“You’re here to start the summoning. You’re here to bring Gray back.” His lower lip was set in a stubborn line. I found the expression distractingly familiar, but then I remembered it was one I’d seen in the mirror. That realization enraged me all the more.

“I’m here to stop the . . . the summoning! Don’t you get it? If I don’t stop it, my aunt Lu is going to die—and then I’m going to die—and I don’t particularly want to die, dammit, so I’m here to put an end to this whole thing!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care!” My voice had climbed to a higher, frustrated pitch. “It’s God’s own truth! And if I have to shoot you in order to see this out, you can bet your sweet ass I will.”

“Don’t you swear before God.”

“Why not? He knows I’m not lying, and if you two were really on such magnificent speaking terms, He’d tell you that!” More thunder, closer now. Or was it thunder at all? It wasn’t rolling in crashing peals, rather it seemed to come in one rushing wave.

Closer. Definitely closer.

But what to do with Malachi? The weight of the gun was deeply tempting, but I knew myself better than he did, and I knew that I wasn’t going to fire it. I did want to put it down, though, because the thought of standing in a thunderstorm while holding a raised hunk of metal didn’t much appeal to me.

“Forget it.” I waved the gun at the car. “Just forget it, and get in the trunk.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to kill you—even though I bloody well should. But since I can’t have you following me, either, get in the trunk before I start using your less vital body parts for target practice. Do it!”

His internal debate was written all over his face, but I never had time to learn whether or not he would have eventually obeyed, for it was then that the thunder hit us. The wave struck us both, shaking the swamp and leaving the air smelling of sizzled ozone, so there might have been some lightning too. Then, after it had run us over, it was gone, except for a residual rumble and the ringing in our ears.

At least my ears were ringing again when I picked myself back up.

No part of Malachi was doing much of anything, except lying in a loose pile, the whites of his eyes peeking out as pale as boiled eggs. His tongue lolled past his teeth at the corner of his mouth. A trickle of blood dampened the base of his nose.

If he wasn’t really unconscious, he was way better at faking it than I was.