Unleashed

SEVENTEEN

“WE’VE GOT A LEAD,” VICTOR SAID. “GET OVER here.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, now. Why else would I call?”

“What have you got?” I asked.

“Never mind that. Just get over here.” He hung up the phone before I could ask anything else.

“Who was that?” Campbell asked.

“Victor. Duty calls.” I looked over at Lou, dead to the world again. “I hate to go out without him, but he doesn’t look in shape to do much.”

“He’s not,” she said. “Something dangerous, I assume.”

“Maybe. You going to be all right here?”

“Of course. I’ll keep an eye on Lou.” She shook her head in resignation. “Hanging out with you is like Ground-hog Day, Mason. Monsters. Midnight missions. Death-defying feats.”

“It’s all Victor’s fault,” I said.

“Of course it is. Be careful, will you?”

WHEN I REACHED VICTOR’S HE WAS OUTSIDE waiting for me, pacing impatiently up and down. Eli was leaning against the side of Victor’s Beemer, looking tired.

“Took you long enough,” Victor said. It had been all of twenty minutes.

“Where’s Lou?”

“He’s home, recovering. He got hurt.”

“Ahh,” said Eli, looking at me strangely. I waited for some further elucidation, but that was all he said.

“Get in,” Victor said, opening the passenger-side door. I got in and sank into the comfortable seat.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Telegraph Hill. By Coit Tower. “

“You think it’s up there? How do you know?”

“We have information,” said Eli, “from Bertram.” He lapsed into silence. This was odd. Neither one of them asked anything about what had happened to Lou, or how he was doing. They were focused and intense.

Bertram. I didn’t know how I felt about that. He had been an enforcer for a while, but after a number of unfortunate incidents, Victor had stopped using him for anything. Bertram had a take-no-prisoners attitude, and could easily escalate a minor situation into a major one. Cops have a phrase for that-“badge heavy.”

Eli had already vetoed his involvement once before, when we trapped the Wendigo. But apparently things had got desperate. Bertram could come in handy when results were needed and the methods used to get them weren’t a primary concern. His specialty was intelligence, which in his case meant leaning on people in creative ways until they told him what he wanted to know. I didn’t like him much.

Victor pulled up at the Pioneer Park lot, right next to Coit Tower. Coit Tower is an iconic San Francisco landmark, and although the surrounding Pioneer Park is small, it could provide plenty of cover for something to be lurking in the dark.

Before Victor got out of the car, he checked his fanny pack, the one he carries on many magical sorties, a mini version of his usual black doctor’s bag. Most of the stuff it contains is for magical forensics, but it also contains objects for enabling those spells that need magical props. It contains crystals, small bars of different pure metals, things I can’t identify, and other, more prosaic items such as duct tape and a hunting knife. Finally satisfied, he zipped it shut and exited the car.

“No shotgun?” I said.

“We won’t be needing it.”

Again, no explanation, no conversation. I shrugged and followed him out of the car. I’d seen him like this before, but never so bad. There wasn’t any point in pestering him with questions; he’d tell me what was going on when he was good and ready.

We headed down Greenwich Street in the direction of Bertram’s place over on Montgomery. Victor led the way and Eli brought up the rear. I had a sudden sense of déjà vu. Of course. Morgan’s dream, the one where she had seen Victor, Eli, and me walking down a darkened street. And no Lou. She’d felt an overwhelming sense of dread and danger, but she couldn’t see anything. All she had seen was the three of us.

I hadn’t been feeling very comfortable anyway, but now I was filled with my own sense of foreboding. I kept glancing left and right, expecting something to leap from out the shadows at any moment. When Victor suddenly stopped, I almost ran up on his heels.

“What is it?” I whispered, unwilling to make any noise that might bring something down on us.

He held up a hand for quiet. We had just passed an al leyway, and he turned back to examine something lying on the ground, hidden in shadow. He squatted down to examine it more closely, then whistled softly.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Look at this.”

I walked up obligingly, and that was when Eli grabbed me from behind in a bear hug and lifted me off my feet. Once you’re off your feet, you have no purchase and there’s nothing you can do, especially when your opponent is bigger and stronger. You can try a head butt, snapping your head back with as much force as you can muster, but that’s easy to counter just by keeping your head tucked down behind the other guy’s shoulder. None of that mattered, though. I was too stunned to even struggle.

