I pushed through the library door and looked around. Aunt Lyssa was not at the front desk, but that wasn’t unusual. She was probably in her office. Everything was okay. I didn’t have to hurry. I had to calm down. I had to think.

I stepped back into a corner and lowered myself into a cross-legged position. Roger sat down next to me, waiting patiently without saying a word.

If—and I knew it was a really big if—I really was being stalked by the Whisperer in the Dark, I had to stop running. I had to start thinking. Grama Delia always told me that one of the most important lessons is that everything evil has a weakness. In fact, it isn’t just that way in our tales, but stories from all over the world. It’s true even in the more modern books and movies that are such an obsession for Roger and me. A wooden stake in the heart destroys Dracula. A silver bullet wipes out the Wolf Man. Every monster can be overcome if you know the right way to go about it. That lightning strike back at the Governor Hopkins house had reminded me of one of the weaknesses of what might be stalking me. And it tied right into the stories told to me by Grama Delia and my dad. Fire and bright light. In both their stories, the Whisperer in the Dark could not stand to be out in the bright light of day.

I began to make a mental list of all the things we owned that could be useful. The strobe flash on my digital camera. The halogen beams of the big flashlights that we keep in different rooms in case the power goes out. Then there were the boxes of matches in the kitchen cupboard that we use to start the wood fires in our fireplace insert. But all of those were back at my house. I didn’t even have a penlight or a match on me. I’ve never smoked or even wanted to, but at that moment I wished I was one of those kids who carried a butane cigarette lighter.

I needed something, something I could have with me as soon as possible. Then I remembered the laser pointer that Aunt Lyssa keeps in her office. Perfect.

“Come on,” I said to Roger, standing up without touching my hands to the floor.

It’s a convenient skill to have when you’ve got one good hand to rely on. I learned how to spin to my feet from a cross-legged position from taking some of Aunt Lyssa’s martial arts classes.