Of Starlight (18 page)

A bush rustled outside, and I snapped to attention, automatically reaching to my side. My fingers closed around the hilt of the fireplace poker, now invisible. I scanned the foyer for shadows, fully alert.

Through the windows, the dark figure of a raccoon slunk out of view, and I relaxed. I raised the poker and ran my finger along the sharp end. I’d stretched dark matter around the weapon. Next to me, Megan was playing with her invisible baseball bat. Both would be deadly.

We’d made several of our weapons invisible—cleavers and hammers and screwdrivers—and stashed one in each room for quick reach if it came to a fight. We were asking for trouble. If Ashley got her hands on one . . . the thought made me squirm.

I tried to remember the hiding spots. In the kitchen, a screwdriver under the oven. In the dining room, a knife in the china cabinet. In the den, a handsaw on the second shelf of the bookcase—Megan had insisted. I ticked off their locations on my fingers, having nothing else to occupy my mind.

All the lights in the house were off. In some of the doorways, we’d scattered thumbtacks, pointy side up. I’d left the office door slightly ajar and propped the crystal bookend above it, so if she chose to enter that way a second time, the massive rock would hit her on the head.

The whole thing felt stupidly childish. Of course it wouldn’t work.

I was dead, and we both knew it.

Megan cocked her head up and whispered, “Listen.”

Her voice put me on high alert, and I strained to hear over my thumping heart. “Did you hear her?”

“No, listen,” she said. She was looking at the ceiling.

I craned my neck, and then I heard it too. A faint pitter patter coming from above us. As I listened, fingers tensed on the poker, the rhythm built into a steady roar. Like a thousand marbles crashing onto the roof.

It was raining.

Another sound drifted in. Slow at first, but picking up speed. The jingle of hundreds of sleigh bells as they were tossed about in the storm—our advanced warning system, utterly useless.

I scooted closer to the door and peered out at the front yard through one of the sidelights. The blades of glass danced under the onslaught of huge droplets. The rain fell in drenching buckets, hammering the gutters and gouging craters in the mud. Tree limbs sagged under the weight of water and sprang upward, spraying everywhere. All the while, those bells jingled as Megan’s tripwires were yanked this way and that. I stared out in horror. The first rainstorm of the season.

I whispered, “She was waiting for this—”

The glass exploded in my face.

I staggered backward, stunned, and the fireplace poker fell from my hand and clattered on the wood. The drapes billowed and folded to the side, carried by a gust of wind whistling through a fist-sized hole in the glass.

Megan jumped to her feet, her eyes wide. Where a sliver had nicked my skin, a trickle of blood wormed down my forehead and pooled in my eyes, and I blinked away the sting.

One by one, the jagged shards cracked loose and fell into a clinking pile. When all the glass had been cleared away, the deadbolt latch began to turn. The metallic squeak raised hairs on my neck.

She was reaching inside, unlocking the door.

All at once, my mind went blank. I saw the latch turning through tunnel vision and forgot everything we had planned. What was I supposed to do? I wasn’t ready . . .
wait!

The latch clicked as it reached the retracted position. Unlocked.

The handle rattled, and slowly the door swung inward. A ghostly hue spilled in through the gap, bathing Megan’s terrified face in blue light. At once, the gurgle of rain rose to a deafening roar, yanking me out of my stupor.

I lunged and threw my weight against the door, slamming it shut. Before Ashley could push back, my fingers groped for the latch and twisted it shut, re-engaging the deadbolt. Under my hip, the handle continued to jiggle. Suddenly, it went still.

Rasping breaths scratched at my throat. I kept my shoulder wedged against the door, listening. But the sound of the storm was drowned out by my own drumming heartbeat.

Was she still out there?

Wafting in through the broken window, a damp chill coiled around my body and raised goosebumps. The scent of wet dirt blew up my nostrils. Would she reach in again?

“A knife . . . give me a knife!” I threw my hand backward, eyes frozen on the broken window.

Megan darted into the dining room to retrieve the one hidden in the china cabinet. A moment later she poked my shoulder blade with the knife’s dull handle. I grabbed the weapon and held it at the ready, but nothing reached in.

She was gone.

“Was that . . .” Megan gave an audible swallow, “was that her?”

