“I . . .” Patrick said. “The windows were tinted, but the driver’s side was rolled down halfway. Dude had sunglasses on, and I can’t be sure, but I . . . I think . . .” He stopped himself, shaking his head before stuffing his phone into his pocket and nudging Charlotte.

“Move,” he commanded. “Everyone move. We have to go there. Now.”

Patrick had seen something. Someone. Though he wasn’t telling us who. I personally didn’t need an explanation if it meant we were going back to Moldavia. Wordlessly, we all dug cash out of our pockets, leaving it on the table for Sam just as he arrived with Patrick’s Heinz 57.

“Y’all are off in a hurry,” he said.

“Sorry, Sam,” said Patrick. “We gotta bounce.”

“It’s cool,” Sam said, wiggling the bottle at us as we filed past him. “We can ketchup later.”

FIFTY-THREE

Zedok

Despite his delay, he came, as I’d known he would.

The medium. Rastin.

And while I could not say his arrival was unexpected, his choice to approach me in corporeal form was. Because, by now, Rastin must have learned of Stephanie’s disappearance and the ensuing investigation. Could he have deluded himself into believing I might still be complicit to carry out the plan the two of us had made?

Bypassing the yellow tape, he entered through the front door I had left unlocked for him. And now the medium stood in the center of the foyer, where he turned slowly in place, his glasses catching a glint from the weakening sunlight as he searched the gloom-filled archways and murky hall.

Stationed within a corner of shadows, I observed him from the balcony overlooking the foyer, the grand staircase, and the chandelier that still lay shattered in its hole.

If he were only to glance up, he would see me. But he was Rastin, a man as oblivious as he was intuitive. So, he did not.

Like me, Rastin never learned from his mistakes.

And his hopeless optimism—it looked as though it would be the death of him after all.

“Erik,” said the medium, aware of how, even at a whisper, he would be heard.

I did not answer. Of course, I would. But . . . not yet.

In truth, I had hoped not to have to dispatch him. But then, I had warned him. And by returning here, was not Rastin making it clear that his plan was to stop at nothing to undo me?

“Erik, there’s no use hiding,” said Rastin. “Show yourself. Whatever form you’ve taken, I wish to speak. That is all I want. For today.”

I smirked under my mask at that final amendment—before entering Charlie’s vacated bedroom, where I passed through her closet door into my Moldavia.

Exiting Erik’s opulent and emerald-adorned chamber, I strode over the balcony landing once more. Pausing at the first step, I spared a glance to Myriam’s shuttered door, behind which Stephanie had remained for the majority of the time she had been in my world, emerging only when her appetite got the better of her. I had so far stayed away, waiting for the moment when she would approach me. Though my patience was wearing thin, and so I had resolved to end our stalemate tonight.