Chapter 6
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ry crossed her arms over her chest. “What if I don’t
want to see him?”
“That’s your problem. You cane either willingly or
unwillingly.”
ry couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you threatening
to kidnap me?”
“If you want to look at it that way,” Jace said, “yes.”
ry opened her mouth to protest angrily, but was
interrupted by a strident buzzing noise. Her phone
was ringing again.
“Go ahead and answer that if you like,” Jace said
generously.
The phone stopped ringing, then started up again,
loud and insistent. ry frowned—her mom must
really be freaking out. She half-turned away from Jace
and began digging in her bag. By the time she
unearthed the phone, it was on its third set of rings.
She raised it to her ear. “Mom?”
“Oh, ry. Oh, thank God.” A sharp prickle of rm
ran up ry’s spine. Her mother sounded panicked.
“Listen to me—”
“It’s all right, Mom. I’m fine. I’m on my way home—”
“No!” Terror scraped Jocelyn’s voice raw. “Don’te
home! Do you understand me, ry? Don’t you dare
come home. Go to Simon’s. Go straight to Simon’s
house and stay there until I can—” A noise in the
background interrupted her: the sound of something
falling, shattering, something heavy striking the floor—
“Mom!” ry shouted into the phone. “Mom, are you
all right?”
A loud buzzing noise came from the phone. ry’s
mother’s voice cut through the static: “Just promise
me you won’te home. Go to Simon’s and call
Luke—tell him that he’s found me—” Her words were
drowned out by a heavy crash like splintering wood.
“Who’s found you? Mom, did you call the police? Did
you—”
Her frantic question was cut off by a noise ry
would never forget—a harsh, slithering noise, followed
by a thump. ry heard her mother draw in a sharp
breath before speaking, her voice eerily calm: “I love
you, ry.”
The phone went dead.
“Mom!” ry shrieked into the phone. “Mom, are you
there?” CALL ENDED, the screen said. But why
would her mother have hung up like that?
“ry,” Jace said. It was the first time she’d ever
heard him say her name. “What’s going on?”
ry ignored him. Feverishly she hit the button that
dialed her home number. There was no answer
except a double-tone busy signal.
ry’s hands had begun to shake uncontrobly.
When she tried to redial, the phone slipped out of her
shaking grasp and hit the pavement hard. She
dropped to her knees to retrieve it, but it was dead, a
long crack visible across the front. “Dammit!” Almost
in tears, she threw the phone down.
“Stop that.” Jace hauled her to her feet, his hand
gripping her wrist. “Has something happened?”
“Give me your phone,” ry said, grabbing the ck
metal oblong out of his shirt pocket. “I have to—”
“It’s not a phone,” Jace said, making no move to get it
back. “It’s a Sensor. You won’t be able to use it.”
“But I need to call the police!”
“Tell me what happened first.” She tried to yank her
wrist back, but his grip was incredibly strong. “I can
help you.”
Rage flooded through ry, a hot tide through her
veins. Without even thinking about it, she struck out at
his face, her nails raking his cheek. He jerked back in
surprise. Tearing herself free, ry ran toward the
lights of Seventh Avenue.
When she reached the street, she spun around, half-
expecting to see Jace at her heels. But the alley was
empty. For a moment she stared uncertainly into the
shadows. Nothing moved inside them. She spun on
her heel and ran for home.
4
RAVENER
THE NIGHT HAD GOTTEN EVEN HOTTER, AND
RUNNING HOME felt like swimming as fast as she
could through boiling soup. At the corner of her block
ry got trapped at a DON’T WALK sign. She jittered
up and down impatiently on the balls of her feet while
traffic whizzed by in a blur of headlights. She tried to
call home again, but Jace hadn’t been lying; his
phone wasn’t a phone. At least, it didn’t look like any
phone ry had ever seen before. The Sensor’s
buttons didn’t have numbers on them, just more of
those bizarre symbols, and there was no screen.
Jogging up the street toward her house, she saw that
the second-floor windows were lit, the usual sign that
her mother was home. Okay, she told herself.
Everything’s fine. But her stomach tightened the
moment she stepped into the entryway. The overhead
light had burned out, and the foyer was in darkness.
The shadows seemed full of secret movement.