“She’s going to try another entrance.” The calm in my voice surprised me, considering I was shaking badly. I backed away from the door, watching the handle like a hawk. “This time we’ll be ready. We’ll get her next time she tries to get in. Stay here and cover this entrance, I’ll cover the back door—”

An explosive crash startled me, and I spun around.

The sound of breaking glass came from the opposite side of the house. My parents’ bedroom.

“This time we got her,” I whispered, ditching the knife in the corner of the foyer in favor of the fireplace poker. “Stay behind me.”

Megan gave a frightened nod.

Hefting our weapons, we darted up the hallway. My parents’ bedroom loomed in front of us like an ominous black cave. Despite the fear, a thrill raced up my spine. This time we had her cornered. The entrance to this bedroom was riddled with thumbtacks, and I had a plan.

My palm shot out, halting Megan a few feet from the doorway. “You’re the bait,” I breathed in her ear. “Don’t move.”

“Screw you,” she hissed.

“Shh!”

“Should have gone invisible,” she muttered.

With Megan in place, I slipped into the bathroom off the hallway and raised the fireplace poker above my head, waiting to ambush Ashley. She would creep out of the bedroom toward Megan—the bait—only to step on the tacks with her bare feet, cry out in pain, and stumble forward right into the path of my weapon. My sweaty fingers tightened on the brass handle, ready to clobber her on the head.

But no more sounds came from the bedroom. The poker grew heavy, and my frail arms began to tremble. I lowered it, straining to hear a creak in the floorboards over the roar of the rainstorm. Jesus, it was a freaking monsoon out there. Ashley could be doing jumping jacks for all I knew.

I had to go in.

Gripping the doorframe, I swung myself into the bedroom and landed on tiptoe beyond the tacks. Wet spray blasted my cheeks from the broken window, where the aluminum blinds rattled, pelted by wind and raindrops. I crept closer and crouched in the shadows, gripping the poker tighter. What was she waiting for?

A bang came from the front of the house.

I jerked around and glimpsed the front door at the end of the hall—for a split-second wide open to the storm—before it slammed shut, shaking the walls. Terror closed around my heart like a fist.

We’d left the front door undefended. The broken window had been a decoy to lure us away. Like idiots, we’d fallen for it.

Ashley was inside the house.

We were deaf
and blind.

In the rainstorm, we couldn’t hear her footsteps.

“Leona . . .
Leona
 . . .” Megan’s voice quavered as she backed away from the front door, bat held in front of her. “What do I do?”

Her silhouette stood out against the dim hallway. Without dark matter, she was a sitting duck.

I leapt back over the tacks, caught her arm, and whispered, “Get behind me.” She flinched at my voice.

I squeezed past her, and her fingers found the small of my back. She hurried to keep up, following me by touch. I closed both hands around the poker and advanced up the hall, jerking it back and forth in front of me. Unease rose in my throat, making my breaths shallow. My toes sank in the carpet, one hesitant step after another.

There would be no warning.

She would lunge out of nowhere and kill me with one blow. It would be over before I knew what happened. I swung the poker into the den, jabbed it toward the floor, then yanked it back to the hallway.

She could be anywhere by now—crouching by the front door, hiding under my bed, creeping around behind us.
Behind us
.

I spun around, shoved Megan aside, and thrust the poker like a sword. No one there.

What was she waiting for?

Megan shrank against the wall, as if expecting an attack.

“I hate this,” she whispered. “Why am I even sneaking around? I can’t see anybody, and everybody can see me.”

She was right. I had to get her out of here. 

“Come on,” I tugged her up the hall to the nearest linen closet and pushed her inside. “Stay here and don’t move. If anything opens this closet, you beat the crap out of it and don’t stop swinging until it’s dead, okay?”

“Okay.” She looked unsure, but relieved. “You can hide in here too if you want.”

“Megan, I have to end this.”

“Just . . . be careful. Please?”

“She can’t see me either. I’ll be fine.” I shut the closet before I changed my mind and squeezed in next to her.

Now I was alone.

A violent shiver took hold of me. I faced forward and began the advance again, adrenaline ice-cold in my veins. My toes sought out the hardwood floor of the foyer, and I slid around the doorway and backed into a corner. Only my gasps sounded over the steady thump of rain.

Deaf and blind.

Two invisible people hunting each other in a dark house.

