"YOU PROMISED," I WHISPERED. "You said if I joined you, then Relly would be safe. You promised."
He clapped his hands to shut me up. Sparks blew out from his fingertips. Again, I tried to argue. And he yelled me down, his awful growls turning to flame in midair.
Knacke made a claw of one hand and dragged it downward. He left four glowing marks that hung like luminous ribbons. He snarled and I thought he would turn into a beast right there. A mad dog with fiery breath.
"Now?" Frankengoon asked.
"Now?" Scratch repeated, pressing Relly backward over the abyss.
"Now," Knacke said.
The squeal of tires and the drumming of a powerful motor broke the ritual moment. There, coming at us down Broad Street was the Buttmobile, like a black hammer slamming through the white veils of snow.
Butt aimed his van straight at us, like he wanted to smash us all, throw us plummeting into the gorge.
Knacke screamed, Scratch howled, Frankengoon groaned the word No like a foghorn blast.
Butt pounded his brake pedal and threw open the side door. He leaned out, grabbed Relly, and yanked him into the van. I heard Jerod's voice too, yelling for me to follow.
I guess the fever came back to me in a burning wave. Because what I saw next seemed so unreal, and what I did was impossible. Fearless now, or maybe so crazy that fear didn't even count, I grabbed the four quivering ribbons of light out of the air and whipped them across Knacke's face. I felt pain, real and intense, going deep. But it was like my hand was not connected to my brain. It just grabbed. I lashed Knacke with those four burning whips and he fell back, snarling like a wild animal.
When my blurred daze fell away, I was in the Buttmobile, speeding with my three friends away from the bridge.
Relly was in bad shape, real bad shape. He'd looked at death and death had looked back at him. The abyss had been ready to take him. And he'd been ready to go. Now he was safe again, at least for a little while. Only it was like that black emptiness was still looming before him.
Butt had his foot to the floor. The van was shaking and tires whined as we took the snow-slicked corners. I was with Relly in the back, holding him, trying to get him all the way back to us. He shook. And this made me hold on tighter, like maybe I could draw some of the fear and the fire into myself.
"We're in big trouble!" Jerod yelled. "They're right behind us."
Relly's shakes started in again, worse than before. "There's no way," he whispered. "We're dead. We'll never get away from them."
Through the van's muddy rear window came two powerful streams of light. There was Knacke's car, with all three of our enemies in it. Their faces looked like white rubber masks, bulging and twisting in rage.