Rover leapt up the stairs and stood, underlit from the light in the hall like a kid around a campfire telling a ghost story. His wounded eye was blistered and bubbling, oozing a thick black liquid that sizzled as it hit the floor. When he snarled, he showed a tongue that was now long and black, and when he stepped into the darkness, Amy could swear she saw a faint fiery light coming out of the cracks in Rover’s hideous full-body scab. This was the real Rover, she realized with a sickening groan, the Rover that he’d always been just below the surface, observing them calmly until he needed to attack.

Watching his approach, Amy clutched Katie tightly to her and shushed her again, but she couldn’t look away from those eyes that seemed to burn out of the shadows even as they remained pitch-black.

Behind Rover, Amy saw another pair of eyes glittering in the darkness, then another. A new sound grew out of Rover’s snarls, a wail that became a shriek.

Two blurs shot out of the blackness and landed on Rover. The dog yelped and thrashed his body around, and Amy saw Coop and Hutch latched on to Rover’s back, raking their claws against his cracked skin and biting him over and over. They must have come up here to escape all the noise; now they were fighting back.

Rover swung his body around, trying to throw the cats. He crashed through old boxes, stacks of magazines, Christmas ornaments, and unopened wedding gifts. The cats held fast, shrieking and hissing with anger.

Rover’s backside swung into a great shape covered with a tarp. It fell down next to Amy, and the tarp pulled back to reveal a dusty but shiny surface underneath. Amy saw it—and formed a plan.

Just as Amy pulled the rest of the tarp back, Rover swung his body and threw Hutch across the room, sending the cat scrabbling into the darkness. Coop, always the braver one, stayed fastened to the dog’s back, but Rover finally managed to snag Coop’s leg in his jaws and, with a hard swing, tossed him to the floor. Coop hit the boards with a thud and limped away.

Rover turned back to Amy with a snarl, his face and skin raked with oozing claw marks.

Amy yanked up Mom’s antique mirror and held it in front of her like a shield.

Rover’s snarling cut short all at once. The animal walked slowly over to them, making Katie flinch next to Amy with the sounds of his nails on the floor of the attic. Around the edge of the mirror, Amy watched, her breath fluttering in and out in sharp little bursts, as Rover reached the mirror, sat down, and took in his own reflection with focused eyes.