I hid in the yard until all the lights went out and a deep nighttime stillness settled over the neighborhood. I checked my mask and gloves and then zipped up my black sweatshirt, bringing the hood down low over my forehead. As I made my way around the side of the house, I slipped my knife from its sheath.
The doors were locked, but I found a basement window with a rotted-out frame. I popped it open, then climbed inside and crept through the dark until I came to a set of stairs that led up to the moonlit living room. There was an antique-looking couch draped with knitted blankets and lace doilies, lamps with gobs of crystal hanging from cut-glass shades. Ranks of pictures in silver frames sat on the mantel above the fireplace. It looked like something that would’ve belonged to an old lady, not a middle-aged man. He must have stolen the house too.
I crept up another set of stairs, carefully testing each one for creaks before committing my weight to it. The top floor was tiny, nothing but a short hallway of deeply worn wooden slats with two doors in the middle and one at the far end. They were all open. Moonlight filled the room at the end of the hall. I could see two figures lying beneath a white sheet.
My pulse beat in my throat. I closed my eyes and pictured Cardinal. I felt armor slapping down over my skin and wings growing from my back.
A floorboard groaned as I came into the bedroom. The man didn’t stir, but Mom’s eyes popped open and she shot upright against the headboard. I got to her before she could make a sound, clamping one gloved hand over her mouth and motioning for her to stay still with the other. She started to struggle when she saw the knife.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered, letting her see me put it back in its sheath. “I need you to get up and come with me. Do you understand?”
There was a pause, and then she nodded slowly. I lifted my hand away from her mouth.
“Good. Let’s move. Downstairs.”
I motioned toward the door. She pushed aside the sheets and stood up, moving with that same dreamy obedience I’d seen the night before. Of course, I knew what it was now. She was terrified. I hated scaring her, but if it kept her quiet and doing what I said, I’d have to live with it. Once I got her up to Lucy’s Promise, I’d explain everything, just like I’d done with Hannah.
I kept an eye on the man in the bed as she headed for the door. He was on his side, the sheets rising to mounds at his shoulders and his belly. My hand went to the hilt of the knife, and I felt some part of myself drain down into the blade. The steel edge hummed.
Mom’s voice broke through her shock. It was small and trembling. “Don’t hurt him. Please. I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt him.”
I felt a sliver of rage. She’d been taken in by him so completely that she wanted to defend him. I told myself she didn’t know any better, couldn’t have known any better. I nodded toward the door.
“Go. Now.”
Mom took a last look at the man in the bed, then started down the hall toward the stairs. When we got to the first floor, she stopped in the living room, as if she were waiting for instructions. The front door was to my left, just beyond a small kitchen. We’d be home free in no time.
“Come on,” I said, hurrying past her to the door. “We’ll go out this way, and then—”
Something plowed into my back and sent me sprawling out in the entryway. When I turned over, I saw Mom standing by the kitchen table with a metal chair in her hands.
“Fred!” she screamed. “There’s someone here! There’s someone in the house!”
“No! Wait! You don’t understand. That man, he isn’t—”
The room exploded with light. The man came running down the stairs with a baseball bat. I didn’t hesitate. I pulled my knife and charged him, swinging as soon as he was within reach. The blade bit into the back of his hand, and I dragged it across his knuckles. He dropped the bat and fell into a heap at the foot of the stairs, bent in half over his injury, pressing it into his stomach. When he sat up again, his white T-shirt was soaked with blood. The red of it was electric in the bright lights. Throbbing.
“You have to listen to me,” I said as Mom ran to him. “You’re not who you think you are. This man isn’t . . . he isn’t . . .”
Darkness came flooding in from the corners of the room and closed in around the point where the man’s hand was pressed to his belly. A stream of blood filled his lap and spilled out onto the floor. My stomach turned. The stench was so strong that I could smell it through my mask, like copper and lightning. Metallic chimes rang in my head. I stumbled backward toward the front door. My vision blurred. I was going to be sick.
I fumbled with the doorknob, my fingers slipping uselessly against the metal. Finally, I managed to turn it and fresh air flooded the room. I fell out onto the porch and down the stairs. The last thing I heard was Mom crying as I ran into the night.