He slipped around a false wall and paused, close enough now to scent his quarry as female. The wizard? Still too many other, stronger scents masking subtleties.

It was standing just under the gate, wrapped in the ubiquitous plastic raincoat.

“. . . twenty-eight Raymond Dark, twenty-nine Raymond Dark, thirty.” Tony dried damp palms against his thighs and squared his shoulders. “Ready or not, here I come.” He hoped a thirty-second lead was enough time for Henry to take care of things—not that it mattered if it wasn’t. The big lamp had to be in place and ready to go when the gate opened.

He thumbed on the flashlight, pointed it at the floor, and headed for the light board.

Not the wizard. A girl, Tony’s age. She had the raincoat shoved back and her hands deep in the front pockets of a pair of bib overalls. As Henry stopped at the edge of the open set—she was standing where they needed her to be, he had no need to go any farther—she shifted her weight back and forth from one red high-top to the other. Impatience, not anticipation. She couldn’t know he was . . .

When the lights came on, the last thing Henry saw before being flung to the floor was her smile.

Lights?

Tony blinked toward the spill of lights from the dining room set.

Why would Henry turn on the lights?

Answer: Henry wouldn’t.

He started to run.

Henry struggled against the shadow that wrapped around him from wrist to cheekbones; his arms held to his sides, his mouth and nose covered. It bulged but held.

When the girl squatted beside him, the shadow squirmed off his ears.

“We left a guard on the gate,” she said conversationally. “It wasn’t here, so someone had to have destroyed it. If someone knew how to do that, then that same someone knew way, way too much and would likely be back. Hello, someone. I was waiting for you. You should’ve checked for traps.” Her smile broadened as she held up the remote switch she’d used to turn on the lights. “You’ll be unconscious soon, and then you’ll be dead.”

Not soon. Definitely not before the gate opened. Although Henry needed to breathe, the air in his lungs would last him long enough. He could hear cables hitting the floor, the lamp’s wheeled platform moving. All he had to do was lie here, listen to the shadow-held gloat, and wait for the gate to open. The shadow would attempt to leave, Tony would hit it with the light, and he’d be released. A slightly less dignified scenario, granted, but it would get the job done. And a good thing, too, since the tensile strength of shadow meant he wouldn’t be doing the superman-breaking-his-bonds thing any time soon.

Her smile slipped and her eyes narrowed. “You’re different.”