to get into the driver’s seat.
I looked down at him. He looked up at me. Just before he closed the door of his truck, I saw by the cab light that he had a single white dot on his forehead.
He started the truck and began to back away. I put two bullets into the grille, then two more into the front driver’s corner, where the battery should be. Aaron slammed the truck into reverse and did a one-point U-turn onto the church parking lot. I emptied the gun at his tires, but I’ve never been what you’d call a crack shot. I was pretty sure I’d missed the battery, too.
The truck labored onto the street. I ran through the house and out the porch door. The pastor’s taillights turned onto the road toward town. At least he’d left the fairgrounds. I sprinted across the grass and parking lot. I was never going to catch them on foot, but I hoped the truck would break down before the sapphire dog could reach another victim.
I ran out into the road and jogged after them, but the truck was already out of sight. Headlights appeared behind me and I stepped onto the shoulder of the road. An ambulance screamed by, with Steve Cardinal’s car close behind. I waved to him, and he stomped on the brake, screeching to a halt.
Justy was in the passenger seat. She rolled down the window, but it was Steve who spoke. “What in heaven’s name have you been doing?”
“I saw it! It just caught a guy in a blue pickup.”
“My God. Who?”
“Aaron. The pastor. I don’t know his whole name. I damaged his truck. We need to catch him before he finds another ride.”
“Well, get in then.”
I pulled the back door open and climbed in. He stomped on the gas before I could get fully into his car. I yanked my foot inside just as the car’s momentum slammed the door shut. I fussed with the seat belt. Steve was talking. “Reverend Dolan’s a good man. He’s forthright and strong in his faith. He grew up here. When he was a boy—”
“Don’t write his eulogy yet.” I didn’t say that the pastor wasn’t important. It was the sapphire dog that mattered.
“It’s not a eulogy. He’s a strong man. Maybe he’ll resist it.” Steve was quiet for a couple of seconds, then said: “I’ve been to the estate.”
“What?”
“I’ve been to the Wilbur estate. No one was there. Everything was locked up and dark, but I found where they’ve been holding it all these years. I found the plastic cage with all the lights. Was it the plastic that kept it trapped?”
“No,” I said. “It can go through plastic.”
“The lights, then. It was the lights that held it all this time?”
“Maybe. There are a couple of things you need to know about, though: there’s a girl named Shannon at the Conner house. She’s all alone there.” Justy took out her phone and began typing out a text message. “The adults are all dead or … damaged like Penny. And I saw Regina Wilbur in town. She had a shotgun. You might want to—”
“There!” Justy suddenly shouted. “I saw brake lights.” She pointed toward a gravel turnoff on the right.
Steve slammed on the brakes. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Steve backed up and turned onto the path. “Where does this lead?” I asked.
“Back to the fairgrounds.”
The road curved to the right, then led downhill to connect with the fairgrounds parking lot at the opposite side from the church. Justy finished her text message without glancing down at her phone.
“There’s the truck right there,” I said, pointing into the lot. The blue pickup was parked crooked beside the cluster of vans, trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles. Steve slowed down, approaching the scene carefully.
Now that I was closer, I saw just how blindingly bright the fairground lights were. The workers—volunteers from town, I assumed—had already constructed two huge tents, not as large as circus tents, but still big enough to house dozens of disaster victims, with two more ready to be erected. The canvases had been painted in different designs: red with white snowflakes, white with green Christmas trees, that sort of thing.
Everyone was working. They were unfolding canvas, connecting pipes, uncoiling electrical cable, whatever it took. No one was standing around watching. No one was fighting. Two people stopped and embraced while a third person rested a hand on their shoulders, but that looked like grieving. The predator wasn’t there.
In the far end of the parking lot, half hidden among the trees, was the Neon I’d rented. I hoped Catherine was there and that she was okay. I’d check later, if I had the chance.
I saw a shape move behind a van. “Stop. Stop!” I said, unclicking my seat belt and opening my door.
“Heaven’s sake, stay in the car.” Steve’s voice was tense.
I didn’t. He chirped the brakes as I climbed out, nearly dumping me on the ground. I ran around the edge of the parked cars, then dropped low.
Christ, the asphalt was cold. Why hadn’t I used my plastic to buy gloves? I peered under the cars, looking for moving feet and, maybe, a glimpse of a blue leg. No luck. I scrambled to my feet and peered through the car windows. Still no luck.
Steve had circled around the cluster of vehicles. He was too close, only ten feet from the pastor’s pickup. He should have known better. It occurred to me that I could use him as a distraction, as a wooden man, but I rejected that idea. I wasn’t here to sacrifice innocent people. I wanted to save them, not destroy them.
Several of the builders had noticed me creeping around their cars and stopped working. “Hey! Fella!” someone shouted. Six or seven of the workers began walking this way. Crap.
