“Henry …” Should he launch into an explanation of why faith in a God did not automatically mean a faith in spirits?

“You don’t need to say anything. But you know the truth—and I’ll track it down, too. I’ll find it.”

The eagerness in Henry, the way he fairly thrummed with it, shocked Saul. It was as if Henry had thrown aside a disguise, laid bare his soul, and beneath that guarded exterior Saul had discovered one of the more virulently rigid of his flock from back north. The chosen ones who would never be dissuaded, the “Séance” side of their little brigade. He didn’t want a follower.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” Obstinate, because he didn’t want to be dragged into this, because he felt so ill. Because a few strange dreams did not add up to what Henry wanted them to add up to.

Henry ignored him, said, “Suzanne thinks the catalyst was something they brought with them. But that’s not true, even if I can’t tell you what combination of steps or processes brought us to this point. And yet, it happened. After we’ve spent so many years of searching in so many places with so little to show for it.”

Against his better judgment, because more and more Henry looked like a victim to him, Saul said, “Do you need help? Tell me what’s going on, and maybe I can help you. Tell me who that woman was.”

“Forget you saw her, Saul. You’ll never see her again. She doesn’t care about the supernatural world or getting to the truth, not really.”

Then Henry smiled and walked away, toward what destination Saul had no idea.

0013: CONTROL

Half the wall exploded and a thousand eyes peered in as Control sprawled from the impact in the dust and debris. His head throbbed and there was pain in his side and his left leg, but he forced himself to lie still. He was playing dead just to keep his head. He was playing dead to keep his head. A line from a book about monsters his father had read to him as a child. Rising out of a place long forgotten like a flare shot into the sky. Knocked into his brain, it kept looping. Playing dead to keep his head. The brick dust settling now, those eyes still an awful pressure. Even as the crunch of glass—the obliterating sound of that, the questing horror of that—sounded near his ear, and then the weight shifting near his legs. He fought the impulse to open his eyes, because he had to play dead to keep his head. Somewhere to his right, the knife he’d dropped, and his father’s carving falling out of his pocket. Even sprawled as he was sprawled, seeking it with a trembling hand, reflexively. He was shivering, he was shaking, the reverberations of the creature’s passage creating a pain like cracks and fissures in his bones, the brightness trying to escape, the part of him that was lonely, that wanted to reach out. Playing dead. To keep his head.