Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Explorer spun twice before crashing to a stop against a tree, the engine clicking like a time bomb.
The unexpectedness and force of the impact was disorienting, the actions that came after happening in a flurry of movements and in a blurry haze.
Hailey, Sekou, and Lyle were out cold, their heads against the windows and the steering wheel.
A pair of hands, fingernails long and sharpened to points, whipped in so fast I couldn’t tell what was real and what was imagination.
One hand wrapped its long, brown, elegant fingers around the seat belt that secured Nana Ama and plucked the belt right out of its housing like dental floss.
Then they slid, almost lovingly, down to Nana, as if relishing in the feel of my grandmother, who tried in vain to beat at these powerful hands.
They moved quickly because Nana’s incapacitation and surprise were wearing off.
The hands grabbed Nana by her jacket lapels and yanked her out of the car.
The owner of those hands said nothing, but the intensity of its presence was staggering.
There was no sound, no movement from anything else.
Even the ticking time bomb of the stalled engine seemed to stop. I held my breath.
The next sound I heard was a whoosh and the wind blew harder, pushing a sickening smell into the car.
And then the noises began. The noises from the alleyway outside Hailey’s home.
The noises of despair from my nightmares.
All around the car, there were skittering nails on metal and scuffling on the dirt ground.
Things, multiple things, grunted and keened as if in pain, as if hungry.
My vision went in and out as I fought to stay awake.
My head throbbed and I was getting weaker and weaker, the nourishment from the small amount of blood I took from Hailey dissipating under all the pressure and exertion I wasn’t used to.
It was getting hard to stay awake and alert.
To see who was prying open the doors and pulling us out.
To fight against the sickly-sweet and rotting smell of infection flooding the car as the outside air blew in.
The voice I’d heard back in Charleston accompanied the glistening face of a pale Dr. Franco, with intelligent, red-rimmed eyes—Franco, the former lead researcher for the Endowment, bending down so he was eye level when it was only me left in the car. He held a phone to his ear.
“Thank you, Mr. Hall, for use of the Endowment resources. The … extraction went well. The lady thanks you and will provide you the samples you wish to have, as well as the return of your nephew.”
I felt like I should know what he was talking about, but thinking was too hard at the moment.
My head pulsated with too much sensory input.
Too many of those things around me with the kwandamu steadily eating its way not only through their blood, but their very souls—there would be no Asamando for them.
Franco wasn’t like them, didn’t have the hollowing devouring him from the inside out so he’d end up nothing but a human exoskeleton.
But he didn’t have the blood either. I wasn’t sure what he was.
He continued, speaking to whomever—whatever was waiting for his instructions.
His voice sounded far away, like he was moving away from me at lightning speed.
“Lock the others away until the lady is ready for them. And the girl—”
But the rest got swallowed up when I faded to black.