We raced through a dark tunnel and came out near the circle of mausoleums and Strata stairs. The air got suddenly colder. At the center of the ring near the great cedar tree, sniffing the wet ground where Cassius and I had emerged from the Strata, lurked the wraith.
It had become misshapen, bone and muscle bulging against its fur. In several places its hide had torn open, its wounds steaming in the unnatural chill.
The wraith slowly raised its head, locked eyes with me, and growled. With trembling hands, I lifted my lantern and pulled my bow across one rod. Thanaturgic light flittered from my quivering lamp, but showed enough of the wraith’s shadow to catch the two-up-two-down gleam notes that we shared in common.
The soul inside it had once been human. I suddenly couldn’t shake that truth. Lowering my light, I took a step back. The wraith’s lips curled back over glistening teeth.
“Jack,” Cassius shouted. “Steel your mind against it.”
I called to mind a memory of Henry—drying glasses. It was enough to clear my head.
“I’m assuming,” Chuey said, “it’s a lot scarier than the dog it looks like to me?”
I needed to get him a reflection band. “Just be careful, huh? Let’s net this thing.”
We crossed a footbridge over the recessed circle of mausoleums, and stepped out into a ring of raised earth. Cassius got in front of me. Church and Lady fanned left. Chuey fanned right, unfurling the net as he shuffled across the wet grass.
The wraith let out a roar that shook the branches of the great tree. Cassius countered, crying out “Bratros,” then started a frightening chant.
I pointed my bow at the hound. “Go.”
Cassius stepped forward, drawing the wraith’s gaze away from Chuey. Lady rushed around and slammed her baton hard on the creature’s rear leg. Good thought—cripple it.
The beast howled and scampered around the tree.
Cassius circled, taunting the wraith with the tip of his sword, trying to keep it turned away from Chuey. The wraith lashed out with a taloned paw, knocking Church to the ground, and lunged to bite his neck.
Cassius drove his heel into the creature’s side and sent it sprawling against the giant cedar. It rolled to its feet, brayed viciously, and bared its teeth.
Then it fixed its eyes on me and stalked forward, growling like a slow-cycling Harley, the sound vibrating in the dirt beneath our feet. I took a few steps back, drawing the wraith forward, and cued Chuey.
Chuey rushed in, net ready, but got too close. He just couldn’t see the danger. The wraith swung around fast and bowled him down. Before Chuey could react, the hound was clawing through his leather jacket and tore a gash in his chest.
I slammed my bow hard across two rods of my lantern. An intense light flared out with a brassy chord, shining across thewet grass and up into the cedar’s sprawling branches. The hound shut its eyes and turned its head away.
Cassius ran in and booted the creature off Chuey. Church came in behind him, cane-knife flashing in the light of my lantern, and slashed the wraith’s left shank—another attempt to cripple it.
The creature reared and screamed.
Chuey scrambled to his feet, grabbed the net, and let it fly. It whistled through the air and wrapped around the wraith’s torso. The beast roared and chomped its massive jaws down on the iron cords.
I struck my lantern again with a revelatory stroke, focusing on the wraith’s neck where I’d seen its binding threads before. They flashed beneath its bloody, matted fur.
“Get on top of it!” I screamed. “Hold it down!”
Church and Lady threw their weight on the beast’s rear quarter. Cassius jumped on its back, trying to pin it to the earth. Chuey gathered the end of the net near the wraith’s head and wrapped it around the beast’s muzzle.
I quickly swapped my bow for my khopesh, rushed in, dug through the bloody matted fur for the braids around its neck, and cut them. Violet light flashed. I ripped out the braiding and threw it aside. Then I sheathed my knife, pulled the slipknot on the Orcus, and began to unwind it, the thread now vibrating hard like a plucked E string.
I suddenly got it. It was living thread. Part of a woman’s soul. On instinct, I hummed a line from my song—a few notes about fighting the isolation after my brother died—and the thread quieted a little.
But at the sight of the Orcus, the wraith howled and reared up on its hind legs. My friends went flying, Cassius slammed down against a stone, and the net spilled to the ground.
I was thrown back, too, pinwheeling my arms to keep my feet planted and losing hold of my lantern and thread. In the strobing light of my tumbling lamp, the Orcus trailed away on the air like a gossamer ribbon, catching yards away on a low branch of the cedar tree.
Cassius was face down, moaning. The wraith pounced, snapping its teeth at the back of his head. I didn’t have time to reach the thread and get to Cassius, too. And all my friends lay on the grass yards away.
I rushed the beast and dove, shoving it back toward the catacombs. It scrambled around and faced me as the semblance inside it started pulling away from its flesh.
