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cat. She shook her head so violently, she was in danger of hurting herself. “Halley,
please
—” he begged.
    She muttered with the singsong rhythm of a nursery rhyme, repeating the same pattern of words breathlessly over and over. From the way she clutched the rosary, I thought it was a prayer.
    Then I caught the words.
    “
Hands to take and eyes to see. A mouth to speak.
”
    She said it again, rocking in time till the whole bed shook beneath her.
    “What the hell is that?” I breathed. The girl kept rocking, growing louder with each repetition.
    “Hands to take and eyes to see. A mouth to speak.”
    “It’s trying for her again,” Father Frank whispered, as if stating it any louder would invite it to become more real. Halley clutched her rosary to her lips, murmuring in a rush against the beads.
    “Hands to take and eyes to see. A mouth to speak—he comes for me. He comes for me!”
    “Oh, that’s not creepy,” I breathed.
    With each cycle of her words, the presence—whatever it was—bore down harder upon the space. The pressure made my ears ring.
    “Can you see it?” Father Frank asked as he wrestled with her. “Tell me you see something so we know what to fight.”
    I let my sight spill wide till the Shadowside aspect of the room hung thicker in my vision than any of its physical objects. Father Frank and the girl grayed out in the wake of the suffocating power.
    “I can feel what it’s doing, but I can’t see anything behind it,” I said. “Just power. Ripples of power.”
    “Leave me alone!” Halley wailed, then started up with the rhyme again. With hooked fingers, she tore at her ears, yanking away long drifts of hair in the process. I moved to grab one wrist while the padre struggled with the other. The instant I made skin-to-skin contact, Halley’s head whipped around. Her eyes pinholed till there was hardly any pupil left.
    She darted at me, saying in a rush, “He can see you. He can see you, even without his eye!”
    I staggered back, the scar on my palm blazing.
The Eye of Nefer-Ka?
She couldn’t mean that. How could she even know about that?
    The padre dragged her away from me, raising his voice to a stentorian bellow.
    “Halley. Listen to me. Make the wall in your head. You’re a strong girl. Make the wall and drive him out!”
    Halley flailed in the old priest’s grip, then suddenly calmed.
    “Brick by brick by brick by brick,” she breathed in a rapid patter. She nodded her head in time with each word, but without the frenzied rhythm that had driven the creeptastic rhyme before. The overbearing sense of pressure dwindled by stages in the room.
    From elsewhere in the house came a thunderous crash—followed swiftly by the piercing wail of a terrified little boy.
    “Fuck me running,” I swore. “You stay with her. I’ll check on Tyson and the rest.”

4
    Tingling power rushed to my fingers as I charged down the hall and into the living room. I held it back—no sense in starting the fireworks till I knew what I was up against. Still, my hands itched with the memory of twin blades forged of pure light, and the power was there, if I wanted it.
    The front door stood wide open, a cold wind blowing in from outside. I felt a pang of guilt—I didn’t remember locking it behind me, and as far as I knew, I’d been the last person inside. Snowy footprints—already melting—were visible across the hardwood. They moved past the fireplace, toward the kitchen, then backtracked to the staircase.
    There was another crash, and something heavy struck the floor above me with enough force to rattle the pictures on the walls. I ran up the steep flight of stairs, taking them two—and sometimes three—at a time. I hesitated a moment at the top, not sure which room was which, but I didn’t have to wait long.
    The door at the end burst open and a grizzled man in greasy sweatpants came stumbling backward into the hall. Sanjeet stood backlit in the doorway, her stance wide and her hair