Page 22 of Safe in Shadow (Pine Ridge Universe #22)

T he Stranger was blinded by a thick cloud of darkness.

His mind briefly went back to his one and only time at Vacation Bible School.

He thought there was something about a plague of darkness being inflicted on people who were doing something wrong.

Not sure what, but he was also sure he hadn’t done anything wrong. Not much, anyway.

He clawed at the darkness, but it was mobile. It moved around him like the eyewall of a hurricane. Projectiles found their way to him, as if the whirling blackness had hands and arms, as if it could aim. A book. A lamp. A nightstand!

Buffeted and bruised, he was forced to retreat from the room, even though he had heard Pam’s telltale scream coming from inside. He knew now. She was hiding from him. Hiding under the bed.

“I’ll get you!”

“No. You won’t.”

The door whacked him in the face. A jagged pole from the bannister was brandished in his face like a sword. “Is someone there?”

“Yes.” No other information was given, but the darkness now had eyes. A form.

The Stranger heard something moving in the bedroom he had been driven from, and mania seized him. “I want her! She’s mine! She’s always been mine.”

The jagged wooden end of the makeshift weapon whacked him across the face, dragging the splintered end along his eye and across the bridge of his nose.

He almost lost his balance at the top of the stairs, but instead, turned and ran, slipping and catching himself halfway down.

His arms burned, and his tailbone hurt, but adrenaline carried him through.

“Out of our home,” the shadowy figure snarled. “The human is mine!”

“Human?”

“A term you’ve forgotten.” The thing moved faster than him, hurling whatever objects it could find at him, beating him with household debris until he was out on the porch, and then sprawling backwards in the grass.

Lighting flashed, and he could see the figure more clearly—and the blonde woman upstairs, now covered and with her hand up to her cheek—probably on the phone.

To the police.

The police could not find him here! They couldn’t find his presents to Pam in the woods.

They couldn’t find him if he was gone. He had no record.

If he got away now, it didn’t matter what they found inside the house or in the woods.

There would be no fingerprints to match, no blood samples to trace. ..

The Stranger scrambled towards his car, only to see the shadow rush ahead. The sharp stick slammed through the windshield with force that no human being should be capable of delivering.

Momentarily nonplussed, The Stranger stood and watched the storm-strewn branches come to the shadow’s aid, beating him, beating the car. Trying to trap him.

Well, he knew these woods better than anyone else alive. He turned tail and ran into the dark shelter of the trees. The car was his. The car would lead them to so many things.

But if he got away, that wouldn’t matter. He could get away. Start over. Leave Pam and all her ghosts behind.

NYX HAD A HORRIBLE feeling of deja vu, only this time, he wasn’t herding Cynthia and her terrified horse; he was chasing a desperate man, a serial killer, as the storm intensified and the lightning became a nonstop illumination to their wild chase through the woods.

Mud and mulch slipped and sluiced down the remnants of paths and clearings.

Nyx could see a black plastic bag poking out from under some loose earth, and he doubled his speed.

Normally, he would have been able to catch The Stranger easily, but his earlier activities with Grace had weakened his ability to stay solid.

There was an almighty crack, and the woods and grounds of Hilltop House filled with three screams, his, Grace’s, and The Stranger’s, as two jagged bolts of lightning struck. One hit the tallest birch in the back of the forest—sending an orange glow across the night as its thin branches caught fire.

The other hit the house—just above the bedroom window where Grace was standing.

Everything sped, but backwards.

He was being pulled, sucked in, back into the house.

To the portal.

Hilltop House was finally burning. Dying. Being destroyed—and he would go with it.

GRACE GRABBED HER LAPTOP and the boxes in her closet, thankful now that she hadn’t taken the time to unpack and organize many of her personal things since she was so focused on the guest areas of the bed and breakfast.

The bed and breakfast that was now on fire and burning fast. She’d seen those ads about fire safety, showing living rooms going up in something like 11.7 seconds or something, and some idiotic part of her had thought that was just for show.

Not that she had to worry. There were sprinklers in the downstairs refinished area, and it was raining. The fire would be put out. The house would be saved.

Now, she, on the other hand, might not be—going out of the fire into a different, creepier fire outside with a murdering psychopath and the police moving slower than the flames.

“Grace!” Nyx came shooting back towards her, a ghostly comet.

