“Please please please,” cried the voice. It sounded male, but young. And so, so scared. “Please let me go. I won’t tell anyone!”

Then he screamed, a sound that tore through me like a blade.

“I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up,” said the boy’s snarling captor. “My brothers and sisters are trying to sleep up there. You wake them, I get in trouble.”

I gritted my teeth and wrenched myself away from the window, pulling my phone from my pocket again while I jogged toward the back of the house. This time, I called Malachi. What was taking him so long? It rang until it went to voice mail. I called Henry. Same thing. I almost called Jim but then realized that even if he picked up, he either couldn’t or wouldn’t help.

I had a choice. I could try to get the boy out now, or I could go all the way back to the shelter and try to round up my Guards, who seemed unable to operate their cell phones. I could also call the police, but all that would do was clear out the Mazikin, who would be free to find a new home. We couldn’t exactly mow them down in front of the authorities. What we needed was for the Mazikin to stay put so that we could burn this place to the ground with them inside. The last people we wanted paying attention were the cops.

The boy screamed again, and my decision was made.

The Mazikin had said his brothers and sisters were sleeping “up there.” Since he was on the first floor, he must have meant they were on the upper floors. Maybe I could get in there and free the boy without alerting them to my presence. Maybe by the time I had, Malachi would have arrived.

I texted Tegan: Tell Malachi to check his phone. Then I wiggled through a broken window at the rear of the house and let myself into the basement, my knife out and ready. The stale air reeked of mildew. I went over to the basement door and unlocked it, giving myself a quick escape route.

The stairs to the first floor were rickety but passable, and my boots made no sound as I inched my way up. The door at the top of the steps was hanging open, and I kept low as I poked my head out, taking in the dim hallway, lit only by fingers of light from the few windows not covered with boards. The silence was broken only by the muffled sobs of the boy, and I stayed close to the wall as I passed by a living room jam-packed with ugly couches and ripped cushions, their fluffy guts exposed. Discarded clothes lay in piles along the edges of the room. Someone had barfed all over the carpet, and the stench almost overpowered the scent of incense and mildew.