Felicity had lost Josephine several blocks bad some time ago, running from this monster.

  It was no endurance hunter, but it was still relentless. And it only had i in Felicity. It must have been the ohat took that part of her iheater restroom. It was the only way it could have known where her home was, to y in wait for her there. Unless it had been following her around since, but she doubted that.

  Seeing its behavior as they’d both dodged and weaved and sprinted and dashed away from it, Felicity had eventually directed them to split up, shouting at Josephio run home.

  When Josephine had protested, Felicity mao put such a look of determination and authority into Amber’s eyes that her friend had shut up and turned and ran away. And the monster didn’t even break its stride in pursuit of Felicity.

  ‘Monster’ was such a good word for this thing, too. It was horrifid it had no care in the world for who or what saw it as it tore through the suburbs of Gresham after her.

  Felicity could eat it herself, if she got the drop on it, she was sure. But after a couple of attempts to run ahead, double back, and ambush it, she learned very quickly that she couldn’t surprise it. It kly where she was.

  It must have absorbed those memories of hers it had eaten. She couldn’t do that sort of thing herself, but she’d seen and heard of emanants who could.

  It was so devastating and infuriating, a deep viotion. Those memories were hers, a part of her. But now she no longer had any access to them at all, as they’d been ripped from her very being. Amputated. And this thing was using them against her.

  And now she was exhausted and starving and fgging and just so, so desperate.

  If she absolutely had to, she could eat one or more of her emanant headmates. But she preferred to not eveertain that idea. They were her family. She’d relied upon them, and them upon her. And she wouldn’t break that ant until she was mindless and uo trol herself. And she’d do everything in her power to avoid that fate for them. Especially since she couldn’t absorb their memories by eating them. It would be such a waste.

  She o find food soon, though. But if she could just survive the night she might get a ce to do that.

  Presently, she had her back against the dirty white asbestos siding of an older house. The strips of pressed and molded material pushing into her back as she caught her breath, she kept her ears open for the sounds of her pursuer, who was very noisy.

  Dusk was ing fast, with winter right around the er.

  Two spping noises and a massive scraping soued over and etting obviously closer, apanied by the periodic rumbling she couldn’t even hear. She felt it in her gut and chest, as if it was rearranging her host’s cells, pulsing like a big cat’s half-assed purr.

  Soon, she’d o run again. Very soon.

  But again, she took stock. She gnced around the er of the house, and saw it pulling itself up onto the sidewalk, pushing through a mailbox and a garbage , straight at her. Its current path would take it through the side of the house. Though, she’d seen it i with walls before.

  Any physical object that didn’t immediately give way would cause it to stop and sniff.

  It had no eyes, and no obvious ears. It was trag Felicity with its emanant senses, a range of non-physical ways of deteg patterns in the energy of spacetime, and it couldn’t see physical obstacles.

  Apparently, st helped it to evaluate whatever it bumped into, but it didn’t use that seo hunt her.

  When it entered the side of the house, it would probably go around.

  She’d also seen how it had attacked her from the storm drain. It was capable of squeezing its bulk through nearly any crack or crevice like an octopus, despite otherwise funing as if it had bones ah.

  Unless she could figure out how to es psyche to eat it from within, or some way to destroy its body with physical force, her only other option was to trap it in a sealed tainer of some sort.

  Like, perhaps, a walk-in freezer?

  That might be possible.

  These thoughts came to her fast, springing from half formed ideas and observations she’d had the st time she’d stopped for breath.

  The thied by moving slowly whenever she stopped running. Then, when it got close enough, it would sprint again.

  Her host’s human body could perpetually outrun it, and maybe eveually outdista. Especially if she got in a vehicle, like a bus or the MAX. But it probably knew where she had to go to keep her host alive and well, and funing in society. It at least knew where she lived.

  It could ambush her ter.

  She needed help.

  She needed help from someoer equipped to deal with this thing. Someone who didn’t need eye tact to do their best trick, whatever it might be.

  She edged away from the er of the house, putting more of the buildiween her and the monster.

  Synthia, a thought bubbled up from below her mind. Synthia is a and must be wily. She has to know about this kind of thing.

  The thought had a mental voice to it that felt like familiar herbal tea.

  “You remember her?” she whispered out loud, to make sure her headmates could hear her.

  Yes, came the answer.

  “How do I find her?” Felicity asked, taking her Sharpie out of Amber’s purse and uncapping it.

  Her domain is here, was the reply, apanied by a vision of a vaguely familiar sideassing by an unofficial trail entering a wooded lot, and the general sense of where that was in the neighborhood.

  “Fantastic!” she hissed, turning and narrowing her eyes as she quickly scribbled her personal glyph on the wall of the house.

  Just as she made the st stroke, the structure shuddered and groaned with the impact of two tons of monster. It caused her marker to skip, of course.

  She turned and ran as fast as she could, to head down the block, and around the er there, to sprint away from Synthia’s domain and toward a cluster of fast food joints.

  She wondered if she left her host pletely, would the monster follow her, and leave Amber aher emanants alone?

  With the memories that her headmate had shared with her, she could do what she o do, if she could lure the beast far enough away first, et lucky and trap it with that walk-in idea.

  What would happen if it got stu a walk-in with an abandoned human host in there. Would it eat the person?

  Did she care?

  She kinda did, she thought. Just a little. Obviously. She’d asked herself the question, after all.

  As she ran, she thought about how she and her pursuer had mao avoid the police who’d been called to intercept the violence.

  It had mostly beeo her tenacity to keep running from the thing. But also how the human authorities had takeime to deploy their officers to the se. Also, a bit of ce.