“What the fuck!” I yelled, but that was all I got to say. Victor had his handy roll of duct tape out and whipped a few turns around my head and mouth in no time flat. Eli pushed me facedown onto the pavement, knocking the wind out of me, and Victor looped more turns around my hands and feet. I was neatly trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and all I could do was glare and make muffled sounds.

I stopped making even those when Victor put a knife blade up to my throat.

“Not a sound,” he said. “I’d as soon cut your throat as not, and the minute you start to change, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Understand?”

Now it started to make sense. Victor and Eli thought I wasn’t me-that I was the shape-shifter. But where in God’s name had they got that idea? However they’d come to that conclusion, I was in trouble. With the duct tape over my mouth I couldn’t explain, and I doubted that Victor would listen anyway. Since the shape-shifter could do an almost perfect copy, complete with memories, nothing I could say would convince him. No wonder Morgan had seen only the three of us. There wasn’t anyone else, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t in serious trouble.

Eli hoisted me up and tossed me over one broad shoulder. With his professorial demeanor, it’s easy to forget just how strong he is. I felt a tickling sensation as Victor laid a slight illusion over my body to make it look like an innocuous pile of coats or some such.

“Bertram?” Eli asked. Victor nodded.

This was getting worse by the moment. Obviously they wanted some information from the shape-shifter. Bertram was notorious about getting answers, but his methods were not for the squeamish. And I was in the unenviable position of having no answers to give. No matter what he did to me, I couldn’t give information I didn’t have, and any insistence that I was really me would just be taken as stubborn intransigence, inviting further unpleasant interrogation.

“Do you think Mason’s still alive?” asked Victor as we walked along. Rather, they walked. I rode.

“I don’t think so,” Eli said. “But it’s possible. Remember, it wouldn’t have had to kill and consume Mason to do a good enough copy to fool us, at least for a while. It wouldn’t fool Lou, of course, but you’ll notice Lou is conveniently missing. Bertram will be able to get the answer.”

“Still, I would have never suspected. Are you positive?”

“Oh, I’m positive, all right. Remember, I saw his hands change when he thought I wasn’t looking. If not for that, he’d have fooled me, too. We’ve got the son of a bitch, all right.”

Saw my hands change? What the hell was he talking about? When had my hands changed? As usual, I was a little slow on the uptake, but in my defense it’s hard to think clearly when you’re trussed up, hanging upside down, and on your way to an “enhanced interrogation.”

What tipped it was simple, though. “Son of a bitch” was not a phrase I’d ever heard Eli use before, and there was a reason for that. It’s not a phrase he would ever use. A shape-shifter was present all right, but it wasn’t me.

The shape-shifter must have assumed Eli’s identity and used that guise to convince Victor it was me who had been replaced. You’d think after that phony phone call out at Hunters Point Victor would have been more skeptical, but apparently not.

One good thing, though-the shifter had used a phrase Eli never would have uttered. Which meant it hadn’t got him down quite right. Which meant Eli possibly hadn’t been killed-it was just aping him.

It was hard to see Victor clearly since my head was hanging upside down, but I was sure I saw a momentary stiffening. He’d picked up on that out-of-character phrase as well. The Eli shape-shifter might have temporarily fooled him, but Victor was no dummy. He hadn’t lived as long as he had by ignoring little things that seemed out of place.

The fake Eli seemed to sense he’d made a false step and went for a distraction. He eased me off his shoulder and dumped me roughly onto the sidewalk. Another atypical behavior that I hoped Victor would notice. I lay there among trash wrappers and unpleasant smells.

“Maybe we should search him,” Eli said. “He might be carrying something.”

Victor nodded and rolled me over so that I was facedown on the pavement and started going through my pockets. He took my folding knife, loose change, and then he came across those leaves I’d stuffed in my pocket. I’d forgotten all about them. He held them out to show to Eli.

“Here’s something interesting,” he said. “These leaves are unusual, and they’re sticky with dried blood.”

“Interesting. Have you got enough in your forensics bag to test them?”

Victor nodded again, but he didn’t look happy. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. I made a couple of muffled grunts, trying to get his attention, but he ignored me.