Shivering, she started upstairs.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” said a
voice.
ry whirled. “What—”
She broke off. Her eyes were adjusting to the
dimness, and she could see the shape of arge
armchair, drawn up in front of Madame Dorothea’s
closed door. The old woman was wedged into it like
an overstuffed cushion. In the dimness ry could
see only the round shape of her powdered face, the
whitece fan in her hand, the dark, yawning gap of
her mouth when she spoke. “Your mother,” Dorothea
said, “has been making a god-awful racket up there.
What’s she doing? Moving furniture?”
“I don’t think—”
“And the stairwell light’s burned out, did you notice?”
Dorothea rapped her fan against the arm of the chair.
“Can’t your mother get her boyfriend in to change it?”
“Luke isn’t—”
“The skylight needs washing too. It’s filthy. No wonder
it’s nearly pitch-ck in here.”
Luke is NOT thendlord, ry wanted to say, but
didn’t. This was typical of her elderly neighbor. Once
she got Luke toe around and change the
lightbulb, she’d ask him to do a hundred other things
—pick up her groceries, grout her shower. Once she’d
made him chop up an old sofa with an ax so she
could get it out of the apartment without taking the
door off the hinges.
ry sighed. “I’ll ask.”
“You’d better.” Dorothea snapped her fan shut with a
flick of her wrist.
ry’s sense that something was wrong only
increased when she reached the apartment door. It
was unlocked, hanging slightly open, spilling a wedge-
shaped shaft of light onto thending. With a feeling
of increasing panic she pushed the door open.
Inside the apartment the lights were on, all themps,
everything turned up to full brightness. The glow
stabbed into her eyes.
Her mother’s keys and pink handbag were on the
small wrought-iron shelf by the door, where she
always left them. “Mom?” ry called out. “Mom, I’m
home.”
There was no reply. She went into the living room.
Both windows were open, yards of gauzy white
curtains blowing in the breeze like restless ghosts.
Only when the wind dropped and the curtains settled
did ry see that the cushions had been ripped from
the sofa and scattered around the room. Some were
torn lengthwise, cotton innards spilling onto the floor.
The bookshelves had been tipped over, their contents
scattered. The piano benchy on its side, gaping
open like a wound, Jocelyn’s beloved music books
spewing out.
Most terrifying were the paintings. Every single one
had been cut from its frame and ripped into strips,
which were scattered across the floor. It must have
been done with a knife—canvas was almost
impossible to tear with your bare hands. The empty
frames looked like bones picked clean. ry felt a
scream rising up in her chest. “Mom!” she shrieked.
“Where are you? Mommy!”
She hadn’t called Jocelyn “Mommy” since she was
eight.
Heart pumping, she raced into the kitchen. It was
empty, the cab doors open, a smashed bottle of
Tabasco sauce spilling peppery red liquid onto the
linoleum. Her knees felt like bags of water. She knew
she should race out of the apartment, get to a phone,
call the police. But all those things seemed distant—
she needed to find her mother first, needed to see
that she was all right. What if robbers hade, what
if her mother had put up a fight—?
What kind of robbers didn’t take a wallet with them, or
the TV, the DVD yer, or the expensiveptops?
She was at the door to her mother’s bedroom now.
For a moment it looked as if this room, at least, had
been left untouched. Jocelyn’s handmade flowered
quilt was folded carefully on the duvet. ry’s own
face smiled back at her from the top of the bedside
table, five years old, gap-toothed smile framed by
strawberry hair. A sob rose in ry’s chest. Mom, she
cried inside, what happened to you?
Silence answered her. No, not silence—a noise
sounded through the apartment, raising the short
hairs along the nape of her neck. Like something
being knocked over—a heavy object striking the floor
with a dull thud. The thud was followed by a dragging,
slithering noise—and it wasing toward the
bedroom. Stomach contracting in terror, ry
scrambled to her feet and turned around slowly.
For a moment she thought the doorway was empty,
and she felt a wave of relief. Then she looked down.
It was crouched against the floor, a long, scaled
creature with a cluster of t ck eyes set dead
center in the front of its domed skull. Something like a
cross between an alligator and a centipede, it had a
thick, t snout and a barbed tail that whipped
menacingly from side to side. Multiple legs bunched
underneath it as it readied itself to spring.