I was about to ask about a dog when Steve’s reedy voice cut through. “Have any of you boys seen Pastor Dolan?”
That question stopped them cold. The man in the front, wearing a wool-lined jacket and hunter’s cap, waved an arm vaguely behind him. “His truck broke down. Esteban is giving him a ride somewhere.”
I looked across the field in the direction Hunting Cap had waved. Midway down the tree line, there was a break in the woods. It was another feeder road.
“You saw that?” Steve asked him. “You saw the pastor get into his truck?”
“Yeah,” Hunting Cap said. “He was carrying something in his arms, like a load of laundry or something.”
I was already running toward the car when Steve called my name. Justy threw open the back door for me and yelled: “If you see either of them again, keep away! Let everyone know!” I climbed in and slammed the door shut. Steve raced down the slope across the grass toward the second feeder road.
The seat belt was difficult to click with the bumps and jolts of the uneven ground, but I managed it. “What kind of truck does Esteban have?”
“Cube truck,” Justy answered. “He’s a plumber.” Her tone was clipped. Steve hissed as he jounced around behind the wheel.
We reached the feeder road without breaking an axle, and Steve slowed. This road was made of mud and ruts. We had to be careful, or we were going to be stranded.
I wondered whether we’d find Aaron or Esteban in the truck when we caught up with it. So far, none of the people who’d been marked by the sapphire dog had wanted to share.
We hit a deep pothole, and the whole frame jolted. Steve slowed even more, which frustrated me even though I knew it was the smart thing to do. I hoped that whoever was driving the truck was less sensible and had stranded himself.
It didn’t happen. We eventually reached a two-lane asphalt road. There were no taillights visible in either direction.
“Town is to the left,” Steve said. He turned that way, really giving it gas.
I knew the road to the right also led to town, although it was a longer drive, but fair enough. I sat in my seat, staring ahead. The road twisted and curved, but there were no turnoffs. Eventually, we came to the top of a rise and I could see the lights of Washaway below.
“There he is,” Justy said. I saw a pair of taillights speeding toward town. Steve stomped on the gas, and for once I wished we were in a genuine cop car with lights, sirens, and everything. We zoomed down the hill, taking a long, slow curve at twice the speed the top-heavy truck could manage.
Justy turned around and stared at me blankly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “At Big Penny’s, I wasn’t ready. I ran—”
“Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I meant it. She looked grateful, then nodded and turned around.
Within two minutes, we were right behind him, honking our horn. Of course, the truck didn’t pull over.
“Dad-blastit,” Steve said. We angled across the double yellow line to pull alongside him, but the cube truck swerved, nearly smashing us off the road into the trees. Justy screamed, and Steve slammed on the brakes. I wished I could drag him out of his seat and jump behind the wheel.
“Esteban’s not answering his phone,” Justy said, snapping her cell shut. “I’m going to try Aaron now.”
We hung back from the truck for a few seconds. The gun in my pocket was out of bullets, and I didn’t think Steve would loan me his so I could shoot at the truck’s tires. Hell, I couldn’t hit the pastor’s tires when he was pulling out of a parking spot. There was no reason to think I’d do better now.
Of course, I also had my ghost knife. It would hit whatever I wanted it to hit, but it was just a piece of paper. Cutting into the edge of a moving tire would probably tear it apart, and I’d lose the last chance I had for killing the sapphire dog.
Steve gritted his teeth and stepped on the gas again. “Hold on!” he shouted. He rammed the back corner of the truck as we came to a sharp turn.
God, it was loud. We were jolted harder than the truck was, but we were expecting it. The truck driver overcorrected toward the left, swerved into the other lane, then swung back too hard to the right.
Steve slammed on the brakes. The truck struck a fence, then, skidding, hit a tree.
Steve’s car fishtailed to a stop. I opened my door and stepped out, ghost knife in hand. No one told me to stop this time.
I crept along the passenger side of the truck, half expecting the sapphire dog to jump on me. Instead, I heard the driver’s door open and close. I moved back to the rear of the truck.
Steve opened his door and stood behind it, his little revolver trained on someone I couldn’t see on the other side of the truck. “Drop that!” he shouted. “Esteban, you drop that or I will have to fire!” He sounded desperately afraid.
Steve didn’t change position. I moved toward the corner of the truck as quietly as possible. Not quietly enough, though. A Hispanic man with a sizable paunch and the biggest monkey wrench I’d ever seen turned toward me. He was smiling.
He had a white circle just below his left eye.
Esteban was a lefty, and when he swung that wrench, it came at me in a high, slow arc like a Frisbee. It was so slow that I actually caught it and tugged him off balance. When he stumbled, I hit him once, quickly, where his jaw met his ear. He dropped to the asphalt.
Steve holstered his weapon. He looked relieved.