He took off his fanny pack and moved out of my range of vision. A couple of minutes later, he walked back and handed the leaves to Eli.

“Not from this world,” he said. “No doubt about it.” How damning was that bit of evidence? Victor had no idea I’d been through the pool to another world. He turned to look at me, and his face was as hard as I’d ever seen it. “And the blood on them is from an Ifrit.” For a moment I thought he was going to shoot me right then and there, and so did he. I realized with surprise that he was fond of Lou in his own way.

“I can explain,” I said, desperately. Actually, I didn’t say anything; I could only make grunting sounds again.

The fake Eli saved me by interrupting, although he didn’t realize he’d done so. He couldn’t read Victor like Eli would have.

“Let’s get him up to Bertram,” Eli said, and after a moment, Victor turned on his heel and walked away from me.

Victor really should have known better, but he put great store in measurements and numbers and tests, things that could be quantified. He knew in his heart there was something not right about the whole thing, but the damning evidence of the leaves and blood was powerful, enabling him to brush aside his inner reservations. He’s always been a head-over-heart guy.

The fake Eli walked away from me, following Victor, and I took the opportunity to roll over on my side to where I could see. I kept testing the duct tape bonds, but they held fast. Victor had done his usual competent job.

You’d think I could have used talent to free myself, but it’s not that easy. I don’t have any preset spells in hand; I don’t operate that way. And although I could gather what I needed from the world around me, with no ability to speak or move or even gesture, I had no way to actualize anything. It was like having a loaded gun in your pocket, but with no way to use it.

Eli casually strolled over to where Victor was stuffing items back into his fanny pack. He slipped in behind him, and as I watched, I thought I saw his hands start to change. I looked again and this time I was sure-the hands began to gradually lengthen and change shape. Familiar six-inch claws spurted out in slow motion where fingers once were. The rest of him didn’t change; that would have taken too long. He was the same benign, reassuring presence I’d always known. Victor heard him come up and glanced back over his shoulder. Eli’s familiar presence reassured him, and he turned his attention back to his pack.

There was nothing I could do. It would get Victor first, then me. To make things worse, if possible, a movement in the shadows caught my eye. A rat, maybe, coming to investigate my helpless position. It loomed out of the darkness and poked its snout toward me an inch from my face. Only, it wasn’t a rat’s snout at all. It was a sharp black-and-tan muzzle, as familiar as my own face.

Lou disappeared behind me, and I could feel sharp teeth working on the duct tape that held my wrists. It was going to be a race. Would he be able to free me before the fake Eli grew those talons and sank them into the back of Victor’s neck? Lou should have ignored me and warned Victor first, but he doesn’t think that way. I was his first priority, and if Victor’s fight with the shape-shifter gave him some extra time to free me, so much the better. If Victor bought the farm as a result, it would be unfortunate, but war always has collateral damage. He’d help Victor if he could, but not at my expense. Better Victor than me, was his opinion. Or maybe I was being too harsh-Lou has trouble keeping more than one thought at a time in his mind, anyway.

He chewed through half the tape, and with that start, I was able to rip the remainder in half. I reached up with fumbling fingers to rip off the tape across my mouth, but my fingers were numb and I couldn’t get a grip. Eli’s arms came up toward Victor. I looked down at Lou, pointed at the two of them, and grunted wildly.

He got the message and charged toward them, rattling off his usual volley of high-pitched barks. Victor spun around immediately, just in time to see the claw at the end of Eli’s arm descending toward his face. He threw himself sideways, landing on one shoulder and rolling, bouncing immediately back to his feet. You had to admire the guy.

The Eli shape-shifter lunged at him, but Victor was too quick for it. If the shape-shifter had been in its natural form, it might have been a different story, but it was limited by the form it had taken. I had finally managed to tear the tape off my mouth, but the band around my feet was still secure. I couldn’t move from my spot on the ground, but I was no longer helpless.

I wasn’t much help, though. I knew from experience that it would be hard to affect the shape-shifter directly, and if I did something simple, like making the pavement as slippery as an ice rink, Victor would be affected as well. The two of them would go down together, and only one of them would get up.

Victor didn’t wait for me to weigh in. As he dodged to one side, he pulled the Glock out from under his jacket. The first round missed as the shape-shifter dodged sideways, surprisingly quick, and there wasn’t time for a second. A sweeping claw knocked the pistol from Victor’s hand, and now it was Victor’s turn to dodge again.