“Nyx! We have to get out. I have to get out!” Grace shook her head to cut off whatever argument he was about to make about her going outside. “Lightning!” she coughed as the smoke began to spread, and a dreadful realization occurred.

No power. No sprinkler.

House in flames.

Nyx destroyed.

Her hand shot out and grabbed him, letting her laptop fall. “Come on! Come on, come on, get out,” she panted, couching low. “You owned more than just this house. You have to be okay!”

Please. Please let him be okay. I can’t love him just to lose him.

“I’ve always been bound here. Not to the woods. Not to the road. Not to the land. Here.” Nyx hurried with her, pushing her along, grabbing everything he could carry in his wake.

“I don’t want you to go! Do you... Do you want to go?” she half-gagged, half-sobbed as the reality set in. Her home was burning. Her dreams were going up in smoke, and so was the first—and maybe last—man she’d ever loved.

“Not really—but you’re going to be safe. That’s enough. I chased him through the woods—and the woods are on fire. I don’t know where he is, but I should be able to stay here and protect you until the house completely goes. I think.”

“Don’t talk like that!” Grace grabbed her keys from the reception desk as she fled. Even if it’s true.

The world was in flames now—the woods. The house. The rain seemed to be gone, but Grace wasn’t sure if it was only because it was being turned to steam by the fire. Sirens blared in the distance.

“Get in my car.”

“Grace, it won’t matter. I can barely make it to the town’s edge before I’m back here.

The farther I go, the fainter I become until I’m simply gone.

I love you. I’ll stay, you go.” Nyx cupped her cheek and kissed her.

He smiled and nodded, a brave smile that just made her fall even more in love. “You must go.”

“But you’re my hero. You and Nana,” she whispered in a tiny, miserable squeak.

“Heroes don’t live forever. But thank you for letting me leave thinking I am one,” Nyx whispered, thumb catching her tears. “Grace, you’ve got to move. Cars have gasoline, and gasoline and fire do not mix!”

“Please! Please, just get in the car with me so we can be together for a few more minutes. Please, Nyx. I love you. I don’t want you to go!” Grace didn’t care if she was sobbing. She had held it together when Nana died. She was always holding things together.

She was sick of it.

Nyx threw her things in the backseat and squeezed into the front, shifting forms as he went. Grace wiped her eyes and shoved the key in the ignition. She drove pell-mell out through the gravel drive and across the lawn, and kept going even when the police sped past her, heading towards Hilltop.

“Grace.”

“I don’t care! I’m not losing you. I love you, and you were in that fucking prison for so long. You deserve a chance to be free! I—I—Hey.” Grace grabbed his hand and held it in a desperate grasp, shocked to find it getting firmer and firmer instead of fading away.

Nyx looked down at their clasped hands.

“This is wrong.”

Grace pulled the car over and did a U-turn before parking halfway off the deserted road.

In the distance, they watched the top of the restored mansion turn to a solid wall of orange flame before collapsing into the lower level.

She let go of Nyx’s hand long enough to cover her mouth with both hands and swallow a scream of agony and frustration.

My dream. Hours and hours of work. Grants. Hopes.

And Nyx’s portal.

She swallowed and turned to look at him, waiting for him to vanish.

And instead... He sat beside her, currently solid, mouth open, chalky gray features twisted in horror. “Oh, my love. I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “All of your efforts...”

“Nyx. Nyx, the house is burning. The portal under the bed—that whole room is already gone? Why is it burning so fast?”

“Old wood and new chemicals?” he suggested.

“That’s probably true.” Grace eased her car out of park, then almost screamed when two fire engines came tearing past her. Once they sped past, she gently moved onto the road, heading back to the house. “Have to talk to the police.”

“The woods are burning quickly. I wonder if he made it—Grace! Look out!” Nyx grabbed her arm as a figure limped into the road, directly into the path of her car.

Grace swerved and tried to avoid the man, but her right front fender connected with his legs, and then there was a sickening crunch as the tire rolled over them.

While she sat there, stunned and horrified, Nyx fumbled with the door handle and then gave up, shooting through the window in wisps of smoke.

NYX STOOD OVER THE Stranger. With the sky a hazy orange from the nearby conflagration, he could actually see him clearly for the first time.

Average. Unremarkable. Well, except for the fact that he was covered in burns, soot, and howling in pain.

