There was something else now, a sound like the snarl that thing had made as it passed through the portal. It was above us, and around us, moving through the stacks, and with it were more shouts and more gunshots. I heard Valkyrie Cain’s voice.

When we looked back to the kids, they were gone. All but one.

Pete Green remained. He stood in the circle, looking at us, an eleven-year-old boy. At his feet, my son, unconscious.

I fought the urge to rush forward. “Why?” I asked.

Pete shrugged. “It likes the taste. The thing you saw. It likes the taste of mortal children. Fourteen years old, that’s when they taste best, that’s when it gets all the nutrients it needs. Who am I to disagree?”

“But why Sammy? Why our children?”

“Because I couldn’t take you,” said Pete. “I wanted all of you. You two and Benny. We all went down here, but I was the only one who stayed. How is that fair?”

“You killed Tyler,” I said.

He grew up before our eyes. He grew taller and older and his clothes changed and his shirt disappeared and he was bare-chested and tattooed with scars again, just like he had been in the warehouse.

“Tyler was the only one I could take,” he said. “But I made plans. Contingency plans. I was too late to stop you from leaving, my buddy, my pal, but I made sure Chrissy never got beyond the town limits, didn’t I, sweetheart? I saddled her with a husband who was going to drain the fight right out of her. I left her with nowhere to turn. I left her with one option, and one option only.”

Chrissy stiffened, and Bubba Moon looked at me and laughed. “All part of the game, you understand. I needed a way to get you to bring your family back to the old homestead for a few days, and really, what choice did she have? It was either your kid… or hers.”

I frowned, raising the gun. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” Chrissy said. She stepped away from me. She went to stand beside Moon.

I stared at them both. My hand started to tremble.

“You want to shoot me?” said Moon. “Or do you want to shoot the person who broke in and suffocated your dear old dad?”

He took one single step to the side, distancing himself from Chrissy.

“No…” I whispered. “Chrissy… what…?”

“He made me do it,” she said, tears running down her face. “He said he’d take Scott next. He wouldn’t let me leave—”

“Excuses, excuses,” said Moon. “The point is, she killed your daddy, betrayed you to me, and now she wants me to kill your son instead of hers. You can’t go home again, isn’t that what they say?”

“I’ll kill you,” I said, pointing the gun at him.

“Go ahead.”