“More or less,” said Melody. “If there were illustrations with the information, there probably were depictions of the cord emanating from the sleeping body’s forehead and connecting at the spiritual form’s forehead. At times, you’ll see it as emanating from the chest or the back. The odd thing is, I don’t have one and neither do you and neither do most I’ve met. And yet all of my teachers—great adepts—swear everyone has one whether it can be seen or not.”

He nodded as they crossed the street to the park entrance.

“OK, there are a number of ways the cord might be severed while the spirit is about in the night. If that happens, the sleeper’s body will die. But the spirit body adrift in the night world atrophies, shrivels, and becomes an evil entity with only one purpose: to sever the cords of other travelers.”

“The misery-loves-company school of retribution?”

“Yes. But it’s not like a conscious will on their part. It’s more like they become an aspect of—if you can comprehend this—the spiritual ecosystem of the world we move through.”

“How do you distinguish them from regular sleepers?

“They glow like us. They look like us in every aspect except their eyes are cold. You’ve got to be fairly close to them to see this, though. If someone approaches and they have an empty affect, jump away quickly. They’re earthbound and have lost the power to leap like we can.”

“What happens if you don’t notice their eyes?”

“Their fingers are capable of piercing your incorporeal form, usually through the chest, and unhooking your cord. And an instant later, you’re one of them. Sometimes they hunt in packs. Remember, there’s nothing human about them. Whatever seems human, speech, facial expression, gait, is all unconscious mimicry.”

“I thought sleepers couldn’t touch. So, how do they unhook your silver cord? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I can’t explain it,” she said. “The night world has somehow allowed this to happen. My teacher told me to think of it as a mutation promoting evolutionary change in that it sets up a serious challenge to the quality of sleepers. I’m not sure what she meant.”

“Have you ever seen someone lose their cord?”

“No. But what I’ve heard from those who’ve witnessed it, it’s accompanied by a stifled gasp, like an expression of great agony, inhibited by the fact that the sleeper becomes something wholly other.”

“Jesus,” said Owen. “The entire thing is like a convoluted nightmare. How often do you run into cord-cutters?”

“I travel every night, so maybe every couple of months. Because I’ve been crossing over to the world of night since I was a teenager, I can hear them as whispering static at a bit of a distance. You, though, will have no warning.”

“It’s a lot scarier now than it was.”