I knelt on the plumber’s back while Steve handcuffed him. At least it wouldn’t have to be a citizen’s arrest this time. I jumped up and walked around the truck. There were no signs of activity in the cab and no dark circles on the sides. I hopped up to peek into the window.
Empty. I went around to the back. The latch was padlocked, but Steve had fished a fat, jangly key ring off Esteban’s belt and was fumbling with the keys. I could have cut the padlock off in a second, but I didn’t want to use the ghost knife in front of them. Instead, I stood and waited, holding my breath to hide my impatience.
He found a likely key and slid it into the lock. It sprang open. He drew his revolver and waved me back. I reached into my pocket and held on to my ghost knife.
Steve opened the door and shined a flashlight inside. The walls were lined with tools and shelves, and there was no place for the predator to hide.
“Esteban,” Steve said. “Where is it?”
The man on the ground had come around enough to laugh at him. He tried to get his knees under him, but he was still unsteady. He fell onto his side and kicked at me, still laughing.
Steve and Justy tried to pressure him into sharing more information, but it wasn’t going to happen. He laughed and jeered at everything they said, pleased that he had tricked us into following him.
I knelt beside him and held his face still. The mark was just a spot rather than a streak. The texture of his skin was unchanged—the pores and tiny hairs inside the mark were the same as outside—but the skin itself had become as white as a sheet of paper. I poked at it; it felt normal.
“Why has the sapphire dog decided to stay in Washaway?” I asked. “Why isn’t it trying to leave anymore?” He didn’t answer.
“He’s not going to help us, is he?” Justy said. She didn’t want to get close to him, and I didn’t blame her. Esteban cursed at us and laughed again.
Steve sighed. “Help me put him into the back of the car.”
I did, slamming the door shut. Esteban didn’t fight me and didn’t try to break out. He just sat and smiled.
“What do you think?” Steve said.
“Let me check something.” I went to the truck and climbed into the cab. Hunting Cap had seen the pastor get into the truck with something in his arms. If Esteban had attacked him, it would have happened in here.
There was no blood. There was no evidence of a fight at all. And I didn’t believe for a minute that Esteban could have taken that quick little pastor in a fight. I climbed out of the cab.
“Something’s changed,” I said. “The sapphire dog’s previous victims fought one another over it, but this guy left it with someone else to lead us on a wild-goose chase, and he’s happy about it.”
“And the mark is different,” Steve said.
“Either it’s learning how to control us better, or it’s eating more carefully. Probably the latter. I bet it’s still with the pastor.”
“But where is he?”
A car whooshed by us. There were two people inside, but they were gone before I could catch a glimpse of them. “Pretty much anyone in town would offer a ride to the pastor, right?”
Steve sighed and rested his hand on the roof of his car. He looked tired. “Yes.”
“We should see if he doubled back.”
“What if he didn’t?” Justy asked.
“Then we’ll drive around town, looking for him or anyone else with marks on their faces.”
Steve’s car rattled and clicked as we drove back to the fairgrounds. He kept looking into the rearview mirror and talking to Esteban, trying to pry cooperation from him with reason and social connection. I watched Esteban’s ironclad serenity and knew it was wasted effort. The sapphire dog had taken away the parts of him that Steve could appeal to.
The men and women working at the fairgrounds swore up and down that Pastor Dolan hadn’t returned and that none of their cars were missing. They had to shout at us while we talked; a snow-making machine on top of the field house was running, and it was loud. We found the church and the house dark. We broke down the doors and searched together. Steve clucked his tongue over the mess in the house, but we didn’t find any signs of life. Even the cats were gone.
We walked out into the yard. Steve offered me a ride back into town, but I declined. He drove away.
The Neon was parked in the same spot. Catherine opened the door for me.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, to my tremendous relief. “Thank you. I’m sorry I tried to shoot you.”
She still had that look. I didn’t like it and I had no idea how long it was going to last. She gave me the keys and slid into the passenger seat. She clicked her seat belt in place and folded her hands in her lap.
I started the engine. “Keep an eye out for hitchhikers. And for the predator.”
“All right.” Her voice sounded dull and thin. All the fire and sharp intelligence were missing. The ghost knife had done just what the sapphire dog did—it took away every part of a person’s personality but one. In that way, we were alike.
But who gave a damn about that? The predator was feeding on people, and it was my job to stop it.
I drove toward the campgrounds, the school, and the possibly mythical highway feeder road. My high beams lit the greenery around me, but I didn’t see any movement. I saw blackberry vines, ferns, and moss-covered trees, but no people hiding in the greenery. Certainly no pastor.
I rolled down the window. The air was bracing but Catherine didn’t complain. I drove quietly, radio off, listening and watching.
Nothing.
After a couple of miles we came to the campground entrance, a wide dirt path leading off the main road. I decided to pull in.
“What’s that?” Catherine asked.
The headlights had flashed on something bright red in the bushes. I put the car in park and stepped out. Immediately, I could see that it was a dead man.