“Lilly?”
She’s next to me, staring at her gun like it’s some kind of disgusting metal slug. I stagger to my feet, and we’re running again, dodging around the mirrors. Footsteps seem to be approaching from all directions. Everywhere I turn I see helmets, red lights, slicing black legs, and I don’t know if they’re reflections or if they’re right there, inches away from me.
Another three trackers burst out diagonally in front of us. They spot us. Whirl. We skid to the right, dart down a short passage, left, left again, deeper into the maze. And now we’re at a dead end, hemmed in on three sides by mirrors.
I spin, feeling for an opening. I see something skim past. I run for it. And slam against solid glass. I reel back. Something hot trickles from my nose and into my mouth.
“Whoa,” I say shakily, turning to Lilly. “Whoa, that was—”
Lilly gasps.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m fine, we—”
Three trackers are standing at the entrance to the dead end. Another one approaches. Four, five-six-seven, silent and glittering.
What are they waiting for?
My eyes flick to the left. We’re trapped. I see Lilly and myself in the glass, desperate, frozen.
Wait.
One of the reflections isn’t Lilly.
About four reflections in is a shape. It’s matching its pose to Lilly’s, head down, arms limp at its side. But it’s not Lilly. It’s the woman in the dripping red dress. And suddenly she skips a mirror as easily as stepping through a doorway and starts toward us.
Oh God. I reach out to touch the glass. It isn’t glass. It’s air. The woman picks up speed, coils into a crouch, and launches herself. The trackers leap toward us.
I grab the first thing I can get out of my pocket: the steel globe with a button at the top. I jam the button and hurl it. The globe cracks against the first tracker’s helmet. Rolls away. Seriously?
The woman rams into the trackers, and she’s like a tiny vicious hurricane. She swings through them, sinuous and savage, a whirl of red, her arms wrapping necks and legs, breaking them. I catch a glimpse of teeth, long and spiny.
Lilly and I dive through the opening between the mirrors and feel our way down a passageway. I glance back over my shoulder. I can still see her. She’s corpse white and hunched, and her dress is in tatters, whirling around her like a cloud. She hurls a tracker into a mirror and turns, looking toward us. She’s not breathing hard. She’s not breathing at all. Her eyes are dead black.
A tracker strikes her aside and heads our way. It never gets a chance to run. The woman catches it by the neck. I spin forward again, but I hear the sound it makes, the bite.
That thing is not human.
None of them are.
Slam, slam.
The mirrors keep shifting. Something’s coming after us.
We’re in another compartment, three walls of glass. Another dead end. I hear something running. I hear panting, close by, right next to me, then veering away.
Lilly, I mouth. Gesture toward a gap in the mirrors. We’re going to have to backtrack.
Snick—soft as a fingernail paring. And there’s the woman, her head emerging between the mirrors.
I freeze. White skin, glossy and hard like stone. No hair. Not even eyelashes. Her wig’s gone. She blinks once, translucent lids over black. She slides into the compartment, lithe as a cat.
“Stay back,” I hiss, pulling a knife out of my belt. “Stop, do not come any closer!”
She lets out an ear-shattering shriek.
I lash out, and she dodges. Skitters to the side. Now she leaps forward, catching me behind the knee. My legs fold. I fall and my head slams into glass.
She vaults onto my stomach. Liquid like dirty water is flowing from her dark eyes. She’s sniffling, crying.
“Aurélie?” she says. One of her hands flies up, and the hand has claws, spiny thin like a cat’s––
Over her left shoulder, a harsh zapping sound.
The thing falls in a heap on my chest.
Lilly’s standing behind her, an expression of sheer horror on her face. She’s holding my taser. We stare at each other. I push the woman off and scramble to my feet. The woman has a smile on her face even though she’s stunned, convulsing on the floor. Her eyes are open, flipping back and forth between us, and there’s a little scar under one of them, like a scratch of moonlight.
We follow the glow of reflected light, three turns, straight ahead. Now we’re out of the maze, in a music room with a gilt spinet. A tropical jungle mural is painted on all four walls, lush and colorful, bright birds peeking through the brushstroke undergrowth. There’s a door in each wall. We head for the one straight ahead.
The lights are on. Finally, finally, the lights are on again.
“We’ll get them,” I whisper. We’re clinging to each other, stumble-running like a couple of drunks. “We’ll find them; it’ll be okay.”