Stars danced in Jed’s visual field, bright and sparkling against a backdrop of shadow smoke and raging black fire.

Is this how my journey ends? he thought as the creature on top of him sliced his forearms with talon-sharp nails. Is this how I die?

Yes, Jedidiah . . . this is how you die.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-FIVE

Sarah Beth watched Victor maul Uncle Jed.

As she did, a cold, hollow helplessness enveloped her—as if a thousand slimy, cold leeches had latched on to every inch of her body and were sucking the life from her.

“I have to do something,” she murmured. “I can’t let him die without trying to help. Jed wouldn’t quit on me, and I won’t quit on him.”

Finding her courage, she closed her eyes, exhaled, and followed the dark thread that led to the black hole that was Victor. As before with Maria Perez, she was sucked unwilling into his memories: A colonial village . . . snow blanketing the ground. I’m cold, always so very cold. I’m a little boy. My mother hugs me and promises it will be okay. I can tell she is so hungry, but she gives me most of her every meal anyway. My father is dead . . . robbed from us by a bright-scarlet rash and a weeklong fever that made him shout at invisible intruders and shiver so hard he cracked his teeth. Now we’re alone, and Mother must do secret, shameful things for money. People stare and whisper about us. When bad luck happens in the village, they start to blame it on her. Lots of bad luck happens that winter and eventually they come for her, clutching burning sticks. They call her a witch and drown her in an icy river in the name of righteousness. In the name of mercy. In the name of the holy Father. And so I curse them. I condemn them all to hell and they call me a child of Satan. And when the first demon comes to me, I welcome him. I am finally no longer cold inside. I am no longer weak. When a second demon finds me, I welcome it inside too. And then another and another and another. And when I’m strong enough, I make them all pay . . .

I understand now, she heard herself say, her heart awash with pity as she began to pull away.

“You think you understand me?” a young Victor said, materializing before her eyes to stop her retreat.

“I am so sorry for what they did to your mother,” she said, feeling hopeful that she might achieve a connection with him like she had with Detective Perez.

The boy smiled at her, his lips curling into a vulpine grin. “I don’t need your pity; what I need is your soul.”