The fishing line was still strung up across the entrance to the living room, so she hadn’t gone in there. And she couldn’t have slipped past Megan and me in the hallway. Sliding along the wall, I peeked into the dining room, which led into the kitchen—the only other route.

Of course, I saw nothing. How was this going to play out? Would we bump into each other in the dark and go down swinging? God knew what she was capable of.

I had to surprise her.

If I charged through the house, swinging wildly, I was bound to hit something, wasn’t I?

Suddenly, warmth spread down the back of my neck, and my body tensed as someone’s hot breath prickled the skin behind my ear.

“Hi, Leona,” Ashley whispered, her voice silky and terrifying. “I found you.”

Chapter 18

I jumped away
and swung the fireplace poker. And missed. The steel end gouged into the drywall, leaving a very visible dent. Before I could pull it out, the weapon was yanked from my grip.

She’d seen where it hit and grabbed the end. My sweaty palms were suddenly cold and empty. Now she had it. I raised my hands in defense as I staggered backward, desperately scanning the foyer for something that wasn’t there.

The blow came from the side. Without warning, the razor-sharp poker stabbed my torso and knocked me backward, digging into my ribcage. A wounded cry escaped my throat. Grunting, she put her entire weight behind the weapon, driving me into the wall and pinning me. Thankfully she’d hit my bony ribs. If she’d hit my stomach, the force would have impaled me. Wincing, I took hold of the poker and wrestled it to the side, freeing myself.

The air whistled behind me. I ducked out of reflex, and the poker grazed my ear and exploded into the wall. My ears rang as I crawled away, frantic to escape. She swung again, and the sharp end nicked my shoulder and scraped off a layer of skin. She brought the blunt end down on my back, and the pain buckled my elbows. I went down, eyes stinging. A pause came before the next swing, and I knew she was raising it above her head, winding up like a spring for a huge hit. I rolled to the side just in time, and the poker banged on the wood next to me. Inches from my ear, the metal reverberated from the impact.

My shoulder blade landed on something cold and hard. The knife!

I grabbed the hilt and swiped it toward her feet. The blade slashed an ankle, and I heard a sharp intake of breath and felt the thud through the floor as she jumped out of the way. Barely a scratch, but a chance to escape. I scrambled to my feet and hobbled through the dining room, bruised and bleeding.

As she stomped after me, I yanked chairs out from the table and shoved them backward, trying to block her. One of the chairs rose up—she appeared to lift it effortlessly—and crashed into the window, shattering the glass. Instantly the dining room filled with howling gusts. My God, did she have super strength?

I retreated into the kitchen and backed into the counters. How could I stop her? I felt behind me for a better weapon, and my hand closed on a cast iron pot. Good enough. Using both hands, I dragged it off the counter and hurled it into the doorway. The pot clattered harmlessly on the floor. A miss. Where was she? My eyes darted around the breakfast nook, peeled for movement.
There!
The decorative pickle jar rocked back and forth, which she must have bumped when dodging the pot.

With no weapons, I dropped my shoulder and charged, and my inertia slammed her into a row of cabinets. A bag toppled and dumped sugar on us, and for a moment as the grains rolled off our invisible skin, the contours of our ghostly bodies were eerily visible—before she grabbed my hair, wrenched my head to the side, and sank her teeth into my neck.

I screamed and jerked away, stumbling over my heels. I tripped and sprawled on my back. She dropped to all fours, her hair grazing my chest as she descended like a leopard on wounded prey, pinning me on the ground. I squirmed and tried to throw her off, but she caught my wrists in an iron grip and held me immobile. Slowly, her hot breath snaked toward my throat, and I let out a tiny whimper.

She gave a low growl and bit into my neck again, and molten pain poured into my bloodstream. Her jaw clamped down like a vice, and I began to feel a tug. She was going to rip my throat out. She was going to eat me.

A black shroud descended from above.

I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the end. But the end never came. Instead, a soft cloth brushed my forehead. Ashley’s mouth had pulled away. When I peeked, I saw only blackness. It took me a moment to realize we were under a bed sheet.

A bed sheet?

I didn’t have a chance to react. Ashley’s body shook with a heavy thump—the sound was amplified in our tent—followed by another, and another. The impacts threw her off balance, and she rolled off me, taking the sheet with her.

Megan stood over us, baseball bat in hand, her jaw gritted in surly determination.

She’d thrown a sheet over us to see us!

