“Ooh,” the rider said. “That’s gotta hurt. You’re the kind of girl who really plays it rough, aren’t you? No curb too high for a rental car. That’s what I always say. So what do you think? Kill all your family or let ’em live. No pressure. Totally your call.”
I gathered the strength I could. We were doomed. There was no way I could beat this thing in a fight. Chogyi Jake had warned me once—a long time ago, it seemed. Things work until they don’t. Guns. Hordes of the possessed. Supernatural serial killers. I’d taken them all. This time I didn’t stand a chance. I could save them all, and all it would mean was giving my soul to this thing. I looked over at Curt. My little brother, Curtis, who hadn’t even hit Senior Prom yet. How could I take that away from him?
Okay, I thought. Fine. Take me. Just leave my family alone.
“Get him!” The voice wasn’t mine. I thought for a moment that it was the Black Sun, but it had been a man’s voice.
Ex’s.
The front door burst open, and then half a second later the back one. The report of the shotgun was louder than I remembered. The Graveyard Child reared up, its arms spread wide.
“Oh, come on,” it shouted, and there were storms in its voice. A depth like the deepest canyon. “I was almost done here.”
Chogyi Jake stood by the back door and racked another round. And then another man stepped in behind him. Not Ex. A thicker man, older, whose dark skin made the tattoos on his face only a little less legible. Eduardo Martinez lifted his palms toward us, and I felt the blow of his will. The Graveyard Child stumbled back, its vast eyes going wide.
“By your name I bind you,” a woman said from the front door. Idéa Smith, with Ex standing behind her. “Puer Mórtuus, I bind you.”
“Well, this is fucked,” the Graveyard Child said, and Jonathan Rhodes stepped through the door to the dining room. The power of his will laced with the others, pushing and pressing, fashioning a cage of information, meaning, and intent so powerful, it was almost visible. The Graveyard Child writhed back, twisting at the waist and clawing at Rhodes. The thin young man didn’t even seem to notice the attack.
“By your name I bind you,” he said, and the resonance of his voice made the walls themselves seem to sing and crack. “Abraxiel Unas, I bind you.”
“You know,” the Graveyard Child shouted, “there are other ways we could address this. God, you cocksuckers are—”
It dropped to its knees, and for a moment its skin seemed to run. I saw Jay, kneeling as if in prayer, his hands before him and his eyes pressed closed.
Yes, I thought. Fight it. Come back to us, Jay. You can do this.
“By your name I bind you,” Martinez said. “Graveyard Child, by your name I bind you.”
The house went silent. I could hear the tick-tick-tick of the clock. The soft hushing of the wind. Snow swirled in through the doorways, and the furnace clicked, hummed, and came to life. I tried to stand up but my knees wouldn’t support me. Ex limped over to me and took my hand.
“Hey,” he said. “Look what I found outside. Pretty cool, huh?”
I smiled. Jay lay on the floor in a fetal position. His eyes were closed. He could almost have been sleeping. Waves ran along under his skin. I couldn’t imagine what it was to be him just then. Worse than being trapped in the cage with the monster, he was the cage.
“Exorcism,” I said. “You have to get Jay back.”
“I will,” Ex said. “It may take a while, but it will happen.”
Chogyi Jake and Idéa Smith were to my right, lifting my still-bound father back to where he could sit up. There was blood running down past his ear and his breathing was hard and labored. But he wasn’t dead. He probably wasn’t even badly hurt. Rhodes came toward me, grinning. His teeth were ornately carved, and there were black tattoos on his gums, and despite all that, he looked like a kid who’d just gotten his first bicycle.
“How did this happen?” I asked.
“We followed you,” Rhodes said. “Nothing personal, but we weren’t entirely sure our conversation back at my hotel wasn’t a trick. When you left, we started surveillance. And when we got here, and you went in . . . well, that was kind of the acid test.”
“I told them it would be okay with you,” Ex said. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“You get a raise,” I said.
Chogyi Jake had untied my father’s hands and moved on to Curtis. Dad wasn’t looking at me or anyone else in particular. His gaze was fixed on the middle of the table, his jaw set and angry. I tried to imagine how this all looked and felt to him. This was his home. The one place he’d always been able to assert control. And now look at it. Filled with freaks, demons, and unholy magicians. His eldest son caught in the grips of Satan and his disgraced daughter and her friends wandering through the place as if it were theirs. He was humiliated, broken, and embarrassed, and I didn’t even know how to make it better for him. I got to my feet, still unsteady, and didn’t look at him. Pretending not to notice was all I had to offer him now. Mom was being untied, her freed hands fluttering around her like pigeons on strings, frantic and pointless.
“We’re going to need a space for the exorcism,” Ex was saying. “My guess is that thing had its claws pretty deep in your brother. It may take some time to do this right. I was thinking that if your dad’s garage—”
“Not here,” I said. “It needs to be done, and so we’ll do it, but not here.”
Ex raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“Whatever you say. You want me to start looking for decent ritual spaces? It could be kind of hard to find a place, with the holidays and all, but I can’t see leaving him like that until January.”
Jay, on the floor, twitched and shifted, his face distorting in something like a scream, only silent. His hands clenched and unclenched.
“No, you’re right,” I said. “We’ll find something. Maybe the church. Would that be all right?”
“Sure,” Ex said. “I can do nondenominational, if that’s what we’re working with. Just as long as you don’t have any amateurs who want to get in on it. I don’t have time or patience for that crap.”
“I’m sure we can work something out,” I said. “If nothing else, I’ll rent a warehouse and you can consecrate it.”
“Okay,” he said, and sat on the table with a sigh. “You know, I’m really looking forward to not having my foot hurt.”
“You caught a shotgun blast from one of the most powerful and dangerous riders I’ve ever heard of,” I said. “I figure you’re going to be faking a limp for decades.”
“Me? Never,” he said. “Years tops. Not decades.”
I walked to the living room. Ozzie was sitting on the rug, panting. Her tongue hung out of her mouth and her eyes were wide and distressed. I squatted beside her, scratching her with bent fingers.
“Hey, girl,” I said. “It’s okay. That was freaky, I know. But it’s over. Good guys won.”
Ozzie looked at me and then past me to the kitchen door. Her mouth closed and she growled. I rubbed her ears. They were soft and fuzzy, just the way dogs ears should be.
“You did a fine job,” I said. “You’re a good, good—”
It came like a detonation. There was no sound, no physical movement, no sign or signal apart from the overwhelming sense of vast power released. I stumbled, trying to get to my feet. I got to the kitchen too late. The Graveyard Child stood in the room’s center, Eduardo Martinez in its grip. In a fraction of a second I was in the small space behind my eyes, my body exploding forward. I dove, leading with my left elbow, and the impact actually made the thing lose its grip and stumble back. Eduardo lay on the kitchen floor, motionless. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. My mother huddled back against the stove, her hands up over her ears, her eyes closed. Curtis knelt in front of her, his fists at the ready like a boxer on his knees. Dad was in the TV room, turning away. Idéa Smith and Rhodes were running toward the rider. I kicked twice, hard. The first one connected, but the second time it caught my ankle and twisted. Something in my knee tore, and I fell to the linoleum. Chogyi Jake was over me, one foot on either side of my chest. The shotgun went off three times in fast succession and the rider let go of me, batting Chogyi Jake away and rushing down the steps and into the TV room, where he lay still.