A high whine came from outside, as if a sudden windstorm had sprung up. It intensified, piercing enough to hurt Michael’s ears. It was like a dog whistle, yet just above the threshold where humans could no longer hear it. It got louder, like wounded angels shrieking. The tree house creaked and shook. Something black and oily poured in through the cracks in the wood of the window frame, funneling in like smoke. The air shimmered, and suddenly the darkness was coalescing, forming shadows that hovered in the air around Michael and Kaine.

“Don’t move,” the Tangent said, staring straight at Michael. “They know me too well. We’ll get out of this, but we have to be smart about it.”

“What’s happening?” Michael whispered.

“Just watch, and follow my lead.”

A chill crept up Michael’s back. As slowly as he could, he turned to get a view of the entity nearest him. It had taken a distinct shape, along with several others, shadowy figures with black cloaks draped from their thin shoulders, billowing in an unseen wind. Waves rippled across the cloaks, and the figures bobbed slightly. Up and down, up and down—there were about eight in a circle, all of them next to the walls. Like suspended blackened corpses. They’d yet to make a sound.

Michael wanted to run so badly. Kaine sat across from him, stoic and still, not really looking at anything. He certainly wasn’t focused on their visitors. It was as if he’d fallen into a waking coma.

One of the entities swooped down from the other side of the room and stopped just inches from Michael’s nose. He could feel the blood drain from his face, and he pressed himself as far as he could into his chair, holding in a scream.

“Don’t…move…,” Kaine said, as quiet as a stir of breeze.

Michael tried to focus on the creature floating in front of him, but it was like trying to capture a shadow in the middle of a moonless night. The black figure that hovered before him was shifting, becoming an impossible, impenetrable emptiness. A black hole. Michael wondered if he was about to be sucked away forever.

Sucked away. He remembered the KillSims, created by Kaine. Devouring the lives of their victims, sucking them dry, leaving their real bodies back in the Wake, brain-dead or close to it. Whatever this was, it was similar to the KillSims. Then another shifting within the entity’s abyss of a head stopped him cold.

A section had opened. Widening like a mouth. For the first time he saw something that wasn’t black, making the growing hole more obvious. They were lined up in two rows, white and pointed and sharp, drops of red all over them.

Teeth.

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