Part 9 (1/2)

”Emma,” Charlie said. ”This is Agatha. She's going to help you.”

Aggie reached out her hand and waited for the girl to come to her. She knew Emma would; the variations of all probable futures were quite certain on that, but Aggie did not want to push. The girl had been pushed enough by adults and strangers.

Emma studied her face with grave intent, and took Aggie's hand. Her skin was cool and damp, but Aggie drew her from the darkness and tried not to show her surprise when the child wrapped her arms around her hips and hugged her tight.

”Thank you,” the child murmured, and Aggie bent down and picked her up.

She was lighter than she looked; frail, almost. Her breath whistled in Aggie's ear. She smelled like cement, mold, decay.

Charlie stood unmoving, watching. Featureless and smooth, like a warrior wrapped in black cloth, head to foot. Aggie pushed her mind and saw a room with sand and blood, sand and statues, b.l.o.o.d.y stone, with bits of flesh hanging in threads and chunks, draped on wings.

She swayed and Charlie said, ”No, don't. I don't want you to see.”

”Charlie?” Emma asked, and he reached out to touch her face. The little girl closed her eyes and buried her face against Aggie's neck.

Later, she said to him, and then remembered his words, his kiss. There would be no later.

Where's your body? Aggie asked him as she carried Emma away from the bas.e.m.e.nt.

”Agatha.” His voice was quiet, right in her ear. Maybe they were talking mind to mind.

You tell me, Charlie.

”There's nothing you can do.”

You let me be the judge of that.

”No. I won't risk you getting hurt.” She wanted to kill him for saying that, and he said, ”I'm already dead.”

Again, not what she wanted to hear.

Quinn was still in the living room. He had pulled some tapes from the shelves, and had a folder full of photographs spread on the table. Aggie glimpsed flesh in those, and looked away-she did not want Emma to see any of that. Amiri prowled around the room, tail las.h.i.+ng the air. The little girl stiffened when she saw him, and Aggie whispered, ”It's okay. He's a good cat.”

”Are you guys ready?” Aggie asked, and Quinn nodded. His face was hard, eyes too bright- -and then a s.h.i.+ft-Quinn screaming at her to run, run, get out- ”They're coming,” Aggie said.

”They're already here,” Charlie corrected. Aggie went to the window and peered outside. She saw Mrs. Kreer and her son opening the trunk of their car. Caught sight of a rifle.

”Armed?” Quinn asked, and Aggie thought of those tire tracks she had left in the tall gra.s.s.

”Oh, yeah.”

Quinn shook his head. ”These people are too hardcore. Most in this business are cowards. They run. They lay low. They don't fight. Not like this, anyway. So they see a car out there. Maybe we're not in it, but that's no call for violence. They can't know for certain we're inside their home or that we're here to bust them.”

”Logic doesn't matter, Quinn. They have something big to lose, not to mention they're a lot crazier than your average insane person. Shooting someone isn't going to mean much.” Not when they had already killed Emma's mother, and maybe others over the years.

”It's worse than that,” Charlie added, in a hard voice that sent chills up her spine. ”They're not entirely human.”

Everyone turned to look at him. Emma scrunched tighter against Aggie.

”You want to run that past me again?” she asked, slow.

”They've got demon in them,” he said, and it was suddenly hard to hear him because he got quiet, like the air was too heavy for words.

Emma shrank in Aggie's arms; Aggie wanted to shrivel up alongside her. ”Charlie. What, exactly, does that mean for us?”

”I don't know,” he said. ”But it's bad. It also explains why I haven't been able to read their thoughts.”

”Aw, h.e.l.l.” Quinn clicked the safety off his gun. ”Aggie, go to the back of the house and call the police. Charlie and Amiri, go with her. I'll take care of this.”

”Quinn-” she said, and went blind as she saw blood run from his heart, his throat-and in another future-and in another-another- ”They'll kill you,” she hissed. ”I see it. Come with us, right now.”

”No,” he said, and gave her a hard look. ”Fate is just probabilities. I'll take my chances.”

The porch steps creaked. Emma whimpered. Aggie hugged her tight and turned down the hall to the kitchen. She felt Amiri at her back. Charlie appeared in front of her, a shadow running. She reached into her pocket for her cell phone, but before she could begin dialing, a gunshot rang out behind her. Charlie blinked out of sight.

Amiri growled, using his body to push Aggie against the wall. She listened hard; ahead of her, she heard a creak. Mouth dry, she set Emma gently on the floor and held her finger up to the girl's mouth. Emma nodded gravely. Aggie looked at Amiri, gesturing with her chin. The shape-s.h.i.+fter blinked once and leaned protectively against the little girl. Safe. The probabilities were safe. Aggie put away her phone and reached for her gun.

Charlie reappeared beside her. Bone and blood loomed around him, golden sand, a woman with red hair and red lips and a red dress...

There's someone in the kitchen, she told him. Can you distract him?

”I've tried that before,” he whispered in her ear. ”They don't see me.”

Quinn?

”Alive. Tracking.”

Taking his chance with fate. Something Aggie needed to do for herself.

She held up her gun and slinked down the hall toward the kitchen. Charlie disappeared, but she knew he was close. Warmth pushed against her ear and he said, ”It's the mother. She has an ax. She's waiting by the entrance to the kitchen.”

Perfect. Just great.

”You have bullets,” Charlie said. ”Shoot her and be done with it.”

We can't kill them, Aggie said. We do that and we'll just make trouble for ourselves with the law. Not to mention the Kreers might have useful information about other victims, maybe people in their network, if they have one. We have to- But whatever she was going to say died as a high screech cut the air and a body flung itself from the kitchen. Aggie cried out, squeezing off a round into the wall that did nothing to slow the old woman, who swung her whistling ax hard and fast. Details died; all Aggie could register was a blur made of pure fury, a mouth that flashed white and sharp, and she felt Amiri behind her, pus.h.i.+ng Emma away as the child cried out a word that was high and sweet and not quite a scream. For a moment the air s.h.i.+mmered-Mrs. Kreer faltered-and Aggie took the chance offered and dove toward the old woman, rus.h.i.+ng and rolling past her. She smelled mold, mustiness... and then the air cleared as she entered the kitchen, spinning on her feet.

”Come on,” Aggie snarled, goading the old woman. ”Come and get me.”

Get me, get me. Only me and not the kid. Don't follow Emma.

Mrs. Kreer hesitated, glancing over her shoulder as the tip of Amiri's tail disappeared around the corner in the hall. She began to follow them and Aggie thought, f.u.c.k it all. She aimed her gun at the old woman's leg and pulled the trigger, feeling a grim satisfaction as the bullet slammed through the meat of Mrs. Kreer's thigh, making her stagger, lean against the wall.

But the woman did not fall. She did not drop the ax.