A Wild Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

with you. He said it was important.”
    Important. Everything was important to Jack.
    But nothing else the man said rang any bells. Except, perhaps, the word suppliers . An image arose: a massive, homey kitchen crawling with volunteers, music from Oklahoma! blaring from speakers in the ceiling; counters stacked with industrial-sized containers filled with juice and Egg Beaters and frozen sausages. I imagined I smelled sausages; that the scent was drifting through the open apartment door.
    From the kitchen, I told myself. The Coop. I lived above a homeless shelter.
    I could not recall why.
    The cane clicked on the floor. “I felt you, Maxine. I felt . . . something terrible happen. I came back as soon as I could.”
    Too late. Maxine is gone.
    Dek and Mal rolled across the floor toward me, whole bottles of whiskey lodged in their mouths, choked halfway down their throats until all I could see were the glass bottoms, golden liquid sloshing inside. Their eyes rolled back as they swallowed the bottles. I had no idea where the liquor had come from, but the boys were like that. Beside me, Raw and Aaz touched the tips of their long black tongues against the bloody floor. Slowly, thoughtfully, as if tasting stories. The hems of their baseball jerseys were stained red.
    My skin tingled. Head to toe, along the edges of my fingernails, and the roots of my hair. Windows were dark, but this was Seattle, and it had rained for the past week. Sunrise was coming. I had minutes at most. Not long enough for all the answers I needed.
    I still touched Jack’s shoe. “Zee. What happened?”
    Still no reply. I heard a shuffling sound. Glanced over my shoulder in time to see the man bend down and grab Zee’s arm. I flinched, waiting for him to scream.
    He didn’t. He should have lost his hand. Fingers, at the very least, or skin. No one touched the boys but me, and that was their choice. Every inch of them was razor-sharp, when they willed it to be. But the man held on, staring at Zee. With fury, I realized. Pure inconsolable rage.
    “Answer her,” he said.
    Zee shook his head. I stood, swaying on my feet. I looked at the knife lying in the blood. I could not bring myself to touch it.
    “Zee,” I said, hoarse. “Who killed Jack?”
    Zee mumbled to himself and glanced away. So did the rest of the boys. None of them would look at me, and that alone chilled me to the bone.
    “Don’t make me beg,” I whispered. “What happened here?”
    The demon closed his eyes. “Mystery.”
    “That’s no answer.” I stepped toward him, every part of me aching. “Did I kill him? Did I murder my own—”
    Zee snarled, wrenching away from the man. Blood spurted from his hand. He hissed, clutching it in a fist against his stomach—and stared at Zee, white- lipped, eyes hard as flint.
    “There’s no way you could have hurt your grandfather,” said the man, looking at the demon and not me. “No way, Maxine.”
    I didn’t answer him. Zee stared into my eyes, little chest heaving, the floorboards beneath him cracked and ruined. Smoke rose off his bony back, filling the air with a sulfuric scent that burned my nostrils. He looked angry, but that was a nervous, grieving odor.
    I touched my brow, light- headed. “I killed him. Yes or no.”
    “Don’t know,” rasped Zee, and a shudder rolled through his body, wracking him until he hunched on the floor in a bony ball. “Can’t remember.”
    “What—” I began, and stopped myself, swallowing hard. That’s impossible, I wanted to add, but demons never lied. Riddles might be told, or words twisted into knots, but lies were anathema; and so was breaking a promise.
    “Can’t remember,” Zee breathed, staring at his claws as though they were new to him. “Remember nothing. Opened eyes, opened eyes to blood, and nothing, nothing, nothing .”
    “Zee,” I whispered, but he shuddered again and banged his head against his knuckles and claws, trying once more to dig out his eyes. All he got for his