We had crossed five feet of the landing when a long, pale face showed itself on the stairs.

  With a shout, I shoved Elien ahead of me. The hashok surged up the steps. If the gunshot wounds Elien had inflicted on it last time had done any lasting damage, it wasn’t obvious—the monster moved so quickly that it was hard to get more than an impression of it. That impression was the same one that I had gotten in the dark woods: the elongated frame, unwholesomely white flesh, the head and face that were stretched until the features weren’t human. Claws slashed through the darkness, tugging on my jeans. Then, stumbling, I shot through the bedroom doorway, and Elien slammed the door shut.

  It rattled in its frame as the hashok collided with it. The jamb splintered.

  “I can’t hold it,” Elien shouted

  The hashok smashed into the door again, and this time, it popped loose. Elien skidded a few inches before he managed to slam the door shut.

  I cast about for something and settled on the chest of drawers. Setting my shoulder against it, I threw my weight into the side. The damn thing was solid wood.

  “Move,” I shouted.

  Elien stumbled back.

  I threw myself into the chest of drawers again, and this time, it toppled onto its side with a crash. Drawers slid open; t-shirts and socks spilled out onto the floor. When the hashok connected with the door again, the chest of drawers rocked unsteadily, but it held the door shut.

  With a shuddering breath, I grabbed Elien again, spun him toward the window, and shoved.

  He took two steps and hesitated.

  “Not without you,” he whispered.

  I came after him, herding him toward the window. The cool October air washed over me; I kicked out the screen, helped Elien up on the ledge, and pointed to the trellis.

  The hashok shrieked and slammed into the door again.

  “Fast as you can,” I whispered.

  He nodded, lowered himself, and his eyes widened for a moment. I grabbed his wrists, and he nodded a silent thanks. Then he must have found his footing because he nodded, twisted his hands free, and began to climb down.

  I followed.

  Twice more I heard the hashok connect with the door. When I was halfway down the trellis, though, I realized the sounds had stopped. The smell of bruised jessamine was so thick it made me gag. Wooden slats splintered under my grip, digging into my palm. I heard a thump as Elien’s feet hit the ground.

  “Run,” I whispered.

  “Not without you.”

  I dropped the last five feet, and we sprinted around the side of the house. Elien grabbed my hand, tugging me along. I flinched as we charged out onto the front lawn. The hashok must have known we were trying to escape. It would be waiting. It would launch itself at us, and the best thing I could hope for was to release Elien’s hand and let him keep running. I might be able to slow the damn thing down for a few minutes.

  But the only thing that met us was a quiet street, and the steady glow of the streetlights, and the echoes of our steps clapping back from the silent houses around us.

  ELIEN (15)

  “Pull over,” I said. We’d been driving for at least five minutes; the houses of La Grange blurred around me. Every few moments, one of them would snap into focus—a red-brick Colonial looking painfully out of place, paint peeling from the top of the porch columns—and then the world would dissolve again, and I’d be back in my old bedroom, a hand over my mouth, the taste of grass, the smell of fried catfish.

  Dag kept driving.

  “Pull over, pull over,” I said, slapping his arm.

  “Eli, that thing could be right behind us.”

  “Pull over right fucking now!”

  Braking hard, Dag nosed up against the curb. The Escort’s grumbly, rumbly engine made the seats vibrate. The Big Mac smell from the back seat was overwhelming, and I rolled down the window. The air was cool against my feverish face, and I heaved once, but nothing came up.

  Dag’s hand came to rest at the small of my back, and then it bumped up along my spine, then back down, then up again. I focused on the touch, followed it back to the present.

  “Oh my God,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut so I wouldn’t cry.

  “It’s ok,” Dag said. “We’re ok.”

  I tried to hold it together, but I started shaking again.

  “Look,” Dag said, “we’re safe, we’re in the car, we’re driving away.”

  “No, we’re not ok,” I said. “It was there. It’s her, right? It’s got to be her. We were in her house. She came back, and she found us, and she tried to kill us again. And she’s not going to stop, Dag. That’s what that the psychic told me. She’s going to keep coming, and she’s going to kill me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Hold on,” Dag said. “We’re not exactly helpless. We’ve learned a lot about this thing just in the last couple of days.”

  “We know its name, Dag.” I turned to face him. “We know it likes to cause pain and suffering. That’s all we fucking know. We don’t know how to stop it. We don’t know how to kill it. We don’t even know how to prove it’s real—we just searched her house, and we couldn’t find anything. She has a perfect life, an ordinary life, and under the surface, she’s a monster, and we could never prove it in a million years.”

  For a long moment, Dag studied me, shadows lying thick across his face.

  “Means, motive, and opportunity,” he said.

  “What?”

  “That’s where you start with a murder.”

  “These aren’t ordinary murders, Dag. You can’t prove an escalating cycle of violence. You can’t prove that an evil monster possessed your best friend and made him try to kill me. You can’t prove that a blue firefly took over a dead man’s body.”

