fire.
Her whole body was practically scar tissue. But nothing had been able to kill her. Yet.
9
Christopher gripped the dull, silver blade. He closed his eyes to summon his power, but all he heard were screams. The voices ripped through his mind. The people hurting themselves. Over and over and over.
8
He could feel the two worlds bleeding into each other. The glass cracking between the imaginary and the real. His mother was running into his bedroom.
7
Christopher suddenly felt the wind rustle down the street. “Christopher, look at me.” Christopher locked eyes with the nice man. The nice man was being torn apart, but he had a calm smile on his face. There were no words. But Christopher could feel the whisper scratch and the nice man’s thoughts on his skin.
The street.
6
“Stop helping him!” the hissing lady screamed as she scratched his eyes.
She will burn on the street.
5
The clouds parted ways and Christopher saw the key gleaming under the flesh of her neck. It sparkled like a diamond in the blue moonlight.
4
The nice man kicked the hissing lady back. More mailbox people rolled into the street to catch her fall. Her hand slipped into the street. It sizzled on the pavement.
3
Christopher looked at the hissing lady’s burnt hand. Then, he closed his eyes and quieted his mind. One second an eternity. God had built a river of salvation into this nightmare. And he was going to baptize her in it.
2
In his mind’s eye, he ran at the hissing lady, perched on top of the nice man. Christopher saw the deer charge at him. But it didn’t matter anymore. To Christopher, they might as well have been crawling. That’s how slow it all felt now.
You can be smarter than Tony Stark.
Christopher jumped over the deer.
You can be stronger than the Hulk.
Christopher jumped over the mailbox people on the ground.
You can be more powerful than Thor’s hammer.
1
Christopher slammed the full force of his body into the hissing lady. He felt her bones shatter from the impact. She flew back through the air and landed in the street in a heap.
“NOOOOO!” she screamed.
Christopher watched as the hissing lady began to burn.
Chapter 101
The house was quiet and still.
Christopher’s mother would have run through the house, but there was something wrong. She could feel it all around her.
She started to walk up the stairs. Slowly. Don’t make a sound.
Where are you going, Kate?
Christopher’s mother cast the voice aside. She could feel her son. Fighting for his life. The air was cold, as if the world had left a window open. It was in the house. It was everywhere. She had to help her son. He needed her.
She reached Christopher’s bedroom.
What are you doing, Kate?
She looked at the old bookshelf resting in the corner. Wrapped in wallpaper the way that a child would wrap a Christmas gift. All tape and no corners.
She walked to the bookshelf.
You left your son in the hospital. What kind of mother are you, Kate?
Christopher’s mother looked at the photograph of her late husband on the top of the bookshelf. His picture stared back at her. Frozen in time. She could barely breathe. The danger was closing around her son. She could feel it like the day when he swallowed a marble. She was in the next room, but she knew it. She ran to him. He would have choked to death. She saved her son’s life.
Christopher is dying, Kate. You have to go back to the hospital!
Christopher’s mother picked up the photograph of her late husband, then dumped the rest of the bookshelf on the floor. Books scattered everywhere. Her eyes found the clock on the wall. It was ten seconds to midnight.
Christopher’s mother tore at the duck wallpaper with her fingernails. She ripped away the first slab underneath the bookshelf. There she found three words written in David’s handwriting. There was no mixture of cursive and print. This was David’s real handwriting. Every letter was perfectly clear.
DO NOT KILL
What is that, Kate?
THE HISSING LADY
Stop reading, Kate.
SHE IS THE ONLY THING KEEPING
You should really stop now, Kate.
THE DEVIL IN HELL
Chapter 102
Do you know where you are?
Christopher watched the hissing lady burn, crying and screaming in what he thought was her rage and madness.
But something felt terribly wrong.
“Who is she?” Christopher asked.
It was such a simple question that the nice man was taken off guard for a moment. He looked over at Christopher as the hissing lady screamed.
“Who is she?” Christopher repeated.
“She’s evil,” the nice man said. “We have to kill evil people.”
The sky