In a matter of hours from this point, weeping, these people would be talking to the news cameras, saying they should have seen what happened and called.

Rain fixed his mask. It was hard plastic. A demon’s face.

“You,” Seir said. He had his horse’s head on, and heavy black clothes that left his arms bare, where he’d wrapped chains around them. He indicated Rain. “Special job.”

He never liked me, Rain thought. Something about family ties, old grudges he can’t resolve because some people aren’t around anymore.

But he’d listened. Rain went with Seir, looking back at the others.

They went around the side of the shopping center. One employee was out the side, smoking. A teenager of Rain’s age, slightly overweight, her hair tucked under a flat-top cap with a visor at the front.

Her eyes on her phone, cigarette at her mouth, she didn’t see them.

Seir raised a hand. There was a sound, halfway between a rumble and drumming, almost a stampede, and curling lines of black spilled from Seir’s palm. The dozen or so lines didn’t curl so much as they bounced, each moving in a smooth half or quarter circle before stopping, curving back or at a right angle to carry on its way.

Where they hit solid surfaces, they exploded into rough silhouettes of Seir, mask and all. Each was as black as the lines—like gaps in reality rather than mere black that absorbed the light of the sun. Each had eyes that glowed as they looked around—one human eye where it peered through the horse’s eye socket, and one of the horse’s eyes.

One, twenty feet above the ground, tore the security camera from the corner of the building. Another appeared beside the store employee, who was running now that she’d heard the sound and saw them. It snatched her up.

Seir became shadow, and the figure with the girl in its arms became Seir.

Others were turning over trash cans, breaking glass in car windows. Ten in all. The ones that finished doing their damage disappeared.

Rain continued walking. He could feel his heart pounding.

“Bad for you,” Seir said, wrestling the girl around and taking the cigarette. He took a puff. “Are you bad? Are you a sinner?”

“Please,” she said.

“Open,” Seir said.

“What?”

“Open wide!” Seir screamed the words.

She opened her mouth and kept it open. Seir took another puff, still holding her, his face next to hers. Rain could see her trembling.

He could remember how he’d felt. Uneasy.

Seir held the cigarette, only half burned, and held it up in front of her face. Then he flicked it into her mouth, hard enough it had to have hit the back of her throat. His hand caught her before she could spit it out, and he held his hand firm over her mouth.