  “Eli—”

  “Stop fucking calling me that. That’s not my name anymore. Can’t you fucking get that? Jesus Christ, no wonder you’re such a fucking poor excuse for a deputy.”

  He sat back in his seat; he cupped his knees with his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Let’s call it a night,” he said, shifting the car into gear. “We can pick up tomorrow.”

  “No, Dag, please. I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” he said, and we pulled away from the curb.

  “Means, motive, and opportunity,” I said. “Talk to me about that.”

  Bending, he groped with one hand under the seat, searching for something.

  “Ok,” I said, “ok, I’ll talk about means, motive, and opportunity. Means. She can turn into a monster. She can turn into a firefly. She can possess people, but she can also . . . suggest that they do something terrible. Ray, Mason, Tamika. With David and with us, though, she attacked as a monster. That means she can’t always possess people. Not right away. She needs an opening. An opportunity. Maybe it takes time.”

  Pulling a cassette adapter from under the seat, he tried to untangle the cable one handed.

  “Here,” I said, “let me help—”

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  “I want to—”

  “Just stop, Elien.”

  “Right, ok, sorry. Motive. The motive is—”

  “Stop it with that too, ok?”

  “It was your idea. You had a good idea, and we should follow it up.”

  “I’d like some quiet, please.”

  “Opportunity,” I said.

  He hit the brakes. We were still in a residential part of La Grange, and the taillights painted the houses around us red. Aside from us, the road was empty. Dag’s chest rose and fell rapidly.

  “Once, Elien. Just once, it’d be nice if you weren’t so fucking self-centered. Is that so fucking much to ask?”

  I sat very still. My hands buzzed like I’d grabbed a swarm of bees. At the very end of the street, a light came on, and I thought for a moment that Dag had woken them up, that everyone had heard him. But, of course, he’d been very quiet when he’d said those words. The way he said and did everything.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then I’d like some quiet on the drive home.”

  For thirty seconds, Dag messed with the tangled cable of the cassette adapter. Then he swore and threw it on the floor. Taking his foot off the brake, he let us roll forward again. In a few more minutes, we’d reached the end of the street, and we turned, and I couldn’t see that single light in the house behind us anymore.

  That was all of it, for a while: the thrum of the tires, the sheared-off ends of Dag’s breathing, the traffic lights shedding green-yellow-red auras across the asphalt. I could feel my fingers again, and I pulled out my phone. It was easier to think about the hashok and how I could stop it than to think about Dag, about how his eyes looked darker than ever, how he kept blinking, and his breathing never seemed to get back to normal.

  I googled the Louisiana Mental Health Professionals Network. I wanted to find the schedule for this week’s conference. I had the vague idea that I could contact the people who had organized the evening panels and see if I could track down Zahra. If she hadn’t attended any of the panels, that would explain how she had managed to get back to Bragg and attack us. If she’d been at a panel tonight, then she had an alibi, and I needed to start thinking more creatively.

  But two minutes of clicking and scrolling and searching yielded nothing. I stared at my phone, not quite able to believe what I was seeing.

  The Louisiana Mental Health Professionals Network had their next annual conference in April. Nothing on their website said anything about an event in October. I tried to search more broadly, googling mental health conferences, October, New Orleans, and combinations and variations of those phrases.

  Nothing.

  When we stopped at the next traffic light, I said, “I know you’re upset with me, but can I please ask a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Zahra lied to me. She said that she and Richard were staying in New Orleans tonight because of a conference.”

  “It’s barely an hour drive. Why would they stay overnight?”

  “Sometimes dinners go late, and sometimes they have panels first thing the next morning. Besides, it’s mostly an excuse to drink and have fun, whatever that looks like for psychiatrists.” Ahead of us, the traffic light was still red; the humid air glowed hazily around it. “But she lied. There’s no conference this week. She and Richard both lied to me.”

  “Do you think Richard is involved with this?”

  “I don’t know. I just—I want to go see.”

  “See what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This is a bad idea,” Dag said. The light changed, and Dag goosed the car forward. “Let’s just get you home—”

  “Please,” I said. “I know I said something inexcusable. I know you don’t have any reason to do this for me. I know I’m a petty, bitchy, selfish, spoiled asshole, and I don’t deserve your help.”

  He drove another hundred yards; a strip mall on our right had a sign advertising ALL YOU CAN EAT SEAFOOD and CODY’S HALLOWEEN SURPLUS. From a bar at the end of the strip, a crowd of guys stumbled out into the parking lot, shoving each other, laughing, one guy hooting as two more squared off. A real fight, or pretend? Hard to tell. Along the side of the road, an inflatable skeleton wavered and folded as the Escort whooshed past it.

  “Just drop me off, then,” I said. “Here’s fine.”

  “This isn’t a good part of town.”

  “Stop the car, please. I just need to catch an Uber.”

  Dag made a strangled noise, and then he jerked the wheel and cut into a sharp U-turn.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “For the love of Christ, just say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” I said softly.

