“Then I guess so.” She hugged him, and he felt warm sunlight, but he thought he could hear, from somewhere in the whiteness outside, an echo of that wild, obscene laugh, and he was not sure that it was entirely in his head.

Kristen pulled back, looked at him.

“Only one more thing,” she said.

He faced her. “What’s that?”

“You have to find the bitch,” she said. “And kill her.”

FIFTEEN

Daniel

Daniel followed Doneen out of the house into the rain. There were no barriers keeping him from leaving the building, and once outside he could feel the chill, feel the wind, feel the water against his skin. The air even smelled like his street during a rainstorm, and it was these tactile sensations more than anything else that killed any idea he might have had that this was not really his house, that none of this was really happening.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To see someone.”

“Who?”

“I told you: you’re going to have to trust me.”

“And you’ll leave Tony and Margot alone?”

“That’s the deal.”

He followed the girl through the small yard, through the gate, to the sidewalk. There was a gang of young toughs leaning against the wall, huddling together in the rain, too cool to use umbrellas but not too cool to wear heavy jackets. They seemed to be waiting for someone.

Daniel thought of Margot and Tony inside the house and wanted to tell these hoods to hit the road, find someplace else to hang out, but he knew they would not be able to hear him.

Then Doneen skipped ahead, turned left on the sidewalk, stepped up to the gang of youths, and to Daniel’s surprise, started talking to them. They gathered around her in a semicircle, leaning down to listen.

They could hear her!

The tallest one straightened, turned toward him, and Daniel’s heart skipped a beat as he saw wild purple eyes beneath unnatural, impossibly thick hair. The creature smiled, and his overlarge mouth was filled with tiny sharpened teeth.

She’d tricked him, he realized. She’d set him up.

He turned and tried to run back toward the house, but was stopped halfway down the walk by another invisible barrier that split open his nose and lip and knocked him flat on the ground.

“Kill him!” Doneen yelled from the sidewalk. “Kill him!”

He was too stunned to even lurch back to his feet before the gang surrounded him. They were from the Other Side, he knew. He saw strange hair and strange faces and unbelievable colors in their eyes. He lashed out, tried to kick the closest one, but the creature avoided him easily, and then they were attacking him. He was kicked and punched and clawed, but he was too busy trying to protect his face and stomach to clearly see what was going on.