“Max, I have to go.” I resisted the urge to ask him to be careful one last time, and clicked the phone shut. Grabbing at the stack of papers I’d just read through, I found the bulletin about the church fire again. There was too much coincidence, too much about Dahlia’s vision that supported my suspicions. Cyrus was at St. Anne’s, or had been before it burned down.

I forced myself to sleep—I had no clue what I would face in the desert and I needed to be prepared for it—only to be woken just after sundown by the roaring of motorcycles.

At a strip mall in Louden, the Fangs found me. My first thought was to follow them. Then I got some sense and realized a bright orange, hulking monster of a rusted-out van was probably not the best camouflage. I was on the right track. I couldn’t blow it by being impatient.

When they finally left the Laundromat—I was deeply shocked they’d make any use of that facility at all—I headed for the newspaper machine and bought a fresh copy of the Louden Times. A week had put some space between the story I looked for and the front page, but I eventually found a sidebar follow-up. Police hadn’t been able to locate the body of Stacey Pickles, age eighteen, but they had recovered the corpses of the other two victims. The state of the remains suggested foul play, and anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing girl was instructed to call local authorities.

Using details from the articles and the map March had given me, I was fairly certain I could find the place. Whether I could find it before the Fangs did whatever they planned to do with Cyrus was another thing. Then there was the small detail of actually getting him to leave with me, but I figured negative thinking would only limit my chances of success.

Besides, I still had the chloroform.

It was time. Ready or not, it was time to face Cyrus again.

A loud bang on the passenger side of the van made me practically jump through the roof. Outside the window, Byron grinned stupidly at me. “Hello! Have a nice time?”

I lunged across the seat, forced the door open and grabbed him by the collar of the poncy, ruffled shirt he wore. He protested loudly, but had no choice but to get in. I’d caught him by surprise and had more leverage.

“Hey, this is a very expensive shirt!” he howled, grabbing the fabric from my hands.

“It’s about to get dusty!” I grabbed a stake and pressed it against his chest. I hoped it tore the precious silk. “Why did you set me up?”

“Set you up?” he sputtered, his wide eyes fixed on the stake. “I never did any such thing!”