As Ashley struggled to escape the sheet, her body was clearly visible. Megan followed her into the corner, swinging like a madwoman. The bat made dull thuds. At last, the quivering white bundle lay still. Megan stopped swinging and let the bat hang at her side, panting slightly from the exertion.

“Now
that’s
how it’s done.” She glanced in my direction. “All I can say is,
whoa
.”

I stared at the motionless white lump in disbelief.

“You’re such a badass. I love you.” My hand went to my neck, and warm blood dripped between my fingers. I was able to clamp the flow, which meant she hadn’t chewed through my jugular, thank God. Still, the attack had left a throbbing ache in my windpipe, making it hard to breathe. My chest rose and fell. I was too exhausted to feel relief. “She tried to rip my throat out.”

The white lump fidgeted.

Megan was still looking at me.

“Megan . . .
Megan
 . . .” I gasped.

Behind her, the white lump stood up.

“Megan, behind you!”

Too late. The sheet lifted and fluttered to the ground, landing in a limp pile.

Before she could react, Megan’s arm was jerked sideways, and her fingers sprang open. The invisible bat had just been wrenched from her grip.

“Megan, run!” I shouted.

She spun around in place. “Where?”

“She’s right next to you—”

A sickening crack split the air. Megan’s head snapped backward, and she dropped to the ground, unconscious. A thin line of blood seeped from her forehead.

“Megan!” I screamed,
bounding over to her.

A whistle of air brushed my lip, and I jumped back. Ashley had the bat now, and she was swinging. I retreated, my eyes still on my best friend’s unconscious body.
No, you can’t be dead . . .

I had to get to her, I had to help her.

First I had to kill this thing.

Our weapons . . . where were all our weapons? Kneeling, I felt under the oven. The tips of my fingers brushed the screwdriver, knocking it away.

“C’monnn,” I muttered, reaching up to my elbow. My fingertips just touched the steel. Stretching, I pinched it and dragged it out. The bat whisked my hair. I ducked out of the way, screwdriver in hand, but now she had me cornered. I heard the bat swinging as she came nearer, closing in fast.

Whoosh . . . whoosh . . . whoosh . . .

I timed my attack right between the swings. The bat passed an inch from my nose. My knuckles tightened around the screwdriver and I lunged, stabbing as hard as I could. The point pricked something soft—her belly?—and her swings faltered, barely. I doubt it even broke the skin. In the lull, I squeezed past her and darted toward the den. A screwdriver wasn’t a real weapon. I’d have to drive it into her skull to kill her. I tossed it aside and tried to remember what we’d hidden in the den—

My heel came down on something sharp. A thumb tack. Instinctively, I lifted the foot before I landed with my full weight and caught myself on the doorframe. Wincing a little, I plucked the tack out, flicked it aside, and took a running leap into the room to clear the rest.

Breathing in fearful gasps, I ducked down behind a bookshelf to watch the doorway. Would the tacks work on Ashley?

A scraping sound pricked my ears, and the tacks slid to the side in clusters. She’d seen them. She was pushing them out of the way with her foot. Damnit.

On the second shelf, above a leather-bound
Shakespeare’s Complete Works
, my fingers found a serrated metal edge. Megan had hidden the saw here. What the hell was I supposed to do with a saw? I doubted Ashley would hold still while I sawed off her arms.

The last of the tacks slid to the side.

The tacks
 . . . she’d just given away her position.

And she’d stopped swinging the bat. No time to lose. I leapt out and ran at the doorway, picking up speed. For a split-second, air rushed past my ears. Then my shoulder slammed into her middle and crushed her onto the tile. She let out an oomph. I went for the bat, groping down the length of her arm until I found her fist. One by one, I pried off her fingers and yanked the weapon out of her hand—

Her elbow smashed into the side of my head, stunned me. She rolled on top of me, pinning me in the same position as before. No one to save me this time. Before she could bite me, I jerked the bat between us and thrust it up against her neck, driving her back as I scrambled out from underneath her. I lost the bat in the process.

How could I stop her?

I couldn’t beat her in hand-to-hand combat. She owned me every freaking time.

I fled into the den, a desperate panic biting at my heels. She chased me down and I felt her fingers swipe through my hair and close into a fist, yanking my head back. The force tightened my windpipe and ripped open the wound on my neck, bringing instant, stabbing pain. My knees wobbled and gave out, and my hip bumped the bookshelf. Wheezing, I seized the saw by the handle and swung it at her face.

