Finally we reached a spot where I could see the bridge below us. It was partially under water but still visible. It was passable. The girl pointed to it.
“I can’t go farther,” she said.
I didn’t know what to say, so I only nodded while Isabel and Baz helped Mariana’s mother and the children down the hill.
“Poe!” Isabel yelled from the middle of the bridge.
The hollow-eyed girl stepped closer, and my heart hammered in my chest. Backlit by the flames she looked fragile. She leaned in and kissed me full on the mouth, and something shifted inside me like when I’d drunk the tainted wine.
“You can see what lives in the dark,” she said. “Do not forget.” Fire engulfed a tree. The sparks landed on my sleeve and I had to rub them out. Isabel and Baz were shouting at me.
“Go,” she said. Her body began to shift. Move. Like something trying to break out. Her skin exploded then, and thousands of small moths spiraled up, their wings like faint scars against the blue-orange of the fire, the blood of the moon, and then they were gone. I ran for the bridge, and we all crossed it to safety.
It took us all night and well into the next day to make it back to the train station, where the agent said it was a miracle we’d survived the fire. The entire area around where Necuratul had stood had burned to the ground. Nothing left but blackened stumps of trees and ash. It was so damaged, they didn’t even know if they could build the power plant there. That’s irony for you.
The station agent draped blankets on our backs and made us cups of strong tea. At one point Mariana’s mother came over to me, stared into my eyes for a while, and transferred the evil-eye pendant from her neck to mine. Then she walked away to take care of the children. The station agent didn’t ask any questions. He handed the three of us a bundle of tickets and put us on the next train out. And all of them stood on the rickety wooden platform watching our train inch away, like they wanted to be sure every trace of us was gone.
Baz and Isabel slept a lot. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those dead faces, Mariana turning to rot, and the angel-beast rising above us like a threat of something to come—and I’d wake up gasping. It was night, and I made my way to the café car. I ordered a Danish and some black coffee and sat next to the window to watch the night crawl past.
“I told you the pastry was stale, didn’t I?”
Mrs. Smith had settled into the seat next to me. She opened her bag and took out a hunk of cheese, offering me some. I shook my head.
“Now you have seen,” she said quietly. “Now you know.”
“Yeah? What the hell am I supposed to do about it?”
“What do you think? Stop the f**kers.”
I stared at her. “How do I do that?”
“You can’t fight evil all at once. That was just a small test. There are bigger ones to come, Poe Yamamoto.”
I turned away. “I don’t want this.”
“Who would?” She snapped her handbag shut and stood to go. “Don’t lose my card. That’s embossing on there. Not cheap.”
“What’s going to happen?” I asked, but she was already making her way through the car, singing some song that I could have sworn was AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”
Anyway, I don’t know if you’re still watching this or not. Maybe you clicked on something else—a clip of a cat caught in a ceiling fan or an interview from Comic-Con. Maybe you think I’m making this up, and there’s nothing out there in the dark but what our minds conjure up when we’re looking for a thrill.
But if you are still watching this, I want to tell you one last thing: On the train ride back I had a dream. It was me and Baz and Isabel, and that fog had come up really quickly. I couldn’t see what was ahead, but I felt like it could see us. And then I saw John. His eyes were black pools. A jagged, half circle of a scar made an angry smile at his throat. And his teeth were sharp as the man-beast’s.
“There’s so much on the other side,” he whispered to me. “Things you can’t imagine. There’s a lot of evil to bump asses with out there, Poe. You have no idea.”
He wasn’t kidding.
I’m gonna try to keep this account running, update when I can, so you’ll know whatever I know. But right now, I gotta go. Baz and Isabel can’t hold that door forever and unless you know something about super-powerful werewolves and can text me right this second, then I’m gonna have to go deal.
Just be looking out, okay? Trust the lizard, my friends. Something’s going down. Something big. It’s already started.