Nyx looked back at the house. Back through the windshield at Grace’s shocked face.

“You have blood on your hands,” Nyx stated to the writhing mass on the ground. Some of his skin had bubbled up and torn away, leaving raw, red muscles and yellow-y bones visible on one side of his face.

The Stranger made angry, wet noises. They probably would have made more sense if his face had been properly constructed, or if Nyx had cared to listen.

“Time is funny for me—it doesn’t behave properly.

Moves in circles sometimes, lines in others, and is always fragmenting and doubling back.

I don’t know if you’ve buried a dozen bags in the woods, or more.

I know you tried to add my Grace to your collection.

I know that if I let you go, you’ll add someone else.

And so, if my Grace will allow me—I will do one more thing before I exit.

Even if it sends me to the flames, I don’t think I care anymore.

It couldn’t hurt worse than leaving her so soon,” he whispered that last bit, but Grace sprang from the car like he’d shouted it.

“Should I call the ambulance?” she asked, keeping her distance.

“Only once I’m done. Turn away, love.”

“I—No. I don’t think I will.” She held her chin up in defiance.

“I want to see you for every last second I can.” Her eyes left his and moved back to the house.

The storm was moving past, distant, growling thunder trailing out with soft rain left in its wake.

Orange flames still leapt and smoldered.

The air was filled with sirens, other fire companies sending trucks from all directions by the sounds of it.

Hilltop House was burning even as hoses sprayed across it.

Nyx wondered if something had broken in the old place when the portal burned. If there was hellfire loose on the grounds.

Nyx shrugged, turned away, and smiled at Grace. “I want every last second with you, too. This’ll be quick.”

The Stranger tried to sit up.

Nyx didn’t let him. He had no power to touch things ordinarily, unless it was something of his. Grace had become his. Grace’s car. Grace’s belongings and their home together.

A happy, wishful thought darted through his brain as he curled himself into a solid band of shadow standing out from the smoke blowing across the road.

She is mine. I am hers.

Could it be...?

He was a whip—and he lashed down across the charred remains of throat as The Stranger wheezed. He was a vise, squeezing it off—quietly, contentedly wringing the life from the man who had taken so many others.

When the struggling stopped and the wheezing was silent, Nyx uncurled. Regained his solid form and his paler coloring, no longer simply a shadow.

Grace walked to him and seized his arm, pressing her cheek to his shoulder.

“Ah!” she let out a startled gasp as a ring of flames suddenly sprang up, encircling the prone form on the asphalt.

Nyx had seen it before, with Cynthia. The ghostly white form of The Stranger seemed to lift from his body, whole and perfect—only to be swallowed up in a single shout of flames and ash.

“They’ll think I killed him,” Grace whispered after a few seconds.

“No, they won’t. They’ll think some of the burning timbers and trees in the woods fell on him. He dragged himself to the road looking for help, and instead, he succumbed.” Nyx tidied it up neatly.

“I hope so.”

“Will you... Will you rebuild?” Nyx wondered if he might somehow be restored if the house was.

“I don’t know if they—”

Her words were cut off as an almighty snapping and cracking came from up the hill—and Hilltop House collapsed completely, sending showers of sparks across the battling hoses.

A bullhorn beeped, and a magnified voice shouted, “Pull back! Pull back! Rockland, take your team to contain the woods to the South! Binghamton Hook and Ladder is on the way!”

“It’s gone.” Nyx laced his fingers through Grace’s. He worked up the courage for one glorious farewell speech and a fervent prayer that they might meet again.

But Grace stopped him. “Yeah. It is. But you’re not.”

“I... I see that.”

“Do you think maybe you could be tied to something else on this plane, now? Something like...a person?”

Nyx licked his lips. “If that were the case, then anything within the radius of the person would be mine to manipulate. And I could go where they went. I would always be where they went—within a certain number of feet or yards, I imagine.”

Grace’s lips thinned and her eyes widened with a bright sparkle of incredulousness. “So... If we drove back up, you could like... pick up a firefighter’s helmet?”

“He might not appreciate that at the moment.”

“You know what I mean. Let’s try it!” Grace bounced on her flip-flops.

“How can you be so happy? Your home is in ruins!”

“If I get to keep you, it’s worth it. If you get to be free, it’s worth it times a million!” Grace cried, throwing her arms around him.