The twang echoed through the house. She yelped and fell back. I dropped the saw and staggered away, clutching my throat against a new spurt of blood. I burst into the hallway and halted. Now what? A half-dozen doorways greeted me, their silhouettes swimming in lazy loops. I was beginning to feel dizzy, too much blood loss. To the right, my bedroom, the linen closet, the foyer. To the left, a bathroom, my mom’s office, my parents’ bedroom. We’d circled the house.

That’s what we were doing. Going in circles. I wasn’t even hurting her. She was slaughtering me.

Suddenly, wind rushed up behind me, and her body smashed into mine. She landed on top of me and knocked the wind out of me, squashing me headfirst into the carpet. I choked on dry bristles and swallowed a lungful of dust. The force of her tackle shook the house on its foundations. I heard her panting above me as she readjusted her weight over my legs, crushing them between her knees. Something cold and razor-sharp pricked my ankle, and a ripping pain slashed across it.

My eyes flew wide open. The saw blade. She was going to cut off my foot. Still choking for air, I strained to heave her off, but my limbs failed and I sank back down, defeated and dizzy from lack of oxygen. The adrenaline had run out, leaving my brain numb. The pain was far-off, and I was only half aware of the serrated steel gashing through flesh and nicking bone. Tears welled in my eyes.

She was cutting off my foot, and I was too weak to fight back.

My mom’s office door scraped open next to me, followed by a deafening thump. The ground shook as a massive object tumbled past me. It took me a moment to realize what.

The heavy crystal bookend—which I’d made invisible and propped above her door—had just fallen to the floor. Our grappling must have set off the booby trap, which was now useless.

But the sound startled Ashley. She stopped sawing, no doubt wary of being ambushed a second time. Her weight adjusted on my back as she peered into my mom’s dark office. It was just the chance I needed.

I shoved off the ground with everything I had, teeth gritted in exertion, and finally heaved her off. I whipped myself into a roll, spinning out from underneath her, then dragged myself to my feet and limped up the hall.

I stubbed my toe on a hard object and fell to my knees, gasping in pain. The crystal bookend. It could be used as a weapon. I hoisted it onto my shoulder and continued up the hall. Every step sent liquid fire to my ankle, and I grimaced through each one.

I understood now. For every wound I inflicted, Ashley inflicted it back tenfold. She was using my own weapons against me, wearing me down, overwhelming me with her superior strength.

My only hope was to take her out with a single blow, before she had a chance to retaliate. Like how she’d knocked out Megan. Which meant I had to surprise her. But
how?

I was attacking her blindly, with clumsy aim. I couldn’t drive a knife through her heart when I had no idea where her heart was. Somehow, I had to locate her vulnerable areas without her knowing.

The apparatus.

I’d set it up in my bedroom. I had planned for this. If I could lead her in there, there would be a moment when she came through the doorway when I would know exactly where she was. I would have one chance to deliver a fatal blow.

It would never work.

She would overpower me and hack me to pieces, and then she would eat me alive. A sickening terror spread through my stomach. I lugged the bookend into my bedroom and set it down with a thump. A glance around only deepened my dread. My bedroom was tiny, there were no exits. Once she came in, it would be a fight to the death.

My last stand.

I licked my dry lips and scanned the dark rectangle of hallway. My gaze slid to the solid red blob hovering on the ceiling, projected by the apparatus.

It was still working.

Rain continued to pour, masking all sounds. Now where was she? Noise. I needed to make noise, or else she wouldn’t know I was in here. I tiptoed across the room and kicked my bed frame, which gave a loud squeak, then darted back to the crystal. I readied my fingers on its jagged base, watching the apparatus for movement.

Nothing.

My tongue darted across my lips again, rewetting them. I didn’t blink.

Seconds passed, and a nervous pressure built in my throat.

She sensed a trap. She wouldn’t take the bait. Why would she? I was already bleeding to death, and she knew it. My skin broke out in cold sweat.

The blob moved.

A pattern of fuzzy lines wriggled across the ceiling.
Interference.
The laser was shining through dark matter. An anxious twinge passed through my heart, which began to pound. I lifted the crystal above my head and aimed for the empty space in the center of the doorway.