Nora stood alone and wrapped her arms around herself. She surveyed the oozing bodies, the splayed limbs, the scattered cultists in their ruined churchgoing finery. She kicked at a stray shoe with a broken heel. It skittered across the concrete and stopped against a man’s thigh.
She tried to picture her mother, but she recalled her uncle Theo instead, vaguely, without details. A man in a car, waiting while someone else spoke cryptically beneath a tree. Was his hair black? Blond? Gray?
Again she thought of her mother, or she tried to. She strained to recall anything at all. A birthday party. A breakfast. A sleepover with friends. She could summon nothing precise—nothing that wouldn’t make a lazy background for a low-budget sitcom on a third-tier network. Here was a ticket to the school’s Christmas play, in which Nora was North Pole Elf #2. There was a case of chicken pox. And they’d gone to Disneyland that one time, and Nora got to meet Mickey and got her picture taken holding his big white hand.
So where was the picture? And where was her mother, that missing ghost in the background of every mental snapshot?
For that matter … “What about my dad?”
Matt, she thought. Uncle Theo had called her dad Matt.
Nora didn’t remember her mother’s name.
From every corner, down every corridor, inside every closed, locked room in the warehouse, the shadows answered her with a fierce, unpleasant tugging that yanked at her soul. When she listened hard, she thought she heard them moving.
No. When she listened hard, she thought she heard them laughing.
4
Shadows swirled along the edge of the sidewalk, and Nora swore they were whispering, wondering why she didn’t embrace them or, at the very least, let them carry her home. She had wandered the city most of the day, burning off anxious energy instead of going home and succumbing to exhaustion. The shadows had nudged and tugged at her all afternoon, and now that evening had arrived they were growing stronger, urging her homeward. But she didn’t want the shadows right now. Didn’t want the easy way home. It was all she could do to keep her pace measured and not break into a run, racing along the empty streets, racing to …
She didn’t know. But she walked until she saw the yellow beacon of a cab and then she hailed it, even as the ebon tendrils twisted around her feet, more urgent now, promising a faster, safer ride. She climbed into the car anyway and gave the driver an address, and even then she paid little attention to what she was saying. She actually thought she’d told the driver to take her home, until he pulled up in front of a building that wasn’t hers.
“This isn’t—” She stopped herself. She let out a soft sigh of relief, as if the shadows themselves had deposited her here, exactly where she wanted to be right now.
She paid the driver. Overpaid him, shoving money his way and saying, “That’s fine,” and ignoring his effusive thanks. She hurried to the door and caught it behind another resident, one who’d clearly had a good night—too good to notice her grabbing the door before it closed behind him.
She took the stairs because the elevator would surely be too slow. She flew up the flights and then down the hall and—
And that’s when she stopped. Outside the apartment door, her hand raised to knock.
It’s late. Do you even know how late it is?
She checked her watch and started, surprised at the hour. Still, she didn’t retreat. She hovered there, wanting to knock, not hard, not enough to wake anyone. She glanced down the hall, then back at the door. Her knuckles rapped softly—barely a whisper—before she had time to change her mind. No, this was wrong, it was too late and she was only upset. There was no good reason to inflict her woes on anyone else. She ought to turn around, walk away, and let the shadows carry her home.
She started down the hall, feet dragging, like a child being hauled off for discipline by an exasperated parent.
A lock clicked behind her. She heard the soft whoosh of a door opening.
“Nora?”
She glanced over her shoulder. Sam stepped into the hall. His hair was brushed back, bits standing up at odd angles, as if he had been fighting off sleep while he worked. He smiled at her, a genuine smile that brushed away the day, just for a moment.
“I thought I heard someone out here,” he said as she returned slowly to his door. “But I didn’t hear you knock.”
“I’m sorry … sorry about lunch. I know I said I would … I shouldn’t…”
“I texted you half a dozen times,” he said, more concerned that admonishing. “You had me worried, Nora.”
She glanced back down the hall where the shadows stretched from the corners, urging her to join them.
Don’t bring him into this, they seemed to be saying. Don’t take the chance. Come to us. We’ll get you home. We’ll take care of you.
It was over. The Children of Phonos were done in New York. Eventually others would come and try to reestablish the chapter here, but for now—for a while, at least—they were done. Dead. No more black magic. No more human fucking sacrifices.
It was a win, right?
Sure as hell didn’t feel like one.
She looked back at Sam.
He was moving toward her, his face drawn tight with worry. “Nora, hey. Seriously, are you okay?”
“I…” She exhaled. “Long day. And I really am sorry I stood you up. I shouldn’t have just turned up like this.”
“No, you absolutely should have.” He steered her toward his apartment. “You look like you were out chasing a story. Did something happen?”
Did something happen. She bit through her cheek not to laugh. No, not much, really. I found a boy about to be sacrificed. I couldn’t save him. I tried, but I couldn’t. Then Indigo killed …
Indigo killed? No, Nora killed. She was Indigo, and as much as she might like to blame the events of the day on some separate part of her, she couldn’t start down that path or else she’d never stop, and every terrible thing she did as Indigo would be justified. Because it wasn’t really her.
Except that it was her. It was always her.
And it was justified, wasn’t it? When she thought of those people, and what they tried to do—what they would’ve done again—she knew she’d done the right thing. So why did she feel sick every time she thought about it?
Because you’re weak.
She tensed at that, startled by the venom in the words—and wondering where, exactly, they’d come from.
“Nora?” Sam said.
She’d barely been aware of his ushering her inside his apartment, and now she blinked, looking around at the living room. Numb and confused, she lowered herself onto the sofa. Sam disappeared and returned with a bottle of red wine in one hand and a fifth of Scotch in the other.
He hefted the wine. “It’s left over from the last time you were here. I’m not sure if it’s still good or…” He shrugged. “I’m not really a wine guy.”
He wasn’t really a Scotch guy either, as evidenced by the faint layer of dust on the bottle. It’d probably been a gift.
Beer was more Sam’s style, and he didn’t drink much of that either—but he knew it wasn’t her thing, so he’d dug up these alternatives. He’d done a good job. It settled her nerves a little, the comfort of the familiar, of being with someone who knew her.