Party-Goers spilled out into the entry to help the young woman back to her feet, some calling after Nest, some staring wide-eyed toward the sounds coming from outside the door. “Don’t open it!” Nest shouted back at them. Not that anyone was that stupid, she thought in a sudden moment of giddiness.
At the end of the hallway lay the kitchen. Inside, she found a phone and dialed 911. Maybe the old couple down the block had already done so, but maybe not. She told the operator there was a forcible entry in progress at a house just north of Lincoln Park. She said there was screaming. She gave the phone number of the house and then hung up. That ought to bring someone.
There was a new sound of glass breaking, this time from somewhere at the side of the house. The demon was trying to get in another way. She leaned against the kitchen counter, listening to the sounds, staring into space. If she remained where she was, she was risking the safety of the people in the house. If she went out again, she was risking her own safety. She closed her eyes and tried to think. She was so tired. But she was alive, too, and that was more than she could say about Boot and Audrey and Ariel. She pushed away from the counter and went through a laundry room to a back door. The demon was still trying to break in from the other side of the house. She could hear the party-Boers shouting and screaming, crowding down the hallway, trying to get away from the intruder. She could hear the phone begin to ring.
She yanked open the door and fled once more into the night.
She was running through a tall hedge into a neighbor’s backyard when she heard the boom of a gun. Maybe the shooter would get lucky. You couldn’t kill a demon with a gun, but you could destroy its current guise and force it to take time to re-form. If that happened, it would be done chasing after her.
But she knew she couldn’t count on that. She couldn’t count on anything except that the demon would keep coming. She crossed through several more backyards, then caught sight of something that might save her. A transit bus was just pulling to a stop down the street. She broke from between the houses and raced for it, yelling at the top of her lungs, waving her arms wildly. She saw the bus driver turn and look at her. The look was a familiar one by now. She didn’t care. She raced around the front of the bus and through the open door.
“Hey, what’s going on?” the driver demanded as she dug frantically into her pockets for same change.
“Just close the door and start driving,” she ordered, glancing quickly over her shoulder.
Whatever he saw on her face convinced him not to argue. He closed the doors and put the bus in Beat The bus swung away from the curb and into the street, rain beating against its wide front windows.
She had just begun to make her way down the aisle when something heavy crashed into the doors, causing the metal to buckle and the glass to splinter. There were only three other passengers on the bus, and all three froze, eyes bright with shock and fear. The driver cursed and stepped on the gas. Nest wheeled back toward the damaged doors, hanging, on the metal bar of a seat back far support, searching the darkness beyond.
A huge, wolfish shadow was running next to the bus, eyes gleaming brightly in the night.
Then a police car crested the hill in front of them, coming fast, lights flashing, It swept past without slowing, searchlight cutting through the rainy dark,
The shadow disappeared.
Nest exhaled slowly and slipped into the seat beside her, heart pounding in her chest. When she looked dawn at her hands, she saw that they were shaking.
The ride back into the city was a blur. Once she determined that the bus us-as going in the right direction.” she quit paying attention. People got on and off, but she didn’t look at their faces. She stared out the window into the darkness, thinking.