  She’d think that maybe there was something else at work, like something regarding her pursuer’s defenses. But she’d seey of civilian bystanders rec it on their phones.

  It was doing nothing to avoid human tad reition.

  It would be iing to see how this pyed out.

  “ you keep Amber safe while I’m gone?” she gasped out betweehs.

  Maybe.

  “I’ll try to get you to a safe pce, first,” she responded. “Gonna spread my eyes around a few more pces first.”

  She already had eyes on most of Gresham, but a few more in strategic pces could mean the differeween her pn w and being ered o time.

  If all went well, she’d make it to Synthia’s p a couple of hours, well after dark.

  If not, it’s entirely possible the emanaer would choose to wait at Synthia’s domain for her, si almost certainly had Felicity’s memories of visiting the pd knew why she might go there.

  If she was uo trap it, and only lose it, that seemed likely.

  She made a point of gng bad slowing down, to make sure it was still following.

  I’d devised an eborate pn, which is usually a bad idea when you’re sober. But as we walked to my wooded lot, I recovered from my stupor quickly and couldn’t think of a better alternative. There were two big oints in my pn, but there was nothing I could do except try to fihem whe there.

  It was dark, with fewer people about to act as witnesses, and I actually did feel safer having someone else with me. A didn’t have to be Greg. But it was Greg.

  And when we would get to my pce, the first thing he’d notice was that it was a lot full of woods with a game trail going through it, and no driveway or mailbox.

  And that was the first oint. Whether I invited him or not, he’d have to make the decision of whether to follow me in to see my house, or let me go in alone, and trust that I was telling the truth.

  Which I absolutely would be, because as we were walking to my pce, I was extending myself into my domain enough to and it to ma a tle cottage in the clearing.

  And then I had to decide what kind of story I would tell him about the cottage and whether or not I had a ndlord, or what I was doing there at all.

  This had me a little distracted, because it took a certain amount of tration.

  Which meant I was relying to alert me to anything strange, even though he didn’t have all the senses I did.

  I was also not paying full attention to what he was saying, going on automatid iing grunts and other vocalizations where it seemed appropriate. I even ughed at his jokes.

  So, when I was done strug and prepping my new cottage, I came back to our locality and my physical proje to hear him saying, “Anyway. It is so refreshing to get to hang out with you outside of work. This is a nice walk, don’t you think? Cold. But the sky is clear, and… well, clear for being filled with light pollution I guess.”

  And I seriously slipped and said, “You should have seen it before…” and I stopped myself.

  He gave me a strange look and responded, “I have. More or less. I grew up i on.”

  “Oh. Cool,” I replied.

  I’d been pushing things, for the st few years, seeing what I could get away with saying around my friends. I guessed I’d made it a bad habit. And now that I was being more embroiled in monster affairs, I’d fotten who my pany was, and had followed that habit without first thinking about it. I’d lost track of where my own boundaries were.

  I checked Greg’s face, but he had an easy expression with his right eyebrow raised.

  “It’s fug geous out there,” he said. “I really miss it.”

  “It was still pretty dark here in the ‘90s,” I said, carefully sidering my projected age. I was still pushing it, but retively safely. “I uand it was eveer in the ‘70s. But probably nothing like where you lived.”

  He bobbed his head as he appraised me, “I could have sworn you were youhan that! Nice.” He looked around, and said, “At least the light makes it easier to see what’s around us. We enjoy the neighborhood.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for walking me home.”

  “Not at all!”

  “Well, we’re almost there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” I firmed. “Yonna think this is weird, but I’ve got a pretty damn cool property. It’s right up there.” And I pointed half a block ahead of us where my lot was. “You might actually like it, I think, once you get over how secluded it is. I’m sort of, uh, off the grid.”

  He squi where I ointing, then gave me a startled look. There was no mistaking my indication. The stretch of woods was long enough that I couldn’t be pointing at the house beyond it.

  “You’re shitting me,” he said. “You’re pointing at a park. Are you saying you’re homeless”

  “I do believe I am not,” I told him with a faint smile. “That’s my property. Or, it might as well be. I just finished building a cozy little cottage on it.”

  He gave me affable but an incredulous scowl, showih, “Now you’re really shitting me. With your own hands?”

  Now, I did kn. I khat he was socialist at heart, but also a bit anarchist, with an i in what he would call ‘destined civil a’. By which he meant, people taking matters into their own hands. His favorite Star Wars movie was, despite how much he physically resembled his fanboy terparts, The Last Jedi. The oh a hermit Luke, where the women did all the heavy lifting, and hope was to be found amongst the on folk of the gaxy.

  I knew I was hooking him.

  “There’s a reason I haven’t ever hung out with you guys after work before,” I said, telling a different truth. And then another, “It took lohan I expected.”

  “Projects like that usually do,” he said. He chewed his lip as he studied the lot we were approag. The trail inward was now visible ireetlight. He asked, “ I e in a?”

  I shrugged and said, “Sure? You don’t have to, of course. But if you feel like you should walk me through the trail, I wouldn’t object.”

  I did have a quid chilling vision in my head of Croc-face leaping out of the trees to attack Greg, though.

  I retty certain that wouldn’t happen, however, since I’d had enough evideo vince me it was a teratovore, and not the people eater I’d thought it was initially.

  Why was I more afraid being hurt thahough?

  I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Not one more step,” Greg said a step behind me, in a softer, more coquettish and sarcastic voice. A familiar lilt. “It’s waiting for me in there, and it’ll get you instead if I leave.”

  theInmara