A shriek tore itself out of ry’s throat. She staggered
backward, tripped, and fell, just as the creature lunged
at her. She rolled to the side and it missed her by
inches, sliding along the wood floor, its ws gouging
deep grooves. A low growl bubbled from its throat.
She scrambled to her feet and ran toward the hallway,
but the thing was too fast for her. It sprang again,
landing just above the door, where it hung like a
gigantic malignant spider, staring down at her with its
cluster of eyes. Its jaws opened slowly, showing a row
of fanged teeth spilling greenish drool. A long ck
tongue flickered out between its jaws as it gurgled and
hissed. To her horror ry realized that the noises it
was making were words.
“Girl,” it hissed. “Flesh. Blood. To eat, oh, to eat.”
It began to slither slowly down the wall. Some part of
ry had passed beyond terror into a sort of icy
stillness. The thing was on its feet now, crawling
toward her. Backing away, she seized a heavy framed
photo off the bureau beside her—herself and her
mother and Luke at Coney Ind, about to go on the
bumper cars—and flung it at the monster.
The photograph hit its midsection and bounced off,
striking the floor with the sound of shattering ss.
The creature didn’t seem to notice. It came on toward
her, broken ss splintering under its feet. “Bones, to
crunch, to suck out the marrow, to drink the veins …”
ry’s back hit the wall. She could back up no farther.
She felt a movement against her hip and nearly
jumped out of her skin. Her pocket. Plunging her hand
inside, she drew out the stic thing she’d taken from
Jace. The Sensor was shuddering, like a cell phone
set to vibrate. The hard material was almost painfully
hot against her palm. She closed her hand around the
Sensor just as the creature sprang.
The creature hurtled into her, knocking her to the
ground, and her head and shoulders mmed against
the floor. She twisted to the side, but it was too heavy.
It was on top of her, an oppressive, slimy weight that
made her want to gag. “To eat, to eat,” it moaned. “But
it is not allowed, to swallow, to savor.”
The hot breath in her face stank of blood. She couldn’t
breathe. Her ribs felt like they might shatter. Her arm
was pinned between her body and the monster’s, the
Sensor digging into her palm. She twisted, trying to
work her hand free. “Valentine will never know. He
said nothing about a girl. Valentine will not be angry.”
Its lipless mouth twitched as its jaws opened, slowly, a
wave of stinking breath hot in her face.
ry’s hand came free. With a scream she hit out at
the thing, wanting to smash it, to blind it. She had
almost forgotten the Sensor. As the creature lunged
for her face, jaws wide, she jammed the Sensor
between its teeth and felt hot, acidic drool coat her
wrist and spill in burning drops onto the bare skin of
her face and throat. As if from a distance, she could
hear herself screaming.
Looking almost surprised, the creature jerked back,
the Sensor lodged between two teeth. It growled, a
thick angry buzz, and threw its head back. ry saw
it swallow, saw the movement of its throat. I’m next,
she thought, panicked. I’m—
Suddenly the thing began to twitch. Spasming
uncontrobly, it rolled off ry and onto its back,
multiple legs churning the air. ck fluid poured from
its mouth.
Gasping for air, ry rolled over and started to
scramble away from the thing. She’d nearly reached
the door when she heard something whistle through
the air next to her head. She tried to duck, but it was
toote. An object mmed heavily into the back of
her skull, and she copsed forward into ckness.
Light stabbed through her eyelids, blue, white, and
red. There was a high wailing noise, rising in pitch like
the scream of a terrified child. ry gagged and
opened her eyes.
She was lying on cold damp grass. The night sky
rippled overhead, the pewter gleam of stars washed
out by city lights. Jace knelt beside her, the silver cuffs
on his wrists throwing off sparks of light as he tore the
piece of cloth he was holding into strips. “Don’t move.”
The wailing threatened to split her ears in half. ry
turned her head to the side, disobediently, and was
rewarded with a razoring stab of pain that shot down
her back. She was lying on a patch of grass behind
Jocelyn’s carefully tended rosebushes. The foliage
partially hid her view of the street, where a police car,
its blue-and-white light bar shing, was pulled up to
the curb, siren wailing. Already a small knot of
neighbors had gathered, staring as the car door
opened and two blue-uniformed officers emerged.
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