It leapt toward him. But before it could reach him, I struck. I reached out and swept all the trash I could find up into a swirl-wrappers, paper, leaves, and dirt-then mixed in the sticky properties of duct tape and threw the entire mess into its face. The trash stuck fast, effectively blinding it. It pawed at its face, trying to clear the mess away. The mask of gunk it wore wouldn’t last long, but it gave Victor his opportunity and he scooted over to retrieve the gun. The fake Eli realized what was happening and stopped trying to get rid of the trash covering its face and eyes. Instead, it darted away, blindly but with determined speed. It didn’t want to face firepower. It bounced off a couple of cars it couldn’t see and disappeared into the darkness before Victor could level the gun and get off another shot.

I took a deep breath and started working on the tape that still bound my feet. Lou flopped down next to me, looking exhausted. For a moment Victor started to go after the shape-shifter, but saw it was hopeless. Finally he shook his head and walked over toward me, gun still in his hand.

“Finally, your chance,” I said. “Shoot me now. I’m helpless-my ankles are still taped together.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, in a tone that lacked any contrition. He looked down at Lou. “Nice work.” No mention of my role in fighting off the shape-shifter. We stared at each other for a few seconds, until he looked away and muttered something.

“What?” I said. “I didn’t catch that.”

“I might have been a bit hasty on this one,” he said. “All things considered.”

I waited, but that was all he had to say. I had a feeling that his almost killing me had shaken him considerably, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. But there were more important things to worry about. I asked the question that I didn’t want to.

“What about Eli? Is he dead, do you think?”

He sighed and dropped down on his heels beside me. He put the pistol away back under his jacket and pulled out the knife that had so recently pressed against my throat. It took only a few seconds to slice through the tape around my ankles.

“No, I don’t think he is. I’m betting he’s alive. This shape-shifter’s incarnation of him was off, not quite right. So I think the shape-shifter was just imitating him-if it had actually killed him, the masquerade would have been perfect and undetectable.” Victor took out his cell and punched in a speed-dial number.

“Eli?” I asked. He nodded, then gave me a thumbs-up and relaxed slightly as the call was answered.

“Eli? Where are you?” There was a brief silence as he listened. “No. It wasn’t me who called.” More listening. “No, everything’s fine. Just go home, but be careful. It’s still out there.” Another pause. “I don’t have time to tell you the whole story. But you could still be in danger, so keep a sharp eye out, and get yourself home. Better still, go back to my house and we’ll meet you there.” He snapped his cell shut.

“I still don’t get it,” I said. “So you did notice something odd about him at the time, but you never even thought twice about it?”

“Actually, I did, but I put it down to his being upset. He’s very… protective of you, after all, and when he told me what he saw, I figured that would have been enough to throw him off stride completely.”

“And he saw what? Supposedly.”

“Right before I called you, he showed up at my house.” He waved vaguely at the street stretching off into the darkness. “Or, rather, the not-Eli. He told me he’d seen you earlier and, when you thought he wasn’t looking, seen your hands change. He was sure you were the shape-shifter and thought we should capture you-it-and find out where the real you was and if you were still alive.

“Then, when you showed up without Lou, which is unheard of, any doubts I might have had vanished. You never go anywhere without him.” He looked over at Lou again. “Which is just as well. But your excuse that Lou was sick seemed all too convenient at the time.”

A sound plan, psychologically speaking. By naming me as the shape-shifter, all the focus had been put on me. Victor would be watching my every action and thinking about my every word. He’d never think to put the same scrutiny on the supposed Eli.

“I see. The real Eli thought you had called him. But it wasn’t you; it was the shape-shifter again.”

“Exactly. Before it came by my house, it called Eli, imitating me. It told him to meet me over in Berkeley. Eli’s been waiting for me there, safely out of the picture. It’s a clever beast.”

Speaking of clever, how the hell had Lou found me? Well, that much was a given, but how had he got across town so quickly?

“You’ve got Campbell’s cell number, don’t you?” I asked. Victor nodded. “Give her a call for me, will you?” He punched in another number and handed me the phone.

“Campbell?”

“Mason! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Where are you? Did Lou find you?”

