“Gimme a minute,” I growled with more assurance than I felt. But, summoning my last drops of adrenaline, I put all my weight into my right side and heaved. Avery lost his balance and our fight began to roll. I found that if I fought my natural inclinations and pulled my body closer to his, he couldn’t get enough leverage to stay on top.

It worked until we hit the bed. Avery’s back collided with it, and he let go just enough—and my skin was just slick enough with my own blood—for me to jerk one arm free from his grasp.

In my flailing to get away, it was by simple accident that I elbowed him in the eye; but it worked so well I didn’t complain. He let go of my other arm, and of his knife as well. It clattered to the floor and I reached for it, but he swiped it away first. It slid under the bed beyond either of our immediate reaches, so we both turned our attention to my gun.

Malachi’s gun. The one I’d brought inside with me.

On the floor near the door. We saw it at the same moment. I shoved off from against the bed—the shack wasn’t any bigger than a large bedroom and I could have cleared it in a single leap, if Avery hadn’t grabbed my foot and yanked me out of the air.

I fell on my face and palms, kicking at him with everything I had left. But my hands were sticky-slippery, and I couldn’t pull myself up or get any traction to escape. My fingers ached and my head ached and I was bleeding from places I couldn’t even see without a mirror, and Avery had me like a fish on a hook.

Next to the gun, the door was open. As I flailed against my grandfather, who was reeling me in, one chunk of pants leg at a time, I saw the three ghosts outside. As one, they raised their heads as if they heard something approach.

Mae shook her head, her eyes wide. She’s coming, child. You must kill him now, before she reaches us, or it is too late.

Oh God. Mae was right. The shadows were so long they were steadily blending into darkness, and Lu would be dead in a moment if I didn’t act. It couldn’t end this way. I couldn’t come so close only to blow it at the last second.

Lu was counting on me.

Dave was counting on me.

All those monks, or priests, or whatever they were, at that church in St. Augustine, they were counting on me too, whether they knew it or not.