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“Thank you, Hannah,” he whispered.

Pierre blinked.

“I’d like to do something for you in return. How can I help you?”

Pierre spoke, but the voice that came out of him didn’t sound human. It sounded like radio static, howling wind, clattering stones, and death, death most of all.

“ My boy ,” Pierre said. And then nothing.

“Your son?” Henry took a step closer. “You had to leave him. You want to make sure he’s okay.”

Pierre nodded. Henry stepped closer still, so close that Rebecca wanted to shriek, to warn him to stay away from that thing , but he didn’t seem afraid.

Pierre opened his mouth, and the voice was there again, empty and terrifying, but if there were words, Rebecca couldn’t make them out.

She backed away, watching Henry and the thing that was no longer Pierre, her body quaking beyond her control. After a moment, Henry stepped away.

“I will,” he said. “I promise.”

Pierre stared and said nothing.

Henry knelt and picked up the gun. He looked at Rebecca.

“We should go.”

Rebecca understood, but could not force her feet to move.

He held out his hand. “It’s okay.”

Slowly, Rebecca went to him, keeping her gaze away from the looming husk that had once been Pierre. Henry caught hold of her hand, and his touch was warm and reassuring. He turned back toward Pierre.

“Will you keep him here a little while longer? Just until we’re gone.”

Pierre nodded.

Henry hesitated. “Will he be all right? The man you’re…occupying? After you leave?”

The thing inside Pierre said nothing, either because it did not care to, or simply did not know.

Henry looked as if he’d known that he wouldn’t receive a reply. “I’ll do what I said. I promise. You can go home, Hannah.”

The thing watched them as they made their way out of the woods, the two pearly eyes the last thing to disappear into the darkness. Once they were alone, the tremor that had been coursing through Rebecca’s body turned into a convulsion. Henry squeezed her hand tighter.

“Almost there.”

The car was still parked where they’d left it when they reached the road. Roger leaned against the luggage compartment, smoking, his face turned away from them. Henry dropped Rebecca’s hand and approached quickly, gun raised.

“Roger.”

Roger turned to find the gun inches from his face. His cigarette fell to the ground.

“Move.”

Roger stepped away from the car, hands raised, his face a sickly shade of white.

“Your friend is still in the woods. He’ll be confused. You should go get him. Ten minutes south if you hurry. Go now.”

Roger took off at a run, spewing curses as he went. Only when he was out of sight did Henry lower the gun.

“Time to go.”

He opened the passenger side door for Rebecca and placed the bag with the Grimorium Bellum inside on her lap, careful not to slam the door after she was settled.

Henry got in and drove, the moon above them peeking in and out of the treetops.

He talked softly as they made their way through the darkness, more to himself than her, but there was something soothing about his tone that began to settle Rebecca’s rattled nerves.

“I’m going to take you somewhere safe. I just have a few things I need to do first. There’s a truck broken down a few miles back, I’ll need to go get it in the morning, return it to its owner.

I can visit Hannah’s boy on the way. I’ll need to come up with an excuse for the father. I’ll think of something….”

After a few minutes, Rebecca stopped shaking. She felt numb all the way through. She wondered if she was in shock.

“Henry?” She looked at him, staring straight ahead with his hands firmly on the steering wheel. “What happened back there?”

He kept his eyes on the road, and didn’t answer.

She tried again. “Who is Hannah?”

Henry readjusted his hands on the wheel. “Hannah died last summer. Her son lives with his father on the other side of those woods. The father drinks.” He cleared his throat. “That’s what she told me, anyway.”

Rebecca watched him. She felt her mind struggling to catch up with Henry’s meaning. “You can speak with the dead?”

Henry hesitated. “Yes.”

It might have been the shock, but Rebecca wasn’t surprised by Henry’s answer. She wondered if anything could surprise her anymore.

“So…” she said, “is everyone magic now except for me?”

Laughter burst out of Henry like a balloon, surprising them both. She laughed, too, the weight lifting from her shoulders as the air filled her lungs.

“I guess so,” Henry said, the laughter still pouring out of him. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. It seems horrible. You keep it.”

They drove on, the headlights cutting a path through the darkness, the trees forming arches as they reached for each other with naked branches.

Silence fell back over the car. Rebecca stared out the window as a question unfurled inside her chest. She looked at Henry as he gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead into the darkness, and thought he might have been pondering the same question.

“Do you think Lydia is alive?”