“He did. He’s here with me now, over by Coit Tower. Where are you? How did he get here?”

“I’m fairly close, actually. About an hour after you left the house, I was just dropping off to sleep when Lou jumped up on the bed and started barking at me. I thought there was something wrong with him until he ran to the door and kept barking. So we got in the Land Cruiser and I started toward Victor’s house, but he wouldn’t stop barking until I turned north. Then he quieted down for a bit, then started barking again until I changed direction. It was like playing the hot-and-cold game, but with barks. Eventually we ended up somewhere on Telegraph Hill, and when I stopped at a stop sign, he jumped out the window and was gone. I was beside myself, terrified something bad was going down. I’ve been driving around looking for him ever since.”

“Well, we’re over on Greenwich Street,” I said, “just down from Coit Tower. Come on by.” I handed the phone back to Victor. “I see a problem here. If this shape-shifter can imitate us all, how can we trust anyone to be who they seem? I’ve got Lou to vouch for me, but what if he’s not with me, like tonight? And how would I know you’re really Victor, for that matter?”

“A good question,” he said, which of course was no answer at all.

“And another thing,” I said. “The original shape-shifter knew us all-she’d have had no problem in imitating us. But this one did a pretty good job on Eli, so wouldn’t it have to be someone who knew him? Someone besides Ruby? And you, as well. It imitated your voice. And me, since it knew quite a bit about who I was. Who knows all three of us?”

“Half the practitioners in the city,” said Victor dryly. “And all of the ones who cause trouble.”

“Ramsey,” I said

“Ramsey? You must be joking. Why him?”

“Ruby was hanging around with him when I first ran across her at Mama Yara’s. It made no sense to me at the time, but it does now. The shape-shifters travel in pairs, the Wendigo said. You know Ramsey-the man is a walking disaster. Why else would Ruby keep him around-unless it wasn’t Ramsey?”

“Backup rations? A kind of walking larder if things got too lean? And Ruby could have been using him as an information source-a gofer or a sneak. How could he have guessed she wasn’t what she seemed? We certainly didn’t. And why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Well, when I thought Ruby was Ruby, she asked me not to. At the time, I thought she was just embarrassed to have you think she was with a total geek like Ramsey. After, with everything that was going on, I just didn’t even think of it.”

Victor muttered something under his breath, and I don’t think it was a compliment on my brilliance. “But think about it,” I said. “What better disguise?” Victor was not impressed with my reasoning.

“This is another of your unwarranted leaps in logic,” he said. “The shape-shifter that was Ruby could have provided her partner with all the information she’d need.”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Maybe it is a stretch. But it’s still worth checking out.”

“Agreed,” said Victor. “I don’t suppose you know where he lives?” Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I did. Ramsey had invited me over so many times that I eventually relented and once showed up against my better judgment. It wasn’t much fun.

“He lives over on Sutter Street, around Fillmore,” I said. “Not that far from here, actually.”

“Good. We’ll head over there.”

“What, right now?” I had the feeling I was repeating myself. Hadn’t I just said that the other day?

“If you’re after someone, you don’t want to give them time to catch their breath if you can help it. If Ramsey is the shape-shifter, which I doubt, it won’t be expecting us so soon.”

CAMPBELL’S LAND CRUISER CAME INTO VIEW, driving slowly up the street. She caught sight of us and pulled over. I looked over toward Lou, who was stretched out on his side, sound asleep again.

“Can you take Lou home?” I said, before she had even got out of the car. “It looks like he’s about had it.” She looked at me doubtfully through the car window.

“What about you?”

“The night’s not quite over yet. Things to do, people to see.”

“I could try to take him back, but I’m not sure he’ll go for it.”

“Sure, he will. Look at him.” I poked him gently and he raised his head and looked at me bleary-eyed. “Go home with Campbell,” I said, gesturing toward the car. “I’ll be fine.

Lou climbed wearily to his feet and headed off toward her Land Cruiser, stumbling a couple of times. He was used up. A couple of quick assurances to Campbell that things were under control, a brief explanation of our next stop, and she drove away without much protest. I was on my own again, and hopefully I would take better care of myself this time.

