Toweling steam off the sink mirror revealed scratches over his throat, bruising around his eyes. Without these abrasions, he could have dismissed the whole thing as a terrible dream. When he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, he saw Vernon Jamus’s bright-silver irises, his jagged white teeth—but in Hugo Blackwood’s face. Solomon kept his handgun—the empty cylinder filled with a fresh round—on his nightstand, well within reach.

He was relieved when the sun hit his window, and he dressed and holstered up and left the motel early. He was fiddling with the keys to the borrowed FBI sedan, and didn’t see the British man in the dark suit standing by the car until he was almost at the driver’s door.

“Good morning, Agent Solomon.”

Solomon dropped the keys and reached for his gun. He drew it, staggering backward a few steps, putting space between him and Hugo Blackwood. “Get…get away from the car.”

Blackwood did not move. “Come now, Agent.”

“Hands where I can see them.”

“You had a difficult night, I see.”

“Stop talking—stop—and listen. You are under arrest.”

Blackwood’s mouth formed a tight smile, indicating a limited reservoir of patience. “Arrest?”

“For murder. The murder of Vernon Jamus.”

“You saw it yourself last night, the boy was already gone—”

“Stop talking.” The handcuffs were in the glove box inside the car. Dammit. “Get in the passenger seat.”

Blackwood said, “Do you want me away from the car or inside the car?”

“Just get inside the car and don’t make me shoot you, sir. Because I will. I have seen enough.”

“You’ve seen hardly anything. What are you going to tell them? ‘The whole truth and nothing but’?”

Solomon glowered at him. “I’m not only taking you in. I’m turning myself in, too.”

“For what?”

“That’s not up to me to decide. I was a witness, maybe an accessory after the fact.”

“The boy was attacking you. Do you know what he would have done had I not returned?”

“No, and I don’t want to know.”

“He would have ripped your throat out of your neck. Either by his hands or with his teeth. I’ve seen it before. It is entirely unpleasant.”

“The boy…he was mad, he went insane…”

“Or, and we’ll never know, the demonic spirit occupying him might have jumped into you. Taking the form of a law officer is almost as good a disguise as that of a six-year-old boy.”

Solomon shook his head. “There’s no demonic spirit. You need to shut up.”

“I did not kill a boy, as I showed you last night. The boy was no more. We were too late, the demon had swallowed him whole. I released him from its grip after death. It was the best I could do.”