I skirted a pool of slimy orange goo and came into a small clearing, exactly thirty feet wide. I knew the size because Luther had it mowed once every few weeks. It took five people to do it. One drove an armored lawn mower and the other four guarded the driver.

A large white rock jutted out of the center of the clearing. Next to it a hole gaped in the ground, so dark it looked like it was filled with liquid blackness.

I chose a spot about ten feet from the rock, picked up a stone the size of a grapefruit, crouched, and knocked on a rocky outcropping.

Knock. Knock.

Nothing.

Mitchell required patience. I knocked again, hitting the rock against the stone in a steady measured rhythm. My back was to the brush. I presented an awesome target, crouched and nearly naked.

Knock . . . knock . . . knock . . . Come on, Mitchell. Come talk to me.

Knock . . . knock . . .

Something stirred within the darkness of the ghoul burrow.

I put the rock down and waited.

A long spadelike hand armed with straight, narrow claws emerged, followed by a thin arm, a grotesque head, and then shoulders. A moment and Mitchell squeezed himself out of the burrow and crouched in the open. Moonlight slid over his dirt-colored skin mottled with patches of gray and deeper brown, and set his eyes aglow with eerie silver. His horns, the curved spikelike protrusions on his back and shoulders, were almost six inches long, a full three inches longer than the last time I saw him. Something had terrified Mitchell and his body had responded. A long chain wrapped around his left ankle and a rough band of thick scar tissue encircled his leg right above it. He had clawed at his own flesh trying to get the chain off. If Luther had put him on a chain, he and I would have words once I was done.

Mitchell didn’t move. Neither did I. We crouched, barely three feet between us. Some picture we must’ve made, a naked ghoul and a nearly naked human shivering in the cold, sitting nose to nose.

Mitchell turned his head and looked at the moon, his eyes glowing.

“Tell me about the chain,” I said.

“I found it.” His voice was rough, as if he were grinding gravel with his teeth. “The thing chained to it was dead, so I took the chain.”

So he had put himself on the chain? “Why?”

“Do you not hear it? The call?” Mitchell looked at the moon again. “He’s calling. It’s like a weight. It grinds on you, it pushes and pushes, and it hurts.” He looked back at me, his face contorted. “It hurts.” He touched his forehead. “In here.” His clawed hands slid lower to his neck. “And here.” Lower still to his chest. “Here. And here. In the stomach. It squeezes me. It hurts.”