  DAG (16)

  We drove east, cut south around Slidell, and crossed the lake on I-10. Traffic was light, and the lake was higher than usual, lapping just below the highway; for long moments, it would be just the two of us skating out across dark waters, and then headlights would spring up in the opposite direction, and the world would be normal again. At night, New Orleans was an amber crescent of sodium glare ahead of us, growing taller and brighter with every minute, hung here and there with coronets of halogen blues and whites. After the lake came Bayou Sauvage: switchgrass and wiregrass grew along the highway’s shoulder, their blades tremulous in the Escort’s headlights.

  “Where are they staying?”

  “The InterContinental.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Elien trailed fingertips across his forehead like he was trying to concentrate. “No. But that’s where Richard likes to go. Where he told me he likes to go, anyway.”

  Parking was normally a nightmare in the Warehouse District. I drove Poydras east, and then I worked my way down Magazine and up Camp, then west on Poydras. We passed the Zatarain’s ad, a huge mural painted on the side of the Queen & Crescent Hotel, a couple of times. It was late, but the city never slept, and people were walking on the sidewalks, laughing, talking, enjoying the cool October air. A man was walking backwards with an enormous foam cup, sipping on a curly straw, talking to his friends. He went down, and I swear I saw him break his wrist, but he just laughed, and his friends laughed, and somehow they got him upright and rescued what was left of his margarita. They were still laughing as we drove on.

  “Just let the valet park it,” Elien said. “I’ll pay for it.”

  We circled back toward the hotel, coming up north past Lafayette Square this time, where a pair of guys were having a serious make-out session on a bench near the street. One of the guys was black, and the other guy was white, and they were having a really great time by the look of things.

  When we got to the InterContinental, I hopped out and took a parking slip from a white guy with locs. A cloud of weed hung around him. He eyed the Escort and then looked at us.

  “It’s not going to explode or anything,” I said.

  “Let’s not make promises,” Elien said.

  “He’s joking,” I said. “Are you bonded and insured?”

  The valet was still staring at us.

  “I counted the change in the ashtray,” I said. “Just so you know.”

  “Ok,” Elien said, taking my arm and hustling me toward the door. “Before you tell him to be careful with your baby.”

  “It’s not my baby,” I said, and then over my shoulder, “but it is my only car, so if you could please be careful—”

  Elien steered me into the lobby before I could finish. I glanced around and tried not to look like I was glancing around: marble floors, chandeliers, furniture done in varying patterns of black and gold, abstract sculptures that, on second glance, I realized were meant to represent jazz musicians. Mirrors. Televisions. Seating areas were partitioned with transparent curtains, but tonight the lobby was empty. Two restaurants opened off the lobby, and I could smell shrimp and lime. My stomach rumbled.

  “How is that even possible?” Elien muttered. “You ate most of a chicken.”

  My face heated.

  “I’m just teasing,” he whispered. He was still holding my arm, and he squeezed lightly now. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Would you tell me if you were mad at me?”

  “I think I’ve been pretty good at telling you when I’m mad.”

  “But you’re upset.”

  Slowly, I worked his fingers loose from my arm. “Enough, Elien. Let’s do what we came here to do.”

  The hurt on his face only lasted an instant. Then he nodded. “How good are you with computers?”

  “I know how to turn them on.” I frowned. “Some of them.”

  “Jesus. Ok, well, I guess I’m the genius hacker of this duo. How good are you at acting?”

  “I played the Big Bad Wolf in third grade.”

  Elien groaned. “I can’t do both parts of this plan.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We need to get Zahra’s room number. And Richard’s, I guess. One of us needs to look on the computer while the other one creates a distraction.”

  “You don’t really think Richard is involved in this whole thing with the hashok, do you?”

  His hazel eyes were clear as he said simply, “He lied to me.”

  “I’ll create the distraction,” I said.

  “Pretend to slip,” Elien said. “Then you say something like, ‘Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.’”

  I hemmed.

  “Let me hear,” Elien said.

  “Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.”

  Elien groaned again. “A little more emotion, please.”

  “Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.”

  “Ok, but not like you’re at your third-cousin-twice-removed’s bat mitzvah and you’re trying to convince your mom to let you go home.”

  “Um. That is a very specific scenario.”

  “Let’s hear it one more time.”

  “Oh my God, I think I broke my leg.”

  “You know what?” Elien said. “Just sit here. I think I can do both parts.”

  “No,” I said. “I can create a distraction. I’m a fucking sorry excuse for a deputy, but I can do this.”

  “Please, Dag, earlier, I didn’t mean that—”

  “Get ready,” I said, nudging him away.

  I headed for the closest restaurant, which was called Pete’s. The lighting was low, with candles at each table, and the smell of shrimp and lime was stronger, mixed now with the fragrance of garlic and hot oil. Most of the tables were empty, and I spotted only two waiters: one at the back, talking to a pair of older women, and one who was passing me toward the kitchen.

  “I’ll be right with you,” she said.