Victor and I made our way back to his car, and ten minutes later we were in front of Ramsey’s place, a huge Victorian on Sutter Street broken up into apartments, the way a lot of those old buildings are. Ramsey’s apartment was number 4, but only three apartments were visible. A walkway leads around to the back, though, where a rear door reveals another apartment that you wouldn’t know was there unless you’d visited before. The door was warded of course, since a practitioner lived there.

“Do we knock?” I asked in a low voice. Victor shook his head without hesitation.

“We go right in. If he’s the shape-shifter, we’ll need the surprise. If he’s not-” He shrugged. “We’ll just apologize. He won’t give a damn when he sees it’s us.”

He was right. Ramsey would be so thrilled by the thought of being in on something exciting that he wouldn’t care that we’d just waltzed in uninvited, even though that’s unforgivable by practitioner etiquette.

Victor looked up and down the door, examining the warding. You can’t actually see warding unless you’re another practitioner, and even then you don’t exactly see it. You feel it and sense it, in a way ordinaries can’t. It’s an overlay, and for someone like Victor, or even myself, it’s as obvious as a new paint job on an old rusted car.

The warding was not only over the door but the entire side of the building. Quite ambitious, but pitiful even for someone as unskilled as Ramsey. Worse, he hadn’t kept up with it-warding doesn’t last forever; it needs to be maintained. I’d neglected that myself a couple of years ago, much to my sorrow. I’m a lot more conscientious these days.

“Give me a hand with this,” said Victor, pointing to a spot right over the door.

The warding there had completely degraded to the point where it was nonexistent. He reached out with his talent, I did the same, and together we peeled the rest of the warding off like loose skin off an onion. Victor reached under his jacket and brought out the Glock. He motioned toward the door with it.

“Kick the door. Hit it right next to the lock, and hit it hard.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just knock?” I said. He looked at me in exasperation.

So I was to be the muscle. I don’t mind being the B player in the movie, but Victor is the one with martial arts skills. He doesn’t often use those skills; he prefers simple weapons like guns, things that won’t mess up his hair. But he’s got those skills in reserve if he needs them, and even though he’s not a very big guy, I’m sure he would have done a better job at door crashing than me. But he had the gun and wanted to stand back, ready in case anything came flying out. Or maybe he thought it would be good for my self-esteem to feel useful. More likely he just wanted me in front if things went sour-sometimes I think he feels that in the grand scheme of things I wouldn’t be that much of a loss.

I was still wearing my heavy boots, though. I gathered myself, got my balance, and unleashed a side kick, striking the door just above the lock right next to the doorjamb. I could feel the shock all the way up my leg. The door remained stubbornly fast, and I bounced off and lost my balance, falling to the ground.

Victor smirked at me and stepped forward. He spun around with one of his tricky martial arts moves and hit the door, which of course obligingly flew open. It was like the pickle jar, I was sure. I’d softened it up, almost breaking my foot in the process, and then he stepped in. It would have flown open if he’d simply breathed on it. One good thing-he was now the first through the door.

I scrambled to my feet and followed him inside. We didn’t have to secure the room-it was tiny, consisting of a kitchenette with a ratty table and plastic chairs, plus an additional living area no more than six feet square. It made my in-law space seem like a mansion. Stairs led to an upstairs room that clearly couldn’t be any larger than the downstairs.

There was that familiar taint of corruption in the air, along with the musky odor of a bear’s den, but I wasn’t sure it came from any creature’s lair. Bags of overflowing garbage were piled up in the kitchenette, leaving almost no floor space. The burners of the electric stove were crusted over with a year’s worth of spilled soup and ramen noodles. In one corner near the stove was a shriveled piece of bacon, so old even Lou wouldn’t have touched it. It looked like it could have been there since the earthquake of ’89, if not the big one a century earlier. Maybe it was a lair, but more the one of a total slob than of a monster.

Victor was up the stairs in two seconds, not waiting for me, and back down in less than a minute.

“Not here,” he said.

So the trip was a bust, a big anticlimax. I wasn’t that displeased; I was tired and sore and the last thing I wanted was another deadly confrontation. Maybe I’m getting old, but I prefer a good night’s rest before battling monsters.

But it wasn’t over yet. As we stood crowded together in the tiny apartment, the sound of steps echoing on concrete reached our ears. They stopped outside the door, and then it slowly swung inward. Ramsey was home.